New explorer first trip lessons learned!

[Kim_S]

As a complete new explorer and just finished my first expedition (actually cut short for reasons that will become clear), I learned a whole set of things that might help someone else in the same position.

So here is the top 10 things I learned during that first eventful journey:

1. This exploration thing can be a whole lot of fun, but also quite lonely. The destination is important, but it's mostly about the journey

2. The bubble seems huge when you're in it, but when you're outside of it you realise just how amazingly tiny it is

3. For finding unscanned systems it's good advice to go vertical, but not too far as there are a lot less systems up there

4. The galaxy is huge, like incomprehensively huge. I made it 1500ly from home before I had to divert to Quince, which felt like a long way but the galaxy map shows what a baby step this actually is

5. Don't spend literally the whole day in a VR headset flying around the galaxy and then go to bed about 3 hours after you meant to with a huge headache (not really exploration related, but good advice anyway!)

6. Learn about and practice SRV mining before you go and not when you're 1500ly away from home

7. The supercruise music really gets boring after the 100th time of hearing it, so bring along all your best music and plug in

8. Get long range scanning capability. Really.

9. It's super exciting when you first find an empty system and a planet or moon with no tag and you are the first person to scan it, and land on it

10. Don't spend all your time in your SRV having fun as you drive around your own planet (now permanently named Kim's World) and then suddenly find you ran out of SRV fuel because you never needed to worry about this before and you're stranded and won't be able to drive around any more planets in the rest of your trip. See also items 6 and 9!


There are loads more little things that you can learn and don't realise you don't know until you're out there and nobody is nearby to restock, or help. Accidentally firing off a heat sink is not exactly critical, but it happened and just shows what mistakes can be made! I learned about ship integrity when I made it home as a result of that, something I never even knew about.

But it was a lot of fun, and not as difficult as I expected although it did create a huge feeling of how empty of life the galaxy actually is. I'm so used to flying around and cycling through every target in a system, but I did not see anyone else once I went vertical and left the bubble.

For some reason my route either had close to 100% of the systems as scoopable stars, or I hit amazingly lucky. Is this normal? It was not because I had those systems filtered on my map - every star type was available to me. But it was not until I headed towards Quince that I came across a non-scoopable Tauri star, and even then I was close to Quince when it happened.

Ok too long of a post now, lots of fun to be had, hope everyone enjoys their own first time, and some experienced folk can confirm the fun continues when you're 10x as far out as I made it!

Fly safe and enjoy the journey [smile]

 

[goemon]

nice post!

as for the "scoopable" - there is a stratum of unscoopables around -50 height (i think) of the galactic plane, if you moved up or down, you won't hit it.

some people enjoy going 10 times as far or even further, some don't. i have been out 3 1/2 month longest, and my furthest distance is below 30k ly - but i did a lot of shortrange exploration. for exampel i did a project in 1.4 to visit all 1000-coordinates, e.g. +1000, -1000,0 - throwing the local nebulas and sights into the mix.

on such a trip you can be back in the bubble in an hour, while you still will deal with manual routeplotting at the heighest and lowest coordinates, and for not using the beaten tracks you'll get some first discoveries.

there are a lot of interesting real galaxy targets ~3000 ly from sol. i was even able to tag 2 real galaxy supergiants clise by in 2.0./2.1.

 

[morph113]

As for music. I personally have the ingame music muted at all times and I'm listening to Radio Sidewinder which I find really great especially for exploration. It's a lore friendly radio station and really breaks up the monotony.

And yes 1500 LY is just a baby step in exploration but it's very far if it is your first one. There will be a day when you consider 10,000 LY from Sol as almost home when you are on your way back

 

[Jackie Silver]

Good post.

I find these days that I measure exploration distance more in terms of jumps needed than absolute distance in light years. Or even by the number of pages of data to sell - fifty systems per page! - or by the number of albums worth of music that I'll get through on route. I'll think of journeys as being "a hundred jump journey" or "a five album journey" and so on.

For a long time (compared to almost all the other "early" explorers") I stayed close to the Bubble. It was a long while before I started making truly extended trips. I wouldn't be in any great hurry there, although of course it's faster to get places these days and there's more of a support network of bases that you can visit out there.

