2.2 Building the Neutron Highway Grid

[Rewision]

Im actually pretty happy with the NS as they are now. As they are now they can in places allow you to get to previously and otherwise unreachable areas, they can if you have a route that are optimized for your range cut your travel time in half (providing that you are in travel mode) and even if you dont have much of a route you can still explore using neutronstars and dont lose much time if any when you are going somewhere.

There might be ways to improve it ofc but personaly I dont think uping the range alot will work very well, let say they did tripple the range if you sat in the cone for long enough lets say 2 min or so that would give you time to do 20 jumps with some repairs and fuels every hour. This way you could easily make a hihgway or path since in most places there will be a ns within 500 ly of you in the direction you are going. Also with said highway you could easily travel 10k ly/h going anywhere in the galaxy in hours. I like getting places fast but might be alittle to fast I think. Lastly if you have to wait too long for the fsd to charge you will be sitting still more then actually doing something wich might not be to fun.

Anyway these are my thoughts on the the NS mechanic for now^^

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

Anyone have a good visual representation of the density in the neutron fields? I noticed that it seemed alot denser on the left side of the galaxy then on the right? Did not check far to the right but was a few thousend light years more sparse findings of NS to the right of -1000 give or take a few hundred (SOL to the south).

Checked something fast and might be more of a low density corridor from about -1000 to +1000. (this is from VERY limited observation so might not be true except the areas I have checked).

I visited the "Left" and the "Right" Neutron fields, either up and down, and didn't notice differences in density.

This being said, the Neutron Fields can have "low density patches", especially near the outer or the inner edge. Also, near the outer and the inner edge, White Dwarves are at least in 50/50 proportion with NS, so if you include White Dwarves in the map filter you'll see density raise up and be way more constant. OFC this is useless if you want to optimize a Charged Route, but where NS start to be less, you can have a less powerfull charge stopping by a White Dwarf instead of ruining youe sequence.

As a last thing, Neutron Fields seem to be 2 Donuts, the "Upper" properly starts at +1000 "altitude", the "Lower" at -1000 "altitude", so indeed between the 2 Donuts there's an area close to the galactic plane where NS are not that frequent to be able to call them "Field".

CMDR Kancro Vantas explored and mapped the Neutron Fields, describing their shape and their borders, during the beginning of season 1. I'll look for the original post.

EDIT: here we are. This is a 18 month old post, and I have been away from the game for 10 months or so, so I'm sorry if in the meantime something changed. In season one this was one of the "Bible" threads.
Definitive Guide to Neutron Fields by Kancro Vantas

 

[Wishblend]

Just a quick question guys.

How do you find the speed of the Neutron stars, is it the orbital period?

 

[Rewision]

Spoiler

I visited the "Left" and the "Right" Neutron fields, either up and down, and didn't notice differences in density.

This being said, the Neutron Fields can have "low density patches", especially near the outer or the inner edge. Also, near the outer and the inner edge, White Dwarves are at least in 50/50 proportion with NS, so if you include White Dwarves in the map filter you'll see density raise up and be way more constant. OFC this is useless if you want to optimize a Charged Route, but where NS start to be less, you can have a less powerfull charge stopping by a White Dwarf instead of ruining youe sequence.

As a last thing, Neutron Fields seem to be 2 Donuts, the "Upper" properly starts at +1000 "altitude", the "Lower" at -1000 "altitude", so indeed between the 2 Donuts there's an area close to the galactic plane where NS are not that frequent to be able to call them "Field".

CMDR Kancro Vantas explored and mapped the Neutron Fields, describing their shape and their borders, during the beginning of season 1. I'll look for the original post.

EDIT: here we are. This is a 18 month old post, and I have been away from the game for 10 months or so, so I'm sorry if in the meantime something changed. In season one this was one of the "Bible" threads.
Definitive Guide to Neutron Fields by Kancro Vantas

Thx alot this gave me a good idea of the shape of the fields and saved me alot of time if I were gonna try to figure it out myself

Also this might be good info to link to or something in one of the main post?

