hobknob Posted August 17, 2004 Report Share Posted August 17, 2004 You get the random star map as a result of an exploraiton of the planet. I believe all of mine have come from an astronomical observatory of some sort. I now set all trapped surveyors on explore orders to see what happens. So far not a single map has materialized, but I have lost a lot of other good stuff for lack of cargo space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennarian Star Imperium Posted August 17, 2004 Report Share Posted August 17, 2004 Is it still worthwhile to do Expl orders of a planet or moon if the ORB order tells you there is nothing there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locklyn Posted August 17, 2004 Report Share Posted August 17, 2004 The ORB order only tells you what specific sites you've found through EXPLoration. The actual sites are generated when you do an EXPL. All planets start "empty" according to the ORB but after a while of EXPLoring might look like this: Special exploration discoveries spotted at this world include: a battered alien Shipyard a battered Fuel Refinery a battered Imperial Port Authority Complex a crashed alien starship a deserted colony a deserted Frontier Base a deserted Orbital Crystal Refinery a deserted Stripmining Complex a deserted Terraforming Station a devastated alien city a forbidding Grand Cathedral dedicated to Kar-Tang the Reaver a Fusion Power Plant Complex a gloomy Grand Cathedral dedicated to Vladchek the Dark One a long-deserted colony a radioactive Geothermal Coretap Station a ruined Fuel Refinery a ruined Weather Control Station a shrine to an unknown deity a smashed alien Shipyard a smashed Atmosphere Exchanger a smashed Defense Fortress a smashed planetary defense battery a spectacular Grand Cathedral dedicated to Yamal the Lawgiver a subterranean Linear Accelerator a wondrous Grand Cathedral dedicated to Grandillon the Trickster a wrecked alien Astronomical Observatory a wrecked alien starship a wrecked Astronomical Observatory a wrecked Atmosphere Exchanger Alien Tech Alien Technology Alien Warehouse an abandoned Frontier Base an abandoned Linear Accelerator an abandoned Stripmining Complex an abandoned Terraforming Station an alien Cloning Center filled with bizarre creatures an alien Fission Power Plant an alien Fusion Power Plant Complex an Alien Lab an Alien Laboratory an Alien Library an alien Orbital Solar Power Station an alien Provincial Capitol Administration Center an alien Science Institute an ancient battlefield an ancient Science Institute an Antimatter Power Complex an area of devastation an area of near total devastation an austere Grand Cathedral dedicated to Ptah the Watcher an Cloning Center filled with bizarre creatures an Imperial Courthouse an Imperial Port Authority Complex an Imperial Zoo an impressive Grand Cathedral dedicated to Valakar the Swift an old Weather Control Station Ancient Records Ancient Tech Ancient Technology Hidden Vault historical notes and evidence in various Imperial libraries and archaeological dig sites Primitive Artwork the remains of an Imperial University the wrecked remains of an Industrial Complex Your teams estimate that this world has experienced very heavy exploration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orin Posted August 17, 2004 Report Share Posted August 17, 2004 ORB but after a while of EXPLoring might look like this: Special exploration discoveries spotted at this world include: Alien Tech Alien Technology Alien Warehouse an alien Cloning Center filled with bizarre creatures an alien Fission Power Plant an alien Fusion Power Plant Complex an Alien Lab an Alien Laboratory an Alien Library an alien Orbital Solar Power Station an alien Provincial Capitol Administration Center an alien Science Institute an ancient battlefield an ancient Science Institute an Antimatter Power Complex an area of devastation an area of near total devastation an austere Grand Cathedral dedicated to Ptah the Watcher an Cloning Center filled with bizarre creatures an Imperial Courthouse an Imperial Port Authority Complex an Imperial Zoo Ancient Records Ancient Tech Ancient Technology Hidden Vault historical notes and evidence in various Imperial libraries and archaeological dig sites If you see those when you do EXP (the in tact ones) does more EXPL show more (more tech etc??) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WKE235 Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 One question is ... at what point does exploring a planet become no longer a big value. From the example above with "Very heavy exploration", has the quality of what is found started to drop? What I mean is, I expect due to the heavy exploration that the chances to find another special find may be pretty low by now. But are you still getting exploration hits on a fairly consistent basis .. but the overall quality of the find has been getting lower. For example, maybe 10 turns ago you were finding Fusion Transwarp Drives or tech advances or other nice to have items. And now, maybe you find are .. Grains? Raw Resources? Other lesser value finds? Anyone notice anything like this, a drop in quality of the finds over time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhaseDragon Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I have just recently begun to rebuild all my explore ships to explore other systems for this exact reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orin Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 So exploring a planet/moon mulitple times could yeild more items?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locklyn Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Actually that is a bit hard to say. I did some serious experimentation on EXPL initially to find some sort of coherency but with so many unknown factors having effect on EXPL it is really hard to say. But yes on a heavily explored world I get type Raw Resources but the odd tech gain as well but on a much lower basis. I keep at it much as a training exersize for my leaders as I am under the belief that leaders in fleets that are performing tasks actually advance quicker which may be wrong as well as to check where the various limits are ingame. These things help: 1) All Science Installations built somewhere in system where you EXPL 2) Good science labs, but computers, sensors and so on seem to help 3) Both Stun Beams and Grapples supposedly according to their description help 4) Scientists and Scouts help with the chance for an EXPL result 5) Apparently any leader may be able to affect the gain of a result if their skillarea corresponds to the explored site. Since you get no feedback on this in the EXPL text message this is hard to prove but Pete has said it is so. 6) Racial statistics. Mental powers should be helping according to the text but Pete has never confirmed nor denied this. Trends noted: