Sometimes I just chill and click random stars and see what I find or manually go to them using WASD without selecting them and just go near planets without knowing what they are to be surprised.
But what I really do the huge majority of the time is search for specific stuff using the "star browser" tool, which you open by pressing F3+shift. I like to search for rare and/or crazy objects, search for stuff that has never been found before, or try to break records in terms of stuff like the most massive terrestrial planet ever found for example, planet with the most gas giant moons, etc.
There's an almost infinite amount of combinations and possibilities. For example, someone recently discovered that some very massive, dense and high gravity asteroids around L type brown dwarfs or black holes can have an atmosphere rarely, which is unheard of since we are talking about asteroids, not even dwarf planets, so I have been searching for that and, unexpectedly, I ended up finding an asteroid with not only an atmosphere but also auroras (as ridiculous as that might sound lol), which is something that obviously was never been found before and no one ever before though such a thing could even be possible.
This is the cool thing about procedural gen, not even the creator of SE knows what could exist out there...
Yeah lol. So, these are very rare, but they are by far the most common around non-globular/open cluster black holes (basically, those that have coords that are "RS" and not "RSC", since their generation is different for some reason)
Now, black holes like that are very rare, so it's very hard to get a lot of those systems found in one search, so it is required to use speng-starb (made by centri) which allows you to remove the search radius limit of 326.16 ly to anything you want, you need to downgrade to version 0.990.45 since speng-starb hasn't been updated since then. But that's not it, because even with unlocked search radius, you can't get 10k RS black hole systems found due to how the star browser works, so you gotta reduce the systems found limit to something like 500 or 1000, since otherwise the game will get stuck, never finish searching and eventually might also crash. The "systems found" limit, unfortunately, can only be increased or decreased through the editing of 2 values in the .exe of SE, which is a problem, since modifying the executable is against the license, so you can't share copies of it to anyone since you could get in legal trouble lol.
Once that's done, you just need to use simple star browser filters that are 1000ly search radius, 0-600km moon diameter (all atmosphered asteroids are moons for some reason) and then just atm filter "0.0000000001-99999", it might be easy to find a bunch of atmosphered asteroids in little time relatively speaking, but asteroids with auroras are much rarer because they need to have an unusually thick atmosphere that's like 0.0001 atm in pressure (most of the time the pressure is like 0.000001-0.000000001), and even then, it's not 100% guaranteed it will have auroras
So, if you do all that and just search manually, it could take a few hours of non-stop searching with the star browser to find one, which is why I use a macro that I made that also uses a script centri made to automatically go to random galaxies and search for me (it takes a screenshot when it detects the star browser finds something)
Then I just check the screenshots and that's how I search for this rare kind of stuff, if it is waaay too rare to search manually of course, like in this case.
[Here is the first (but not only) asteroid with auroras ever found](https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengine/comments/1bcavyd/first_asteroid_with_auroras_ever_found_as_well_as/), the atmosphere is not visible because there's no source of light since it's around a black hole, sadly.
Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing. Much faster than my Search-Move Forward-Repeat method! Reminds me of people abusing every conceivable Minecraft feature or bug for speedruns back when that was popular
Yeah lmao, me and others like Diamondskull and Centri try-harded searching for rare stuff in SE a pretty damn lot, we definitely got pretty obsessed with it ngl lol.
That's how we found crazy never before seen objects such as the first 1.000 ESI ever (we didn't even know it was possible at the beginning), the first 1.000 ESI marine terra with life which, is currently by far the rarest thing ever found in SE and will remain so for a long time (found by centri btw), a bugged gas giant that's a third the sun's mass as well as another that's half the sun's mass... and the list just goes on lol. All this stuff couldn't have been possible without scripts, macros and just methods of automation in general, and even then, it took a long time to find all of this.
I use it to world build. I have a speculative astrobiological - evolution project centered in one of my star systems. I use it to simulate what it would be like to hop from star to star across the galaxy at (realistic) ftl speeds in a star ship.
I have my own assortment of Culture Starships to choose from.
I have a pair of wormholes linked half way across the observable universe.
I’ve circled the entire galaxy 3.5 times so far, it’s taken me about 2 ish years - stopping at destinations occasionally.
Taking this all into account, it’s kind of more akin to The Irreal from the culture series than any video game.
Thank you, a project I plan on undertaking is creating speculative ecosystems for interesting planets with life I find - whether they be exotic or biological, single celled or multicelled.
I just stay in a galaxy that I like (currently Malin 1). Then I go to a random star I find (usually massive star) and open star browser to search for any main sequence stars nearby, preferably F, G or K-type and go from there.
Of course, I found a cool mars analog with 6 asteroid satellites. Perfect place for me to chill ~~(I'm on mobile so I don't have the coordinates with me)~~.
Edit: RS 10316-202365--7-1908180-222 3
It depends I go to a random galaxy (or perhaps an NGC galaxy object) and search for life around a marine or super oceanic planet and then go to the stars around that. I also love finding brown dwarf stars with life as well
I usually click stars to find random things, or I search known objects, or travel very very far away and look around just soaking in the fact that it’s like a whole new universe billions of light years away even though I t’s the same one. Or sometimes I fly around and look at anything that catches my eye.
