Newcomer / Intro The "Bubble"

Iamthequinn

Iamthequinn
Hiya, I'm a relative n00b - I've only really been playing properly for a couple of month (Horizons), although I am a veteran of the original release on my Speccy. Now I'm finding my feet OK in trading (Broker) and exploring (Ranger), and recently I thought I'd give mining a bash. I had watched videos on YouTube and read up about it, and understood my best chance to avoid being bugged by raiders was to effectively mine outside the bubble (I'm rubbish at combat at the moment :D) As it was, my home station is Phillifent Vision in the system Shaplintin which, by my untrained eye, is on the border of the habitable systems of what I consider the bubble to be, so off I popped jumping to what I thought was an area which would be free from pirates/raiders, but as soon as I started mining ... out came an NPC.

So my question really is: is the bubble clearly defined? Is there something which helps someone know when they're in that area considered the bubble, and when they're outside of it? Is it a distance thing - say 100 light years from the nearest habitable planet?

It's just some general musing on my part, that's all.
 

d8veh

d8veh
It's only defined by whether the systems are inhabited - roughly 500 lY from sol.

You've been misled. You don't need to mine outside the bubble, and you'd make a lot less money doing that anyway. Where are you going to sell the stuff, when there are no markets there.

You can mine where you want without trouble. Go to your favourite ringed planet (planet 1 inner ring Hyades Sector DB-X d1-112) and find the platinum hotspot, or use this tool to find platinum:

Miner's Tool

edtools.cc edtools.cc

After you drop into the rings, wait for the NPCs to join the instance. You can check what they are by scanning them. The pirates nearly always come and scan you, but they can also start fighting each other or an NPC miner. You have two choices: Wait for them to go away, or keep boosting until they've gone off your radar, then several more boosts to make sure.

The pirates, most times, come and scan you, then spend several minutes doing a complete lap of the radar while flashing as unresolved targets. If one starts fighting an NPC, it can disappear off the radar, then come back after several minutes to scan you. that's why you need to check out any NPC that comes into the instance and see what they do.

Once they've gone or you boosted to a quiet place, they will never bother you again until you're flying back to the market with all that tasty cargo in your hold. Make sure that your ship always has enough sped and shield to deal with that in case you lose the interdiction. I don't recommend fitting weapons and fighting pirates because they can be pretty tough, and it only wastes time that you could use for making money.

PS Never have a home station. that' s what losers do. Inatead, go where the money and exiting things are.
PPS. You're not rubbish at combat. You just don't know how to do it. Don't let the training put you off. It's a lot easier in the game when you have a properly outfitted ship. Riches await any beginner that starts doing the pirate massacre missions that require no skill:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQcJ-9jVao&t=1320s
 
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sinisalo

sinisalo
Yes, what d8veh said. The key is to never drop with valuables on board. The pirates will always come check you out when you drop. If you don't have anything worthwhile on board they will scan you, complain you are wasting their time, and then head off elsewhere to leave you to mine in peace and solitude.

But if you mine here, and then wake out to mine somewhere else, when you drop in the new instance the pirates repeat the procedure as they are mindless drones. But if you now have stuff on board they will want some of it. Of course if your ship is fast you can skedaddle and if you have weapons you can give the pesky pirates the good news. Having pirate attention isn't necessarily bad, all depends on you and your ship.

Of course there can be times when you have issues like real-life intervening, or problems that compel an exit. When you re-log you'll go through these steps once again.

Ideally though, if you want to avoid pirates make it one drop, one sell. Multiple drops with stuff on board means piracy.
 

aRJay

aRJay
What they both said.

The definition of anything valuable is pretty much anything other than limpets.

Don't drop in to the ring at any sort of RES as although the mining might be better there you are guaranteed to get pirates appearing all the time, they are the places to go for a fight.

In the galaxy map if you go to the tab that lets you switch mode select the one that shows the powers that will gie you a thing like a bunch of multicoloured soap bubbles, that is effectively the bubble.
 

Para Handy

Para Handy
d8veh said:
...
PS Never have a home station. that' s what losers do. Inatead, go where the money and exiting things are.
..
Click to expand...

A happy loser here then. ;)

Depending on the account I am playing they have a "home station" that suits the play / role / whatever I do with that commander - plus each has a pleasant ATC voice (several different ones).

@Iamthequinn - regarding making sure the pirates have definitely left - watch for the white high-wake(s) showing they have gone (that is why it is worth scanning them when they arrive - the wake then carries their name).
 
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sinisalo

sinisalo
Yeah d8veh says that and I see the point but I have a home, and always have in Elite. Establishing a home means you gradually grow a network of Allied stations in the region, in turn making the boards offer the best missions. For mining this means little, but for the passenger game, boom time deliveries and that sort of thing it makes a difference having allied factions all over.

