New Adventurer Reporting in - well sneaking in quietly with possible stupid questions

Eric Hunt

Eric Hunt
Hey Cmdr's

Names Eric - look about Space is my Game

That said - I have about 350hrs ingame, using x56 Controller and my HTC Vive - life is good, well goodish - life in Elite seems for me to go from Omy God this is awesome give me more - to what do that again, and again and o look again (this all happens in one 3 hour sessions lol). So getting to the point of my post in this ere forum. I decided a few weeks back to go and explore outside the bubble, go and take a look at all the wonderous things I keep reading about on this forum. put my mark onthe game and settle into Elite Fame by finding something everyone has been looking for :)

Fitted out a Ship, poked a sharp bit into the Galaxy Map (1000LY from Rhea) and just left, no goodbyes, no tears and I even forgot to pay the Bar Bill. Finally got out of the bubble - boy doesn't it get dark out here.
The trip went well, btw 1000LY is a long way for us beginners - I stopped in every system, scanned and landed on planets that I thought would be good - and this is where it all started to fall apart. I read this part of the forum nearly everyday - trying to get the imnofmation or undertsand the information being passed by all you Cmdrs but I am failing badly

What I know so far (which isn't much but)
Scoopable Starts - A-M
You can now filter by these Starts in the Map (to help you with fuel scooping)
Landing - only been on low G worlds so far - tobe hoinest I am not even sure I have found High G world but running aroud in my SRV is fun - got the hang of the Radar and finding Planet stuff is quite easy if not laborious.
My main problem is - I land in a system, Scan it using my Advanced Scanner - then open up System MAp and look at the Planets to see fi 1: they ahve been claimed, 2: If they look interesting - I then if 1 or 2 is a yes, go and scan the planet - check out its resources and if a good one - land and run around finding stuff
My problem being the system map - how do I tell by looking it if the 14,000LS is worth the trip to scan a planet, how do I know the big planet at the top with rings around it will yeld a good scan or the possibilty of a good find with the planets attached underneath the big planet - they all look alike in the System Map
just cause
Are there any places I should go looking to find stuff - for example - last night I flew the 1000LY to the California Nebula just cause it looked nice on the map, now I am going to just keep going and try and find stuff

So please, if you guys have any ideas, sweet words of wisdom or just plan information - let me know

Regards
Cmdr Eric Hunt
 

newman1702

newman1702
Knowing whether or not something is worth the trip to scan it is difficult to answer because it's a very individual thing. Some people are only interested in terraformables, others in water worlds or earth-likes, some like the rarer gas giant types (helium giants, water giants), some just like to find life whether it's on an ELW, WW or a gas giant.. and some are just in it for the money (see: neutron farming).

So, it really depends. You can tell what type a planet is both from the system map icon and the sound it makes when you hover your mouse over it. I would suggest looking over this thread:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ds-and-how-to-know-everything-from-System-Map

This will help you identify what exactly are you looking at. Whether or not it's worth the scan - only you can answer that. Financially, exploration doesn't pay great to begin with, so if you're in it for the cash, I'm afraid you've got the wrong profession, as you can make more in one week in the bubble than you can from months of exploring. Most explorers only see the credits as icing on the cake and explore for other reasons - so maybe you're into planetary nebulae, ELW's, black holes, or just in general seeing the sights, but it really is up to you. In any case, welcome to the exploration community, and good luck out there.
 

Kolato

Kolato
Eric Hunt said:
Hey Cmdr's

Names Eric - look about Space is my Game

That said - I have about 350hrs ingame, using x56 Controller and my HTC Vive - life is good, well goodish - life in Elite seems for me to go from Omy God this is awesome give me more - to what do that again, and again and o look again (this all happens in one 3 hour sessions lol). So getting to the point of my post in this ere forum. I decided a few weeks back to go and explore outside the bubble, go and take a look at all the wonderous things I keep reading about on this forum. put my mark onthe game and settle into Elite Fame by finding something everyone has been looking for :)

Fitted out a Ship, poked a sharp bit into the Galaxy Map (1000LY from Rhea) and just left, no goodbyes, no tears and I even forgot to pay the Bar Bill. Finally got out of the bubble - boy doesn't it get dark out here.
The trip went well, btw 1000LY is a long way for us beginners - I stopped in every system, scanned and landed on planets that I thought would be good - and this is where it all started to fall apart. I read this part of the forum nearly everyday - trying to get the imnofmation or undertsand the information being passed by all you Cmdrs but I am failing badly

