Hello, CMDR Orange! here. Over the past year since the GGG discovery I have been working intermittently on a personal expedition of the lowest sector layer of the galaxy, which I have hastily called my "basement expedition". Here I will share my results and methodology for the expedition. I will be through but will explain each element as though you have not heard of it before.
Introduction
As you likely know, the galaxy is divided into sectors. Each sector is a cube with dimensions 1280 x 1280 x 1280 ly. Virtually every procedurally generated system uses the name of its sector as the first term in its name. The galaxy has 6 total layers of sectors. Three for the negative y-coordinates (technically below y = -25) and three for the positive y-coordinates. The two middle layers have the majority of the galaxy's stars and sectors, as those two layers encompass the plane of the galaxy. The next outer layers still have a decent number of stars and sectors, but lack stars in between the arms. The outermost layers, that is, the top and bottom layers of sectors, contain the fewest number of stars and sectors and are concentrated around the central galactic bulge. Below is a comparison of these layers for the top half of the galaxy where light means the sector has stars and dark means the sector has no stars, from EDAstro's sector viewer tool:
How much of that dark space is truly empty, and how much of that dark space is simply unexplored? That is the goal of the basement expedition, to record every basement sector with stars and visit at least one star in each unrecorded sector to officially record it in EDDN.
Methods
A sector is not known to contain stars unless we visit a system in that sector and report it to EDDN. However, most people do not know a sector's name until they read it in game. Thus, if someone wanted to see if a sector contained stars, they would need to manually look for stars, which is haphazard considering how large each sector is and how through such a search would need to be.
Fortunately, people have figured out how the sector names were generated from a list of suffixes, prefixes, and infixes. The process is written on the DISC wiki. It is highly technical, but basically, we can generate the name of every sector in a giant 64 x 64 x 64 grid, where each voxel (1 x 1 x 1) represents a sector name. It turns out that based on a typical (0, 0, 0) origin coordinate system, the six aforementioned sector layers correspond to y-values of 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 on this grid. Special thanks to Matt G for generating the list for me a while back!
Focusing on the basement layer (y-value 29), we can create a 2D grid of the basement layer's sectors. For each sector, I can simply check EDSM if a system has already been discovered there already. If so, I can simply mark it complete and move on. If the sector is not found in EDSM, then I will have to check to see if stars actually exist or not.
OK, then how do I check if a star is in the sector? With the search bar, but not so fast. You can't just paste the sector name into the search bar and know straight away always. The following is the decision tree to determine if the sector is empty or not.
This is a tedious process since one must exhaust the entire alphabet, which takes 30 seconds - 1 minute to complete. Skipping letters is not ideal, as some sectors have a single system beginning with the last few letters of the alphabet. There are a lot of sectors too, so this time adds up. If one wants to take time to examine the actual systems in the sector by selecting the system name in the search bar, that takes even more time.
However, over the year I made steady progress on the basement sector and am fairly confident I have found every single basement sector. I have mapped out the basement layer on a spreadsheet and color coded it. At first it was merely an organizational tool, but as I completed more of the galaxy, the overall structure of the galaxy at this y-level became apparent.
The legend is mostly self-explanatory, but I will elaborate here. Light green (RECORDED) means that sector was already visited before I started this project. Purple (UNRECORDED, TODO) means that the sector was unrecorded but had a system in it, so I will visit that sector--as you can see I have completed this section already. Yellow (UNREC, CARRIER, TODO) is the same as purple, but I noted that every system in that sector (which is currently either 1 or 2 systems in the entire sector) requires a fleet carrier to visit, which requires significantly more planning on my part. Green (FIRST VISITED DONE) means that the sector used to be purple or yellow (unrecorded but I confirmed there was a system) but I have since visited it, so it is now recorded. Red (CONFIRMED EMPTY) means I checked using the search method above and have confirmed that no systems exist in that sector. Black (COLONIA, SGR A*) are the sectors with Colonia and Sgr A* directly above it, for convenience purposes.
