This is an updated version of my earlier thread on the subject, with the data revisited after two years. Enough things have changed by now that I'd rather not necro it.
First off, here's the updated version with data from 2021/07/19: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GrJp4vGcd0sbGlfiMnXA54dBakHUQxYTree83I06ACs/edit?usp=sharing
The data and analysis of ringed ELWs will come a bit later.
Before I forget: since there are so many sectors with at least one ELW uploaded now, the data currently only includes sectors with 10+ ELWs in them. I will probably include all of them eventually, but even this took two days to run, and it covers 90% of the total ELW count anyway.
Let's see a few things that have changed then. The previous version was on 2019. May 30, about half a year after the FSS was rammed into the game, and while exploration activity had gone down, cherry-picking for ELWs had become easier - and that's what matters for the purposes of this analysis the most. Since then, we've had two more years of the FSS. Now, in the previous update(s) I set the default limits for ELW ratio cut-offs at 10 ELWs and 10,000 systems uploaded per sector. The former requirement is quite redundant now, as pretty much every sector that has at least 10,000 systems uploaded also has more than 10 ELWs.
On the other hand, in sectors with only that many systems, ELW numbers can still vary quite wildly, it isn't worth going under 10,000 systems. Still, just as before, I've set the sheet up in such a way that you can modify the thresholds easily. I recommend making a copy of it for yourself, then experimenting with them, seeing how things change.
Also, as I mentioned back then, take the sector numbers around the bubble with a spoonful of salt, as all the spherical subsector overrides carve out chunks of those. I'd include them as sums, but some of the spheres overlap sector boundaries, so I couldn't do that and still have them be accurate. (Well, we could break down system sectors from coordinates and not their names, but yeah, I'll leave that up to someone else if they want to do it.)
Let's see some analysis then! By now, it seems clearer that the galactic core does have a bit better chances for ELWs per sector. This is most likely to tie in with how ELWs / Systems changed in boxels with lower metallicity (see here): helium levels are capped inside the core, so an explorer heading through that is less likely to come across higher-helium boxels which have fewer Earth-likes.
The effect is subtle, but it seems to be there. However, even in case it is true, it's still about a tenth of either just filtering for stars, or picking some high-yield boxels and going through those. But hey, in the latter case, boxels in the core will have (many) more systems.
Other than this, there don't seem to be any places where there are huge jumps between sectors next to each other: the few ones that can be seen are those where people have farmed ELWs, like Zunou.
That's all for now, with some more to come later. Thanks for reading!
First off, here's the updated version with data from 2021/07/19: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GrJp4vGcd0sbGlfiMnXA54dBakHUQxYTree83I06ACs/edit?usp=sharing
The data and analysis of ringed ELWs will come a bit later.
Before I forget: since there are so many sectors with at least one ELW uploaded now, the data currently only includes sectors with 10+ ELWs in them. I will probably include all of them eventually, but even this took two days to run, and it covers 90% of the total ELW count anyway.
Let's see a few things that have changed then. The previous version was on 2019. May 30, about half a year after the FSS was rammed into the game, and while exploration activity had gone down, cherry-picking for ELWs had become easier - and that's what matters for the purposes of this analysis the most. Since then, we've had two more years of the FSS. Now, in the previous update(s) I set the default limits for ELW ratio cut-offs at 10 ELWs and 10,000 systems uploaded per sector. The former requirement is quite redundant now, as pretty much every sector that has at least 10,000 systems uploaded also has more than 10 ELWs.
On the other hand, in sectors with only that many systems, ELW numbers can still vary quite wildly, it isn't worth going under 10,000 systems. Still, just as before, I've set the sheet up in such a way that you can modify the thresholds easily. I recommend making a copy of it for yourself, then experimenting with them, seeing how things change.
Also, as I mentioned back then, take the sector numbers around the bubble with a spoonful of salt, as all the spherical subsector overrides carve out chunks of those. I'd include them as sums, but some of the spheres overlap sector boundaries, so I couldn't do that and still have them be accurate. (Well, we could break down system sectors from coordinates and not their names, but yeah, I'll leave that up to someone else if they want to do it.)
Let's see some analysis then! By now, it seems clearer that the galactic core does have a bit better chances for ELWs per sector. This is most likely to tie in with how ELWs / Systems changed in boxels with lower metallicity (see here): helium levels are capped inside the core, so an explorer heading through that is less likely to come across higher-helium boxels which have fewer Earth-likes.
The effect is subtle, but it seems to be there. However, even in case it is true, it's still about a tenth of either just filtering for stars, or picking some high-yield boxels and going through those. But hey, in the latter case, boxels in the core will have (many) more systems.
Other than this, there don't seem to be any places where there are huge jumps between sectors next to each other: the few ones that can be seen are those where people have farmed ELWs, like Zunou.
That's all for now, with some more to come later. Thanks for reading!