O Class Stars - all taken! Agh!

[Fubidou]

Hi,

I'm about 3000 LY out, and never see anyone. Also very very rarely visit a system that has been discovered before. Except O class stars. I have been to about 5 now, and every time, after travelling about 500 - 1000 LY to get to it, I get there and find it's already been discovered! Nothing around has been visited for dozens of light years... ! How far to you have to go out before you can get to an undiscovered O class star?! I want to get back to civilisation to repair my poor ship (got sellotape over the cracks in the canopy) but I promised myself I'll only go back when I have found an O class star and an Earth like planet (which has also eluded me so far...) I've been out there for about a month now....

 

[Muzz UK]

I'm fairly new to exploring about a month now I've been doing it, done a couple of nebula runs and looking for Earth likes near to Sol... well within 1000ly.

Unfortunately a lot of the interesting stuff near the core systems has already been first discovered. You need to pick abnormal routes and try to work out where people wouldn't go. It's frustrating but I've been lucky and found some great systems but had to put in the hours. I really wish I'd taken up exploring sooner and got my name around the nebula systems first but remember there's billions of systems so eventually you'll find a nice patch you can call your own and get your name in the stars.

 

[Fubidou]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm actually off on what I thought would be an unlikely route: I decided to try to find the source of where our "arm" (the arm Sol is on) joins to the rest of the Milky Way. That's because I read about it in an astronomy magazine - they said they knew very little about it. My route has been pretty random up to now, but as you say, keep on at it and I'll find something soon...

 

[Allitnil]

Unfortunately this sort of issue is just going to get worse over time. There are 400 billion stars to discover and such a small percentage of them have been discovered to date that we can still say there are 400 billion left to discover. But the devs made it easy to filter for unusual systems and guess what, that's exactly what we collectively have done. The devs also chose to make it easy to reach them so, again, that's what we have done. As you have discovered, it's hard to find something that the galmap shows to be unusual relatively close to Sol that's not already been visited.

If you are not heading for something reasonably obvious then you probably will find one by the time you get to 5,000 LY out. Just be thankful that you can do that rather than have to go 10 or even 20,000 LY out as future explorers will need to...

 

[EUS]

Unfortunately this sort of issue is just going to get worse over time. There are 400 billion stars to discover and such a small percentage of them have been discovered to date that we can still say there are 400 billion left to discover. But the devs made it easy to filter for unusual systems and guess what, that's exactly what we collectively have done. The devs also chose to make it easy to reach them so, again, that's what we have done. As you have discovered, it's hard to find something that the galmap shows to be unusual relatively close to Sol that's not already been visited.

If you are not heading for something reasonably obvious then you probably will find one by the time you get to 5,000 LY out. Just be thankful that you can do that rather than have to go 10 or even 20,000 LY out as future explorers will need to...

True, but I believe most of today's explorers are set to "fast" route which over 1000LY will skip approx 75% (35/135 jumps) of explorable systems, compared to economical, so we should be good for a long while yet.
Then again, what do I know, I've already come across some cherry picking of neutron/black hole systems on my non-glamorous/non-popular systems trip.
Maybe space isn't all that big.
Perhaps more galaxies will be opened up strictly for exploring, a special engine module required to travel to them....

 

[Fubidou]

I think it's weird that systems that have been explored don't show up as having any information on the galaxy chart. Stuff that has already been discovered, and then you can earn credits for "rediscovering" them. Even in "civilised" (by which I mean the area of space where you can expect to get attacked in) you can still earn money by discovering things.
Also, it would be really nice if stations/outposts started opening up in new systems that have been discovered, and new players might possibly start their game from there. This would disperse the concentration of discoveries away from Sol, and open up more parts of the galaxy to exploration.


(...just checked to see how far out I am.... I'm 5,898 LY out... and still going outwards!)

 

[Sysmon]

Yes, the eye-candy has often been reached already. However, I find myself feeling a bit smug when I bag an ELW just one jump off an already discovered O or a black hole system. Sometimes I've found terraformables, water worlds and even an ELW in a system where someone just tagged the first star! And not always because the planets were orbiting a distant binary.

