Its awesome to see the two Distant Worlds expeditions make their mark across the galaxy (2016 & 2019). I miss the days of those kinds of mega-events when thousands of players went out in massive fleets to explore the unknown together. 😎
As someone who plays Elite with a heavy exploration leaning, its great to see that despite all the fancy lines, there's still an incredible amount of the galaxy still undiscovered. Plenty of chances to get your name on something, boys. Get out there.
I like doing 1 week expeditions, spend 1 day (normally like 3 hours because I work) going in a random direction without scanning, them at whatever point I decide is enough, just start bouncing around the local area. Always find plenty of systems with no name on them
For anyone wondering what the black unexplored dot right below the bubble is, that's the Horsehead Nebula. It's a region of space that is permit-locked and has remained so since the game's launch. People suspect it's being reserved for future content, but nobody can say for certain what is there.
A lot of people laugh at that, but do not understand the amount of time and planning it takes just to get a meaningful mark on this map. For 1 person to do it, it pops up, and disappears quickly... but these images, we're talking at least 20-30 people or more... jumping in succession to draw these images out... for weeks. One... the coordination just to amass that many people jumping in tandem, to the specified coordinates, as well as maintain fuel and supplies... we're talking 2-3 fleet carriers, 20-30 dedicated jumpers, and at least 10-20 people dedicated to mining, defense, etc. I'm just waiting for someone to troll the devs with a giant pecker or a middle finger. Maybe Harambe?
In the black right now. Taking an alternative route to Beagle Point. Risking it and going through “The Void” once I get closer since it’s not as explored. Wish me luck. Also!!! Let’s bring back Distant Worlds. Should be a yearly thing, it’s been 5 years since the last one.
I am just about to arrive back in the Bubble from Eta Carina. A distant Gas Nebula. Been there for years. Totally lost track of time. Thought about self destruct more times than i care to mention. lol
Extrapolating, it should take about 50 thousand years to fully explore the galaxy. One of the things ED does really well is hammer home the immense scale of our galaxy.
@@DubStepTomatoFarmer For that to work then there can't be any changes to the Stellar Forge system or the catalogue stars used when E:D launched. Humanity has learned a lot about space since then and with improvements to computer modelling it would be a huge shame if any potential E:D sequel didn't take it all into account.
Right!? I just got back into the game after a couple of years hiatus and I'm still finding worlds that haven't been mapped or even landed on yet. I just got my first "First Footfall" this past weekend. a couple hundred hours of game time in and I still have yet to get out of the Inner Orion Spur.
It's interesting how early Beagle Point was reached. Those were times when the maximum jump range you could achieve with any ship was less than 45 LY, and there was no neutron star boosting.
There was no route plotter either so the first player to cross the galaxy had to plot one jump at a time and find away across the interam gap near what became known as Beagle Point. I think the route plotter got added to Elite after he reached Beagle, so he could use it for the trip home. I bet it was amazing times to be one of the first pioneers exploring the galaxy with old tech, no engineers, no plotters, no fuel rats lol
Reached back in the earliest days of 2015, before apps like this were used frequently. It made headlines all over the place at the time - forums, gaming articles, and of course Galnet. Also, by that time there was a basic route plotter that was only limited to about 75 light years. But you still had to think 3 or 4 jumps ahead especially when traversing the brown dwarf patches between galactic arms. These were fun days.
Literally in the engineering grind again just so I can fully engineer a ship for exploring. I spent over a year in the black in a half engineered phantom... was fun but I wanted more.
DBX + preengineered V1 FSD* + preengineered surface scanner = pretty handy exploration ship with no engineering grind. *Doesn't have SCO though, which is handy when exploring.
Having a top down view is already pretty cool, but I'd love to see a sideways view, just to see many people went to the outer fringes above/below the galactic plane
Hard to believe that only 0.021438% of all systems in the galaxy have been visited at least once so far, in over 10years. Gives me hope as Explorer to make big discoveries yet. 😊 Great Video and thanks. Feedback: A Little bit of music would help this video. 🖖🏻
Not even that. From the few words about it by Braben, it's not a system but something to scan inside a system someone did visit the right system, but didn't scan everything (if true that narrows things down quiet a lot in fact).
