Guide / Tutorial Nutter’s explorers guide to the Galaxy

[Jackie Silver]

I'd be interested in knowing exactly what people have in their ships loadout, and the reason for each, as I can see a use for many different things and would like to know what people use on the long runs where it would suck to get damage to the ship for instance.

I use a Cobra, with a couple of fixed medium Beam Lasers (no ammunition needed, and it's enough to see off most threats), ADS, DSS, a Shield Cell Bank (just in case), KWS, Point Defence, 16 ton Cargo hold, Class 4 "A" Fuel Scoop (very expensive bit of kit) and otherwise "A" gear.
I prefer to be able to fight if needed (and when I'm flying around in "civilised" space where there's the chance of hostile CMDRs I tend to slap on extra weapons and armour!)
Sometimes I'll swap the Cargo hold for an auto-repair, but I generally make fairly short trips these days so it's not worth the bother. I take overheating damage more often than I take crash-stop or combat damage and in any case the auto-repair doesn't fix everything. It's probably worthwhile if you're on a really long flight. It's a generalist ship I can do a lot with, and it's not particularly expensive to maintain.

How do you tell, prior to scanning, if a planet is Icy? The image is a bit of a hint, but I've found something I thought was Icy that ended up being metal-rich.
I can tell if something has rings from the system map, but other than that I can't tell the planet types apart.

That's an interesting point. Go by temperature. A good indicator is that the star they're around is cold - if you have an "M" dwarf with a bunch of smooth featureless pink or white balls in orbit then they're probably all ice or rock. Alternatively, if there's a big smooth white ball a long way away from the star, it's also probably ice. In general I agree, it's hard to tell, and sometimes just to confuse us you can find planets using a texture model that is normally used by another type.

However, I recently realised this (still in the process of checking, but so far it holds):

Spoiler

Class IV

and Class V Gas Giants can be identified by their distinctive appearance in the "blue ball" scanner on your HUD.

Class II, III and the life-bearing Gas Giants share another appearance.

Class I Giants (the couple I've checked) use the same appearance as ordinary terrestrial planets, which is odd.

From the desk of Jackie Silver: many Bothans died to bring you this information.

 

[Jackie Silver]

Following up with what RandomSanity asked - it looks like it is possible to spot an Icy planet from afar.

Check this out:

Icy Planet:

Most small planets, also Class I Gas Giants and He-Rich Gas Giants:

Class II, Class III, Water-based Life, Ammonia-based Life Gas Giants:

Class IV Gas Giants:

Class V Gas Giants:

These hold true on the dozen or so systems I've looked at, but please test it out.
(I have yet to look at some of the small planets, and I'm going to visit the one Water Giant I know of to see what it looks like on the blue-ball-o-meter.)

As a corollary to this, you can distinguish Class II and Class III giants by their colour, mass and temperature - Class II are likely to be white, lower mass and further from the star, Class III are likely to be blue, higher mass and closer to the star.
You can tell life-bearing Gas Giants because they're usually funny brownish colours and tend to have lots more storms and swirls than other giants.

You can tell Helium-Rich Gas Giants from Class I giants because He-Rich tend to be blue or have pink and white bands, whereas Class Is tend to be a drab brown and white banded colour.

Short version, if you're looking for cash: fire the Space Horn, see if any of the gas giants look a) like the Class II picture above and b) are white coloured, then go chase them down for 5000 plus credits apiece.

 

[JohnMalcolm]

Anyone else finding exploration a bit flakey at the moment? I'm getting detailed scan complete sounds and notifications but no data... sometimes takes 4 or 5 times longer to get detailed info. Found an Earthlike world with breathable atmosphere. I flew close to take some screenshots and found I couldn't get by HUD to turn off. I quit and saved, relaunched and found myself not in the system I'd just found the nice planet in, but the one I was in before.

The multiple scans thing just happened there. I went through the detailed scan process 4 times before I got the results. Did we not get this time of behaviour and info about data being corrupted?

 

[Aikanar]

It happened to me a couple times, together with disconnection from the server. Seems to be stable now.

Anyone else finding exploration a bit flakey at the moment? I'm getting detailed scan complete sounds and notifications but no data...

 

[JohnMalcolm]

Seems to be stable now.

It's 8.05am here, but I'm up for work now anyway. I fired up Elite to see if things were fixed. Scanning unexplored objects appears to be working as before now. I'm stuck with some ghost planets in the system I'm in though. They don't show up in navigation panel. They appear in the System Map but with a strange appearance. No HUD elements highlight them and they don't have orbit lines. Firing Advanced Scanner reveals nothing new. 15 objects in System Map, only 11 in Navigation.

 

[Wishblend]

Here is a list of all the ranks, that have been confirmed.

http://firstgreatexpedition.org/mybb/showthread.php?tid=1555

 

[Nutter]

Here is a list of all the ranks, that have been confirmed.

http://firstgreatexpedition.org/mybb/showthread.php?tid=1555

Thanks for this +1

 

[Wishblend]

This is a guide I put togeather for for all the steller objects including fuel scoopable stars.

http://www.alisonlauragoodman.co.uk/pitstop.html

Hope you can use it.

