ETARC - A Brief History of the Forum and the Hub

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Greetings Fellow Interloper!

Welcome to one of the most friendly communities for NMS you will find on the internet. Here you can wax lyrical about your love of the game and know that you are amongst good company, if you’re feeling a little daunted at joining an established community, just go ahead and introduce yourself in the Introductions thread and see how many responses you get.

This forum is a place where you can ask innocent questions, just be sure to set the category to Help a Fellow Traveler, here people will help you and not make you feel small, (we’ve all been staring at that broken ship with no clue what to do.) You can share your favourite photos in the Screenshots 1.5, comical pictures in Lighter side of NMS and others like, Ode to Snappies.

If you made it here, welcome home.

A Brief History

Long before the release of NEXT, even before the previous update, Atlas Rises, (update 1.3) ‘Waking Titan’ began. ‘Waking Titan’ is an ARG (Augmented Reality Game) whereby real clues are given for a community to solve including audio, (using spectrographs to find hidden messages in seemingly useless audio clips) visual, (scrambled pictures) and maths puzzles, (decoding HEX, ASCII, and using sequences like Fibonacci) to unlock the next clue. For full details on this and the many stages, visit Game Detectives. Waking Titan has been ongoing right up until the release of NEXT, and who knows, possibly further.

Our own history is almost as long as Waking Titan, indeed it started as a forum set up by the Puppet Masters.

During Phase 1, when the First Glyph was revealed, a link to the ETARC Forums was discovered. ETARC, (Edison Township Amateur Radio Club) appeared to be website for Ham Radio enthusiasts and many people participating in the ARG joined up. This was before it was even confirmed that Waking-Titan and NMS were confirmed to be connected, (that wasn’t until the Live and In Game drops from the Second Glyph)

At the end of Phase 3 of the Waking Titan ARG and a week before Atlas Rises was released, breaking the fourth wall, Sean Murray sent an email thanking everyone for their contributions and support. At the end, he revealed that the ETARC forum would be retained and introduced it as the Official CSD Forum.

A major rebrand of the forum soon followed including a new name and a new colour scheme.

The forum grew and people gathered to share their experiences within the ARG and the game, finding a haven where they could talk passionately about NMS and it was clear that many of us all shared a collective conscious, perhaps the game has that effect on people or that it attracts a certain type of person.

We decided that our name and our heritage should be expanded upon and, seeing the success of other groups and hubs, we ventured to form our own Hub. A location was discovered within a chain of stars, scouted, decided upon and settled and slowly but surely, they came.

FAQ

Q: What’s the ETARC Hub?

A: The ETARC hub is not a government or an organisation. It’s a place, based on an idea. A collection of like-minded individuals who, through their love of the game, decided to create a physical representation of those values in game. A place where we can get together if you like. Membership to the Hub is not the same as membership to the Forums, they do not go hand in hand and no one is forced to do anything they don’t want to. Everything is voluntary with an easy going, ‘drop-in drop-out’ system if you so wish and is there for those who want to give something back to the community.

Q: Ok, so why ETARC? Aren’t we the CSD?

A: Yes we are. We hold our roots dear however and the name stuck, there are many different branches and groups of the CSD, (Reddit CSD, Discord CSD) so to give ourselves an identity we kept ETARC. This explains the ‘E’ in ECSD, Etarc Citizen Science Division, it’s just something that make us a little different. Membership is not exclusive of other groups and you’ll find you may see familiar user names in different areas. We all belong to the CSD community, where you are most frequently active has no bearing on anything other than the friendships you forge in your travels.

Q: Can you tell me who’s in charge here!

A: NMS is the sort of game that allows you to be free and make your own choices, to not be constrained by rules and regulations is one of the joys of playing. We have tried to preserve this with our approach to the Hub and the forum and as a result, there is not one person or group of people that make all the big decisions. Although we have people here with the ‘Leader’ tag, their contribution is mostly Forum based.

Q: So I’d love to contribute too, how do I do it?

A: There is a group of members who’s claim to fame is the formation of the Hub. But this alone, and just because we have been around a long time does not mean we have all the answers, we do offer guidance to anyone who wants or needs it. If you have an idea or suggestion on implementing or changing something, create a new thread and state your case!

The First Hub Iteration

During the Atlas Rises era, The Etarc Hub was located in the Alpha Quadrant of Euclid, (PS4/PC) surrounding a uniquely long chain of stars, stretching between 2 regions.
The Capital planet of Edison in the Etarcia ECSD system, is located midway up the star chain and for residents residing beside the central star chain, the constellation is clearly visible in the night sky.

The Second Hub Iteration

The Capital is sadly no more, there are now comm balls floating in space so a new location either within the chain, or far removed is being considered. The Hub is more an ideal and thus any physical representation of it is open to change.

With the release of NEXT, there are obviously some incredible possibilities now as we all build together…

Friends of ECSD

We claim friendship with a few organisations, Hubs and groups. If you want yours added, speak up!

This post will be updated: If you spot any inconsistencies or inaccuracies within the above, please do not hesitate to send me a PM so I can correct the error.

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Do we know how portals work now in terms of getting our ships to the other side? Just claim a base and teleport to it?

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Yes. @Mad-Hatter has made it through with his ship!

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@DarthTrethon
Just dial up the portal and step tnrough and your ship will be there waiting. Not sure if mine being an orb exotic S class has anything to do with it…but yes. Ships can go with you through portals.
Base claiming is simple if you have the makings of a base computer.

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Oh, so they made it really simple now…we don’t even have to claim a base to freely go wherever we want via portals…useful to know.

