Hundreds of Light Years From Anywhere

[Red Martian]

I wanted to explore a little, just as a change of pace from delivery runs and passenger transports, and so yesterday, I headed out into the black, not choosing any particular direction with any sense of purpose. I just wanted to go as far as I could (or felt like, really). Jump, jump, jump, jump, hey, I haven't seen a station since two jumps ago. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. This is awesome, I'm finding all of these new stellar bodies! Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, there's no one around. Anywhere. Where am I? Praea? Never heard of it. Oh well, there has to be a station around here somewhere. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Nope. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Nope. Jump, jump, jump, nope. Wow, where is everyone? Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump.

Uh-oh. I haven't seen a station since the 2nd jump. No planetary bases either. Heck, I haven't seen another ship in ages. Where am I?

Praea, still?.

I have no idea where that is. Let's consult the map, so I can find the nearest station. I can't find anything here, so I'll just switch over to EDDB, and see where I can find a station.

"125 light years."

I was in the backwoods nowhere near a station. Fortunately, I have a fuel scoop, but it would take me 10 jumps just to get to the nearest station (Harvard Base, in this case). So I set course for Harvard Base, hoping that each leap, would be the leap h-, I mean, hoping that each star I arrived at, would be scoopable, or at least 3 of the 10 stars, as that's all I would need to have enough fuel to make it.

Fortunately, I made it, and I got to land in an asteroid for the first time, which was really neat. Also, Harvard Base is just waaaaay too close to its star. I mean, I get wanting a front seat view, but that is ridiculous.

On the upside, apparently, they were looking for cartographic data, and I ended up making something around 500,000 credits for that. When I left Harvard Base, I decided that since the nearest base to that one was still 100+ light years away, I was going to just make a run for Quince, because one of my friends who plays ED says it's a pretty lively place to visit, and I figured why not? If I'm going to travel 120 light years to the next station, might as well travel *click* 387 light years?!. AAARGH!

Still, right now I'm sitting pretty in Millerport, and I got promoted to Scout in the process.

I realize that for some of you, 43 jumps from Harvard Base to Millerport probably doesn't seem like much, but for me it was a huge reminder that space is big. I mean, really big, and what's more, I know I stayed practically in my own backyard in the process. SPACE IS BIG. Elite makes it feel cold, and empty, and just vast.

When I was sitting at Praea EUQ ON-T B3-2, at one point, I just stopped for a moment, and looked around at all of the stars. It was incredible. Here I was, out in the black, dependent solely on myself to make it back to any semblance of civilization, and it was a great feeling.

Also, I don't know what other people think of them, but Cobra Mk IIIs are tough little ships. They're pretty well balanced, overall, and even though mine isn't setup solely for exploration (a little combat, a few passengers, mostly cargo), it did a tremendous job in keeping me alive so I could make it back from my journey out into the unknown (to me). If you haven't just jumped out into the black and explored, you're really missing out.

 

[NW3]

I wanted to explore a little, just as a change of pace... Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Nope. Jump, jump, jump, nope. Wow, where is everyone? Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump.

...it was a huge reminder that space is big. I mean, really big, and what's more, I know I stayed practically in my own backyard in the process. SPACE IS BIG. Elite makes it feel cold, and empty, and just vast.

That's what I like best about Elite: It captures the vastness of space. Yes, exploring can be a grind at times (especially after spending weeks in the black), but it's still rewarding.

Consider joining an expedition. Exploration is more fun when you can share the experience. If that appeals to you, check out the Elite Explorers sub-forum. There are several expeditions every year. I never would have made it to Beagle's Point (on the far rim of the galaxy) if it wasn't for the Distant Worlds Expedition last year. It took me months to get there and back.

 

[TartanDragon]

Usually we give this and it's called debrief, in your case lets call it preflight.

https://confluence.fuelrats.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1507609

If all that ever lets you down and it might you will always be welcome at https://www.fuelrats.com/i-need-fuel/

 

[Red Martian]

That's what I like best about Elite: It captures the vastness of space. Yes, exploring can be a grind at times (especially after spending weeks in the black), but it's still rewarding.

