How far do you jump while exploring?

Go'Gen

Go'Gen
When you're on an exploration trip in the unknown, do you:
  • Set an endpoint in desired part of the galaxy 1000s lys away, jump along that route and explore only in waypoint systems? (Far jumps, miss a few planets each time.)
  • Just go in one general direction without planned route, jumping systematicaly to every system on the way, one by one? (Short jumps, system2system.)
  • Use map filter and visit only certain stars (why?), making your trip more like zig-zag?
Thanks.
o7

Btw...
I'm atm in Crescent Nebula, last station "west" of the bubble, preparing to just aimlessly proceed further to the "west".
This is a pleasure sights&sounds trip in 55ly Orca, not hunt for credits&rating.
 

Caramel Clown

Caramel Clown
I mix, and match. Depending on what I'm looking for. On my current trip I had the urge to look for certain objects. For example giant stars. I use mix of realistic and filtered view to find a region with good density of giants. And I fly there using neutron-jumps, stopping for refuel at A,F,G stars. To maximize my chances of finding ELWs while getting fuel :) Once I'm in a region I want to map, again - I use mix of realistic and filtered view to find all objects I want and bookmark them. Then I jump to each manually, deleting the bookmark after the jump. This way I don't get confused. For example I've ended up finding around 50 giants in a small region of space no more than 100Ly across.
Alternatively, if I just decide to pick a direction and go I try to filter out stars I don't want. Generally G-class is the lowest class of star I jump to on my journey. Unless, again - I look for giants. Which are usually K and M.
I use same method hunting for black holes. They are very easy to spot in realistic view, since they are a very distinctive black dots.
My typical filter looks like this:
O,B,A,F,G,Carbon stars, Wolf-Rayet, non-sequence stars - enabled. The rest - avoided. I may or may not jump to white dwarfs, depends. They're usually not that interesting, and generally quite annoying to navigate around due to massive exclusion zone. Dangerous for inexperienced players.

When I come back home from a very long trip I often get impatient, and just find a nice string of neutron stars to carry me almost all the way to the bubble.
 

varonica

varonica
I rarely jump more than a few hundred ly a time, selecting interesting stars along a route to a selected target. O class, black holes, wolf-rayet, carbon stars, it's hard to go more than a few hundred ly without spotting a few good targets. Sometimes if nothing else interesting crops up I will just check neutron stars along the way to find any multi star neutron systems, they are often quite interesting.
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
I do a little of everything, depending on what my current mood/plan/project/whatever happens to be. ;)

I've probably spent the largest amount of time doing long-distance plotting and just seeing what I get along the way. Frequently I'd use a nebula as the end-point. I usually filter out brown dwarfs and M-class (unless the stars are too sparse to do that effectively). I also often leave White Dwarfs off the filter too, but once far enough from the bubble or other highly trampled areas, I may turn those back on. They're not worth boosting from, but can still be interesting systems.
 

varonica

varonica
Orvidius said:
I usually filter out brown dwarfs and M-class (unless the stars are too sparse to do that effectively). I also often leave White Dwarfs off the filter too, but once far enough from the bubble or other highly trampled areas, I may turn those back on. They're not worth boosting from, but can still be interesting systems.
Click to expand...

That's always been a question to ponder for me, do I filter out certain star classes during travel? I decided after some thought when I started exploring to not filter anything out while traveling, so I keep an eye on my fuel and divert when it gets low. I do filter when searching an area however, say a nebula, sometimes on star class but more likely using the visited/not visited filter.
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
Yeah it's a bit of judgment call. Personally I get bored with the Brown Dwarf and M-class systems with nothing but ice planets. But by doing this, I'll also be skipping the red giant stars. K-stars at least have a much better chance at having ELWs and gas giants. I also usually leave proto-stars enabled just in case they're interesting.

What's interesting is that the course plotter often finds a route with fewer jumps by turning off M and brown dwarfs, though not by a large amount. And of course, that only really matters if you're trying to get somewhere.
 

marx

marx
I always have at least one goal when I'm setting out. That does influence how I travel. The environment also does though: even with today's enormous jump ranges, you might want to relax your filters if you are passing between galactic arms, for example. And hey, sometimes you get bored with seeing the same kinds of stars and systems.