@@Longlivethe4th I've read in Reddit, that a developer said in an interview: "For now, only one commander was in that system, refueled with a Star and Jump away." - about Raxxla
And here i was worried thinking there wouldn't be enough galaxy for me to discover being years late to the game and finally getting a solid amount of hours in, not even 1% of the galaxy explored... its terrifying how big space is...
@@darthhunter69 it is. Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the program/mod that is used to pull something off like this. But nevertheless it’s pretty cool.
I've been to beagle point and Sagittarius A* twice now and 3 times in Colonia. What I love about this game is that every route you take will ABSOLUTELY have undiscovered systems just 3 or 4 jumps out of populated areas. It's amazing and I'm so sad that consoles don't get support anymore 😭😭
Yep, Milky Way is truly huge. Even with instantaneous travel star-to-star. Imagine if, in real life, we invented FTL travel at 2000c, it would take approximately 8 hours to reach Alpha Centuri. Exploring the entire galaxy would still take many millenia, even at those speeds. That's how big a galaxy is.
Ten years on, and it's still very easy to reach systems that nobody has ever visited before. EDSM estimates that about 0.021% of the galaxy has been explored.
I'm curious. Does anyone know what that big empty spot just below the bubble is? It seems no one went there, like, ever. Are those the systems I heard of that can't be jumped to?
In game it's permit locked. A lot of people theorize it's the Thargoid's own bubble. There are other permit locked sectors throughout the galaxy, but they're way the hell out in the black that rarely see explorers
Man, these heatmaps look so daunting to me as a new explorer, because basically the entire galaxy (relevant systems anyways) was already discovered and scoured.
@@ChemFrogEngels You do realize that only about 0.021% of the total systems have been mapped right? And there is no telling what is interesting or not, if it hasn't been discovered yet. There is more than plenty to still explore.
@@ChemFrogEngels Enough, most likely. There is no way to know. But the likelihood of there being more new ones out there, than the ones already discovered, is basically guaranteed.
Interesting to see how exploration hes really slowed down during the Thargoid war, I am definitely not the only one that has not been away into the black during this period. Still, much higher numbers than the firest few years though. Would love just to see an rolling average of newly found systems (say rolling daily average over the last month) in a graph.
Funny to think how many and yet also how few I made. Many thousands of explored systems yet still only blips in our Milky Way of 300+ Billion systems. Still love the game. Just so little time to play now.
The Odyssey expansion, released the May 19 2021. Went from 15k avg players to almost 30k Edit: Got mixed up, it was the Horizons expansion released in June 15, Odyssey was the DLC
@@dentara-rast And this was BEFORE Carriers existed in game! So it all had to be done with just the ship you had on hand! No swapping out unless you had something stored at Colonia. And dock every chance you get because God help you if you got into serious trouble and we couldn't rescue you! Some people wound up getting burned into dust by a bad angle attempt at boosting off of a White Dwarf or Neutron Star and wound up re-buying their ship all the way back in the Bubble because they had never docked at Colonia or the new Galactic Center anchorage! 😲 I was with the Hull Seals and man - we tried HARD to keep everyone going and repaired. But sometimes there's just nothing you can do. All that lost exploration data... 😢 There were a handful of folks who understandably got frustrated and quit early because of a crash or a stellar mishap. I can't tell you how CAUTIOUSLY I flew once we were past galactic center. You had to make it all the way to Beagle Point, and all the way back to Anchorage (or Colonia) with no ship destroying accident! I flew in and landed at Jacques Station and my hands got sweaty because I felt like I was pushing my luck and SOMETHING was going to hit me at the last second before my landing legs got locked down on the pad! 😅
@logandarklighter i remember crashing my Krait on a high g world trying to hotdog over a meetup. 😂 had to respawn at sag a and haul ass back to keep up with the fleet.
