Stellar Cartography clarification...

Never understood it's benefit...

from GalCiv2 Forums
I was wondering if I am missing something with this tech. I understand that it reveals planets along the stars on the mini map, but I've never had a star system not have planets around it, even if they are class 0 planets. Simply put, I see in no shape or form how stellar cartography benefits you, when all I need to do is send a colony ship towards a star and find out if it has habitable planets.
5,663 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It depends on your settings. Planets set to rare and common stars will lead to many empty star systems.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Depends how spread your Planets are. If you have it set to tight clusters then yes a ship sent over there quickly resolves the habitable planets and quickly gets round them as they are always tight into the Star. However if its set to have Planets widely spread from the Star, its useful to have as you then know where the Planets are and can send ships there, without it - on the wide spread Planet setting(s) - you end up stumbling about a bit trying to find the Planets. Can save you quite a few turns in the early game on the latter setting which is valuable. Not an Earth shattering "must have" effect, but in the "usefull" catagory.

Regards
Zy
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's early tech for the early portions of the game. Without it, you may not be able to find the most prospective area to head for first. It seems like it's better to head for a system with more planets which may possibly be colonizable, rather than going to the star system which has only one planet.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On the settings I usually play, tiny to medium map, common stars, common habitable planets, loose clusters, 99.9 percent of the stars have multiple but not neccessarily habitable planets.

SC is a wasted tech for me
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have seen stars with no planets. I've also seen stars with only one or two planets. So it is useful to see planets on the minimap.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
2 points:

1) stellar cartography is a "gateway" tech so it is worth researching purely for that reason.
2) there is a slight brightness difference between high and low quality planets on the minimap.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The settings I play, I frequently get as many as half of my stars having no planets whatsoever. I have yet to see even the slightest difference between stars with high and low quality planets on the minimap, either before or after I have explored the area they are in.