I'm about 14kLY s out at the moment. I haven't seen anything different to the bubble - only no other ships and no USSs, so not very interesting really. Last time, I went out to Bovomit and looked over the fence to see if there were any thargoids planning an attack, but I didn't see anything, so I went back again. I'm still wondering what all this exploring is all about. Has anybody ever found anything?
The area I'm in I haven't come across a discovered system in ages (I'm not too far away from Colonia either) so every system I find something new
In all seriousness, I think you have to find something that interests you. If all you see is "oh hey, another icy body, I'll add that to the other 3000" or "that Gas Giant is a slightly different shade of blue...yay" then no, exploring is not interesting and you can see everything in the bubble.
I look for oddities. I like finding those oblate Gas Giants that are spinning super fast or those GG's orbiting super close to their star (bonus points for both). I Found a GG the other day that had some amazing deep red coloring in a wide central dark brown band and it had contrasting beige bands that made the color stand out even more. I'm sure that exists elsewhere but it was new to me!
I'm also exploring a region that seems to be filled with Helium-rich GG's which are fairly rare. I'm learning what to look for to determine which systems are more likely to have these beauties. They aren't really worth anything as far as credits or Arx are concerned. I haven't found a single ELW in the roughly 300 systems I have visited in this region but that's not why I'm doing it. I found something I like and I'm going with it. I said it in another thread and I'll say it again, maybe, just maybe I'll find one of those Helium GG's. The chance if that is pretty much 0 but still, you never know.
I also tend to play out weird personal narratives as I explore; usually when I find ELW's or some other planets with potential lifeforms. That definitely comes from the nerd inside me that loves RPG's. If there is life down there, have they noticed me? If they have, what are they thinking? Are they scrambling to try and communicate with me? hide from me? launch weapons against me? Maybe those mapping probes I just launched at them are being considered a hostile action (lets face it, those things probably cause a lot of devastation). If it's an ELW in a system with a strange object like a black hole or neutron star, how would that have changed our understanding of the universe if we had evolved there? is it even possible for something like that to exist? It keeps the mind active because exploring can feel monotonous at times.
The allure of exploration in this game is an odd one. on the surface, no, there really isn't anything ground breaking to discover. I have a feeling the devs keep 95% of the gameplay to the bubble for a reason; that is where 95% of players are going to spend 95% of their time. I highly doubt there's an unknow alien species planted somewhere that we can find. The chance of finding something like that is almost 0. But if you don't go looking for it then the chance
is 0.
Please note, the numbers masquerading as statistics in this post were entirely made up.
