Hi Commanders, I’m wondering what different methods of exploration you typically employ when far out hopping systems. I suppose visiting every system in a sector would be a monumental task but how would you go about it? Currently I would imagine following the grid lines in galaxy map then increasing/decreasing galactic plane altitude and repeating but I imagine route planner would miss many systems and even double visit as well. Is there a way to somehow remove/add specific systems from a router or alter the route planner’s suggested systems? Is it only possible with 3rd party tools? I’m really looking fwd to hearing what methods you all use!
Different methods of Exploration
- Thread starter ECLIP5E
- Start date
Monumental indeed, and all manual plotting to boot! Even the most fringe, low count sectors have thousands and thousands of stars in them.
First off, third party tools only work with systems that players have already reported to them, so that would be a non starter.
I guess my first question would be how are you envisioning the sector? Are we talking about every system across every mass code for the entire sector? If so, I imagine your best bet would be to switch your gal map filter over to visited/unvisited and manually plot as this would eliminate multiple visits.
First off, third party tools only work with systems that players have already reported to them, so that would be a non starter.
I guess my first question would be how are you envisioning the sector? Are we talking about every system across every mass code for the entire sector? If so, I imagine your best bet would be to switch your gal map filter over to visited/unvisited and manually plot as this would eliminate multiple visits.
I'm not exploring an official "sector", but rather a region of space, and it is my goal to explore all the systems in this self-defined region. I just set my galaxy map filter to "Visited Systems" and use it to manually select my next system to jump to. I bounce back and forth a bit like a Roomba vacuum cleaner, but unlike the Roomba, I never clear the same spot twice.
I've been working on this for awhile now, and it's pretty cool because I've created my own "bubble" when I look at the galaxy map using the aforementioned filter. I've also found some amazing things!
I've been working on this for awhile now, and it's pretty cool because I've created my own "bubble" when I look at the galaxy map using the aforementioned filter. I've also found some amazing things!
Like Old Duck has noted, you'll most likely want the "Visited stars" filter, but there's a lesser-known extra feature that allows you to filter for specific systems. See this thread: you can make a text file of system names that the game will import and mark as Visited on your galaxy map. (You won't see their system maps without actually going there, of course.)
I remember a few people sharing specialized scripts, mostly for going through mass code D systems only, but can't seem to find them now. In any case, the game won't mind if you put non-existent system names into the file, so you can just whip up a quick script of your own to generate all combinations and remove the ones you do want to visit.
However, for exploring an entire sector, you could just go into any of its corners, set the plotter to unvisited systems only, target another corner and go in economic mode. Once you arrive, target another corner. Rinse and repeat until there are no more unvisited stars.
Of course, depending on the star density in the sector, most of the time this is easier said than done!
Wonderful suggestions commanders. I never even thought of using the visited/unvisited filter - I actually forgot all about it! Interesting about the text file import as well, will certainly look into that too.
What I’m attempting is to hit all systems in a grid, small cubes at a time and see how much I can grow it over time. I’m about 8kly from the bubble not that far but far enough that very few systems have been visited so far.
What I’m attempting is to hit all systems in a grid, small cubes at a time and see how much I can grow it over time. I’m about 8kly from the bubble not that far but far enough that very few systems have been visited so far.
I bookmark stages, but stop along the way to check the neighbourhood for interesting things. Could be something catching my eye in the local night sky, or just the stops I do every 10 jumps or so to check filters for interesting features (weird stars, civilisations, ...).
You can also check the Codex for patterns in where and what others have found in where you are, and go trawl for something similar. For example, the [sector name] AA-A search can sometimes find you Wolf-Rayet stars for example. Although they don't necessarily stick to that pattern, at least the rare star types seem more prevalent in the early ranges.
There are always online sources for known stars (giants, supergiants). While these have already been visited, they are still interesting to see and milestones to reach.
S
You can also check the Codex for patterns in where and what others have found in where you are, and go trawl for something similar. For example, the [sector name] AA-A search can sometimes find you Wolf-Rayet stars for example. Although they don't necessarily stick to that pattern, at least the rare star types seem more prevalent in the early ranges.
There are always online sources for known stars (giants, supergiants). While these have already been visited, they are still interesting to see and milestones to reach.
S
On the concept of exploring an entire sector... some drunk napkin maths:
Mostly what I'm saying here is don't be sad when you're not making any visible progress. It's not your fault that the galaxy is big. Really really big. You won't believe how truly mind-bogglingly big it is.
But heck, I sure wish you good luck commander! 07
My personal exploration involves going 'down' about 3-500 light years from the bubble, then radially outwards. It's surprising how many unexplored systems there are within 1kly, and there are acres of planets nobody has even scanned let alone mapped. Given that I don't get paid until I get home, I've bookmarked places I can get to within 30 minutes that nobody has yet bothered visiting
- FDev have apparently said there are over 400 billion stars in the ED galaxy
- there are less than 400 sectors
- each sector must have over a billion stars. Probably more like 10 billion.
- I average about 1 jump per minute, on a honk-and-run strategy
- there are 1440 minutes in a day
- so flying through (no FSS, no detours) a million systems takes... 694 days. If you never sleep.
- or 16,666 hours if that's a more sensible metric
- if you play 1 hour per day like this you can visit 1 million systems at 45 years
- if you play 1 hour per day like this you can visit 1 billion systems in 45,000 years
- now that you are older than all of human and pre-human history, you have seen 0.25% of the Elite Dangerous galaxy
- this is why FDev will never deliver a new galaxy as an expansion
Mostly what I'm saying here is don't be sad when you're not making any visible progress. It's not your fault that the galaxy is big. Really really big. You won't believe how truly mind-bogglingly big it is.
But heck, I sure wish you good luck commander! 07
My personal exploration involves going 'down' about 3-500 light years from the bubble, then radially outwards. It's surprising how many unexplored systems there are within 1kly, and there are acres of planets nobody has even scanned let alone mapped. Given that I don't get paid until I get home, I've bookmarked places I can get to within 30 minutes that nobody has yet bothered visiting
There are several thousand sectors - we're ususally talking about the SUTCHOOE or the WREGOE or the BYUA AUB bit of a system name here, not the Newton's Vault or Fororian Frontier type thing, when someone talks about trying to visit every star in a sector.
Ohhh... so if there were 40,000 sectors, we'd be talking 100,000 systems or... 69 days without sleeping. 100, if you do sleep and someone does all your shopping and cooking?
Actually we're getting into possible territory now. I mean, it's still a solid year's worth for normal humans, and double that if you FSS scan, but... it's imaginable
The generated sectors are cubes 1,280ly on a side (there are hand authored ones near the bubble which are smaller and generally spherical although they can overlap to give irregular shapes). On the edges where that cube is mostly beyond the galaxy and the stellar density in the populated bit is low then you could be into tens of thousands of systems, maybe even less for a handful. In the core 2 billion cubic light years holds a lot of systems.
So it depends where you try to do it.
So it depends where you try to do it.