LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

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iXenon
Posts: 177
Joined: Wed, 1. Jun 22, 20:00

LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by iXenon » Mon, 5. Dec 22, 16:23

I'm trying to find some Engine Tuning upgrades and found two problems here:
  1. The Pandora Crates appear far beyond LFL radius. 150km from the gates, 250km or even 400km and it's very hard to find and pick up them!
  2. All these crates are Special Discovery. I have about 5 of them already and they aren't what I was looking for. :)
Does it work as designed or I should do something to change it?

Hwitvlf
Posts: 484
Joined: Tue, 13. Apr 21, 21:36

Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by Hwitvlf » Mon, 5. Dec 22, 20:23

Special Discovery seem to be the most common crates spawns, but I have found a couple Engine Tunings from the random spawn system. They are distinct from the crates spawned at game-start in that they have 1 tuning. I'm not sure what the actual odds of Tuning crate spawn, but I would give a rough guess of about 1 in 30 in my game.

They appear on the level plane (near Y=0) so you don't have to worry about searching way up and down. When I buy a Discovery Location hint, I just get a speedy M5 and fly to the 4 corners of the map (from a zoomed out view) and have always found the pointer for the Low-Freq.-Locator.

If all else fails, you can issue a "Map Sector" command to your ship and do some empire maintenance while the ship explores the sector. 8)

iXenon
Posts: 177
Joined: Wed, 1. Jun 22, 20:00

Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by iXenon » Mon, 5. Dec 22, 21:23

Hwitvlf wrote:
Mon, 5. Dec 22, 20:23
They appear on the level plane (near Y=0) so you don't have to worry about searching way up and down. When I buy a Discovery Location hint, I just get a speedy M5 and fly to the 4 corners of the map (from a zoomed out view) and have always found the pointer for the Low-Freq.-Locator.
Just found a way how to discover them quickly, using the "3000k" method. I was aware about it before but the game tries to put object more safely, so the Crate always has a different position when players jumps in near that point. In order to avoid that, remote discovery with a satellite should be used instead:
Spoiler
Show
  • Save the game once you know the destination sector
  • Remotely send to that sector a ship with a satellite and "Navigation Command Software MK1"
  • Open the ship console and order (1) Navigation" >> "Move to Coordinates", enter "3000k"
  • Open the sector map remotely again. The ship will be moved to that point immediately
  • Open the ship Freight Bay and throw out one satellite. This satellite should see everything now
  • Write down the Pandora Crate coordinates
  • Load the game
  • Remotely send a fast ship with jump beacon to these coordinates. It won't see the Crate at the time being
  • Drop down the Jump Beacon remotely and jump there in person after that
  • Pick up the Pandora Crate and the Jump Beacon
How to find these sectors:
Spoiler
Show
Go to Royal Boron Trading Station in Kingdom End delta. The Exploration Guild is always there, so just request Discovery Information 15-20 times in a row. If it isn't there, buy something other and try again. The game can be reloaded after that in order to save the discovery points.

DanKara
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Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by DanKara » Tue, 6. Dec 22, 06:47

iXenon wrote:
Mon, 5. Dec 22, 21:23
Just found a way how to discover them quickly, using the "3000k" method.
The use of a search-script like All-Seeing-Eye might be even quicker...

iXenon wrote:
Mon, 5. Dec 22, 21:23
How to find these sectors:
According to CYCROW: The Explorer Guild is always present aboard the Trade Station in the 'capital system' of CW-factions. I can confirm this to be true for KingdomsEnd, ArgonPrime and ParanidPrime. I think I have also done this for FamilyPride (split) but don't know for sure for Teladi (Seizewell or Ianamus?). They can be repeatedly used/asked without any cooldown between.