 

[SushiCW]

I just ran Colonia -> Polo Harbor in my 30 LY Keelback. I didn't time anything exactly, unfortunately, but my play session was about 2 hours including a bunch of time in the beginning prepping my loadout and trying to pre-load bookmarks (and then abandoning that terrible idea because it was taking so darn long). The best measurement I have is my last 10 jumps (a bit over 1000 LY of total distance) which took me 20 minutes or so.

Overall, probably only slightly faster than I could manage on my own but much much much more fun. Looking forward to the next leg!

 

[dunnst]

I am one of the people, who wanted 10x boost. But I am very much pleased with the current state, except of one thing and that is the route planner. Should that get tweaked to the state, where I can jump from NS to NS using full boost, without having to open the galaxy map, the speed will increase a lot. Even a minor change, like changing the colour of the NS in galaxy map can help, finding thouse gray dots can be a pain and pre-plotting the whole tour to Colonia would take like ages, it is better to just search for the nearest usable NS and that again and again, till you have to refuel.

Using a route found by others can be good to have some waypoints, but everyone has slightly different jump range and once you are in the neutron field, you want to jump as many neutron stars after each other as possible till refueling. I am on the way with 47 LY conda, so I have about 190 LY boost range and I usualy take 150-160 LY jumps to safe a bit of fuel. Next time I'll bring bigger tank

 

[Rewision]

Spoiler

I am one of the people, who wanted 10x boost. But I am very much pleased with the current state, except of one thing and that is the route planner. Should that get tweaked to the state, where I can jump from NS to NS using full boost, without having to open the galaxy map, the speed will increase a lot. Even a minor change, like changing the colour of the NS in galaxy map can help, finding thouse gray dots can be a pain and pre-plotting the whole tour to Colonia would take like ages, it is better to just search for the nearest usable NS and that again and again, till you have to refuel.

Using a route found by others can be good to have some waypoints, but everyone has slightly different jump range and once you are in the neutron field, you want to jump as many neutron stars after each other as possible till refueling. I am on the way with 47 LY conda, so I have about 190 LY boost range and I usualy take 150-160 LY jumps to safe a bit of fuel. Next time I'll bring bigger tank

I agree that it would be nice if you could set the parameters for the plotting more freely. So you for instance could set the plotter to try and make a route with only NS and as close to 200 ly range as possible that way you could do 1k or like 5 jumps in a plot without having to enter the gal map more then once.

 

[Wishblend]

My hope would be that you could open the gal map and add waypoints to a route.

For example:-

You start at Sol and set Colonia Hub as your target.

You then add waypoint markers to the route that the route planner trys to plot through like the neutron stars, if you don't have any waypoint markers between a set of points, the route planner aiutomaticly just plots the route.

Of course there is the 1,000 LY range limit but that is better than having to singly plot each neutron star jump.

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

My hope would be that you could open the gal map and add waypoints to a route.

For example:-

You start at Sol and set Colonia Hub as your target.

You then add waypoint markers to the route that the route planner trys to plot through like the neutron stars, if you don't have any waypoint markers between a set of points, the route planner aiutomaticly just plots the route.

Of course there is the 1,000 LY range limit but that is better than having to singly plot each neutron star jump.

Yup, that would be really handy.

Also an improvement could be to assign bookmarks to subfolders. So you can have Neutron Highway Subfolder, and inside all your bookmarks numbered to easy select the next.

My bookmark page starts to be a mess and I restarded playing less than a month ago! I can only imagine the length of Erimus list!!!

Then my dream would be to have something like EDD ingame, but that's a dream. At least, little by little, they are adding features to the GalMap, so we have realistic hopes for improvements.

 

[Jadarin]

Yup, that would be really handy.

Also an improvement could be to assign bookmarks to subfolders. So you can have Neutron Highway Subfolder, and inside all your bookmarks numbered to easy select the next.

My bookmark page starts to be a mess and I restarded playing less than a month ago! I can only imagine the length of Erimus list!!!

Then my dream would be to have something like EDD ingame, but that's a dream. At least, little by little, they are adding features to the GalMap, so we have realistic hopes for improvements.