What I know so far (which isn't much but)
Scoopable Starts - A-M
You can now filter by these Starts in the Map (to help you with fuel scooping)
Landing - only been on low G worlds so far - tobe hoinest I am not even sure I have found High G world but running aroud in my SRV is fun - got the hang of the Radar and finding Planet stuff is quite easy if not laborious.
My main problem is - I land in a system, Scan it using my Advanced Scanner - then open up System MAp and look at the Planets to see fi 1: they ahve been claimed, 2: If they look interesting - I then if 1 or 2 is a yes, go and scan the planet - check out its resources and if a good one - land and run around finding stuff
My problem being the system map - how do I tell by looking it if the 14,000LS is worth the trip to scan a planet, how do I know the big planet at the top with rings around it will yeld a good scan or the possibilty of a good find with the planets attached underneath the big planet - they all look alike in the System Map
just cause
Are there any places I should go looking to find stuff - for example - last night I flew the 1000LY to the California Nebula just cause it looked nice on the map, now I am going to just keep going and try and find stuff

So please, if you guys have any ideas, sweet words of wisdom or just plan information - let me know

Regards
Cmdr Eric Hunt
Click to expand...

Well this may not neccesarily apply to you, but for me personally i do not scan the star, i simply power up my FSD, check the system map for earth likes or anything quite out of the ordinary, then either scan it or just throttle up to jump. It doesn't net me that much cash but it allows me to travel 3000ly/hour which is quite refreshing.
 

disorganise

disorganise
I remember my 1st big trip just over a year ago. About 1200ly.....3 months :eek: I remember being so pleased at going so far :)
Then I did 10,000ly with DWE until I found an untagged ELW and had to go back to claim it....it's all relative.
Picking the planets from system map comes with practice. I can pick most ww's now including the cloudy ones that look like icy's at first glance. Still can't reliably pick a terraformable hmc.....I'm maybe 60% successful.
Doesn't reallt matter though. After a while it becomes a case of scanning whatever you feel like, just because. It's relaxing :)
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Eric Hunt said:
...My problem being the system map - how do I tell by looking it if the 14,000LS is worth the trip to scan a planet, how do I know the big planet at the top with rings around it will yeld a good scan or the possibilty of a good find with the planets attached underneath the big planet - they all look alike in the System Map...
Click to expand...

It does depend on what you mean by "good find". Do you mean "interesting information and planetary statistics", or "pays well". Because those aren't necessarily the same thing. Nobody explores just for the money, since there are many higher-paying professions in the game, but the cash rewards all contribute to the Exploration ranking, which is the easiest to obtain in terms of the amount of credits you need to earn to reach Elite.

My exploration speed is about 1000 LY a day; it took me seven weeks to reach Gi(a)garin Gate via a roundabout route; I expect to be to the Core and back in another seven or eight weeks. I don't have an SRV, so landability and surface composition of a planet is unimportant to me. I'll stop and scan anything "interesting", which I define as:

- Any stars within immediate scanner range.
- Any planets within immediate scanner range; the ones really close to hot, bright stars are often "metallic" planets, they pay significantly more than typical High Metal Content planets.
- Any water worlds, ammonia worlds or Earth-likes (obviously), no matter how far away, though for water worlds over 100,000 Ls, I might pass by if there's literally nothing else worth scanning out there.

These, I will scan around the primary star, or around a secondary star if that secondary star is less than 50,000 Ls away:
- HMC planets that I guess would be terraformable. After a while, you tend to learn roughly where the "Goldilocks Zones" of the different star types are. It helps to remember that Earth and Mars are both in the Goldilocks Zone of Sol, a G-class star, and that Earth is almost exactly 500 Ls away; so for G-class stars, the Goldilocks Zone is typically in the 400-800 Ls region. Hotter stars, the Zone is further out, cooler stars it is closer.
- If I stop for a closeup scan and/or screenshots of a planet, I'll scan every moon of that planet - especially moons of terraformables, since if they're Mars-sized or bigger, the moon might be terraformable too.
- Class II gas giants. They're easy to tell from other types by having very pale, pastel colour.
- Anything odd-looking or unusual in the system map, that might make a future visitor to the system stop and say "I want to get a closeup of that".

Things I won't go out of my way to scan (unless they are the only things in the system that are not Tagged), but if I happen to find myself sitting within scanning range of them, I might scan them:
- Asteroid clusters, obviously. They pay literally nothing for them. Zero credits. Set your navigation panel to ignore them, and never scan them.
- Icy or Rocky moons.
- Gas giants other than Class II. "Rare" gas giants such as Class IV, Class V, Helium and Water don't pay more than boring old Class I or Class III, so I don't bother hunting for them.
- Remote iceball planets
- "Dragon spittle" - teeny, tiny High Metal Content planets. In Universal Cartographics, when it comes to surface scan bonus payments, size matters - and scanning a Ceres-sized dwarf planet barely pays more than a typical iceball. That, plus you have to fly up really, really close to them (5 or 7 Ls) just to get the surface scanner to switch on. With no SRV, I have no reason to get so close to such places.