I spent a couple years operating out of Fowler Orbital in Dvorsi, and now I'm at Barnwell Station in UGP 145. I have a long list of factors I assess and then pick the station based on which one meets the most on the list.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
The "Bubble proper" is a roughly egg-shaped region of space centred on Sol. It extends roughly 200 LY in the North, South, East and West directions ("North" is towards the Galactic Core), about 250 LY in the "Up" direction (towards alliance space) and almost 300 LY in the "Down" direction (towards Imperial space). The easiest way to see the actual boundary of the Bubble is to go to the galaxy map, select one of the "inhabited system" indicators (I normally choose "Allegiance", but you can also choose "Economy" or a couple of others), then make sure every option except "None" is selected. This way, all the inhabited systems are highlighted, and all the uninhabited systems are invisible. Then simply scroll the map around.

The Bubble has a surprisingly sharp "edge" - in most directions, the inhabited systems suddenly stop, rather than gradually peter out. It contains just over 20,000 inhabited systems, and roughly twice that number of uninhabited systems.

The method I outlined above doesn't do very well at viewing the "entire Bubble" all at once, as the viewing radius of the galaxy map in these modes is too small to include the entire Bubble. To workarounds for this: go to the Powerplay tab in the galaxy map, and all the powers are highlighted. This won't show the "entire Bubble", because Powerplay tends to focus on the high-populated systems,and the fringe of the Bubble is generally made up of low-population systems. So when you look at the Powerplay mini-bubble, imagine a further shell of systems surrounding everything, about 25 to 50 LY thick.

Your second option at imagining the Bubble is to bookmark the following systems, that are roughly at the six "poles" of the Bubble:
North pole: Pand (-10,-3, +208)
South pole: Maruda (-10, -14, -185)
East pole: Sabi (+174, 32, 23)
West Pole: Mechelkanu (-211, 21, -11)
Up pole: Gliese 460 (+17, +208, -17)
Down pole: Kilique (+90 -265 +7)

Once you've bookmarked those systems, zoom out, then imagine an egg-shape (with the fat end at the bottom), that sits inside all six of these points. That's the Bubble.

The vast majority of the galaxy's 6.6 trillion humans live within the Bubble, but there are a few outlying colonies outside the Bubble proper. There's the Sothis Spur, a string of colonies connecting the Sothis system (about 500 LY away) with the Bubble. There's the Pleiades colonies where all the Thargoid action is at, plus a string of bases connecting them to the Bubble. There are a few isolated inhabited worlds, like Pratchett's Disc in HIP 74290.

Finally, there are the deep space outposts, well outside the Bubble. Most of the "named" nebulae within 2000 LY of Sol have at least one outpost within it or nearby. There's a string of starports along the road to Colonia, and Colonia proper, a mini-bubble 22,000 LY away. Finally, there's a starport adjacent to the supermassive black hole at the galactic core, 26,000 LY away.

As far as "leaving the Bubble for safe mining", you want to travel at least about 500 LY from Sol - or about 300 LY beyond the edge of the Bubble in most directions. I think you can be near one of the remote outposts (like the Pleaides or Sothis) and still benefit from the "too far from Sol" effect.
 
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d8veh

d8veh
Para Handy said:
I don't really - I won't spoil the cosy atmosphere of this sub-forum but I don't like people saying that people that don't play the way they do are losers.
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They are losers in that they're missing the riches and excitement that other places offer. It's nothing to do with the way people choose to play. people can do what they want. Many are very happy playing as losers. I was a loser too for the first week I played until I was enlightened. After 7 days, instead of a profit, my number of credits was negative because I owed a load of money for the fines I got. Figuring that this situation was unsustainable, i filed for bankruptsy and started again. Within a month, I had my combat elite and a billion credits, which was a lot in 2015.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Some history as to why the bubble is called the bubble.

Before ED was released FD opened up a region of space that was a sphere. Can't remember the dimensions, let's say around 100LY radius (but i might be off by a way). And so, it became known as the bubble.

Back then, even such a small volume still contained many stars and without engineering or much money it could still take many jumps to get from one side to the other.

A bit later, i think late beta, the extended the volume into a pill shape, like a cylinder with rounded ends. It was briefly known as the pill.

When Gamma hit, they opened up the whole galaxy, and while there were many more inhabited systems available, the name "the bubble" stayed and came to refer to the whole of human inhabited space at that time.

Of course, humanity has since now spread further and there is the second "bubble" around Colonia, but the bubble remains the bubble.
 

sinisalo

sinisalo
d8veh said:
They are losers in that they're missing the riches and excitement that other places offer.
Click to expand...

Right, because players that have a home can't leave it.

When I signed the mortgage I had to use all of my FSDs as a down payment. Now I'm stuck intra-system and it is kind of boring.
 

d8veh

d8veh
sinisalo said:
Right, because players that have a home can't leave it.

When I signed the mortgage I had to use all of my FSDs as a down payment. Now I'm stuck intra-system and it is kind of boring.
Click to expand...
I have to be honest. It's just my dry sense of humour to use a hyperbole - an exaggeration to make a point. I don't care what people do. I only say these things to provoke thought and give them ideas, though I do have the view that having a home base is just plain daft.
 

aRJay

aRJay
d8veh said:
I have to be honest. It's just my dry sense of humour to use a hyperbole - an exaggeration to make a point. I don't care what people do. I only say these things to provoke thought and give them ideas, though I do have the view that having a home base is just plain daft.
Click to expand...

