Maps of Lagrange clouds

[marx]

Originally posted here and here, but I think it would be beneficial to have a separate thread, for easier reference and discussion.

So, from the EDSM data, I collected a list of the systems with Lagrange clouds, and Orvidius used his EDAstro stuff to map them over the Milky Way. Note that unlike almost all of his stuff there, this list isn't auto-updating: since EDSM offers no data dump or API calls to the Codex (yet?), it has to be done manually.
Some abbreviations used here: NSP: Notable Stellar Phenomena, IOS: Inner Orion Spur (the bubble's regions), PLC: Proto-Lagrange Cloud.

Lagrange Clouds spawn as containers for spaceborne life; there are no empty ones. So, they are great for getting a look at the galactic distribution of NSPs, as one doesn't have to map all the mollusc, crystal and other variations, just the clouds can be mapped. PLCs are the dominant containers, the other colourful clouds are around nebulae only. (Including inside planetary ones.)
With all that in mind, here are maps with and without PLCs, with and without region borders:









As you can see, many NSPs line up with region borders perfectly, and the vast majority of them are in the IOS. The Sagittarius-Carina Arm and Dryman's Point regions do have noticeably more, and to a lesser extent, Tenebrae as well. Otherwise, there's barely anything out there. The Sol-Colonia line (and DW2's route) gets cut off immediately after the IOS, so it's not like the bubble region has by far the most NSPs because it sees the most traffic.
This harsh drop outside the IOS has been reported to Frontier as a bug well before, but we don't know if it's intentional and will stay this way, or not.
Put another way: of the roughly 4,400 PLCs over the galaxy, 3,700 are in the IOS.

Even around nebulae, colourful Lagrange clouds are rare, and often only a couple of nebulae per region have them. Compare the non-PLC map above with this nebula map:


Another interesting statistic: Lagrange storm clouds are extremely rare. Only 11 have been found to date, compared to the 18 green gas giants.

Finally, the system data can be found here.

 

[Para Handy]

That clustering in the Inner Orion Spur section with the abrupt border alignment ....

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Hm, AFAIK this Data now enters the EDDN (since V3.0 I presume).

Have you tried asking Spansh?
His Site is (AFAIK) the only one allowing you to search for Geo, Bio and NSP things throughout the Galaxy that others reported via the EDDN.
Thus, it must be possible to attain a Data Dump and build a comprehensive Map, unless there's a big misunderstanding on my side.

-- edit --
Wait, EDSM also has an advanced Search for Codex entries, I totally forgot that.

-- edit 2 --

Just checked with EDSM Advanced Search for Codex entries - and it correctly listed the System with Methane Fumaroles I scanned a few Minutes ago.
So definitely something running in via API and building a Database.

 

[marx]

@ FalconFly: Yes, it does. The data is from querying it via the EDSM web search.
I can't seem to find such searches on Spansh's site though. Could you help me out here?

And yes, technically one could regularly scrape the EDSM web search for all this, but that would be kind of a d*ck move. I asked Anthor if dumping this data too would be possible, but if not, then at least there's already the snapshot above.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

@ FalconFly: Yes, it does. The data is from querying it via the EDSM web search.
I can't seem to find such searches on Spansh's site though. Could you help me out here?

And yes, technically one could regularly scrape the EDSM web search for all this, but that would be kind of a d*ck move. I asked Anthor if dumping this data too would be possible, but if not, then at least there's already the snapshot above.

Dangit, I could have sworn NSPs were searchable via Spansh - but turns out I was mistaken (?)
Only surface things can be searched there via Body Search -> Landmark type/Subtype.

So "disregard all after good morning" on that call, sorry.

 

[Shnyrik]

The Sagittarius-Carina Arm and Dryman's Point regions do have noticeably more

With those two regions the case may, actually, be in lesser trafic. I mean, that they may be as full of NSPs as IOS, just less cartographed.

It is also interesting, that NSP-rich regions seem to be on the same galactic spur.

 

[Orvidius]

I thought it was remarkable, and yet unsurprising that the IOS boundary cutoff is so clear. However, for some reason I was thinking they were more evenly distributed in terms of how people were finding them, so it was interesting to clearly see the bubble/colonia line represented here.

