Newcomer / Intro Planning for exploration tips

Thwarptide

Banned
Thwarptide
Oyez, oyez, oyez! (yeah, sure, that's not really applicable here)

My aspex is ready and willing (42ly) to venture out into the blackness of unknown regions.
While I make up my mind in which direction to sail, I do have one concern and that is simply keeping track of my tracks.

How are you veteran commanders keeping track of where you intend on going, where you've been and fuel stars around the given route? In short are you keeping a log with pen and pad along with bookmarks etc?
I'm sure everyone has their own procedures, some being more efficient and simple than others.
 

[VR] Orodruin

[VR] Orodruin
Thwarptide said:
How are you veteran commanders keeping track of where you intend on going, where you've been and fuel stars around the given route?
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When I go out, I plan the general direction and then plot around 5000 ly at a time if not using the neutron highway. If I want to stay in an area and explore I just move around.

Thwarptide said:
where you've been and fuel stars around the given route?
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You can filter the galaxy map for scoopable stars. If I am not applying scoopables only to my routing I typically make sure to identify the next scoopable before I use up half my fuel to make sure I can get to a scoopable. You do not really need to keep track of your journey unless you want to. The chances of you running into a system where you have already been out in the black are miniscule.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Where I intend on going: I put a bookmark.
Where I have been: EDDiscovery together with EDSM (i.e., I have told EDD to send my visited systems with all the data to EDSM)
Fuel stars: filter the GalMap for KGB FOAM (or OBAFGKM). But that's boring. Depending on which region of the Galaxy I am (i.e. provided there are enough stars of all types around), I tend to filter first for anything not on the main sequence, place a bookmark on an interesting star, then filter for ABGK (or check what the boffins in the Exploration forum recommend this week for systems with the highest likelihood of Earthlikes) and see if I can find a route. The place I am right now, though, finding any route, no matter what star types, is becoming a challenge. But I'm walking on well trodden paths, so there is a list of target stars available I can aim for, and a final list of stars to manually jump through with synthesis boost ("Jumponium") to reach my final destination (Semotus Beacon, possibly Salomé's Reach, also known as Oevasy SG-Y d0).

I'm flying an old Dolphin (as in before Guardian Boosters were available or the passenger compartment restrictions were removed), so my jump range is also ~40 ly.
 

Thwarptide

Banned
Thwarptide
Dommarraa said:
If you on pc, get eddiscovery and link it to an edsm account. Keeps logs, creates maps of you route, provides no end of usefull and edgecase information
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I no on pc 😁 and play solo.
I've seen the eddidiscovery link. But if I decide on the "road to riches" path, they do have a nice route tool for you to follow the set route and manually check off which systems you've been too as you progress.
But I may just follow the Colonia hiway and get my Exploration skills exercised, building confidence with a moderate amount of a safety envelope due to the spacing of stations along the way.
 
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Faded Glory

Faded Glory
I use bookmarks to set a destination, and sometimes waypoints too.

I have a bit of RP in my exploration game, in that I never actively scan a system that has already been scanned by another player, and I also don't actively scan every system I drop into, just systems that look as though they might be interesting from the FSS energy spectrum. Pretty much all my scans end up being first discoveries. My destinations are usually away from anything, including nebula's as I want to spend my time in primarily unvisited areas.

The ones that I care about, that have for example ELW, AW or WW I jot down the system name on a bit of paper so I can check them out in the galaxy map later if I want, the rest I don't.

As far as fuel stars and the like are concerned I'm not bothered (and rarely filter the map). I'll typically top up my tank at every star that's scoopable, and if I hit a patch of unscoopable stars, I'll generally dive back into the galaxy map when the tank is around 40 - 50% and simply find a star where I can replenish it, then go back to the original route using the bookmark.
 

Thwarptide

Banned
Thwarptide
GeoJase said:
The scenic route finder https://elite.kamd.me.uk/ is good to look up interesting known systems near to your route.
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That is a fine tool. Bookmarked!
I've pretty much made up my mind to sell off my python and take the asp-X out to Colonia for my first dip into the black pool. I'll definitely play with the tool on the way. Who knows, maybe I'll get side tracked, permanently 😉
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
Earth Like World, Ammonia World and Water World. They are relatively rare - well, Water Worlds are all over the place - and make for pretty pictures. Nothing you can do with them as they have atmospheres and are not land-able, but they are valuable when you sell the data.
 

