About that "One foofteenth of a percent of the galaxy has been explored" thing...
- Thread starter BradHann
- Start date
I would assume a honk, at least, would be required. If a player doesn't stay in-system long enough for even the discovery scanner's passive scan of the main star to work, then nothing at all is actually detected in that system by that player - so it's like they never visited the system at all. The only publicly available count is EDSM (which is of course only a small subset of total players, though perhaps a slightly larger subset of explorers) and I think you need to scan at least one object in the system for EDSM to count it.
Since the vast majority of explorers don't normally do a full scan of every object in every system they visit, I would assume that this is not what is meant by "exploring the galaxy".
You will, hopefully, notice the large number of weasel-words I have used in this post. I speak from ignorance.
Since the vast majority of explorers don't normally do a full scan of every object in every system they visit, I would assume that this is not what is meant by "exploring the galaxy".
You will, hopefully, notice the large number of weasel-words I have used in this post. I speak from ignorance.
It rather depends on your point of view. It can be convincingly argued (the "done and dusted" or Allitnil line) that the galaxy is entirely explored to within the limits of our present drive technology.
If, that is, you're looking on a gross scale. Especially around the edges of the galaxy, where it's very much less dense than I suspect people imagine; the Forge galaxy really does resolve down to a fairly narrow ring of systems at the edges.
In terms of "what areas of the galaxy have people been to", the answer is, broadly, 100%. In absolute terms of "how thoroughly have these areas been explored", it depends where you are in the galaxy, with the Core areas being effectively unexplored and unexplorable in depth, although the biggest star systems are explorable in depth and in many places have been so explored.
In terms of "what percentage of mysterious Hidden Fun Stuff has been found", the answer is known only unto Braben.
In terms of "what percentage of weird systems, Forge edge cases and bugs have been found", no-one knows.
If, that is, you're looking on a gross scale. Especially around the edges of the galaxy, where it's very much less dense than I suspect people imagine; the Forge galaxy really does resolve down to a fairly narrow ring of systems at the edges.
In terms of "what areas of the galaxy have people been to", the answer is, broadly, 100%. In absolute terms of "how thoroughly have these areas been explored", it depends where you are in the galaxy, with the Core areas being effectively unexplored and unexplorable in depth, although the biggest star systems are explorable in depth and in many places have been so explored.
In terms of "what percentage of mysterious Hidden Fun Stuff has been found", the answer is known only unto Braben.
In terms of "what percentage of weird systems, Forge edge cases and bugs have been found", no-one knows.
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Oh I remember the days when the 3D map in EDDiscovery spelled out a rude word.
Yeah. I think it all depends upon how one defines Explored. There are not any more records to be had that would hold general appeal. There are still neat things found and done that appeal primarily only to explorers, but even those things are variations on what has already been seen and done before. In that regard, we are pretty much in mop up duty mode. The nice thing is though that there is a large enough exploration community that finds enjoyment and excitement in the otherwise mundane, and truly enjoy all the things we all do and share.
If I understand well, a system is detected in EDSM only by accesing it so it's added to its database.
Sometimes it's really hard to believe that such a tiny fracture of the Galaxy has already been discovered. Started my roll to Colonia couple of days ago. Went "north" from Hillary Depot (the outpost) and struggled a lot to find an untouched system. The same feeling while looking at 3d-map of ELWs and water worlds published in some other thread.
In my eyes, it is simply having been to. It doesn't matter if it was a lone star, or a system with 100+ astronomical objects. If those 100+ objects are boring, I will move on. Aint nobody got time for that.
We all know Elite has ~400 Billion systems.
I am also curious about where all of the exploration has left us; I like numbers and I also enjoy analysis. As others have said, the only true account is through EDSM, but I think we all know only a small percentage of CMDRs use this utility, even if they account for a large percentage of those who truly explore. So where does that leave us?
Well, I am also not a fan of estimates or ambiguity, and with EDSM still claiming less than 0.005% of the galaxy being explored I have to be skeptical. To be clear, at the time of writing that means approximately 19 Million out of 4 Billion systems have been logged utilizing EDSM.
