Newcomer / Intro Exploration questions...

[McGyverCP]

Hail Commanders! o7

Well, I have finally left my home system (LHS 20) and have headed out into the black in my DBX. Currently, I am about 3,500+ LYs out and figure that 25K to 30K should be a good distance to travel. On my way so far, I have come across several systems that only had the Stars discovered, but no planets were shown as found. When I Honked one system, there were 10 planets there. I found that odd, but it made me think that maybe the Commander who was passing through was playing back before the new FSS/DSS system was used and they just didn't "see" the planets. Or, in other cases, some planets were discovered and others in the same system were not. This is why I came up with the "Before New/After New" theory in that the older ones only Honked out so far and didn't see the further out planets.

Okay, to my questions...(Note: I play solo, so I won't come across Real Commanders little alone NPC ones out where I am)

1) Can I just pull over in a nice piece of quiet space and log out of the game, or is it better to find a planet to land on and camp for the night? I know that when you are not docked in a station, you are constantly burning fuel at the rate per hour shown on the meter. I have the stock 5C fuel tank, so I know I have 32 tons of fuel, so it would take a while to burn it all up. But unless an NPC happens to come across me sitting there in space (not likely) can they "attack" me if I am logged out of the game while in space? I have logged out while in space, but only a quick logout/login so for this I'm not sure.

2) I was FSS'ing a system and as I would lock onto a body, (First time I noticed this) the "scanning" circle in the corner was taking a while to finish. Mind you, I just usually click on the body, wait for it to resolve, and move on to the next. This one took about 30 seconds to finish scanning and when it did, it showed there were 42 Geological Sites on the body. This blew my mind...All this time I thought you had to do a DSS on a body to get the surface info. So, do I have to wait for it to finish scanning completely to get the info, or will it continue to "scan" when I zoom back out and move to the next body. Also, the data I have collected, when I get back to the Bubble, will the planets I have mapped or scanned to get the surface data on be available to anyone who wants to see it once I turn it in?

3) Same as above, I have mapped a couple of ringed gas giants, will the Hotspots I found in the rings be available for others to see if they do a search? Yeah, one had Void Opals and Low Temp Diamonds, and it IS a big galaxy so I am sure I will find more. Just one of those "Share the Wealth" type things that I don't mind doing to help others.

So far, my trip out has been uneventful. With my 56+ LY legs, my DBX is covering distance nicely. For those who are still on the fence about getting the G5 FSD upgrades...Get Them! I am doing 1000 light years in about 19 hops. Even with scanning and mapping (as needed) I was able to do the 3,500+ light years in just a few hours of game play yesterday. Had I wanted to just hop without scanning, I could have easily done 5,000+ LYs in the same time if not farther.

Knock On Hullplate, I haven't had to use the Field Maintenance Unit...but had I NOT taken it, I surely would have smacked into something and died. Looking down on the Galaxy Map, I am heading approximately WNW away from LHS 20. Hopefully, I will find lots of cool stuff...Time and Distance will tell.

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

 

[Micha]

Your analysis of the discovered Star but undiscovered Planets is likely correct, although a lot of Commanders even now just "honk, scoop, and jump", so you'll often come across systems where the stars have been discovered but not the planets.

1) Yes, although don't log out in the path of planets or inside asteroid rings etc. Best to pull out of the plane of the ecliptic before logging out. Personally I like to roleplay and try to find a nice planet to shut down for the night. While logged out you don't burn fuel, so don't worry about leaving the game for a couple of weeks if necessary. Also, when you're logged out, you're effectively removed from the Universe. Nobody can find you or hurt your ship.

2) No you don't have to wait for the scanning to finish (although the FSS gets choppy if you have bodies still resolving in the background). No, other Commanders will see the basic system information after you sell your data, but in order to see the Geological Sites they will need to map the planet themselves.

3) As for (2)

Enjoy your explorations, Commander, and may you always have a scoopable star in range

PS. if you run out of fuel, call the Fuel Rats
PPS. you might want to extend your trip out to 5000LY if you're already out this far... could come handy..

