[SE5] What's the best discovering strategy?

[Aiken]

In SE5 you must explore the system to unveil the planets and other objects (unless you set the opposite dureing game setup).
I'm interested, what's the best discovering strategy for SE5. I mean what's the best rout to open all system's hexes with minimal expenditure of movement points?
I guess it will be a spiral-like route, but is there a mathematical correct proof for this? Or maybe there is a more efficient route?

[Captain Kwok]

A spiral route is best going in to out, but in most cases a condensed spiral from rings 7 to 3 will uncover almost all the planets. An investment in sensors will also greatly reduce the amount of movement required.

[Slick]

Depends if your goal is to discover planets or warp points first. More planets in the middle, warp points on the outside.

[Ragnarok-X]

im just using waypoints and let the ship go exactly a circle.

[bearclaw]

I research to sensors with a range of 6. That gives me a 12 sector diameter scanned at a time. When I enter a new system I switch to 2d view, zoom out until I can see the entire system then plot a hex pattern 6 sectors from the edge. That'll scan then entire system 2-3 turns, depending on the speed of your ship.

As an added measure, I now load sats with the same level basic sensors and at each 'corner' of my hex pattern I plant a satillite. That leaves the entire system under survelliance with enough overlap (with rng 6 sensors) that I can see what I need in that system.

[boran_blok]

Another vote for invest in sensors, an early investment can save you lots of turns. And the tech is cheap too.

[PDF]

IMHO it's rather strange to not even see the biggest planets when entering the system (imagine missing Jupiter ?!)... Plus it makes searching tedious, how do you know what part of space has been "explored" or not ? Didn't notice any visual clue..
Plus the auto-search *does* know where to search, it ain't consistent.
It would be better to see the planet as "objects" but no detail about size, atmosphere, resources... until sensors at range.

[Suicide Junkie]

You can set planets to be visible at any range in settings.txt

[Graeme Dice]

PDF said:
IMHO it's rather strange to not even see the biggest planets when entering the system (imagine missing Jupiter ?!)... Plus it makes searching tedious, how do you know what part of space has been "explored" or not ? Didn't notice any visual clue..



Explored areas that you can currently see have green outlines. Explored areas you can't currently see have grey outlines. Unexplored areas have red outlines.

[Santiago]

Get a ship with good scanners and set a survey system order under additional orders is one possible way if your not in a hurry.

[PvK]

Is there no limit to the number of engines on a ship in SE5? How about, put one sensor and as many engines as will fit, and move at insane speeds zooming all over the place?

[StarShadow]

There are limits, but they've been bumped up, the smaller ships can have up to 12 engines.

[Kana]

Currently as can be gleamed from the data files, all ships from the little to the big, all get one move for each engine, so every ship can get 12 engines. It was noted earlier that the limit only refers to engines and not move, so any bonus move may go above 12...

[bearclaw]

PDF said:
IMHO it's rather strange to not even see the biggest planets when entering the system (imagine missing Jupiter



Actually, missing a planet like Jupiter would be easy. Imagine entering a solar system at an orbit of the Pluto. Well, to be fair at Neptune since it's the furthest "planet". Even on a 2 dimentional plane, the area is incomprehensible. In fact, even at that distance, the Sun would look like just the brightest star in the sky. Larger than the rest but still very small.

Look at it this way: From Earth, we are much much closer to Jupiter than Neptune's orbit. Without some prior knowledge of what to look for, and even with a substantial telescope (like Manu Ki or even Hubble) finding Jupiter could take a very long time unless you were very lucky.

Even Venus, our closest planet, is mistaken for a star most of the time.

To quote Carl Sagen: "Space is big. Really big."

[Captain Kwok]

The engine limits are merely x 2 of what they were in SE:IV. Essentially the whole movement system was multiplied by two, with the exception of fighters and drones... the ability description should also state engines rather than movement.

The SE:V Balance Mod returns to a more SE:III like propulsion model with larger ships requiring more engines - although it does make engines 20kT size so you need to only add half as many as in stock.