Hi all,I was just wondering what your average time on a exploration is. I am slowly heading towards the core and I am about 4000 LY from Sol. I am cheery picking systems as I go looking for water worlds and ELW's. I have been on this exped now for approx 5 weeks and at this rate I might reach the core in about a year or two. I'm just not sure I have the staying power to complete this journey. I sometimes finding myself thinking that I'll just make a dash for the core just to say I've been there, but that seems to defeat the idea of this exped in the first place. I would like to return home to Sol with a wealth of info to sell and so I keep heading outwards (I just don't want to ever feel bored with the game because I like it so much)
average expedition time?
- Thread starter ronin677
- Start date
This is such a personal question.. really.. because it largely relies on what are you trying to accomplish... is it to reach the core? is it to grind for money? is it for the Elite rank? is it for prospecting? is it for Neutron Farming? For ELW?
The goals of your expedition are a fundamental factor in the speed you will do it.
Then, it strikes me that this is probably the first expedition you do out of the bubble: until you don't go out for the first time, you don't realize how big this game really is. Someone from the bubble looks at 300 ly as a huge stretch, while a somewhat seasoned explorer, looks at 5,000 ly as "around the corner".
The scale of the game needs to be put in consideration here: you can spend days on a single system prospecting moons, weeks on a 100 ly stretch if you scan and prospect everything and are running on economical, or, you can sprint through 2,000 ly in an hour if you are going full speed.
With all those considerations, and assuming dedicate explorers as the best control group, I would say the average is probably about 6 weeks. I have spent 4 months out, but some colleagues have spent 6 to 9...while others opt for a month tops.
The goals of your expedition are a fundamental factor in the speed you will do it.
Then, it strikes me that this is probably the first expedition you do out of the bubble: until you don't go out for the first time, you don't realize how big this game really is. Someone from the bubble looks at 300 ly as a huge stretch, while a somewhat seasoned explorer, looks at 5,000 ly as "around the corner".
The scale of the game needs to be put in consideration here: you can spend days on a single system prospecting moons, weeks on a 100 ly stretch if you scan and prospect everything and are running on economical, or, you can sprint through 2,000 ly in an hour if you are going full speed.
With all those considerations, and assuming dedicate explorers as the best control group, I would say the average is probably about 6 weeks. I have spent 4 months out, but some colleagues have spent 6 to 9...while others opt for a month tops.
thanks guys. I suspect this expedition of mine will extend into months (many). I have no plans when to return to Sol and will probably keep grinding away towards the core. Then I'll think about returning. I'd like to head out to the far side of the galaxy one day but probably not on this trip.
Personally, I'm still on my first exploration trip, started in October and have just reached Sag a*
It's taken ages not because I scan everything but simply because I don't have much time to play..
On my way home now, I can only bear 400/500 Ly stints due to space madness setting in otherwise
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On my way home now, I can only bear 400/500 Ly stints due to space madness setting in otherwise
lol thats what I'm afriad of
What Kancro said. This trip I have been out for a couple of months already and don't plan on coming back any time soon. My first trip out was only a week though. I was on vacation and spent almost the entire time going out and exploring some nebulae and star forming regions. This trip I am on my way out to Beagle Point and then wandering down the western arms until I reach the Bubble.
3 - 4 months for me. I'm almost two months into my current expedition to the southern rim, but I've taken a break from Elite to play a bunch of StarMade so I haven't done much lately.
I usually never am out more than a week at a time generally, but those havent relly been deepspace as such. Im currently on distant worlds, and this is the longest Ive ever been out, about a month so far, it depends how long you want to be out for
I set out in late October and am currently 20,000 lys out on the edge of the core - I found a cluster of black holes/neutrons/white dwarfs last night (with plenty of Fs around as well) and they are going to take me a few evenings to visit. I then have to make a decision on whether to carry on 'north east' or to turn into the core and then return back to Sol.
Given that it's taken me so long to get out here, I suspect that I'll carry on north east for a while and 'make it count'. I have considerable respect for commanders who have got out to 60,000 ly + - at my current rate of travel this would take me until the end of the year to do (or longer). I've not come across any previously discovered systems for the last month (c. 4-5,000 lys), and this has given me a much better sense of the vast scale of the galaxy ...