At one time I was trying to farm the 'Special Discoveries' for the 33 mio DiscoveryPoints (ARAN/VAL-blueprint) but gave up at around 10 mio DP's. Initially I had like 10 'Special Discovery'-crates in my game. Those numbers dwindled down to like 3 or 4 after some rounds of collecting. So these crates may have a high chance to spawn, but as the seem to only replace 'LFL-finds' that were collected their total numbers will decrease. I assume the same holds true for farming 'Pandora Crates'...

iXenon
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Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by iXenon » Tue, 6. Dec 22, 08:13

DanKara wrote:
Tue, 6. Dec 22, 06:47
According to CYCROW: The Explorer Guild is always present aboard the Trade Station in the 'capital system' of CW-factions. I can confirm this to be true for KingdomsEnd, ArgonPrime and ParanidPrime. I think I have also done this for FamilyPride (split) but don't know for sure for Teladi (Seizewell or Ianamus?). They can be repeatedly used/asked without any cooldown between.
Thanks for the clarification! I heard that there are some other sectors but forgot what they are. Checked one of corporation sectors but the EG representative quickly disappeared. Going to check sectors you mentioned, now I believe they should be there. :)

DanKara wrote:
Tue, 6. Dec 22, 06:47
At one time I was trying to farm the 'Special Discoveries' for the 33 mio DiscoveryPoints (ARAN/VAL-blueprint) but gave up at around 10 mio DP's. Initially I had like 10 'Special Discovery'-crates in my game. Those numbers dwindled down to like 3 or 4 after some rounds of collecting. So these crates may have a high chance to spawn, but as the seem to only replace 'LFL-finds' that were collected their total numbers will decrease. I assume the same holds true for farming 'Pandora Crates'...
I have around 4kk of the DP and starting to think what I should spend them for. The best idea for now - to spend these points for buying agents. And then use the agents to buy/steal equipment for the HQ. What did you do with your points?

DanKara
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Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by DanKara » Tue, 6. Dec 22, 11:23

iXenon wrote:
Tue, 6. Dec 22, 08:13
What did you do with your points?
Well ... after some time I got bored by collecting those 'Special Discoveries' and at the same time got lazy/greedy/impatient with blueprint-collecting ... so I bought one or two (or three?) station blueprints from factions I hadn't yet worked on. Can't remember what, nothing special though. My 10 mio DP's vanished so damn quickly ... I suprised my self :oops:

Agents might be worth spending on ... but I liked to combine Agent-rewarding missions (StationDefend+Taxi) to keep my 'Influence Boni' with one faction at or around 80% ... so everything bought cost less agent-tasks. Especially at high faction-rep (+9/+10) that made hugh difference for me... Had some 1-task-leftover-agents I send on buy-attemtps with success probabilites of way under 50% to succeed (still not sure, if this was caused by the influence-boni or faction-rank or both combined).

Sovereign01
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Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by Sovereign01 » Fri, 9. Dec 22, 04:16

I found that agents were actually the last thing I would spend my points on since you can get them from station defence and taxi missions and instead went for blueprints. The one blueprint that you need that can't be obtained any other way is for the Boarding Pod since they're far cheaper to make than they are to buy.

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Korventh
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Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by Korventh » Fri, 16. Dec 22, 20:25

