Newbie exploration goals to feel some sense of accomplishment?

You can still make a cool 2 mill on the first leg of CC Waters 71 stop rare route... goes from Zaonce to Volkhab...... it is A to K then there is another leg that triangulates for another mill or so.... then back to Zaonce but that only covers 71 rares... I am currently trying to connect the dot on all 141 so that nobody is left out. For a new person... it can be interesting as you can not only get the rares but trade other material along the way... if you run a ship with a large pad rewquirement, you may run afoul of outposts along the ay and then command decisions must be made. Some of the rares are illegal at port.. so do you take the risk of smuggling it in or take the hefty fine so you can pick up that stations rarity? Decisions, decisions... all good for a new commander. also the number of rares has improved.. no more 1 leathery egg... I can get up to 22 at a time..... so the profitability has imporoved over time but I see your point too... some just can't cut the mustard even with a worthwhile goal insight. I run the route with a cutter set up for 700 tons and by the time I get to Volkhab... I am usually full of rarities.
 
Heh yeah, I've done step 1, and am prepared to do step 3 (and I'm hoping for step 4 as I need odd results for an engineered FSD)... it's step 2 that's a problem for me. How and where do I find wakes?? o_O I feel like this is a REALLY dumb question! :(

As @Sapyx already explained, you need a place where there is a lot of traffic... But you need real traffic, meaning those ships must come and leave frequently in order to generate a lot of wakes...

The best I have discovered so far is to go to the system that has Famine... Then find ships that distribute food... These will be called "Distribution centre" on your list... Here you will harvest plenty of wakes...

Just follow this guide from very helpful commander Exigeous:

 
You can still make a cool 2 mill on the first leg of CC Waters 71 stop rare route... goes from Zaonce to Volkhab...... it is A to K then there is another leg that triangulates for another mill or so.... then back to Zaonce but that only covers 71 rares... I am currently trying to connect the dot on all 141 so that nobody is left out. For a new person... it can be interesting as you can not only get the rares but trade other material along the way... if you run a ship with a large pad rewquirement, you may run afoul of outposts along the ay and then command decisions must be made. Some of the rares are illegal at port.. so do you take the risk of smuggling it in or take the hefty fine so you can pick up that stations rarity? Decisions, decisions... all good for a new commander. also the number of rares has improved.. no more 1 leathery egg... I can get up to 22 at a time..... so the profitability has imporoved over time but I see your point too... some just can't cut the mustard even with a worthwhile goal insight. I run the route with a cutter set up for 700 tons and by the time I get to Volkhab... I am usually full of rarities.
I see the same hens... :)
 
I've been playing about a week now, and am loving the game! But today I finally felt like I was ready to head off into the unknown and find something not already "First Discovered By"... but evidently that is NOT a goal one should have without having the ship and mods to get a FAR way away.
So... what are some challenging but entirely reachable Exploration goals that one might strive for with a Hauler, say?
(Obvious ones are, "Take a pic of one of every major stellar body, e.g. neutron star, black hole, etc")
Also, are there any Explorer accomplishments that can be had that gets your name on something, as a newbie? (Akin to "First Discovered By" type things people can see in game)

A Hauler (or Adder!) is great for exploration. I'd start by trying to fill your codex for one area/cluster of space. That will include landing on planets to find biological things and flying into stellar clouds. Plus you will never be too far so if things go poorly you can go back and get repairs done. After a few tiny trips you might want to set a longer-distance target and start looking for specific things. :)
 
Yes, there is a link you do not see, probably because you have some settings wrong, either with browser or forum...


Hopefuly you will see it now:
Source: https://youtu.be/-etGY9w8d4E

Or search Youtube for Quickies with Exigeous Wake scanning

You can't see embedded youtube videos if you don't allow 3rd party cookies. It's mildly annoying that the forum doesn't replace them with a message that you need to enable tracking cookies to see the content like Rock Paper Shotgun used to when they had the same thing but I wouldn't call rejecting them a wrong setting, just a setting choice.

I can live with not seeing embedded videos (and the url can still be seen in the page source if I really want to see what the video is).

It will show up in a quoted reply, so you can reply to the post and then preview the quote to see it that way too.
 
This might not be rookie friendly...

Go to 'tourist' system economies, have an economy passenger cabin equipped, and look for 'deep space research' tourists. These are similar to Tour the Galaxy missions, but they involve thousands of lightyears. There are some that stay relatively close (~5k to 6k ly) for places like Heart and Soul Nebulae.

These missions make excellent 'reasons' to go somewhere specific, rather than just bumble about and hope you see something cool. Very helpful for early explorers and guaranteed to deliver a sight upon arrival, as the missions are aimed at tourist beacons out in the black.