So there is plenty left still. With Planetary Landings maybe we get a chance to sample surfaces and atmospheres? That would open up exploration a lot, and make it more time-intensive. It could also be that a lot more credit (monetary and otherwise) will be given for setting foot on planets, or at least entering and sampling their atmospheres in case of gas giants. That is akin to the exploration of Earth, where one might have sailed past a previously unknown landmass, but it is the guy that sets foot there that got the bulk of the credit.

S

- - - Updated - - -

I think it's weird that systems that have been explored don't show up as having any information on the galaxy chart. Stuff that has already been discovered, and then you can earn credits for "rediscovering" them. Even in "civilised" (by which I mean the area of space where you can expect to get attacked in) you can still earn money by discovering things.
Also, it would be really nice if stations/outposts started opening up in new systems that have been discovered, and new players might possibly start their game from there. This would disperse the concentration of discoveries away from Sol, and open up more parts of the galaxy to exploration.


(...just checked to see how far out I am.... I'm 5,898 LY out... and still going outwards!)

Think about it, though: Would we learn all there is to known about a solar system from just a single quick visit? Each visit will scan the system in a different state, thereby add to the picture. Eventually enough data will have been gathered to declare the system "known".

Now to make up an argument for why we can't "discover" the same system several times... Or can we?

S

 

[Fubidou]

Yeah, I s'pose you're right about needing lots of visits to learn about a system. Although in "the bubble" I used to earn credits for discovering planets and stuff in systems that already had a space station!

I think what I'd like is for the developers to fix some stuff that appears broken. Like the way you can't usually look up stars you have visited in the past to see your name up there. Most of the time typing in a system name copied carefully doesn't return a result. It would be good to be able to enter coordinates, but I haven't found a way of doing that either....

Anyway, I'm still out there looking for stuff. Will post some pics ... if I ever make it back!

 

[newman1702]

I've found that at distances of above 2-3 kly you need to either be at a "landmark" (nebula or such), a black hole or corridors leading straight from the bubble to said landmarks to encounter already explored stuff.

 

[mono]

Think different. To borrow a phrase. As already pointed out most people, myself included, select the fast route. But because I've been out to around 16KLy before and that was a couple of months ago, when I got to about 6KLy out I was already down to around 1,100Ly below the galactic plane. I'm currently 9KLy in with ~500 systems scanned and while it's been hard going the routes have been zigzagging all over the place since the star density is fairly sparse and it's been a while since I've found anything already discovered. The plan was to fly in a straight line at about 1,200Ly below the galactic plane then come up from under Sag A to, er, Sag A, but because of the zigzagging I'll bump into a few nebulae so at some point in the next couple of thousand Ly I'll need to readjust if I want to avoid already discovered systems. I think once I hit much denser areas I'll switch to economical as it should pay out the same if not more than simply cherry picking simply due to quantity and the fact I'll stick pick up plenty of the higher paying neutrons et al.

 

[Whiterose]

Neutrons, O class stars and Nebulas are the popular tourist attractions. They will always be high on peoples visiting list. Go off the beaten track, ie not directly to Sag A or any nebula and +/- 750 from the galactic plane and you will find some O types not yet discovered. Oh, and you need to be about 10,000Ly out as well.

 

[Muzz UK]

Yes making it easier to search is a problem however if you take the time to go deep... excuse the pun! You'll find some cool things! I found a system the other day with 101 bodies that I made over 600K credits out of scanning. That system was within 600ly of Sol as well I just went an odd route. Eventually someone is going to find that magic system with many earth likes of over 150 bodies and break records. The only annoying thing is all the nebula systems are already discovered !

Exploring has a lot of potential for new content like scanning planets with weather, planet surfaces and hopefully eventually big comets and meteors!

 

[Fubidou]

Ha! Finally found an ELW!!! I can go home now!!!
(my ship sighs with relief)
6,000+ LY from Sol, I went down way off the main highway... it can be done! One system with 2 Water Worlds and 1 ELW. Eminently suited for colonisation incl. holiday destinations on water worlds.

