Newcomer / Intro Exploring - Don't get it at all.

[Darth Ender]

I've jumped over 50 now. No dice. Everything is discovered and mapped.

how distant from the bubble are you in your search area? You really shouldn't need to get more than a couple thousand ly to start getting undiscovered systems. The trick is not going towards any nearby nebula or Colonia or guardian sites or directly towards the core as those are common travel paths. And going above or below the galactic plane. try at least 100ly above or below - there should still be plenty density to the stars while in the arm at those distances.

You could just pick star names while viewing the galactic map and have a third party eddb type site open and punch in the names until you get one that is not returning any data ...denoting an area of likely unexploredness and do that method so you aren't spending so much time jumping around just to find out it's not what you want.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

how distant from the bubble are you in your search area?

Again, you folks keep talking to me like I've been playing the game for a year and know what that means. I have NO CLUE what that means.

You really shouldn't need to get more than a couple thousand ly to start getting undiscovered systems.

Say what? You just said this:

another secret to exploring is that there is absolutely no need to care about flying off into the sparse voids between galactic arms or edge of the galaxy.

You wont find anything there that you can't find in densely packed arms or the core etc. a 30ly jump range is plenty.

So which is it?

I don't need to go anywhere or I only need to go about 30 LY or I really need to go about 2,000 LY?

Seriously man. You're absolutely confusing the hell out of me.

 

[Horse372]

I recently did my 5000 LY trip for the 2 engineers that require that for their invite out to the Elysian Shore across the Saguineous Rim galatic regions (roughly south/ southeast from Sol and labeled on the galactic map) a few weeks ago. I believe my first undiscovered system was about 1500ly into the trip with some 1st mapped before that and by the time I was 3000ly most systems were undiscovered. There are a number of nebulas in that direction so it's not totally untraveled.

However as ender said if you are just interested in exploration xp and credits your best bet would be previous discovered systems and known explorations min/max routes like the "Road to Riches"

It is possible to find undiscovered systems or unmapped planets close to Sol but those will be by luck and few and far between.

 

[0threeleven]

Again, you folks keep talking to me like I've been playing the game for a year and know what that means. I have NO CLUE what that means.



Say what? You just said this:



So which is it?

I don't need to go anywhere or I only need to go about 30 LY or I really need to go about 2,000 LY?

Seriously man. You're absolutely confusing the hell out of me.

What he's saying is in between the galactic arms, there aren't many stars. 30Ly jump range is how far your ship can go every time you enter that tunnel thingy, going 2000 or 3000Ly is your total trip

You need to google some beginner videos on youtube

 

[Noobqueen]

Again, you folks keep talking to me like I've been playing the game for a year and know what that means. I have NO CLUE what that means.



Say what? You just said this:



So which is it?

I don't need to go anywhere or I only need to go about 30 LY or I really need to go about 2,000 LY?

Seriously man. You're absolutely confusing the hell out of me.

You need to go about 2000ly. In the outfitting screen, when outfitting your ship for jumprange you'll see a statistic called "Jump Min/Current/Max (which shows your jumprange) and can be anywhere from 1ly to 92ly. Always try to get your ship to the higher end in jumprange (I stay around the 40-50ly range for my ships). Jumprange is the distance you travel in 1 jump, 2000ly is the distance you need to travel away from the bubble to find unexplored systems.

The bubble is the area of space where humans inhabit. Including Sol, Achernar, Lave, Shinrarta Dezhra or whatever it's called. All of those systems are where the bubble is. Easily visible via the gal map "Powerplay" map mode.

 

[Ashnak]

Again, you folks keep talking to me like I've been playing the game for a year and know what that means. I have NO CLUE what that means.



Say what? You just said this:



So which is it?

I don't need to go anywhere or I only need to go about 30 LY or I really need to go about 2,000 LY?

Seriously man. You're absolutely confusing the hell out of me.

Darth is talking about jump range and total distance - I'll try to explain.

Jump range is what your ship can do with a single jump. Your starter Sidey in default loadout with no cargo and a full tank has a jump range of 7.84 ly (for one single jump), an exploration Anaconda in min-maxed loadout is somewehere in the 80 ly single jump range.

There's a second figure, which is basically meaningless for explorers that tend to carry a fuel scoop to scoop fuel from suitable stars - the total range. For that Sidey, this is about 28 ly - a well equipped Krait will do over 400 ly before she needs refuelling (and a purpose built Anaconda, using hand plotted short range jumps can do 22,000 ly on a single tank )

The Bubble: the core systems, the group of inhabited systems around Sol. If you open your Galaxy Map in "powerplay" view, you'll see something pretty close to this

(see also https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-big-beautiful-bubble.537257/ ). That's "the Bubble". All the systems inside the Bubble are explored. A lot of them are inhabited (and, if you run out of fuel, you'll find out that's less than you'd expect).
Outside of the Bubble, the closer you are the less likely it is to find an unexplored system. More or less the same goes for the well travelled routes to any outstanding features visible in the sky. But deviate from those routes, even if it's just a few dozen ly, and you can find unexplored systems.

