If only ~1% of the galaxy is explored....

Let it be 1% or just 0.05%, I think the true* explorers did a very good job in exploring gameplay loop wise, as also in analyzing and illustrating our given galaxy.
xctAp74.png

Looks like you just bought a flat rate to the drinking game *cheers

I’m in 🍻
 
For visited systems, I believe that Frontier doesn't want to do that because of systems which people just honked and flew through.
Yep. Just last week I bagged an Earth-like world in a system where the central star had been scanned by someone else. None of the planets were scanned or mapped, so presumably this person passed through without even honking
 
How about if one of the filters in the Galmap giving us the option to hide visited systems.
I’d prefer better incentives for the masses like truly one off ship parts that get salvaged from lost and crashed ships that once looted and repaired on ship are usable without the need to return to civilisation
So since I didn't see anyone point this out.
In the Galmap filters: Select Visited Stars and you can filter stars you have visited out. Note this leaves all stars selected, so your original filters of KGBFOAM may not work.
 
I personally hope devs do not make it anymore easier for explorers... I'm happy that the exploration requires some grit and dedication... Making it easier is like giving anyone free money... I do like the idea that being an explorer is like being a bit antisocial...

If the whole Galaxy is explored, then the game is over for me... Just flying around, fighting for influence, doing missions, shooting other ships, mining... Not for me... I like the surprise factor of exploration...

EDIT: sorry for not giving any ideas to make the exploration more interesting... I like it as it is... Although I am from time to time complaining about some features of the route plotter etc, I actually like the fact, that the Galaxy is largely unexplored... :)
 
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Exploring - mining just outside Colonia, about 500ly southwest, have only found about 2 systems that have been previously visited by another CMDR.
 
We aren't really explorers at all, and never have been in ED because Frontier mapped everything out from the start. At the very beginning, we knew exactly where every system in the galaxy was, and what stars it contained - even systems that we couldn't possibly know about or detect from the Bubble (physically impossible even with any futuristic technologies you can care to think of - we can't get the resolution, EM radiation from dim, distant stars attentuates over vast distances and are absorbed by dust etc). We even know of the location and existence of freakin' BROWN DWARFS that are literally tens of thousands of lightyears away on the other side of the galaxy - even ones that are so cool they barely emit any radiation at all! The only way we could possibly have that information is if we'd sent out millions of remote probes to every system (that inexplicably didn't bother to map any planets in the systems) and waited for them to return so we could make our perfect galaxy map.

We've basically started with the map of a city that shows every single house, park, and structure in it in its exact location. All we're doing as "explorers" is going to each of those structures and opening the doors and seeing what's inside those buildings. That ain't exploring in my books.

What I think Frontier should have done was to have NOTHING beyond the bubble on the Galaxy map. As ships ventured out beyond the bubble, they'd be able to see more stars (depending on their luminosity and distance) and their locations could be triangulated and plotted on an internal map on the ship. When the ship handed in its exploration data, that information could be uploaded to a central database for anyone else to use. And of course the planets in those systems would remain unknown until a ship ventured there. That way you'd get an map that expands outwards over time - probably over distinct corridors of movement - with the locations of brightest stars plotted but really nothing else beyond about 40-50 ly of those corridors. There'd be vast tracts of unexplored and unknown space filled with dimmer stars (including stellar remnants) that we wouldn't know anything about til we got close enough to detect their presence (and people returned with their exploration data to fill in some of the gaps).

THAT would be what I call exploring, instead of just filling in the details of what we already know.
 
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We aren't really explorers at all, and never have been in ED because Frontier mapped everything out from the start. At the very beginning, we knew exactly where every system in the galaxy was, and what stars it contained - even systems that we couldn't possibly know about or detect from the Bubble (physically impossible even with any futuristic technologies you can care to think of - we can't get the resolution, EM radiation from dim, distant stars attentuates over vast distances and are absorbed by dust etc). We even know where freakin' BROWN DWARFS are on literally tens of thousands of lightyears away on the other side of the galaxy - even ones that are so cool they barely emit any radiation at all!). The only way we could possibly have that information is if we'd sent out millions of remote probes to every system (that inexplicably didn't bother to map any planets in the systems) and waited for them to return so we could make our map.

