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Are we too set in our ways?

Kuroshio · 2015-05-28T08:24:31+00:00

Hi everyone, I've done a lot of thinking while jumping in the last two months, and I've come to feel uncomfortable about a few things that we, as the explorer community, have made part of our mindset. We have become obsessed with jump range, and that troubles me for a number of reasons, even if we ignore that a huge part of the galaxy is accessible with jump ranges below 30 ly. Not always easily, there might be some backtracking and detours involved, but it's possible. We might also ignore that undiscovered space isn't far from home, you don't need to go thousands of light-years before you end up in entirely unexplored regions. But part of the reason why there's still so much to find close by is that we have become obsessed with jump range, and, as a result of that, with very long-range exploration. There is a thousand light-year bubble around colonized space where we make our day trips, there are trampled paths to nebulae, neutron fields, and, of course, Sagittarius A*, but the intermediate, unexciting regions are somewhat unpopular. There are good reasons for that - they are, in a way, unexciting - but it sometimes reminds me of the adage that we know more about the surface of Mars than we know about the ocean floor on Earth. Yet we raise an eyebrow at (or even treat with disdain) those that sacrifice jump range for armament, armor, shields, mining equipment, all the stuff they might carry for role-playing reasons or simply to feel safe out there. And the funny thing is, they are exploring more, not less - 40 jumps instead of 30 for a thousand light-years means that they visited ten systems more on their route, had more chances to find something interesting, and collected more data. As a corollary, we are obsessed with fuel scoop sizes, implying that you aren't a real explorer unless your scoop costs nearly twice as much as the rest of your ship. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, 6A.) My trip to Sagittarius A* and back, with a reasonable amount of exploring on the way, took roughly 50 hours. With a 6A instead of a 6D, it would have taken 47.5. Theoretically. While ignoring that there are a lot of objects in range when scooping. On my way back, I decided to speed run the last 10,000 ly, hoping to be back in time for the Wolf 406 CG. (Didn't work.) It was without a doubt the hardest part of the journey, the moment I said to myself, "darn, I should have listened to the others, reduced my weight, dropped the armor, bought a bigger scoop." I could afford one, now, but looking back again I didn't need it when exploring. I needed it when I was racing. I could afford two of them now if I had been exploring instead. Probably four if I'd taken the economic route. But I'd stopped being an explorer for that part of the journey. I'd become someone who'd travelled to Australia, and when asked about his way back, could only answer "well, there was some water and some land". Don't get me wrong, I respect the heck out of people who travel to the far end of the galaxy, and I understand that they like a 35+ ly range and the biggest scoop they can get. But that kind of exploration is a niche for a few very brave and patient souls, and the requirements for that niche shouldn't dictate the needs for short and medium range exploration. The other thing that bothers me a little is that we needed a player killer to be reminded of our complacency. Turning off everything from power distribution to shields (if we even took those with us) never was a requirement, it was a trade-off: Safety from heat damage versus security, like taking no weapons is a trade-off between range and security. Those are easy while security isn't needed, but we've gotten so used to it that we ignored that it probably won't remain that way. Whether the president was eaten by Thargoids or not, there will probably be a day when exploring, even in solo, won't be safe and secure anymore. And meanwhile, we've cultivated habits that will put us at risk when that time comes, and encouraged them in newcomers. Come that day, we might be forced to explore closer to home, in the more intermediate regions, but that isn't necessarily bad news. A five or ten thousand light year radius around the bubble still covers a lot of stuff we've missed, and those going out farther will be taking real risks and be admired even more for that. But our instinctive dislike of a ship like the Diamondback (scoops slowly, can't jump extremely far, who cares that it can take care of itself) might be misguided: It might not be the ship low-tier explorers want, but the ship they will need in the future. I'm just a lowly ranger myself, and I don't want to stir things up unnecessarily, provoke anybody or criticize them for the way they do things. A lot of you have way more experience than me, and I respect you more than you'll ever know for your work. You (and the explorer branch as a whole) are my favorite part of the community. But especially in the last few days, there has been a lot of aggressiveness and One True Way Of Exploring going on, and it made me feel uneasy, partly because I agreed with a lot of stuff on reflex, without checking my premises. Kind regards, DoubtOutLoud / CMDR Kuroshio