In order to go 1000 (or 2000) ly, your ship should be capable of making jumps (i.e. have a jump range) of at least 30 ly. If you're good, you can jump&scoop in under 50 seconds. 1000 ly at 30 ly/jump are 34 jumps, so just about half an hour if you go full speed. That goes down to ten minutes with a dedicated jump ship - or five if you use FSD supercharging at Neutron stars. But that's the advanced course, we'll get to that later .

 

[Rock Hunter]

This can’t be reiterated enough (well, hopefully it can) but jump range is what we call the distance your ship can jump through hyperspace in one go. Yours is currently 27 light years (or whatever you said on the previous page.)

When we’re talking about distances to unexplored regions, such as suggestions to go 2000ly out from the bubble (the bubble being the shape of human colonised space that we all start the game in) that would take you, in your current ship, around 74 jumps through hyperspace.

Ninja’d - and far more comprehensively

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Thanks guys! Now I get it. I didn't even know there were different map modes.

 

[Rock Hunter]

Thanks guys! Now I get it. I didn't even know there were different map modes.

It’s a crazily steep learning curve when you start and for a while the more you learn the more questions you have. You’ve found one of the best places to get answers to those questions so don’t stop asking when you think of one.

Sometimes we’ll assume you have a level of knowledge that you may not have yet so answers can be overly complicated or slightly off target but someone will get there eventually

 

[Marvin the Martian]

So I'm right at the edge of it then? (Me being the blue spike)

 

[Ashnak]

So I'm right at the edge of it then? (Me being the blue spike)

View attachment 301905

More or less - yes. "more or less" since the edge is rather fuzzy.

 

[Para Handy]

...

I don't need to go anywhere or I only need to go about 30 LY or I really need to go about 2,000 LY?
.....

I was going to chip in later but I might as well give a bit of info. I thought I would take one of my commanders out for a fact-finding mission to check on just where the "virgin" systems start to occur. Last year for example I was able to come across a completely undiscovered (no tags at all, not even the star) system within 1,000ly (a "Kylie") of Sol. There should have been a lot of systems discovered since then so I don't expect to find a virgin system before 2Kylies.

So not to see anyone discouraged I can report that less than 900ly from Sol I came across my first partially discovered system - i.e. there were more "bodies discovered" by the "honk" than showed in the System Map - so there were going to be bodies to discover using the FSS and see they had no "first discovered by" tags. In fact none of the bodies had been mapped and there were two terraformable worlds - so this one system has earned me just under 7milion credits.

Now, onward to find some virgins...

BTW - the important thing is to think 3D - drop down or climb up away from the galactic plane - plus move sideways away from the routes to the "jewels" (you can see the well-travelled routes on the maps already referenced).

So basically don't ...

 

[Horse372]

So I'm right at the edge of it then? (Me being the blue spike)

View attachment 301905

As was said above always good people around here will to help with almost any issue.

 

[G Evans]

Thanks guys! Now I get it. I didn't even know there were different map modes.

I highly recommend Psyche Plays' YouTube Channel (link here). She has some awesome beginner guides there, and she is very easy to listen to as well (would love to have her voice as my Asp Explorers computer voice!!). There are others too - "ObsidianAnt", "Down to Earth Astronomy" just to name a couple.

YouTube is your friend with this game! Goodluck!

 

[Maolagin]

I was going to chip in later but I might as well give a bit of info. I thought I would take one of my commanders out for a fact-finding mission to check on just where the "virgin" systems start to occur. Last year for example I was able to come across a completely undiscovered (no tags at all, not even the star) system within 1,000ly (a "Kylie") of Sol. There should have been a lot of systems discovered since then so I don't expect to find a virgin system before 2Kylies.

So not to see anyone discouraged I can report that less than 900ly from Sol I came across my first partially discovered system - i.e. there were more "bodies discovered" by the "honk" than showed in the System Map - so there were going to be bodies to discover using the FSS and see they had no "first discovered by" tags. In fact none of the bodies had been mapped and there were two terraformable worlds - so this one system has earned me just under 7milion credits.

Now, onward to find some virgins...

BTW - the important thing is to think 3D - drop down or climb up away from the galactic plane - plus move sideways away from the routes to the "jewels" (you can see the well-travelled routes on the maps already referenced).

So basically don't ...

