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

[d8veh]

What I did was head towards Colonia, the other side of the Sagittarius Gap, roughly northeast from Sol (The Orion Spur). Head for the Scutum-Sagittarii Conflux, when you pop into a system and the star doesn't show up on your HUD for 3 to 5 seconds, it's an undiscovered system, honk it with your discovery scanner. I always move around the star, line up with my next jump vector taking my speed up to 5x the speed of light.

I do that to make sure there aren't any planets hidden behind the main (Closest) star.

EDSM - Elite Dangerous Star Map

The Galactic Positioning System of Elite: Dangerous at your service.

www.edsm.net

If you want to find unexplored systems on the way to colonia or anywhere else. Plot to a target system a few hundred LY to the side of it, then go up or down 500LY before going in that direction. If you do that, I'd bet that 50% of all systems you go through will be undiscovered. Most people plot a direct route from a to b, so they all go through the same systems. You don't have to deviate far from that line to be in new space.

It reminds me of when I go sailing. In the old days, you'd hardly see another boat, but now that everyone uses GPS and start and finish with the same waypoints, and use auto steering locked to the GPS route, you have to take avoiding action for nearly every other boat that you see. Basically, you have the sea to yourself for hours, but every time you see another boat, you have to take avoiding action, unless you start half a mile to the side of your start waypoint and plot a point half a mile to the side of the finish waypoint (normally a port), then you can relax and let the boat do its thing.

 

[ellay]

Hey OP, basically your issue is you’re still within inhabited space where pretty much everything is explored.. when the game launched, everything was unexplored, the longer the game exists, the more that gets explored, especially close to the bubble. The good news is that only a tiny tiny fraction of the galaxy has actually been visited.. asp explorer is a good ship as its name suggests, with a jump capability easily upgradable to 55 ly.. with that range about 90 mins jumping can still get you to space where its harder to find discovered systems than discovered ones.. look at the heat map someone has already posted, and aim for a spot in the galaxy off the busiest routes… also dont forget, you still get paid for finding previously discovered systems, you just get a bonus if they arent…

 

[Greasetrap42]

Those will be places I'll never get to then. Unless they decide to make purchasable optimized drives, my current 34 Ly Asp Explorer will just have to suffice.

Egineering an ASP Explorer for exploration is pretty easy. Really its the FSD that counts, and Felicity Farseer is easy to unlock. The materials you need are pretty easy too. You want engineered FSD for just about any ship you are going to use in the game, and for any purpose. The time savings in travelling from system-to-system is significant. Whether you are trading, doing combat, mining, exploring, or just doing misc missions and having fun.

 

[Greasetrap42]

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

Another significant point is you can do exploration locally within the local bubble. For the purpose of learning the game, getting some experience, upgrading you ship, etc much of this can be done without going vast distances. You can scan systems & planets that have already been "discovered" by others and make a ton of credits. You don't need to travel vast distances to do "exploration".

I recommend going in incremental steps. Do stuff in the bubble, maybe take a short journey and return. Upgrade your ship, go a bit farther, learn what you like and return. Then if exploration is something you decide you like... invest in a great exploration ship. It doesn't need to be vastly expensive. The Asp Explorer and Diamondback Explorer are quite cheep and really excellent. Do some research* and fit them out really good, because an awesome exploration trip can take a while and when you decide to return to the bubble it might take days, weeks, or months.

I have really enjoyed deep space exploration.

* A few days of research and a couple weeks to get the credits, ship, modules, & engineering is insignificant compared to time you will spend travelling in the ship. Both within the game and IRL as you play the game. It might as well be a good comfy ship cause the hours you spend in it will be huge.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Egineering an ASP Explorer for exploration is pretty easy. Really its the FSD that counts, and Felicity Farseer is easy to unlock. The materials you need are pretty easy too. You want engineered FSD for just about any ship you are going to use in the game, and for any purpose. The time savings in travelling from system-to-system is significant. Whether you are trading, doing combat, mining, exploring, or just doing misc missions and having fun.

If we're advising people to engineer an ASP Explorer, Diamondback Explorer, Krait Phantom or any ship using a size 5 FSD, we should be talking about the double engineered FSD V1 from human tech broker. Felicity to still be useful to add mass manager to it.

 

[Greasetrap42]

If we're advising people to engineer an ASP Explorer, Diamondback Explorer, Krait Phantom or any ship using a size 5 FSD, we should be talking about the double engineered FSD V1 from human tech broker. Felicity to still be useful to add mass manager to it.

