I have arrived at home base! Now docked in Jameson Memorial in Shinrarta Dezhra.
The ship looked a little ragged before getting it repainted. But it was in sound, mechanical condition.
On this trip, I passed scanned and mapped in 1,385 systems. Selling the data earned me a total of 420,425,919 credits. There was an additional 332,500 CR for codex vouchers. A nice income for 34 days of travel!
Here are my exploration statistics as of this date:
Today I made it to the region called Sanguineous Rim. It was a bit of a convulted route that took me back into Hawking's Gap, then the Outer Orion Spur then back into Achilles's Altar. This was because I was following a route with neutron stars to reduce the number of jumps.
Along the way, I found 2 neutron stars for which I am "first to discover". I found a system with four water worlds; I'm not first to discover but I am first to map! Also, I found 2 earth-like worlds and will get first to discover and map bonuses for both.
I arrived in Wregoo LA-A d3 and will be camping here before heading home to Jameson Memorial in Shinrarta Dezhra.
Yesterday I arrived on the north end of the region called Achilles Altar. I am now making my way to the next region, Sanguineous Rim, which is counter-clockwise from Achilles Altar.
I was making my way across Hawking's Gap and found myself arriving in systems which were previously explored. I seemed to be following the path of a Cmdr Dr. Feelgood 01 in particular.
When you forego scanning and mapping every body you come upon, you can still make a decent credit just by being the first to discover the stars. I wasn't getting those first discoveries. I don't know why Hawking's Gap was proving to be so heavily explored, but apparently it's a popular destination for a lot of commanders!
One thing I've learned in my 9 months of exploring the galaxy is that most commanders fly close to the galactic plane (zero on the Y axis). So to get off of the beaten trail, I went "down" to -150 light years. I then scrolled across to the other end of the region, found a star sitting near the -99 LY mark and plotted a course to that. Now I'm passing through undiscovered systems, except for the odd one here and there.
I found a very interesting little body to camp on for the night. This area had multiple meteor strikes, giving it a very rugged landscape.
I've been making slow progress across the end of Hawking's Gap. This included 3 sessions of surface mining on 2 different world looking for arsenic, vanadium and polonium. Found the first two but not the third. These materials are needed for FSD injections.
However, I finally made it back to a more densely populated part of the galaxy and I can now plot long routes across the region.
I'm calling it day before starting a 70 jump trip.
Today was very productive. I was able to make a series of about 20 to 30 jumps towards the region called Lyra's Song before I started to run out of stars.
Once that happened, it became a very fun and interesting challenge. It involves locating a star that will take you in the desired direction and determining its distance. If it's beyond your ship's maximum jump range, you determine if an FSD injection (a temporary boost to jump range, good for one jump) will get you there. If so, do the injection, make the one jump and repeat the process.
In this manner, I sometimes managed to get to a small cluster where the navigation computer could plot a 2 to 4 jump route without using the injections. The injections consume resources and resources are limited! It's best to not use the injections if you don't have to.
I found a very pretty earth-like world, way out here in the middle of nowhere.
Later, I found a metal rich planet. I decided to land and do some mining to see if I could get some of the resources needed for FSD injections. This may be the smallest planet (moon) I have ever landed on. It has a radius of only 170 kilometres!
I made back into Hawking's Gap, which sits beside Lyra's Song. It finally became very difficult to find a path into Lyra's Song, so I parked it for the night. I may need to move further clockwise along the region before trying to go outward into Lyra's Song again. I'm right on the edge of the border, but the closest star inside the other region is about 140 light years away. Even with an FSD injection, my maximum jump range is 127.24. That just doesn't work!
I finished scanning (but not mapping) the Meamoea AQ-Y c16 series of systems.
I then decided to continue my plan of going as far out towards the edge as I can, then circle back to the bubble.
After forty some jumps, I came to Ooscs Aoc IB-q b46-0. On the trip out here, I hit the jackpot! A system had not one, but two earth-like worlds! Orbiting each other just 1 light second apart. That pair should fetch anywhere from 2 million to 6 million credits.
I have no way of knowing for certain, but I'm guessing my total for this trip is somewhere in the 50 to 100 million credits earned so far.
Today I charted 3 systems:
Meamoea AQ-Y c16-1
Meamoea AQ-Y c16-2
Meamoea AQ-Y c16-3
The ship is running smoothly, albeit looking a little rough around the edges.
My charting of the Meamoea AQ-Y systems continues.
Today I scanned and mapped:
Meamoea AQ-Y e0 and Meamoea AQ-Y e1
Meamoea AQ-Y f0
Meamoea AQ-Y c0 and c1
Meamoea AQ-Y c16-0
Here's an interesting thing: there are no systems numbered c1 to c15. It jumps from c0 to c16. I have no idea why. You'll have to ask the astronomers!
As I was jumping around, I arrived in Meamoea ZU-G b13-0 and spotted a notable stellar phenomon (which is how my scanners identify biologic objects in space). It was a group of pods floating in the ring of a gas giant.
Arrived at Meamoea AQ-Y c16-0 and camped on 1 after mapping the system.
After making a few jumps on the way towards the outer edge, I found an area where there were no signs of previous explorers. So for the rest of the day, I explored the ten systems which are included in the Meamoea AQ-Y d set (d0 to d9).
