Have I hit the Exploration wall?
- Thread starter Leper Messiah
- Start date
I agree that exploring is soul suckingly boring at the moment.
It's rare that i even get to see a planet before it's scanned and i turn towards another. The highlight of each system is when I've finished, there checking to see if I have any record breaking discoveries (see this post https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=50952)
i currently play E: D over 3 monitors because the view is great. When I'm exploring though, I go back to 1 full screen window and during those long in-system flights, i'll play Hearthstone on the second screen. It's turn based play and the fact I don't need to watch it constantly makes for a perfect distraction during the boredom of exploration.
It's rare that i even get to see a planet before it's scanned and i turn towards another. The highlight of each system is when I've finished, there checking to see if I have any record breaking discoveries (see this post https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=50952)
i currently play E: D over 3 monitors because the view is great. When I'm exploring though, I go back to 1 full screen window and during those long in-system flights, i'll play Hearthstone on the second screen. It's turn based play and the fact I don't need to watch it constantly makes for a perfect distraction during the boredom of exploration.
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Eh? So why are you doing it?! If I didn't enjoy it, I certainly wouldn't be... :S
The actual act of flying between little points of light and scanning is boring.
The reason I keep doing is because I like jumping into a new system for the first time, seeing that no one has discovered the planets there first and knowing that when I sell the data, it'll have my name attached to them. Just because I don't physically see the planets out of my cockpit, doesn't mean I don't like exploring. I enjoy seeing interesting new combinations of planets in the system map.
Apart from that, you've got the record breaking discoveries post I mentioned before. It's almost like a a side-game outside of the game and although it's nothing in terms of the actual game itself, I get a kick out of seeing my name against one of the discoveries in 'Universal Cartographics Records Book' (https://docs.google.com/presentatio...4rrFnj6j2hc/edit?pli=1#slide=id.g5cdca69a6_03)
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I took a trip out to the Horsehead Nebula earlier this month. It was a two week trip, but I was going cautiously as I was a first time explorer and still a little nervy, and at first I was scanning everything in my enthusiasm to get my name on some astronomical bodies. On the trip out I didn't discover much, and quickly realised that people would be heading for obvious "landmarks". Took a more circuitous route back and found a lot of undiscovered stuff.
To pass the time I started off listening to music as I flew, and when that got old I listened to an entire audiobook.
I did start to go a little stir crazy towards the end. I didn't see another commander in my entire time out there. I started to fantasise about coming in to a welcoming station to dock, being able to set down on a landing pad, being able to leave my craft (I know the function isn't implemented yet, but I RP that I leave the ship when I dock).
Selling the data when I got back was glorious though. I insisted upon selling each system one by one (took me a full hour), saving the most lucrative systems for last. It was a real buzz to be acknowledged as the first time discoverer of something, and I raked in 4.5 mill from the trip.
That said I don't know if I can face getting back out there again so soon, though I figure I will have to at some point if I want to make Elite explorer rating.
To pass the time I started off listening to music as I flew, and when that got old I listened to an entire audiobook.
I did start to go a little stir crazy towards the end. I didn't see another commander in my entire time out there. I started to fantasise about coming in to a welcoming station to dock, being able to set down on a landing pad, being able to leave my craft (I know the function isn't implemented yet, but I RP that I leave the ship when I dock).
Selling the data when I got back was glorious though. I insisted upon selling each system one by one (took me a full hour), saving the most lucrative systems for last. It was a real buzz to be acknowledged as the first time discoverer of something, and I raked in 4.5 mill from the trip.
That said I don't know if I can face getting back out there again so soon, though I figure I will have to at some point if I want to make Elite explorer rating.
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I'm on my first trip currently about 3500 ly from sol and I feel I've just started my journey 
Heading towards the edge where I will probably just turn around and head back home with millions of credits (hopefully).
I think exploring is the most exhilarating activity to do in this game at the moment. Trading is very repetitive and even combat gets repetitive after a few pew pew. While exploring you never know what is waiting for you in the next system. Well except those brown dwarfs are pretty frequent...
Heading towards the edge where I will probably just turn around and head back home with millions of credits (hopefully).I think exploring is the most exhilarating activity to do in this game at the moment. Trading is very repetitive and even combat gets repetitive after a few pew pew. While exploring you never know what is waiting for you in the next system. Well except those brown dwarfs are pretty frequent...
Thanks for the replies lads....my next trip will have NO goal!! I'm just gonna go out and explore, and I won't care if it's just around the bubble, or to the nearest nebula, or further in. Don't know when I'll set off though.....I'm getting the Sim Racing bug again and Project CARS, Asseto Corsa and Raceroom Racing are calling me again. Also I'm trying to get all 4 of my ships at the same station (proving harder than I thought, getting a bog standard sidewinder to where my Asp is docked is a PITA!)
No goal is the best way.
I was on a nebula tour, finding they dont actually look that good inside and that they are tourist traps put me off that.
So Im no just doing "ooh I wonder whats that way" or "over there are tons of neutron stars and black holes"
No real destination, no idea when Im heaing back in, been out just over 2 weeks now and 11000 ly from a load of black holes which I happened to spot on a scout round the map, so heading that way now.
Found my first small black hole yesterday, had fun watching the lensing and seeing how close I dared go.
I was on a nebula tour, finding they dont actually look that good inside and that they are tourist traps put me off that.
So Im no just doing "ooh I wonder whats that way" or "over there are tons of neutron stars and black holes"
No real destination, no idea when Im heaing back in, been out just over 2 weeks now and 11000 ly from a load of black holes which I happened to spot on a scout round the map, so heading that way now.
Found my first small black hole yesterday, had fun watching the lensing and seeing how close I dared go.
naaa, once you've seen 600 systems worth of planets, you've seen em all.
When the game gets to a point where we can do those mysterious level 1/2/3 scans and can actually fly into the atmosphere (or not) and land on the planet then why bother just looking at the pretty spheres. By staying well away, I'm saving time on scanning the whole system as I'm not getting stuck in their gravity so It's quicker to accelerate away to the next scan.
I found that now I'm at a point where I don't care what the planet looks like, I can burn through systems a lot quicker than before.
Though if I do find a pretty looking planet in the system map, then I may stop by for a look, but I don't make a point of it.
Ooh. It would be cool if you could salvage exploration data from the wreckage of dead explorers. Would be a very nice little find, out there in the void.
Obviously that would make explorers prime targets for pirates.. they could make it so weapons fire destroy the exploration data, but "environmental" damage that could kill an explorer retains the data intact.
Oh, that would be SOOOOO cool. Finding a dead ship with millions, or tens of millions, of credits worth of exploration data. What did they find, where were they going ? What killed them ? So many questions in that one dead ships data core. That would make rescue missions even better. Maybe make that an option for self destruct.. instead of exploding, just shut down life support and prep the ship for salvage/recovery.