Very interresting. Can you explain what the map is showing. Why do routes fade away after some time. Some did draw heads and they vanish after some time. Is the map not accumulating ?
i still feel hurt by fdev cutting console support, i had accumulated almost 2k hours on my account, patiently waiting for them thó release odyssey to us only for them to cut us off.
That's just too bad. We wouldn't be where we are today had that not happened. You folks had plenty of time and opportunity to port over which Fdev was under no obligation to offer. At the end of the day, console held this franchise back from progressing into a new age.
That's a permit locked area. You navigate toward that "Dark Bubble" and you hit an area where you can see the next stars - but your Nav Computer won't lock in. It's been like that since launch. People think it's being saved for future content. Some people are almost certain the Thargoid worlds are in there. (There IS a LOT of Thargoid activity in the region between the Pleiades sector and that permit locked bubble. - and the Big invasion ships appeared to come from that direction too).
It's insane to me that this only proves the futility of space exploration IRL. Like, we get to travel instantly between stars in this game, yet in 10 years we have explored less than 1% of the milky way. What ther actual fuck.
Aprox 0.2% of the galaxy but i've already done 3 travel above 10K ly out of bubble, still never did any first honk. I dont believe it, and the map show.
This game sould have a much bigger tutorial section. Like how to fit a ship. I deleted it. Didn't want to watch hours of youtube (lol sorry no offense) to understand the basics
An extremely deliberate route plan of star jumps to trace that specific patternm knowing full well the data is being collected and will eventually show up on something like this LOL
Amazing what a simple lie about Raxxla can do ! If I was Braben, I, too, would lie about Raxxla being ''''''''in the game''''''''' because of the many suckers who went looking for it. Dead game.
Its awesome to see the two Distant Worlds expeditions make their mark across the galaxy (2016 & 2019). I miss the days of those kinds of mega-events when thousands of players went out in massive fleets to explore the unknown together. 😎
Dw2 vet here, it was awesome
Well,you who to thank for splintering the community
I was on the DW2 expedition. Lot of fun. Would totally join a DW3.
I was part of the DW2 mission also! Rode out aboard the Solus research carrier. Great experience.
As someone who plays Elite with a heavy exploration leaning, its great to see that despite all the fancy lines, there's still an incredible amount of the galaxy still undiscovered.
Plenty of chances to get your name on something, boys. Get out there.
I like doing 1 week expeditions, spend 1 day (normally like 3 hours because I work) going in a random direction without scanning, them at whatever point I decide is enough, just start bouncing around the local area. Always find plenty of systems with no name on them
i have my name on... somewhere in hawking's gap. i went through outer orion spur to get there.
For anyone wondering what the black unexplored dot right below the bubble is, that's the Horsehead Nebula. It's a region of space that is permit-locked and has remained so since the game's launch. People suspect it's being reserved for future content, but nobody can say for certain what is there.
It was permit locked few months after launch, not since.
I think it has raaxla
@@RaveAfterDark oh lord
crazy people drawing stuff on it too. just crazy..
A lot of people laugh at that, but do not understand the amount of time and planning it takes just to get a meaningful mark on this map.
For 1 person to do it, it pops up, and disappears quickly... but these images, we're talking at least 20-30 people or more... jumping in succession to draw these images out... for weeks.
One... the coordination just to amass that many people jumping in tandem, to the specified coordinates, as well as maintain fuel and supplies... we're talking 2-3 fleet carriers, 20-30 dedicated jumpers, and at least 10-20 people dedicated to mining, defense, etc.
I'm just waiting for someone to troll the devs with a giant pecker or a middle finger.
Maybe Harambe?
@@PVT_MaYhEm Wow, that's insane
I mean, use the whole galaxy as a canvas, that's so romantic.
@@PVT_MaYhEm I'm really surprised that hasn't happened yet
What's funny is if you look at it from the top down like this, you realize something: The Milky Way is shaped like a Thargoid.
I think that's because the milky way looks like a flower and thargoids are modelled after flowers, pure coincidence obv
In the black right now.
Taking an alternative route to Beagle Point.
Risking it and going through “The Void” once I get closer since it’s not as explored.
