ELW vs Ammonia World (and where can they be found?)

[Scal]

ELWs are beautiful to find, like little blue gemstones full of promise. If you want to look specifically for them, you will quickly learn about Goldilocks zones, common star types etc - there are loads of resources for this.

But I have to say I love me an Ammonia World - such great variety of colours and temperatures that I am often astounded they can support life. I can't help but wonder how different life is amongst those swirling clouds. Finding an Ammonia World makes an evening of scanning worthwhile for me, but I still haven't figured the secret sauce - where are you most likely to find them? I find far fewer AW than ELW.

Any other commanders out there who love an AW and can share their secret to finding them?

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

ELWs are beautiful to find, like little blue gemstones full of promise. If you want to look specifically for them, you will quickly learn about Goldilocks zones, common star types etc.

But I have to say I love me an Ammonia World - such great variety of colours and temperatures that I am often astounded they can support life. I can't help but wonder how different life is amongst those swirling clouds. Finding an Ammonia World makes an evening of scanning worthwhile for me, but I still haven't figured the secret source - where are you most likely to find them? I find far fewer AW than ELW.

Any other commanders out there who love an AW and can share their secret to finding them?

I'm with you on this. I think they look nicer too. I don't know what to look for to find them but I'm not dedicated enough to work it out either. I find them in the same way I find ELW's using blind luck and that works too.

 

[Sugarat]

Gotta say the variety of AWs makes them a great find. My favourites are "white" foggy ones..



.. as to how and where to find them, I have no scientific approach yet manage to "stumble" across them fairly regularly

 

[Scal]

That's a beautiful example Sugarat - the kind you could easily miss from a cursory glance at the system map!

 

[Jon flint]

I came across a ringed ammonia world (with life) but without an atmosphere?!? Sadly I didn't note down the star type, but the system name was VEGNUAE KD-B B43-18

There's a couple of pics of this oddity on post #7434 of the main distant worlds thread

 

[Jackie Silver]

Any other commanders out there who love an AW and can share their secret to finding them?

They're found in the colder parts of a system. My calculator (link in sig) will give you the approximate boundaries for where they are found in a given system.

It's hard to say what sort of systems you should be looking in, though; I've had surprising luck finding them around giant Herbig Ae/Be protostars but they're hardly common enough to make it worth your while, otherwise they form across all star types as far as I know. I'm doing a series of controlled surveys of particular areas at the moment, but would need more systems than I have.

There does seem to be a peak for "number of worlds in system" at around 1 solar mass, so looking at FGK stars might improve your odds of finding all planets slightly.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Some of the more interesting ones I found. The first two image show a giant AW, the third one is a ringed AW without atmosphere - similar to one what Jon was referring to.


Edit: I also happen to stumble upon them by chance. The last one was around an L-type star, orbiting quite close to the star. I didn't even know why I was opening the system map, but it was a pleasant surprise!

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

They're found in the colder parts of a system. My calculator (link in sig) will give you the approximate boundaries for where they are found in a given system.

It's hard to say what sort of systems you should be looking in, though; I've had surprising luck finding them around giant Herbig Ae/Be protostars but they're hardly common enough to make it worth your while, otherwise they form across all star types as far as I know. I'm doing a series of controlled surveys of particular areas at the moment, but would need more systems than I have.

There does seem to be a peak for "number of worlds in system" at around 1 solar mass, so looking at FGK stars might improve your odds of finding all planets slightly.

As quoted above, Ammonia Worlds have their own habitable zone, with a cooler range of temperatures than for Earth-like Worlds. This makes cooler stars, especially those of type K and M, a good place to look as there is more likely to be a suitably-massive planet in the Ammonia World habitable zone than the Earth-like habitable zone. The tolerance of ammonia-based life for different temperatures and pressures also means that there can be worlds of this type in the distant reaches of systems with hot stars, often in a binary configuration with a gas giant - such planets seem to have a tendency to be quite massive. I have found more Ammonia Worlds than Earth-likes in my travels, perhaps 50% more, but I have not always kept records of my Ammonia World finds and have not included tagged AWs nearer to the bubble.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

On my last long trip I found 39 AWs and 40E-Ls. So I do not think they are significantly rarer, though it probably varies according to where you look.

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

While we are on the subject, I found this beauty today, orbiting a class II gas giant. Goes nicely with the ringed ELW I found a couple of days ago

 

[Turjan]

But what about the OTHER worlds? You know, the "Am I a waterworld or an ammonia world?" worlds?

No? Surely you've seen them?
They look like waterworlds...but when you detail scan them you get stats like this :-

The world shows in the system map and HUD as 'waterworld' but their atmospheres are completely ammoniacal...

Whenever I find Earth-likes or Ammonia worlds or waterworlds, I take a screenshot and later prefix the file name with ELW, NH3 or H2O. But I don't do that with these weird hybrid worlds, they don't fit into any of those categories.

Instead I call them "Whizzworlds"

Because, you know... water + ammonia = whizzworld

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

But what about the OTHER worlds? You know, the "Am I a waterworld or an ammonia world?" worlds?

No? Surely you've seen them?
They look like waterworlds...but when you detail scan them you get stats like this :-

http://i.imgur.com/vYpgF9H.jpg

The world shows in the system map and HUD as 'waterworld' but their atmospheres are completely ammoniacal...

Whenever I find Earth-likes or Ammonia worlds or waterworlds, I take a screenshot and later prefix the file name with ELW, NH3 or H2O. But I don't do that with these weird hybrid worlds, they don't fit into any of those categories.

Instead I call them "Whizzworlds"

Because, you know... water + ammonia = whizzworld

I like that, I think we need to get this made official somehow. Planet P, the whizzworld

 

[Mithrasyn]

This is my pride and joy. Amonia World with no atmosphere and a very large and bright ring around it.
I hope to return one day when landing on it will be possible hopefully.
Location still a secret since data not handed in yet.

Regarding ELW vs AW disscusion just some stats. I'm on Distant Worlds and so far encountered 22 Amonias VS 13 ELW (all undiscovered) in 52 days since we started our trip.

 

[marx]

It's kind of funny (and a bit embarrassing to me) that even though I've been playing since the alpha, I only just realised that ammonia worlds can have white atmospheres too. Never looked at those close enough to realise that they aren't HMC-s or icy bodies. And now, the same day, I find one such planet with an icy ring around it. Good times.
Anyway, I think AW-s are more common than ELW-s simply due to the fact that the range of conditions they can exist under is much wider. The best example would be that, like others have written here, they don't even need to have an atmosphere. I haven't kept a records of my AW finds either, but if someone were to make a list of ammonia worlds, I suspect it would be pretty long.
And a quick look at the results of the Dumbbell Sector Mapping Project: 12 Earth-like and 22 Ammonia worlds found so far.

 

[Pirin]

This is my pride and joy. Amonia World with no atmosphere and a very large and bright ring around it.
I hope to return one day when landing on it will be possible hopefully.
Location still a secret since data not handed in yet.

https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/22NX9SG7.jpg

Regarding ELW vs AW disscusion just some stats. I'm on Distant Worlds and so far encountered 22 Amonias VS 13 ELW (all undiscovered) in 52 days since we started our trip.

For the AW fans Just found something similar. A huge AW (23 472km) with a very big and bright ring

Spoiler