Are Black Holes worth much more than Neutron Stars

Skooter

S
I'm on my first long-range expedition. I'm about 15,000 ly from the bubble and I've come across a rather dense field of neutron stars with a bunch of black holes in the mix. I decided to farm here for a few days before continuing my journey. I'm not in the exploration business solely for the money, but as long as I'm here I might as well collect some valuable data and get the most bang for my buck.

I initially thought that black holes were much more valuable, so I've been plotting my routes accordingly, zig-zagging around to all the black holes I can find. However, the infographic seen below indicates that they're worth barely more than neutron stars. Is this true? If so, I'm going to stop worrying about getting to the black holes and just a hit a bunch of neutron stars then be on my way.

Overall... how accurate is this guide? Is it out of date or still pretty spot-on for values.

Thanks for the help.


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AnnuverScotinExile

AnnuverScotinExile
depends on the black hole. Sag A is worth a small fortune (and used to be worth a large fortune - the first explorer there got to Elite just on the strength of that 1 black hole)
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Black holes and neutron star value is purely a function of mass. Black holes are usually more massive than neutron stars, so they're usually worth a bit more.
I forget the specifics and I think they may have increased slightly since it was made but the values on that sheet look broadly correct.

(I've been in the blissful state of not caring about exploration income for a long, long time.) ;)
 
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Skooter

S
After this run, I'll be able to enjoy that bliss as well. Even now I'm not going nuts trying to get a lot of money, I just figured that while I'm here in this dense field I may as well rack some up since it's low-hanging fruit (I can go from neutron star to neutron star and barely break 10ly per jump.)

I'm more about the goals (Sag A, Beagle Point, etc.) and the sometimes spectacular views along the way.

Right now I'm just torn between continuing on the Sag A (I'm over halfway there) or turning around to cash in my data and get a better ship and head back out. Right now I'm in a Cobra with a max jump range of 25 ly. I'm sure I have enough for the ASP now. Might as well travel in style, right?
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Skooter said:
Right now I'm just torn between continuing on the Sag A (I'm over halfway there) or turning around to cash in my data and get a better ship and head back out. Right now I'm in a Cobra with a max jump range of 25 ly. I'm sure I have enough for the ASP now. Might as well travel in style, right?
Click to expand...

It's worth considering selling your exploration data to one of the engineers - Felicity and Elvira both buy exploration data and you may be able to buy your way straight to Level 5 reputation with the amount you'll be carrying, then get yourself a top-notch FSD upgrade.
 

Skooter

S
How do I go about doing that? Is there a downside to it? I'm new to the exploration thing (and really, pretty new to the game in general.)

I always thought that the only option was to just sell the data at a station (or multiple stations)
 

AnnuverScotinExile

AnnuverScotinExile
Skooter said:
How do I go about doing that? Is there a downside to it? I'm new to the exploration thing (and really, pretty new to the game in general.)

I always thought that the only option was to just sell the data at a station (or multiple stations)
Click to expand...

Those engineers are stations.
 

Skooter

S
Oh! Haha!

The way it was worded, it sounded like they were some characters in the storyline or something.

Got it. I'll look into that on my return. I want to keep my jumps to a minimum once I return to the bubble. It seems like there are millions of NPCs who have nothing better to do than interdict and kill people for no reason.
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Yep - I can't remember the specifics for those two but usually getting access to the engineers has three stages, first you do find out who they are, then you do some favour for them after which they let you buy modifications, then you get better access by buying modifications or doing more things for them; Felicity and Elvira will both buy exploration data from you and that saves you having to buy lots of mods from them to get good access.

An alternative thing you can do with lots of exploration data is to sell it to factions who control access to permit-locked systems. But you're right, probably best to sell as soon as you can and stay out of danger if you need the cash.
 

iain666

iain666
Skooter said:
Right now I'm just torn between continuing on the Sag A (I'm over halfway there) or turning around to cash in my data and get a better ship and head back out. Right now I'm in a Cobra with a max jump range of 25 ly. I'm sure I have enough for the ASP now. Might as well travel in style, right?
Click to expand...

If you're in a Cobra then you're already travelling in style :)
 

Skooter

S
It's nice, but I'd like to have that extra jump range. I'm going to try to make it to Beagle Point which is not possible in my current setup.

Because of this, I've decided to go ahead and return to the bubble to sell my data and upgrade. Then I'll catch Sag A on my journey to Beagle Point.
 

PanTast

PanTast
Visit Maia on your way home. Darnielle´s Progress is selling Meta Alloys. You need one to unlock Felicity Farseer...
 

Codger

Codger
If you are planning to go to the engineer to sell your data be sure you are in a defensible ship. Or get an escort.
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Ashnak said:
After having tagged, from my subjective point of view, half the Milky Way.
Click to expand...

:( I went to several of the "important" stars - particularly in Orion - early on before tagging was a thing that you could see. If I'd understood the implications of scanning every planet in sight back then I wouldn't have been so profligate.

I've been working my way through these catalogue stars over the last month or so and in almost all cases where a system was untagged I've scanned only the primary and one or two planets. I hope I practice the light touch that I preach. :)

I don't know, really. I find it frustrating when I get to a catalogue system and find that someone has scanned every last iceball, but then some people undoubtedly think of that as "good exploring" and not discourteous; from a certain point of view I get it, but it's still annoying.

I hope to use the data I'm gathering to make some charts of distance from Sol and luminosity of catalogue stars vs. whether they've been tagged or not at present. Should be interesting to see.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Sorry - looks like this came over as seriously angry. I didn't mean it that way. More like annoyed? It shouldn't be, but you get out there, and then you find the same dozen names on all the major (i.e. distinct from Earth's point of view) systems. Guess that's what I get for not supporting the kickstarter campaign...

Regarding your project - I had a look at that table. You're crazy. You did this in one month? Apart from that, something else struck me: the differences in distance between the HIP parallax measurement and the actual ED distance for a lot of those stars. One of them especially caught my eye: line 97 - HIP 92136. If I read the table correctly, in real life, that should be a gigantic star very, very far away. In ED, it's just another unremarkable F-Class star.

Just wish I could translate the coordinates as seen e.g. in Simbad into ED locations (ok, I could look it up how to do it...).
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Ashnak said:
Apart from that, something else struck me: the differences in distance between the HIP parallax measurement and the actual ED distance for a lot of those stars. One of them especially caught my eye: line 97 - HIP 92136. If I read the table correctly, in real life, that should be a gigantic star very, very far away. In ED, it's just another unremarkable F-Class star.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right, there are some huge discrepancies. I don't think the HIP parallax is that reliable for great distances but there's quite a lot of stars which are clearly misplaced.
It is a problem because I've usually used a 300 parsec cutoff around the Bubble and excluded the stars inside it but because the distances are so variable that's imprecise and probably loses stars which have been misplaced either way.
 
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