Teal (SEE NOTE 1) is similar to light green (RECORDED) but with a technicality. The sector was recorded but never visited before. How is that possible? EDSM allowed triangulation to insert stars into the database. This is how many unreachable catalog stars exist in the EDSM database with no recorded traffic. A single CMDR, Thadius Wynter, triangulated a single star in every teal sector in 2018. Great dedication! I have decided that since they were recorded I wouldn't intentionally visit these sectors. Since the sector is known to contain systems, other players can visit at their own leisure.
As you can see, I have nearly finished the basement layer. I will finish most of the yellow sectors in the coming days. This project requires some serious jump range if you don't want to rely on a carrier all the time! I used the maximum jump range anaconda build that utilizes the community goal class 6A FSD V1 and the physics-defying trick that allows one to install Class 4D thrusters on the anaconda. It has no shields, a miserable top speed, and can't boost...but this tin can is able to just barely visit some systems that even a 1 or 2 ly difference in range would make impossible! Even with the great jump range, great care is required to not accidentally strand yourself, a 350+ ly neutron jump is useless if you have no trip back! Fringe exploration requires great care and discipline--and to be able to explore completely unknown sectors makes it feel very worthwhile.
Results
Obviously, the immediate result is that we have a lot of new sectors revealed, though admittedly many of them don't have more than a few stars. Some have several dozen, however.
Interestingly, the overall structure of the galaxy is apparent in the image above. Four major arms can be seen spiraling out of the center. The obvious left one is the beginning of the Perseus Arm (goes to Tenebrae). There is a smaller left arm tucked under the Perseus Arm--that is the Orion-Cygnus Arm that leads to our very own Inner Orion Spur. The lower arm is the beginning of the Inner Scutum-Centaurus Arm, which ends up at The Abyss. Finally, on the right we see the beginning of the Outer Arm (ends at Xibalba).
The Perseus Arm (left) has an entire "island" which is is interesting. The Outer Arm (right) also has a portion that juts out, but it is nowhere near as large.
The galaxy is clearly asymmetric (or Sgr A* is clear not centered). There are almost twice as many sectors to the left of Sgr A* than to the right.
Stellar Forge Quirks?
During my travels I have seen many different configurations of unrecorded sectors. Although each one was different, I feel that I could roughly classify them along three types.
Type 1 - Consistent with Known Stellar Forge
This sector looks like the very bottom of the galaxy in most places. In most places of the galaxy, there is a clearly defined "edge" (I will use this term) to where procedural star generation is allowed and not allowed. Beyond the edge, stars do not generate. Stars also tend to generate in a grid-like pattern in sparse areas and are entirely composed of D mass stars. However, the edge is moreorless fluid and not constrained to a grid--rather it follows the shape of the galaxy--or whatever bitmap was used to generate the shape. Hence, this type of sector looks like a thin sheet of stars that may or may not be cut off horizontally due to the edge rising above the thin sheet. Here is a crudely drawn side profile:
This is sector Grae Hype (navigate using system Grae Hype AE-E d13-0). There are exactly 5 stars in the sector. The white lines are the sector borders, the green dots are the sector's stars, the red dots are outside the sector stars, and the orange line is the presumed "edge". This also applies on a side-view:
Type 2 - High mass code systems can violate the edge
For type 2 sectors, I noticed that occasionally, and especially in the top-left quadrant of the galaxy, high mass code stars would occasionally violate the edge and spawn far lower than the d mass code stars. I have seen E, F, G, and even an H mass code star do this. This is consistent with behavior near the center of the galaxy, but for some reason, there is a strong bias to the top left quadrant. This behavior in the center of the galaxy can be seen on side profiles of the EDAstro Galaxy Map:
Assuming there is some sort of edge" at y-coordinate 2775 ly, higher mass codes are allowed to extend beyond this edge. I believe this is because higher mass codes are allowed to have their boxel extend past the edge, as long as part of the boxel is inside within the boundary. Hence, higher mass codes will naturally have a much larger volume to extend beyond the edge. I believe this phenomenon can be seen in some of the edge sectors as well. Occasionally, ONLY a high mass code star will generate, and this may be because the edge has left all d mass systems excluded from a particular sector, while higher mass code systems are able to squeeze a boxel in.