 

[Jackie Silver]

This is a guide I put togeather for for all the steller objects including fuel scoopable stars.

http://www.alisonlauragoodman.co.uk/pitstop.html

Hope you can use it.

Nice guide! - they're listed as "no data" (though I expect you know by now) Wolf Rayet and Carbon stars are also not scoopable.

I don't think I've found any plain "D" white dwarfs in the release version (only DA, DC, DQ), I'd be interested if anyone knows the location of some.

 

[Wishblend]

What do you mean "No Data"?

I did the guide before launch.

 

[insistent]

Anyone got a tip to find black holes with a basic scanner?

I have noticed that i might see random star moving around my vision when i look at a certain direction, would that mean i have to go that way or opposite to find it if it matter?

 

[Wishblend]

Scroll down a little bit.

http://firstgreatexpedition.org/mybb/showthread.php?tid=1668&page=2

 

[Egan]

Anyone got a tip to find black holes with a basic scanner?

I have noticed that i might see random star moving around my vision when i look at a certain direction, would that mean i have to go that way or opposite to find it if it matter?

Ahhh! I am seeing that in the system I'm in. I assumed that it was some sort of guide just as you had. My first attempt lead me nearly 1.25m ls from the central star without finding anything. I can't seem to work it exactly how it works (or even what it is supposed to be). Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[CmdrPSB]

fire the Space Horn

+1 for all the work you've done, but I wish I could give you +100 just for that.

STAND BACK EVERYONE, I'M FIRING MY SPACE HORN.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

It's 8.05am here, but I'm up for work now anyway. I fired up Elite to see if things were fixed. Scanning unexplored objects appears to be working as before now. I'm stuck with some ghost planets in the system I'm in though. They don't show up in navigation panel. They appear in the System Map but with a strange appearance. No HUD elements highlight them and they don't have orbit lines. Firing Advanced Scanner reveals nothing new. 15 objects in System Map, only 11 in Navigation.

View attachment 6620

I noticed when you look at the stats for them they seem to be missing masses as well. Looks like someone has a job to do to clear those up when they come back to work on Monday!

 

[Jackie Silver]

+1 for all the work you've done, but I wish I could give you +100 just for that.

*blushes* I nicked that line off someone else. It is a perfect description!

@Daggermark - at the bottom of your guide are entries for WR and Carbon stars, listed as "No Data" (as opposed to the ones that have "no scoop"), I was saying that they're definitely not scoopable.

 

[Wishblend]

*blushes* I nicked that line off someone else. It is a perfect description!

@Daggermark - at the bottom of your guide are entries for WR and Carbon stars, listed as "No Data" (as opposed to the ones that have "no scoop"), I was saying that they're definitely not scoopable.

That is because I do not have any data on them at this time.

The only class w that is know of = Gamma Velorum (Unavailble as it is in the closed area of the regor sector.

Class = C: R Leporis (On my to go to list but not gotten there yet.

The WR & Carbon stars, I will add to the none scoopable list in version 2.

Thank you.

 

[Norwyn]

HOW do you get hauler to 30ly? I am currently sitting here, trying to figure that out, I do everything as you say, but after I fit it with surface and celestial body scanners, it goes down to 26ly... pretty much same as I get with adder? shouldnt I use adder then, since it has more fuel capacity?

EDIT; ok, well, adder's range will be 24-25... Anyways, maybe you should update first post so it's not misleading, or tell how you get hauler to 30ly, cuz with what you are telling me, it aint workin

 

[Wishblend]

HOW do you get hauler to 30ly? I am currently sitting here, trying to figure that out, I do everything as you say, but after I fit it with surface and celestial body scanners, it goes down to 26ly... pretty much same as I get with adder? shouldnt I use adder then, since it has more fuel capacity?

EDIT; ok, well, adder's range will be 24-25... Anyways, maybe you should update first post so it's not misleading, or tell how you get hauler to 30ly, cuz with what you are telling me, it aint workin

My Adder basic jump range was 14 ly.

Reduce components in the ship to D class to reduce the mass.

Less mass = Bigger jump range.

Just upgraded the adder to a A3 FSD and it gives me currently = 21.87 LY

 

[Norwyn]

My Adder basic jump range was 14 ly.

Reduce components in the ship to D class to reduce the mass.

Less mass = Bigger jump range.

Just upgraded the adder to a A3 FSD and it gives me currently = 21.87 LY

right now at station, tested both, and yeh, best I could get with adder = 24ly. hauler = 26ly.

No idea how OP got hauler to 30ly... Or maybe OP meant with "up to" as in, max possible range overall. Even if I reduce fuel tank to C (2t) I get only 28ly.

Oh well, gotta fly with what you have

EDIT; now I see, OP meant that you can go 30ly with one tank... I'm idiot...

 

[Nutter]

Terrestrial Ammonia World! - I may be going bonkers here but...

I've never seen one before! Anyone else?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6fiageignqkbcf0/Screenshot_0141.bmp?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0bzd7whr4ykkqnx/Screenshot_0142.bmp?dl=0