A) A virgin world will initially give the highest gains/more exotic types in materials recovered and tech gains will be more prevalent. As a world in getting explored more and more the gains from the world will be getting more material oriented (Timber, Irons etc) and the result will also be less. C) There is an technological cap to items that can be recovered, quality wise. I believe this was instated after the whole EXPL system was revised. D) The more EXPLs you do, the less the gain will be, this according to a non linear curve that noone really knows excepts Pete. There is other small stuff as well, drop me a note if you have questions. Cheers /Locklyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Xaar Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 The ORB order only tells you what specific sites you've found through EXPLoration. The actual sites are generated when you do an EXPL. All planets start "empty" according to the ORB but after a while of EXPLoring might look like this: Well, if this is true it explains a lot about the large lack of ORB results that show alien installations. I have begun to think recently that you have to have a "science" ship do the ORB to see anything. I've spent far too many orders with small ships getting no info from the ORBs only to have something show up once a more sophisicated ship does the ORB. The tip off was that I did an ORB and a world and got zip, then very shortly thereafter (if not the same turn) I got an EXPL hit with another fleet that said "you found X at installation Y" -- or something to that effect -- so I stopped spending silly numbers of orders doing ORBs. Anyway, it seems that just about every world gives something up. I'd be really curious to know if certain types of worlds turn up more stuff. I'm mainly focusing on Terrestrial worlds, but that's pretty arbitrary on my part. What's the hit ratio in Asteroid Fields? It seemed to me that the ORB order should be useful to determine what worlds are of interest. If all worlds are of interest then the order is not very useful. Anyway, perhaps those lucky souls that can go to Indy might discuss EXPL for a bit and report back to the rest of us? -LX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locklyn Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Hmmm... The way I've understood it is that while certain worlds may have "special" exploration finds worlds in general start "empty". You have not found any sites that could give you either tech or materials and an ORB will show zilch nada. When you do an EXPL I belive what happens is the program randomly generates a site if the chance to trigger this is achieved through having the right equipment and character present (scout). This site is then recorden on the world and will subsequently show up on an ORB. This site can be "mined" for more tech or materials with further EXPL OR new sites can be generated. The amount of tech (in points gained) or materials may further be influenced by the skills of the legendary characters present if they have corresponding skill areas. Ie a scientist is on an EXPL fleet wich loots an Alien Science Institute There is probably a threshold where a certain number of sites have been generated on the world and it is considered "heavily explored" and your podpeople have had their tentacles and eyestalks all over the digs and there's no more to find but smallish stuff and time to move on. Now all this is pure theory on my behalf...but would fit Hence there is no real reason for ORBing anything but neutrals when you want to find out if they have cool defensive installations before invading or when you want to check how heavily you've explored a world and if its time to move on to a new one. A good way to go is to set colonies on all worlds in the system you wish to EXPLore. Empty ones, thus just place holders. Place an exploration fleet over each of the worlds, preferrably with good leaders on them and then set the ships on XEXPL XOC P(colony id) ALL NO FUEL XEXPL XOC P(colony id) ALL NO FUEL Thus if you pick up something heavy first EXPL you OC it and space for next find. Then you just set up a collection convoy route between the various EXPL worlds that collects the goodies and take them to the HW Cheers /Locklyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Xaar Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Hmmm...The way I've understood it is that while certain worlds may have "special" exploration finds worlds in general start "empty". You have not found any sites that could give you either tech or materials and an ORB will show zilch nada. When you do an EXPL I belive what happens is the program randomly generates a site if the chance to trigger this is achieved through having the right equipment and character present (scout). This site is then recorden on the world and will subsequently show up on an ORB. This site can be "mined" for more tech or materials with further EXPL OR new sites can be generated. It seems that if I had Class E science labs, multiple high level characters, tractor beams, computers, etc. etc. etc. then I could find alien installations anywhere and everywhere. I think even the most partisan advocates of the Drake equation (a "Newt Gingrich" of astrophysics?! :lol:) would step back from claiming every extra-solar object has traces of alien life. I wasn't thinking worlds started empty, but your theory makes a lot of sense based on my observations too, Locklyn. Consider it another lesson in how not to fill up turnsheets. -LX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locklyn Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 :lol: Well...according to ancient documents we were once part of an aweinspiring galaxy spanning empire...that war must've been something to leave all those parts everywhere As for turnsheet filling, I hear your pain brother alien! I've entirely stopped doing CSV except for attrition checking when building first colony installations. You can usually figure out the CSV through the PMAP as well as see if there are any tasty neutrals there. Good luck and have fun! /Locklyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Xaar Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Well...according to ancient documents we were once part of an aweinspiring galaxy spanning empire...that war must've been something to leave all those parts everywhere Good luck and have fun! Ah, yes. We have heard of this "dogs and fire plugs" concept. :lol: Oh, don't worry, I'm having a blast. I've made it this long, at least. cheers, LX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octus Imperium Posted August 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2004 How do you find these? Do you do EXPL on WPs or do they show up randomly? Mahalo Mine was an XEXPL at a planet. Not in my home system. Octus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.