Wish me luck.
Also!!!
Let’s bring back Distant Worlds.
Should be a yearly thing, it’s been 5 years since the last one.
I am just about to arrive back in the Bubble from Eta Carina. A distant Gas Nebula. Been there for years. Totally lost track of time. Thought about self destruct more times than i care to mention. lol
That is cool to hear about. Glad Im not the only one enjoying the distance
Years….
"Don't draw a c**k!" -Alan Partridge
All that and still only less then 0.02% discovered. Crazy
It would be more representative if it had something like a vertical density overlay. It's still amazing as it is though.
Extrapolating, it should take about 50 thousand years to fully explore the galaxy.
One of the things ED does really well is hammer home the immense scale of our galaxy.
@@captainyossarian388 hopefully if a new ED game comes out the exploration data will cary over into the new game/servers.
@@DubStepTomatoFarmer For that to work then there can't be any changes to the Stellar Forge system or the catalogue stars used when E:D launched. Humanity has learned a lot about space since then and with improvements to computer modelling it would be a huge shame if any potential E:D sequel didn't take it all into account.
Right!? I just got back into the game after a couple of years hiatus and I'm still finding worlds that haven't been mapped or even landed on yet. I just got my first "First Footfall" this past weekend. a couple hundred hours of game time in and I still have yet to get out of the Inner Orion Spur.
It's interesting how early Beagle Point was reached. Those were times when the maximum jump range you could achieve with any ship was less than 45 LY, and there was no neutron star boosting.
There was no route plotter either so the first player to cross the galaxy had to plot one jump at a time and find away across the interam gap near what became known as Beagle Point. I think the route plotter got added to Elite after he reached Beagle, so he could use it for the trip home.
I bet it was amazing times to be one of the first pioneers exploring the galaxy with old tech, no engineers, no plotters, no fuel rats lol
Reached back in the earliest days of 2015, before apps like this were used frequently. It made headlines all over the place at the time - forums, gaming articles, and of course Galnet.
Also, by that time there was a basic route plotter that was only limited to about 75 light years. But you still had to think 3 or 4 jumps ahead especially when traversing the brown dwarf patches between galactic arms.
These were fun days.
The was no Guardian FSD Booster, Engineering, or FSD Injectors either. We can get so much more out of ships these days.
Seeing people draw stuff in genuine detail is absolutely incredible and hilarious to me, I wonder how long that took
Literally in the engineering grind again just so I can fully engineer a ship for exploring. I spent over a year in the black in a half engineered phantom... was fun but I wanted more.
DBX + preengineered V1 FSD* + preengineered surface scanner = pretty handy exploration ship with no engineering grind.
*Doesn't have SCO though, which is handy when exploring.
Having a top down view is already pretty cool, but I'd love to see a sideways view, just to see many people went to the outer fringes above/below the galactic plane
A lot of people got on and started to explore more and more during Covid times. You can tell by the numbers.
Hard to believe that only 0.021438% of all systems in the galaxy have been visited at least once so far, in over 10years. Gives me hope as Explorer to make big discoveries yet. 😊 Great Video and thanks. Feedback: A Little bit of music would help this video. 🖖🏻
0:52 someone spelt out a name in the upper left quadrant, WTF! 😮
Based on this we can easily identify where Raxla isn't
Not even that. From the few words about it by Braben, it's not a system but something to scan inside a system someone did visit the right system, but didn't scan everything (if true that narrows things down quiet a lot in fact).
@@Longlivethe4th I've read in Reddit, that a developer said in an interview: "For now, only one commander was in that system, refueled with a Star and Jump away." - about Raxxla
@@Kai94ger That's even worse than it being in an unexplored system
And here i was worried thinking there wouldn't be enough galaxy for me to discover being years late to the game and finally getting a solid amount of hours in, not even 1% of the galaxy explored... its terrifying how big space is...
I truly cannot wrap my head around how people are able to draw this stuff
It’s a program they use.
The slap it into the program itself, it’s basically a plug in mod for ED and that’s how they’re able to draw stuff.
