Some data: How far to go to find a new system?

marx

marx
Here comes an update. Since the double-engineered class 5 FSDs are now available to everyone, I included them in the number of jumps calculations, and I also updated to the latest data. I added the FSD back from its original introduction date though (back when it could only be obtained as a CG reward), since that's when they were in the game.

So, if you look at the charts now, you'll notice that the number of jumps required to reach unexplored space have decreased at the time, and by now, they are just about back to where they were before.
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
Frankymole said:
Double-engineered? What does that mean?
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It's a new thing. A size-5 FSD that can be purchased from (human) tech brokers using engineering materials. It has two mods applied, and the extended range on it is better than what you can achieve by engineering one yourself. It's about 10% better than a grade-5 engineered FSD.
 

Frankymole

Frankymole
Orvidius said:
It's a new thing. A size-5 FSD that can be purchased from (human) tech brokers using engineering materials. It has two mods applied, and the extended range on it is better than what you can achieve by engineering one yourself. It's about 10% better than a grade-5 engineered FSD.
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I've never heard of it - they kept that one quiet! What are the requirements to get it from the tech broker? Something like Guardian blueprints? Guardian site materials? But it's human... so what can they be? ETA: Ah, found the thread now https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/about-that-double-engineered-fsd-reward-for-the-cg.558282/

So it was a CG-only reward. Oh well. At least the longest jumps are still reserved for the Anaconda.
 
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[PS4] Filthymick420

[PS4] Filthymick420
Frankymole said:
I've never heard of it - they kept that one quiet! What are the requirements to get it from the tech broker? Something like Guardian blueprints? Guardian site materials? But it's human... so what can they be? ETA: Ah, found the thread now https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/about-that-double-engineered-fsd-reward-for-the-cg.558282/

So it was a CG-only reward. Oh well. At least the longest jumps are still reserved for the Anaconda.
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Definitely not kept quiet there have been more than a few threads about it and multiple cgs for it so far. You'd have to be not playing or paying any attention to events in the game to have missed it 🤦‍♂️
 

dannysquid

dannysquid
I'm always surprised by how quickly you can go from all explored systems to no explored systems. Not sure if this is just luck on my part or some weird statistical quirk, but you'd think it would ease more gently between the two situations.
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
Frankymole said:
I've never heard of it - they kept that one quiet! What are the requirements to get it from the tech broker? Something like Guardian blueprints? Guardian site materials? But it's human... so what can they be? ETA: Ah, found the thread now https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/about-that-double-engineered-fsd-reward-for-the-cg.558282/

So it was a CG-only reward. Oh well. At least the longest jumps are still reserved for the Anaconda.
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Nope, the recent CG added it to the tech broker for everyone. The original CG was a CG-only reward. The recent one has made it permanently available. Just have to visit a human tech broker to buy them individually with materials (the pre-engineered modules are individual purchases rather than unlocks).
 

Frankymole

Frankymole
Orvidius said:
Nope, the recent CG added it to the tech broker for everyone. The original CG was a CG-only reward. The recent one has made it permanently available. Just have to visit a human tech broker to buy them individually with materials (the pre-engineered modules are individual purchases rather than unlocks).
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That sounds great!! Huge thanks to you for alerting me to this item.
 

marx

marx
Yes, see two posts above yours. The double-engineered class 5 FSDs have been available for purchase for over a year, visit a human tech broker to get them.
 

marx

marx
Hey, here comes an update! What prompted me to do it was today's video that answered colonization questions. Especially the part where they said that the thing about colonization also being an activity for explorers is that they'll be the ones who find the locations for those "mini-bubbles". Let's take a look at the numbers then. (By the way, the results are basically the same as 2.5 years ago - with lower exploration activity, that's no surprise.)
The best case scenario is that currently, the closest undiscovered system would at best be somewhere around 500 ly from Sol, and it would be a cold, low-mass star system around a brown dwarf star. With the currently stated 10 ly colonization range, even in the best case it would be a year before players colonize a currently-undiscovered system, assuming they can sustain a top speed of one week per system. However, as I talked about in the first post, the more realistic assumption is that it'd be 2-2.5x the distance from the crowdfunded data. In that case, even if the developers raise the range to 20 ly, it'd still be a year.

