So, it's a game about space, my question is, how much actual space discovery is there? I mean, in real life, even in our own solar system there are tons of variations of planets and moons with endless things to explore and discover. I've been playing ED for a while, I'm close to end game ships, I'm wanting to get back into the game but, everything seem so samey after a while, like planets are just not that varied or interesting, nor are the systems. I know where are neutron stars, but are their pulsars, black holes, worm holes, exotic stars or stars in varying stages of development? What about derelict vassals and salvage? I'm interested in exploring but it just feels aimless and I don't know if there is even anything out there that is worth finding in the first place.
Is there anything worth discovering
- Thread starter rfxcasey
- Start date
Yes
Yes
No
Define Exotic, if you mean stuff like Quark stars then no.
Yes
Abandon ships that have enfineering mats and escape pods around them if that counts?
There are still things worth exploring:
Not too long ago, an odd 45g planet was discovered. There are still undiscovered Guardian Ruins waiting to be found.There may still be undiscovered Generation Ships and derelict settlements out there somewhere. And there are, obviously, the "unknown unknowns": Things we don't even suspect to exist in the Elite universe.
You can find "one of everything" pretty quickly, if you go specifically for that (not counting various bits of special hand-placed one-off content).
The discovery is in finding interesting combinations - plenty of White Dwarf stars about, plenty of landable metal-rich bodies about, but the World of Death is still unique in terms of known planets, and before its discovery probably people would have assumed it couldn't exist.
Maybe the next similarly spectacular discovery will be made tomorrow.
The discovery is in finding interesting combinations - plenty of White Dwarf stars about, plenty of landable metal-rich bodies about, but the World of Death is still unique in terms of known planets, and before its discovery probably people would have assumed it couldn't exist.
Maybe the next similarly spectacular discovery will be made tomorrow.
To me probably the most exotic stars are Neutrons and White Dwarfs. Some wave their arms around faster but after you've seen a few they start looking a bit samey. As a bonus you do get a nice FSD boost off them though..
A good vista is always worth discovering.
There is.
Usually combinations of interesting orbits and planetary features
Rare starts with rare planets and so on.
Sure, some planets might look more or less alike, but there might still be rare stuff, however the nice things to look for are the star system dynamics
The galaxy is basically a colossal desert.
There's a couple of spots of civilization and the scattered ruins of a dead civilization and a whole lot of the empty void to contemplate.
There's a couple of spots of civilization and the scattered ruins of a dead civilization and a whole lot of the empty void to contemplate.
The people who find the new stuff tend not to be the ones asking if there is anything to find ...
So for you, OP, no, there is nothing else
So for you, OP, no, there is nothing else
If a player were to go for "one of everything", they'd go down 99% of that list pretty quickly, then likely spend ages trying to find their own green gas giant and their own stormy Lagrange cloud. Although since the latter are tied to NSPs, I guess one could argue that they are only semi-procedurally generated. Same goes for Guardian ruins. Sure, you could still find some new ones, but only at areas that have been hand-placed by FD, not anywhere in the galaxy.
Still, when it comes to wholly proc. gen. stuff, finding GGGs or Metal Rich terraforming candidates would take some extraordinary luck.
It's always that last mile
Anyway, the best part of looking for proc. gen. finds is that one might find edge cases which weren't even known to the developers. The worst part is that these are extremely rare - they are edge cases, after all. If you get lucky though, these will likely be interesting enough that many other players will want to see them.
Hand-crafted content on the other hand is much more varied, but you either find more of the same kinds that are already known, or you have only a short window to find a new kind before someone else does. By that, I mean that whenever Frontier added some entirely new stuff, most of the time they were found quite quickly. Finding them is a short-lived race.
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Raxxla
Procedural generation means that there's always the possibility of discovering weird, rare outliers but this is only used in the creation of star systems
If there were overlapping game systems then there would be the possibility of unusual emergent gameplay, but gameplay loops (mining/combat/trading/engineering/powerplay) are all too tightly defined for anything really extreme to emerge.
Personally, I'm holding out for the Thargoids to have something interesting to show.
If there were overlapping game systems then there would be the possibility of unusual emergent gameplay, but gameplay loops (mining/combat/trading/engineering/powerplay) are all too tightly defined for anything really extreme to emerge.
Personally, I'm holding out for the Thargoids to have something interesting to show.
/ thread
Even the Devs are trying to find it/ thread
400 billion star systems and you're really only going to discover some selfie spots and a few stellar forge oddities.
I think there's about as many wormholes in ED as we have found so far in real life. Otherwise there's a rather amazing galaxy simulation to explore, including a large variety of stars and planets, orbital configurations, surface landscapes, atmosphere types, etc. There's also the chance of stumbling on something new and unusual, as well as unique stuff. That chance can be improved significantly (or done away with altogether) by consulting external sites such as EDDB.
SLast night in a single, previously undiscovered, system I found a ringed water world, a ringed water giant, an ammonia world and a Class II gas giant with several moons showing a multitude of biology signals. Several of these moons are very, very close to the rings of the planets they orbit and therefore great photo opportunities. That system alone should entertain me for a few days. Another system a few days ago had a moon with a diameter of only 137 km, again in a very low and fast orbit and therefore a great photo stop and interesting place to drive around on.
Then there was the star orbited by three black holes, the neutron star systems before that, ...
Heaps of stuff to be found out there. Check any of the photo threads and the exploration forum if you feel uninspired. That you posted here suggests you are easily uninspired.
S