iXenon wrote:
Mon, 5. Dec 22, 21:23
Hwitvlf wrote:
Mon, 5. Dec 22, 20:23
They appear on the level plane (near Y=0) so you don't have to worry about searching way up and down. When I buy a Discovery Location hint, I just get a speedy M5 and fly to the 4 corners of the map (from a zoomed out view) and have always found the pointer for the Low-Freq.-Locator.
Just found a way how to discover them quickly, using the "3000k" method. I was aware about it before but the game tries to put object more safely, so the Crate always has a different position when players jumps in near that point. In order to avoid that, remote discovery with a satellite should be used instead:
Spoiler
Show
  • Save the game once you know the destination sector
  • Remotely send to that sector a ship with a satellite and "Navigation Command Software MK1"
  • Open the ship console and order (1) Navigation" >> "Move to Coordinates", enter "3000k"
  • Open the sector map remotely again. The ship will be moved to that point immediately
  • Open the ship Freight Bay and throw out one satellite. This satellite should see everything now
  • Write down the Pandora Crate coordinates
  • Load the game
  • Remotely send a fast ship with jump beacon to these coordinates. It won't see the Crate at the time being
  • Drop down the Jump Beacon remotely and jump there in person after that
  • Pick up the Pandora Crate and the Jump Beacon
How to find these sectors:
Spoiler
Show
Go to Royal Boron Trading Station in Kingdom End delta. The Exploration Guild is always there, so just request Discovery Information 15-20 times in a row. If it isn't there, buy something other and try again. The game can be reloaded after that in order to save the discovery points.
Are there any downsides when using this "3000k" method? I noticed that if I send a weak ship to, say a xenon sector, it gets blown up immediately. I sent in my Aga, dropped the satellite, then made it jump out immediately. I then jumped in and all of the Xenons were stuck 4000+Km away from the center, unable to move. Seems that after waiting in another sector, they eventually return to the center but would this screw up the game more than it shows?

iXenon
Posts: 177
Joined: Wed, 1. Jun 22, 20:00

Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by iXenon » Fri, 16. Dec 22, 21:28

Korventh wrote:
Fri, 16. Dec 22, 20:25
Are there any downsides when using this "3000k" method? I noticed that if I send a weak ship to, say a xenon sector, it gets blown up immediately. I sent in my Aga, dropped the satellite, then made it jump out immediately. I then jumped in and all of the Xenons were stuck 4000+Km away from the center, unable to move. Seems that after waiting in another sector, they eventually return to the center but would this screw up the game more than it shows?
That's a good question. I'm not sure if it's safe, so I always load game once I tried it. The downsides that I'm already aware of:
  1. It looks like any object at that position is very close to every other object. It means it could be attacked by any enemy ship immediately
  2. As another consequence of this, if player goes in that sector and something is placed at that position then objects will be scattered across the sector
Probably, it's safe to use it remotely if no foes are there and if no objects are going to be kept at that position. In case if satellite is needed to be dropped, they it can be undeployed and picked up remotely by the ship afterwards.

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Korventh
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Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by Korventh » Sat, 17. Dec 22, 00:02

iXenon wrote:
Fri, 16. Dec 22, 21:28
Korventh wrote:
Fri, 16. Dec 22, 20:25
Are there any downsides when using this "3000k" method? I noticed that if I send a weak ship to, say a xenon sector, it gets blown up immediately. I sent in my Aga, dropped the satellite, then made it jump out immediately. I then jumped in and all of the Xenons were stuck 4000+Km away from the center, unable to move. Seems that after waiting in another sector, they eventually return to the center but would this screw up the game more than it shows?
That's a good question. I'm not sure if it's safe, so I always load game once I tried it. The downsides that I'm already aware of:
  1. It looks like any object at that position is very close to every other object. It means it could be attacked by any enemy ship immediately
  2. As another consequence of this, if player goes in that sector and something is placed at that position then objects will be scattered across the sector
Probably, it's safe to use it remotely if no foes are there and if no objects are going to be kept at that position. In case if satellite is needed to be dropped, they it can be undeployed and picked up remotely by the ship afterwards.
Tested it, it's not safe, some ships remain in messed up spots (400,000+ km away) Anyway, another way to do this would be to put a ridiculous number in Globals file for the advanced satellite, which I did, that way it can be deployed without the trick, however, in smaller sectors, the game crashes if you try to open sector map while the satellite is in it. I guess it's the game of finding the safe number now or something.

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Korventh
Posts: 24
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Re: LFL, Pandora Crates distance and Special Discovery

Post by Korventh » Mon, 19. Dec 22, 15:02

Update: I set the satellite range to this SG_SCANNER_RANGE_SATELLITE2;99000000;

Now it seems to cover entire sector without crashing, will test it further later.

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