My first trip into the "un"known.

[thafred]

Hi fellow explorers!

Since I have a sore neck and therefore cannot play with DK2 I decided to give exploration another try. dogfighting on a monitor isn´t enjoyable for me, well not since I sold my TrackIR anyway. Exploration on the other hand might look better and more expensive in DK2 but it´s far more convenient on a monitor when you can have beer, tee, crackers and whatnot to pass the time. totally forgot that my ship has a vending machine!

Parked my Vulture at "Neugebauer City" (What a fun station name for an Austrian, at least if you have seen "Muttertag") and fitted a nice Diamondback Explorer with everything I thought I need. Started my first trip out into the black to about 1kLy from the bubble (figured I start small) two days ago.

The last time I was out there was shortly after the bubble opened in gamma before release. I went to the Pleiades and since I found such a wonderful planet in on of the systems I decided to check that out once again (good news was that it looks the same, bad news obviously it didn´t tag my commanders name back then..) and continue to California Nebula. What really surprised me though was that every single system I came across was already visited. I mean you´re out in "nowhere", 1kly from Sol and on every detour I made, someone else made before me. In about 300 scanned systems I only got 10 previously undiscovered planets (plus those were the stinking ones..like 200cr bonus..ugh!)

So my first exploration into the wild was more akin to taking a hike in the Austrian Alps than visiting untouched rain-forest. Honestly I wouldn't have been surprised if there was a station selling Taco´s and sausages out there to feed the tourist masses.

Well, any suggestions for my next trip. Go boldly where no one has gone before? Is visiting the Core similar? (i mean, are all the routes fleshed out already?) why isn´t there a map to see where the real unexplored parts of the galaxy are? am I just an idiot visiting the most obvious tourist landmarks close to the bubble? (ok, I can answer that myself

I really came to like the DB Explorer and exploration as an activity.
Payout was quite nice IMHO, earned about 1,5Mcr for mostly already explored stuff and since I wasn´t away for too long I´m happy with what I got. surely I could have much more money by sticking to bounty hunting and missions in that timeframe but since it´s such a relaxing experience, you get to see wonderful stuff and earn money too...its a win win in my book!

happy exploring everyone!
(hope we find thargoids soon)

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Welcome to exploration

You'll probably find that most nearby points of interest, like nebula and star clusters, have been discovered now, plus the route out to the Pleiades and Barnard's Loop is probably the most trodden path in the game right now... although there are still plenty of unexplored systems out there.

If you're looking for some interesting places to visit or want to know where people seldom go so you can stake your claim on the galaxy, checkout the map project. Fly safe commander!

 

[Krunchie]

Some directions are more traveled then others.When I was returning from my trip, already 5k ly away I came upon discovered systems, and 3k ly onwards almost all of them were explored. That's west from Sol.
To the NE another story, 1.5 k ly nearly all unexplored.
Most of the explorers go towards various Nebulae, so it's best to avoid those if you want to be the first discoverer.

 

[CMDR Ash]

I've had nothing but unexplored systems, people seem to stay on the same axis plane so try moving "up" or "down" many people don't seem too unless it's on a route to a nebula, I went directly over Sag A* and then straight down to the bottom aside from 2 systems everything was unexplored

 

[CMDR DoubleSkulls]

I think most of the nearby and obvious stuff people have done before. I just tried to get close to 1000 ly down and its been done by multiple cmdrs. The route from there to witch head similarly has been well explored with very few uncharted systems. However, my previous trip, on a fairly arbitrary route, I found very little scanned from about 500 ly out.

 

[certhas]

Well hello fellow countryman
Just as Cmdr Ash pointed out, first fly 500Ly up or down and then head to your destination, avoid the direct line try to fly "off the beaten track" so to say, that should do the trick. And of course, the further you get out into the dark the less you will encounter allready explored systems

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

If you cross the gap between the arms north of the bubble, you'll find the star density increase and you'll hardly find any explored systems. Closer to home, as was said, go above or below the 'plane' and chose a random direction. As you have found out, the south has been most popular because of Barnard's Loop, Pleiades and California. I'm just coming back from the crab nebula and I am finding lots of tagged systems beyond Barnard's Loop. I don't mind, since I'm collecting systems for the CG, and am just on a photographing spree.

Up or down. East or West seems to be your best bet. The road north has been trodden by pilots going corewards, but they will usually not travel vertically. So even North is an option if you travel up or down.

 

[antonygoldrick]

I'm currently on my 2nd big trip since my visit to Sagi-A. This time though I'm going east and am about 2K out heading between the arms in what could be classed as thinly populated areas.

I am in a Imperial Clipper (doing this one in style) and up to now I haven't seen another pre-scanned system in ages.

I'm flipping between manual jumps to anything that's a white or yellow star looking for ELW etc. or just browsing through the area. Its really quiet, peaceful and full of virgin stars.

I recommend it to anyone, though next time I would take more Hendricks Gin with me was were running low and may have to start on the Gordon's (God Forbid)

 

[Ripster]

Thanks for sharing the story

 

[bitstorm]

I set out around 3 days ago for Sag A, hope to be back before the CG ends.

I'm pretty much heading straight for core, I'm just past half way out and I'm registering a loads of first visits. I couldn't tell you at what point it transitioned from mostly visited to not visited though.

 

[Dommarraa]

On my last run back in, I had my first discovered at 7 Kylie out, 2 consecutive at 5 Kylie out, by 3 Kylie they were becoming regular occurrences.