 

[aRJay]

You can logout safely whilst in space as long as you take precautions. While you are logged out space and everything in it is moving so if you log out near something there is a possibility that when you log back in that object will have moved into the space you are now trying to log into, this is a bad thing. The precautions to avoid this are don't park in a ring or asteroid cluster and don't park in front of a planet or moon on its orbital path, I tend to just fly out of the orbital plane slightly and then park. While you aren't logged in you aren't using fuel, this is why the Fuel Rats can be so successful.

With the old system you had to actually fly to the planets to properly discover them, this is now done by using the FSS.

Edit: Note to self type faster than the ninja's.

 

[MoonRacer]

Hello Fellow Explorer!

Trying to answer:
ad 1) - You can log off literally everywhere, you will just disappear from the game, not burn fuel, take damage or something. It should be safe. If you log off in SC, you will drop to normal space (you will see it as you log in again). You also can log of on a planet surface. They designed the game so, that even if you loose connection, nothing evil should happen.
A few caveats: Sitting on a planets surface normally works fine, but it can go wrong - but only in very rare cases. I did it quite often and never had any problems.
Logging out in Deep Space is safe, but you should try not to log out in planets orbital path. If you log in while the planet is there something may break. The same goes for logging out in unsafe places near a star, or something like that. If you fly out of the orbital plane, then set your throttle in SC to zero, wait a moment and then drop, it should be safest everywhere. This is what I usually do.

ad 2) - Yes, this is normal. It takes an awful long time, and there is a bug report about it. It is not exactly a bug, but bad design, I think. You can abort it by zooming back, the information is there. But not visible
The problem is, that you see Geological and Biological Sites on a planet, but only in FSS. In the System Map they are not entered, despite you have the information from FSS. They are entered into the System Map as soon as you map the surface (DSS). Bad design, first we wait for ages to learn that there are x geo/bio-sites, then the only way to look them up is in the FSS itself. This is a bit silly.
And you do not have to wait, just continue to scan/zoom in and out, and if you later go back to the planet it should be there, or finish soon. Or you can ignore it entirely. The problem with ignoring it on principle is, that you will not map every body in a system, this takes very long and does not bring much money or results. This way you can miss biological sites which could be interesting. Experience will tell you after a while, how to handle this.
And to add insult to injury - it does not matter how many points of interest there are - it always takes a long time. Bad design, IMHO.

ad 3) - Scanning rings will bring nothing, no money, no discoveries. It makes sense only if you want to mine there. And others will not see this, they will have to map themselves. So do it if you like, but it is not necessary. The same goes for surface mapping other objects, Icy Bodies, Gas Giants, and so on. There is a picture somewhere on this forums with the exploration payouts. Surface mapping brings the most money for ELWs, Waterworlds and terraformable planets. It brings a bit for High Metal planets. Then it tapers off rather sharply, so that it makes no sense to spend the time.

The DBX is my ship of choice - I do not want a bigger one and have traveled around 56.000 ly with mine, according to my logs. I have the Guardian FSD booster too, and a jump range of 60.9 ly. This is enough to get nearly everywhere. I also never needed my AFMU, but still have one if I ever get around to use neutron boosting.
And mind - my DBX has an A-rated shield and weapons. It is no paper flier, in a lighter and less defensible design I could bring it to around 64 ly jump range.

o7

 

[Rustnsawdust]

only had the Stars discovered, but no planets were shown as found

This isn't unusual, and it isn't new. From way back, many commanders jumped/honked/jumped. You'll often find stars 'discovered' while the planets and moons aren't.

1. I take a medium position: I don't bother to land, but I move some distance from the star before logging off. I just returned from a 6-month break and my ship was exactly as I left it.
2. Long planet and moon scans are usually (always?) because there are geological or biological sites on the body, which take longer to resolve. Seems logical to me.