 

[PanTast]

Do you know that you can refuel your SRV with synthesis?

Keep on exploring [up]

o7

 

[Kim_S]

Do you know that you can refuel your SRV with synthesis?

Keep on exploring [up]

o7

I do now

Although I didn't have the materials to do it when I was out there, or even the fuel to take the risk of going to look for the materials once I learned out it was a thing!

No embarrassment, really.

 

[Aura Lorell]

I do now

Although I didn't have the materials to do it when I was out there, or even the fuel to take the risk of going to look for the materials once I learned out it was a thing!

No embarrassment, really.

A Detailed Surface Scanner will also help reveal the materials on planets you scan, which will make it easier to plan prospecting relevant to synthesis materials.

If you are on PC then opening an account on EDSM and running EDDiscovery is highly recommended as you can keep a record of all your travels and go back any time you want.

Exploration is great, isn't it? Love being out there.

 

[koop26]

First time I left the bubble I had a 2D fuel scoop on my DBX with a 32t tank and some kind of D or E rated power plant that heated up close to a star. I spent minutes fueling at stars. Lots and lots of brown dwarfs too. Couldn't filter out unscoopables at that point. It wasn't a long trip though, it was basically to Maia. Had a 20ly jump with lower grade modules so it took 20ish jumps or more. Didn't even have a discovery scanner.

Second trip my bank account was healthier, so I took an Asp X to VY Canis Majoris. 30ish ly range, SRV, a 6C fuel scoop, scanners. Much better trip. Went smoothly as it could go. I think it's like 3000ly from the bubble. There was a lot less brown dwarfs on this trip. I remember constantly hitting M and K stars 90% of the time. Found a few Earthlikes (already tagged, it's a heavily travelled tourist route).

These days money isn't an issue. Once explorers hit a bank account of 100 million credits, you can outfit an ASP X with the needed modules a 6A fuel scoop with funds to spare for oopsies. Credits after that can be used for toys, pew pew ships, or saving up for an ExploraConda which is considered the most expensive ship in the game that is equipped well for exploring.

 

[SMcA]

Nice!
Now a 1000Ly journey will be a walk in the park.
Audio books are another way of filling the silence and you will be saying. "Just another 500 Ly to finish this chapter.
SRV drives are good for breaking the monotony and taking s/shots with some perspective.
I could go on and on.

 

[marx]

That was a well-written post. Right on, Commander!

7. The supercruise music really gets boring after the 100th time of hearing it, so bring along all your best music and plug in

Personally, I like listening to FFE's music as well. (That was the previous Elite game.) I'd suggest giving those a try too, but I'm not sure if I'd be allowed to post links to it in the forum though. I find that ED's music is good, but the exploration pieces of it are rather subdued. (For different areas, there is different music - for example, Federation space, Alliance space, and so on.)

For some reason my route either had close to 100% of the systems as scoopable stars, or I hit amazingly lucky. Is this normal?

It really depends on where in the galaxy you are. Like others noted, there is the infamous brown dwarf (double) layer, and there are also some other regions where unscoopables are present at higher-than-average densities. Technically, the neutron star layers would also count for these. Still, it's always good practice to keep an eye on the next star's info when you start your jump, even if you use the route planner filter. (In case you meant to turn it on but forgot - that happened to me a few times.)

As for whether the fun will continue: I can only speak for myself, but I've been out exploring since the beginning of the game, and I still have fun doing it. My motivations on why I go out there have changed over time, but I still have things I wish to find or investigate. As long as you have those, you likely will too.

Good luck the next time you're out there!

 

[TheNavvie]

I started exploring in a Cobra MkIII with stock internals. That means, basic discovery scanner and no DSS.

Planets were mostly discovered by looking for bright dots that moved against the background stars. It wasn't until I got close that I'd find what type of planet I'd spotted. Then later, I'd find out that I needed to leave inhabited space to get those all important first discovery bonuses.

 

[Major Klutz]

Baby Steps.

I would also recommend using a logging tool like ED Discovery that works with EDSM.
It helps you keep track of where you've been and makes nice maps for you.