Agree, but for advice for a new-ish player learning the game I'm not sure a double engineered FSD is feasible. Getting a normal FSD and engineering it progressively the best you can is probably the best strategy. Otherwise the player is flying around with a non-engineered FSD which sucks. And my point was, get your FSD some engineering. If you backtrack the posts I was responding to someone that seemed content with not engineering stuff.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Agree, but for advice for a new-ish player learning the game I'm not sure a double engineered FSD is feasible. Getting a normal FSD and engineering it progressively the best you can is probably the best strategy. Otherwise the player is flying around with a non-engineered FSD which sucks. And my point was, get your FSD some engineering. If you backtrack the posts I was responding to someone that seemed content with not engineering stuff.

When you know the ingredients (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Frame_Shift_Drive under heading Engineered FSD V1) and you have a guide to gathering materials:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHl-SsKQfe4


and you get advised to used the Crashed Anaconda site for your first Telerium collection, Jameson's Crashed Cobra site for encoded materials to trade for Datamined Wake Exceptions, it's not really any harder than engineering the FSD the 'traditional' way.
When I started a second commander, once I had the ASP Explorer, I went for the engineered FSD V1 and it took me about 2 to 2.5 hours to collect the materials and acquire the FSD V1. The activity to collect the materials is also good practice for exploration - use of FSS, DSS etc.Flying around in an un-engineered ASP X with over 30ly jump range for doing this is not bad, as you never have to go far.

 

[Greasetrap42]

When you know the ingredients....

Uh, thx for the info, I've never equipped my ships with this ever before. I'm still flying my starter sidewinder.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Uh, thx for the info, I've never equipped my ships with this ever before. I'm still flying my starter sidewinder.

Well, the OP can make a choice now - engineer an FSD the traditional way or go for the Engineered FSD V1. Personally, I was a bit frustrated that despite my digging, I never learned about the class 5 Engineered FSD V1 before I chased my tail for hours getting a class 5 FSD up to increased range 3 only to abandon it.
I see it could be as many as 9 ships you've put an Engineered FSD V1 into now.

 

[Para Handy]

When you know the ingredients (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Frame_Shift_Drive under heading Engineered FSD V1) and you have a guide to gathering materials:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHl-SsKQfe4&list=PLnGdlNJMlOyPOHFpOY0IoJk3eU50CN2P0&index=8

and you get advised to used the Crashed Anaconda site for your first Telerium collection, Jameson's Crashed Cobra site for encoded materials to trade for Datamined Wake Exceptions, it's not really any harder than engineering the FSD the 'traditional' way.
When I started a second commander, once I had the ASP Explorer, I went for the engineered FSD V1 and it took me about 2 to 2.5 hours to collect the materials and acquire the FSD V1. The activity to collect the materials is also good practice for exploration - use of FSS, DSS etc.Flying around in an un-engineered ASP X with over 30ly jump range for doing this is not bad, as you never have to go far.

Your video link didn't seem to pass the forum thingie ('cos of the playlist bit?) - here it is without that (N.B I have not reviewed it so can't recommend or otherwise):

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHl-SsKQfe4

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Your video link didn't seem to pass the forum thingie ('cos of the playlist bit?) - here it is without that (N.B I have not reviewed it so can't recommend or otherwise):

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHl-SsKQfe4

Thanks will edit my post above

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

To me, exploring isn't about getting from point A to point Z in one jump, but getting from A to Z by stopping at B, C, D, etc. . . along the way and gathering data as you go.

I know this was posted a few weeks back, but I missed it then. I get that the engineering 'grind' puts you off, and while I do it for ships, I have no interest in doing it for Odyssey personal suits and guns.
When it comes to exploring in a ship, it's means different things to different people. I have recently enjoyed the challenge of reaching and seeing rare notable stellar phenomena in the Abyss 'south west' of Beagle Point. You have to make a lot of 126ly and sometimes higher jumps. You want the best jump range you can get and a good stock of jumponium materials to do it. I don't think that adventure is viable with less than a 63/64ly jump range. There are other low star density areas or destinations I want to get to that would take far too long to reach without a good jump range. The galaxy is mostly empty, and kinda boring (to steal The Pilots words in his Dolphin ship review on YouTube). I like to visit points of interest edsm.net can tell me about as reasons to be travelling and seeing what else I might stumble upon in the dark.