As to the AFMU, I did all of my early exploring without one. I've had one for the last few (in-game) months but never used it. One of those 'better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it' things.

Fly safe, but have fun!

 

[Para Handy]

Just a note on the body scan delay. This for some reason is linked to your refresh rate, so having V-sync ON or a FPS limit in operation causes the scan to take an inordinately long time. I turn off V-sync when exploring so that these scans are much MUCH quicker. Of course that means my feet are kept toasty as my graphics card is running hotter (60°+ compared to well under fan startup at 55° in-game otherwise) with frame rates in the many hundreds.

(It is V annoying and smacks of sloppy coding, or else the Devs decided to say "make the scan last a number of frames to make it look like it is doing something" - or in other words "let's take the pi**".)

 

[Micha]

(It is V annoying and smacks of sloppy coding

It's likely legacy code - if you notice, Biological, Human, and Alien signals resolve instantly when they are on a planet without Geologicals. It's only the Geologicals which take for-bleeping-ever.
There's loads of threads about this; one of the most popular seems to be to just report -whether- a body has each type of signal, not how many, and leave it up to the Surface Probes to resolve how many.

 

[Para Handy]

....
There's loads of threads about this; .........

Yes I have moaned about it in many threads.

One of the "ancillary" effects of having unlimited FPS is that of making mouse-movement in the explo screens slower too. It is annoying when doing space-darts for example. Anyhoo - that's separate - I just wanted to let the OP know what affects the "scanning" time.

 

[MoonRacer]

Just a note on the body scan delay. This for some reason is linked to your refresh rate, so having V-sync ON or a FPS limit in operation causes the scan to take an inordinately long time. I turn off V-sync when exploring so that these scans are much MUCH quicker. Of course that means my feet are kept toasty as my graphics card is running hotter (60°+ compared to well under fan startup at 55° in-game otherwise) with frame rates in the many hundreds.

(It is V annoying and smacks of sloppy coding, or else the Devs decided to say "make the scan last a number of frames to make it look like it is doing something" - or in other words "let's take the pi**".)

I think, it is intentional, at least the delay in itself. Maybe they have at this (UI) coding level no better delay routines than those, that are linked to the frame refresh rate. I think, they thought they would have to delay use of the FSS, and as usual they only test inside the bubble, where most player are. Since the FSS can be used with (limited) payout there too, they probably wanted to stop money schemes. It cannot be targeted at explorers, since money payout is quite low. I just came back from a 2000 ly explorers trip, with around 30-40 first discoveries, including several WW and 2 ELW. I received short under 200 million for it, but was on my way for 4 days, and played around 24 hours al in all. So the '100 million per hour' schemes beat exploration down handed, even if they are in reality only 25-50 mio per hour schemes.

Also - to add insult to injury - they make us wait for ages if you have a Gas Giant with many orbiting moons and a lot of locations, and then just do not enter the information into the System Map after FSS! So you can easily miss bio sites, since geo sites at least are marked as 'water geysers' or something like that. Bio sites are entered into the System Map after DSS, and not after FSS, and after you waited for ages for them to show up in the FSS. The only way not to forget about it is a good memory or taking notes, and then checking in the completed FSS scan, because they are not entered into System Map.

They do not test their changes in the explorer role, I think. Some of it is probably intentional, some consequences for explorers are ignored.

With a bit of experience one can 'optimize' it by zooming out and stopping the scan and later come back to this body, but this is error prone...

 

[McGyverCP]

Thanks everyone for the info. As to the Parking, it is what I figured, but I wanted to be sure. I have logged off on planets while I was mining, but never really paid attention to the fuel usage so that was a bigger concern. Nothing says suck like running out of fuel while landed on a planet. Not sure if even the Fuel Rats could save that crisis.

The scanning thing is kind of sad in the fact that the data you collect doesn't get shared among the others in the game. Yes, I can understand that maybe the Devs want to make it so that instead of just going to the Great Galactic Yellow Pages and searching for "Void Opal Hot Spots" they make you put some effort into it. And as you get nothing from Ring scanning, I will stop worrying about it, unless it looks like a promising site I would come back to later.

