About cartography and "no data" systems

[zucozampa]

About cartography and "no data" systems

Hello, I begin the exploration, is it is a little bit fuzzy for me, as many, I think. Here is what I understood, correct me if Im wrong

1When I go into a system, with " no data ", I scan it, then I map it.
Thus all the names of planet, station(resort), celestial bodies, are visible and identified for me at the moment.
I can resell these data. But:
If anybody else goes into the same system after me, is "no data" will be also dislayed to him? And he will have to scan it down to. He can resell this information also.
But he will have less crdits because I have cartographied it in 1st. Is this right? In other words, when I cartography a system, it don't cartography it for all the other people?

2-What counts:
To be the 1st to map it or to be the 1st to sell the data?

Thank you in advance

Hello, I begin the exploration, is it is a little bit fuzzy for me, as many, I think. Here is what I understood, correct me if Im wrong

1When I go into a system, with " no data ", I scan it, then I map it.
Thus all the names of planet, station(resort), celestial bodies, are visible and identified for me at the moment.
I can resell these data. But:
If anybody else goes into the same system after me, is "no data" will be also dislayed to him? And he will have to scan it down to. He can resell this information also.
But he will have less crdits because I have cartographied it in 1st. Is this right? In other words, when I cartography a system, it don't cartography it for all the other people?

2-What counts:
To be the 1st to map it or to be the 1st to sell the data?

Thank you in advance

And sorry for my very bad English :/

 

[iain666]

You are correct. Everybody needs to do their own scans to see bodies as other than "unexplored". Everyone sees the same first discovered tags.

The tag (and the bonus payment) goes to the first player to sell the data, not to scan it.

 

[Sapyx]

An Unexplored system is "unexplored by you"; this does not necessarily mean it has never been explored by anyone else. Within inhabited space, "Unexplored" simply means the system population is under 1 million people, so isn't considered important enough to include in the package of "Explored systems" maps your ship's navigational computer comes pre-installed with.

At the start of the game, all Unexplored systems were truly Unexplored. The first player to visit these systems and scan the planets within them became the "first discoverer" of those planets; the planets get "Tagged": their name appears as "first discovered by" in the system map, and they get the 50% First Discoverer bonus credits when they sell the data. Here is an example of a remote Earth-like planet which I personally found a few days ago and was First Discoverer of; you can see my CMDR name in brown:

But the planets and system remain Unexplored, even after someone first hands in the data. It doesn't matter if there have been two, three, five, or 100,000 other players who have scanned that system and sold the data, it will remain Unexplored. And the second, third, fifth or 100,000th player to sell the data, all get the same amount of money from Universal Cartographics.

You have to travel over 500 LY from Sol to have even a slight chance of finding Untagged planets these days.

Acquiring a "First Discoverer" Tag requires you to fly up close to the planet and scan it; simply honking with the Discovery Scanner isn't enough. This means that, in some systems, not every planet has been Tagged - if the first discoverer only had a Basic scanner, or was lazy, or in a hurry, or simply feeling generous towards those who might come after them, then only some of the planets will be Tagged. This is also why you might see the names of several different CMDRs in the same system.

First Discoverer Tags are only awarded when the data is sold. That means that it is entirely possible for someone to discover a planet for the first time, then take a long time to fly back to a starport to sell the data - in the meanwhile, someone else has come along, scanned the same planets, then dashed back to inhabited space to sell their data - meaning the second guy gets the Tag, not the first. It's not really "Tag stealing" - because in all likelihood, the second guy didn't even know the first guy had been there before them.

But this does explain why explorers are often shy of proclaiming their new discoveries on the forums until after the data has been sold and the Tags secured. I've found two other ELW planets since that one I posted above, but I'm not telling anyone where they are until after I next make port in a few weeks time.

A final warning: If your ship explodes, you lose whatever exploration data you might have had which was still unsold at the time. If you want the credit for those systems, you'll have to fly back out there in your new ship and scan them all again.