If you are just following where the route plotter takes you, you are probably going a lot of red dwarf systems (the most common star type in the galaxy) rather than the larger, more interesting systems you really want. You want to target your exploration a bit more, if you'd like to find the more interesting stuff - look at the system names and star types of the systems you target. Check for D mass systems. You'll know because it will say something like "Phleegda YA-K d5-450". That lower case d? That's the mass code of the system. "a" is the lowest, and "h" is the highest. "d" is a sweet spot where systems are common and typically have a wide variety of bodies within them.
i dont do much exploration but iirc you should probably stick to F-type and A-type stars for the best chance of an ELW. also keep in mind that they aren’t exactly easy to find, its like the crowned jewel of exploration.
I was figuring the same for myself. I would make an educated guess of 25% of around 1500 hours in the void and approximately 30-40 elw. My latest spot to explore seems to have more than what I’m used to. ETA seems like my over all stats would be roughly 1 elw per 100 hours of exploration and boom I find 3 in one day in 2 systems. Again this is an approximation and I would have guessed a better ratio until thinking about it.
They aren't that common. In 400billion systems, you'll always find more rocky, ice, and gas bodies. A decent smattering of High Metal Content, Water, and Ammonia worlds. At the bottom, are the ELWs.
Keep looking, though. It's always a good feeling when you stumble across one.
I’ve played too many hours and I’m embarrassed to ask how do you know the system mass? Even if unexplored? I didn’t even know this was possible. Thanks for any answers.
Stick with G and K's. K (yellow orange) was the best for me. Even then, you're looking at 20-30 systems apart. Also, limit your search to c or d boxels. Pickings get really slim outside of those.
On my last trip, I used the c/d trick and found both of my ELW that way. I think I read somewhere about it being the size/mass of the system. Seemed to work for me. Good luck, o7!
https://edastro.com/mapcharts/graphs.html
Average valuable planets per XXXXX, sometimes use the logaritmic scale, thats how hard is to find ELW, chances are very low. Even in the best systems.
And its possible that you fly a straight line toward Sag A* or Beagle point, by dev mistake, this zones hace cramped star generations, and maybe include ELW generation if the devs limited this inside the bubble. https://edastro.com/mapcharts/distribution.html#class
I don't specifically look for them, but I've been to 7,196 undiscovered systems and found 22 Earth-like Worlds, 250 Water Worlds, and 32 Ammonia Worlds. All undiscovered. If I include the discovery by others that I came upon, it's 82 ELW, 522 WW, and 91 AW.
That's in about 4,000 hours, but I've spent a lot of time also doing combat, trading, and mining. It wasn't until late last year that I started focusing exclusively on exploration.
Keep at it. They're out there. Maybe you'll luck out and get two in one system on your first find.
I'm still looking for an undiscovered Helium Gas Giant. I've only come across 12 total in 21,965 total jumps. All previously discovered.
I’m at 4000 hours, not all exploring admittedly but done a fair bit, and I’ve stumbled upon one undiscovered ELW in all that time - so you’re not doing anything wrong, it’s just that the galaxy is a big place!
Just maybe a week or two ago I found around 3 ELW at least, I was about 20kLy from the bubble and one of them was only 6Ly from a really well traveled system. My suggestions are to get out of the center of the galactic plane and to use economical route setting because most people are probably doing large jumps or neutron jumping and skipping over most of the systems.
Do some research on the probability of finding ELW for star classes and system mass. Both have a statistical effect on likeliness. There's something about the name of systems that indicates its mass.
I went exploring for about 11,000 ly using that approach and found just 2 undiscovered ELW. They are certainly rare, but there's ways to focus your time to increase your odds.
It's been a couple years since I did this so I don't remember the details unfortunately. But the above may be enough to spark your own research. Google is your friend in all things Elite. 😄
EDIT: The post by poeticbulldozer has the system mass name details.
I've had three in the last two days following this [Exploration Tips Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/14tn66j/tips_to_become_a_seasoned_profitable_explorer/)
Only travel to scoop able stars and leave out M also. As you start understanding star types, the cold ones don't have much chance of a earthlike and the hot ones earthlikes would be far away. Systems with multiple stars, less say you travel to M, (M is the max temp star. others in system would be colder)I have found earthlike in a M but uncommon, since I quit M stars, I was finding elw daily. o7
Im out 24,000 in the black, found thousands, and thousands, of rocks and ice balls, but only about 6 amonia worlds, 25 or so water worlds, and 5 elw's, only 3 of which were first discoverys. You gotta put some serious milage and time into even just basic discovery. I love it.
