What is it That Makes Exploration so Interesting?...

[TorTorden]

I've done a few short trips, it's not for me though. My biggest problem is if I take the plunge and take a trip to Sag A* or something further I am dedicated to completing it. I struggle with the idea that I'm essentially locking myself into a single role until I return. I can't decide today I want to do anything other than explore. Knowing myself I'd make it a few days, get bored and lazy and just run the ship into a star to return instantly... or stop playing altogether because I'm not having fun.

I think part of my problem is I can't mentally remove myself from the idea that it's only a game. I'm not actually exploring anything except a rendition in a video game. There is plenty I see in game that is pretty but anytime I see something interesting all I see is post-processing effects, procedural objects and graphical rendering. I'm not bashing those that can look past these things, I can't though... nature of my brain.

It's exactly the same with me, but even if I want to go to sag a* or even to the fringes of the other side of the galaxy, it would lock me out of everything else for too long.
So much so that if I'm starting an insane 500k Ly trip I'm consiedering buying another account so I can get another save slot :S

Doing the buckyball for instance would be different than scanning along the way, since I believe it could easily be done in a few days, and then just plow into the black hole to get home.

[smartroad]

It is one of those times my OCD kicks in. I have to record what I have found in a spreadsheet and make sure I have scanned EVERY object (except asteroid belts). Even if I jump into a system and it is an icecube system (only ice planets) I still have to scan each of them. To not to rubs my mind the wrong way! Last time when I was on my way back I needed to be back for a CG (like I am doing now) and had to start just jumping to be back in time to give over my data. That nearly killed me, all those unscanned systems!!

I just love seeing the numbers on my spreadsheet go up. So far I with this current mission I have scanned:

128 Systems,
239 Stars,
1564 Planets and Moons,

and found:
310 High Metal Planets
30 Terraformable Planets
9 Water planets (no Earths yet )
2 Ammonia.

How can you not get excited by all those figures!? (Kidding ) I also have the breakdown of the average number of stars, planets/moons, high metals, terraformable, water/earths and ammonia planets too, though I think I might be showing my nerd now...

[Xorog]

I have always been curious as to what the drive might be.

I have, more than once, toyed with the idea of outfitting a DB Explorer with 33ly range and running away from civilization to see how far I could get, but...exploration takes a while, and I have always been fairly certain that after a few hours I'd be bored and want to turn around. What do you explorers out there do to keep from self-destructing out of boredom? Is it relaxing? Is it monotonous? What are the risks? The rewards? Is it a pain being so far away from wingmen?

*interrogate*

What to do to keep you out of boredom?
To be honest: I wait until my watchlist of netflix is absolutely overflowing. Then I will have time to do some "netflix exploring / trading". Next thing would be: find a nice spot (you will encounter quite a few) and take some screenshots.

Is it relaxing?
Yes, its quite relaxing I think. You have to be careful when you jump to the next system, but the rest of the time is basically flying around, scanning and some fuel scooping. Its ED without gunfire or interdictions. Just you and your ship in the middle of nowhere.

Is it monotonous?
Yes. But there is netflix, or youtube....

What are the risks?
NOT keeping attention when you jump or fly around. Seriously! There are no stations for repairs out there.

The rewards?
You could be the first player to discover a system (which is only counted if you are the first who sold the data, btw).

Is it a pain being so far away from wingmen?
Difficult to answer. Not for me, I played solo for a long time and did not miss a wingman. But for you? Could be different.

[Eva]

It is one of those times my OCD kicks in. I have to record what I have found in a spreadsheet and make sure I have scanned EVERY object (except asteroid belts). Even if I jump into a system and it is an icecube system (only ice planets) I still have to scan each of them. To not to rubs my mind the wrong way! Last time when I was on my way back I needed to be back for a CG (like I am doing now) and had to start just jumping to be back in time to give over my data. That nearly killed me, all those unscanned systems!!

I just love seeing the numbers on my spreadsheet go up. So far I with this current mission I have scanned:

128 Systems,
239 Stars,
1564 Planets and Moons,

and found:
310 High Metal Planets
30 Terraformable Planets
9 Water planets (no Earths yet )
2 Ammonia.

How can you not get excited by all those figures!? (Kidding ) I also have the breakdown of the average number of stars, planets/moons, high metals, terraformable, water/earths and ammonia planets too, though I think I might be showing my nerd now...

