Newcomer / Intro New to Exploring - A Couple of Questions

Duniac

D
I have been playing the game on and off since it was released and managed to save enough money to outfit a ship for exploring. Its nothing fancy, a Type 6 Transport, but I have managed to get about 26 LY jump range. I have the advanced scanner and a detail scanner. 3 heat sinks and a couple field repair units (but forgot to buy ammo for it).

I've had a couple of close calls and although my hull is at 95%, some of my systems are very badly damaged. Some are below 30%, but thankfully they aren't critical, so I've been able to disable them. My FSD is at about 70% and get frequent malfunctions.

So far, I've visited a couple of planetary nebula and larger nebulas and I've wanted to spend a lot more time exploring but I fear because of my damaged systems that I need to return to civilisation soon. How do you track how far you have travelled? I'm sure there is a stat for that and if its there I'll make a note of it. Likewise number of systems I've visited, probably about 400 in this exploration leg.

Can anyone tell me how to use the galactic map better to target stars types? I haven't had any problems with fuel yet, but I know I will and want to know if its possible to tell the primary star type from the map.

Also, I have seen some videos where people are able to see the ring composition eg, metallic or ice. I haven't been able to do this. Am I doing something wrong? I don't actually fly into the rings, only run the detailed scanner over the planet.

Thanks in advance for your help.
 

Reaver 2.0

Reaver 2.0
Duniac said:
I have been playing the game on and off since it was released and managed to save enough money to outfit a ship for exploring. Its nothing fancy, a Type 6 Transport, but I have managed to get about 26 LY jump range. I have the advanced scanner and a detail scanner. 3 heat sinks and a couple field repair units (but forgot to buy ammo for it).

I've had a couple of close calls and although my hull is at 95%, some of my systems are very badly damaged. Some are below 30%, but thankfully they aren't critical, so I've been able to disable them. My FSD is at about 70% and get frequent malfunctions.

So far, I've visited a couple of planetary nebula and larger nebulas and I've wanted to spend a lot more time exploring but I fear because of my damaged systems that I need to return to civilisation soon. How do you track how far you have travelled? I'm sure there is a stat for that and if its there I'll make a note of it. Likewise number of systems I've visited, probably about 400 in this exploration leg.

Can anyone tell me how to use the galactic map better to target stars types? I haven't had any problems with fuel yet, but I know I will and want to know if its possible to tell the primary star type from the map.

Also, I have seen some videos where people are able to see the ring composition eg, metallic or ice. I haven't been able to do this. Am I doing something wrong? I don't actually fly into the rings, only run the detailed scanner over the planet.

Thanks in advance for your help.
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My advice is to turn back to populated space, repair and re-arm and cash in what you've mapped and head out better equipped and wiser than before. Lots of space to explore still.

Here's a link too a thread about a tool you may find helpful to exploring. Unfortunately I don't believe you can use the Galaxy map to get info from unanalyzed stars. But i may be wrong on that...I'm just guessing.
 

Surly_Badger

Surly_Badger
Some are below 30%
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Time to head back; no sense taking chances.

Repair and head back out again later; there's still 99.99% of the galaxy unexplored! You won't get to put your name on it if you're a corpse floating in space.

I usually decide before I set out the point at which I absolutely will turn back. For me, that's 75% of any system except my repair unit. If I am one hop from something interesting and hit below 75%, I turn back. That's based on my figuring that if I did 25% damage to myself getting here, and I do 25% damage to myself getting back, I still have a wide margin for error.

Edit: I used to explore in a T-6 myself. They're a great bus. Make sure you have an efficient motor that generates low heat when you're spooling up to jump. That helps a lot. The stock drive in a T-6 is like a flying toaster.

Safe travels, CMDR!
 
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Dommarraa

Dommarraa
Galaxy map, set the filter to stellar type, turn off the star types you don't want.
Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me for scoopables.

- - - Updated - - -

Nutters guide was good about 3 months ago but it is out of date and will make you an amateur Explorer. Read it, forget it, and start from scratch yourself.
 

Duniac

D
Thanks for the responses guys, I am in the process of carefully heading back to repair.

Anyone able to assist with how to identify the composition of rings?
 

Duniac

D
I thought I would post a quick update on my travels.

The problem I was having where rings would not scan 'fixed' itself.

But since I did have some systems which were quite damaged, I decided to head home. I was only about 1500 LY from civilised space, so I plotted a course. Eventually I paused in a system about 400 LY from home to answer a call. While sitting at the computer with my ship parked safely in a system, my computer lost the connection with the server. A couple of hours later I logged back in, only to be told that my ship was destroyed. I know know what the term rage quitting feels like, but I love the game too much! Sure I gave the game a break for a couple of days, but I still want to play!

I have submitted a ticket to see if I can at least get my exploration data back, I have heard of the random destruction bug. After logging back in I claimed insurance, but I now only have enough money for one more claim. Looks like I'm going to have to do some careful trading to build up my cash reserves before heading out again.
 

Duniac

D
Another update - with good news!

I just received a response from support.

It looks like you were accidentally killed by an NPC of all things, very obscure.

They were able to estimate the amount of exploration data and cost of ship replacement, several million credits and change was deposited into my account.

Unfortunately the exploration data could not be recovered. But at least I can now head back out again :)
 
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Glenn Ross

G
And as that data cannot be stolen, you can in fact go back to the same systems and scan them all over again. Hope you get the data back safe this time!

On a related note, take a good look at yout fuel consumption. I am heading in from a stint out there and I have noticed that I have never gone below a half tank, so when I get in and sell the data, I'm going to strip out my mining laser and refinery [tried mining, but don't currently like it enough to make it work for me.] and drop the capacity of my fuel tank. The loss in mass will pay for a better power distributor, heat sink launcher, and possibly increase my jump range into the bargain.
 
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