@@luisalfredo297 that's what I suspected, but I didn't think it was actually possible
@@darthhunter69 it is.
Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the program/mod that is used to pull something off like this. But nevertheless it’s pretty cool.
I've been to beagle point and Sagittarius A* twice now and 3 times in Colonia.
What I love about this game is that every route you take will ABSOLUTELY have undiscovered systems just 3 or 4 jumps out of populated areas.
It's amazing and I'm so sad that consoles don't get support anymore 😭😭
I think that funny angled triangle might have been me and my frens running around doing pirate raids.
so you're telling me we've only discovered 0.02% of this galaxy? holy
Yep, Milky Way is truly huge. Even with instantaneous travel star-to-star. Imagine if, in real life, we invented FTL travel at 2000c, it would take approximately 8 hours to reach Alpha Centuri. Exploring the entire galaxy would still take many millenia, even at those speeds. That's how big a galaxy is.
@@regencyrow1867in game it only takes a few seconds
wow you can just see grid block searching going on...
Raxxla Hunters. 😜
Oh, that's me right there!
where?
Ten years on, and it's still very easy to reach systems that nobody has ever visited before. EDSM estimates that about 0.021% of the galaxy has been explored.
So if I calculate right, after 50 000 years with same effort, galaxy could be completly discovered.
how TF do you make *GALACTIC* map art!?
Someone managed to do a meme drawing as well. Its even recognizable.
Slowly
It’s a plug in mod on PC.
You pop in what you want and it gives you the routes that you need to be able to do it.
3:50 galactic meme indeed
I'm curious. Does anyone know what that big empty spot just below the bubble is? It seems no one went there, like, ever. Are those the systems I heard of that can't be jumped to?
I think thats the gap between the arms of the galaxy where there are very few stars
Pretty sure that's the permit locked region that makes navigating in that direction a bit of a pain.
In game it's permit locked. A lot of people theorize it's the Thargoid's own bubble. There are other permit locked sectors throughout the galaxy, but they're way the hell out in the black that rarely see explorers
Man, these heatmaps look so daunting to me as a new explorer, because basically the entire galaxy (relevant systems anyways) was already discovered and scoured.
it would take another fifty thousand real years to explore the galaxy.
@@Noorthia explore is a loud word. Map? Sure. But most of the unexplored stuff is boring empty A/B mass systems.
@@ChemFrogEngels You do realize that only about 0.021% of the total systems have been mapped right? And there is no telling what is interesting or not, if it hasn't been discovered yet. There is more than plenty to still explore.
@@TheJanstyler on paper yes, but how many wolf rayets are out there, for example, to claim FD on?
@@ChemFrogEngels Enough, most likely. There is no way to know. But the likelihood of there being more new ones out there, than the ones already discovered, is basically guaranteed.
Ima go and live in the black when the mandalay arrives…
People drawing stuff has to be a bot program. Right? Where does one get an auto pilot? 🤐
Interesting to see how exploration hes really slowed down during the Thargoid war, I am definitely not the only one that has not been away into the black during this period. Still, much higher numbers than the firest few years though.
Would love just to see an rolling average of newly found systems (say rolling daily average over the last month) in a graph.
I was there in beagle point last week
Can't help but notice that the overall heat map is much brighter during 2020 and 2021.
We all know why.
Funny to think how many and yet also how few I made. Many thousands of explored systems yet still only blips in our Milky Way of 300+ Billion systems. Still love the game. Just so little time to play now.
Just coming home(sol). Where all started 😅
and the galaxy is still only 0.02% explored. i like that people are drawing memes in the heatmap.
What was the big jump of exploration in 2019? 2:12
The Odyssey expansion, released the May 19 2021. Went from 15k avg players to almost 30k
Edit: Got mixed up, it was the Horizons expansion released in June 15, Odyssey was the DLC
The Distant Worlds 2 expedition, 14,000 players took part in it making it the largest player created event in the games history.