Consider joining an expedition. Exploration is more fun when you can share the experience. If that appeals to you, check out the Elite Explorers sub-forum. There are several expeditions every year. I never would have made it to Beagle's Point (on the far rim of the galaxy) if it wasn't for the Distant Worlds Expedition last year. It took me months to get there and back.

You've been to the galactic rim?! That sounds like every kind of awesome.
I will look into the sub-forum, so thank you.

Usually we give this and it's called debrief, in your case lets call it preflight.

https://confluence.fuelrats.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1507609

If all that ever lets you down and it might you will always be welcome at https://www.fuelrats.com/i-need-fuel/

Oh wow, thank you! That's good to know. Now I can just keep traveling out into the black without ever having to worry about being stranded!

 

[Sapyx]

Welcome to the ED galaxy of 3303.

The "Bubble" of human-inhabited space is an egg-shaped spheroid roughly 400 LY by 500 LY across. Outside of this bubble, there are about 40 scattered outposts and waystations, plus a smaller "bubble" of a couple dozen star systems in the Colonia region, about 20,000 LY away.

The rest of the galaxy is quite empty. Of humans, anyway. There are 400,000,000,000 star systems in the galaxy, and only about 20,000 of them are inhabited by humans. And most of those are concentrated in the Bubble. If they spread them out evenly and randomly throughout the galaxy and you just jumped randomly from star to star, you'd only have a 1 in 20 million chance of finding another human each time you jumped. How many systems are under the control of alien races, we don't yet know; the alien homeworlds are hidden from us, locked inside permit-locked sectors.

You may have noticed that, even though you were hundreds of LYs away from anywhere, it's most likely that the stars you visited were all previously discovered by other CMDRs. You need to get over 1000 LY from Sol before you're likely to find genuinely Unexplored, Untagged systems that no-one else has ever seen before.

If you feel the black calling you and you'd fancy spending more time out there, seeing the sights, you'll probably want to get yourself a ship with better jump range than a Cobra. My main exploration ship is an Asp, 45 LY jump range. Space is just as empty as it is in a ship with smaller jump range, but it takes less time to cross it if you have a particular remote destination in mind.

 

[NW3]

I really like my AspX too. I've engineered it to get up to 56 lyr jumps, when stripped for exploration.

The Cobra is a fine ship; personally, I wouldn't use it for exploration either, but there are numerous Cobras in the Small Worlds Expedition which left yesterday.

A tip to any would-be explorer: Read up on outfitting and other exploration suggestions in the forums. You'll need a good scoop and advanced discovery scanner. I'd also recommend a detailed surface scanner, an automated field repair unit, heat sinks, and an SRV, at the minimum.

o7 (that's a salute, in case you're new to the game)

 

[Riverside]

That's what I like best about Elite: It captures the vastness of space.

Got to say I agree. All things considered, what ED does best is convey just how big space is. How big stellar systems are, how big stars & planets are, and how big the gaps between all the things are.

I hope that doesn't change.

 

[Red Martian]

Welcome to the ED galaxy of 3303.

The "Bubble" of human-inhabited space is an egg-shaped spheroid roughly 400 LY by 500 LY across. Outside of this bubble, there are about 40 scattered outposts and waystations, plus a smaller "bubble" of a couple dozen star systems in the Colonia region, about 20,000 LY away.

The rest of the galaxy is quite empty. Of humans, anyway. There are 400,000,000,000 star systems in the galaxy, and only about 20,000 of them are inhabited by humans. And most of those are concentrated in the Bubble. If they spread them out evenly and randomly throughout the galaxy and you just jumped randomly from star to star, you'd only have a 1 in 20 million chance of finding another human each time you jumped. How many systems are under the control of alien races, we don't yet know; the alien homeworlds are hidden from us, locked inside permit-locked sectors.

