Exploration value formulae

[Ziljan]

When Zulu got there, the the system map solar mass value was "1.0000", strangely enough.

The 1,300 solar masses seem to come from confusion with GCIRS 13E, btw. (Not the first time I saw it confused with Sag A*'s mass, either.)

1.0000 ? Wow that is some cool trivial. So that means they did attempt to "fix" it, but for some reason used another low mass number? Very strange. Good eye with the GCIRS 12E catch, btw. Wikipedia is getting more and more astounding each year. Pretty soon it will surpass google.

 

[Flash_Baggins]

This is great thanks!

 

[dayrth]

I hope someone finds this useful.

I did. Many thanks

 

[Kuroshio]

Just want to point out that using the regular black hole formula, and the figure of 516,608 solar masses, the formula spits out ~335,304,040. However, most objects were believed to be increased by about 20% in value for 2.0, and they were double before that when they "buffed" exploration payouts.

335304040 / 1.2 / 2.0 =~ 139,710,000 - that's 139MCr.

Interesting to know if Sag A* showed up as a black hole back then, or was still showing as a super massive black hole but had the same value for k as normal black holes. Based on CMDR Sapporo's value for post 2.0, the value of k for a super massive black hole is ~80.565. Shame there's not another one out there to verify this

I agree it was worth 139M for the first discoverer back then, and also happy it was lowered afterwards.

Zulu Romeo's thread from his first visit is here, screenshots of the system map included.

And well did he deserve the money for it.

Now you made me curious. Haven't been to Sgr A* yet (next on my list, though - after I return from the North America region), but the Wikipedia article puts the existence of GCIRS 13E in doubt. So the question is: is it there in in the game? Has anybody seen it? Should be worth half a mint at least (unless the value is also manually fixed).

I'm already 2.5 kylies past Sag A* and going in the wrong direction, or I'd go looking for it ...

1.0000 ? Wow that is some cool trivial. So that means they did attempt to "fix" it, but for some reason used another low mass number? Very strange. Good eye with the GCIRS 12E catch, btw. Wikipedia is getting more and more astounding each year. Pretty soon it will surpass google.

Yeah, don't ask me. Maybe the real mass would break the forge or something.

I can't for the life of me remember where I once read that mass (1,300) for Sag A*. Shame wikipedia can't tell me that. (But then I do prefer tvtropes, anyway. )

 

[MattG]

Zulu Romeo's thread from his first visit is here, screenshots of the system map included.

And well did he deserve the money for it.

Ahh, thanks for the link. It does indeed show up as a super massive black hole back then so I assume they just made it share the same k value as regular black holes and then fixed it later. I wonder if the mass was _actually_ 1.000 back then or if it just displayed incorrectly. The fact the calculation can be reversed to approximately 139M makes me think it was either just displayed incorrectly or they fixed the mass before ZR made it back to sell the data.


Unrelated, but I've made progress on the terraformable bonus, I just don't fully understand the rules behind it yet.

 

[Ziljan]

Zulu Romeo's thread from his first visit is here, screenshots of the system map included.

And well did he deserve the money for it.

Another cool bit of trivia! I had completely forgotten about the deep space pirates. Exploration sounds like it was really exciting at one point. Minus the Pirates, I can see why exploration is so simplistic now and safe now compared to the rest of the game. It all makes sense! I wish was around back then, because I would have really enjoyed deep space and fighting off the occasional pirate, easy over heating while scooping, etc., especially with such high stakes for losing. Also, the nearly blind short navigational jumps where charting your coordinates to plot the shortest route really mattered. Man, I really missed out on the early game!

 

[MattG]

I've updated the first post with what I've learnt so far on terraforming bonus. Getting closer to solving this.

 

[Red River]

it's strange that asteroid rings give zero credits when scanned. even the rich metalic ones...

 

[SpaceMonkeyz]

Now you made me curious. Haven't been to Sgr A* yet (next on my list, though - after I return from the North America region), but the Wikipedia article puts the existence of GCIRS 13E in doubt. So the question is: is it there in in the game? Has anybody seen it? Should be worth half a mint at least (unless the value is also manually fixed).

I am leaving for the core soon now that I finally got Horizons. I think I will go look for it.

 

[MattG]

A small update to this, I've made a spreadsheet to keep track of approximate earnings here. You'll need to take your own copy of it.

Simply enter the name, type and mass of the body (and in some cases whether it's a candidate for terraforming, and if you're first discoverer), and it'll work out the expected value. For non-terraformable bodies it should be pretty accurate. Terraformables are a bit more of a guess though - they are rated from 0 to 34 as some sort of quality rating and I still don't understand properly how this works. For terraformable HMCs, these mostly seem to be near the higher end of the scale so we guess at about 80% of top value. For terraformable water worlds, these seem to be all over the place so we go for the mid point between highest and lowest values. It will show the minimum and maximum expected payouts on the Overview tab along with the guesstimate. There is also a tab for tallying honks to add them to probably earnings - if you travel from A to B and that's 30 jumps (and therefore 30 honks), add a line for 30 on this sheet and it will attempt to guess a value for these as well. For now, we go with 10k per honked system but if someone has a better number I will update the spreadsheet.