@@dentara-rast And this was BEFORE Carriers existed in game! So it all had to be done with just the ship you had on hand! No swapping out unless you had something stored at Colonia. And dock every chance you get because God help you if you got into serious trouble and we couldn't rescue you! Some people wound up getting burned into dust by a bad angle attempt at boosting off of a White Dwarf or Neutron Star and wound up re-buying their ship all the way back in the Bubble because they had never docked at Colonia or the new Galactic Center anchorage! 😲 I was with the Hull Seals and man - we tried HARD to keep everyone going and repaired. But sometimes there's just nothing you can do. All that lost exploration data... 😢 There were a handful of folks who understandably got frustrated and quit early because of a crash or a stellar mishap.
I can't tell you how CAUTIOUSLY I flew once we were past galactic center. You had to make it all the way to Beagle Point, and all the way back to Anchorage (or Colonia) with no ship destroying accident! I flew in and landed at Jacques Station and my hands got sweaty because I felt like I was pushing my luck and SOMETHING was going to hit me at the last second before my landing legs got locked down on the pad! 😅
@logandarklighter i remember crashing my Krait on a high g world trying to hotdog over a meetup. 😂 had to respawn at sag a and haul ass back to keep up with the fleet.
Very interresting. Can you explain what the map is showing.
Why do routes fade away after some time. Some did draw heads and they vanish after some time. Is the map not accumulating ?
i still feel hurt by fdev cutting console support, i had accumulated almost 2k hours on my account, patiently waiting for them thó release odyssey to us only for them to cut us off.
Yeah that sucks a LOT. I am "PC Master Race" but there have been times when I wished for the smoothness and stability of a console.
That's just too bad. We wouldn't be where we are today had that not happened. You folks had plenty of time and opportunity to port over which Fdev was under no obligation to offer.
At the end of the day, console held this franchise back from progressing into a new age.
@@Tamburello_1994 it's not about time, some people just don't have the fucking MONEY to make the switch.
you can see the players leaving after odyssey by the dropping amount of average systems....
fascinating
whats up with the dark spot right until the bubble? is no one going there?
That's a permit locked area. You navigate toward that "Dark Bubble" and you hit an area where you can see the next stars - but your Nav Computer won't lock in. It's been like that since launch. People think it's being saved for future content. Some people are almost certain the Thargoid worlds are in there. (There IS a LOT of Thargoid activity in the region between the Pleiades sector and that permit locked bubble. - and the Big invasion ships appeared to come from that direction too).
3:45 cat top right to the center
So many unreported green gas giants 😭
it looks hella funny, when a lot of pll goes to beagle point. i feel like joke was spreading
It's insane to me that this only proves the futility of space exploration IRL. Like, we get to travel instantly between stars in this game, yet in 10 years we have explored less than 1% of the milky way. What ther actual fuck.
Aprox 0.2% of the galaxy but i've already done 3 travel above 10K ly out of bubble, still never did any first honk.
I dont believe it, and the map show.
Why do I see hidden memes in this video?? lmao
0.02% is crazy
4:04 wtf did someone draw a meme?
there are in fact several memes drawn in the galaxy lol
Yes. The Fleet carrier owners club did that.
ahem also known as the SMUDGE CULT.
clasic :)
Either VR in the whole game or no more money ever.
nahh someone drew a damn face
This game sould have a much bigger tutorial section. Like how to fit a ship. I deleted it. Didn't want to watch hours of youtube (lol sorry no offense) to understand the basics
whats that circle at 1:12 to the mid left, also some of you mfs better have gone to Doctor Kay's heart and soul
Not even 1%
wow, how u make a face?!
An extremely deliberate route plan of star jumps to trace that specific patternm knowing full well the data is being collected and will eventually show up on something like this LOL
Amazing what a simple lie about Raxxla can do !
If I was Braben, I, too, would lie about Raxxla being ''''''''in the game''''''''' because of the many suckers who went looking for it.
Dead game.
"Raxxla isn't real you know"
"They just want you to waste time exploring their dumb dead game!"
"QUIT HAVING FUN!!!"
Raxxla? I just want to honk in peace. Fuck Raxxla.