Exploration Experiment. Problem Return. Help /Advice?

[Fandomlife]

So I decided to experiment with exploring to vary up the trading. It sort of happened by accident, I'd been outfitting the Diamondback for a bit and it reached completion. I decided to use it as expensive shuttle between my trade route and the location of my Diamondback Scout.

It went differently, I started on a journey and just didn't stop until I was 4000+ ly from Sol. If you look at the map 'float' and 'top down' I went almost straight 'down'. This even involved traversing the 'gap' to the outermost ring of the galaxy. It all happened easily, even traversing the 'gap' happened with basic route plotting of about 500 - 1000 ly at a time.

Great stuff.

Now I am trying to get back and can I hell traverse the gap between the arms. It is starting to feel impossible, which is totally different from how went on the outward journey. I've attached the gap I am trying to traverse.

(1) If anyone has any suggestions why it is easy one way and hard the other I'd be very interested?
(2) Any way the gap can be more scientifically probed for a way across - it's very random (and seems very sparse) at the moment?

It's really tarnishing my experience of the journey at the moment and it's getting very frustrating (rather than challenging!).

Screenshot_0052.jpg (104.99 KiB) Viewed 2411 times

[Fandomlife]

I don't this is the case, but feels like some variable has changed I'm not conscious of. For example, I no longer get a spider-like network of blue routes spreading out from my location, but a very limited number of options that are almost invisible as they are very light grey. Not sure why that has changed.

At the moment, I can't even plot a route 1000 ly back to where I came from - despite being able to do that to get where I am!

Very confusing.

[Feldspar]

If exiting the game and relogging doesn't help, there was something on the official forums advocating deleting your locally held user data (it will be rewritten by the game on log in) to clear certain problems.

As for getting home, try plotting shorter courses, make sure you are on the galactic plane for more stars (I've been plenty of places where my 34 LY range gave me a choice of 2 destinations) or moving a couple of hundred light years sideways to give different options.

[David c]

Where you are now on the map is where I crossed back over after I made two failed attempts further west so your in the right area. From there I did a lot of crabbing about 400ly East & 200ly down where I found some far denser star fields that didn't peter out. It's frustrating and nobody likes backtracking to visited systems but I did a lot of that until I found a decent path. Often times I felt trapped and you can't see the travel lines on the map, they just don't show up very well so you have to sometime jump to a star that looks like a dead end before you see it has other routes leading off it. But I would suggest you try heading downward in any direction that offers a pathway but don't let it lead you to far west.

[Fandomlife]

Thanks. A discussion on twitter suggested I may be too 'high' or too 'low' and thus getting less stars. A bit like Khan off of Star Trek I was operating in 2D space.

As an aside - is the middle figure on the coordinates on the map the galactic 'height' in relation to Sol? That is what seems to move when I pan 'up' and 'down'.

[David c]

I've only came back from that area a week ago and I've only just learned the middle set of numbers on the maps grid is the distance above or below the plain, ( ie -300 or 600 ) wish I'd known that last week and I would have been more help to you

[Fandomlife]

Well, part of this little jaunt was to learn stuff - it wasn't intended to be the longest or the most lucrative so it's serving it's purpose! I only figure the numbers today - even that they are in relation to Sol

[Fandomlife]

Just to close this out.

It was a matter of travelling 'down' towards the galactic plane (or level with Sol anyway). Once I got to 0 - 100 it was quite willing to plot 1000 ly routes through the 'gap' between the spiral arms.

And based on my first bit of exploring - the Diamondback Explorer is great. I am sure a ASP is technically better, but then my DB Explorer only cost me 3.5m totally kitted out (IR the sell price correctly).