Dry humour often gets mistaken for something else on forums and the like which can be unfortunate.

Having a home base nowadays is not the really useful thing it was a few years ago before ship transfers and the like arrived now the need for one is much more down to how you want to play. I have had home bases but now I tend to have ships lying around all over the place depending on where I needed them last, they were picked for availability of cheap ships and modules and a slight nod to location so I wouldn't havve too far to go to swap ships for the net Community Goal I don't think it ever occurred to me to consider markets or profits and still wouldn't.
 

Iamthequinn

Iamthequinn
Sapyx said:
The "Bubble proper" is a roughly egg-shaped region of space centred on Sol. It extends roughly 200 LY in the North, South, East and West directions ("North" is towards the Galactic Core), about 250 LY in the "Up" direction (towards alliance space) and almost 300 LY in the "Down" direction (towards Imperial space). The easiest way to see the actual boundary of the Bubble is to go to the galaxy map, select one of the "inhabited system" indicators (I normally choose "Allegiance", but you can also choose "Economy" or a couple of others), then make sure every option except "None" is selected. This way, all the inhabied systems are highlighted, and all the uninhabited systems are invisible. Then simply scroll the map around.

The Bubble has a surprisingly sharp "edge" - in most directions, the inhabited systems suddenly stop, rather than gradually peter out. It contains just over 20,000 inhabited systems, and roughly twice that number of uninhabited systems.

The method I outlined above doesn't do very well at viewing the "entire Bubble" all at once, as the viewing radius of the galaxy map in these modes is too small to include the entire Bubble. To workarounds for this: go to the Powerplay tab in the galaxy map, and all the powers are highlighted. This won't show the "entire Bubble", because Powerplay tends to focus on the high-populated systems,and the fringe of the Bubble is generally made up of low-population systems. So when you look at the Powerplay mini-bubble, imagine a further shell of systems surrounding everything, about 25 to 50 LY thick.

Your second option at imagining the Bubble is to bookmark the following systems, that are roughly at the six "poles" of the Bubble:
North pole: Pand (-10,-3, +208)
South pole: Maruda (-10, -14, -185)
East pole: Sabi (+174, 32, 23)
West Pole: Mechelkanu (-211, 21, -11)
Up pole: Gliese 460 (+17, +208, -17)
Down pole: Kilique (+90 -265 +7)

Once you've bookmarked those systems, zoom out, then imagine an egg-shape (with the fat end at the bottom), that sits inside all six of these points. That's the Bubble.

The vast majority of the galaxy's 6.6 trillion humans live within the Bubble, but there are a few outlying colonies outside the Bubble proper. There's the Sothis Spur, a string of colonies connecting the Sothis system (about 500 LY away) with the Bubble. There's the Pleiades colonies where all the Thargoid action is at, plus a string of bases connecting them to the Bubble. There are a few isolated inhabited worlds, like Pratchett's Disc in HIP 74290.

Finally, there are the deep space outposts, well outside the Bubble. Most of the "named" nebulae within 2000 LY of Sol have at least one outpost within it or nearby. There's a string of starports along the road to Colonia, and Colonia proper, a mini-bubble 22,000 LY away. Finally, there's a starport adjacent to the supermassive black hole at the galactic core, 26,000 LY away.

As far as "leaving the Bubble for safe mining", you want to travel at least about 500 LY from Sol - or about 300 LY beyond the edge of the Bubble in most directions. I think you can be near one of the remote outposts (like the Pleaides or Sothis) and still benefit from the "too far from Sol" effect.
Click to expand...

Thankyou - that's really helpful and useful to know.
 

Iamthequinn

Iamthequinn
d8veh said:
I have to be honest. It's just my dry sense of humour to use a hyperbole - an exaggeration to make a point. I don't care what people do. I only say these things to provoke thought and give them ideas, though I do have the view that having a home base is just plain daft.
Click to expand...
Don't worry - I totally understood the point you were trying to make ... and my sense of humour isn't that far off from yours :D
 

d8veh

d8veh
aRJay said:
Dry humour often gets mistaken for something else on forums and the like which can be unfortunate.

Having a home base nowadays is not the really useful thing it was a few years ago before ship transfers and the like arrived now the need for one is much more down to how you want to play. I have had home bases but now I tend to have ships lying around all over the place depending on where I needed them last, they were picked for availability of cheap ships and modules and a slight nod to location so I wouldn't havve too far to go to swap ships for the net Community Goal I don't think it ever occurred to me to consider markets or profits and still wouldn't.
Click to expand...
I agree with all that. When I use my dry sense of humour, I know it won't get picked up and will trigger certain responses, which is why I do it if I'm honest. I guess I'm just a bad person.
 
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