We've basically started with the map of the city that shows every single house, park, and structure in it in its exact location. All we're doing is going there and opening the doors and seeing what's inside those buildings. That ain't exploring in my books.

What I think Frontier should have done was to have NOTHING beyond the bubble on the Galaxy map. As ships ventured out beyond the bubble, they'd be able to see more stars (depending on their luminosity and distance) and their locations could be triangulated and plotted on an internal map on the ship. When the ship handed in its exploration data, that information could be uploaded to a central database for anyone else to use. And of course the planets in those systems would remain unknown until a ship ventured there. That way you'd get an map that expands outwards over time - probably over distinct corridors of movement - with the locations of brightest stars plotted but really nothing beyond about 40-50 ly of those corridors. There'd be vast tracts of unexplored and unknown space filled with dimmer stars (including stellar remnants) that we wouldn't know anything about til we got close enough to detect their presence.

THAT would be what I call exploring, instead of just filling in the details of what we already know.
Would have made finding Jacques Station more interesting....
 
We aren't really explorers at all, and never have been in ED because Frontier mapped everything out from the start. At the very beginning, we knew exactly where every system in the galaxy was, and what stars it contained - even systems that we couldn't possibly know about or detect from the Bubble (physically impossible even with any futuristic technologies you can care to think of - we can't get the resolution, EM radiation from dim, distant stars attentuates over vast distances and are absorbed by dust etc). We even know of the location and existence of freakin' BROWN DWARFS that are literally tens of thousands of lightyears away on the other side of the galaxy - even ones that are so cool they barely emit any radiation at all! The only way we could possibly have that information is if we'd sent out millions of remote probes to every system (that inexplicably didn't bother to map any planets in the systems) and waited for them to return so we could make our perfect galaxy map.

We've basically started with the map of a city that shows every single house, park, and structure in it in its exact location. All we're doing as "explorers" is going to each of those structures and opening the doors and seeing what's inside those buildings. That ain't exploring in my books.

What I think Frontier should have done was to have NOTHING beyond the bubble on the Galaxy map. As ships ventured out beyond the bubble, they'd be able to see more stars (depending on their luminosity and distance) and their locations could be triangulated and plotted on an internal map on the ship. When the ship handed in its exploration data, that information could be uploaded to a central database for anyone else to use. And of course the planets in those systems would remain unknown until a ship ventured there. That way you'd get an map that expands outwards over time - probably over distinct corridors of movement - with the locations of brightest stars plotted but really nothing else beyond about 40-50 ly of those corridors. There'd be vast tracts of unexplored and unknown space filled with dimmer stars (including stellar remnants) that we wouldn't know anything about til we got close enough to detect their presence (and people returned with their exploration data to fill in some of the gaps).

THAT would be what I call exploring, instead of just filling in the details of what we already know.

I would agree, if our ships with FSD were new and there was no generations of people able to travel around the Galaxy before us... We are not the first ones to travel across the Galaxy... Previous generations mapped the stars for us, it is now our task to expand the map and discover the planets and moons... ;)
 
We aren't really explorers at all, and never have been in ED because Frontier mapped everything out from the start. At the very beginning, we knew exactly where every system in the galaxy was, and what stars it contained - even systems that we couldn't possibly know about or detect from the Bubble (physically impossible even with any futuristic technologies you can care to think of - we can't get the resolution, EM radiation from dim, distant stars attentuates over vast distances and are absorbed by dust etc). We even know of the location and existence of freakin' BROWN DWARFS that are literally tens of thousands of lightyears away on the other side of the galaxy - even ones that are so cool they barely emit any radiation at all! The only way we could possibly have that information is if we'd sent out millions of remote probes to every system (that inexplicably didn't bother to map any planets in the systems) and waited for them to return so we could make our perfect galaxy map.