Did another 1,200+ LYs last night...Found one system that the farthest orbiting body was 557,000 ls from the arrival point. No...I didn't go look...But had it have been an ELW, yeah, I would have made the trip. Another thing I have noticed is that it seems the ratio of Icy Body type planets are about 15:1 or so compared to WW's or ELW's (only found 2 of them so far, close to the bubble and already discovered, but I did map them anyway). Just made me realize how much thought the Devs have put into this game. Common sense (and looking at our own Solar System) would tend to be that there would be a much larger number of icy planetoids compared to large planets.

Still going, will report if I see Space Aliens!

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

 

[Dommarraa]

Watch out, you will start learning some astrophysics.
It's all star temperature which happens to fit that phrase you may have seen regarding fuel scooping. Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me.
O being hottest, M being coolest.
Ms will almost always just have icey, cos it's too cold. Os will have rocky nearby, with icey far out.

There is so much you can learn, or notice, then find out it's a real fact with a real name and a real purpose.

 

[McGyverCP]

Watch out, you will start learning some astrophysics.
It's all star temperature which happens to fit that phrase you may have seen regarding fuel scooping. Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me.
O being hottest, M being coolest.
Ms will almost always just have icey, cos it's too cold. Os will have rocky nearby, with icey far out.

There is so much you can learn, or notice, then find out it's a real fact with a real name and a real purpose.

Yeah, growing up I wanted to be an Astronomer...then I realized that the math was about 3 levels above my pay grade...Still love the stars though. Currently listening to "How the Universe Works" on YouTube...I got bored at work so I calculated the distance I have gone so far on my trip...4,932.24 LY. Almost at the 5,000 LY's needed for one of the engineers (not sure which one at the moment). I plan on going at least 25 to 30K out, then tack to the galactic center side a couple thousand LYs and then head home. So maybe a 50-60K LY trip...If I can get in about 1,000LY a night after work, then it should take about 2 months...Man, I just realized how far that is, and, why when people talk about going out for a while, what they mean now.

The Galaxy is a Very Big Place.

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

 

[colprice2002]

Hi,
Glad you're enjoying the scenery!

One minor point regards open Vs solo:-
Once you've left the bubbles (inhabited regions around Sol and Colonia), you're unlikely to see another CMDR - I took a 'conda round the galaxy edge (opposite side to Colonia) in open, all the way to Beagle point, only dropping into Solo for Sag A.
Only saw other ships at the tourist beacons - and NPC's at that. No-one is really going to take a Dolphin sightseeing tour to Beagle!

Fly casual

 

[Micha]

One minor point regards open Vs solo:-

There have been rare cases of Commanders camping out at well-known exploration destinations such as SagA* or the Guardian sites destroying any Explorers, so at the very least keep your eyes open when approaching such places. But yes, the risk, once out of the Bubble, is minuscule.

There's also plenty of exploration-related PG's if you're lonely in Solo but don't want the risk of Open.

Fly the way you want

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

What would be interesting IMHO for explorers, would be the galactic jump like we had in the orignal Elite.

Imagine having more galaxies to explore. Mind you, our current one still has oodles of room no doubt and, just bunging in another galaxy or thousand, probably wouldn't be the easiest of tasks...

 

[Micha]

Imagine having more galaxies to explore. Mind you, our current one still has oodles of room no doubt and, just bunging in another galaxy or thousand, probably wouldn't be the easiest of tasks...

Actually, with procedural generation it's fairly trivial; just use another "galaxy seed" and let the Stellar Forge do the rest. With the benefit that in a fictional galaxy you don't have to worry about loading in all the real star catalogues and manual modifications and other hacks that have been necessary for "our" galaxy.

It would, largely, be the same though. Sure, the system and sector names would be different and the star distributions would be slightly different, but overall it would be very very similar.

