List of Most Dangerous Stars
To avoid terminology confusions here are some clarifications: by “boost” I mean to increase jump range by supercharge in a jet, by “scoop” I mean scoop fuel from the star.
1. White Dwarf
A) Unablity to scoop
B) Medium threat after jump exiting
C) Short jet for FSD boost
D) High chance to hit an exclusion zone during jet scooping (plus, low jump increase if boosting is sucessful)
E) 80% probability of death, if dropped to normal space in a jet
2. Neutron Star
A) Unablity to scoop
B) Medium threat after jump exiting
C) Probability of hitting an exclusion zone during boosting (high, if boosting in the start of a jet)
D) 10% probability of death if dropped in the end or in the middle of a jet, 80% if dropped in the start of a jet
3. Black Hole
A) Unablity to scoop
B) High threat after jump exiting
4. Stars of classes: L, T, Y – protostars, carbon stars, Wolf-Rayet stars
A) Unablity to scoop
Advices for Players and Especially Explorers
A) Never ever boost from white dwarfs, even if you feel that you will make it. You will spend a max of 2 hours to gather materials for basic FSD injection, but you can lose hundreds of hours in case of failure during boosting.
B) Never boost from neutron stars in the middle or start of a jet: always boost in the end. Fly on the parallel line to the end of a jet, pitch prow of the ship 60 degrees up from the parallel, accelerate a bit and fly into a jet, slow down to zero (X by default) and wait for FSD supercharge, acclerate and fly out of a jet.
C) It is preferable to always press zero speed button (X by default) after start of jump countdown. In this case your ship will exit jump on minimal speed and you will not crash into a star. Also it is a necessity for jump to a black hole cause you will exit close to it and without a slowdown hit the exclusion zone in less than 3 seconds after entering a system (the other option is to instantly turn the ship from the black hole after exiting, but, as for me, pressing one button is easier).
D) Before going to a system on the outskirts of the galaxy turn off jet-cone boost to make sure that it is not one-way system. Also check the route for scoopable stars, so you will not accidently get stuck without a fuel. If the route cannot be plotted without boosts and\or scoopable stars then plot a route to the closest system for which both conditions are met, go to it and only from there start to carefully plot the route to your destination.
E) If you are stuck without fuel:
I. Not enough fuel for a jump:
The actions are written chronologically, so if you cannot perform a current try the next one.
1) Check the current system for scoopable stars – scoop if they are presented.
2) Find the closest system with scoopable stars and try to jump there.
3) Check the system for neutron stars – boost if they are presented, and try to jump to the closest system with scoopable stars.
4) Perform a max FSD injection and try to jump to the closest system with scoopable stars (if you are nearly without fuel and the closest system is farther than 30 years, this will likely to be a waste of materials, so in such a case I recommend to directly go over to the last point).
5) Discard all cargo (if you have) and try to jump to the closest system with scoopable stars.
6) Drop to normal space, deactivate all modules except life support, copy the system name and send a request to Fuel Rats. They will give you further instructions.
II. Ship systems are offline and oxygen countdown started:
If there are more than 20 minutes or can in some way take your time and do not rush, if less – do everything quick.
1) Check the possibility of oxygen synthesis, if you have enough materials at least for 3 injections – everything is mostly fine. If not – do everything even more quick.
2) Copy system`s name, quit the game and send a request to Fuel Rats. They will give you further instructions.
F) If you were rotated to the core during boosting from neutron star: slowdown to zero (X by default), exiting to normal space, deploy of a heatsink (if you have one), waiting for cooldown, going back to supercruise on max speed (also try to point ship at least perpendicularly to the jet).
G) If you were dropped out of supercruise by exclusion zone during boosting from a white dwarf or a neutron star:
1) Quickly open task manager and kill the game process (yes, this way is not really fair, but I do not think that this is a groundbreaking abuse, moreover your data and ship are too precious to just be lost, nevertheless, if you consider it as a cheating you can skip points 1,2,5 and in 3 aim the escape vector right away)
2) Restart the game, tentatively prepared the manager for another game killing.
3) You will enter with the prow of the ship to the escape vector, so do not move the ship and just engage the charge, simultaneously deploying heatsinks (if you have) and repairing cockpit canopy (if you have AFMU).
4) After the charge corrert your course to aim the espace vector and you will have to stay focused on it about 0.2 seconds to escape.