Thwarptide

Banned
Thwarptide
Faded Glory said:
Earth Like World, Ammonia World and Water World. They are relatively rare - well, Water Worlds are all over the place - and make for pretty pictures. Nothing you can do with them as they have atmospheres and are not land-able, but they are valuable when you sell the data.
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Doh! 😳
Yer acronyms are showing (don't know why I didn't catch em.) Thx Cmdr 07
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Thwarptide said:
Oyez, oyez, oyez! (yeah, sure, that's not really applicable here)

My aspex is ready and willing (42ly) to venture out into the blackness of unknown regions.
While I make up my mind in which direction to sail, I do have one concern and that is simply keeping track of my tracks.

How are you veteran commanders keeping track of where you intend on going, where you've been and fuel stars around the given route? In short are you keeping a log with pen and pad along with bookmarks etc?
I'm sure everyone has their own procedures, some being more efficient and simple than others.
Click to expand...
You quickly run out of bookmarks if you want to use them for exploration. :)

Personally, I'm a chaotic explorer. I never have a plan, just a rough destination. I plot the course and periodically check the galaxy map while scooping or traveling to a planet I want to scan to see if there are any interesting stars in the vicinity along the route. Other than that, I just flail around, most of the time. You run into cool stuff mostly by accident anyway, so unelss you want to go meta (i.e. use third-party tools or lists of interesting stuff from the internet), your exploration experience is pretty luck-based.

So I wouldn't worry too much about plans and places if I were you. Just pick a direction and go.
Maybe the centre of the galaxy, or some interesting nebula, or a star way up above the galaxy plane for the views. Doesn't matter. :)
 

Thwarptide

Banned
Thwarptide
Chris Simon said:
You quickly run out of bookmarks if you want to use them for exploration. :)

Personally, I'm a chaotic explorer. I never have a plan, just a rough destination. I plot the course and periodically check the galaxy map while scooping or traveling to a planet I want to scan to see if there are any interesting stars in the vicinity along the route. Other than that, I just flail around, most of the time. You run into cool stuff mostly by accident anyway, so unelss you want to go meta (i.e. use third-party tools or lists of interesting stuff from the internet), your exploration experience is pretty luck-based.

So I wouldn't worry too much about plans and places if I were you. Just pick a direction and go.
Maybe the centre of the galaxy, or some interesting nebula, or a star way up above the galaxy plane for the views. Doesn't matter. :)
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Thank you for the input Cmdr Simon, 07.
May as well go to Colonia, get my manifold plasma injectors recalibrated and a ton or two of toilet paper 🤪 before I wander off into the void.
 

d8veh

d8veh
Without any of the tools, you can use your logfiles to show where you've been. Each time you jump, you get a line that starts like this:
{ "timestamp":"2020-05-04T20:26:26Z", "event":"FSDJump", "StarSystem":"Trella", "SystemAddress":1453586385267, "StarPos":[-57.37500,14.59375,60.62500], "SystemAllegiance":"Federation", "SystemEconomy":"$economy_Extraction;",

If you open the logfile in Notepad or any similar text viewer, you can search for the string " "event":"FSDJump"" and you can see every jump you made. You could copy and paste the names of the system to any other record that you want if you want to keep a list.
 

Esteban

E
Related:
If I get first-to-discover credit for a system and (particularly) as my list of those accomplishments grows, where (in-game) can I see that list?
 

[VR] Orodruin

[VR] Orodruin
Esteban said:
Related:
If I get first-to-discover credit for a system and (particularly) as my list of those accomplishments grows, where (in-game) can I see that list?
Click to expand...
I screenshot all my first discoveries when they are handed in at universal cartographics. I keep those screenshots in a separate subfolder of the screenshot folder, sorted into subfolders of the different trips I take.
 
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