First Exploration/Lost Route

[Ryanes]

So I decided to outfit a ship and head out to do some exploring for profit. I have always been interested in exploring, when I played EVE that was my thing, and the thought of a vast unexplored galaxy sounded good. As a newbie I ran some bounty hunting to build up a hauler, loaded up a route from the Road to Riches website and started a 100 system tour. I'm about 5 systems in, 30 jumps, and now when I run the search I never get the same route twice. Is this normal?

On a side note how deep is exploring. I'm looking forward to making long trips outside the bubble but I am worried there isn't much worthwhile to find other than the planets to scan. Is there any special resources or finds out there. I am hoping even that there is an incentive to mine in the deep reaches. Seems like that would be really cool, 1000ly out, mining stuff that isn't found in the habitable systems. Making the long trek back to bring stuff in.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

Currently over 40k Ly outside the bubble. I can confirm that it is normal for the Mac computer to plot multiple different routes to the same place with various amounts of jumps.

Also, only thing out here that cannot be found in the bubble is fernweh.

 

[Ryanes]

That is a little dissapointing. Be nice to find materials that could only be found away from civilization or mysteries or.. something. Make exploring more rewarding. I have to admit though I did find it enjoyable to use the fuel scoop, Galaxy Map, FSS and DSS. Already have 2mil worth of info and I have 3 hours after work to play tonight.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

I’m scanning every system on my way out to beagle point. From the bubble to Sag A I earned 150ish mil for data. It’s a cool way to earn while unwinding after work

 

[Lightspeed]

Regarding the route plotting, you might be interested in this thread where the differences were discussed recently.

 

[Sapyx]

The ED galaxy tends to err on the side of "realism" when it comes to physical properties. Out there in the real galaxy, the Cosmological Principle applies: there's no such thing as "alien elements". The same 92 elements are found everywhere in the universe, that you find here in Sol system. The same laws of physics apply here as they do at the opposite end of the galaxy.

So it is in the ED galaxy; the stuff you mine in the bubble is identical to the stuff you mine at Colonia, Sag A or Beagle Point. Now, apparently they've programmed in "depletion" for the rare minerals in ring hotspots, and people are VO mining at such a rate that things are depleting rapidly, so at some stage (in a couple of years maybe) the really valuable stuff like Void Opals, you'll have to leave the bubble to find. But right now, no.

There's still plenty of "interesting" things to find, as well as "valuable" things like Earth-likes that will earn you exploration credits. But it's got nothing to do with deep-space mining. Or deep-space colonization (which can't happen automatically, only by hand-crafted events). Exploration is currently all about deep-space science. You can find rare and unusual space-based lifeforms (which are the only lifeforms we can currently find, since we can't land on atmospheric planets yet). You might even find some Guardian or Thargoid ruins or other oddities. But many of the truly "interesting" things are really rather improbable; your chances of accidentally stumbling upon them while exploring at random are almost literally 400 billion to 1.

 

[dxm55]

The ED galaxy tends to err on the side of "realism" when it comes to physical properties. Out there in the real galaxy, the Cosmological Principle applies: there's no such thing as "alien elements". The same 92 elements are found everywhere in the universe, that you find here in Sol system. The same laws of physics apply here as they do at the opposite end of the galaxy.

So it is in the ED galaxy; the stuff you mine in the bubble is identical to the stuff you mine at Colonia, Sag A or Beagle Point. Now, apparently they've programmed in "depletion" for the rare minerals in ring hotspots, and people are VO mining at such a rate that things are depleting rapidly, so at some stage (in a couple of years maybe) the really valuable stuff like Void Opals, you'll have to leave the bubble to find. But right now, no.

There's still plenty of "interesting" things to find, as well as "valuable" things like Earth-likes that will earn you exploration credits. But it's got nothing to do with deep-space mining. Or deep-space colonization (which can't happen automatically, only by hand-crafted events). Exploration is currently all about deep-space science. You can find rare and unusual space-based lifeforms (which are the only lifeforms we can currently find, since we can't land on atmospheric planets yet). You might even find some Guardian or Thargoid ruins or other oddities. But many of the truly "interesting" things are really rather improbable; your chances of accidentally stumbling upon them while exploring at random are almost literally 400 billion to 1.

In short, everything far out there is just more of the same. With the exception of a few places with unique POIs or alien life, 99.99999% of the galaxy is more of the same.

Heh. Just seems that one travels far out mostly for bragging rights. To let people know: "I've been 65K LYs out. How far have you been?"

 

[d8veh]

Don't forget that you can triple your astronomical data by doing the level 5 Li Yong Rui powerplay. Before handing in your data (assuming you have at least 50 million worth), do the 10,000T deliveries on a Wednesday and hand in your data on the Thursday. The prerequisite is 100 mil in the bank and a ship that can carry a lot of cargo, like a T9.

 

[babelfisch]

In short, everything far out there is just more of the same. With the exception of a few places with unique POIs or alien life, 99.99999% of the galaxy is more of the same.

