Between some nifty improvements to my Cobra's jump range (30.5 ly, thank you Ms. Farseer and Coriolis.io) and some inspiration from Chiggy's ELW Hunt, I've decided to take on a sector survey as my first deep space expedition. But I'm running into problems at the planning stage. Specifically, finding or building the needed tools to collect and analyze the data.
My Goal:
I'm curious on whether or not any patterns exist in star system formation. Before we started discovering exoplanets, our solar system was assumed to be the standard model for planetary formation - rocky worlds close in, gas giants further out. Today, the model is more complex, suggesting that some areas of the galaxy are more friendly to certain planet types, as well as certain stars are more or less friendly to certain planet types.
Of course, the Stellar Forge is not a perfect model, but it is what is used for the Elite universe - the Elite's "laws of nature" if you will. I'm under no illusions that studying planet formation in Elite will lead to real-life breakthroughs (though that would be cool), but it might lead to a greater understanding of this model galaxy we are priviledged to fly in.
My Proposed Method:
After some thought on the problem, I decided that a survey, focussing on a particular stellar class and a particular sector, would be a good way to gather data for this project. At each star of a given type, determine the planets orbiting it, noting their types and orbits. Once enough stars had been cataloged in this fashion, group the data together to see if a pattern emerges. Since this would be my first expedition, I figured 100 stars should be a good sample size - big enough that if a pattern exists it should become apparent, but small enough that a newbie like myself won't overextend himself. I hope to be able to produce a graph (or series of graphs) that would show how many planets orbit at what distances from their parent stars.
The Problem:
According to the guides I have read, there are 16 different planet types. Building a spreadsheet that will allow me to record each planet type, and to do so for certain distances from the parent star, and ultimately produce totals of planets per distance range, has on a first pass resulted in a huge spreadsheet that is almost impossible to navigate. I could easily see myself making simple errors in data entry that could spoil the experiment.
I have been told that a database would be better suited to crunch this much information, but I have no experience with building databases - I don't even know what programs I can use to build a database.
As for specialized tools like EDDiscovery - my experience with them is limited, but they are more suited to showing people where you've been and what's there, and less suited for the kind of analysis I want to perform.
So, I would like to ask if there is some way to either streamline the spreadsheet, to build a database or to create a tool without needing to get a programming degree first. Any advice is welcome.
My Goal:
I'm curious on whether or not any patterns exist in star system formation. Before we started discovering exoplanets, our solar system was assumed to be the standard model for planetary formation - rocky worlds close in, gas giants further out. Today, the model is more complex, suggesting that some areas of the galaxy are more friendly to certain planet types, as well as certain stars are more or less friendly to certain planet types.
Of course, the Stellar Forge is not a perfect model, but it is what is used for the Elite universe - the Elite's "laws of nature" if you will. I'm under no illusions that studying planet formation in Elite will lead to real-life breakthroughs (though that would be cool), but it might lead to a greater understanding of this model galaxy we are priviledged to fly in.
My Proposed Method:
After some thought on the problem, I decided that a survey, focussing on a particular stellar class and a particular sector, would be a good way to gather data for this project. At each star of a given type, determine the planets orbiting it, noting their types and orbits. Once enough stars had been cataloged in this fashion, group the data together to see if a pattern emerges. Since this would be my first expedition, I figured 100 stars should be a good sample size - big enough that if a pattern exists it should become apparent, but small enough that a newbie like myself won't overextend himself. I hope to be able to produce a graph (or series of graphs) that would show how many planets orbit at what distances from their parent stars.
The Problem:
According to the guides I have read, there are 16 different planet types. Building a spreadsheet that will allow me to record each planet type, and to do so for certain distances from the parent star, and ultimately produce totals of planets per distance range, has on a first pass resulted in a huge spreadsheet that is almost impossible to navigate. I could easily see myself making simple errors in data entry that could spoil the experiment.
I have been told that a database would be better suited to crunch this much information, but I have no experience with building databases - I don't even know what programs I can use to build a database.
As for specialized tools like EDDiscovery - my experience with them is limited, but they are more suited to showing people where you've been and what's there, and less suited for the kind of analysis I want to perform.
So, I would like to ask if there is some way to either streamline the spreadsheet, to build a database or to create a tool without needing to get a programming degree first. Any advice is welcome.