What would be cool would be the ability to load like the ImportStars.txt you get from edsm into the game in a sub folder or something...then access in game. Preloaded trip and waypoints so we could simply plot and go. Load only the bookmarks in question and not show them ALL, allowing for multiple roads and directions.

 

[Iron Orchid]

Would have solved a lot of these issues and made for a bona fide skill v risk v reward mechanic

Were you thinking of:
The longer you stayed in the stream the more damage = greater risk of dropping out of supercruise?
or
If they had longer charging = longer jump = more damage - you could just repair before jump - hardly any risk at all.
but if it was longer charging = longer jump = more damage - lose supercharge if repaired - jump with too much damage = FSD misjump = more general damage and arrive somewhere completely different.

 

[Pro Cambarus]

There could be a new stopover considered in the Hurt Highway between the current 12th and 13th with a somewhat higher gap with a new neutron star, Drojeae UK-F D-11-4.

 

[Jadarin]

There could be a new stopover considered in the Hurt Highway between the current 12th and 13th with a somewhat higher gap with a new neutron star, Drojeae UK-F D-11-4.

Yeah those waypoints are rough...I spent some time trying to find a better path, still trying for the best one.

 

[Rewision]

When someone feels good about a route going all the way between the bubble and colonia it would be intressting if someone did a back and forth travel trip to measure normal fast travel one way and the ns highway one way so see how the diffrence is for the same person Best results I think will be gotten if the ship got pretty close to the highway min recommended jump range and travel mode both ways.

 

[melandor0]

Hey everyone!

I spent a couple days making my own route on the way out to the rift, then cleaning it up on the way back. The longest distance between 2 neutron stars is 997 ly, and the longest chain of neutron stars I was able to use in my 55 ly Anaconda was 5, would've been 6 if I hadn't run out of fuel and had to diverge to scoop.

It isn't really optimized for 55 LY, it just uses what few neutron stars there are out there, and where there are higher densities picks the ones with the best average distance between each other. I don't feel like running it all again just to get the metrics, so I understand if you don't list it on the front page, but for anyone who wants a bubble-to-rift route here's what I charted. And if anyone wants to resubmit it with all the proper information don't hesitate to, I'd love a mention if you do though.

Spoiler

Bubble to Formidine Rift

Direct Distance : 11 800 LY
Type of ship used to chart the route : Anaconda
Route is optimized for : 55 Light Year Ship
Jumps : ??
Estimated number of Jumps required via conventional travel for this ship range : 236
Number of Neutron Jumps : 37
Number of intermediate regular Jumps : ??
Route charted by : CMDR Alyxnia
Full route details : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-UlZiBqw2kZTcufsxYC8kHwyJLU52Ezc_NLGhCOUGa4/
https://www.edsm.net/galactic-routes/show/id/323/name/Bubble+to+Formidine+Rift+Neutron+Starway

And a screenshot:

 

[BigZiggyHD]

Hey everyone!

I spent a couple days making my own route on the way out to the rift, then cleaning it up on the way back. The longest distance between 2 neutron stars is 997 ly, and the longest chain of neutron stars I was able to use in my 55 ly Anaconda was 5, would've been 6 if I hadn't run out of fuel and had to diverge to scoop.

It isn't really optimized for 55 LY, it just uses what few neutron stars there are out there, and where there are higher densities picks the ones with the best average distance between each other. I don't feel like running it all again just to get the metrics, so I understand if you don't list it on the front page, but for anyone who wants a bubble-to-rift route here's what I charted. And if anyone wants to resubmit it with all the proper information don't hesitate to, I'd love a mention if you do though.

Spoiler

Bubble to Formidine Rift

Direct Distance : 11 800 LY
Type of ship used to chart the route : Anaconda
Route is optimized for : 55 Light Year Ship
Jumps : ??
Estimated number of Jumps required via conventional travel for this ship range : 236
Number of Neutron Jumps : 37
Number of intermediate regular Jumps : ??
Route charted by : CMDR Alyxnia
Full route details : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-UlZiBqw2kZTcufsxYC8kHwyJLU52Ezc_NLGhCOUGa4/

And a screenshot:
https://puu.sh/s8n0d/9809973b92.png

Outstanding melandor0!