 

[MattG]

I'm in the process of updating the formula based on 2.3 increases but I didn't get chance to scan certain bodies in the beta to check their values, and it will be some time before I'm back in the bubble.

If anyone happens to sell data for White Dwarfs or terraformable rocky bodies, I'd be grateful to know how much they sold for (without First Disc bonus), and their exact mass (from the Journal, ideally).

 

[marx]

I'm in the process of updating the formula based on 2.3 increases but I didn't get chance to scan certain bodies in the beta to check their values, and it will be some time before I'm back in the bubble.

If anyone happens to sell data for White Dwarfs or terraformable rocky bodies, I'd be grateful to know how much they sold for (without First Disc bonus), and their exact mass (from the Journal, ideally).

I swung by the Dumbbell sector to test a new build, and scanned a few of those rocky terraformables that the Dumbbell Sector Mapping Project found. Here they are, and some others which also might prove useful:

Dumbbell Sector EL-Y d37 B 1: MR, 65693 Cr, 0.019009 EM
Dumbbell Sector EL-Y d37 AB 1: HMCPTC, 409499 Cr, 1.953743 EM
Dumbbell Sector EL-Y d37 AB 2: WW, 272356 Cr, 4.100010 EM
Dumbbell Sector EL-Y d37 AB 2 a: RTC, 317003 Cr, 0.201401 EM
Dumbbell Sector EL-Y d37 AB 3: WW, 249556 Cr, 1.383748

Dumbbell Sector IR-W d1-83 1: HMCPTC, 424518 Cr, 2.058287 EM
Dumbbell Sector IR-W d1-83 1 a: RTC, 309403 Cr, 0.131057 EM

Vulpecula Dark Region EL-Y d87 A 9: ELW, 698459 Cr, 1.416769 EM

Dumbbell Sector HR-W d1-90 7: HMCPTC, 192281 Cr, 3.212279 EM
Dumbbell Sector HR-W d1-90 7 a: RTC, 309919 Cr, 0.135096 EM

Let me know if you need the journal entries too!

 

[MattG]

OK, so I tried using these values but I've run into a couple of issues. The MR, WW and ELW are as expected - but the HMCPTC are below what I expect... this might be OK, they could just be "less than perfect" terraformables, but it could also mean the terraformable "bump" has slightly changed for HMCs since the last beta. This also means I can't be sure of the RTC values as they might well not be "perfect"...

TLDR; I need more data so this will need to wait until I get back to the bubble. Ho hum.

 

[roboteconomist]

OK, so I tried using these values but I've run into a couple of issues. The MR, WW and ELW are as expected - but the HMCPTC are below what I expect... this might be OK, they could just be "less than perfect" terraformables, but it could also mean the terraformable "bump" has slightly changed for HMCs since the last beta. This also means I can't be sure of the RTC values as they might well not be "perfect"...

TLDR; I need more data so this will need to wait until I get back to the bubble. Ho hum.

Here is about 900 planets worth of data, all collected post-patch.

 

[13A/24B]

Here is about 900 planets worth of data, all collected post-patch.

I can provide similar data from EDDiscovery, but my exported file doesn't include the price. Is it included somewhere in the game logs?

 

[MattG]

Here is about 900 planets worth of data, all collected post-patch.

Yeh, CMDR Marx pointed it out to me in the other thread, very useful - thanks. I noticed what I think are a few typos in some of the prices, I don't suppose you took screenshots of the sell pages as you sold the data?

I can provide similar data from EDDiscovery, but my exported file doesn't include the price. Is it included somewhere in the game logs?

Sadly not[*], it requires manually noting the prices at the time you sell the data...



*Actually, if you sell data system by system, and only scanned 1 object in each system, you could find an entry in the journal - but no-one does that



I could still use a couple of examples of white dwarf mass / sell price, if anyone happens to be about to sell some WD data... 2-3 examples should do it

 

[13A/24B]

Sadly not[*], it requires manually noting the prices at the time you sell the data...

I could still use a couple of examples of white dwarf mass / sell price, if anyone happens to be about to sell some WD data... 2-3 examples should do it

Bother, or words to that effect.

If I catch any WD I'll let you know when I sell them

 

[roboteconomist]

Sorry, I was so focused on data entry that I didn't do screen caps. I'm hoping that there aren't so many typos that it is not useful.

- - - Updated - - -

I just created a column and entered the price data by hand as I cashed it in. It was a real labor of love.

 

[MattG]

Sorry, I was so focused on data entry that I didn't do screen caps. I'm hoping that there aren't so many typos that it is not useful.

- - - Updated - - -

I just created a column and entered the price data by hand as I cashed it in. It was a real labor of love.

Oh, it's still more than useful! The typos are interesting in that most of them I'm predicting a value very close to your data, and upon looking closer it'd match up exactly if 2 of the value digits were accidentally transposed. I've also been able to work out what's going on with terraformable rocky bodies from your data, as well as confirm my data for ammonia worlds.


I've also entered value data in a spreadsheet like that, I know exactly how tedious it gets, definitely appreciate the effort you've gone to!

 

[MattG]

I've updated the first post with new values - still waiting on WDs though.