You may have noticed that, even though you were hundreds of LYs away from anywhere, it's most likely that the stars you visited were all previously discovered by other CMDRs. You need to get over 1000 LY from Sol before you're likely to find genuinely Unexplored, Untagged systems that no-one else has ever seen before.

If you feel the black calling you and you'd fancy spending more time out there, seeing the sights, you'll probably want to get yourself a ship with better jump range than a Cobra. My main exploration ship is an Asp, 45 LY jump range. Space is just as empty as it is in a ship with smaller jump range, but it takes less time to cross it if you have a particular remote destination in mind.

That jump range is insane! I've written down the Asp as my next ship. Shoot, if I decide I want to hang around inside the bubble and do trading and cargo runs, the Asp looks perfectly suited to that as well, so it's a good ship for someone like me who wants to do a little bit of everything. I can get about 13 light years per jump out of my ship, if she's unloaded. This evening, I left from Millerport and traveled to Buffett Vista, a 400+ light year journey. Using the info I was given in this thread, I didn't worry once about running out of fuel, as the galaxy map filtered everything out except for KGB FOAM stars. I still had to pass through two T Tauri systems, but otherwise, all scoopable stars.

I honestly had no idea that: (A) The game universe was that massive, and (B) that the inhabited section was so small! That means 99% of this game is empty space (probably, but who knows?). I'm a Star Trek fan, so the idea of traveling into the unknown appeals to me. I'm also a Browncoat, so the same applies there, as well. Honestly, this game probably addresses some of the best parts of sci-fi. I can only hope it continues to expand on that idea.

I really like my AspX too. I've engineered it to get up to 56 lyr jumps, when stripped for exploration.

The Cobra is a fine ship; personally, I wouldn't use it for exploration either, but there are numerous Cobras in the Small Worlds Expedition which left yesterday.

A tip to any would-be explorer: Read up on outfitting and other exploration suggestions in the forums. You'll need a good scoop and advanced discovery scanner. I'd also recommend a detailed surface scanner, an automated field repair unit, heat sinks, and an SRV, at the minimum.

I have a mid-range D scanner right now, having picked it up for when I was running cargo. I almost sprung for the Advanced scanner, but figured I wouldn't really use it. Now I'm kicking myself. I have everything else packed into my Cobra, though.

o7 (that's a salute, in case you're new to the game)

Oh, I didn't know that. Someone posted that the other day, right before I went on my journey into the outer reaches of the galaxy! *dun dun dun*
Thank you.

o7

 

[ZackG]

My main exploration ship is an Asp, 45 LY jump range.

I have an Anaconda going 54LY Jump Range. made it as light as possible with enough equipment on board for survival

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Ah, I remember when a 100ly trip was a feat in itself. And 400ly was unthinkable!

Then as I got better ships, and upgrades, 100ly became fairly short 6-7 jump affair. Run if the mill. 400ly was still quite a trek.

Then eventually, 100ly was just a 4-5 jump trip.

Then I decided to fly to Sagittarius A*. In a Python.

25,000ly. In a ship with just a 23.5ly range (at the time).

It took weeks, but when I returned, the bubble felt awfully tiny in comparison.

Then Engineers came along, and basically shrunk the galaxy down by about 33% with their FSD range mods. Now anything in the bubble is trivial.

100ly is now just 3~ jumps.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

Good to have you on board CMDR!

I remember that feeling well and my first 1,000 ly trip was something between terrifying and total awe. Elite space is indeed big. Since the launch of the game, we are still in the 0.0x% range of discovered worlds. So there is plenty of opportunity, to explore, discover and to get your name on the map. Don´t forget to pack a detailed surface scanner, as it is the only way, to claim a world by name (happens automatically, if you have it on board and return the data first - you will be notified, when delivering the data at a station).