5) If your canopy was breached (if you are in the bubble it is not really a threat, but in the deep space it can become your demise) or power plant died or the tempreature exceeded 300%, kill the game process and repeat points 3-4 again (the number of tries varies from your luck and skills, you can escape on the first try or on the thirtieth).
H) If you do not have enough jump range to jump to the nearest star:
The actions are written chronologically, so if you cannot perform a current try the next one.
1) Check the system for neutron stars – boost if they are presented, and try to jump to the closest system.
2) Perform a max FSD injection and try to jump.
3) Discard all cargo (if you have) and try to jump.
4) If all of the above does not work, you are likely to be in a one-way system. In fact there is only one option: self-destruct and revival at the station. Nevertheless, you can try to contact Frontier Developmets support, and if you have not sent such requests before you might be recovered in the nearest system from which you will be able to return to the galaxy disk.
I) I you were dropped by exclusion zone near the star and you want to go back without spending a heatsink then: stand perpendicularly to the star, turn off all modules except thrusters, FSD, life-support (though if you have 10+ minutes you can deactivate it too, as the whole process will take only about 30 seconds) and those which consume 0% of energy (scanners, heatsinks etc), engage FSD and accelerate forward, you should have about 60-80% heat level during charge, after flying from the star activate all needed modules.
My Own Fails
The pictures in this section are not really informative and inserted only to prevent it from becoming plain text. So you can just read it and enjoy the views.
Yeah, it is pretty easy to give advices but harder to tell about your own mistakes and fails. I know that you want to read about them, so here they are:
Boosting Exclusion Zone Dropping
I was dropped to normal space by exclusion zone during boosting three times and all three were near white dwarfs, that is why I strongly do not recommend to boost from them. First was on DBE not far from the bubble and I actually managed to escape during the first try because the ship is light and easy-to-control. Second was on Python and though hull and modules were quite durable I flew out only on the second try. The last one has happened recently on Anaconda during the expedition and I have been really frightned by the case: the ship is fully filled with various modules thus itself really heavy, and in addition it has D-class thrusters. Plus, it had been already pretty damaged by the time I got in the jet, so escaping was a real trouble and I managed to do it only on the 6 or 7 try.
Jet Turning
I actually was turned to the core only one time and even then it was my mistake cause I flew out of jet too early and decided just to pitch the prow of the DBE 180 degrees to return. As a result, I was just sucked by the jet and was slowly approaching the core. I dropped to nornal space, and though I was really being shaked by the jet I managed to point the ship about 30 degrees from the core and flew out mostly fine with 70% of canopy and slight module damage
Stuck Without Fuel
I do not know how, but during all of the 2000 played hours I have never run out of fuel and called Fuel Rats. Either it is because I tend to install fuel scoop on nearly every ship or because I am very cautious or because I am just lucky – I do not know. Though there was a moment when I was close to it. While I was exploring Black Fields[www.edsm.net] I was not really careful and at some point found out that I did not have enough fuel to do 3 jumps to the scoopable star (the star density there is higly low , plus, it is a black hole cluster). I decided not to give up so quick (after all, I had 25 min of oxygen and still pretty much fuel to power life-support for several hours, so even if I would fail I could be rescued) and jumped to the nearby system which had Neutron Star 300 000 light seconds from the central black hole. I got to the former, boosted and managed to escape to the closest scoopable star.
Stuck in the One-Way System
As with the previous point, it happend zero times though I could potentially end up in such situation during trip to HL Lupis. It is distant catalogue system which I thought I could get to, but it turned out that it is actually one-way trip which requires boost form the nearby (not actually nearby with 200 light year distance but whatever) neutron star. I was pretty dissapointed by this fact but the dissapoinment could be much more considarable if I actually entered the system.
Hitting Star’s Exclusion Zone After Entering the System
It happened countless times and really hate myself because of this. I tend to do something paralelly during long flights: not that I get bored by them but just why not do some minor things while you have a kind of free time. So, I am too lazy to wait these 10 seconds of charge and I just engage FSD and minimize the game until the jump is finished. I usually manage to fly out of the hitting course with normal stars but, as I have already mentioned, it does not work with black holes cause you have less than a second to take any actions before you are dropped. So, if you are as lazy as me just look at the star class of the next system during charge before leaving the game and make sure it is not a black hole. If it is – make yourself wait these couple of seconds of charge and press slowdown button. The black holes are hard to come across (even in the galactic center), so you will not lose lots of time by these small waitings.