View attachment 301912

Fun tidbit there - on the ED Astrometrics site, one of the stats Orvidius tracks is the "Nearest New System to Sol each day". While the distance has crept up over the years, last year the median was only about 330 LY! That is to say, on 50% of days in 2021 someone was the first to report a system to EDSM that was closer than 330 LY from Sol. That's barely outside the bubble!

Now of course, this only catches players running reporting apps, and "first reported to EDSM" is not the same as getting a first discovery tag. And almost surely, those closest discoveries are mainly worthless dwarf systems. But I think it's true that, if all you want to do is put your name on an untouched system, you only need to go trawling through the brown dwarf layer 400-500 LY out. And if you get very very lucky, you might unexpectedly find something valuable. Slicing up another spreadsheet on his site, most months some lucky person reports a new ELW under 500 LY from Sol, which I found rather remarkable. (I don't imagine those were untagged, but again, you probably only have to go twice that far to have a chance at a true "first discovery".)

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

So I'm right at the edge of it then? (Me being the blue spike)

View attachment 301905

Yes you are at the edge of the "bubble".
26ly jump range is OK for travel in and around this bubble, but if you want to get around 1500 to 2000ly out from this bubble to start finding previously undiscovered systems, it's a lot of jumps to get there and then come back. You might be better off doing things in the bubble area to raise credits and do what's needed to access engineers or obtain what is called a pre engineered FSD V1 available in size 5 to give yourself a better jump range ship. The size 5 FSD fits ships like the ASP Explorer, Diamondback Explorer and not the Cobra. If that sounds of interest I'll find a guide to obtaining this.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

This animation shows the most travelled routes in the Elite Dangerous' galaxy. Shows why you need to get away from the bubble a way to reliably find undiscovered systems.

Source: https://youtu.be/m2XFKx-hzmM

 

[Para Handy]

Fun tidbit there - on the ED Astrometrics site, one of the stats Orvidius tracks is the "Nearest New System to Sol each day". While the distance has crept up over the years, last year the median was only about 330 LY! That is to say, on 50% of days in 2021 someone was the first to report a system to EDSM that was closer than 330 LY from Sol. That's barely outside the bubble!

Now of course, this only catches players running reporting apps, and "first reported to EDSM" is not the same as getting a first discovery tag. And almost surely, those closest discoveries are mainly worthless dwarf systems. But I think it's true that, if all you want to do is put your name on an untouched system, you only need to go trawling through the brown dwarf layer 400-500 LY out. And if you get very very lucky, you might unexpectedly find something valuable. Slicing up another spreadsheet on his site, most months some lucky person reports a new ELW under 500 LY from Sol, which I found rather remarkable. (I don't imagine those were untagged, but again, you probably only have to go twice that far to have a chance at a true "first discovery".)

I didn't know about that file ... very interesting ... I'd love to see that as an animated map ... though I suspect it would be illegible after a short run.

However, as you say that is only players that are reporting their data to EDSM - I see many cases where EDDiscovery shows me the "Gold Star" for new discovery to EDSM even though the system is fully tagged.

P.S. Forgot to mention - started hitting virgin systems at 2.7Kylies - now mainly virgins at 3Kylies from Sol.

 

[Esteban]

Yes you are at the edge of the "bubble".
26ly jump range is OK for travel in and around this bubble, but if you want to get around 1500 to 2000ly out from this bubble to start finding previously undiscovered systems, it's a lot of jumps to get there and then come back.

Nice thing is that you'll still earn credits by selling cartographic data from all the systems you'll pass through on your journey (Yes: even those already 'discovered' many times). A 26LY range per jump (up to) is quite fine for exploration.

Although I've been a proponent of modest jump-ranges, I'm not saying that long-range capability isn't useful. If, for example, you'd like to explore a specific area of the galaxy,* it can make sense that you'd like to get there in as few jumps as possible, then do your exploration. As I mentioned earlier, your goal (what you want to do) is as important as anything else.
This thread has been a fun read...

* This can be as simple as "I want to leave the Inner Orion Spur and get to Hawkings Gap to do my exploration." Go for it!
In case the names are mysterious; these are regions of the Galaxy. If you zoom WAY out on the galaxy map, you'll see them. The galaxy map is pretty cool.

 

[Para Handy]

....
In case the names are mysterious; these are regions of the Galaxy. If you zoom WAY out on the galaxy map, you'll see them. The galaxy map is pretty cool.

You can download a decent map of the galaxy showing the sectors as well as the named regions at https://edastro.com/mapcharts/galaxy.html - (bottom right one)

It is 10.5MB so I won't try to post it here.

(I actually see on my PC that there is a "poster" of the galaxy that I downloaded in 2016 and that is about 58MB. lol )