A simple example is the Drasiae sector (navigate to Drasiae JI-S e4-0 or Drasiae MO-Q e5-0), which has only 2 stars, both of which are e mass stars. Naturally, this makes it more difficult to reach, and since both of these stars aren't neutron stars, I must use a carrier if I want to return.
And to reiterate, I have mostly only found this type of sector in the top left quadrant of the galaxy. This seems consistent with other separate observations of "coarse" boxel edges. Note the top left of the galaxy:
The dots in the rectangles are G mass stars located nowhere near the center of the arm (which would be the closest place they should be able to generate, if at all). Pyritchi DL-Y g0 is an example if you want to navigate to there yourself.
Also notice how H mass sectors are strangely far from the center mostly only in the top left quadrant here (also from EDAstro):
Sure, there may be some protrusion in spots where the arm begins, but those 5 sectors are very separate. Perhaps this begs the question: why is the top left of the galaxy "coarse" or "lumpy" in this way?
Type 3 - Why is this star HERE?
The final, and most puzzling type that I have noticed is that a few sectors have normal D-mass systems significantly further away than I would expect from a normal edge-grid pattern interaction. At the most sparse parts of the galaxy, the grid spacing is about 80 ly. This includes the y-axis. However, in some of these sectors, the anomalous system is 200+ ly away from the established edge. I don't have much a theory behind this. I noticed this occurring in many different parts of the galaxy.
An example is Scheae Flyoae GZ-D d13-0, which is the ONLY star in its sector. The nearest star is 400 ly away, and it is nowhere near the established edge.
Thank you for reading this very long post. I might start the "ceiling" sector layer at some point, but if I do, it'll probably a while from now, since I am a little burned out from this type of exploration (perhaps some H mass hunting will satisfy me
You're free to use any images in this post, and if you have any questions, ask away!
Introduction
As you likely know, the galaxy is divided into sectors. Each sector is a cube with dimensions 1280 x 1280 x 1280 ly. Virtually every procedurally generated system uses the name of its sector as the first term in its name. The galaxy has 6 total layers of sectors. Three for the negative y-coordinates (technically below y = -25) and three for the positive y-coordinates. The two middle layers have the majority of the galaxy's stars and sectors, as those two layers encompass the plane of the galaxy. The next outer layers still have a decent number of stars and sectors, but lack stars in between the arms. The outermost layers, that is, the top and bottom layers of sectors, contain the fewest number of stars and sectors and are concentrated around the central galactic bulge. Below is a comparison of these layers for the top half of the galaxy where light means the sector has stars and dark means the sector has no stars, from EDAstro's sector viewer tool:
How much of that dark space is truly empty, and how much of that dark space is simply unexplored? That is the goal of the basement expedition, to record every basement sector with stars and visit at least one star in each unrecorded sector to officially record it in EDDN.
Methods
A sector is not known to contain stars unless we visit a system in that sector and report it to EDDN. However, most people do not know a sector's name until they read it in game. Thus, if someone wanted to see if a sector contained stars, they would need to manually look for stars, which is haphazard considering how large each sector is and how through such a search would need to be.
Fortunately, people have figured out how the sector names were generated from a list of suffixes, prefixes, and infixes. The process is written on the DISC wiki. It is highly technical, but basically, we can generate the name of every sector in a giant 64 x 64 x 64 grid, where each voxel (1 x 1 x 1) represents a sector name. It turns out that based on a typical (0, 0, 0) origin coordinate system, the six aforementioned sector layers correspond to y-values of 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 on this grid. Special thanks to Matt G for generating the list for me a while back!
Focusing on the basement layer (y-value 29), we can create a 2D grid of the basement layer's sectors. For each sector, I can simply check EDSM if a system has already been discovered there already. If so, I can simply mark it complete and move on. If the sector is not found in EDSM, then I will have to check to see if stars actually exist or not.
OK, then how do I check if a star is in the sector? With the search bar, but not so fast. You can't just paste the sector name into the search bar and know straight away always. The following is the decision tree to determine if the sector is empty or not.