The Asp Explorer is an excellent ship and a good goal for every explorer. It never failed me once, in the 20 months since i bought it. It can do anything you like within inhabited space and it starts to shine, when you let it run outside inhabited space. Since the moment i got it, it was the ship of ships... i even sold my Anaconda after four weeks, because i wanted my Asp Explorer back

And one more tip: if you plan to stick with Elite and are fascinated by space, then consider getting a VR headset. It is mind-blowing beyond words and it´s a jump from playing a game to piloting a spaceship...

For me, i am currently 5,000 ly out, on my way to Sagittarius A*. I´ve been there more than a year ago, but i always wanted to return, to see it in Virtual Reality... yesterday i threw all my current plans into the bin and aimed for the second star to the left... the call of the black .

Be seeing you in the void.

Godspeed o7

 

[NW3]

That jump range is insane! I've written down the Asp as my next ship.

Spoiler

The Asp Explorer is my favorite ship by far. I love the cockpit visibility most of all, but it has a decent cargo hold, is quite maneuverable, and can land at outposts (unlike the Anaconda, which requires a large landing pad. It's not a sturdy fighter; something like a Vulture is much better at combat. I don't have weapons on my Asp; they only lower my jump range and tempt me to engage in battles I might not win. I do have an A-rated shield. Even when exploring, you have to leave and re-enter the bubble, passing through anarchy systems.

To engineer the FSD, wait until you have access to grade 5 upgrades; you need to visit Farseer (in Solo mode, to avoid griefers). She is in the Deciat system on the 6 A moon. Sell your exploration to her, to gain reputation and access higher level upgrades. In order to maximize your jump range you should engineer some of your modules with the singular goal of reducing their mass. The low level upgrades only require common materials, which are easy to find on planets or moons, but you'll need an SRV to collect them.

Here's an excerpt from one of my previous posts:

I gathered plenty of Chemical Manipulators in the Deciat system, from Unknown Signal Sources, specifically Combat Aftermath Detected ones. These are easily farmed.

Travel back and forth between the 1st and 2nd planets, scanning every USS you see. 2-4 will spawn for each one-way trip (of about 50 ls). Fly a little past the destination planet for the last USS to spawn. Sometimes I also shuttled between planet 1 and 4 or 2 and 4, depending on which was closer.

About 1/4 of those USSes will be a Combat Aftermath and about 1/3 of those will yield a Chemical Manipulator and occasionally, you'll get 2. Enter normal space if you see a Combat Aftermath. Use your left UI panel (3rd tab) to quickly identify the available materials. I typically gathered about 16 Chemical Manipulators in under 2 hours.

Arsenic is available on several moons in the Deciat system, 2 of them are near Farseer. I was able to scan wakes at the station closest to the main star and got quite a few Datamined whatever wakes. I engineered a 56 lyr FSD for my Asp (stripped and with a lot of engineered low-mass modules) even though I mostly stayed in the Deciat system.

Granted, I spent 8 weeks engineering, but I really wanted to go on the Distant Stars expedition. During that time, I gathered enough materials for about 250 level 5 engineering rolls for my FSD, mostly in the Deciat system.

Occasionally, in the Deciat system, an NPC would try to interdict me, so stay on your toes. Try to win the interdiction mini-game (don't submit), so that the pirates don't repeatedly try to interdict you.

And one more tip: if you plan to stick with Elite and are fascinated by space, then consider getting a VR headset. It is mind-blowing beyond words and it´s a jump from playing a game to piloting a spaceship...

Absolutely. I've chosen to wait until higher resolution VR headsets are released. In the meantime, I use an EDTracker head-tracker. It's not as good as a true VR setup, but it adds to the realism and is much, much cheaper.

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

And a little survival hint... Some players have moved themselves into a deadly trap, because they were not able to leave the area into which they flew by using FSD injections, without checking their inventory first.
Pack a mining laser, when going out. When you are out of needed materials to increase jump range and no landable planets are around, you can mine them from asteroids. It takes its time, but it works and it can save your life.