Finally, I always try to leave something worthwhile - some non-terraformable HMC, if there are any - unscanned in every system I visit, so that any subsequent visitors to the system have something they can Tag. The only reason I can think of for scanning every single valuable object in a system full of valuable objects is if you are trying to break the "most valuable system ever scanned" record. My record's currently at just over 500,000 credits.
 

iain666

iain666
Eric Hunt said:
My problem being the system map - how do I tell by looking it if the 14,000LS is worth the trip to scan a planet
Click to expand...

You can also listen to the planets in the system map...

Personally, I always scan the main star, any planet I can scan without moving (although I've mostly given up on secondary stars), earth like and ammonia worlds and if the main star is tagged and something else isn't then something, anything, else.

I usually scan water worlds (although I'm unlikely to bother if they're more than ~30kls away these days). I often scan all the likely terraforming candidates. And every now and again, about once ever 100 systems or so, I scan every last thing just because.
 
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SpaceMonkeyz

SpaceMonkeyz
Beyond just scanning though......When I am in the Galactic map looking for points of interest I like neutron stars, black holes, Wolf Rayet stars, Supergiants, and Small nebulas. I also like Carbon Stars even though they are worth poop, don't ask me why....and Herbig Ae/Be stars fascinate me.

When it comes to system exploration I think really though, since exploration as a whole is more about the exploring than making credits, just find what you like and do that. If you enjoy planet crawling, do it. If you like scanning everything in system, do it. If you like just honking and scooping, do it. I also enjoy cavorting about the game as an astronomer/Astrobiologist so I try and get any planet that is life supporting scanned, even the worthless Ammonia and Water gas giants. It's all personal preference.

Lastly, really IMHO, it's all about the screenies baby!!!
 

[VR] optimal_909

[VR] optimal_909
iain666 said:
You can also listen to the planets in the system map...
Click to expand...

It is possible to tell with 100% possibility whether the planet is an ELW or not, even before the fine details become visible on the system map. Vivid blue with clouds and greenery. The vivid blue + bright clouds combo is practically a terraformable WW. Same goes for AWs, although some of them could have unusually thick atmosphere.
In other words: if in doubt, it's not an ELW.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Back when the game launched, "water worlds" had continents and greenery, just like Earth-likes. Caused considerable teeth-gnashing for explorers who flew 400,000 Ls to a companion star to tag an ELW, only to find it's "just a water world". Sometime around version 1.3, they changed it so that "water worlds" were now ocean-planets, with no large landmasses, so it is indeed easy to tell by eye whether a cloudy blue marble is an ELW or a WW.
 

Eric Hunt

Eric Hunt
Guys

Thanks for your words of wisdom. its a lot to take in but getting there slowly. The exploration isn't for the money, although I do need the dam stuff as I haven't found the free stuff anywhere :). Grinding missions is boring and no fun, my PVE isn't the best - I just point and shoot and hope that my sheilds are better than theres, so far the only time I have really enjoyed myself is when I jump into a system and wait for what might just be there - then rinse and repeat.

Anyway enough rambling on - back to the next system and lets just see whats out there

See ya all in Black

Eric
 

Lupin

Lupin
Eric Hunt said:
Guys

Thanks for your words of wisdom. its a lot to take in but getting there slowly. The exploration isn't for the money, although I do need the dam stuff as I haven't found the free stuff anywhere :). Grinding missions is boring and no fun, my PVE isn't the best - I just point and shoot and hope that my sheilds are better than theres, so far the only time I have really enjoyed myself is when I jump into a system and wait for what might just be there - then rinse and repeat.

Anyway enough rambling on - back to the next system and lets just see whats out there

See ya all in Black

Eric
Click to expand...

Well you have past my first test with "The exploration isn't for the money", but do not forget your SRV. Much fun to be had with that out in the black.
Oh and take some of the passenger sightseeing missions.
 

Kenneth McGrew

Kenneth McGrew
Eric Hunt said:
Hey Cmdr's

Names Eric - look about Space is my Game

That said - I have about 350hrs ingame, using x56 Controller and my HTC Vive - life is good, well goodish - life in Elite seems for me to go from Omy God this is awesome give me more - to what do that again, and again and o look again (this all happens in one 3 hour sessions lol). So getting to the point of my post in this ere forum. I decided a few weeks back to go and explore outside the bubble, go and take a look at all the wonderous things I keep reading about on this forum. put my mark onthe game and settle into Elite Fame by finding something everyone has been looking for :)

