Casual Gamer turned Elite Exploration Enthusiast but needs Advice

[JadedChaos]

Hope my title makes some sense. Could have made it shorter but why bother.

So, please do not judge me for I am still somewhat new to exploration in E but am not new to the game. I have tried pretty much everything in the game and can not tell you how frustrated I got when I figured out that I just wasted a bunch of credits on a new ship just to try out a new profession which ended up not being my thing. Safe to say though I think I have found what I really wanted to do this whole time but never really thought about it being a profession for some reason. So I have some questions but more importantly I would just like some advise b/c google searches don't really give me what I am looking for anymore. Like when I ask if there is an outpost near Sag A* and all I get is an old forum saying that the closest one is back the way you came pretty much yet I came on here and saw someone talking about a place called Colonia which is something like 11,000LY away from Sag A*, not 22,000 or however many LY away Sol or another popular system is. Thanks google advance search...

On to the actual post topic. I have decided to take a trip to see what all this Neutron star talk is all about so I am about 8,000LY away from what I think is the closest Neutron star I can find (Clookie QI-B D13-12). Found it on some nice exploration guide some cmdr wrote up. Very hopeful. My question is really in my method of getting there. More in what im doing while im jumping there. I am plotting my course 1,000LY each time and jumping to specific star types (OBAFGK) along the way but am only popping my ADS and not going around and DSS in the system once I get there. Also scooping while trying not to over heat which is another issue that I believe I have figured out thanks to Nutters video on it. Dont know how old that tread is, its still very useful. Back to it, question is am I wrong for doing this? Wanting to get to this neutron star asap and not bother scanning all these potential objects along the way. I have spent the past week doing that exact thing in the outer rim before deciding to take the journey inward and frankly I just want to get to the better stuff and not worry so much on all those other things that I have already seen. I plan on going back in Galaxy view and reviewing where I jumped and looking back inside those systems to see if I missed anything really important but that might not be for a while seeing as though once I reach a neutron field ill probably be there a while.

Long post for this one question I know but I just want some advice so I can do this thing right even though im anticipating that first neutron star find which might make me a little impatient, which I know could lead to a disaster if im not careful.

Thanks to anyone who comments. Also any other advice about builds and such is appreciated. Decided to make my first trip in a Cobra MK3 to give you an understanding on builds.

 

[tachyondecay]

The Cobra is a fine ship. You should check out the pinned topic Exploration Guides/Lists/Tools/Diaries, for it contains links to all sorts of useful … well, guides, lists, tools, and diaries. This includes advice on builds.

I came on here and saw someone talking about a place called Colonia which is something like 11,000LY away from Sag A*, not 22,000 or however many LY away Sol or another popular system is. Thanks google advance search...

If you search for "Colonia" in the galaxy map, you will see where it is located relative to Sag A* and the Bubble.

If you find that you like exploring, you might find it worthwhile to go out to Colonia. It is still "frontier" territory (pun intended), so there are lots of untagged systems very close to Colonia. You can easily go on short trips, discover new things, and return to the safety of a dock all in a play session or two.

Back to it, question is am I wrong for doing this? Wanting to get to this neutron star asap and not bother scanning all these potential objects along the way. I have spent the past week doing that exact thing in the outer rim before deciding to take the journey inward and frankly I just want to get to the better stuff and not worry so much on all those other things that I have already seen.

There is no "wrong" way to explore. Stick around here long enough and you'll meet explorers who go to Beagle Point in Sidewinders, explorers who use the new neutron star supercharging to make one-way trips to otherwise inaccessible stars … exploration is all about seeing the galaxy on your terms.

Some explorers scan everything they possibly can. Some explorers don't. Do what works for you.

If we stopped to survey every single system on the way to a destination, though, we would never get anywhere. What you're doing makes sense. I am in the habit of checking the system map before I make my next jump. The idea of saving that until the end of your trip makes little sense; not only does the idea of loading all those system maps sound very boring, but if there are interesting bodies in a system, you'd have to backtrack anyway.

