Two questions about exploring (new to exploring)

[WeavingBird1917]

My first question relates to this chart:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=117129&d=1490523708

In the chart above, what is the difference between "honk (red)" and "ads (yellow)". I thought honking was using the advanced discovery scanner than jumping away, what's the difference between the two in the chart then?

My second question is: How do you tell if you've scanned a terraformable planet. All threads I've seen asks how to find them, but how will you know once you actually do? I don't see any properties which say whether terraformable or not.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Vardaugas]

You can make a low-detail scan of a planet with your ADS, which pays more than a simple honk but less than the DSS.

 

[JonathanBurnage]

Honk means you turned up, pinged your discovery scanner and then left without doing any detailed scans. When you first ping the scanner, everything will appear as 'Unexplored' in your nav panel. You then have to get close enough (distance dependent on size of celestial body) and point the ship at it to do a detailed scan. Then the name appears.

If you do a detailed scan with just the ADS you will get the yellow reward. If you have a DSS equipped you will get the green reward.

The system menu will describe the body you have just scanned in detail, and will say if it is terrafomable.

 

[Kzak]

Once you've scanned a planet with the Detailed Surface Scanner, you'll see in the planet's entry in the system map on the left side of the screen whether or not it is terraformable. For instance: "The planet is a candidate for terraforming."

 

[Han Zulu]

My first question relates to this chart:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=117129&d=1490523708

In the chart above, what is the difference between "honk (red)" and "ads (yellow)". I thought honking was using the advanced discovery scanner than jumping away, what's the difference between the two in the chart then?

My second question is: How do you tell if you've scanned a terraformable planet. All threads I've seen asks how to find them, but how will you know once you actually do? I don't see any properties which say whether terraformable or not.

Thanks for your time.

Not quite, to do a full scan, honk first, then target the star or planet (which probably would say "Unexplored") and you'll get a "scanning..." text in the bottom-left panel. Wait for it to complete and you'll get a text "Analysing scan..." for just a second, then the name and designation of the star/planet shows up. Now you have a complete scan of the object.

I think it might be misleading to call the full scan an ADS scan since ADS is really the honk. And target scan (I think) works even when you don't have an ADS installed. But not sure.

If you want to make money from exploration, get max ADS and DSS, then target as I explained above and get the full detailed scan.

 

[WeavingBird1917]

Thank you for the explanations. I was just doing honks, thinking it fit into the yellow price zone, guess I will need to scan more now.

 

[lemon cup]

Not sure about the first one, I’ve always taken honking to refer to Advanced Discovery Scanner, as well. My guess is that chart is calling a “honk” your ship’s automatic sensor ping when you first jump into a system, which has a very short range.

Edit: looks like correct answer was given, disregard the above.

As for terraformable worlds, the biggest indicator I look at is distance from the parent star. Generally ~100 ls is too close and past 1000 is too far. This varies by star size of course; blue giants can have terraformable worlds several thousand light seconds away.

Hope this helps.

 

[WeavingBird1917]

Not sure about the first one, I’ve always taken honking to refer to Advanced Discovery Scanner, as well. My guess is that chart is calling a “honk” your ship’s automatic sensor ping when you first jump into a system, which has a very short range.

Edit: looks like correct answer was given, disregard the above.

As for terraformable worlds, the biggest indicator I look at is distance from the parent star. Generally ~100 ls is too close and past 1000 is too far. This varies by star size of course; blue giants can have terraformable worlds several thousand light seconds away.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, by the way I've been using to find terraformable planets: https://m.imgur.com/qdYFOP7

 

[Jon474]

Welcome to the wonderful worlds of exploration.

What are you flying, Cmdr?

Flying happy
Jon
Lakon Type-6E

 

[WeavingBird1917]

Welcome to the wonderful worlds of exploration.

What are you flying, Cmdr?