Fitted out a Ship, poked a sharp bit into the Galaxy Map (1000LY from Rhea) and just left, no goodbyes, no tears and I even forgot to pay the Bar Bill. Finally got out of the bubble - boy doesn't it get dark out here.
The trip went well, btw 1000LY is a long way for us beginners - I stopped in every system, scanned and landed on planets that I thought would be good - and this is where it all started to fall apart. I read this part of the forum nearly everyday - trying to get the imnofmation or undertsand the information being passed by all you Cmdrs but I am failing badly

What I know so far (which isn't much but)
Scoopable Starts - A-M
You can now filter by these Starts in the Map (to help you with fuel scooping)
Landing - only been on low G worlds so far - tobe hoinest I am not even sure I have found High G world but running aroud in my SRV is fun - got the hang of the Radar and finding Planet stuff is quite easy if not laborious.
My main problem is - I land in a system, Scan it using my Advanced Scanner - then open up System MAp and look at the Planets to see fi 1: they ahve been claimed, 2: If they look interesting - I then if 1 or 2 is a yes, go and scan the planet - check out its resources and if a good one - land and run around finding stuff
My problem being the system map - how do I tell by looking it if the 14,000LS is worth the trip to scan a planet, how do I know the big planet at the top with rings around it will yeld a good scan or the possibilty of a good find with the planets attached underneath the big planet - they all look alike in the System Map
just cause
Are there any places I should go looking to find stuff - for example - last night I flew the 1000LY to the California Nebula just cause it looked nice on the map, now I am going to just keep going and try and find stuff

So please, if you guys have any ideas, sweet words of wisdom or just plan information - let me know

Regards
Cmdr Eric Hunt
Click to expand...

1. KGBFOAM - all scoopable stars
2. How to tell if a planet 876013709781304868460347659824986703147068240389038469838ls is worth visiting? Beta idio... i mean they gracefully declined to give us that option, its RNG like the rest of the game because time sinks are FUN:x but yeah pot luck you can;t tell from the system map, an unassuming yellow dot on the system map can hide canyons and mountains galore!!

Nebula are cool to look at if that's your thing, other than that just go in a direction you feel comfortable going,

The non major routes will have more undiscovered systems.

Then there is jumping beyond the edge of space, sparce areas of stars some 100ly+ between them needing lots of Polonium <- this is what i spend most of my time doing now i like to follow a route of discovered stars until... undiscovered, the previous person obviously ran out of Polonium :) i am somewhat amazed how far some have gone especially how rare polonium is, but the view from the edge and difficulty plotting routes makes it fun for me.

to the point where i am trying to build an anaconda capable of 60LY so i can get 120ly, but rolling a grade 5 FSD with 50% is a PITA
 
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JetsonRING

JetsonRING
I think you have "exploring" pretty much down, exploring is just Christopher Columbus saying "What's over there?".

Scoop-able Stars: I like the acronym: FOG? K'BAM! All your basic, scoop-able stars. The more dangerous neutron stars and white-dwarf stars, wait and tackle with cheap, easy to replace ships until you "git gud" at supercharging.

Been playing since June and a dozen times have said to myself "what now?". Something has always come along, first it was being Planet Express, delivering cargo/data wherever it needed to go, then rare-commodity trading, then long-range cargo deliveries until that got nerfed, some smuggling, got into the Engineers which required some mining, trading, surface prospecting in an SRV, etc.. There is no "one thing" that everyone does except earn credits since almost everything in the game revolves around credit.

Don't get hung up on advancing to the next, bigger, "better" ship. Initially, that style of play is a credit-sink. I have a billion credits and still regularly fly around in my Sidewinder. Stay in a Sidey (or whatever) until you have a definite need that a new ship fills, much higher cargo cap., increased fighting ability, whatever. It is much cheaper to get blown up in a Sidewinder and better to upgrade the FSD and Power Distributor in your Sidey than to go and buy a Zorgon Hauler, IMO.
 
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Kenneth McGrew

Kenneth McGrew
newman1702 said:
It's Oh Be A Fun Girl (or guy, depending on one's tastes) Kiss Me. This not only has a nicer analogy, it puts main sequence types in order from hottest to coldest. And seriously, why would you choose something that sounds like a weird Soviet prophylactic over a fun girl that is not only kissing you but putting your main sequences in order? :)
Click to expand...


People remember things in different ways and putting them in order is irrelevant (imo) for scooping, they're many ways to remember scoopables use what works for you, KGBFOAM is the one that sticks in my head possibly because it is the most stupid just like a science teacher once told me

"My Very Elderly Mother Jumped Straight Under Niels Porsche" its rediculous and there are far more logical ways to order things but hey I remeber it over three decades later, the beauty of the human mind is we all tick differently and they're are no right or wrong answers, pshychology is a marvellous thing instead of asking why use x ask what do 2 humans visualise in their head when they see a word, the answer will be infinitely different.
 
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