Heh. Just seems that one travels far out mostly for bragging rights. To let people know: "I've been 65K LYs out. How far have you been?"

If the rare stuff would be less rare you would just consider it to be more of the same. Think about it.

 

[babelfisch]

Notable Stellar Phenomena

Geology and Anomalies

• Anomalies
  • E-Type Anomaly
  • K-Type Anomaly
  • L-Type Anomaly
  • P-Type Anomaly
  • Q-Type Anomaly
  • T-Type Anomaly

• Lagrange Clouds

Organic Structures

• Mineral Formations
  • Calcite Plate
  • Ice Crystal
  • Lattice Mineral Sphere
  • Metallic Crystal
  • Silicate Crystal
  • Solid Mineral Sphere

• Molluscs
  • Bell Mollusc
  • Bulb Mollusc
  • Bullet Mollusc
  • Capsule Mollusc
  • Gourd Mollusc
  • Parasol Mollusc
  • Reel Mollusc
  • Squid Mollusc
  • Umbrella Mollusc

• Plants
  • Aster Tree
  • Gyre Tree
  • Peduncle Tree
  • Stolon Tree
  • Void Heart

• Seed Pods
  • Aster Pod
  • Chalice Pod
  • Collared Pod
  • Gyre Pod
  • Octahedral Pod
  • Peduncle Pod
  • Quadripartite Pod
  • Rhizome Pod
  • Stolon Pod

Surface POI types

• Ship wreckage. If any Cargo Canisters or Occupied Escape Pods survived the ship's destruction, they count as legal Salvage. A Cargo Rack containing Materials may be present too.
• SRV and Skimmer wreckage. If there are any cargo canisters or occupied escape pods, they count as legal salvage.
• Cargo cache. Unclaimed cargo canisters, legal salvage for anyone who retrieves them.
• Buildings and a cargo cache.
• Buildings and Automated Mining Extractors. Guarded by Defence Turrets in addition to skimmers.
• Buildings and a lone Data point.
• Crashed Nav Beacon, which can be scanned as a data point.
• Crashed probe, which can be scanned as a data point.[1]
• INRA bases
• Settlements
• Surface Ports

• Geological phenomena
  • Fumaroles
  • Gas Vents
  • Geysers
  • Lava Spout

• Fungal Life
  • Amphora Plant
  • Anemones
  • Bark Mounds
  • Brain Trees
  • Sinuous Tuber

• Microorganism colony formations
  • Crystalline Shard

• Thargoid structures
  • Alien Crash Site
  • Thargoid Barnacle
  • Thargoid Barnacle Barb
  • Thargoid Surface Site

• Guardian ruins
  • Ancient Ruins
  • Guardian Structure

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I see you that, and raise you a real frustration - I'm out around 40,000 light years, had a course plotted, around 117 jumps, bookmarked my end-point. Got tired, logged off. Logged back in, opened the galaxy map, which began to replot my route, and then Route Plotting Failed.
Thought maybe it was just a case of being stupid, so selected my bookmark, ran the Route Plotter, and Route Plotting failed again. I can no longer plot the route that was previously plotted, so had to spend about an hour trying to plot a new route.

Yeah, that's a thing. Not the first time this has happened, probably won't be the last, but it needs to be.

 

[dxm55]

Don't forget that you can triple your astronomical data by doing the level 5 Li Yong Rui powerplay. Before handing in your data (assuming you have at least 50 million worth), do the 10,000T deliveries on a Wednesday and hand in your data on the Thursday. The prerequisite is 100 mil in the bank and a ship that can carry a lot of cargo, like a T9.

Strange thing is that grinding for Engineering materials, going to those documented POIs and exploitable settlements with rare encoded and manufactured mats, finding Void Opal hotspots and then traveling to the stations with the best selling price, surface mapping metal worlds with volcanic activity for raw mats, and then honking every system as you pass by, and occasionally using that FSS to classify USSes and some planets along the way.... all of that got me from zero to Pathfinder in just 2 to 3 weeks of playing.

And I didn't even go more than 1000Ly out of the bubble.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

I see you that, and raise you a real frustration - I'm out around 40,000 light years, had a course plotted, around 117 jumps, bookmarked my end-point. Got tired, logged off. Logged back in, opened the galaxy map, which began to replot my route, and then Route Plotting Failed.
Thought maybe it was just a case of being stupid, so selected my bookmark, ran the Route Plotter, and Route Plotting failed again. I can no longer plot the route that was previously plotted, so had to spend about an hour trying to plot a new route.

Yeah, that's a thing. Not the first time this has happened, probably won't be the last, but it needs to be.

This happened to me quite frequently on my last trip to Beagle Point. I ended up having to plot in short stages and at several points ended up in rather sparse areas where I was having to use jumponium to progress in the desired direction. IMHO the game should allow us to hard save a route between loads, certainly for exploration he only slight variant might be fuel weight and even then it just needs a line or two of code to pop up a window advising you need to mix a basic jumponium if the next leg is slightly out of range.

 

[MickyG1982]

Nvm