- If you paste the unrecorded sector name into the search bar and results appear, then you know that systems exist in that sector.
- If no results appear, then no conclusion can be made yet! That is because in low systems count sectors, the search bar is artificially suppressed!
- Target a star in a neighboring sector. Now paste the sectorname followed by A. e.g. "Sectorname A". If results appear, then you know that systems exist in that sector.
- If no results appear, repeat with B, then C, and so on, until you have exhausted the entire alphabet [A-Z]. If results appear for any letter, then you know that systems exist in that sector.
- If after exhausting the entire alphabet there are still no results, then there are no systems in that sector.
This is a tedious process since one must exhaust the entire alphabet, which takes 30 seconds - 1 minute to complete. Skipping letters is not ideal, as some sectors have a single system beginning with the last few letters of the alphabet. There are a lot of sectors too, so this time adds up. If one wants to take time to examine the actual systems in the sector by selecting the system name in the search bar, that takes even more time.
However, over the year I made steady progress on the basement sector and am fairly confident I have found every single basement sector. I have mapped out the basement layer on a spreadsheet and color coded it. At first it was merely an organizational tool, but as I completed more of the galaxy, the overall structure of the galaxy at this y-level became apparent.
The legend is mostly self-explanatory, but I will elaborate here. Light green (RECORDED) means that sector was already visited before I started this project. Purple (UNRECORDED, TODO) means that the sector was unrecorded but had a system in it, so I will visit that sector--as you can see I have completed this section already. Yellow (UNREC, CARRIER, TODO) is the same as purple, but I noted that every system in that sector (which is currently either 1 or 2 systems in the entire sector) requires a fleet carrier to visit, which requires significantly more planning on my part. Green (FIRST VISITED DONE) means that the sector used to be purple or yellow (unrecorded but I confirmed there was a system) but I have since visited it, so it is now recorded. Red (CONFIRMED EMPTY) means I checked using the search method above and have confirmed that no systems exist in that sector. Black (COLONIA, SGR A*) are the sectors with Colonia and Sgr A* directly above it, for convenience purposes.
Teal (SEE NOTE 1) is similar to light green (RECORDED) but with a technicality. The sector was recorded but never visited before. How is that possible? EDSM allowed triangulation to insert stars into the database. This is how many unreachable catalog stars exist in the EDSM database with no recorded traffic. A single CMDR, Thadius Wynter, triangulated a single star in every teal sector in 2018. Great dedication! I have decided that since they were recorded I wouldn't intentionally visit these sectors. Since the sector is known to contain systems, other players can visit at their own leisure.
As you can see, I have nearly finished the basement layer. I will finish most of the yellow sectors in the coming days. This project requires some serious jump range if you don't want to rely on a carrier all the time! I used the maximum jump range anaconda build that utilizes the community goal class 6A FSD V1 and the physics-defying trick that allows one to install Class 4D thrusters on the anaconda. It has no shields, a miserable top speed, and can't boost...but this tin can is able to just barely visit some systems that even a 1 or 2 ly difference in range would make impossible! Even with the great jump range, great care is required to not accidentally strand yourself, a 350+ ly neutron jump is useless if you have no trip back! Fringe exploration requires great care and discipline--and to be able to explore completely unknown sectors makes it feel very worthwhile.
Results
Obviously, the immediate result is that we have a lot of new sectors revealed, though admittedly many of them don't have more than a few stars. Some have several dozen, however.
Interestingly, the overall structure of the galaxy is apparent in the image above. Four major arms can be seen spiraling out of the center. The obvious left one is the beginning of the Perseus Arm (goes to Tenebrae). There is a smaller left arm tucked under the Perseus Arm--that is the Orion-Cygnus Arm that leads to our very own Inner Orion Spur. The lower arm is the beginning of the Inner Scutum-Centaurus Arm, which ends up at The Abyss. Finally, on the right we see the beginning of the Outer Arm (ends at Xibalba).
The Perseus Arm (left) has an entire "island" which is is interesting. The Outer Arm (right) also has a portion that juts out, but it is nowhere near as large.
