Exploring the frustrating part

[Bacon Sarnie]

Im 9000ly from anywhere, enjoying the empty blackness
Havent seen site nor sound of anyone, not a discovered tag in over a week.
I find several black holes, all 1000ly or so from each other.
Decided to head to 3 of them, first one as yet undiscovered, nice.
Takes me 3 days to get to the other 2 and along the route still no sign of a single discovered tag.
I get to the 2nd black hole, discovered tag, decide to speed to another one amd again discovered.
Its frustrating especially when you havent seen a single tag on anything for a week to suddenly find 2 Black holes in the middle of nowhere have been discovered

 

[Whiterose]

Popular tourist spots...I avoid them.

 

[Midian27]

Yeah I haven't seen a single discovered by tag in days. So last night i see these really bright blue stars in a line on my skybox and start heading towards them.

All discovered of course, wish I wouldn'thave deviated my course now but since iI'm here I'm at least gonna scan all the black holes.

 

[glynie]

Aye I agree. The frustrating part for me is not that people discover things - fair do's to them, I think it's kinda cool...the frustrating thing is when someone goes mental and lays claim to every single molecule from here to the edge of eternity...for the sake of being noticed?

For example: I went to the core. Discovered. Congratulations Zulu Romeo, you did well. So no worries I think, I'll just scan the nearest system to show I was here. One object will do...no, it's scanned. Right, I'll try the 2nd nearest...nope. 3rd nearest?
...every single system in the navigation pane around Sagittarius A* had every single target scanned with a discovered-by tag assigned, by the same player...come on man - what was the point? I read your name a million times. (Not Zulu Romeo, someone else.)

Personally if I find something cool, I leave some space for others. There are many Earth-like planets out there with my name on in systems with almost everything else left unscanned. If you ever visit, feel free to write "I was here"...since you have the chance.

 

[Archvillain]

Ha, I was happily hopping from undiscovered system to undiscovered system, when I found AN EARTH-LIKE... in the ONLY already-scanned system in the area! Curses!
(I still haven't found an undiscovered earth-like; my exploration trips haven't been big)

I was close enough to human space that occasionally my path would intersect with someone else's, but WHY DID IT HAVE TO INTERSECT ON THAT SYSTEM? WHY?!

 

[syngyne]

Aye I agree. The frustrating part for me is not that people discover things - fair do's to them, I think it's kinda cool...the frustrating thing is when someone goes mental and lays claim to every single molecule from here to the edge of eternity...for the sake of being noticed?

Because your payout for exploration depends on how much you scan, I imagine.

 

[Archvillain]

Personally if I find something cool, I leave some space for others. There are many Earth-like planets out there with my name on in systems with almost everything else left unscanned. If you ever visit, feel free to write "I was here"...since you have the chance.

Yeah, if you find a nice system and scan everything in it, you'll never know if anyone else visits. If you leave a few things unscanned, you can check back from time to time and see if anyone else has been there since. (Although anything that's looks really high-paying, I'm going to scan )

But really, there should be a "geo-cache" or "visitor's log" beacon/canister you can buy and drop off in a system (jettison cargo), after which so visitors can leave messages for each other, or gifts of cargo
Anything so that systems aren't so unchanging and "dead" once all the first-discovery tags have been filled out.

 

[Lord_Itchybum]

I find it the opposite of frustrating. Seeing other cmdr names tagged on systems makes me want to discover more and tag my name to them. So many red/brown dwarfs have my name on them right now
Add to this I started using Slopeys BPC a couple of days ago so now I have a record of all the systems I visit and can makes notes on where EL's are etc. Added a new dimension to my exploring.

 

[John Matthew]

I think only some sort of heat-energy(or some other measurement) level should be shown on the galaxy map, signifying if the heavenly body is scoopable or not.

Then while exploring, for all you know your heading toward a black hole or a brown dwarf(unless otherwise tracked outside of the game)...that would end this sort of nonsense you are experiencing(locations of blackholes and the like would be kept secret for more time). While still making exploration a doable feat.

 

[acg515]

You still get money if you scan discovered stuff. Yeah it kind of sucks, but nonetheless you can make decent money by scanning this stuff. Right now most of the systems I have been near have all been discovered, but you never know. Just get away from the hotspots and you will start finding stuff. Other people have to make the money too, and they do it by scanning everything in sight.

 

[John Matthew]

You still get money if you scan discovered stuff. Yeah it kind of sucks, but nonetheless you can make decent money by scanning this stuff. Right now most of the systems I have been near have all been discovered, but you never know. Just get away from the hotspots and you will start finding stuff. Other people have to make the money too, and they do it by scanning everything in sight.

You would still make the same amount of money per average farming the system by popping discovery scanner/surface scanning nearby objects and then jumping, lets not take away what is in place, but the people who bother to explore would find the true payout.