So yeah, with distance limits like these, explorers won't really have much of a role to play in colonization, as practically all of the work had been done already. So yeah, this will be about logistics and trade. Although there would still be one task for explorers: to find some scenic surface sites to place ground bases at. Time will tell if there's going to be a demand for that though, especially if the first base will have to be an orbital station / habitat.
 

Disemboweled Ego

D
marx said:
So yeah, with distance limits like these, explorers won't really have much of a role to play in colonization, as practically all of the work had been done already. So yeah, this will be about logistics and trade. Although there would still be one task for explorers: to find some scenic surface sites to place ground bases at. Time will tell if there's going to be a demand for that though, especially if the first base will have to be an orbital station / habitat.
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I do a lot of that type of in-depth exploration based on existing data and I feel colonization plays into that explicitly and it's really valuable, to get blood out of the stone that is odyssey terrain generation.

It also opens up the potential of remote colonization by means of FDev just dropping a few new CG-generated stations that can be colonized out of in some less explored regions.

When it was announced did some simulations/maps of what could be colonized and after about 2.5k Ly the data thinned out too much to find any systems 10Ly apart except for the obvious well-travelled routes to Colonia, Sag A* and various nebulas. A colonization system that motivates exploration like that could definitely exist but it'd need more motivation to set up in random places in the galaxy beyond just a fleet carrier.
 

varonica

varonica
marx said:
So yeah, with distance limits like these, explorers won't really have much of a role to play in colonization,
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Ah but, interesting you should mention that. The interesting bit about colonisation I gleaned from the streams that may interest explorers is the "value" of systems for colonisation, so some systems will be more valuable than others for colonising because of available slots into which to stick bases and suchlike. This value can be determined before actually starting the colonisation process, some sort of UI I suppose for seeing available resource slots for stations and outposts, both planetside and orbital. This is, essentially, new information about systems that hasn't been available before. So players wanting to start a colony might want to scan all the systems in the ten light year bubble from the start location, essentially exploring the area before colonising, so essentially an exploration function as part of colonisation.

I could imagine setting up some sort of website with this data that explorers could populate by exploring the edges of the bubble and other players, colonisers, could use this data to select the best direction to colonise.
 

marx

marx
Maybe, but I'd say it's highly likely that all of that can be gleaned from the data we have already. Like the slots you mentioned - surely those will depend on the contents of the system, the bodies and their orbits. Of course, Frontier can always make up some arbitrary stuff, but unless it's entirely random (in the Stellar Forge where nothing is), then we have the data already, and all that would be required would be some extra processing.

Disemboweled Ego said:
A colonization system that motivates exploration like that could definitely exist but it'd need more motivation to set up in random places in the galaxy beyond just a fleet carrier.
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Now that you mention that... I just realized something: based on what was said in the last stream, the question had been answered, and it's that the distant colonies themselves wouldn't really offer anything new to explorers. After all, carriers already have UC, VG, shipyard and outfitting to transfer your ships / modules to. So, if it's only for the purposes of exploration, then you'd be sacrificing the mobility of fleet carriers for, um, +25% on data sales... Nah. Don't get me wrong though, trading and doing missions in distant colonies far from the bubble could be fun (at least for some time), but that's not exploration.
 
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varonica

varonica
marx said:
Like the slots you mentioned - surely those will depend on the contents of the system
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In theory yes, so that's something that would need to be tested. But what if they put some other factors in, for instance systems with ELW's get extra bonus slots with the number restricted for systems without ELW's, would the type of station be dependent on the size of the planets or makeup. Would you need a Gas Giant with metallic rings to set up an economy based on mining, and etc. Would FDEV allow a player to fill every orbital slot in a small system, thus preventing Fleet Carriers from entering the system, I am imagining there is going to be some sort of artificial limitation on available slots for the system architect, so it should be interesting to find out. It was said in the stream that some systems would be more valuable than others but it wasn't that would be obvious simply from the number of stars and planets in the system, that you would need to go and check it out to find out.
 
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