The Dryman Discrepancy

[Nadreck]

I passed through the Dryman's Point region on my way back from DW2 along the Sagittarius-Carina arm, and noticed the abundance of Notable Stellar Phenomena and peduncle trees in the region. I've recently headed back out there (with a Carrier now). Checked out a nebula and stumbled across the DSSA Dryman's Hope.

I've heard that there's a Dryman permit-locked region, but I couldn't find it. Did some googling and discovered that it's actually in an adjacent region, the Norma Expanse. Apparently all stars in the sector named "Dryman..." are permit-locked.

I suppose that if a small portion of the Dryman sector extended into the Dryman's Point region (i.e. the "pointy bit" of the sector), that might justify the name "Dryman's Point" for the region, but that isn't the case. There's a gap of over 3,000ly between them. I've tentatively identified DRYMAN FF-J b25-3 as the easternmost system in the Dryman sector (by fiddling with the galmap, I don't know if there's a better way). I took my Carrier to the nearest unlocked system and explored the local area, nothing unusual (though I was a bit surprised to find little trace of anyone else, it's almost all unexplored: I would have expected the perimeter of a permit-locked region to have more evidence of people prowling around it). Given the curvature of the region border, there might be a slightly shorter gap elsewhere between the Dryman sector and the Dryman's Point region, rather than directly along the east-west axis, but not a lot in it. Currently heading anticlockwise around the locked sector in my Phantom, looking for a route in (unlikely, I know), and dragging my Carrier along in 500ly jumps. When I get a clear run to Sag A*, I'll take my JumpConda in a neutron speedrun to Vista Genomics at Explorers Anchorage.

I know that some names were assigned by Frontier, and some were adopted from the community. Does anyone know where "Dryman" came from? And how it came to be used for both a star sector and a galactic region, which aren't even in the same place? Does seem a bit odd.

 

[Chrystoph]

SWAG on my part, but, presumably, Dryman would be the astronomer associated with the region.

The problem with that, of course, is a Google of Dryman and Astronomy/Astronomer didn't actually produce usable results for me.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Dryman was a Frontier-assigned name.

I assume it's a bit like how there's places called "Wellington" all over Earth - some influential (in the case of Dryman, presumably fictional) patron who gets lots of things named after them.

 

[Sapyx]

The Dryman (or rather, DRYMAN - unlike procedurally-generated sectors, it's written in all-caps) permit-locked sector has been in the game since launch. Dryman's Point, along with the other Region names, has only been in game since 3.0. So the permit-locked sector is "the original". It's also entirely possible that the person in FD charged with assigning Region names was completely unaware that DRYMAN sector existed. The name "Dryman's Point" is one of the names derived from the earlier Galactic Mapping Project nomenclature - they had a feature "The Dryman Ridge", comprising the easily navigable tube of space bridging the gap between the two spiral arms. DRYMAN sector is at the near end of the "bridge" (and presumably is the origin of the GMP name), Dryman's Point Region is at the far end.

DRYMAN sector, like all other permit-locked and hand-crafted sectors, is spherical. Normal procedurally-generated sectors (eg. Wredgau, Thraikoo, etc) are cubes.

 

[marx]

DRYMAN sector, like all other permit-locked and hand-crafted sectors, is spherical. Normal procedurally-generated sectors (eg. Wredgau, Thraikoo, etc) are cubes.

It's worth noting though that the contents of all the spherical subsectors are not hand-crafted. The underlying procedural generation is the same, it's only the displayed system names that are overridden. The way it works is that Frontier picked some locations and a radius for the sphere, and all systems within there get assigned a different name to be displayed. If you can figure out the original name of the system and search for that on the galaxy map, it will take you there.

Why did they choose Dryman for one of the permit-locked spheres? Who knows. Why did they choose the names Bovomit, Sidgoir, and others? ("Because these are Raxxla clues")

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

Dryman Sector is far enough away from the Bubble that it takes some determination and time to get there, with no promise of reward at the end. Hence there are still undiscovered systems, despite there being past surveys of the border. I recently re-visited Hyponia (14 KLY from Colonia) where the same applies and found plenty of untagged systems, even one with binary Earth-like Worlds right next to the border. Good luck with your exploration!