I see a lot of people who seem to lack some kind of engaging game play while out exploring and absolutely hate it but then there are others who seem to spend all of their time out in the black. I had made several attempts at exploring prior to DW2 but nothing farther than about 17k ly which is not really much of anything. During DW2 I found what worked for me and I absolutely enjoyed my time during the 200k ly journey. Here is what worked for me:
I would search for systems in the Galaxy map that I thought might be interesting. I would filter out whatever stars I wasn't interested in then just start looking around until I found something neat. Be it Wolf-Rayets, Carbon stars, certain types of white dwarfs, black holes, O-types, Giants, you know, whatever I decided my next target was. On the first tab in the Galaxy map you can see additional stars in the system along with their class and luminosity; A great asset that takes a bit of time to learn but is well worth it. I could spend upwards of an hour searching for what I considered the right system. I would usually look for something less than 10k ly away so it wasn't too much of a trek. I would also plot some other points in between.
While travelling I would filter out everything except, O, B, A, F, G and some other types of rare stars. That way I figured my chance of randomly finding something cool might increase a bit. It seemed to work out pretty well for the most part. I would fully FSS most systems unless I could tell there was nothing of interest, like only icy bodies. Any system that had some high value targets such as Earth-Like Worlds, Water Worlds, Ammonia Worlds, anything terraformable or if anything just looked a little odd I would fly out to and map; probably take a screenshot or 2. I would also regularly land on Metal-rich planets to do some material gathering when I found one that had an element I was a bit short on. I had fighters with me but I honestly rarely ever deployed them, only for the occasional photo op. Not sure that I would actually bring a fighter bay again. I guess it can be nice if you're piloting a slow turning beast but I personally never really saw the point.
This thread is not about the old tools vs the new, it's not meant to open another debate; There are already plenty of threads for that. The intention here is to bounce idea's off each other about what works for you that keeps you out exploring; what have you tried that didn't work. Maybe inspire some Commander's with ideas to get them going on their own adventure. Maybe help a Commander who is out in the black and lost motivation to continue with some new ideas to make it interesting again. I think the tools are out there to make exploration fun and engaging. I concede that more could be done to improve exploring but again, that's not what this is about. What works for you with the tools we currently have? Why do you stay out exploring for so long?
I would search for systems in the Galaxy map that I thought might be interesting. I would filter out whatever stars I wasn't interested in then just start looking around until I found something neat. Be it Wolf-Rayets, Carbon stars, certain types of white dwarfs, black holes, O-types, Giants, you know, whatever I decided my next target was. On the first tab in the Galaxy map you can see additional stars in the system along with their class and luminosity; A great asset that takes a bit of time to learn but is well worth it. I could spend upwards of an hour searching for what I considered the right system. I would usually look for something less than 10k ly away so it wasn't too much of a trek. I would also plot some other points in between.
While travelling I would filter out everything except, O, B, A, F, G and some other types of rare stars. That way I figured my chance of randomly finding something cool might increase a bit. It seemed to work out pretty well for the most part. I would fully FSS most systems unless I could tell there was nothing of interest, like only icy bodies. Any system that had some high value targets such as Earth-Like Worlds, Water Worlds, Ammonia Worlds, anything terraformable or if anything just looked a little odd I would fly out to and map; probably take a screenshot or 2. I would also regularly land on Metal-rich planets to do some material gathering when I found one that had an element I was a bit short on. I had fighters with me but I honestly rarely ever deployed them, only for the occasional photo op. Not sure that I would actually bring a fighter bay again. I guess it can be nice if you're piloting a slow turning beast but I personally never really saw the point.
This thread is not about the old tools vs the new, it's not meant to open another debate; There are already plenty of threads for that. The intention here is to bounce idea's off each other about what works for you that keeps you out exploring; what have you tried that didn't work. Maybe inspire some Commander's with ideas to get them going on their own adventure. Maybe help a Commander who is out in the black and lost motivation to continue with some new ideas to make it interesting again. I think the tools are out there to make exploration fun and engaging. I concede that more could be done to improve exploring but again, that's not what this is about. What works for you with the tools we currently have? Why do you stay out exploring for so long?
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