 

[Wishblend]

Hi Erimus,

Here you go the optimised route.

The Dangerous Tour.

It goes around Coloina getting all the black holes and neutron stars with to routes off it.

One goes into the Neutron Star field near:-

Colonia here EOL PROU FA-Z D838

The other joins the Neutron Highway here:-

EOL PROU FF-Z D1124
DRYOOE FLYOU FG-Y G112
DRYOOE FLYOU GH-C D13-475

Route Name : The Dangerous Tour
Direct Distance : 2,691.24
Type of ship used to chart the route : Asp Explorer
Route is optimized for : 27.85 Light Year Ship
Jumps : 69
Estimated number of Jumps required via conventional travel for this ship range : 119
Number of Neutron Jumps : ?
Number of intermediate regular Jumps : ?
Route charted by : Cmdr Wishblend

I am not sure on the neutron jump thing as most are neutron stars, in total I have 16 Black holes and 35 Neutron stars including the start of the highway.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vr2naZOrJS0pmgeo3K_wzWueAP0jtGWH6_I1ACHnloM/edit#gid=0

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Hey everyone!

I spent a couple days making my own route on the way out to the rift, then cleaning it up on the way back. The longest distance between 2 neutron stars is 997 ly, and the longest chain of neutron stars I was able to use in my 55 ly Anaconda was 5, would've been 6 if I hadn't run out of fuel and had to diverge to scoop.

It isn't really optimized for 55 LY, it just uses what few neutron stars there are out there, and where there are higher densities picks the ones with the best average distance between each other. I don't feel like running it all again just to get the metrics, so I understand if you don't list it on the front page, but for anyone who wants a bubble-to-rift route here's what I charted. And if anyone wants to resubmit it with all the proper information don't hesitate to, I'd love a mention if you do though.

Spoiler

Bubble to Formidine Rift

Direct Distance : 11 800 LY
Type of ship used to chart the route : Anaconda
Route is optimized for : 55 Light Year Ship
Jumps : ??
Estimated number of Jumps required via conventional travel for this ship range : 236
Number of Neutron Jumps : 37
Number of intermediate regular Jumps : ??
Route charted by : CMDR Alyxnia
Full route details : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-UlZiBqw2kZTcufsxYC8kHwyJLU52Ezc_NLGhCOUGa4/
https://www.edsm.net/galactic-routes/show/id/323/name/Bubble+to+Formidine+Rift+Neutron+Starway

And a screenshot:
https://puu.sh/s8n0d/9809973b92.png

Hi Erimus,

Here you go the optimised route.

The Dangerous Tour.

It goes around Coloina getting all the black holes and neutron stars with to routes off it.

One goes into the Neutron Star field near:-

Colonia here EOL PROU FA-Z D838

The other joins the Neutron Highway here:-

EOL PROU FF-Z D1124
DRYOOE FLYOU FG-Y G112
DRYOOE FLYOU GH-C D13-475

Route Name : The Dangerous Tour
Direct Distance : 2,691.24
Type of ship used to chart the route : Asp Explorer
Route is optimized for : 27.85 Light Year Ship
Jumps : 69
Estimated number of Jumps required via conventional travel for this ship range : 119
Number of Neutron Jumps : ?
Number of intermediate regular Jumps : ?
Route charted by : Cmdr Wishblend

I am not sure on the neutron jump thing as most are neutron stars, in total I have 16 Black holes and 35 Neutron stars including the start of the highway.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vr2naZOrJS0pmgeo3K_wzWueAP0jtGWH6_I1ACHnloM/edit#gid=0

Thanks! Both routes added to the OP

 

[outthere2328]

Map from Colonia to Sag-A

Let me know if I need to reformat this one...

