OK so how do I actually explore... (yes a daft question (or is it??!!))

GunnerBill

GunnerBill
So here I am at NGC 6357 en route to SagA* via the neutron fields and Colonia.

I've already bagged a few nebulae and "landmarks" as seen on the EDSM galaxy map, BUT.

BUT it seems more of an organised tour than an actual exploration with me just honking and jumping on the way to landmarks on my route. OK so I got 2 new ELW's to my name so not all bad!

Now don't get me wrong I'm really enjoying the trip and some of the sights I've already seen have been awesome but as above: "guide tour".

What should I do to actually find somethings new and exciting -> cut my jump range to economical and see more systems or pick and area and map a bubble within it????


Advice plz :D


I should say that I feel like I should be making steady progress to SagA* but time is not really an issue, just my perception of it ;)

FYI, a rough approximation of my Dolphin: https://eddp.co/u/9Y6f91X9
 
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Redfox

Redfox
GunnerBill said:
Advice plz
Click to expand...
Explorers usually want to find something - maybe something real/physical, maybe something not so easily defined. For everyone exploration is sth slightly or completely different, so try to find your own. Maybe start by making a list of all the planet types and star types and try to find one of each. That might trigger your interest in sth particular, which might become your next, own little pet project. And so on... If you find no such thing while out there, exploration might not be for you - nothing wrong with that realisation either.

Qohen Leth said:
By definition, exploration does not follow any known route, so... ;)
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Nice one!
 

Major Klutz

Major Klutz
Take a route in a direction that is not heavily traveled and go somewhere nobody else has been.
You're traveling via well known landmarks but those are heavily traveled areas where most of the stars have already been "discovered"

Head toward a destination such as Sag A* but indirectly, so you're not following a trail of stars that has already been covered by hundreds of other commanders.
Check the system map after each jump to see if there are any interesting items. ELWs, Ammonia Worlds, Water Worlds etc...
I watch for other things like large landables that might have very high gravity or fast moving landables in very close orbits.

Also, each time I re-plot my next 999ly leg, I will change the filter to show only non-sequence and O type stars. I like to stop by any NS, Black Holes and type O stars on my course.

I keep an eye out in the sky box for clusters of bright stars or interesting nebulae. I will visit and explore O type or B type clusters I might pass near.
Most of those clusters, nebulae and planetary nebulae have already been tagged by other players but rarely you may find one that has never been visited before.
 
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Traveller_GG

Traveller_GG
Advice plz :D
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Well don't go long distances in a Sidewinder - frankly that's just dumb. Same with a type-9. I mean... really....



My philosophy for exploring follows a floor-plan. Prepare yourself as it is quite complicated.

This philosophy which belongs to me is as follows.

This is how it goes. Ahem. The next thing that I am about to say is my philosophy. Ready?

"Ooh Shiny"

That is the philosophy that I have and which is mine, and what it is too.



No, really. I just bimble around the Galaxy looking at stuff which looks funky. I travelled 16,000LY because I stumbled across a couple of Black Holes by accidentally clicking on the wrong bit of the screen. I am not kidding.

I went to the Northern edge of the Galaxy because I found myself on the far side of SagA* by accident. I went to Beagle Point because someone started a thread about getting over 65KLY from Sol and I was in the area. I am again, not kidding. Somehow I ended up being a trail-blazer without ever meaning to.

Why?

"Ooh Shiny"

I've written songs, and poems, plagiarised major Hollywood films while doing so.

Why?

"Ooh Shiny" (well... in the case of the songs because I'd been out too long and gone a bit peculiar)

Never travelled all that bloody way in a Sidewinder though. You'd have to be a barking mad, window-licking loon to do that.

I hope this advice helps.
 

GunnerBill

GunnerBill
Thanks for all the good advice chaps, points well received! I'm firstly going to try the route filter and head to a random landmark (that might not be too popular) to put a new angle into my route to SagA*.

+1's all round!
 

Benito Kamelas

B
You're not the only one who feels that way. The game lacks more exploration mechanics, more variety and more beauty. Note that the game is very beautiful, but when you have already traveled, it starts to fall short.
In my opinion, the exploration is a quest for the beauty and the unknown.
 

SMcA

SMcA
Traveller_GG said:
Well don't go long distances in a Sidewinder - frankly that's just dumb. Same with a type-9. I mean... really....



My philosophy for exploring follows a floor-plan. Prepare yourself as it is quite complicated.

This philosophy which belongs to me is as follows.

This is how it goes. Ahem. The next thing that I am about to say is my philosophy. Ready?

"Ooh Shiny"

That is the philosophy that I have and which is mine, and what it is too.



No, really. I just bimble around the Galaxy looking at stuff which looks funky. I travelled 16,000LY because I stumbled across a couple of Black Holes by accidentally clicking on the wrong bit of the screen. I am not kidding.

I went to the Northern edge of the Galaxy because I found myself on the far side of SagA* by accident. I went to Beagle Point because someone started a thread about getting over 65KLY from Sol and I was in the area. I am again, not kidding. Somehow I ended up being a trail-blazer without ever meaning to.

Why?

"Ooh Shiny"

I've written songs, and poems, plagiarised major Hollywood films while doing so.

Why?

"Ooh Shiny" (well... in the case of the songs because I'd been out too long and gone a bit peculiar)

Never travelled all that bloody way in a Sidewinder though. You'd have to be a barking mad, window-licking loon to do that.