So, where do we stand when it comes to the overall exploration of the galaxy? I think this notion is generally skewed by most CMDRs experiences, in that they are likely to see many systems already explored by others simply because they unwittingly take the same path as others while trying to escape the bubble. It is really only until you are quite a distance out that you begin to find uncharted territory, and even then, you may come across many common paths that explorers before us have tread. All this considered, it seems a little difficult to believe a mere fraction of 1% of the entire galaxy could be all we have touched so far.
However, in my short experience with expeditions and exploration I have found that overall about 98% of the systems I visit are untouched by others, that figure including the escape from the bubble. It's somewhat common to find a Neutron Star that's been tagged, but those are super easy to find. It's much, much less common to find an ELW, AW, WW or any other celestial body of interest that has already been tagged. While I am sure EDSM's figures are very low compared to whats actually been visited, and having a random guesstimate that it might be 10x that, I am also sure that there are ~399,000,000 other systems to be found and explored.
At some point in the near future I was hoping for a figure to be released by FDev, but really thats just me being curious. What I do know and am absolutely sure of is that as of right now, we have barely touched a tiny fraction of the galaxy within Elite. If at any time you think this might not be true, once youre a couple Kylies outside the bubble just turn off any filters you have, and venture on. It is truly endless.
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Depends on how you're looking at it, really. Like Jackie Silver mentioned, there are some who argue that since roughly every area of the galaxy has been travelled through, it's all done. However, if you look at the visited system maps that we do have, you'll notice that much has only been zipped through by a few Commanders, and there are large volumes of space entirely unexplored. Or, as I like to say: plenty of places left in the galaxy where you could hide the entire human bubble. In my opinion, saying that the galaxy has been explored is like driving a car through a dozen cities without actually stopping in them, and then saying that you've been to the entire country.
Of course, the galactic core has so many systems that it's never going to be fully explored. But when it would come to hand-placed stuff, it would be evil of FD to put anything in just a wholly random place there. (So, Raxxla?)
But yeah, if you're looking at cartographic records, or being the first to go to some region, since we're years after release, you're mostly out of luck. Of course, since this is an MMO game, the moment that our FSDs receive any kind of new improvement, within days everything new that can be reached will be reached.
If you're exploring to find things inside systems, you are and will always be good to go.
Hm, now I wonder how it would look if EDSM drew a map of only the systems that have at least a dozen bodies scanned.
Oh, and as for hand-placed stuff, what has been hinted at by FD but yet to be found: the original "bubble" of the Guardians (although that might be in the locked Regor sector) and two megaships from the Dynasty expedition. The problem with the latter is that the search area is far too wide, so it would require an enormous community effort to find something which is tied to a storyline that's already done. (Would have been nice if the Zurara left behind actual beacons and stuff to find though, and then the system name wouldn't have needed to be literally spelt out to be found.)
Oh, and supposedly the Thargoids were / are present in someplace else than the Pleiades, but were never found. (Then Frontier decided they want them found ASAP, and turned on the encounters there too. Basically shoving it under our noses.) Given the way that the aliens can currently be found though, you'd have to look much closer than people generally do when they are travelling. Which would take a lot more time.
Of course, the galactic core has so many systems that it's never going to be fully explored. But when it would come to hand-placed stuff, it would be evil of FD to put anything in just a wholly random place there. (So, Raxxla?)
But yeah, if you're looking at cartographic records, or being the first to go to some region, since we're years after release, you're mostly out of luck. Of course, since this is an MMO game, the moment that our FSDs receive any kind of new improvement, within days everything new that can be reached will be reached.
If you're exploring to find things inside systems, you are and will always be good to go.
Hm, now I wonder how it would look if EDSM drew a map of only the systems that have at least a dozen bodies scanned.
Oh, and as for hand-placed stuff, what has been hinted at by FD but yet to be found: the original "bubble" of the Guardians (although that might be in the locked Regor sector) and two megaships from the Dynasty expedition. The problem with the latter is that the search area is far too wide, so it would require an enormous community effort to find something which is tied to a storyline that's already done. (Would have been nice if the Zurara left behind actual beacons and stuff to find though, and then the system name wouldn't have needed to be literally spelt out to be found.)
Oh, and supposedly the Thargoids were / are present in someplace else than the Pleiades, but were never found. (Then Frontier decided they want them found ASAP, and turned on the encounters there too. Basically shoving it under our noses.) Given the way that the aliens can currently be found though, you'd have to look much closer than people generally do when they are travelling. Which would take a lot more time.
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