Map from Colonia to Sag-A

Direct Distance : 12,000 LY
Type of ship used to chart the route : Anaconda
Route is optimized for : 48 Light Year Ship (max supercharged range in route = 189 LY)
Jumps : 80 + refueling and approach to Sag-A (~100 total)
Estimated number of Jumps required via conventional travel for this ship range : 300
Number of Neutron Jumps : 70
Number of short-intermediate regular Jumps : ~30
Route charted by : CMDR Outthere2328
Full route details : below

Spoiler

Colonia
EOL PROU IE-W E1-3246 (25 LY)
EOL PROU ZT-R D4-1487 (128)
EOL PROU YY-R D4-2992 (158)
EOL PROU CK-Q D5-809 (157)
EOCH PRUAE QU-O D6-3908 (167)
EOCH PRUAE KN-T E3-2358 (181)
EOCH PRUAE ZL-L D8-287 (184)
EOCH PRUAE WV-L D8-2680 (170)
EOCH PRUAE IO-G D11-3173 (184)
EOCH PRUAE FY-G D11-6070 (181)
EOCH PRUAE GO-F D12-438 (174)
EOCH PRUAE QA-C D14-5791 (174)
KYLOALL JM-C D614 (165)
KYLOALL LC-B D1-6542 (174)
KYLOALL RI-Z D1-3329 (178)
KYLOALL BV-X E1-2486 (189)
DRYI FREE QY-S D3-1480 (177)
DRYI FREE SO-R D4-6860 (180)
DRYI FREE XU-P D5-4184 (178)
DRYI FREE FW-N D6-6176 (175)
DRYI FREE PI-K D8-6291 (171)
DRYI FREE TT-I D9-6961 (188)
DRYI FREE WE-H D10-5250 (175)
DRYI FREE CL-F D11-5334 (183)
DRYI FREE OS-B D13-4823 (155)
DRYI FREE VT-Z D13-1838 (165)
DUMBOI XJ-A D8467 (167)
DUMBOI AV-Y D6474 (176)
DUMBOI IW-W D1-3028 (179)
DUMBOI LW-W D1-4335 (186)
DUMBOI SN-T D3-6011 (174)
DUMBOI AP-R D4-1007 (186)
DUMBOI EA-Q D5-2917 (176)
DUMBOI NM-M D7-6876 (175)
DUMBOI RX-K D8-7023 (184)
DUMBAA DX-K D8-249 (167)
DUMBAA OE-H D10-2695 (173)
DUMBAA UK-F D11-5849 (173)
DUMBAA XV-D D12-2172 (163)
DUMBAA HI-A D14-6708 (180)
ZUNIAE CP-A D2824 (153)
ZUNIAE GA-Z D3970 (169)
ZUNIAE OB-X D1-6028 (159)
ZUNIAE XN-T D3-7432 (176)
ZUNIAE DU-R D4-1274 (160)
ZUNOAE VU-P D5-3741 (162)
ZUNOAE AB-O D6-2454 (162)
ZUNOAE EM-M D7-6823 (151)
ZUNOAE JS-K D8-5548 (159)
ZUNOAE RT-I D9-6436 (164)
ZUNOAE VE-H D10-2355 (154)
ZUNOAE BQ-P E5-3567 (159)
ZUNOAE GR-D D12-5613 (164)
ZUNOAE MX-B D13-2706 (165)
ZUNOAE JR-N E6-8246 (177)
CHOOMEE XJ-A D8225 (162)
CHOOMEE FL-Y D1111 (171)
CHOOMEE GG-Y E4117 (155)
CHOOMEE RX-U D2-4171 (177)
BYOOMI UU-V D3-6731 (165)
BYOOMI AB-U D4-472 (159)
BYOOMI FH-S D5-6929 (150)
BYOOMI LN-G D6-1060 (170)
BYOOMI NN-Q D6-5966 (165)
MYRIESLY GX-L D7-796 (172)
BYOOMAO ET-D D7-7686 (165)
BYOOMAO JZ-M D8-3785 (164)
MYRIESLY TJ-I D9-6827 (172)
MYRIESLY BL-P E5-4701 (160)
MYRIESLY JC-D D12-3612 (166)
MYRIESLY PI-B D13-8219 (168)
G-class - MYRIESLY PD-Z C27-6179 (181)
8-10 normal jumps to Sag-A

 

[SushiCW]

Another reference point for speed: just ran Polo Harbor -> Gigarin Gate in my 30 LY Keelback. Pad to pad, took 80 minutes.