 

[fossil]

I wanted to explore a little, just as a change of pace from delivery runs and passenger transports, and so yesterday, I headed out into the black, not choosing any particular direction with any sense of purpose. I just wanted to go as far as I could (or felt like, really). Jump, jump, jump, jump, hey, I haven't seen a station since two jumps ago. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. This is awesome, I'm finding all of these new stellar bodies! Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, there's no one around. Anywhere. Where am I? Praea? Never heard of it. Oh well, there has to be a station around here somewhere. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Nope. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Nope. Jump, jump, jump, nope. Wow, where is everyone? Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump.

Uh-oh. I haven't seen a station since the 2nd jump. No planetary bases either. Heck, I haven't seen another ship in ages. Where am I?

Praea, still?.

I have no idea where that is. Let's consult the map, so I can find the nearest station. I can't find anything here, so I'll just switch over to EDDB, and see where I can find a station.

"125 light years."

I was in the backwoods nowhere near a station. Fortunately, I have a fuel scoop, but it would take me 10 jumps just to get to the nearest station (Harvard Base, in this case). So I set course for Harvard Base, hoping that each leap, would be the leap h-, I mean, hoping that each star I arrived at, would be scoopable, or at least 3 of the 10 stars, as that's all I would need to have enough fuel to make it.

Fortunately, I made it, and I got to land in an asteroid for the first time, which was really neat. Also, Harvard Base is just waaaaay too close to its star. I mean, I get wanting a front seat view, but that is ridiculous.

On the upside, apparently, they were looking for cartographic data, and I ended up making something around 500,000 credits for that. When I left Harvard Base, I decided that since the nearest base to that one was still 100+ light years away, I was going to just make a run for Quince, because one of my friends who plays ED says it's a pretty lively place to visit, and I figured why not? If I'm going to travel 120 light years to the next station, might as well travel *click* 387 light years?!. AAARGH!

Still, right now I'm sitting pretty in Millerport, and I got promoted to Scout in the process.

I realize that for some of you, 43 jumps from Harvard Base to Millerport probably doesn't seem like much, but for me it was a huge reminder that space is big. I mean, really big, and what's more, I know I stayed practically in my own backyard in the process. SPACE IS BIG. Elite makes it feel cold, and empty, and just vast.

When I was sitting at Praea EUQ ON-T B3-2, at one point, I just stopped for a moment, and looked around at all of the stars. It was incredible. Here I was, out in the black, dependent solely on myself to make it back to any semblance of civilization, and it was a great feeling.

Also, I don't know what other people think of them, but Cobra Mk IIIs are tough little ships. They're pretty well balanced, overall, and even though mine isn't setup solely for exploration (a little combat, a few passengers, mostly cargo), it did a tremendous job in keeping me alive so I could make it back from my journey out into the unknown (to me). If you haven't just jumped out into the black and explored, you're really missing out.

It sounds as though you may have the route plotter set to "Most Economical" and not "Fastest". 43 jumps for 387 LY is way too much for Fastest. A word of warning - Fastest is, of course, way quicker but your range is much reduced - long jumps use a disproportionate amount of fuel compared to taking a couple of shorter jumps. Fly Safe CMDR.

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

It sounds as though you may have the route plotter set to "Most Economical" and not "Fastest". 43 jumps for 387 LY is way too much for Fastest. A word of warning - Fastest is, of course, way quicker but your range is much reduced - long jumps use a disproportionate amount of fuel compared to taking a couple of shorter jumps. Fly Safe CMDR.

I did my first 1,000 ly trip on economic route as well, because i did not know of that feature - total greenhorns we were

 

[Factabulous]

Nice story, brings back memories of how I used to feel[up] - I remember when taking rare goods 100ly seemed like such a long distance! Once I'd done a larger trip like Sag A* I realised how little I'd previously travelled It's nice to have a reason for exploring - passenger missions for explorers can be ok (though they do encourage a bit too much rushing, even with a 4 week timer).