 

[Zenith]

acg515 has it right.
So what if a system is previously discovered? You've made the effort to get there, scan it, take some pictures and have a warm fuzzy feeling that you've done it "the proper way", without cheating.
When I come across a system that's previously discovered, I'm actually happy! It means that I change direction and range on my next couple of jumps to "break step" away from the path of the previous explorer.

To the OP, keep at it! Don't get disheartened about all the nearby neutron stars and black holes being previously discovered. Strike out that bit more and look for interesting systems that catch your eye. Finding Earth-likes is simply a matter of scanning enough systems until you eventually hit a jackpot. I'm currently finding 1 Earth-like in approximately 200 systems scanned.
Water worlds payout well with UniCart, even more if they're in the star's "Goldilocks Zone" and are a terraform candidate. Same with high metal content worlds.

 

[Aussiedroid]

I'm not to fussed to find a system taken, say with a Black Hole or Neutron Star (still pretty rare from my travels). Sure they get the bonus cash, but more often than not they do not scan anything else in the system and to be honest I find that is generally done. Last one I came across in a nebula, had 3 gas giant bodies in scan distance. No travel, just point and shoot for some credz.

I think people tend to get too fixated on the bigger rewards for these types of bodies and ignore the rest, but often forget you can make just as much by scanning a few other bodies instead (and not take a lot longer) if they are short travel distances.

 

[Nilt]

there should be a "geo-cache" or "visitor's log" beacon/canister you can buy and drop off in a system

Astro caching FTW! That would ROCK!

 

[gooddoc]

I'm not to fussed to find a system taken, say with a Black Hole or Neutron Star (still pretty rare from my travels). Sure they get the bonus cash, but more often than not they do not scan anything else in the system and to be honest I find that is generally done. Last one I came across in a nebula, had 3 gas giant bodies in scan distance. No travel, just point and shoot for some credz.

I think people tend to get too fixated on the bigger rewards for these types of bodies and ignore the rest

I jumped into a Neutron Star system yesterday, the star had been claimed the other 7 bodies 'unexplored' but looked interesting....Result - 1 Waterworld & 2 Earthlikes....Nice!

 

[Equinoxe]

Unlike many explorers (apparently) I have decided to play the role of an actual pathfinder-explorer. Find a cluster of stars and start moving through them. Surface scan all planets that may be useful for the colonisation of space by the Human race. This is meant to be a kind of RPG after all. Of course, there would be a certain number of commanders who simply head off into the Night to see what's out there. But there would also be many who would be employed to survey star systems in the hope that they can be colonized or exploited in some way.

My goal isn't just to find an Earth-like (although I have found 2 so far), it is to discover new places that Human space can expand into. I have found scores of terrestrial water worlds and a fair few hundred terraformable planets. I started with 3 trips that only went out 500-1000Ly from Sol (not the edge of human space). I discovered hundreds of un-scanned systems and earned more than enough to completely outfit an Asp. I am now 5500Ly out and moving slowly through Thrakaae (sp?) Sector towards the Lagoon Nebula. I have no doubt that the Nebula itself (which is about 1000Ly from my current position) has been completely scanned, but for the last 5 days since leaving the Cat's Paw Nebula every single system I have visited has been virgin territory.

If your aim is to zip around the Galaxy looking only for Black Holes or Neutron Stars, then that is your choice. Just don't be surprised when you find some other yahoo has been there first.

If you truly want to explore and discover new systems (and have the patience to do so) just find a sector of space, turn off the route planner on your Galaxy Map, and pick a star to jump to. NOT just the bright and shiny ones....

Just outside the Cat's Paw Nebula I found one system where the star had a 'discovered by' tag. There were 10 planets in the system. There was one which, on ADS, looked like it may have been Earth-like. It had a 'discovered by' tag on it (same guy as on the star). None of the other planets had been tagged.

I went through them. Found 2 Terraformables, 3 Terrestrial Water Worlds (2 of these were Ammonia Worlds). The tagged planet was a simple Water World.

That is what cherry-picking does for you.

So, do what you enjoy most, but don't complain. Because it is a big Galaxy. Just head in a different direction and try again.

Cmdr Sebastien Ortec
Aboard the Asp Explorer - Sundiver

 

[Zenith]

There are times when I do the "Surveyor" role as well. A number of the peculiar strings of OBA stars are actually listed in the Messier or NGC catalogues.

The string of blue stars between V963 Scorpii and V1208 Scorpii is actually NGC 6231. I knew they were already discovered, but I went through each and every system fully scanning everything except asteroid belts. It wasn't to be first to discover, it was to be first to scan them ALL completely.

Just keep giving yourself mini projects and you'll find exploration a lot less frustrating. I've started a new mini project that will take me all over the place on my way back home.