A True Explorer Regenerates As A Tourist?

Old Duck

Old Duck
I made Explorer Elite by almost exclusively scanning undiscovered planets and systems, no R2R for me! And this was before the FSS, so I had to fly to all these planets to scan them. I've gotten my name on all sorts of cool and rare things, including catalog stars. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. The one thing I haven't done on my list, and not for lack of trying, is discover a new Guardian ruin... Well, there's still time for that! Anyway, my point is this - I feel like I've achieved my goal of become a "True Explorer". Go ahead, drink!

As I consider what it might be like to restart the game from scratch (should I someday move to ED on PC), I'm thinking of all the things I'll do differently this time around. I'll be honest, I've grown kinda bored with being a "True Explorer". I no longer have the same yen to spread my name across the stars. Duck and Jenny own more than enough first discovery tags. Nor do I feel the drive to go where no player has gone before, because it's all the same anyway. So if I do "regenerate" into a new CMDR, I'm seriously thinking of become a True Tourist.

Long story short, I think it would be cool to set out to visit every inhabited system in the Bubble. There are plenty of these systems to keep me going, and some of the most cool vistas are actually found right here at home. Heck, I might never leave the Bubble again! (Well, except for things like Guardian blueprints and whatnot).

Surely I'm not the only one to consider this. Has anyone else made it their goal to visit all the systems in the Bubble? Has anyone else succeeded? I remember some fellow wanted to dock in every station and outpost in the Bubble. I haven't heard from him since he set out, so maybe he went mad in the process, LOL. I don't think I'll do that, but I can see scanning every tourist beacon out there being an attainable goal, with enough time.

Thoughts?
 

CMDR Karrde Sun

CMDR Karrde Sun
When i still had faith in elite, all i wanted from the entire passenger patch was a flag in the galaxy map indicating whether a system contained tourist becons, and some system like rares where you picked up a tourist at a tourist economy station, took them around to more and more beacons, and dropped them off when you felt like you were done.

I was fine with cargo hauling as it was. Did they honestly think we wouldn't notice? Sorry.
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
I spent 6 months pootling around the Bubble reading local Galnet stories. IIRC I visited something like 1,200 different systems in that time, so visiting every system is going to take you a while. You could do it quicker if you don't visit stations, but I wouldn't call that 'True Tourism' ;)
 

marx

marx
Around 20,000 inhabited systems and 69,000 dockable places. The former? Entirely doable. The latter? I have my doubts.

Also, something I did for a while: go around the places on EDSM that had the most time elapsed since someone last docked there. (link) Explore systems in-between. It's quite fun for a while, especially with installations now. I still find it a shame they don't feature more prominently in missions, conflicts and whatnot.
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Old Duck said:
Long story short, I think it would be cool to set out to visit every inhabited system in the Bubble. There are plenty of these systems to keep me going, and some of the most cool vistas are actually found right here at home. Heck, I might never leave the Bubble again! (Well, except for things like Guardian blueprints and whatnot).
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Go for it.

Doing something similar for Colonia is on my list
- visit every system and map every mappable object
- dock at every station
- visit every non-dockable settlement
- become Allied with every faction / rep 5 with every engineer
- visit every megaship and installation
- visit every "notable stellar phenomenon" in an inhabited system
- visit every non-volcanism surface site in an inhabited system
(fewer systems, but more per system)

I've done most of them - not finished the mapping, settlements, and some of the tip-off sites yet.
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
marx said:
Also, something I did for a while: go around the places on EDSM that had the most time elapsed since someone last docked there. (link) Explore systems in-between. It's quite fun for a while, especially with installations now. I still find it a shame they don't feature more prominently in missions, conflicts and whatnot.
Click to expand...

The problem is that the mission system actively discourages wandering:

1. Payouts are heavily tied to faction reputation - so not having a 'home' system costs money
2. Massacre, base scan and search, and commodity source missions all take you back to the start system to get paid
3. Wing delivery missions (which take up a disproportionate amount of the mission board) tie you to 2 systems for the duration
4. Missions over 20LY distance are no longer common in the Bubble - whereas it used to be easy to find 30-40LY trips anywhere

It's no surprise that there are areas where people just don't go any more.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
In this old thread we crunched the numbers. 20,000 systems to visit, at a minimum of 45 seconds per "visit", would take about 10 days playing time.

Considering the maths the other way, you could set yourself the challenge of visiting (by which we mean a "proper" visit, running the FSS to scan all planets if necessary, and then docking at at least one station) every single inhabited system in the bubble in one year. 20,000 systems divided by 365 days gives 55 systems per day. I couldn't. I usually don't make that many jumps in 1 day, even when exploring, so for me, two years would be a more realistic goal.

Right now, I'm making do with flying about the bubble, "re-visiting" systems that I visited years ago when I first started playing, back before in-game journalling, so they aren't flagged as blue on my "visited systems" map.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Sapyx said:
In this old thread we crunched the numbers. 20,000 systems to visit, at a minimum of 45 seconds per "visit", would take about 10 days playing time.

Considering the maths the other way, you could set yourself the challenge of visiting (by which we mean a "proper" visit, running the FSS to scan all planets if necessary, and then docking at at least one station) every single inhabited system in the bubble in one year. 20,000 systems divided by 365 days gives 55 systems per day. I couldn't. I usually don't make that many jumps in 1 day, even when exploring, so for me, two years would be a more realistic goal.

Right now, I'm making do with flying about the bubble, "re-visiting" systems that I visited years ago when I first started playing, back before in-game journalling, so they aren't flagged as blue on my "visited systems" map.
Click to expand...
For me it would be more of a "lifetime goal". I don't want to turn it into a grind by any means. I actually like having a home system to stay in for at least a couple weeks, with the local missions sending me out into the neighborhood during that time. I've been playing the game for two+ years, and I still occasionally come across unique hand-crafted assets (outposts, weird comms arrays, etc) in the Bubble, stuff I haven't seen before.
 
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