It is entirely up to you and your goals. If you want to sightsee and don't particularly care about making credits, scan when you feel like scanning. If you want to make credits while seeing incredible sights, watch some videos about exploration to learn how to determine which bodies are most profitable, and scan those.

 

[varonica]

A couple of things

I am plotting my course 1,000LY each time and jumping to specific star types (OBAFGK) along the way but am only popping my ADS and not going around and DSS in the system once I get there.

You have missed M from your list of stars, remember KGB FOAM.

Thanks to anyone who comments. Also any other advice about builds and such is appreciated. Decided to make my first trip in a Cobra MK3 to give you an understanding on builds.

I am currently making my slow way back from Colonia in a MK3, they are find little ships for the price, although I may change to a Keelback so I can carry a SLF for canyon running.

Keep in mind the point of exploration, to find new and interesting stuff......then kill it! No that was a joke. Always check the system map for extraordinary bodies, memorise basic records, or write them down, such as largest landable planet, highest gravity etc and if you think you have a candidate go and put your name on it and post it to the relevant link. Once you actually get exploring you will find you relax and 8000ly is suddenly not that far

Have fun out the, and if you sometimes feel like a change of atmosphere drop onto a small active body and look for volcanic activity, check out the geyser and fumarole thread for good ideas of how to find them.

 

[JadedChaos]

You have missed M from your list of stars, remember KGB FOAM.

I have actually taken it off my list for now b/c I found those star systems to be rather dull and never had much in them lol. I will add it back in when I start finding it hard to jump to scoopable planets unless thats stupid. Havent found it to be much of an issue yet with being almost 10,000LY Rutu, my starting system.

To Tach- I have actually already bookmark Colonia once I saw it in the forums along with multiple other neutron locations and blackholes I think. Cant wait to get to it really but first I apparently have a neutron field only about 1800LY from where I am now which I will be scanning most everything.

I also thought about how stupid it would be to back track systems if I actaully found something so I will probably just stick with scanning once I enter a field I like but until then ill just be honking along... I do have some nice bookmarks now after going through these forums

 

[iain666]

If you're heading corewards then you'll be fine skipping M most of the time. On the rim or in the gaps between the arms where the stars get more sparse then you'll need to hit them more often - and I've found quite a few earth-likes in M systems so don't discount them entirely as always boring.

The Mk III is a fine ship, done 500kly in mine this trip so far...

 

[JadedChaos]

and I've found quite a few earth-likes in M systems so don't discount them entirely as always boring.

thats very interesting. thanks for the heads up!

 

[PiggyPiggyPig]

You can travel quicker by jumping to cooler stars like M or K as your fuel scoop will cool down quicker allowing you to spool up the friendship drive sooner without the risk of over heating gaining you precious seconds on each and every jump.

 

[iain666]

Plus, the most reliable income stream (without going to a neutron field) for explorers is terraformable HMCs and finding those means checking the habitable zone. For your A or F stars that won't even start until past 500ls out but for your M systems it's done with before you get to 200ls.

 

[Col Frost]

Commander, if you are heading to the core, feel free to drop by and say hello. I am Earth Like World hunting in the sub sector Zunou GS-B D13-0 - Zunou GS-B D13-9880. If you haven't tried it it is worth a go, I've found 7 today alone Commander Johnny Frost

 

[Sapyx]

If you just want to see a neutron star and/or try out the neutron star supercharging effect, there are isolated neutron stars much closer to Sol than 8000 LY. There's one in the 18 Camelopardalis system, just 139 LY from Sol; Beta Sculptoris down in Imperial space is another that's inhabited, with three stations. Now that you can filter the galaxy map by star class, finding isolated neutron stars and black holes is fairly easy: just switch off all the star types except "non-sequence" and scroll the map around until you find one. Of course, since they're so easy, the chances of you finding one first are pretty low unless you're several thousand LYs away.

However, for neutron star fields, entire sectors and subsectors full of thousands of neutron stars tightly packed together, then yes, you have to travel several thousand LYs Corewards and 1000 LY Down or Up to find them.

