He was goaded?
18 post of positive 'we are all explorers together'. 1 of, 'that is mine, die thief'. Not bad odds really.
Competitiveness and the Spirit of Exploration
- Thread starter Jackie Silver
- Start date
18 post of positive 'we are all explorers together'. 1 of, 'that is mine, die thief'. Not bad odds really.
I used to like exploring; even flew all the way out to the Eta Carina nebula in a cobra. I guess I was expecting too much, because after about the hundredth white star I was falling out of my chair from sheer boredom. There was nothing new or interesting out there. Just a red place, which to be fair, LOOKED different, but changed absolutely nothing for me.
The competitiveness of exploration stems from the finite; once everything's been named, half the point of 'exploring' disappears. Would-be explorers know this, so they rush to be the first just to avoid being left out. We tell ourselves this won't happen in any reasonable amount of time, but we also thought it was supposed to take a long time to get an expensive ship like the anaconda--look how well THAT notion held up...
If the galaxy was a little more alive, with some forms of actual events and changes to the universe, exploring would be much more of an adventure. Comets, meteor showers, stars going nova, unusual gravitic occurrences, SOMETHING other than the stationary universe we have now would make exploring much more fun on it's own merits, rather than just for the reward of naming something or getting credits. When exploring is so predictable that you can strip your ship of everything but a scanner and a scoop and never have a single problem, I have to claim there's room for improvement. The Enterprise's voyages weren't interesting because of how many places they went to; they were interesting because of the challenges the crew ran into, the situations they found themselves in, and the puzzles they had to solve. Their preparedness was constantly tested; in ED, if you have fuel, a jump range, and scanners, bravo--you're an explorer. Yippee. *lazily throws confetti*
I just wish it asked more of us and provided a few surprises in return.
The competitiveness of exploration stems from the finite; once everything's been named, half the point of 'exploring' disappears. Would-be explorers know this, so they rush to be the first just to avoid being left out. We tell ourselves this won't happen in any reasonable amount of time, but we also thought it was supposed to take a long time to get an expensive ship like the anaconda--look how well THAT notion held up...
If the galaxy was a little more alive, with some forms of actual events and changes to the universe, exploring would be much more of an adventure. Comets, meteor showers, stars going nova, unusual gravitic occurrences, SOMETHING other than the stationary universe we have now would make exploring much more fun on it's own merits, rather than just for the reward of naming something or getting credits. When exploring is so predictable that you can strip your ship of everything but a scanner and a scoop and never have a single problem, I have to claim there's room for improvement. The Enterprise's voyages weren't interesting because of how many places they went to; they were interesting because of the challenges the crew ran into, the situations they found themselves in, and the puzzles they had to solve. Their preparedness was constantly tested; in ED, if you have fuel, a jump range, and scanners, bravo--you're an explorer. Yippee. *lazily throws confetti*
I just wish it asked more of us and provided a few surprises in return.
I think a lot of players are travellers rather than explorers, often the questions are about maximising jump range which for the majority of the galaxy is unimportant.
I've had to wait until now to make a journey to specific star as it simply wasn't possible until jumponium and modified engineers (in fact it may still not be possible, I can't tell until i get closer and I'm now hunting jumponium ingredients to find out) but that isn't needed for most players, what they really want is to fats travel, find the good stuff and get back quick.
There are fewer explorers who are just wandering around and seeing what's out there.
I've had to wait until now to make a journey to specific star as it simply wasn't possible until jumponium and modified engineers (in fact it may still not be possible, I can't tell until i get closer and I'm now hunting jumponium ingredients to find out) but that isn't needed for most players, what they really want is to fats travel, find the good stuff and get back quick.
There are fewer explorers who are just wandering around and seeing what's out there.
Interesting points.
About the finite size of the galaxy, I'm doing some experiments at the moment to get an idea of just how much is left to discover.
I flew out on a line to the "northeast" of Sol, looking at all stars in the HIP catalogue in a narrow slice starting at about 300pc away. Now I'm flying "northwest" of Sol in the general direction of Scutum with the Jaunt to Jaques expedition doing the same thing.
Results so far are here* - while I haven't analysed the whole thing to death yet, my first impressions are that as you'd expect, after about 2 Kylies you're much more likely to find untagged hand-authored star systems, and that you're much more likely to find untagged stars if they're cooler; I suspect people are searching the galmap with filters enabled and not seeing red giants as a consequence. And you're much more likely to find untagged star systems if they're not in a cluster; people have been drawn to the clusters. And you're much more likely to find untagged stars above or below the plane. Overall, there's a *lot* of untagged systems out there. I've had pages of "you were first to discover HD 123456."