Just found my first alien ruins 10k outside the bubble this weekend, there are upsides to the jump, jump, jump

 

[FoxTwo]

Imagine how the very first guy that made it to Sag A* felt... he did it without even the Galaxy Map having a 100 LY plot range, and he was the FIRST to arrive (his name is tagged on Sag A*).

And oh yeah Sag A* is 25,899 LY away from Sol.

To give you an idea... on a roughly 25 LY range jump ship (like the Cobra), it's around 1,200 jumps to get there.

As your jump range increases, the number of jumps decreases... pre-engineer Anacondas had something like a 40+ LY jump range and they needed around 700 to 750 jumps to get there.

If you take an average of 1 min per jump cycle (it's actually around 45 secs), you can calculate how much endurance and patience these guys have, to sit in the cockpit and keep jumping for 1,200 mins (20 hours)

And then there's Beagle Point... 65,000 LY from Sol... I don't even want to think about that Colonia's closer tho, around 22,000 LY.

 

[Ashnak]

Reading your thread title, I had to smile. I'm currently here. And yes, the Galaxy as seen from the edge looks fantastic - and lonely

Spoiler

It would be a good idea, though, no matter which kind of ship ypou want to use, to unlock and visit Felicity Farseer and Elvira Martuuk and let them work their magic on your ship. While a large jump range per se isn't essential (especially not if you're going towards the core), it will permit you to reach some more out of the way systems and, if necessary, get you there faster, wherever "there" is.

As for the choice of ships - the AspX is a nice all-round ship, which means she's equally bad at everything she does . My ship of choice at the moment (as you can see from the above picture or my thread) is the Dolphin. S*cks at combat (same hardpoints as the Sidewinder, but less agile), but otherwise flies like a dream (especially considering the amount of internal space), can land practically anywhere and has a very nice view from the cockpit.

My experience with organized expeditions is mixed. Yes, they can provide an incentive to get you moving. But they also create some pressure to keep moving wherever the expedition leads you, whenever that is scheduled, which I found out I don't like. But try it for yourself.

And yes, whenever, wherever you get into trouble, call the Fuel Rats. They're awesome. One of their more epic rescues is documented in this thread.

Oh, and if you find yourself going west to northwest from the bubble - it's NGC 7822, before you ask .

 

[Pennacchi]

About 1000Ly short of Polo Harbour on my first trip to Colonia. The Jump / Honk / Scoop gets a bit dull at times, so I am undertaking more system mapping and accepting the slower progress. Got a nice collection of water worlds yesterday (I seem to be in pretty uncharted territory) but not ELWs of late.

Jumpy range of 37 / 33.4 (https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp/0p8t...j4yNcg===.Aw18WQ==?bn=Pennacchi Colonia AspEx) un-engineered so can make getting on for 2,000 LY per hour.

The increased brightening of the core looks lovely. Not sure where to go after Colonia; might try to make a bit of cash out there then head back on a long, lazy route via neutron start fields and so forth

 

[Crank Larson]

My first exploration trip was in a Cobra. This was before engineering and I think my range was 22Ly. I went out to the Horsehead Nebula (while it was relatively unexplored) to test the exploration waters. On return I traded my way to an AspX with around 30Ly range (still no engineering ) and went out into the black again. In fact, most of my game time was spent far from the bubble until I came back towards the end of last year to try out the engineers... Once you get the exploration bug, there is something strangely therapeutic about jump...honk.

If you haven't yet got the money for an AspX, consider the DBX as a stepping stone. I've only just bought one, and it is the best small ship explorer by a long shot. If you don't mind not having cargo rack, I think it may be the best explorer (in my opinion, of course). I have fully loaded my DBX (weapons, shields, AFM, but no cargo) and still get just over 50Ly range (which is higher than my explorer AspX).

EDIT: The only downside to the DBX is the fuel scoop. Compared to my AspX, scooping is a pain. But I've discovered I can live with that, as all it means is that every few jumps you have a longer stop while scooping. I try to combine these scoop stops with systems that I want to scan.