Here I am hopping from system to system towards the center of the galaxy, dutifully as Nada has requested. Maybe spending too much time trying (and sometimes failing) to find that last creature to complete the survey of animals on some random planet. But still, making decent progress I thought.

Then I enter the region near the galactic core and, not surprisingly, quite a few of the systems there have been previously discovered. Stands to reason, since we're all (or mostly) converging on the same location.

But the dates of discovery on many of the systems are ... rather early. The earliest I've seen is 15 August 2016, which was just a few days after release. In fact, a majority of the discovered systems in that particular sub-region were first visited within two weeks of the release. I wouldn't be too surprised if there's not one on the same day.

So, how? I'm guessing there's a mod that turns the gain on the warp drives up to 11? Or a way of "aiming" the black hole jumps? Not looking to use the enhancement, whatever it is. I prefer to play it straight but Dang! I was kind of surprised.

CENSORED BY GOG

There are indeed mods available for PC which greatly increase warp distance, but they did not appear on launch day. I think the earliest players to reach the center probably were people with the skills to analyse savegame files, detect the location information, and substitute a location near the center. Not far behind them would be the "speed runners", players who do nothing but gather the ingredients for warp cells and jump. This remember was much easier before the first update, when resources were more plentiful. I seem to remember that people were already complaining about the contents of the center within a day or two of release.

There isn't any way to aim black holes, but the way they work it doesn't matter if you are heading for the center. When you use one, you will always emerge 1500-2000 LY closer to the center than you were, though the direction is random.

@Serren and @pgrace

Thanks guys! That all makes perfect sense. It was cool to see all of the custom-named jumping-off points but a shock to see how early they were.

It's one of the reasons i've been playing NMS since release without connecting to the servers. I just don't want any of that 'on-line' functionality spoiling my game experience.