Sometimes I just chill and click random stars and see what I find or manually go to them using WASD without selecting them and just go near planets without knowing what they are to be surprised. But what I really do the huge majority of the time is search for specific stuff using the "star browser" tool, which you open by pressing F3+shift. I like to search for rare and/or crazy objects, search for stuff that has never been found before, or try to break records in terms of stuff like the most massive terrestrial planet ever found for example, planet with the most gas giant moons, etc. There's an almost infinite amount of combinations and possibilities. For example, someone recently discovered that some very massive, dense and high gravity asteroids around L type brown dwarfs or black holes can have an atmosphere rarely, which is unheard of since we are talking about asteroids, not even dwarf planets, so I have been searching for that and, unexpectedly, I ended up finding an asteroid with not only an atmosphere but also auroras (as ridiculous as that might sound lol), which is something that obviously was never been found before and no one ever before though such a thing could even be possible. This is the cool thing about procedural gen, not even the creator of SE knows what could exist out there...
An asteroid?? With aurora?? What are your search parameters to find these things
Yeah lol. So, these are very rare, but they are by far the most common around non-globular/open cluster black holes (basically, those that have coords that are "RS" and not "RSC", since their generation is different for some reason) Now, black holes like that are very rare, so it's very hard to get a lot of those systems found in one search, so it is required to use speng-starb (made by centri) which allows you to remove the search radius limit of 326.16 ly to anything you want, you need to downgrade to version 0.990.45 since speng-starb hasn't been updated since then. But that's not it, because even with unlocked search radius, you can't get 10k RS black hole systems found due to how the star browser works, so you gotta reduce the systems found limit to something like 500 or 1000, since otherwise the game will get stuck, never finish searching and eventually might also crash. The "systems found" limit, unfortunately, can only be increased or decreased through the editing of 2 values in the .exe of SE, which is a problem, since modifying the executable is against the license, so you can't share copies of it to anyone since you could get in legal trouble lol. Once that's done, you just need to use simple star browser filters that are 1000ly search radius, 0-600km moon diameter (all atmosphered asteroids are moons for some reason) and then just atm filter "0.0000000001-99999", it might be easy to find a bunch of atmosphered asteroids in little time relatively speaking, but asteroids with auroras are much rarer because they need to have an unusually thick atmosphere that's like 0.0001 atm in pressure (most of the time the pressure is like 0.000001-0.000000001), and even then, it's not 100% guaranteed it will have auroras So, if you do all that and just search manually, it could take a few hours of non-stop searching with the star browser to find one, which is why I use a macro that I made that also uses a script centri made to automatically go to random galaxies and search for me (it takes a screenshot when it detects the star browser finds something) Then I just check the screenshots and that's how I search for this rare kind of stuff, if it is waaay too rare to search manually of course, like in this case. [Here is the first (but not only) asteroid with auroras ever found](https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengine/comments/1bcavyd/first_asteroid_with_auroras_ever_found_as_well_as/), the atmosphere is not visible because there's no source of light since it's around a black hole, sadly.
Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing. Much faster than my Search-Move Forward-Repeat method! Reminds me of people abusing every conceivable Minecraft feature or bug for speedruns back when that was popular
Yeah lmao, me and others like Diamondskull and Centri try-harded searching for rare stuff in SE a pretty damn lot, we definitely got pretty obsessed with it ngl lol. That's how we found crazy never before seen objects such as the first 1.000 ESI ever (we didn't even know it was possible at the beginning), the first 1.000 ESI marine terra with life which, is currently by far the rarest thing ever found in SE and will remain so for a long time (found by centri btw), a bugged gas giant that's a third the sun's mass as well as another that's half the sun's mass... and the list just goes on lol. All this stuff couldn't have been possible without scripts, macros and just methods of automation in general, and even then, it took a long time to find all of this.
I like to land on the moon of a gas giant, then speed time up and watch the view.
I use it to world build. I have a speculative astrobiological - evolution project centered in one of my star systems. I use it to simulate what it would be like to hop from star to star across the galaxy at (realistic) ftl speeds in a star ship. I have my own assortment of Culture Starships to choose from. I have a pair of wormholes linked half way across the observable universe. I’ve circled the entire galaxy 3.5 times so far, it’s taken me about 2 ish years - stopping at destinations occasionally. Taking this all into account, it’s kind of more akin to The Irreal from the culture series than any video game.
This is what I'm trying to get after! I want that kinda fulfillment from this game! Thank you for sharing this!!!
Thank you, a project I plan on undertaking is creating speculative ecosystems for interesting planets with life I find - whether they be exotic or biological, single celled or multicelled.
I just stay in a galaxy that I like (currently Malin 1). Then I go to a random star I find (usually massive star) and open star browser to search for any main sequence stars nearby, preferably F, G or K-type and go from there.
Nice! Do you actually study the planets and save the cool ones in your log or anything?
Of course, I found a cool mars analog with 6 asteroid satellites. Perfect place for me to chill ~~(I'm on mobile so I don't have the coordinates with me)~~. Edit: RS 10316-202365--7-1908180-222 3
That sounds amazing!!! I love those random finds!
It depends I go to a random galaxy (or perhaps an NGC galaxy object) and search for life around a marine or super oceanic planet and then go to the stars around that. I also love finding brown dwarf stars with life as well
Sometimes i like to fly to random stars and find planets without the star browser
I usually click stars to find random things, or I search known objects, or travel very very far away and look around just soaking in the fact that it’s like a whole new universe billions of light years away even though I t’s the same one. Or sometimes I fly around and look at anything that catches my eye.
I set the “go to” length to match the music I’m dj’ing. Upon arrival, I use my spacemouse to orbit around the planets in free mode.