Gas giant scans over time

[marx]

Out of curiosity, I decided to go through the EDSM data and see how many of each gas giant type were uploaded per month, and see how that's changed. You can find the data here, or just read my conclusions:

First, the distributions. As one might expect, the percentages between various types roughly remained the same, with the only significant changes having been at the introduction of the FSS. (Although people scanned significnatly more gas giants per both total bodies and systems during DW2 than after.) The winners of that were Class I gas giants (which already made up the majority anyway) and Water Giants, while most others lost a bit of their shares. (Except GGALs.) It's easy to see why WGs would gain such a boost: they are next to water worlds on the FSS barcode, so those who are cherry-picking for valuables are now also likely to scan them. (Besides, WGs are still more rare than ELWs.)

Speaking of which, while gas giants used to make up around 13% of the total bodies scanned before the FSS, after it it's 9.5%. However, the context of this is that with the FSS, people scan more bodies per system, and new gas giants / new systems went from ~0.1 to ~0.4.

Oh, and if you want to find your own GGG, you'll likely need to visit two million or so systems and scan a million gas giants. Just a rough estimate, of course. (For reference, Allitnil had visited 185,000 systems.)

Also, have some people been going after HRGGs in January? There were many more new ones that month than usual.

 

[Sapyx]

...The winners of that were Class I gas giants (which already made up the majority anyway)...

I'm surprised to see that. My survey results show that Class III gas giants are the clear majority of giants in F and A class stars, which ELW-hunters traditionally target. Class 1s only coming into a significant majority in star class G and below. This means that the large majority of EDSM users are not simply cherry-picking A and F stars for ELW-hunting.

Or, I suppose, that those ELW hunters simply aren't wasting their time scanning the gas giants as they go along, whereas the "gotta scan everything" completionists are less fussy about the stars they choose.

 

[Vetinari]

If we didn't scan everything you wouldn't have much data to work on and very few GG at all

 

[Caramel Clown]

Weird. I would've thought it's class II. Since according to this chart, which is more or less relevant - it's class II that pay the most.

https://imgur.com/kCnzCY7

Source: https://i.imgur.com/kCnzCY7.jpg

While majority of people don't explore for credits, still...
Speaking personally - I always scan water giants not because they are close to WW on the frequency band, but because they are rare We all know by now how to distinguish between a signature of a waterworld and a water giant. Same goes for Earth-likes and rocky ice worlds - which are like millimeter apart, but not the same.

 

[Orvidius]

That's always been one of those open-ended questions, is why the Class-II giants pay the most specifically. They're not rare or "valuable" in other ways, so the payouts have always seemed a bit strange.

 

[marx]

I'm surprised to see that. My survey results show that Class III gas giants are the clear majority of giants in F and A class stars, which ELW-hunters traditionally target. Class 1s only coming into a significant majority in star class G and below. This means that the large majority of EDSM users are not simply cherry-picking A and F stars for ELW-hunting.

Or, I suppose, that those ELW hunters simply aren't wasting their time scanning the gas giants as they go along, whereas the "gotta scan everything" completionists are less fussy about the stars they choose.

Note that Class I gas giants were the majority even before the FSS. So, the question is rather: when scanning bodies became much easier, why did the ratio of class I gas giants (compared to the rest) rise?
Probably because people are encountering more of them. So, why are people encountering more of them? Maybe because this is how - and where - they travel.
In any case, I don't think all that many people farm ELWs. Everybody hunts them, sure. If somebody wants credits, terraforming candidates are the way to go.
The thing is though, if somebody's cherry-picking, there's no reason to target gas giants. The credits they sell for are laughable, and the only special thing is that they are spawning criteria for several NSP lifeforms... but unlike biological surface signals, you can tell immediately if the system you're in has any NSPs, so there's no need to actually scan the gas giant.
Where there is a need, and where many scans likely come from: the FSS's need to scan the giant in order to scan its moons.

That's always been one of those open-ended questions, is why the Class-II giants pay the most specifically. They're not rare or "valuable" in other ways, so the payouts have always seemed a bit strange.

They are valuable in a new way: many NSPs that require (water) life-bearing planets in the system also accept them. (Requires one of the following to be present in the system: ELW, WW, GGWL, WG, Class II GG.)
On paper anyway. I've run into some already where the listed gas giant didn't work.
In any case, I think the reason for the increased payout for them is that Frontier linked them with life a bit.


Also, @Caramel Clown: in general, class II gas giants are significantly more rare than I or III.

 

[Redfox]

Also, have some people been going after HRGGs in January? There were many more new ones that month than usual.

Does a query for HRGG grouped by sector names show any pattern? E.g. @Taen's and @Jackie Silver's survey of "Phleedgoea" seems to be showing on the EDAstro's HRGG map.

 

[marx]

Oh yeah, you're right, I can just check them easily.
Sure, it's clear as day: an EDSM user William I. has been going through a subsector, Eol Prou HC-K d9, and uploaded thousands of HRGGs from there. Judging by the upload dates, they are no-lifing the survey. Seems like that boxel has very high metallicity, and most of its gas giants are helium-rich.