You know you're really an explorer when...

...you bring up the galaxy map, check your distance to the edge of the bubble, discover you're within 7000 lys and your first thought is...

I'm really close now. :D




Are you an explorer? If so, please share your favorite experiences. One of my favorites is arriving at Beagle Point, on the official first day of the arrival of the Distant Worlds Expedition.
 
Are you an explorer? If so, please share your favorite experiences.

I like Exploring better than any other facet of the game overall, but I am worried I don't have what it takes to be one of the greats. I just reached Sag A yesterday, and turned towards Colonia, and I am so tired of jumping, honking, checking the map, rinse, repeat. I am dreading the trip back to the bubble SO MUCH that I briefly considered selling the data when I reach Colonia and then crashing my DBX just so I can respawn in the bubble. I have attempted to mitigate my boredom by creating another CMDR and playing with her for a bit, but I think I may have burned myself out on Exploration for a while.

Anyway, my favorite moment was finding my first untagged ELW, and getting that "first to find" notification. It was such a rush! Good old SWOILZ TJ-Q C21-6 4!
 
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Exploring is made a bit cheap by how honking can detect ELWs and WWs and display them on the system map, so that there's really no need to ever spend any time in a system that doesn't have a high Cr return on time investment.

This becomes obvious every time someone talks about hating to jump, because exploring and traveling are two different things. To be honest, I don't know why the game refers to travelling and scanning as exploring. Now that we have SRVs and planetary landings, exploring should be about surface time.
 
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I am dreading the trip back to the bubble SO MUCH that I briefly considered selling the data when I reach Colonia and then crashing my DBX just so I can respawn in the bubble.

Anyway, my favorite moment was finding my first untagged ELW, and getting that "first to find" notification. It was such a rush! Good old SWOILZ TJ-Q C21-6 4!

Yes, it's a great feeling to be the first to find something cool!

I know exactly what you mean. I felt much the same, at the though of traveling all the way back to the bubble from Beagle Point. I seriously considered suiciding to quickly return.

There are things that can help:

  • Find something to make the jump-scoop-scan-repeat cycle more enjoyable: Listen to good music (which is what I do) or books on tape.
  • Take some breaks from the game (or as you said, play another commander). When I have a long way to travel, I often only play 2-3 days each week and do something else on the other days.
  • Only do a few jumps per day and spend more time exploring the systems. This should be more rewarding, now that everything is no longer beige.
  • Take breaks from flying and spend time on the forum or on Discord.
 
Or, if you really don't like doing it, just suicide.

It's a game. You shouldn't spend a lot of time doing things you don't enjoy. I doubt it will be one of your life's regrets "man I should have stuck it out and finished the loop, I feel so cheap now".
 
It's a game. You shouldn't spend a lot of time doing things you don't enjoy.
There's certainly some truth to that, but I enjoy things that are challenging. That includes monotony. I sometimes ride my bicycle on long trips (like 100 miles in a day). That can get quite tedious too, but there is a great sense of accomplishment when you finish the ride.

Video or it didn't happen? :D Here's a time-lapse video of the first half of a round trip of 100 miles (which is called a "century" in bike lingo)...

https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aj2gdTGJyh_31DYePXtpAMSEUTym

I literally rode to the next state (Alabama).
 
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+1 to the OP. I'm currently en route from Colonia to Sag-A and there is definitely a milestone (millstone?) when you get under 200 jumps (from 336). However nothing compared to getting to Colonia from Deciat, nearly 1000 jumps in my (then) 27ly range AspX (now up to ~35ly thankfully). It was 558 jumps just from Rohini to Colonia. Started off with good intentions of exploring every system with planetary bodies and landing on suitable planets but that soon went out the window - honk, scoop, press on.

For my journey out to Sag-A I've kind of evolved a schedule, want to be out there by next weekend with the rest of March for returning to the bubble and Farseer. The rough idea is:
1. Honk/scoop. If the star is already owned move on to the next system.
2. Detail scan of star if unclaimed.
3. If there are unclaimed planets in the system, try and detail scan up to 500 - 600ly out.
4. No planets or first body out beyond Goldilocks - move on.
5. No landings, too big a time sponge. Until the Gal-Map is fixed little point in mixing jumponium anyway.

As regards monotony, I did just under 80 jumps yesterday and must admit to feeling a little burned out, eyes stinging but the problem is I can't really see a better mechanism for long distance travel other than maybe the ability to jump to systems you've already discovered. I may yet just head back to Rohini from Sag-A, cash in the explo chips and suicide back to LHS3447... We will see!
 
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You know you're an explorer when you have no stars in front of you, the whole galaxy as a small sausage in the back, and you wonder... what's out there further out in the dark?

You know you're an explorer when you go to Heart and Soul and think it's overpopulated.
 
I stopped thinking in terms of range. My evenings were measured in jumps for most of last year. I was on track to get back into the bubble around Easter; about a year long trip. To give you some idea about pace, when I heard about the Thargoid attacks in December I managed to shave about four months off my arrival time so that I could get involved.

Having said that, I'm no explorer! I didn't use a dedicated exploration build, I played it safe with the systems I visited, hardly ever dropping below a half full fuel tank, I avoided landing on high G worlds and I headed back to the bubble long before my ship's health dropped below 50%.

Next time might be a bit different...
 
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