That said, as I stated at the start...these aren't always rookie friendly. The distances average around 10k to 12k ly, so make sure to read the fine print on the mission before accepting. They usually give you three weeks or more to complete, which is plenty of time if you're just wanting to do basic scanning along the way, only stopping for the good stuff you might find. Needless to say, you'll very likely not get a first discovered since these missions will have seen others go similar routes before you.
 
This might not be rookie friendly...

Go to 'tourist' system economies, have an economy passenger cabin equipped, and look for 'deep space research' tourists. These are similar to Tour the Galaxy missions, but they involve thousands of lightyears. There are some that stay relatively close (~5k to 6k ly) for places like Heart and Soul Nebulae.

These missions make excellent 'reasons' to go somewhere specific, rather than just bumble about and hope you see something cool. Very helpful for early explorers and guaranteed to deliver a sight upon arrival, as the missions are aimed at tourist beacons out in the black.

That said, as I stated at the start...these aren't always rookie friendly. The distances average around 10k to 12k ly, so make sure to read the fine print on the mission before accepting. They usually give you three weeks or more to complete, which is plenty of time if you're just wanting to do basic scanning along the way, only stopping for the good stuff you might find. Needless to say, you'll very likely not get a first discovered since these missions will have seen others go similar routes before you.
Oh no this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I've equipped my Dolphin to be BOTH explorer and passenger ship! I intended to use Passenger Missions to get to cool and interesting places I wouldn't normally know to go! :D It's a great idea :)
 
Oh no this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I've equipped my Dolphin to be BOTH explorer and passenger ship! I intended to use Passenger Missions to get to cool and interesting places I wouldn't normally know to go! :D It's a great idea :)
I would just point out one thing with these missions - watch for 'Doesn't want to be scanned ...' You have to think this through and know what to do, as you can loose the whole mission in the blink of an eye. I once took a long range passenger mission for some military chap. We were scanned as we left the station where I took the mission and that was it! The military never gave me any more missions and I lost Rep with the faction. The same can happen at the very end of the mission just as you dock - not funny :sick:
 
I would just point out one thing with these missions - watch for 'Doesn't want to be scanned ...' You have to think this through and know what to do, as you can loose the whole mission in the blink of an eye. I once took a long range passenger mission for some military chap. We were scanned as we left the station where I took the mission and that was it! The military never gave me any more missions and I lost Rep with the faction. The same can happen at the very end of the mission just as you dock - not funny :sick:
plus - if it goes to a tourist beacon, make sure not to get scanned there as well. sometimes those spawn scanning pirates.
 
If you take passengers with that "doesn't want to be scanned" trait, be sure to have heatsinks with you. Pop a heatsink the moment you hear "SCAN DETECTED", and it will force them to lose their targeting lock on you for a few seconds. Often that's just enough to get through the slot without them making a second attempt.

Or alternatively, use "silent running" when entering and exiting the station to avoid being scanned in the first place. May cause overheat damage, but again you can use heatsinks.
 
If you take passengers with that "doesn't want to be scanned" trait, be sure to have heatsinks with you. Pop a heatsink the moment you hear "SCAN DETECTED", and it will force them to lose their targeting lock on you for a few seconds. Often that's just enough to get through the slot without them making a second attempt.

Or alternatively, use "silent running" when entering and exiting the station to avoid being scanned in the first place. May cause overheat damage, but again you can use heatsinks.
Yep - but practice it first ;)

plus - if it goes to a tourist beacon, make sure not to get scanned there as well. sometimes those spawn scanning pirates.
It's happened to me too - I just dropped them off about 15kLy from anywhere!!!
 
I used to have all sorts of small goals that I was "chasing". I can't even remember most of them anymore. :D But I do know it had some things like this, in roughly this order:

  • Find an undiscovered planet
  • Find an undiscovered system in its entirety
  • Find an undiscovered Earth-like.
  • Find an undiscovered of each: Black Hole, Neutron Star
  • Find an undiscovered Carbon Star, Herbig star, Wolf-Rayet Star
  • Find an undiscovered planetary nebula

After that, the "undiscovered" part became more assumed, and I was looking for combinations of things.

ELWs as moons, ringed ELWs, binary pairs of ELWs, ELWs around uncommon single stars (neutron stars for instance). Planets with unusually small orbits. Gas giants with rings and inclined moons (nice view of the rings).

Any other sort of rare or unexpected combinations, or anything with a nice scenic view. Etc.

And that's when I'm just exploring in general, rather than doing any kind of targeted search, survey, or project, for instance.

Thees days I just do whatever is interesting at the moment. Although I still have one big thing on the bucket list... finding an undiscovered glowing green gas giant. ;)
 
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