 

[Mango Fizz]

Congrats Yes they do exist. I've found 3 more this current trip and I'm really just picking my way along and checking out each star along my erratic track. I'm not targeting any particular class. I have a general direction but happy to deviate down (deep down as possible) and then backtrack when I have to. Also happy to be running Horizons beta from this morning.. all is good.

 

[Sysmon]

Grats! Good find. They are pretty aren't they.

S

 

[Fubidou]

Thanks! I found a Wolf-Rayet star, I just saw this really feint blue thing, and had to drop down 300+LY below the beaten track to get there. Alas, it had already been discovered, but it still looked good.

Spoiler

Here's flying around the pink mist you get from these stars. It's better than a nebula.

Spoiler

here's another nice pic. It's just the galaxy from underneath.

Spoiler

Just another 5,800LY and I can repair the ship.

 

[Chaz]

So there is plenty left still. With Planetary Landings maybe we get a chance to sample surfaces and atmospheres? That would open up exploration a lot, and make it more time-intensive. It could also be that a lot more credit (monetary and otherwise) will be given for setting foot on planets, or at least entering and sampling their atmospheres in case of gas giants. That is akin to the exploration of Earth, where one might have sailed past a previously unknown landmass, but it is the guy that sets foot there that got the bulk of the credit.

Yeah, I think the Horizons expansion will slow down the exploration rate a fair bit. Me, I'm a sucker for going for close in looks at planets and moons, even ice planets if they look interesting enough. It took me over 2 hours to scan a 78 body system last night, only 6 of those bodies were debris fields. I dipped in and out of rings and looped round planets taking in the sights and posed for selfies. When Horizons comes out I could imagine that taking me more like 2 nights to explore, and then some.

I suppose it all boils down to what kind of explorer you are. There are those that just seem to be in it for the money and just honk and scoop, only cherry picking the bodies to scan that are rare and more valuable. For them I suspect that Horizons won't really change anything. Personally I don't consider that to be proper exploring, I consider that to be just gaming the system, as you're basically turning it into a numbers game that's only a hop skip and a jump removed from the min maxing that traders do.

 

[Fubidou]

...I suppose it all boils down to what kind of explorer you are. There are those that just seem to be in it for the money and just honk and scoop, only cherry picking the bodies to scan that are rare and more valuable. For them I suspect that Horizons won't really change anything. Personally I don't consider that to be proper exploring, I consider that to be just gaming the system, as you're basically turning it into a numbers game that's only a hop skip and a jump removed from the min maxing that traders do.

I do a bit of both. When I set out it was scoop-honk all the way until I got to a suitable distance, so I wasn't bothered about spending too much time scanning stuff. Then when I got to where I wanted to be I started doing what you do, going in really close to planets, taking selfies (I think the ship could do with a better system, maybe something like the extendable selfie pole on an iPhone, which we could poke out the window for a selfie, or maybe we could just open the door and swim outside the ship, take a photo and swim back...) and going to rings looking for gold and palladium, finding nothing and crashing into asteroids. Now I'm on my way back having done everything on my to-do list, so I'm in a bit of a rush, so it's scoop-honk, scoop-honk... but if I do see something interesting I do go out and look around. I spent an hour going around one system today just because I liked the colours of the planets.

What I'd really like is a ships log. It could be stored on the local computer, and it would record all the systems I had visited and the cargo I had carried. I think that's normal for any type of ship. I'd like to be able to re-trace the routes I've been to. I'd also like a telescope on the ship so we can look for systems direct from the cockpit, and put markers, which would appear on the navigation charts. And I'd like to put markers and notes on the navigation charts. And doodle in the margins!

I hope the Horizons update (whatever that is) will do some things like this (ie improve current functionality) as well as adding more stuff. I haven't even got started with the PowerPlay and they're already bringing something else new, so it seems...

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Ah yes, the O-Class are always so attractive. I too like to scan them!

But had a funny moment yesterday, go to O-Class System - scanned by a CMDR. Go to the Neutron Star system right next to it (about 10LY) - undiscovered. C'mon, yes O-Class are cool but don't ignore the neutrons!

 

[bigredforester]

Believe it or not, I actually got first discovery credit for a star (one of the wolf or ross ones) less then 30ly from Sol about 2 months ago. so they are still out there close to home but you have to get lucky