As a responsible tagger
I only usually scan the primary and any worlds that look particularly interesting; sometimes I tag the furthest or smallest world just so future visitors don't think I was being lazy.
You can also see how indifferently the stars in Elite match up with their real-life companions, though astronomy is surely inexact.
*more details on each system are recorded on the star log linked in my signature.
About the finite size of the galaxy, I'm doing some experiments at the moment to get an idea of just how much is left to discover.
I flew out on a line to the "northeast" of Sol, looking at all stars in the HIP catalogue in a narrow slice starting at about 300pc away. Now I'm flying "northwest" of Sol in the general direction of Scutum with the Jaunt to Jaques expedition doing the same thing.
Results so far are here* - while I haven't analysed the whole thing to death yet, my first impressions are that as you'd expect, after about 2 Kylies you're much more likely to find untagged hand-authored star systems, and that you're much more likely to find untagged stars if they're cooler; I suspect people are searching the galmap with filters enabled and not seeing red giants as a consequence. And you're much more likely to find untagged star systems if they're not in a cluster; people have been drawn to the clusters. And you're much more likely to find untagged stars above or below the plane. Overall, there's a *lot* of untagged systems out there. I've had pages of "you were first to discover HD 123456."
As a responsible tagger
I only usually scan the primary and any worlds that look particularly interesting; sometimes I tag the furthest or smallest world just so future visitors don't think I was being lazy. You can also see how indifferently the stars in Elite match up with their real-life companions, though astronomy is surely inexact.
*more details on each system are recorded on the star log linked in my signature.
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Philip Coutts
Volunteer Moderator
Shooting someone down and making them lose countless hours of exploration data does seem a little over the top to me but that's just my opinion.
This guy has boasted with his bad behaviour before, lets not feed him.
Competitiveness is in my opinion too deep embedded in the human soul to generally be overcome by rationality or ethos. The strive to be the first, the quickest, the strongest... will be there forever and the pure ethos-guys will be the ones that will never break records. You'll have to decide if this bothers you or not. Even in quite calm, civilized and rational societies like in most "western countries" the real / unforgiving competition is just cloaked or happening behind the curtains. Ambitious people just have to hide their ambitions more, pretend to be more kind and/or understanding not to incite too much envy or even hate.
This may sound a bit harsh and bad, but it is not meant that way. I've met so many nice people here and I for myself don't bother with records - it's a game for me and I want to relax. Putting myself on a simliar stress as in real life would be quite unlogic.
Competitiveness is in my opinion too deep embedded in the human soul to generally be overcome by rationality or ethos. The strive to be the first, the quickest, the strongest... will be there forever and the pure ethos-guys will be the ones that will never break records. You'll have to decide if this bothers you or not. Even in quite calm, civilized and rational societies like in most "western countries" the real / unforgiving competition is just cloaked or happening behind the curtains. Ambitious people just have to hide their ambitions more, pretend to be more kind and/or understanding not to incite too much envy or even hate.
This may sound a bit harsh and bad, but it is not meant that way. I've met so many nice people here and I for myself don't bother with records - it's a game for me and I want to relax. Putting myself on a simliar stress as in real life would be quite unlogic.
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I'm not bothered so much that people are grabbing and mean - it's when they think that they're being clever to be grabbing and mean that it annoys me most. Thickoes.
(which goes some way to explaining my detestation of the pseudoscience of economics...)
Thickoes. (which goes some way to explaining my detestation of the pseudoscience of economics...)
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I can't imagine shooting an unarmed explorer over a first discovery. Lot better to share....
I never boasted about it, it originally came to light on the forum because I advised a new player it was risky to fly without weapons and shields when exploring and was immediately shouted down by half a dozen other players saying it was a pointless waste of mass and there was no need at all.
Now bearing in mind that I knew I flew with weapons and would defend "my data" if required (I like to RP in this game and that's how i choose to play rightly OR wrongly) I surmised that i would not be the only one doing this but as i hadn't seen any evidence of it i brought up my own experience as an example knowing I would get crap for it.
and, as I said before, it wasn't long after that that armed players at Sag A started killing explorers and an armed response had to be organised.
I owned up to it AND predicted I was not the only one AND advised players not to fly unarmed and yet it's still me "Boasting".
What are you lot going to do if you get interdicted by Thargoids? Tell them it's wrong to carry guns?