Given that it's taken me so long to get out here, I suspect that I'll carry on north east for a while and 'make it count'. I have considerable respect for commanders who have got out to 60,000 ly + - at my current rate of travel this would take me until the end of the year to do (or longer). I've not come across any previously discovered systems for the last month (c. 4-5,000 lys), and this has given me a much better sense of the vast scale of the galaxy ...
What ship are you in and what jump range?
My first trip I literally bolted to the core on a racing run before taking the slow boat back. 10 hours there 5 weeks back.
On my current 12 month (estimated) trip I'm usually doing 1000Ly in semi-economical mode (using cargo rack slider to change range) and the next 1000Ly in Fastest. I stop if there's an interesting system and scan everything but otherwise I'm a honk and jump guy.
Recently however I got bored with being on the outside of an arm and spent a weekend travelling 45,000Ly to the core, skipped everything including undiscovered ELW's I'm ashamed to say. I had this idea of making it for the Sag A* meetup that I ended up short on due to real life issues.
Anyway I'd say average to Sag A* is 3-5 weeks. Average trip time for people is probably about 2-4 weeks real life and 50-100 hours gametime. Although as above it depends on objectives, it's possible to do a return trip to Sag A* in a 3 day weekend with the right ship but as you say some people may take many months.
My first trip I literally bolted to the core on a racing run before taking the slow boat back. 10 hours there 5 weeks back.
On my current 12 month (estimated) trip I'm usually doing 1000Ly in semi-economical mode (using cargo rack slider to change range) and the next 1000Ly in Fastest. I stop if there's an interesting system and scan everything but otherwise I'm a honk and jump guy.
Recently however I got bored with being on the outside of an arm and spent a weekend travelling 45,000Ly to the core, skipped everything including undiscovered ELW's I'm ashamed to say. I had this idea of making it for the Sag A* meetup that I ended up short on due to real life issues.
Anyway I'd say average to Sag A* is 3-5 weeks. Average trip time for people is probably about 2-4 weeks real life and 50-100 hours gametime. Although as above it depends on objectives, it's possible to do a return trip to Sag A* in a 3 day weekend with the right ship but as you say some people may take many months.
I'm in an Asp Explorer stripped down for maximum jump range.
I've just set out on my first one. Been going for 4 days now and am about 3500 Ly from the bubble. Decided to curve around the spiral arm we are located in. Am now only really coming to terms with the scale of it all! Started off scanning almost everything until my horror of how short a distance I had travelled. Did 1000ly for my first two days, 500ly on my third as I didn't have much time. Have done around 1000 today so far in much less time as have curtailed the scanning. Haven't found any black holes or anything else massively interesting yet. Any one got any advice? Is it just a numbers game in terms of finding they higher value stuff or does it get better near the core. Hoping to knock out another 500ly this evening.
i needed one month on my first trip to the core (didn't took the straight line). before that i took several weeks-long tours in my adder, to finance an Asp.
after the core, i made a lot of short exploration runs by visiting all 1000-coordinates (e.g. +1000/-1000/-1000, or +1000/+1000/+1000 and so on), throwing in some local nebulas i didn't visited before... while still taking part in community goals, races and other stuff in the bubble. that was very beautifull as well! also it was fun to test several exploration builds.
i'm now out since 3 month, with a short break to get my srv and getting used to horizons, 7 weeks since then... - and i guess I made around 1/6 of my tour. but i got a second account back in november when it was on sale, so i can play in the bubble as well. slows down my exploration speed
to answer your question differently: i do around 1000 ly per day i explore. and i play around 2-2,5 hours a day, if i explore that day. so my average speed is somewhere around 500 ly/ hour exploring (got seriously slower, because i like landing on interesting planets). if i'm not exploring, and only racing (like heading back to the bubble to get the srv), i do around 2000 ly/ hour.
after the core, i made a lot of short exploration runs by visiting all 1000-coordinates (e.g. +1000/-1000/-1000, or +1000/+1000/+1000 and so on), throwing in some local nebulas i didn't visited before... while still taking part in community goals, races and other stuff in the bubble. that was very beautifull as well! also it was fun to test several exploration builds.
i'm now out since 3 month, with a short break to get my srv and getting used to horizons, 7 weeks since then... - and i guess I made around 1/6 of my tour. but i got a second account back in november when it was on sale, so i can play in the bubble as well. slows down my exploration speed
to answer your question differently: i do around 1000 ly per day i explore. and i play around 2-2,5 hours a day, if i explore that day. so my average speed is somewhere around 500 ly/ hour exploring (got seriously slower, because i like landing on interesting planets). if i'm not exploring, and only racing (like heading back to the bubble to get the srv), i do around 2000 ly/ hour.
