Exploring, how can I find stars?
- Thread starter resmania
- Start date
You need at least a Basic Exploration Scanner equipped. Once you have that, you have to connect it in the Fire Control screen. Once you have done that, you press the button to fire off the scanner and hold down until the blue bar fills up and you hear the gong. After that, the should be unknowns listed in you navigation screen. Lock on one and fly closer until the orange thingy starts rotating. In a bit the unknown will be given an Id. Then go to a base and sell the info in the Stellar Cartography screen.
You need at least a Basic Exploration Scanner equipped. Once you have that, you have to connect it in the Fire Control screen. Once you have done that, you press the button to fire off the scanner and hold down until the blue bar fills up and you hear the gong. After that, the should be unknowns listed in you navigation screen. Lock on one and fly closer until the orange thingy starts rotating. In a bit the unknown will be given an Id. Then go to a base and sell the info in the Stellar Cartography screen.
Yeah I already know that. The thing is, the system I'm on(Castor) has three double stars, but the orbit lines are not showing up like the video adoredtv linked.
Plus, there's no response from scanner.. probably stars are out of range or sth.. ;(
It's harder to figure out in multiple systems yes. You should get the orbit line in system FSD for the first pair though (enter system FSD then target the main star Castor A). The other pairs should hopefully be close enough as to be obvious that they are members of the same system, but it'll depend on distance and type of course.
Once you get the orbit of the main star, you should probably be looking for a small red companion on the plane.
Castor B should be very obvious as a bright white star so just look around for that and you'll find it. Its companion is basically the same as Castor A.
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Stars beyond a certain radius are just the great unknown. No population, no stations. Just raw exploration.
I hope we get to expand our stuff soon. Making this into something like X meets Elite would be really cool. (Not X Rebirth tho, garbage!)
In Beta an Advanced Disc. Scanner would locate all objects in a system. Don't know about gamma. If you don't have that you have to do it the old fashioned way - eyeball it. Fly out and check for parallax in the star field, hope it occludes the sun, etc. Or fly around honking your lesser scanner.
I've found star hunting great fun & quite therapeutic without an advanced scanner.
True, this is time consuming but when I'm looking for a break from the busier highways of trade runs & missions from the BB, heading out millions of middles from a main star & gazing into space hoping to spot Stellar Parallax in motion is really quite nice.
Found myself a lovely 'small' white dwarf the other night that was, at first, just another star in the sky when I arrived.
I love the fact that we CAN do this.
FuZion.
True, this is time consuming but when I'm looking for a break from the busier highways of trade runs & missions from the BB, heading out millions of middles from a main star & gazing into space hoping to spot Stellar Parallax in motion is really quite nice.
Found myself a lovely 'small' white dwarf the other night that was, at first, just another star in the sky when I arrived.
I love the fact that we CAN do this.
FuZion.
Scxan all unexplored areas around the current star.
Then target the known star and head 180 degrees in the opposite direction and put about 100,000 LS between you and it.
Turn around and head towards the this star that is now distance and you should be able to see the system properly.
Speed up and watch for the other stars close by to the original star move.
It is all about distance and the further out you are, the more chance you have of seeing the other stars in the system and their subsequent movement.
It isn't difficult and took me about 3 mins to work out last night. Just takes a bit of time.
Then target the known star and head 180 degrees in the opposite direction and put about 100,000 LS between you and it.
Turn around and head towards the this star that is now distance and you should be able to see the system properly.
Speed up and watch for the other stars close by to the original star move.
It is all about distance and the further out you are, the more chance you have of seeing the other stars in the system and their subsequent movement.
It isn't difficult and took me about 3 mins to work out last night. Just takes a bit of time.
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You can attempt to maximise your chances by doing a couple of things.
When you arrive in the system and use your scanner you may only, as per the OP, find the star you've arrived at. even though the system map indicates there are two, three, or more other stars. A companion star may be so far away that your scanner can't pick it up.
Once you've used your scanner the orbit line of your current star should be apparent. If it's not, then that star isn't orbiting around anything as it's a lone star and there are no other major bodies in the system.
When you have the orbit line, orient your ship so you can pitch along that line and see if there are any stars on it. Let's assume you see a bright star on the orbit line and that system map indicates there is a single companion star. That companion star may be the one you're looking at but it may not. It also wont be actually "connected" to the orbit line you have on the screen because that orbit line is only the orbit of your current star around the barycentre of the star system. But, critically, it does show you what plane the two bodies share.
Now reorient your ship so the orbital plane is horizontal across the screen. Pitch down or up so the star in question is at the limit of your visibility and throttle up.
What you're doing is accelerating out of the orbital plane of the binary star system. This maximises your chance of observing parallax movement against the background of other stars.
You're looking for obvious parallax movement of the star in question against the background. So keep an eye on your target star. Your actual orientation doesn't really matter but it's easier to understand what you're doing if you keep to the planes and other cardinal angles.
If you do see the parallax movement you can be sure you've got the other star and can reorient your ship and go straight at it.
You may not see any parallax movement. You may get to 1000c or more and still not see it. The companion star may be that far away. On my trip to Sol I found a couple of systems where this happened.
In these circumstances the only thing to do is look at the system map and see if you can gauge the characteristics of the companion star and then look along the orbital plane for something that looks a bit like it. Then head straight for it at high speed.
For example, one of the systems I went through had a big yellow star, a small yellow star, and a purple brown/red dwarf. The purple one was miiiiiiiles away. I found it on the orbital plane and went for it.
Took half an hour of SC before I could detect any parallax at all.
When you arrive in the system and use your scanner you may only, as per the OP, find the star you've arrived at. even though the system map indicates there are two, three, or more other stars. A companion star may be so far away that your scanner can't pick it up.
Once you've used your scanner the orbit line of your current star should be apparent. If it's not, then that star isn't orbiting around anything as it's a lone star and there are no other major bodies in the system.
When you have the orbit line, orient your ship so you can pitch along that line and see if there are any stars on it. Let's assume you see a bright star on the orbit line and that system map indicates there is a single companion star. That companion star may be the one you're looking at but it may not. It also wont be actually "connected" to the orbit line you have on the screen because that orbit line is only the orbit of your current star around the barycentre of the star system. But, critically, it does show you what plane the two bodies share.
Now reorient your ship so the orbital plane is horizontal across the screen. Pitch down or up so the star in question is at the limit of your visibility and throttle up.
What you're doing is accelerating out of the orbital plane of the binary star system. This maximises your chance of observing parallax movement against the background of other stars.
You're looking for obvious parallax movement of the star in question against the background. So keep an eye on your target star. Your actual orientation doesn't really matter but it's easier to understand what you're doing if you keep to the planes and other cardinal angles.
If you do see the parallax movement you can be sure you've got the other star and can reorient your ship and go straight at it.
You may not see any parallax movement. You may get to 1000c or more and still not see it. The companion star may be that far away. On my trip to Sol I found a couple of systems where this happened.
In these circumstances the only thing to do is look at the system map and see if you can gauge the characteristics of the companion star and then look along the orbital plane for something that looks a bit like it. Then head straight for it at high speed.
For example, one of the systems I went through had a big yellow star, a small yellow star, and a purple brown/red dwarf. The purple one was miiiiiiiles away. I found it on the orbital plane and went for it.
Took half an hour of SC before I could detect any parallax at all.