Hi, fellow adventures, I just set off too! And have a question, or two ..

[thebjoern]

Hi my fellow adventures, explorers, tourists, whatever you may call yourselves

So after a bit of a break from Elite (too busy with work), I decided to come back, and after a brief grind for powerplay (hated getting the same reward for an Anaconda as for an Eagle.. but that's another story), I decided to go back to my initial dream of exploring the galaxy

I fitted out an Asp at the Founders World (gotta save some money, don't I?), chose all the light weight components except for the Frame Shift Drive, plus I added a field maintenance unit (though it seems that was kinda pointless?), so it got a good enough jump range now.

I went to one of the "edges of civilization" as a starting point (HIP 8396), and decided to go sightseeing initially to get a feel for things, so this is what I did so far:

1. Maia system in the Pleiades, where I saw my first black hole

2. Witch Head Nebula

3. Orion Nebula, where I saw my first neutron star at Parenago 2149

Around each of those destinations visited a bunch of systems (have to yet find my first system where I can put my name to "discovered by"... seems those destinations where I went so far have had many visitors, or I didn't check enough systems).

Will continue sightseeing some more, and scanning stuff along the way. I found this whole experience a lot more satisfying that expected/hoped for. After all the work stress, it is really relaxing, and beautiful to look around those nebualae, the skies very colourful and pretty.

Went to many photo shooting locations and took screenshots or just enjoyed looking at my ship in those beautiful environments... but as I use Oculus Rift, they don't actually look nice. I tried to play without OR just to take more nice pics, but somehow I couldn't take it, it lost so much immersion. But wouldn't it be great if they added a way of taking non-distorted screenshots? I don't mind if the game stutters a few seconds for that, as long as the result is nice... just render a single frame to some temp renderbuffer and write it to file, should be quite straightforward I think... anyway, for now have to stick to enjoying the views and storing them in my brain

A few things that I found a bit troublesome:

1. It seems when I enter names in the find box in the map, it doesn't find them if the name is something like "Witch Head Sector xxx xxx" or "Running Man Sector yyy yyy" - is it just me, or have other people experienced that too?

2. With the OR it seems too hard to select an object in the map, and with issue 1) I just mentioned I sometimes find it hard to navigate to places. User problem? Or other people had that too?

3. In certain very densely populated areas (like the Orion nebula) with many stars in close proximity it only shows a handful destinations in the left-hand navigation screen. Is there maybe some settings in some config file that you can change to allow a higher maximum number of objects? With issues 1) and 2) above, at least I could try to find those stars that I want to go to in there...

Anyway, am happy to be out there, having a good time, enjoying myself and not having to worry about other people, just taking it easy and scanning a lot

Greetings from the Orion Nebula
Bjoern

Spoiler

 

[Katejina]

Hey there! And welcome back!

I don't use a Rift, much as I'd love to, so I can't answer those questions for you. But I can certainly say that the search function is quite bugged. Everyone is having trouble finding past systems they've visited, destinations they've written down, etc. I haven't gotten it to work myself. For the destination menu on the left side panel, perhaps the game populates a certain number that is closest to you? I don't think I've ever seen more than 30 items as far as jump destinations go.

 

[thebjoern]

Hi, and thanks

Yeah I was just wondering if there might be a way in some config file or so to change the maximum number of destinations, I don't mind scrolling through a long list, am not in a hurry But that should at least help with finding systems that are within jump range...

 

[AntiDisco]

There is a known bug that keeps you from searching for any system with 'sector' in it and a few others.
I don't own a OR but a friend of mine disables it everytime he has to navigate the map, so it seems to be a common problem.
As far as I know there is no possibility to change the number of destinations in the navigation tab. When I was in the core the furthest selectable system was sometimes only 3 or 4 LY away.
And if you want to find an undiscovered system you have to go out in a direction where is nothing interesting like a nebulae. Then you can sometimes find undiscovered systems only a few hundred LY away from civilization.

 

[Roqinn]

If the galaxy map doesnt find your search item the first time, click it again. Sometimes you have to remove the last couple of characters from the name and then search system by system until it comes to the one you want. It's a pain, but it works.

 

[gooddoc]

Yes the Galaxy Map search bug is annoying.

I found an unexplored ELW in a COL 359 SECTOR region & can't confirm if i was credited with a 'first discovered by..' for it.

Just another of the bugs that seems to effect us poor Explorers, when all the 'pewpew' improvements get released & updated.

 

[Muzz UK]

There is a known bug that keeps you from searching for any system with 'sector' in it and a few others.
I don't own a OR but a friend of mine disables it everytime he has to navigate the map, so it seems to be a common problem.
As far as I know there is no possibility to change the number of destinations in the navigation tab. When I was in the core the furthest selectable system was sometimes only 3 or 4 LY away.
And if you want to find an undiscovered system you have to go out in a direction where is nothing interesting like a nebulae. Then you can sometimes find undiscovered systems only a few hundred LY away from civilization.

I actually found a way around this bug. Basically I have two monitors and run the game in borderless full screen so I can mouse over to Facebook, Youtube and eBay on my other monitor. If I do that click a few times randomally then mouse back into Elite it will search 100% fine for any system in the map.

 

[thebjoern]

Just a shame that I can't take nice screenshots like this when using the OR:

Spoiler

For screenshot reasons played a bit without earlier today, during my lunch break. Just flying around a bit from Orion nebula towards that Messiers object (think it was M78) nearby before heading towards Barnards Loop area...

Really quite therapeutic after all the work stress

 

[drkaii]

I've made a guide to using the map with the rift - it's actually easy once you get the way it works: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=132901

There's a video too

 

[thebjoern]

drkaii cool, thanks, will check that out!

 

[thebjoern]

I just set up the controls for the galaxy map and played around a bit with it, you are right, it's really easy, and works very well (though maybe not quite as fast as with the mouse for navigating around, but not immersion breaking when you use the rift).

Thanks, much appreciated

 

[drkaii]

Glad to be of service

 

[Jim Steinman]

If people are having issues finding systems on the map if they've noted them down, I find zooming in/out first seems to do the trick before searching an exact system name.

 

[thebjoern]

Ok, so about 2500ly out I found my first (unexplored) earth like planet

Spoiler

And am currently on "M-Street" (as I call it, as it is a line of what mostly seems M stars, but with a bunch of F, G, K, L, T thrown in as well) towards the "southern" edge of the Galaxy

Spoiler

And still having fun, exploring a lot, occasionally getting a surprise by finding an already explored world (or part of it)

Bjoern out.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Around each of those destinations visited a bunch of systems (have to yet find my first system where I can put my name to "discovered by"... seems those destinations where I went so far have had many visitors, or I didn't check enough systems).

You have the exploring bug, someday you will return to civilisation only for the dark black to quickly call you back once again...

Also on the above quote this was released very recently by developers:

"So far an incredible 11.3 million systems have been explored by players. At the current rate of play the Elite: Dangerous community will have charted the galaxy's 400 billion star systems in 23,417 years. We'll be finished by the year 25,432, so here's hoping 255th century computers are PC compatible."


11.3 million from 400 billion isn't much but considering how few Nebula and other obvious viewpoints there are then its a large number. As above the well trodden routes from the human inhabited space to the shiny map objects will be visited and explored, my advice is go up or down on the map since most casual explorers forget that space is 3D so you have a much better chance of finding unexplored systems.
Edit: Just read your post, you seem to be in the thick of unexplored now so congratulations and good luck with your trip

 

[thebjoern]

Thanks, and yes, about to continue my journey now