Flying happy
Jon
Lakon Type-6E

I originally got the ASP Explorer for going to stations around the bubble quickly then paying to transfer ships with low jump range such as the Vulture. It is outfitted with the 6A fuel scoop, with the rest being just fuel tanks. Can pretty much go anywhere without refueling. Then I realised it could make it to a nearby nebula without even needing to pick up fuel on the way, so I decided to outfit a ADS + DSS on it for my sightseeing mission. Wasn't dissapointed:

 

[JonathanBurnage]

I originally got the ASP Explorer for going to stations around the bubble quickly then paying to transfer ships with low jump range such as the Vulture. It is outfitted with the 6A fuel scoop, with the rest being just fuel tanks. Can pretty much go anywhere without refueling. Then I realised it could make it to a nearby nebula without even needing to pick up fuel on the way, so I decided to outfit a ADS + DSS on it for my sightseeing mission. Wasn't dissapointed:

https://i.imgur.com/1prBbqg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/dvxPmJY.jpg

FYI the route plotter calculates routes using your jump range assuming all fuel tanks are full. If your ship has lots of extra fuel tanks your jump range will be affected quite badly, meaning it will take far more jumps to get anywhere.

 

[777Driver]

FYI the route plotter calculates routes using your jump range assuming all fuel tanks are full. If your ship has lots of extra fuel tanks your jump range will be affected quite badly, meaning it will take far more jumps to get anywhere.

True, although the lower assumed jump range has the extra benefit of increasing your endurance, kinda like a balance between fastest route and econ.

 

[verminstar]

I originally got the ASP Explorer for going to stations around the bubble quickly then paying to transfer ships with low jump range such as the Vulture. It is outfitted with the 6A fuel scoop, with the rest being just fuel tanks. Can pretty much go anywhere without refueling. Then I realised it could make it to a nearby nebula without even needing to pick up fuel on the way, so I decided to outfit a ADS + DSS on it for my sightseeing mission. Wasn't dissapointed:

https://i.imgur.com/1prBbqg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/dvxPmJY.jpg

I hope this isnt a stupid question but why fit extra fuel tanks when ye got a 6A scoop fitted?

 

[JonathanBurnage]

True, although the lower assumed jump range has the extra benefit of increasing your endurance, kinda like a balance between fastest route and econ.

Unless you're going right to the edge of the galaxy, you won't need the extra fuel. Most explorers don't carry more than one tank.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

And target scan (I think) works even when you don't have an ADS installed. But not sure.

Correct, target scan doesn't need a discovery scanner installed. If you already know it's there, either from a previous scan or from a wingmate, you can target scan it without any scanners installed and with sensors disabled.

 

[Sylveria]

I hope this isnt a stupid question but why fit extra fuel tanks when ye got a 6A scoop fitted?

Not at all a stupid question- and it depends on if you're traveling in an area where there's a big gap between scoopable stars, which is very seldom the case.

Most explorers favor Fuel Scoops instead of Tanks, but you may need the extra "oomph" in between if your stock tank is too small for range. Depends on the ship, really.

That said, there's very few cases where this would be necessary- CMDR WR3ND for example, uses a Vulture, which has a pretty small tank AND FSD range, but still manages just fine. (I don't believe he uses extra tanks, either)

 

[WR3ND]

Not at all a stupid question- and it depends on if you're traveling in an area where there's a big gap between scoopable stars, which is very seldom the case.

Most explorers favor Fuel Scoops instead of Tanks, but you may need the extra "oomph" in between if your stock tank is too small for range. Depends on the ship, really.

That said, there's very few cases where this would be necessary- CMDR WR3ND for example, uses a Vulture, which has a pretty small tank AND FSD range, but still manages just fine. (I don't believe he uses extra tanks, either)

Thanks, for calling my attention to this so I could chime in here as well.

I did originally use an extra tank on my Vulture back before you could optionally select and plot for scoopable stars and various star types. Since that change, I've had no issues with not using extra tanks, so I just use the full sized one that comes with the ship.