As for the question of whether you're "doing it right" or not, you really only have to consider your answers to the following two questions:
1. Is what I'm doing against the letter or the spirit of the rules of the game or breaking the user agreement I agreed to when I bought it?
2. Am I having fun?

If the answer to the first question is "no" and the answer to the second question is not "no", then you can safely conclude that "you're doing it right".

There are numerous threads here in the Exploration subforum discussing the various "styles" or "methods" of exploration. It all depends on what your goals are, which might include:
- Reaching Elite in Exploration?
- Getting your CMDR name Tagged on as many stars and planets as you can?
- Finding Earth-Like planets or other rarities?
- Reaching scenic or famous faraway destinations?
- Finding the "extremes", the oddities, the weird and wonderful exceptions to the 99.9% of the universe that's rather bland, boring and much the same as all the other bland, boring parts of the universe?
- Contributing towards a community project, either an in-game one such as a Community Goal or long-haul passenger mission, or an out-of-game one such as the List of Earth-likes or one of the Great Expeditions?

For myself, I have some specific destinations in mind but am in no particular hurry to get there, so I do tend to stop and scan things at every star I visit. I'm in the Outer Core now so I've restricted my flightpath to A, F and G type stars (they're most likely to have Earth-likes) as well as the oddities (carbon, Wolf-Rayet, neutron, black hole) to try to minimize the number of "boring" iceballs-only systems I pass through. Besides the "usual" Earthlikes, Waterworlds and Ammonia worlds that everybody stops and scans, I'll scan any HMC planet bigger than 0.1 Earth-masses within my guesstimate of the star's habitable zone, looking for terraformables, as well as Class II gas giants (they're the only giant that pays well) and I'll scan anything else that's either within scan range of the jump-in point and/or that I'm going to be flying right past anyhow so I may as well stop and scan it. Whether or not I fly out to a secondary star depends entirely on how good the targets are going to be when I get out there.

 

[iain666]

I'll scan any HMC planet bigger than 0.1 Earth-masses within my guesstimate of the star's habitable zone, looking for terraformables

CFTs go down to about 0.07ish EM (0.0633 is the lightest record holder on Universal Cartographics).

Also JackieSilver was kind enough to allow me to rip off some code from their HabZone Calculator so if you use ED Discovery the next version will include a hab zone calculation in the scan details displayed for stars which has increased my hit rate for getting a CFT when I scan a likely candidate quite significantly.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

I have been casually getting to Elite in exploration since release - (June 2015) I gained Elite about a month ago, its not an easy or quick task.

if your having fun doing whatever your doing keep doing it, when it becomes boring and monotonous that's when your doing it wrong.

 

[Palinson]

The nice thing about exploring is that you're doing what you want, on your terms.

Some days I scan every single rock in every systems. Other days I just jump, honk, and jump again. Still other days I might scan every single star but not bother with anything else in a system that doesn't look like an Earth Like World.

Most days I'm doing a mix. Whatever I feel like at the time. If I get too bored jumping, I find a nice planet and land, get out the SRV, and cruise around for a while.

 

[ihtyrrommel]

if u ask me "what is to reach?" I tell u "it is the voyage my friend... the voyage"... dont expect too much from your destinations or else disappointment is waiting u there...

 

[Qohen Leth]

If you wish to explore with other people, whether for tourism or science research, have a look at the Expedition Hub.

 

[Mysturji]

Sorry if this makes you groan, but the nearest Neutron star to the bubble is a lot closer than 8000 LY (Apparently, there's even one inside the bubble: Jackson's Lighthouse, but I've never been there).
I found a couple just about 1900LY away, and practiced superjumping between them:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...f-boost-tips?p=4616474&viewfull=1#post4616474
There are several other threads on surviving NS & WD supercharging. There's also one all about the Neutron fields: Basically, as you near the core, about 1000 LY above and below 0 on the galactic plane, there are HUGE areas just packed with Neutron stars (and every other kind too).
Best of luck CMDR! o7

 

[SMcA]

[Snip]

There is no "wrong" way to explore.

V good advice.