We've basically started with the map of a city that shows every single house, park, and structure in it in its exact location. All we're doing as "explorers" is going to each of those structures and opening the doors and seeing what's inside those buildings. That ain't exploring in my books.

What I think Frontier should have done was to have NOTHING beyond the bubble on the Galaxy map. As ships ventured out beyond the bubble, they'd be able to see more stars (depending on their luminosity and distance) and their locations could be triangulated and plotted on an internal map on the ship. When the ship handed in its exploration data, that information could be uploaded to a central database for anyone else to use. And of course the planets in those systems would remain unknown until a ship ventured there. That way you'd get an map that expands outwards over time - probably over distinct corridors of movement - with the locations of brightest stars plotted but really nothing else beyond about 40-50 ly of those corridors. There'd be vast tracts of unexplored and unknown space filled with dimmer stars (including stellar remnants) that we wouldn't know anything about til we got close enough to detect their presence (and people returned with their exploration data to fill in some of the gaps).

THAT would be what I call exploring, instead of just filling in the details of what we already know.
with which difference ?
jump to an unknown star instead of jumping to a star we know its spectral class.
There we do the same exact minigame to populate the system map
select next (unknown/known) star
rinse repeat

we didnt use 99,995% of the game-map Frontier created for us, now, after 6 years in the game.
What would be the only difference in your fog of war - galaxy ?
We wouldnt have used 99,9995% of the game provided :)
 
Yep. Just last week I bagged an Earth-like world in a system where the central star had been scanned by someone else. None of the planets were scanned or mapped, so presumably this person passed through without even honking

Explored using the old system, you honked and saw everything, but until you actually pointed your ship at something and got close enough for the discovery scanner to do it's job you tagged exactly nothing. So stars are easy because you are right next to them, but if you were in a hurry it took far to long to tag everything, hence all undisovered except for the star.
 
with which difference ?
jump to an unknown star instead of jumping to a star we know its spectral class.
There we do the same exact minigame to populate the system map
select next (unknown/known) star
rinse repeat

we didnt use 99,995% of the game-map Frontier created for us, now, after 6 years in the game.
What would be the only difference in your fog of war - galaxy ?
We wouldnt have used 99,9995% of the game provided :)

It would have made it more interesting for a start, and added gameplay for exploration. Ideally I would have like the fog of war in old timey games, you could see stars in the sky but the galaxy map wouldn't show anything outside of the range you could see with your naked eye, unless you used a ships telescope, then you could see more but in a limited field. To plan a route through unexplored space you would only be able to jump to nearer stars. You could jump blind, and maybe end up in a neutron star system or you could spectrally analyse the target star (assuming we are out of range of the stars mapped from earth or other inhabited bubble system) to make for a safer jump.

This would of course have ended up with slower spread of explorers, it would take more time to get to the far side of the galaxy for first explorers. Courses that explorers had traveled and sold the data for would end up being travel corridors, you could travel faster following already mapped systems, and stop at any point and head off in any direction into the black to find new stars and create new travel routes for those that followed.

And yes you are right, we may still have explored exactly the same X percent of the galaxy that way, but the explored galaxy map would look vastly different to what it does now with every possible corner visited by someone. It would be a real adventure to head off into unexplored territory. Of course added stuff to find and report on would always have been nice, but the system would have driven exploration in a completely different direction.
 
So since I didn't see anyone point this out.
In the Galmap filters: Select Visited Stars and you can filter stars you have visited out. Note this leaves all stars selected, so your original filters of KGBFOAM may not work.
Unfortunately, this only counts to your most recent installation. I found this to my chagrin last year when rebuilding my PC. Whilst there used to be the option to import visited stars from old data, it no longer works.

It's possibly because there was a project collating multiple people's lists for import, giving something closer to EDSM's visited list going around. Perhaps FD shut off that feature intentionally, but there has been no official acknowledgement as far as I'm aware.
 
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