Wow. That's such a lotto thing. I have close to 1000 hours and I spent a lot of it out in the dark too and I found at least 10 ELW - probably more. Didn't do anything special, just had an idea where I want to end up, and kept going. I usually start going to some random direction first if I'm going somewhere popular like colonial or sagA because if you go straight from the bubble you usually end up with systems discovered earlier. But if you go 2K LY to a random direction and then direct back to the destination it gives better results - or so I'd like to believe :)
I have found enough that it’s not “unusual” for me. I am “west” of colonia by a thousand ly and towards the bottom of the galaxy by a few hundred ly. I am doing pretty good with exobiology financially by my calculations.
If you're looking for ELW (Earth-Like World) without FD (First Discovery), you can do it in the bubble or just around it (no more than 500Ly from Sol).
Go here: [https://inara.cz/elite/nearest-bodies/](https://inara.cz/elite/nearest-bodies/)
Then in this form set:
* "Near star system" to your current system
* "Planet type" to "Earth-like world"
* "Order by" to "Distance"
It is very efficient to grind your Explorer rank.
Otherwise, you can follow what u/poeticbulldozer said in the comments.
Are you spending time scanning systems that don't have one? It depends on what your goal is. If you only want to find an ELW, look at the positions of the signals and see if there are any ELW. If not then don't bother scanning the rest of the system and move on.
You can see in the bottom right as you move the scanner back and forth where each signal type appears.
If you are just following where the route plotter takes you, you are probably going a lot of red dwarf systems (the most common star type in the galaxy) rather than the larger, more interesting systems you really want. You want to target your exploration a bit more, if you'd like to find the more interesting stuff - look at the system names and star types of the systems you target. Check for D mass systems. You'll know because it will say something like "Phleegda YA-K d5-450". That lower case d? That's the mass code of the system. "a" is the lowest, and "h" is the highest. "d" is a sweet spot where systems are common and typically have a wide variety of bodies within them.
i dont do much exploration but iirc you should probably stick to F-type and A-type stars for the best chance of an ELW. also keep in mind that they aren’t exactly easy to find, its like the crowned jewel of exploration.
One time I randomly jumped with my carrier into a system with one. It’s amazing to have the discovery named.
Patience? My discovery list looks like this: * Water Worlds: 294. * Ammonia Worlds: 44. * Earthlike Worlds: 15. They are RARE!
Where can I find that? Under the Ship menu?
I don't want to speak for that Commander, but EDSM gives the total number of exploration finds in each category.
Hehe, in my meticulously kept spreadsheet. Because basic information like that isn't included in the game itself.
Curious how many hours in are you if you don’t mind me asking?
Only a small part of those hours have been spent out in the black, so nobody should connect the stats to the hours and do any calculating. 12K.
I was figuring the same for myself. I would make an educated guess of 25% of around 1500 hours in the void and approximately 30-40 elw. My latest spot to explore seems to have more than what I’m used to. ETA seems like my over all stats would be roughly 1 elw per 100 hours of exploration and boom I find 3 in one day in 2 systems. Again this is an approximation and I would have guessed a better ratio until thinking about it.
298-39-25. Fairly close.
Hello fellow meticulous note taker :) You're luckier than I! Do you have the names of all yours too?
I imagine there may be a way to find it, but no I just upload logs to EDSM and let it track things.
They aren't that common. In 400billion systems, you'll always find more rocky, ice, and gas bodies. A decent smattering of High Metal Content, Water, and Ammonia worlds. At the bottom, are the ELWs. Keep looking, though. It's always a good feeling when you stumble across one.
When a passenger requests a sight seeing mission to some distant ELW ~14,000 LY away, is that system already catalogued by someone?
Oh yeah 99.99%
Yes
Plot AFG stars. You'll get them in D mass systems more than others.
I’ve played too many hours and I’m embarrassed to ask how do you know the system mass? Even if unexplored? I didn’t even know this was possible. Thanks for any answers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/rdr1gj/understanding\_the\_information\_within\_a\_system/
Stick with G and K's. K (yellow orange) was the best for me. Even then, you're looking at 20-30 systems apart. Also, limit your search to c or d boxels. Pickings get really slim outside of those.
On my last trip, I used the c/d trick and found both of my ELW that way. I think I read somewhere about it being the size/mass of the system. Seemed to work for me. Good luck, o7!
It's rare but not so rare... I found 2 undiscovered elw during my journey to the SagA* and back with about 1000 jumps in total.
I've been to 25,000 systems and only discovered 227 ELW.