If you take the time to look at where you're going, how you're going to get there, and filter for scoopable stars, you shouldn't run into any issues. I typically only get 3 jumps per full tank, and never once had to manually select a scoopable star instead of auto-plotting all the way out to the Skull and Crossbones Nebula with a jump range a bit under 20LY. I do top off my tank at every scoopable star though – well, excluding those I get dropped too far out from to make it practical to do so in otherwise uninteresting systems, unless I have to, which is rather rare.

On the other hand, if you're not wanting to bother filtering for scoopable stars nor have to check the galaxy map as frequently, having extra fuel tanks could have some use for you, regardless of them likely not being required in the vast majority of circumstances now.

Cheers.

 

[WeavingBird1917]

Not at all a stupid question- and it depends on if you're traveling in an area where there's a big gap between scoopable stars, which is very seldom the case.

Most explorers favor Fuel Scoops instead of Tanks, but you may need the extra "oomph" in between if your stock tank is too small for range. Depends on the ship, really.

That said, there's very few cases where this would be necessary- CMDR WR3ND for example, uses a Vulture, which has a pretty small tank AND FSD range, but still manages just fine. (I don't believe he uses extra tanks, either)

How many fuel tanks do you think is adequate? I've currently filled all empty space with fuel tanks but I also realise that it decreases jump range quite significantly, especially with larger fuel tanks. Or does it depend on the ship? Thanks.

 

[Sylveria]

How many fuel tanks do you think is adequate? I've currently filled all empty space with fuel tanks but I also realise that it decreases jump range quite significantly, especially with larger fuel tanks. Or does it depend on the ship? Thanks.

Depends on the ship- but if you're using an Asp Explorer, you really shouldn't need any extra fuel tanks with a 6A Fuel Scoop equipped. The stock tank is plenty.

Typically people will only equip extra tanks if they're using a combat-type ship (Fer De Lance, Vulture, etc.) to do Exploration to give it extra total range.

A few things to think about-

1) Total Range - This is how far you can continue jumping before you run out of fuel without refueling.
2) Jump (FSD) Range - This is how far your ship will hop in ONE jump, doesn't mean it's going to empty your tank
3) Range Plotting (Star Map) - This is the visual representation of how far you'll be able to travel (hops) in total before you'll need to refuel

You'll want to pay close attention to the Fuel Star markings on the route, because that's where it's telling you that you will need to refuel if you don't want to end up stranded.

(Do you know how the Fuel Scoop works? Not trying to be sarcastic, just checking to make sure)

Hope this helps

 

[WeavingBird1917]

Depends on the ship- but if you're using an Asp Explorer, you really shouldn't need any extra fuel tanks with a 6A Fuel Scoop equipped. The stock tank is plenty.

Typically people will only equip extra tanks if they're using a combat-type ship (Fer De Lance, Vulture, etc.) to do Exploration to give it extra total range.

A few things to think about-

1) Total Range - This is how far you can continue jumping before you run out of fuel without refueling.
2) Jump (FSD) Range - This is how far your ship will hop in ONE jump, doesn't mean it's going to empty your tank
3) Range Plotting (Star Map) - This is the visual representation of how far you'll be able to travel (hops) in total before you'll need to refuel

You'll want to pay close attention to the Fuel Star markings on the route, because that's where it's telling you that you will need to refuel if you don't want to end up stranded.

(Do you know how the Fuel Scoop works? Not trying to be sarcastic, just checking to make sure)

Hope this helps

Yes I know how to fuel scoop works . The 6A fuel scoop on the ASP is just awesome. What total range would be optimal/safe for an explorer? My ASP can currently do over 400 Ly. I am thinking about getting the Anaconda for more serious exploration missions but fuel range without extra tanks looks about 150 Ly. If I add enough fuel tanks for it to go 400 Ly, it can only jump 30 Ly when laden, compared with 38 Ly. I might experience first with my ASP with minimal fuel tanks and see how it goes.