Spoiler

I would also recommend making a note of your Exploration statistics before you leave. So you can see how much your stats change when you return.
Example

 

[Goobertech]

Great post! I am fairly new as well, less than 6 months worth of exploring. Furthest out I've been is the bubble nebulae and Heart and Soul. The most recent lesson I learned is fly what you love and not what's "best". I sunk a ton of time and materials into engineering my Anaconda to over 60 ly jump range on a full tank only to discover I really don't enjoy flying it for long periods of time. So I went back to my AspX with its 49 ly jump range. Too much is spent out there and if you don't love what you're flying, you won't enjoy the journey.

 

[GunnerBill]

Great post OP. The only way to get into exploring is to try it and learn on the job!

You'll soon be on your way to SagA*!

I think I did a couple of +/ 1000 ly trips in a Sidey way back when, got my combat and trade Elites doing the 5000 ly trip for Palin (which worked out more like 10 kly after a couple of aborts due to lack of skill!) and now I'm 14 kylies out heading for Colinia, SagA* and probably Beagle to boot!'

Yay!

 

[iain666]

The most recent lesson I learned is fly what you love and not what's "best".

Whatever FDev might do to the game in the future and however much of the other existing advice may become redundant, obsolete or just plain bad as a result this will remain the only constant that must always apply.

 

[Kim_S]

My rather tiny travel map, but it's a start!

Spoiler

I think it all must get a lot faster the more you do it. Right now on travelling most distances, well I spend a lot of time scanning all the stars and planets, or at least most of them. So each system takes a long time.

But when it's a route I've done before, I can make the trip in a few minutes. Just now I did 250ly to get back to somewhere I was exploring a few days ago. Was 7 jumps, even with the computer plotting me into a couple of systems I had not previously visited, I did that jump in a matter of minutes. So definitely I can see how 1000ly becomes almost nothing. My lovely Asp hits 40ly jump range, and a fuel tank that seems bottomless.

I still can't quite imagine doing 65,000ly though. Scary thought

 

[Major Klutz]

It's always a trade off between getting where you're going and scanning bodies along the way.
If you have no destination in mind or you're in no rush to get there, then you can take your time to scan everything along the way.

If you don't have infinite time and you want to get to a destination, you may have to skip scanning some systems.
At this point, I generally don't bother scanning anything unless there's an ELW, AW or WW in the system.
If I'm in a hurry to get somewhere and I'm not actually exploring, I won't even open the system map.
If you don't stop to scan anything, you should be able to easily do 1,800ly per hour with a 30ly ship.
3000ly per hour in a 50ly Asp is only 1 jump per minute.

When I first started out I was scanning everything in most systems. Eventually I gave myself a budget of one or two full system scans per 1000Ly.
Eventually you get bored with unlandable ice balls, Sudarski gas giants and even unlandable HMC planets.
I'd say over 95 percent of systems I jump through have nothing particularly interesting or valuable to scan.

One sad truth I came to realize is that with the number of stars in the galaxy, for any given system you might put your name on, the odds of another player ever seeing it are literally astronomical.
Unless the system is or is very near a popular destination, the odds are that it will never be seen by another player. That's not to say that I never run across a tagged system in deep space, but it's rare unless I'm near a nebula or other popular destination.
I recently revisited one of the first systems I ever fully scanned on my first exploration trip over a year ago. According to EDSM, it's never been visited by another player. At least not one that sends data to EDSM/EDDN

 

[Aura Lorell]

I still can't quite imagine doing 65,000ly though. Scary thought

What I noticed is that the more I travelled the less the distances seem big. This is the same for Ly and Ls. I start noticing the Ls if they are over 500K but anything below that is nothing. Same with distances. Once you've gone to Colonia for the first time, the 22K Ly will be nothing and the next step is even further. I think our perception of distance changes whereas the distances themselves don't.

 

[Caliber_az]

One sad truth I came to realize is that with the number of stars in the galaxy, for any given system you might put your name on, the odds of another player ever seeing it are literally astronomical.

Personally I don't care if other players see or read my name on new discovereds. It is enough for me that my name is there until ED shuts off the lights on this game. For me it just feels more personal. (Especially with ELW and WW Planets)

Caliber_az