Nothing extraodinary was discovered. Mostly gas giants and icy bodies. I found one metal rich world and one or two systems had white dwarf stars as their primaries.
I am now 33,157.28 LY from home.
Today I started to explore this nebula. I checked four systems at random and all four were previously visited by other commanders. Which isn't surprising. This is a large, prominant nebula and anyone coming out to this end of the galaxy is likely to visit it!
So, a new plan. I am going to go as far out on the edge of the galaxy as I can. I'll explore the very rim and slowly make my way back towards the bubble.
*Later this same day.*
I noticed that there is a region on the edge of the galaxy called Tenebrae. It is completely devoid of stars. I find it odd to have a section of space marked off as a region of a galaxy, yet there are no stars there.
In my wanderings I found some peduncle trees and went in for some close up photos of them. The first one has my ship parked about 50 metres from the tree, to show the scale of these things. They must be about 200 metres across.
Today I arrived at my goal! It was an interesting trip. I found several water worlds, but, more importantly I found an earth-like world! Yes, it had been previously scanned and mapped by another explorer, but it will still get me 1 to 3 million credits. I had hoped to find several earth-like worlds on my trip out here and earlier today, thought I was going to come up empty handed. Luck of the draw!
I forgot to mention yesterday that I have crossed into the region known as Dryman's Point.
But, other exciting news. I found two systems with biological life in them. The first system had clouds of viride peduncle trees in two locations.
The next system had three clouds, but I only visited one. This cloud was different from others I have seen in the past 9 months of exploration, in that it had three different life forms in it; candidum peduncle pods, rebelium peduncle trees and rebeum metallic crystals. I've seen the crystals in other systems, today was the first time I had seen the trees or the pods. I didn't see any candidum peduncle trees here, so I assume they release the pods, die and then the pods create new trees. But I'm not a xeno-biologist so I am just guessing.
I continued on towards the nebula. At a range of 204 LY I took this photo of it. This was 4 jumps away from my destination. My next jump brought me to a neutron star. I used it to supercharge my FSD and finished the trip in 1 more jump instead of 3.
Found an interesting looking icy body to park on for the night. It has mountains as well as craters, some interesting soil colours and half of the sky is filled with the nebula.
This brings me to the end of my flight out to this region. Below are some images from my galaxy map, showing you where I am in relation to the bubble (the area occupied by the human race, denoted by the markers in the distance) and the centre of the galaxy. I am 32,834.49 LY from home. The next time I head out, I will begin exploring this nebula to see what I can find!
Jumped my way over to Greou Phio EA-P c22-6, a distance of 3,797.14 LY (56 jumps).
Not much of interest along the route today. A lot of systems that were just stars, no planets. Many that had planets only had icy bodies (and they aren't worth scanning). I did find one ammonia planet, which someone else had discovered before me.
Shinrarta Dezhra is now 28,788.94 LY away and my destination, Eock Prau OV-V b16-0 is 4,279.23 LY away. Which means I can reach that in about 2 to 2 1/2 hours of flying.
I made my way to Nueloi EG-I b57-0, a distance of 4,2253.54 LY (70 jumps). Only found 1 water world today and nothing much else of interest.
Made my base camp on the first moon of the first gas giant.
I started out my day by finding a nearby neutron star; Plieleae EI-Z d1-17 a jump of 48.03 LY. I hopped over there and used one of the jets to over charge my FSD drive. This increased my jump range to a little over 250 LY.
I used that to jump over to Plieleae NV-F b17-7, a jump of 251 LY. From there, I plotted a course to Eifowns IT-O d7-64 4,027.29 LY or 67 jumps.
This is turning out to be my lucky voyage! Once again today I discovered a system with 3 water worlds, all of which were scanned and mapped.
But then I found something in Eifowns QC-V c5-19 which seems to be fairly rare; a water giant. I'm not sure what the market value of the data for one of those is, so I scanned and mapped it. Just in case.
Here is my base camp for the night.
Today I travelled a total of 4,008.53 LY to a system called Plieleae QW-V b8-10.
Here's a photo I took of the Milky Way galaxy. Yes, I changed the colour of the ship! I do that once in awhile, just to shake things up.
At this point, I was travelling through a region filled with immense dust clouds, covering thousands of light years of space.
Along the route today I found a system which had three water worlds, all in close proximity to each other! I surface mapped all three which should get me about 2.5 to 3 million credits for that system.
Here are some photos of where I landed for the night. This little moon was heavily peppered with asteroids in its past. I found a level piece of ground and set down.
This is why I like being out in galactic space. I am the first person to discover this little moon, the first person to ever land on it and the first person to ever drive across its surface. Amazing!
Looking up at the planet this moon orbits.
Moving on.
I targeted a system which would get me over to the Hawking's Gap region; it was 4,754.19 ly away. After making 3 or 4 jumps, I took a photo of the Eta Catalina nebula.
When I reached my destination there wasn't anything there but the star. So I made several more jumps looking for a place to land for the night. I found this bright little chunk of rock:
I inspected the ship. The paint job is holding up remarkably well. In this photo you can see the wear and tear starting in the deeper recesses of the hull.
I found a couple of water worlds, an ammonia world and a metal rich world along the route. I haven't seen a metal rich world in a long time.
In total, I travelled 4,998.11 LY. I am now 13,627.25 LY from Sol and 20,050.94 LY from my distant goal.