My expedition to Sag A started similarly to yours, except that I was scanning entire systems. A couple of weeks into the trip I did a quick analysis of my progress compared to the total round trip. Turned out that at the pace I was taking that it would take a little over three years to complete the trip.
So I changed my approach up to cherry picking, like you're doing. A couple more weeks into the trip I repeated the analysis. Came out to around 1.5 years round trip.
I had to change my approach again. I'm patient, but 1.5 years for just a trip to the core and back was unreasonable (for me). I developed the concept of "modes". For me, those modes were:
"survey mode": While in survey mode I scan everything in every system I pass through. Usually I'm not even trying to reach a destination during this mode, but instead hopping around from system to system within a local area.
"exploration mode": I've got a destination, I'm following a route (Fastest), and I'm only glancing at the system map while FSD charges. Unless I spot something interesting I'm not going to scan anything in this system. I'm trying to make tracks without missing any of the "big" finds like ELW or AW.
"travel mode": Not only do I have a destination, I've got a time table. I'm trying to traverse as many LY as I can in as little time as I can manage, and meeting that goal is the only thing that matters. I'm not even looking at the system map now. I'm only scooping while the FSD recharges. The very second recharge is up I'm hitting the FSD and scramming.
This mode approach worked wonders to me, because now I wasn't subverting the purpose of the expedition. Instead I was adjusting my mode given my current situation and a need to attain the overarching goal of my current expedition. My goals were general, with a certain number of LY that I wanted to travel each week. Then I would adjust my mode during each system dependent upon my current progress towards the week's goal. Spending time in a travel mode, where I had no idea if I was missing anything but was covering ground FAST, was made easier because it often enabled me to spend a big chunk of time on the weekend in Survey Mode.
After Sag A I headed generally homeward, but I diverted to a patch of nebulas that were hard to spot in the galaxy map. Got some nice nebula-bound first discoveries for my trouble.
All told, my Sag A expedition took almost exactly 5 months and netted in the ballpark of 76 million credits.
Ok, my advice to you: Pick some waypoints with shiny things, probably 10/11 between you and Sag A*
Nebula are great.
Everytime you start to feel bored race to the next nebula and have some fun exploring the rather unique sights. This way you'll always feel like your making progress and keep it fresh enough to keep going. It also sets a close-by target (usually within 3000Ly that you can aim for instead of the daunting task of the 20,000Ly target).
With a stripped out Asp you are in the great position that you can probably travel about 1,500 to 2000Ly per hour which means if you ever decide enough is enough you can hot-foot it to the bubble. Even with 1hr playtime per day you can be home in 16 days from Sag A*.
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Oh, come on! Space madness is what it's all about! It does wonders for your singing voice, too!
Trip length for me depends heavily on where I am headed. My general method of exploration is to go to where I want to go as fast as possible, explore for a little while (which could be anywhere from a few days to a few months), then head back just as quickly.
Currently my exploration missions are 2 - 3 weeks at a time as I like to mix and match my play style. The mission I'm on right now might extend into 4 weeks as I am a long way below the galactic plane and finding lots of unvisited systems. Someday I may decide to do the pilgrimage to Sag A - If I do I will probably follow the "Pick some waypoints with shiny things" approach as I'd expect most systems to have been mapped many times by all those CMDR's who preceded me.
I'm about to set off on my first real expedition - previously the furthest I traveled was only 1000ly and the round trip took me less than a week (six days one way, one day the other). This time, I've set aside four weeks initially with the expectation of continuing and making up goals as I go along. The first stretch though is going to be a mad dash to get at least 1,000 ly away from the bubble (hopefully will be done tonight). Saying that, while four weeks has been put to one side, every week I'm going to review how much fun I have had - my previous attempt ended prematurely due to boredom....
This time though I'm taking a couple of SRVs for some midnight moon madness, just in case I start talking to the wallpaper...
This time though I'm taking a couple of SRVs for some midnight moon madness, just in case I start talking to the wallpaper...