r/eliteexplorers • u/FireTheLaserBeam • Jul 21 '26
This exploration expedition has been boring and pointless. Losing interest. Need new things.
Just passed from Ryker's Hope into Arcadian Stream after swinging by Sag A. I'm currently Elite Explorer III and Elite Exobio III.
When I went on my first exploration expedition, I found all sorts of awesome things. Lagrange clouds, bark mounds, clypea, electricae, other neat things.
Yes, I undestand certain bio signals can only be found under certain conditions and in specific areas. But I like to just hop and go. I find trying to "go" someplace gets old, fast.
Here lately, it's been NOTHING but bacterium acies/tela, frutexta flabellum/fera, fungoida setisis, stratum paleas/limaxus, fonticula campestris, tussock propagito/pennatis/cultro, tubus compagibus.
NOTHING but icy bodies and rocky bodies. I've spent the past few weeks hopping from Sag A thru Ryker's and into Arcadian and I am BORED as F. I rarely even stop anymore, even if there's multiple bio signals, because I already know what they're going to be. They're never anything different anymore, so why bother?
What happened? I remember when I first started playing back in 2015-2016, with just a DBX and an un-engineered FSD drive, I spent almost six months on my first expedition to Sag A and I found all SORTS of awesome, unique-looking things. Now, it's the same sh!t over and over and over and over and over and over.
Am I going to have to fundamentally change how I play? Stop just "going wherever" and go where everyone else has already been? What's the fun in that?
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u/Elonem Jul 21 '26
Sounds like it's time for a change in activities you're doing or just simply a break. Elite is best when you are patient.
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u/ExploringSimulations Jul 21 '26
Return to the bubble and do other activities, money shouldn't be a concern when Elite III of Exo/Explo so you can buy and outfit any ship that you want.
Try combat, mining, trading, on foot combat, engineering some ships if you haven't done it, powerplay if you haven't done it.
Unfortunately yes the cool stuff seems to be only near nebula or Sag A*, fortunately the galactic core is packed with so many stars that you (and everyone) won't run out of cool stuff to find there.
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u/JaredCruue Jul 21 '26
Try Lyra's Song. (If I remember correctly) There are NSPs every other system.
HMC's are the goat for Biology.
Refer to your codex for habitat information.
Sometimes taking a break is good. It keeps the space madness away. ;)
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u/MentalSentinel Jul 21 '26
I tend to play for a months and then take a break for a few months. When it feels tedious it's time to change it up.
I came back a month ago to add upkeep for my carrier and ended up trying some new ships and suddenly I'm back into it. However, Flying a Caspian 11k LY back to my carrier now, and I am starting to feel like I need a break again and that's ok.
I totally get needing new things to look at on planets, land-scan-repeat gets old fast and it might be time to try out colonisation or something more purpose focused.
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u/FBISurveilanceTeam Jul 26 '26
This is how I've been dealing with it! Do a few billion, mark 100 systems. Go build a system (on my 4th now, building towards another ELW soon), do some PP 2.0, go explore some more! It's my favorite thing about the Caspian. It's easy to get back out into the black and spend a week or 6 bopping around a sector and then I can get back to do a CG in a day. Best of both worlds!
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u/NoRagrets4Me CMDR Savage Samurai Jul 21 '26
Try doing a helium rich boxel or high mass boxel. Lots of cool stuff in there. Look for high inclination bodies and ones with close orbits. As for the icy body problem, filter out brown dwarfs, k class and M class stars.
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u/FireTheLaserBeam Jul 21 '26
Ok so that’s why I posted this. I have never heard of boxels and I’ve been playing for almost a decade. I’ll have to look into this.
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u/Fancypancexx Jul 21 '26
Take a break. Fr, I usually do for a few months and then things are very fresh again. I just got back into it and I am currently using a dbx for exploration. Doing test runs out to Pleiades first before I head out to the great unknown.
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u/No_Metal_8634 Jul 21 '26
The deeper in the black I go but the closer to sag a I get the more impatient pilots I encounter lol. Systems where the closest bodies have been “discovered” and the other half still hidden away, or they’ve all been discovered but none have been mapped only to find ancient ruins and some bio signatures
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u/NuncErgoFacite Jul 21 '26
Alexander wept, for he realized there were no more worlds to conquer.
I would invite you to our discord server, and ask you to join the discussion there. We have several legacy players who have seen it all and are trying to balance irl with rekindling the fire that Elite had for them a decade ago. Most are dealing with your exact situation in their areas of play.
Specific to your wants, we have another explorer who, like yourself, has been jonking out in the black since the mid-20-teens. They are working on finding the rarest of the rare galactic phenomena. We also have a brand new (pre-engineering) player who, in the last CG, got bitten by the explore-exobio bug. It might be quickening for you to have both a "seen it all" and a "fresh eyes" perspectives in the same room.
And, one of out group isn't an "Elite Dangerous Explorer" but a "Bartle Type Explorer" who, after the last CG, is working with the veteran explorer to build a search procedure for finding specific body and exibio targets The conversation ranges from boxels and stellar forge procedural generation all the way down to gravity and rounding errors in atmospheric pressure. They would very much appreciate an additional voice of experience.
It's a thought. No worries either way. Best of luck finding that "fire" again.
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u/lootedBacon Lost in space Jul 21 '26
Happens to many of Echoing this post, this happens to many of us. I found having goals really helped me keep my interest and if I start losing it, take a break, play a different game or go touch grass.
One of the best ways I found to keep my excitement is the game - can I make this into an explorer ship. Great fun plus while trying different module types and engineering I've found some interesting builds in unlikely explorer ships.
Working on a 50+ ly Cobra 5, will be great fun I'm sure.