The galaxy is clearly asymmetric (or Sgr A* is clear not centered). There are almost twice as many sectors to the left of Sgr A* than to the right.
Stellar Forge Quirks?
During my travels I have seen many different configurations of unrecorded sectors. Although each one was different, I feel that I could roughly classify them along three types.
Type 1 - Consistent with Known Stellar Forge
This sector looks like the very bottom of the galaxy in most places. In most places of the galaxy, there is a clearly defined "edge" (I will use this term) to where procedural star generation is allowed and not allowed. Beyond the edge, stars do not generate. Stars also tend to generate in a grid-like pattern in sparse areas and are entirely composed of D mass stars. However, the edge is moreorless fluid and not constrained to a grid--rather it follows the shape of the galaxy--or whatever bitmap was used to generate the shape. Hence, this type of sector looks like a thin sheet of stars that may or may not be cut off horizontally due to the edge rising above the thin sheet. Here is a crudely drawn side profile:
This is sector Grae Hype (navigate using system Grae Hype AE-E d13-0). There are exactly 5 stars in the sector. The white lines are the sector borders, the green dots are the sector's stars, the red dots are outside the sector stars, and the orange line is the presumed "edge". This also applies on a side-view:
Type 2 - High mass code systems can violate the edge
For type 2 sectors, I noticed that occasionally, and especially in the top-left quadrant of the galaxy, high mass code stars would occasionally violate the edge and spawn far lower than the d mass code stars. I have seen E, F, G, and even an H mass code star do this. This is consistent with behavior near the center of the galaxy, but for some reason, there is a strong bias to the top left quadrant. This behavior in the center of the galaxy can be seen on side profiles of the EDAstro Galaxy Map:
Assuming there is some sort of edge" at y-coordinate 2775 ly, higher mass codes are allowed to extend beyond this edge. I believe this is because higher mass codes are allowed to have their boxel extend past the edge, as long as part of the boxel is inside within the boundary. Hence, higher mass codes will naturally have a much larger volume to extend beyond the edge. I believe this phenomenon can be seen in some of the edge sectors as well. Occasionally, ONLY a high mass code star will generate, and this may be because the edge has left all d mass systems excluded from a particular sector, while higher mass code systems are able to squeeze a boxel in.
A simple example is the Drasiae sector (navigate to Drasiae JI-S e4-0 or Drasiae MO-Q e5-0), which has only 2 stars, both of which are e mass stars. Naturally, this makes it more difficult to reach, and since both of these stars aren't neutron stars, I must use a carrier if I want to return.
And to reiterate, I have mostly only found this type of sector in the top left quadrant of the galaxy. This seems consistent with other separate observations of "coarse" boxel edges. Note the top left of the galaxy:
The dots in the rectangles are G mass stars located nowhere near the center of the arm (which would be the closest place they should be able to generate, if at all). Pyritchi DL-Y g0 is an example if you want to navigate to there yourself.
Also notice how H mass sectors are strangely far from the center mostly only in the top left quadrant here (also from EDAstro):
Sure, there may be some protrusion in spots where the arm begins, but those 5 sectors are very separate. Perhaps this begs the question: why is the top left of the galaxy "coarse" or "lumpy" in this way?
Type 3 - Why is this star HERE?
The final, and most puzzling type that I have noticed is that a few sectors have normal D-mass systems significantly further away than I would expect from a normal edge-grid pattern interaction. At the most sparse parts of the galaxy, the grid spacing is about 80 ly. This includes the y-axis. However, in some of these sectors, the anomalous system is 200+ ly away from the established edge. I don't have much a theory behind this. I noticed this occurring in many different parts of the galaxy.
An example is Scheae Flyoae GZ-D d13-0, which is the ONLY star in its sector. The nearest star is 400 ly away, and it is nowhere near the established edge.
Thank you for reading this very long post. I might start the "ceiling" sector layer at some point, but if I do, it'll probably a while from now, since I am a little burned out from this type of exploration (perhaps some H mass hunting will satisfy me
You're free to use any images in this post, and if you have any questions, ask away!
