Mystery of the Listening Posts

[The Golden Knight]

I want to ask about what these messages could MEAN! For starters, I tried to retrace the steps taken by Alex Ryder from the book Elite: The Dark Wheel and that got me...a log that's too vague to go off of. I've found a handful of OTHER listening posts, which point to certain star systems...yet when I actually visited those stars, I couldn't find anything interesting there.

Also I asked Frontier about that, and have deliberately refused to comment...but at least were nice enough to tell that to my digital face, instead of staying mum.

For my collection thus far: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oOGs3CP56qUxSD6eRdb88EaN2wDNnPi8?usp=sharing

 

[Sapyx]

Listening posts tend to point towards various hand-placed objects. Some point to derelict Generation Ships. Some points to alien ruins, lost settlements or secret INRA military bases from the First Thargoid War.

To find and decode them without help, you generally need to find two matched pairs, which give you two halves of a message telling you the system, planet and other location info you might need to find the object. That first one in your list, for example, the one that mentions Charick Drift - that's pointing you to a generation ship in the Charick Drift system.

I should perhaps be pointed out that for some of them - specifically, the Generation Ship listening posts - the information is actually obsolete. For example, the message might say to go to the eighth planet in the system and set a course for System Y. Back when the message was first added to the game, the generation ship was indeed in a direct line between the eighth planet and System Y. But in the intervening time period since then, Planet 8 has moved in its orbit, so the generation ship is no longer findable by following the instructions. Fortunately, we now have a fully functional FSS, which can find a generation ship once you're in the correct system.

And yes, FD are never going to divulge a solution to a puzzle they've placed in-game, even if the solution to the puzzle is widely publicized. There may still be some unresolved chains of listening posts, pointing to as-yet-undiscovered objects. The Canonn Research Group is probably the biggest and most well-organized player group that is attempting to record and track the discovery and research into these and other enigmatic hand-made artifacts in the ED universe; check out their website. Specifically, check their List of Known Listening Posts to see if you've found anything new.

 

[Thatchinho]

Ah, dammit. It’s just about the content of a few LPs. When you said the mystery of the listening posts, I thought this might actually be something good, like who built and operated (still operates?) the listening posts.

 

[The Golden Knight]

I knew I could count on someone having cracked the mystery years before I knew Elite was a thing! I'm just surprised there's anything even potentially "new" left...other than one or two obvious dead-ends.

That said, you can thank (or blame) my artistic writing for the alluring title.

 

[Vetinari]

Youve also stumbled onto a larger mystery about half way through, same as I did. It wont make sense until youve found the beginning and the end and filled in a lot of gaps with YT.

Makes sure POI are turned on in Nav Panel and fully FSS the system, can ignore USS range. Depends what you define as interesting I suppose but maybe something out of the ordinary worth looking into.