As a scientist I can totally appreciate the joy of a good spreadsheet and nice graphs ; ) you should totally graph these data in interesting ways! See if there's a pattern in there somewhere ; )

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Daniel Dakota]

It's peaceful, updates don't hurt quite as much when FD cock them up a bit . Finding Earth like planets is a blast when they have no tag.
Flying drunk - no cops. And I've lost count of the amount of zulu warriors I've done on this trip ( it's a dance lol ) .

Fly safe

[Flip]

It's peaceful, updates don't hurt quite as much when FD cock them up a bit .

Except when you end up finding yourself in the last station you stopped by, like it happened to many explorers after 1.3 was released.

[Daniel Dakota]

It's peaceful, updates don't hurt quite as much when FD cock them up a bit .

Except when you end up finding yourself in the last station you stopped by, like it happened to many explorers after 1.3 was released.

Indeed bud, I was lucky that particular one didn't get me

[smartroad]

As a scientist I can totally appreciate the joy of a good spreadsheet and nice graphs ; ) you should totally graph these data in interesting ways! See if there's a pattern in there somewhere ; )

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

So on my last mission I encountered 1379 planets and moons and 227 stars in 133 systems.

There were on average:
1.71 stars (per system)
10.37 planets and moons (per system)
2.11 High metal planets (per system)
1 Terraformable planet every 3.4 systems
1 Water/Earthlike every 9 systems
1 Ammonia every 50 system

-edit-
High metal planets make up 20.3% of the planets/moons
Terraformable 2.8%
Water Earthlike 1%
Ammonia 0.1%
-/edit-

Remember you made me do it Eva

[Eva]

As a scientist I can totally appreciate the joy of a good spreadsheet and nice graphs ; ) you should totally graph these data in interesting ways! See if there's a pattern in there somewhere ; )

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

So on my last mission I encountered 1379 planets and moons and 227 stars in 133 systems.

There were on average:
1.71 stars (per system)
10.37 planets and moons (per system)
2.11 High metal planets (per system)
1 Terraformable planet every 3.4 systems
1 Water/Earthlike every 9 systems
1 Ammonia every 50 system

-edit-
High metal planets make up 20.3% of the planets/moons
Terraformable 2.8%
Water Earthlike 1%
Ammonia 0.1%
-/edit-

Remember you made me do it Eva

Excellent! ^^ There are a few graphs I'd love to make for this game but I don't have access to the data for example, I'd like to see the distribution of various types of planets on a kind of 2D grid of the galaxy to see if there are any clusters of certain kinds. For example, do life-bearing planets cluster around Sol to help players find them? Do planets get more icy on average the further you get from the galactic core or something? Do you find more gas giants and stars in the star-forming regions of large nebulae? I think it'd be really neat to see a heat map of these distributions and look for anomalies wish I had the data

[Dudley]

As a scientist I can totally appreciate the joy of a good spreadsheet and nice graphs ; ) you should totally graph these data in interesting ways! See if there's a pattern in there somewhere ; )

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

So on my last mission I encountered 1379 planets and moons and 227 stars in 133 systems.

There were on average:
1.71 stars (per system)
10.37 planets and moons (per system)
2.11 High metal planets (per system)
1 Terraformable planet every 3.4 systems
1 Water/Earthlike every 9 systems
1 Ammonia every 50 system

-edit-
High metal planets make up 20.3% of the planets/moons
Terraformable 2.8%
Water Earthlike 1%
Ammonia 0.1%
-/edit-

Remember you made me do it Eva

Excellent! ^^ There are a few graphs I'd love to make for this game but I don't have access to the data for example, I'd like to see the distribution of various types of planets on a kind of 2D grid of the galaxy to see if there are any clusters of certain kinds. For example, do life-bearing planets cluster around Sol to help players find them? Do planets get more icy on average the further you get from the galactic core or something? Do you find more gas giants and stars in the star-forming regions of large nebulae? I think it'd be really neat to see a heat map of these distributions and look for anomalies wish I had the data

Eva, Smartroad, CMDRs, you guys have made a start to the "great spreadsheet", that contains everything.... I'd love to see it.. I'm sure many other CMDRs would too. It could be a legacy event.
Please carry on, solicit what help and assistance you can.
Perhaps a template spreadsheet for others to populate?
Or... I might be going a little over the top...
Still think it would be a cool idea though.. Waddya think?
Regards
Dudley.