I hope this advice helps.
Click to expand...

And you have just shown that you don't need to be sane to explore. [yesnod]

One of the tasks I set myself was to explore Planetary Nebulas. They are the ones you can see in the distance as a white blur and look great from the inside.
To see them more clearly filter out all star types and move the G-Map cursor to zero in. Then you can turn off the filters until you can select it. Start at O type stars. Here are a couple in the bubble close to Sol (~300 Ly). HIP 63835 & HIP 40480.

Another thing I did was to search for Real Life, WOLF-RAYET STARS and go to them in the game.

Edit: My mistake, for HIP 40480 read HIP 38064
 
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Sunleader

Sunleader
GunnerBill said:
So here I am at NGC 6357 en route to SagA* via the neutron fields and Colonia.

I've already bagged a few nebulae and "landmarks" as seen on the EDSM galaxy map, BUT.

BUT it seems more of an organised tour than an actual exploration with me just honking and jumping on the way to landmarks on my route. OK so I got 2 new ELW's to my name so not all bad!

Now don't get me wrong I'm really enjoying the trip and some of the sights I've already seen have been awesome but as above: "guide tour".

What should I do to actually find somethings new and exciting -> cut my jump range to economical and see more systems or pick and area and map a bubble within it????


Advice plz :D


I should say that I feel like I should be making steady progress to SagA* but time is not really an issue, just my perception of it ;)

FYI, a rough approximation of my Dolphin: https://eddp.co/u/9Y6f91X9
Click to expand...

Well. The Simple Answer is to be less Organized :)
Set a Random Target in an Area of the Galaxy.
Go there on Fastest Route. Then as you Approach, Cut down to Economical and Start Checking the System Map whenever you make a Jump to see what you got in the System.
The rest is really just Luck.
4k Outside the Battle and outside the Colonia and Sag-A Routes. 90% of the Systems you find will be Unexplored. So finding something New wont be Hard.
Finding Interesting Systems which have something Special is of course a Different Story :)
 

duckofdeath

duckofdeath
There are a lot of different things you can look for when exploring. Find all the earth-likes. Get a good pay check by targeting high value F class systems. Hunt for specific star types. Hunt record breaking planets (largest, smallest and all that).
What I usually do is, browse the galaxy map in "realistic" mode until I find a spot that looks promising, for instance with a high rate of O class (massive blue-white stars) and "buckyball" (full speed travelling) over there. When I'm there, I switch to exploration in mysterious, random patterns. By either jumping to the nearest star I haven't been to on the systems panel in the cockpit or by opening the galaxy map on every jump and manually picking the next nearby interesting star. After a day or a few, my patterns in the galaxy usually ends up looking something like this:
pLnyEn.png
 

13A

13A
One of the things I've done in the past is roll a dice.

It works like this....
1= North (towards BP)
2= East
3= South
4= West
5= Up
6= Down

Roll the dice and head out of the bubble in that direction for about 3k (ignore up/down for this bit).

Once you get out there, roll again, and head in the new direction for 500ly, detouring to look at shinies on the way

Rinse and repeat.
 
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GunnerBill

GunnerBill
BaldEagle said:
Something no-one has mentioned and which I have started to do (credit to Cmdr Varonica https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/327401-A-journey-to-small-places?highlight=varonica
is look for small moons/planets with High volcanism of some sort.
If a moon has a diameter of <450km and high silica geysers for instance you have a fair chance of finding them.

Fly safely :)
Click to expand...

I presume a scan is required to discover the presence of volcanism but not radius?

13A/24B said:
One of the things I've done in the past is roll a dice.

It works like this....
1= North (towards BP)
2= East
3= South
4= West
5= Up
6= Down

Roll the dice and head out of the bubble in that direction for about 3k (ignore up/down for this bit).

Once you get out there, roll again, and head in the new direction for 500ly, detouring to look at shinies on the way

Rinse and repeat.
Click to expand...

Nice!
 

BaldEagle

BaldEagle
GunnerBill said:
I presume a scan is required to discover the presence of volcanism but not radius?

Yes - you can check the radius from the system map and decide whether a scan is needed.
The system map data only shows whether or not there is volcanism and what type if there is after you scan. I use a DSS so not sure if a lesser capable scanner gives this detail.
I use ED Discovery as I explore and automatically upload data to EDSM - I really recommend this as everyone benefits from your 'finds' - you will find lots of systems with 'first found' tags which have not been uploaded to EDSM so you can still get your name 'in lights' if you find something interesting :)
The data held on EDSM will show whether it is 'major' volcanism, which in my limited experience is easier to find, although I have no idea what the difference is - ie size or frequency, or both.
Anyway, just head out there and enjoy it ... :cool:
Click to expand...
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
An option is to go fairly close to the Core (say on the order of a few Kylies) pick a random sector and start looking at AA-A H systems - the highest mass (usually) procgen systems. Sooner or later you'll probably find something bizarre, just because the high mass pushes the Forge beyond its usual limits.
 

Caramel Clown

Caramel Clown
I usually have some goal in my mind, just to give some direction to my travels. Can be anything like finding wolf-rayettes, carbon stars, binary ELWs. On my last trip to Colonia I was thinking about how cool it would be to find a ringed main sequence star. And what do you know - few days later I've found M-class with rings:)
 
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