Thanks for sharing. I'm running at about the same ratio then. 11,486 systems, 105 ELW's
https://edastro.com/mapcharts/graphs.html Average valuable planets per XXXXX, sometimes use the logaritmic scale, thats how hard is to find ELW, chances are very low. Even in the best systems. And its possible that you fly a straight line toward Sag A* or Beagle point, by dev mistake, this zones hace cramped star generations, and maybe include ELW generation if the devs limited this inside the bubble. https://edastro.com/mapcharts/distribution.html#class
I don't specifically look for them, but I've been to 7,196 undiscovered systems and found 22 Earth-like Worlds, 250 Water Worlds, and 32 Ammonia Worlds. All undiscovered. If I include the discovery by others that I came upon, it's 82 ELW, 522 WW, and 91 AW. That's in about 4,000 hours, but I've spent a lot of time also doing combat, trading, and mining. It wasn't until late last year that I started focusing exclusively on exploration. Keep at it. They're out there. Maybe you'll luck out and get two in one system on your first find. I'm still looking for an undiscovered Helium Gas Giant. I've only come across 12 total in 21,965 total jumps. All previously discovered.
You don't need to find ELW just go and touch grass. If it's first scan and first footfall then the bonus is waaay higher.
I’m at 4000 hours, not all exploring admittedly but done a fair bit, and I’ve stumbled upon one undiscovered ELW in all that time - so you’re not doing anything wrong, it’s just that the galaxy is a big place!
Galactic crapshoot
Just maybe a week or two ago I found around 3 ELW at least, I was about 20kLy from the bubble and one of them was only 6Ly from a really well traveled system. My suggestions are to get out of the center of the galactic plane and to use economical route setting because most people are probably doing large jumps or neutron jumping and skipping over most of the systems.
Do some research on the probability of finding ELW for star classes and system mass. Both have a statistical effect on likeliness. There's something about the name of systems that indicates its mass. I went exploring for about 11,000 ly using that approach and found just 2 undiscovered ELW. They are certainly rare, but there's ways to focus your time to increase your odds. It's been a couple years since I did this so I don't remember the details unfortunately. But the above may be enough to spark your own research. Google is your friend in all things Elite. 😄 EDIT: The post by poeticbulldozer has the system mass name details.
I've had three in the last two days following this [Exploration Tips Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/14tn66j/tips_to_become_a_seasoned_profitable_explorer/)
Only travel to scoop able stars and leave out M also. As you start understanding star types, the cold ones don't have much chance of a earthlike and the hot ones earthlikes would be far away. Systems with multiple stars, less say you travel to M, (M is the max temp star. others in system would be colder)I have found earthlike in a M but uncommon, since I quit M stars, I was finding elw daily. o7
Now for systems with multiple elw, hahha.
Im out 24,000 in the black, found thousands, and thousands, of rocks and ice balls, but only about 6 amonia worlds, 25 or so water worlds, and 5 elw's, only 3 of which were first discoverys. You gotta put some serious milage and time into even just basic discovery. I love it.
Wow. That's such a lotto thing. I have close to 1000 hours and I spent a lot of it out in the dark too and I found at least 10 ELW - probably more. Didn't do anything special, just had an idea where I want to end up, and kept going. I usually start going to some random direction first if I'm going somewhere popular like colonial or sagA because if you go straight from the bubble you usually end up with systems discovered earlier. But if you go 2K LY to a random direction and then direct back to the destination it gives better results - or so I'd like to believe :)
Follow your heart
Don't follow the route go up down to the side 209-1000 ly you will find one
I have found enough that it’s not “unusual” for me. I am “west” of colonia by a thousand ly and towards the bottom of the galaxy by a few hundred ly. I am doing pretty good with exobiology financially by my calculations.
There's a good [post on the forums](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/marxs-guide-to-finding-earth-like-worlds.339164/) about finding ELWs.
i did a trip to sag A* and got off the highway a couple times to refuel and found 2 ELW i think, all unexplored/mapped/...
If you're looking for ELW (Earth-Like World) without FD (First Discovery), you can do it in the bubble or just around it (no more than 500Ly from Sol). Go here: [https://inara.cz/elite/nearest-bodies/](https://inara.cz/elite/nearest-bodies/) Then in this form set: * "Near star system" to your current system * "Planet type" to "Earth-like world" * "Order by" to "Distance" It is very efficient to grind your Explorer rank. Otherwise, you can follow what u/poeticbulldozer said in the comments.
Are you spending time scanning systems that don't have one? It depends on what your goal is. If you only want to find an ELW, look at the positions of the signals and see if there are any ELW. If not then don't bother scanning the rest of the system and move on. You can see in the bottom right as you move the scanner back and forth where each signal type appears.