So pretty much no point. As you pointed out, we still have oodles of room here. I just lament the fact that FDev failed to slow exploration down when the game first launched; it would have been far more interesting if we were slowly exploring/expanding out from the Bubble instead of being able to just go wherever we want (Permit-locked regions excepting).

 

[aRJay]

What would be interesting IMHO for explorers, would be the galactic jump like we had in the orignal Elite.

Imagine having more galaxies to explore. Mind you, our current one still has oodles of room no doubt and, just bunging in another galaxy or thousand, probably wouldn't be the easiest of tasks...

Yes but the original Elite galaxies only contained a couple of hundred stars or thereabouts so the jump was to allow the next set to be loaded. Currently we have explored a minuscule fraction of the galaxy.

According to the site Elite Dangerous Star Map “40,997,164 systems stored, 0.010246% of the galaxy has been discovered on EDSM, it will take 38,798 years, 5 months, 20 days to discover it entirely”. So plenty to go at.

 

[McGyverCP]

Hail Commanders!

Here is a new experience that I had last night. I popped into a system and honked while I fueled. After fueling, I brought up screen One, and then the system map to get an idea of what I was working with. The Honk said 8 objects, and the sensors picked up 3, so only 5 more to go. I scroll over the Star and see that it is Undiscovered.

Nice...Now the rest of the story. I start up the Scanner and start locating planets...One comes up and it is an HMCW, but at the bottom of the screen it said that it had been Discovered by another Commander...Huh? I found that sort of impossible to believe as for the planet to have been discovered, the Star would also have to be discovered. Sorta like putting the cart before the horse. I dropped out of FSS and check the system map again. Nope, Not Discovered, but the third rock from the sun had been, and no others. I went back to FSS, finished scanning the system, and then went over and Mapped the HMCW just because...Then headed on my way.

So have any of you Commanders come across a system that had Planets showing as discovered but the Star was not?

P.S. Finally, after about 20 jumps I found and mapped another undiscovered Water World...Not a single ELW yet (that had not been previously found) but I'm still looking.

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

 

[aRJay]

Hail Commanders!

Here is a new experience that I had last night. I popped into a system and honked while I fueled. After fueling, I brought up screen One, and then the system map to get an idea of what I was working with. The Honk said 8 objects, and the sensors picked up 3, so only 5 more to go. I scroll over the Star and see that it is Undiscovered.

Nice...Now the rest of the story. I start up the Scanner and start locating planets...One comes up and it is an HMCW, but at the bottom of the screen it said that it had been Discovered by another Commander...Huh? I found that sort of impossible to believe as for the planet to have been discovered, the Star would also have to be discovered. Sorta like putting the cart before the horse. I dropped out of FSS and check the system map again. Nope, Not Discovered, but the third rock from the sun had been, and no others. I went back to FSS, finished scanning the system, and then went over and Mapped the HMCW just because...Then headed on my way.

So have any of you Commanders come across a system that had Planets showing as discovered but the Star was not?

P.S. Finally, after about 20 jumps I found and mapped another undiscovered Water World...Not a single ELW yet (that had not been previously found) but I'm still looking.

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

Yes in the old system you only discovered planets and stars by targeting them and waiting for the scan so it would be quite possible to arrive and ADS the system then head off to the high value planets to scan them and not bother collecting the star as well. The new system picks up the star automatically.

 

[McGyverCP]

Yes in the old system you only discovered planets and stars by targeting them and waiting for the scan so it would be quite possible to arrive and ADS the system then head off to the high value planets to scan them and not bother collecting the star as well. The new system picks up the star automatically.

Thanks Commander...I knew there had to be a scientific explanation. When I first saw it I though the game had wonked up or something. Currently, I'm 6,603 LYs out of LHS 20. Was able to get 1,500 LYs in last night. Found one system with 34 bodies (if I remember right) orbiting 3 G Class stars. Found another system that consisted of 5 stars, a Red Dwarf, and the rest either T Tauri or Brown Dwarfs. First Quintenary System I have ever come across.

Gotta love Space...

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7