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@BoomstickJoe is also an administrator of the Spacing Guild

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Away the weekend but love everything youre doing, sorry I couldn’t join your session mad hatter, it was 5 am and I was falling asleep at the wheel on an extreme hazard planet :slight_smile:

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So do we discuss Etarc hub stuff here, do we use the other discussion topic or create a new one? @Polyphemus @Oshoryu @sheralmyst @Xion4012 I believe you four are the current instigators. :smirk::wink:

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Until the launch of NEXT, we thought we would have an ETARC hub to continue using. I was a little confused that the information I submitted didn’t appear on the galactic map, but that was just a detail.

However, when NEXT did launch, it became clear why our capital wasn’t on the map. It was because it didn’t exist any more. And nearly all of the planets and systems within the hub had suffered greater or lesser degrees of change, re-naming, whatever.

The hub we had was totally trashed.

However, the Firefly chain is still there, and it would be possible to re-build the hub. That’s something I would like to do. But I don’t want to do it while HG are still making changes, and issuing patches. We still don’t know what’s going to change in the near future.

So, my position at the moment is that the hub is on hold. I would like us to rebuild it - but I’m not going to do anything, or even talk about it seriously, until the game is reasonably stable, and there are no more big patches on the way that could upset things.

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My thoughts are towards the fact the Etarc Hub is a collective of likeminded individuals in a location. It’s not political & it’s not an empire, its an area.
So long as there is a dual chain tower of stars for individuals to collect around & live near, the alterations of major updates shouldn’t matter.
Investigate the systems, name them including the ECSD tag & share info and pics as always.
A community does best when it binds together over a unifying ideal. Why not simply remap the chain. If another update trashes it, simply remap it again.
NMS is all about exploration.
Does it matter if we explore the same regions when they alter?

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Do you know, I totally agree.

But that wasn’t what people wanted. They wanted a capital system, with a capital planet, and a building to represent that.

So, on PC, I made them. Because, at the time, nobody else would.

But if people are happy to follow your suggestion, and just group around an area, with no specific capital - then that will work.

It was always intended that we wouldn’t have a government. We’d just be a society of friends. And you’re right. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do that right now. And if it changes, then we change with it.

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~ "What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. " ~

Edison/Etarica can still be called our capital. The nice thing is everyone can build there, (I am ignorant of any limitations). I am there, I found the Space Comms :grinning:, landed on a small island under them and claimed a base. I haven’t built any thing else on that island. I built another base on the continent. Doesn’t seem to have any glitches, but the name, “New Ez…b…” something. reminder I am on PS4.

I agree, with renaming and rediscovering, just added the ECSD. The Tag is just to let people know they are there and we exist.

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I wanted to wait until I visited the Hub/Capital before making any comments. Having finally made it here, well…I’m concerned.

This entire system is bugged to high heaven. Many of the planets still display old planetary information, despite major changes. When I first checked the discoveries menu, it listed Edison as one of the planets, but then disappeared after landing on the assumed capital. New Elzebu is the planet that used to be our capital. Its now a “Paradise Planet” but the discoveries menu says there is cactus flesh growing there. And there seems to be some kind of tiny creature that is impossible to scan.

I was planning to start a new star list today. If the other systems in the chain are as messed up as ETARCIA, that might not be possible.

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I have spent some time exploring the Hub, and there are issues everywhere. I’ve spoken to one of the original surveyors, and it seems like the game has credited them with multiple uploads they never made. While at the same time, planets that were uploaded prior to Next aren’t anymore.

Here’s another one I managed to document, and this isn’t the only system that I’ve seen it in.

When entering this system, the game properly displays the pre-NEXT upload data.

Both from space, and on my ships display, the planet name did not match the discovery menu. I assumed this would update to the uploaded state once I stepped out of my ship.

But it didn’t. In fact, I got the opposite effect.

Returning to the discoveries menu, it had updated to new information. Confusingly, not all of it either. The “Planet Data” updated properly, but the “Resources” still display data for the old planet. And it is now available for upload again.

This is the first bug I’ve been bothered by enough to want to report it, and ZenDesk will be hearing about this.

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Old discoveries have always caused problems after galactic resets. Weirdly the game prioritizes the original data at the time of discovery/upload over the actual current state. This leads to completely irrelevant data being downloaded to our lists - incorrect planet info, non-existant flora/fauna, etc. It’s unfortunate that it’s still doing this years later. I don’t want to just toss out the historic data, but the game should treat it as such, visually/functionally separating it from the current state so as not to interfere. As you’ve shown, the conflicting data makes it difficult to build a coherent settlement in previously-discovered systems.

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I guess it’s home now :slight_smile:


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Any mention of ETARC? Or the fire fly chain?

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Yep.

image

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Ahhh. Finally the Archives of Glass are complete.
The towering starchain, the central pillar of glittering goodness, the beacon of harmony… whatever you call it.
Our home is now recognized & in the records.
I feel a sense of closure and completeness with this news. :hugs:

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My OCD &“inner Gram’azi” has been … triggered … >_<

I’ve seen variations, and I’m tempted to put it to a POLL to resolve it:

Etarcains ← on the Galactic Atlas, seen above (also missing a hyphen for “shire-like”)
Etaricans ← can’t be right if it ‘breaks up’ the ETARC
Etarcians

We’ve finally got a damn good logo; can we maybe settle on ONE term to refer to its residents, and stick to it?! :open_mouth: :stuck_out_tongue:
:rofl: :+1:

Or, we can consider even more alternatives:

Etarcish / Etarclish
Etarckese …Etarckesians!!
Etarcan / Etarcon / Etarcun
… and, finally …
Etarcazoolian(s) :wink:

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