I entered a system last night and was told by EDDI that I was the first to visit it. After scanning the system I opened my DSS and scanned all 20+ bodies and finding two terraformable planets and one earthlike planet. I then mapped the two terraformables and headed off to map the earthlike world. Funny thing though was the earthlike planet had already been discovered by a Cmdr Quasarsudo. Can anyone explain why this earthlike was already discovered while the rest of the whole system was undiscovered?.
Question on "Earth Like Discovery"?.
- Thread starter Saltyseadog
- Start date
It could also be a player with the FSS who ignores everything else but water worlds and earth-likes. Were the terraformables HMCs? I've encountered a few systems where only the water worlds and the earth likes were tagged, and everything else in the lower band (the metal rich/hmc/rocky body cluster) was ignored. Or was the main star also untagged?
The main star was also untagged which is why I don't understand why any cmdr could enter the system and only scan the Earth like world without being noted as the first to find the system star. There two other terraformable planets in that system and he/she never scanned them either. I found it very strange hence the thread. As you can see in the screenshot I earned over 6mcr for the whole system.
They went there before FSS was a thing and were only after ELWs.
But how was it before the FSS, how close did you have to be? If you jump into a system, aren't you automatically too close to not tag the star?
You still needed to target the star, point your ship at the star, and wait for it to be scanned / tagged, no matter how close you were.
ah okay, so it was not just enough to do a flyby like it is today. Got it. Thanks for explaining!
As said by others, no. In the old system after honking you could see all the bodies in the system, but none of them would be tagged unless you got close enough and pointed directly at them and waited the required number of seconds, so you can turn away from the star and point at the ELW, fly there, tag it and jump out without tagging anything else. There's a Spansh database of systems with no primary star recorded on ED Astrometrics, it contains around 20 millions systems where no-one bothered to tag the primary star, so that's not unusual.
You'd still get a level 1 discovery of the primary star in the old system from proximity, but that's not enough to mark it First Discovered.
(Edit: fix typo in year, thanks Marx)
| Level | Old System (2018 or earlier) ADS+DSS | New System (late 2018 onwards) FSS+DSS |
| 0 | Visit system without discovery scanner fitted | FSS always fitted, but if you don't honk and don't proximity detect |
| 1 | Honk or proximity detect (range dependent on scanner) | Know about object from communal scans (not possible to scan to this level yourself) |
| 2 | Point nose without DSS fitted (can get first discovery) | You can still do the nose-pointing scan at an object you know about from communal scans to get a L2 scan but it doesn't really do anything |
| 3 | Point nose with DSS fitted (can get first discovery+better payout) | FSS or proximity detect (can get first discovery) |
| 4 | Not possible | Map planet with DSS (can get first mapped) |
(Edit: fix typo in year, thanks Marx)
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Also, you can still go to the previously-discovered ELWs and MAP them if not already mapped, so your name is there at least. As soon as mapping became a thing I flew out on all 3 of my accounts and re-discovered and mapped all of them to keep other commanders from claiming my prizes 
Two minor notes @Ian Doncaster : first, the FSS and DSS were added in 2018. Dec., so a year earlier than the dates you wrote. Everything from 2019 was FSS.
However, my second note is more interesting: the level 2 scans that you mention, which were without a DSS fitted, would not only not give you the full payout, but they also wouldn't give you the full characteristics of the body you scanned. Some of them would be missing if you viewed the body on the system map. (I can't remember if they were always the same characteristics, or if there were different ones missing different times.)
This was by design, mind, and the reason given for a DSS scan paying more was that you sold more information to Universal Cartographics. Well, since an unengineered DSS weighed only 1.3T, almost everybody fitted one anyway. (A few record breakers who made completely stripped cardboard Anaconda builds didn't mount one.) So this was mostly a curiosity, except for those rare times when parts of the data uploaded to EDSM were missing - those were annoying.
However, my second note is more interesting: the level 2 scans that you mention, which were without a DSS fitted, would not only not give you the full payout, but they also wouldn't give you the full characteristics of the body you scanned. Some of them would be missing if you viewed the body on the system map. (I can't remember if they were always the same characteristics, or if there were different ones missing different times.)
This was by design, mind, and the reason given for a DSS scan paying more was that you sold more information to Universal Cartographics. Well, since an unengineered DSS weighed only 1.3T, almost everybody fitted one anyway. (A few record breakers who made completely stripped cardboard Anaconda builds didn't mount one.) So this was mostly a curiosity, except for those rare times when parts of the data uploaded to EDSM were missing - those were annoying.
Good point, these kinds of questions have been popping up more and more lately. Thanks for the idea!