2 years out in the black and still 27,320.32 Light Years from Beagle Point

[Tetched]

2 years ago today I started a round about trip to Beagle Point by way of Colonia. There have have been a few hiccups along the way including 2 crashes into planets (both due to bugs after updates), 1 out of fuel situation (do to inattention) and a hiatus do to illness and boredom with 'blue blob mini game'.

Many things have changed in the game since I started the trip.
Some changes I like :

1. Orrery view (even if it is a bit clunky).
2. Better surface graphics.
3. Better game stibility

Some changes I dislike:

1. The 'blue blob mini game' especially the need to tune into certain signals before you can tune into other. An example would be the need to scan a gas giant before you can scan the bodies which orbit it. These are most often on the opposite end of the of the scan spectrum mandating switching back in forth in the frequency rage multiple times.
2. The fact that I need get in a planet's gravity to map (which I equate to the old way of scanning planets) which makes all that grinding I did 2 years ago to get my scanner engineered for distance a waste of time an effort.

My goal sometime after starting the exploration journey was to get to Beagle Point with average jumps of 10ly or less. I am not at that goal yet because I did not start the trip with that restriction as well as taking some very long jumps to get back near the areas at which I crashed into planets to continue the journey.

I usually scan (and now map instead) all bodies in a system other than some ice/rock worlds as well as most gas giants unless they look interesting. When I started this trip I would go out of my way to look at planets with rings because I found them visually appealing. Now I groan when I see them because they are more of a chore to map than planets without rings and my OCD tendencies do not let me skip mapping them.

Here are some statistics from ED Discovery logs:

5741 jumps
57 Ammonia worlds
48 Earthlike bodies
8634 High Metal Content bodies (1334 terraformable)
549 Metal Rich bodies (none Terraformable)
3151 Rocky bodies (33 Terraformable)
602 Water worlds (296 Terraformable)
1664 Total Terraformable
314 Black holes
2185 Neutron Stars
377 Class II Gas Giants
7 Water Giants
9081 Landable bodies
Max distance from arrival scan 588663.9375ls

You will notice the gas giants are low because I don't scan them unless I find something interesting about them . You will further notice lots of Neutron stars because I do find them interesting and tend to hang around Neutron fields. This is especially true now that they have 'tails' which adds to the dynamic nature of the system. I travel economical routes and most of the time in 'realistic' map mode so as to get a random class of system. I do change to 'Map' routing when I find the cool Neutron fields, what can I say . . . I like them.

I seem to average just shy of 8 systems per day even taking into account the time I took off from the game. It is not uncommon for me to be in a system an hour or two.

I play in Open and have not seen another player other than a very helpful Fuel Rat and a few after being respawned at Colonia after the crashes.

I hope to be at Beagle Point by next time this year and then maybe take advantage of the upgrades put in place for exploring since I started this trip. That is of course dependent on me not getting too frustrated by the 'blue blob mini game'. It is a shame because it now almost a relief when I land in a system with nothing to scan where once I wanted was excited to see a system with 50+ bodies.

Happy exploring,
Tetched.

 

[varonica]

Some changes I dislike:

1. The 'blue blob mini game' especially the need to tune into certain signals before you can tune into other. An example would be the need to scan a gas giant before you can scan the bodies which orbit it. These are most often on the opposite end of the of the scan spectrum mandating switching back in forth in the frequency rage multiple times.
2. The fact that I need get in a planet's gravity to map (which I equate to the old way of scanning planets) which makes all that grinding I did 2 years ago to get my scanner engineered for distance a waste of time an effort.

Normally I tune for gas giants first, the FSS always picks up the strongest signal so the largest body will dominate. That's not a big issue for me.

2 is a bit of a funny one, mapping is new, not a changed thing, your passive scan still works exactly the same way it always did and gives the same information, but mapping is in no way equatable to the "old way of scanning" The FSS is equatable to the old way of scanning, and the change there means you don't need to fly close to the body to scan, you can do it from half a million ls away and get the same info you acquired by flying up and scanning, the mapping is an added thing, not a changed thing, and you don't need to do that for every body, I only map the interesting ones, at least the ones I find interesting.

 

[Orvidius]

One thought-- Are you using a HOTAS or some other controller with analog inputs (joystick, slider, paddles, etc)? You can set the FSS tuning to an "absolute" axis range, which lets you tune almost instantly. I have my HOTAS throttle mapped as the axis for the FSS tuner, and I just got used to putting it in certain positions for various kinds of planets. It goes pretty quickly, even when bodies near each other are far apart on the frequency graph.

 

[Jethro49]

A very long and detailed trip indeed !! Congrats !

I second what Orvidius said... I have a T16000M set up, with the TWCS as a throttle, and use the rotating on the left as an absolute axis for FSS tuning. To move the reticle, I use a trackball, which is very convenient, precise and fast. That works very well !
(In fact, what bother me is to wait for the resolution of the geo sites : if the framerate is not capped, then the reticle will stutter until the sites are resolved and make all the setup useless, because the trackball won't be able to move the reticle with enough precision to be efficient)

 

[Tetched]

One thought-- Are you using a HOTAS or some other controller with analog inputs (joystick, slider, paddles, etc)? You can set the FSS tuning to an "absolute" axis range, which lets you tune almost instantly. I have my HOTAS throttle mapped as the axis for the FSS tuner, and I just got used to putting it in certain positions for various kinds of planets. It goes pretty quickly, even when bodies near each other are far apart on the frequency graph.

I am using a HOTAS setup (Ch Products), I will have to look into the setting changes. I Think I tried similar settings when the 'blue blob mini game' started and it did not work for me at the time because of conficts or something, I will take a look at them again.
Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Nick Sticks]

I second what Orvidius said... I have a T16000M set up, with the TWCS as a throttle, and use the rotating on the left as an absolute axis for FSS tuning. To move the reticle, I use a trackball, which is very convenient, precise and fast. That works very well !

This, as well as the paddle for quick movement makes the tuning quick and easy.
In fact I find scanning systems quite quick now.

OP, what sector are you in at the moment?