If you're at the Crescent nebula now and heading directly West, you'll soon leave the IOS (Inner Orion Spur, the bubble's region) and head into the gap between the Orion and Perseus galactic arms. The situation isn't bad there, but you'll see what I meant. But say, you picked an interesting direction though: there aren't a whole lot of things discovered (yet) in the West. Unless you turn North-West and arch towards Colonia, that is.
If you decide to head up the Perseus arm though, come say hi! ;)
 
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Leif_Erikson

Leif_Erikson
At the moment I have all filters on apart from M, Y and T Tauri. Taking the T Tauri's off does mean missing out on Herbigs and they do have interesting systems.

As for distance I normally set routes between 2.5 to 3k away- around 50-60 jumps. During the Brown Dwarf hunt in economic mode I sometimes got 250 jumps to destination and could feel my willpower ebbing just thinking about it! And I always like to end route on a D code G Star system as in my early days of exploring thought it would be the best chance of finding an ELW. Now know that's not true but it's become part of my routine :)
 

Rooster Podunk

Rooster Podunk
When I begin a journey I boogie out about 5k LY. After that it is star by star. Yes I plot a rout in the general direction I intend to end up but on each jump I open the Gmap in realistic mode, and pivot up down and around my current location. It is difficult to define exactly what catches my eye. Sometimes it is simply the name of the system, maybe the mass code, or the combination (or lack thereof) of companion stars. If nothing catches my eye it is zip to the next system the plot has picked out, but I probably detour off that plot 7 out of ten times.
 

Bigmaec

Bigmaec
When I returned to Colonia last week, it was a trip of two weeks in a 44ly clipper.
Roughly 600 jumps without neutrons, slightly off angle, so I got 500 undiscovered systems. Only one ELW though.
Anyways, during workdays I played roughly an hour a day, doing a self-set target of 1000 LY in that timeframe.
On the weekends I kept the same routine, just did several stints of 1000.
 

Romeo India Charlie

Romeo India Charlie
I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, which means that I engage in a mix of sightseeing and exploration: I set a waypoint for sightseeing, then I explore until I reach it.

How I explore along the way depends a lot on my current mood. Sometimes I have all the patience in the world, explore every new system I find, visit all the pretty, goofy and valuable bodies. Other times I just want it to end and go on a neutron rush, occasionally stopped by some undiscovered system along the way. This said, I don't think I have a system and to be honest, I think I would be bored if I did.

Regarding the map filter, it depends too. Sometimes I want systems I have not visited. This is common if I'm close to inhabited space. If I'm neutron jumping, I only filter for scoopable stars. Might start doing some different filters after reading some replies in this thread though.
 

Darth Wonko

Darth Wonko
For me, like a lot of folks, it just depends.

If I want to get somewhere, like Colonia or XA or whatever, I go a different direction for 1kly and then plot a general course using spansh. Then, every couple of neutron stars, I'll use the galmap to plot my route without boosts so I can just hit whatever random systems I encounter. Then, I'll look for black holes and go there and the replot to somewhere else.

Really, just kind of random.

However, once I start getting closer to my destination (if I have one), I tend to spansh it because I get antsy.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
I do whatever I feel like at the time. Most of the time I have an end goal in mind, but I let myself get distracted along the way. Even if I rush somewhere, like when the new exploration changes dropped and I had to get 42 Kylies away in order to make sure I was the first to map a planet that FD had renamed for me, on the way back I got... sidetracked... ;) I got a few entries recorded into the Codex, and then I noticed how I could get quite a few more. Despite the risk to my initial, and far more important, goal I ended up making a 100,000Ly detour 😂 (I did get the mapping bonus for my planet)

Most of the rest of the time I'm pottering about I'll just browse the Galaxy Map for a system I find interesting, which is normally one of the non sequence stars, and make my way there just allowing myself to get distracted as usual.
 

alexzk

A
Jump above plain (+/- 1000 ly height). Auto draw routes through NS in about 1000 ly ahead to aim. Looking around this route +/- 300ly left right for rare stars, like carbons etc. If found - reroute to there.
Do FSS after each jump. Depends on it may do close planets scans too.
But lately, I don't have aims close then 20000 from my current position :D
 
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