 

[Jmanis]

Seeing this kinda stuff is what puts me off trying to get into more exploration

 

[marx]

Bit of news on this. I'm starting to wonder how well PLCs correspond to NSPs in general, because I noticed that while the Sagittarius-Carina Arm region has 662 clouds, it has thrice as many (1,902) Peduncle tree systems in total. So I'll probably have to check them all out, see if there are other such lifeforms that are apparently more common outside the clouds. (So, inside rings.)

However, this still doesn't explain the complete cut-off on the Sol-Colonia line. Looking at the Inner Scutum-Centaurus Arm region, even with all the stuff placed around the Colonia region (Eol Prou nebula), there are only a couple hundred NSPs there in total, and they don't outnumber the clouds nearly as much.

 

[marx]

Seeing this kinda stuff is what puts me off trying to get into more exploration

To be fair, this is only the Chapter Four stuff. The generated galaxy, which is of much better quality, is still out there. Plus, to be honest, I don't think many people are looking for the NSPs anymore.

 

[Jmanis]

To be fair, this is only the Chapter Four stuff. The generated galaxy, which is of much better quality, is still out there. Plus, to be honest, I don't think many people are looking for the NSPs anymore.

... he says to the guy, looking for NSP's specifically

 

[marx]

I've been looking into NSPs and the Codex more, and I think I know why regions outside the IOS don't have nearly as many PLCs, or rather: why the IOS has so many.

The answer is two-fold. The main reason: Albulum Gourd Molluscs. Compared to many other types of molluscs, both in the IOS and in the wider galaxy, their requirements are much more relaxed than usual. (Their actual requirements, that is - the Codex appears to have plenty of ones not listed.) The second, lesser reason is of course - bugs.

How is this relevant to PLCs? Simple: PLCs across all regions spawn only in conditions where the lifeforms present in the region would spawn. This applies to the "filler" content such as metallic crystals as well. So even though they have no requirements of their own listed, the clouds and other content effectively inherit requirements. The best example here would likely be the Vulcan Gate region: life there only appears in White Dwarf systems, so PLCs, metallic crystals and so on only appear in White Dwarf systems there too. This despite the fact that these spawn across many other kinds of systems in the galaxy.

In the case of the IOS, it also helps that the spawn area of the molluscs seems to cover the entire region too. Compare these with the Bullet Molluscs of the Outer Orion Spur too: their star requirements are even more relaxed, but there still aren't nearly as many of them, because they appear to have an unlisted nebula requirement too. (Their variations also tend to use pictures with colourful nebula backgrounds too.) If they didn't, we wouldn't see just the small sphere around Eta Carina and the large one around NGC 3199, but the entire region might be covered instead.

Oh, and this is also why the Sol-Colonia line is no longer visible after the border: the ISCA has two forms of life, Bell Molluscs and Umbrella Molluscs, and both appear to require nebulae. In case of the Umbrellas, this is listed on the Codex (all of the large molluscs do), but with the Bells, it isn't. Moreover, they seem to have been found only around Guardian nebulae.

In a nutshell: there aren't many Lagrange clouds in most places in the galaxy because in Elite, Lagrange clouds are tied to lifeforms, and not the other way around.


Finally, for the bugs mentioned before: there are examples of not being able to scan and record things for the Codex in some regions, and the journal no longer logging PLCs after the first one found in at least one region, Vulcan's Gate. This doesn't seem to be the case in the IOS though.

 

[Shnyrik]

I've finally finished my searches in the Outer Orion Spur around Eta Carina and NGC 3199 nebulae. I've tried to check all known NSPs in those two sectors. There also was a Stellar Unknown mapping event and they scanned quite many systems around NGC 3199. So I combined the data, indicating which pilots provided it. And here are the results, hope this table helps someone

In the meantime I can say, that, first of all, not all NSPs were listed in the list, extracted from EDSM. And I believe this is not because people didn't scan them (all the systems around the nebulae seem to be long ago discovered), but due to codex bugs: before the update I couldn't scan some of the clouds, after the update it now seems, that none of them scans at all.

