Some humble questions about exploration

[Scoopy Doopy]

I do the same thing Kalpa I'm up to 12 ELW's 1st discovered. I check the ones close to Sol. The ones further out I'm not to worried about.

I used to worry about this. I am on my first ever exploration trip (again). The first time I was about 5000 LY out when I had the options screen of the game hang on startup and after mashing the keyboard a bit, discovered that it only looked like it had hung and I had cleverly managed to re-set my commander and lost everything. I was particularly worried about the ELW I had discovered. It took some time to build up from the lowly sidewinder to get another exploration Asp and set off again. Fortunately I had taken a screenshot of my ELW so I headed off to it and there it was, still in pristine undiscovered form I don't even think about it now.

I am 11000 LY's out now and haven't discovered another ELW but I have got a million water worlds and yesterday, my first Ammonia world.

I am heading for Sag A* and I plot 200LY's at a time always ensuring I have enough fuel to arrive at the end of it and that the destination is a scoopable star. I also headed off at a slight angle and occasionally flip the map to make sure I am not heading in a completely straight line.

When I arrive, I honk, scan the star and pull up the system map. If there are any WW's ELWs or AW then I will usually scan the whole system (I travelled 25000Ls today to get to the damn WW) . Otherwise I'll scan metals that are close by. I rarely do gas giants unless relatively close.

I don't need to scoop as I know that my final destination is reachable and sccopable but I do anyway when fuel looks low, just to be on the safe side.

By the way, are you aware that you can get a clue as to the planet types by the sound they make in the system map?

 

[Flash_Baggins]

1) I am the type who prefers to travel slowly and explore as I go, it really depends on how you enjoy to fly
2)I put my throttle to 0 when the hyperspace countdown starts, it makes you stop immediately upon entering the system. I usually know when Im going to drop, (lots of playing ) so I get ready with my discovery scanner. I target the sun as soon as possible, then open up the system map. If there is anything of worth, I have a look at it, if not I move on.

This is a slow but thorough method of exploring, you can optimize your method with, well practice. Its all in the timing, if you want to shave a few seconds off your trip, then you do things simultaneously (EG: Opening the system map while scanning the star)

Neither, I like salt, pepper and good old vinegar

3) No, in order to tag something you need to scan it, not just with the Discovery scanner

 

[Prime586]

I'm 14,000 LY out - set out in late October and am taking it very easy. At the moment I'm navigating by steering between two nebulae that are probably (I've not checked) a couple of thousand LY beneath the ship. This has been really useful, but I reckon I've got another 500LY before they're directly under me - and a new target will then need to be found (and I can't see anything as useful). At the moment I'm generally setting targets individually as there is a fair amount of interesting stuff around up here (S MS, Neutron, White Dwarf etc.).

The way I do it - very similar to some of the above:

1) Throttle to zero on the countdown - after a couple of near misses with neutrons, I always now look at the throttle when throttling down to make sure it's 'off' - first stage is in the 4321 countdown, and then again when into hyperspace. The throttle resets itself to 'off' when entering the new system.
2) Open system map.
3) I scan all close bodies from the entry point, and then the star. This includes HMCs in range and gas giants within 1000LS.
4) If there's a planet that I want to go to which is outside scanning range at entry, I line up on it and then do a fuel scoop. I'm then pointing in the right direction and can throttle away from the star when done.

As I found out again last night, there are some genuine surprises out there which don't immediately look that promising - in this case, two Cat IV gas giants orbiting around a white dwarf and K - one with five tiny metal-rich moons and one with two metal-rich moons + a distant M which had four terraformable planets (including an unsavoury-looking water world with an ammonia-rich atmosphere). I was pleased ...

 

[Kalpa]

By the way, are you aware that you can get a clue as to the planet types by the sound they make in the system map?

Yes, there's a good thread about this here. It's been dropping lately on forum pages as no one has bothered to bump it for a while, though...

 

[Cpt Shadow Wolfe]

Guess I will be a real slow explorer. I have OCD and cannot leave anything unexplored. I plan on doing a trip at some point, but even on missions now, when I jumped to a new system, I have to take time to scan everything, even the asteroid belts, and you don't get anything for it. So I am careful bout taking missions with short time limits that may cause to travel through new systems to me. Its a bit tedious and time consuming at times, but I still do it. Can't stop myself it seems. I might need that tidbit of useless info someday in the future. Guess that is the reason why my rank progress is so slow, haha.

 

[CharlusMagnus]

Thanks you SO much for sharing your knowledge, fellow commanders

I didn't know that we could get a clue about planet type by the sound they make in the system map, I'm going to check immediately since this looks really interesting!

Just come back in one piece or it was all for nothing..

I'll make sure to follow this advice as well

Once again thank you so much ! This game is already great by itself but the community makes it really wonderful.

Fly safe

 

[Whiterose]

Whiterose is a bit confused in the head today it seems... ignore him please.

You need to (detail) scan the planets one by one to get your name on them when you eventually return the data. Just honking the horn is not enough for first discovery credit.

Exactly.

In addition: if you perform the detailed scan without a Detailed Surface Scanner, it will be recorded as Level 2 detailed scan in your statistics and some lines in System Map planet info will be missing. You can come back with a DSS equipped and scan the planet again, upgrading your scan to level 3.

You're not usually wrong in exploration matters, but this does need fixing In order to get your first discovered tag, you need to:

1) Detail scan the object, whether it's a level 2 or 3 (with or without the detailed surface scanner), and
2) Be the first to sell that data.

What the other guys are saying is partially true, but incomplete. Technically it doesn't matter if you were the first to visit or not, as long as you were the first to sell. Yes, this means someone could technically "steal" your system, leading to people often posting system map screenshots with the system name obfuscated, but it happening randomly is highly unlikely given the sheer number of unexplored systems out there.

A thousand apologies, it would appear that I have lost the ability to actually read the original post, rather than jump to conclusions. I shall now wear a hair shirt, tighten the celice, and give myself a thorough whipping....but that's enough of the enjoyment, I have now put a post it on my laptop which states....read the post and engage brain before replying.

 

[CharlusMagnus]

I suggest you use nettles to make the whip, much more efficient

Thanks for taking the time to answer anyway, Whiterose