I'm convinced people are cheating exploration

[Shelt]

I've been exploring a lot lately to find my first Earth-like world to stick my pilot name on, and it's getting to be a ridiculous and empty task.

I'm about 800LY away from the bubble, on a very steep angled path, and I've probably explored 50 or systems (with the correct star types) in this latest run which have not been explored at all before. At first I was excited to finally find virgin systems and start the hunt in earnest.

Well, today I finally found a system with an ELW in that patch of unexplored systems, only when I looked at the map after honking, I saw where somehow, someone had been through there before, and ONLY discovered that particular Earth-like world. The rest of the planets remained undiscovered.

So, is it just bad luck, or are people using a 3rd party program to find the ELWs and get the lucrative discovery, ignoring everything else?

I am so salty right now.

[Laurreth]

You can increase your chances by only going to systems with "appropriate" star types, and if you're after first discoveries, find a chunk of space far away from anything interesting and comb that.

People have been doing this for five years, and while there's a massive number of stars even near the bubble, there's also been an inordinate effort going into finding high-paying planets.

[Bullpup]

Go to spansh.co.uk, neutron yourself out >3k lys and 80% of ELW, WW and Ammonia World will be yours. Even 4 years ago I stopped checking my system map within 1k lys from the bubble - it was pointless, just the odd HMC here and there left. 800Lys today must be even worse especially with everyone making their Palin Pilgrimages for dirty drives. At 20k lys they're 99% yours.

[Oojimi]

^^^ What this man said. Neutron star hopping has it's drawbacks, be prepared.

Good luck

[Qrazy]

Originally posted by Shelt:

I'm about 800LY away from the bubble

Found your problem.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Shelt:

So, is it just bad luck, or are people using a 3rd party program to find the ELWs and get the lucrative discovery, ignoring everything else?

I am so salty right now. :lunar2019madpig:

People routinely stick to scanning only ELWs/WWs, disregarding other planet types.

[EngineerDoge]

With the FSS you can see what bodies are in the system by the signal range. That is why you saw a Earth-Like that was the only one scanned.

If you want to find Earth-Like planets, stick to the scoopable stars and go at the very least 1000 ly away from the bubble.

On my current trip I found 4 - 6 undiscovered Earth-Like planets in between Colonia and Sagittarious A by going 600ly or so below Colonia and then going directly to Sag A.

But the most important thing is, is luck.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

No, people weren't cheating. People were looking at a local planets map (in the past) or at an FSS screen, and only picked up "cherries" (Earth Likes, Water, Ammonia Worlds), and not wasting their time on discovering anything else.

[Stelar Seven]

I like the anything else's, but like others have said, you are way too close to the bubble.

I started finding undiscovered stuff way sooner leaving from Colonia.

[Shelt]

They didn't even map it. That's the most angry part of it to me. At least I got to be the first one to map it.

[Estelyen]

Originally posted by Shelt:

They didn't even map it. That's the most angry part of it to me. At least I got to be the first one to map it.

People scanned planets for over three years before mapping was added to the game. Could still be a relic from that era, unvisited by anybody since the patch went live.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by Shelt:

They didn't even map it. That's the most angry part of it to me.

Mapping of planets exists in the game only the last year. And people were exploring the Galaxy for 5+ years now.

[Shelt]

Ahhhhh OK. That's why I keep finding weird things which are only partly done.

[Laurreth]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Mapping of planets exists in the game only the last year. And people were exploring the Galaxy for 5+ years now.

And that means there's a tonne of places to map for some intermediate payout :-D

[Bannor]

800ly is ♥♥♥♥-all. Try 8000.

[Sapyx]

I have personally discovered and Tagged 158 Earth-like planets. The closest of these to Sol is 976 LY (Wredguia TM-G c25-4). I have another at 1060 LY (M39 Sector FW-W d1-58). But apart from those two, they are all over 2000 LY away from Earth. My average distance is 17222 LY.

On the other hand, I have also stumbled upon 61 Earth-like planets previously Tagged by someone else; the nearest of these is only 190 LY from Sol (in the HIP 19789 system) and the average distance of these 61 systems is only 6204 LY. Nine of them are at distances less than 1000 LY. So on the basis of my own personal statistics, if you find an ELW within 1000 LY of Earth, you've only got a 1 in 10 chance of it being previously Undiscovered.

Furthermore, it's not actually possible for someone to use a hack or third-party site to pre-explore the galaxy to seek out Earth-likes. That would require someone having a personal copy of the Galactic Seed of the Stellar Forge algorithms, which is a carefully guarded secret, plus a computer powerful enough to crunch the Stellar Forge data for every single star system in the galaxy.

Finally, probably about half of "my" ELWs are Unmapped, as I discovered them prior to the invention of Mapping probes. I certainly can't be bothered going back and Mapping them all. If someone else wants to look them up, go there and Map them, good for them. Someone else has already Mapped the two I named in the first paragraph, sorry.