Second, somehow it seems that not all of the clouds were identified correctly. Well, this is kind of wierd, and on one hand the initial data was collected automaticaly from the Codex and human factor should be excluded completely, on the other hand I myself, with the codex data unavailable, had to identify clouds by eye, but still if the table said that both clouds should be green and I myself saw that one of them was orange, I prefered to believe my own eyes (though I made special notes about that and I also marked the clouds, identified by eye, with red font).

I'm kind of concerned if this all has anything to deal with the cloning NSP bug, which I myself witnessed in the Colonia. But clouds in the Outer Orion Spur seem to be different and has different set of lifeforms, so, may be not.

Third, it seems that not all obvious things are obvious to everybody I've heared some reports about lagrange clouds without molluscs (I mean without any smaller lifeforms at all, but in the Outer Orion Spur this are mainly molluscs) and I've checked those systems and naturally the reason was in, let's say, not complete mastery of the technique of catching radar blinks. As stated in the post above, every single cloud has smaller lifeforms.

The absolute majority of NSPs seem to have two different populations of larger lifeforms (for the Outer Orion Spur this are mainly different crystals). However there are some NSPs with only a single type of crystals. And I have a theory, that this are actually still two different populations, but they are randomly of the same type of crystals But still, I've managed to find a single ring NSP near Eta Carina without any larger lifeforms at all. It had molluscs flying around the ring's boulders, but no crystals, solid spheres or anything else.

I've also tried to see how the subtypes of the molluscs are distributed inside one system with miltiple NSPs. And I can say that there is a tendency for the molluscs in one system to be of the same subtype. Of 54 systems with multiple NSPs 32 had molluscs of the same subtype. However 22 had molluscs of different subtypes. I thought, that maybe that could have something to do with the location of NSPs, like NSPs around one star in a binary pair have same type of molluscs and so on. But no, this seem to be random, and NSPs around one gas giant may have different molluscs, while NSP around two stars 100KLs away may have the same molluscs.

 

[Mengy]

Seeing this kinda stuff is what puts me off trying to get into more exploration

Agreed. The news in this thread is disheartening.

 

[Famen]

Help find the Lagrange cloud.

Interested in the Luteolum Lagrange Cloud in the Blaa Hypai OZ-O d6-18 system. It is the only one in this sector.

When scanning a system, only one signal is detected, the green cloud.

I studied the entire system, there are no other signals.

According to the base there should also be a Luteolum Lagrange Cloud.

 

[Old Duck]

Where is the closest cloud with lightning? Closest to Sol, that is. I've never seen one of these, but now that I have VR, it seems a great time to go sightseeing!

 

[Heavy Johnson]

Another interesting statistic: Lagrange storm clouds are extremely rare. Only 11 have been found to date, compared to the 18 green gas giants.

Wait, wait. When were there 18 GGG? I only know of about 10.

 

[marx]

Where is the closest cloud with lightning? Closest to Sol, that is.

Looks like it's Thaile HW-V e2-7, some 11,000 ly away.

And @Heavy Johnson, you've received the answer since in another thread. While there has been another GGG discovered since then, the number of storm clouds still stands at 11. There is one thing though: the game doesn't always log clouds properly, so it's possible that some are "hiding". I've yet to see any such cases confirmed though, at least not with storm clouds.
Plus it's not like they would appear in many regions, as they are exclusive to nebulae - looks like planetary ones, in fact.

 

[Old Duck]

Looks like it's Thaile HW-V e2-7, some 11,000 ly away.

That's like halfway to Colonia! Oi, I think I'll pass for now...

 

[marx]

That's like halfway to Colonia! Oi, I think I'll pass for now...

With today's jump ranges of 50-75 ly, that's 150-220 jumps. With neutron stars, Spansh says it's 156 with 50 ly (reasonably achievable with most ships), and only 76 with the 75 ly (reasonably achievable with the Anaconda). The bigger problem is that the Thaile storm cloud is quite alone where it is and you'd have to fly the same distance to the next one - whereas if you fly to the core, the storm clouds are much closer to each other.