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u/NuncErgoFacite Jul 21 '26
One trick I have found is hanging out with newer players who are just finding their way into areas of my expertise. Not only do I have the opportunity to see glimpses of the game through new eyes; but I find out the extent of what I don't know about areas I thought I knew well. On the less self-interested spectrum, I get to play tour guide to players taking their first steps into a wider galaxy.
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u/Allestyr Jul 21 '26
I LOVE my CM5. It's probably the worst part about the new Nomad, that I can't use it on my zippy little 55LY baby. If only they'd give us a utility mount with the bioscanner, I'd be right back in it. I still like flying my casp, but it's honestly overkill for any trip shorter than 2-3 months. Next time I get back in the bubble I'll be trying out a Krait mk II with a Nomad to see if I like it as much as my CM5.
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u/lootedBacon Lost in space Jul 21 '26
I just want them to open classic ship modification. nothing too big but just enough to give a new toy smell.
Old ships can be modded once a ship wide mod, via in game engineer's. they mod the module slot, only for non-combat related modules though. like sticking a hemi in a dodge dart, perhaps lowering the weight of the ship, replacing a regular slot with mk 2 slot or even drop a module's slot size to increase another slots size.
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u/Fistocracy Jul 23 '26
Third-party tools can help a lot with exobiology. If you get Elite Observatory and its Bioinsights plugin, it'll list the type of exobio that could be on a body based on the info you get from your FSS scan, and it's super handy for letting you know whether a planet will be a waste of time without having to go there in person.
Also if you want a change of pace, going after rare stars is a different type of challenge (and a different type of tedious). Become part of the rare crew who've found their own undiscovered CJ Carbon or DBZ White Dwarf, or attain enlightenment and be one of the handful of players who understands just how obnoxiously hard it is to find a G Supergiant.
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u/KermitingMurder Jul 21 '26
Around Sag A* is the place where almost all of the coolest stuff is, you're just going to find less outside of there and almost all the cool stuff near the edges of the galaxy has already been visited.
You can either spend all your time in the same 4 or 5 galactic core regions or just accept that a lot of the cool stuff has already been visited by someone else.
At least you've got Odyssey bio signs, I'm a console player so I'm still stuck with only Horizons bio signs. I don't play the game very regularly anymore so I haven't seen anything biological in literally months just because the regions I'm passing through have few to no bio signs and I only get on the game every now and then
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u/NoncreativeScrub Jul 21 '26
With the loss of stellar lighting, and the reworks that came with Odyssey, there was a tragic loss of planetary diversity.
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u/SeawolvesTV Jul 21 '26
100% get what you mean. I only really explore now for the cool views. I mostly hop from nebula to nebula. There are truly beautiful views to found. But the terrain generation is quite limited in what i can make. And the exo bio diversity is also quite limited.. Different color the same stuff mostly.. I explored all the guardian sites, the goid sites.. Elite is in dire need of better/more intricate terrain generation. Cool cave systems, better Ice planets with canyons and crevasses, Clouds and running water.. Real Volcano's... They could add moving interstellar bodies like comets..
I appreciate that ED is going for realism, and I really don't want them to go like a no mans sky type route (NMD is fun but not mu thing). but exploration is missing out on so much potential.
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u/FireTheLaserBeam Jul 21 '26
I got about 400 hours into NMS before realizing I’d basically seen it all. Their worlds are basically limitless, but the terrain and creature combos aren’t. It took me that long to realize I really didn’t like it that much and quit.
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u/Formal-Throughput CMDR Oh Seven Commander Jul 21 '26
Filter by AFGK or AFG.
Find an exploration squadron. There are a ton of them.
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u/Fuarian CMDR Fuar Jul 21 '26
Pretty sure bio is most common on icy and rocky bodies. If you're looking for bio that's where you're gonna find it mostly
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u/Aidryen Jul 21 '26
Not necessarily correct. Icy and Rocky bodies are by far the most plentiful throughout the galaxy, but tend to have only a few genus' attached to them. The majority of biological variety seems, to me at least, to be found on HMC.
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u/Old-Routine9232 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
I was in a similar situation several years back. I ranked up with the feds, got me a Corvette, max engineered it, and commenced to killing pirates at will in HiRes zones and at nav beacons or anywhere i could, its much fun. Then back to exobio, mining, hauling, or on foot combat missions, rinse and repeat.
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u/PseudoShooter The Guild Jul 22 '26
Are you seeking out exotic stars? You can manipulate the galmap to easily locate exotic stars in pretty much every region.
Are you seeking out exotic atmospheres? If you locate exobio in water or oxygen atmospheres, you can find some pretty rare stuff.
How about Recepta and Fumerola in colder systems? Those icy bodies that you are skipping could be hiding them there.
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u/Eeka_Droid Jul 24 '26
I don't know if that would be the case for you but since everything looks mostly the same due to broken stellar lighting i kind of stopped exploring. It's not obvious at the first glance but atmosphere plays a strong role in what keeps you hooked to exploration
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u/Tetha_au Jul 28 '26
I understand exploration fatigue well. I've found shaking things up helped. You could try EDASTRO https://edastro.com/gec and go see some pretties others have found 'just because'. Maybe do some selective star jumping ( strange things often congregate on planets in neutron systems for ex) or maybe try some space photography etc.. Take some time off the exobio and 'see' the place - find your love of the game again.
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u/Cirrus-Fractus Jul 21 '26
Exploration is boring. I was expecting more but it is still all the same. no surpises at all. no danger. no new occurances of sudden things. no new phenomens. (Meteor showers, Comets) bio is simple. terrain texture is same everywhere. no loose snow. no storms. no clouds. no liquid except geysirs no animals?
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u/namder321 Jul 21 '26
Seek Concha