Where the Galaxy Ends: Sol to Oevasy SG-Y D0 in less than 16 hours (with quick stops at A* and Beagle Point)
For those who don't want the details, and just the quick summary:
Sagittarius A*: 5:49:35
Beagle Point: 15:36:36
Oevasy SG-Y D0: 15:53:09
It’s time for another run to the edge of the galaxy. As for why… why again… well, the main reason why is a change from last year. Last year, when I made this run, I had no jumponium, and engineering hadn’t been introduced yet. Despite this, I was still able to make it to Beagle Point in less than 24 hours.
There are some things that will act at cross-purposes in this run. For instance – and this may seem a contradiction – I intend to make it to Beagle Point and then Ishum’s Reach in record time, but set a very poor mark in the A* Challenge. The reason is that jumponium, something I’m intending to use when I seriously run in the A*, is going to be conserved for gallivanting around the edge of the galaxy
That said... this time, I do have jumponium, and I do have engineering, to the point of having a 58.4ly jump range. So... let's have some fun here.
16:41:00, 25 February 3303 – Launch from Sol.
Okay, that’s odd. Didn’t notice it in prep, but no audio for the game.
17:01:00 – Finally diagnosed why no audio, and fixed. Lost a few seconds doing it, though.
Making 13:40 per kylie is a wonderful thing.
17:41:00 – One hour down, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.6 kylies down. I love Engineering…
17:53:00 – Don’t you hate it when you leap into a star system, and you’re placed sufficiently far from the star that you can’t scoop right away?
18:30:00 – Observation: Pain – the right kind of pain – can be a great focus. Like any good Bucky racer, I’ve prepared, and that includes preparing the snacks. Extremely spicy snacks. Snacks so spicy that, if you were to give them to friends, you would have a lot fewer friends – but at least they’d be interesting friends.
Sometimes it helps to have lived in a place where spicy food is a normal thing.
18:41:00 – Two hours in, and I’m starting to see why some people oppose advances in the tech/gameplay in Elite. I’ve already covered 9 kylies in two hours. A sub-9-hour standard-class A* Challenge run - and the number of people who’ve done that you could count on one hand – requires about a 3 kylie/hr rate. So engineering on a run – and this is not the most technically clean run I’ve ever done – puts travel through the galaxy on a different level, providing a 50% boost to speed. Some people might think this ‘isn’t fair’ for newer players to have these advantages.
That’s certainly one way of looking at it. I prefer to look at it another way: You can’t compare what Up2d4t3 did with a modified Anaconda to what Alot did with a standard-class Anaconda, any more than you could compare what Alot did with what Zulu Romeo did. Different machinery, different conditions, different situations. Take the moment for what it is, and do the best you can with it.
Recently some people have been complaining about the multicrew features in 2.3 coming up, that it would ‘cheapen’ exploration for someone to be able to join another explorer’s crew and see things that only ‘real’ explorers ‘earn’ the right to see. I really don’t see the point of such arguments, to be honest; there’s a difference between watching someone else getting there and getting there yourself.
Besides, to quote Spider Robinson, “A shared pain is lessened; a shared joy is doubled.” I have no problem sharing the joy.
Which brings me to one other thing… I plan to test Multicrew in 2.3 Beta. From Ishum’s Reach. That is taking the moment and doing the best you can with it.
18:48:00 – I’ve run through stars before when jumping into a system. I just don’t remember it being quite so… dramatic. More specifically, I don’t remember the ‘boom’ as you’re going through it. Certainly shocked me a bit.
Forgot to take the loadout shot. Going to need to use some kind of substitute – likely the right-hand panel that shows the equipment.
19:30:00 – About 13 kylies gone. Roughly halfway to A*; roughly 20% to Beagle Point.
19:36:00 – The rant about changes in the game, about how we do the best we can with what we have at the time, brought one other thing to mind. Musical composers of any era, no matter the era, generally worked with the best and most modern tools they had. For Bach, this meant a harpsichord; for Beethoven, this meant piano, violin, and the various parts of the symphony; for Bob Dylan, this meant a guitar – including an electrical guitar, to the horror of folk music fans in the 1960s. If those baroque and classical and romantic composers were around today, they’d likely be writing five-minute songs for vocals, electric guitar, keyboard, and drum kit. Sometimes this meant oddities; occasionally you’ll see a famous composer write a work for a glass armonica or a theremin. But, in all of these cases, the composers did the best they could with the equipment available. And we are much the richer for it, no matter the tools they used.
In closing, I give you the following thought. Bob Dylan – with Autotune. I think we all would have been much happier if that had been around in 1965…
20:00:00 – I’m likely going to have to face a choice in a few minutes.
I’ve had the filter on the route plotter set to just K and M stars. The problem is, the more stars filtered out, the longer the route plotter takes; the last one took about 15 seconds more than I wanted, even though it used a ‘magic number’. Debating whether or not I should open it up to all scoopables and run with it.
20:08:40 – Yeah, the last plot took 23 seconds. It’s time to widen the search parameters, and hope that the big stars don’t mess us up too much.
20:22:00 – Well, changing the parameters reduced it to 14 seconds. Will see if that’s worth it.
Keep in mind… any speed run is about tradeoffs. Is that extra nine seconds worth possibly taking more time to scoop due to a hotter and larger star? Is having this extra bit of fuel worth the loss in jump range? Is having a shield – and the loss of jump range it represents – worth knowing that your first time out of the mail slot is the only time out of the mail slot?
And, of course, about five stars into this set… an A class. Got through it okay… basically stuck to the edges, scooping about 500 kg/sec, and didn’t lose any real appreciable time.
20:41:00 – Four hours in, about 18 kylies down. Makes me think about a 5:45 A* time, which is what I expected.
20:50:00 – Feels like the worst of all worlds when it comes to route plotting. Now I’m debating something dangerous – going to all stars are eligible. That would mean being very careful. I have a two-jump-and-safety tank, so I could do it if I was careful.
Of course, since when have the words “careful” and “Buckyball” been used in the same sentence, except with the word “NOT” added?
As bonkers as it sounds, the best way to go about an A* run might be to just accept all stars in the plot, and plan around the unscoopables.
21:30:00 – It’s looking like a 5:50 A* run – even worse than what I’d projected. Ugh.
22:23:00 – 10 jumps to A*.
On future runs, I’m going to have to go old-school, and just not have star class filtering. It just takes too long to plot.
22:30:35 – Reached A*. Didn’t stay long. Long way to go.
22:46:00 – Well, I’m officially off the page.
Planning a run to Beagle Point and beyond isn’t quite like planning an A* run. With an A* run, it’s a lot less difficult to scout out a route. Going to Beagle… there’s a part that you must scout out in advance (the Abyss, the Briar Patch), there’s a part that’s a good idea to scout out in advance (the run from the bubble to A*), and there’s a part of it that’s very difficult to scout out in advance (the area between A* and the Abyss.) When I scouted out my A* route, I put in one bookmark beyond A*.
The next bookmark is the entrance to the Abyss.
The difficulty in making it out here to scout means that it can surprise – and will, if you’re not familiar. Around 35k from Sol is the Thargoid Wall, a massive set of permit-locked systems several kylies wide and deep, and up to 700 ly above and below the galactic plane. And unless you know it’s there, either through scouting or reading something like this, it will mean a long and time-consuming detour.
It’s why I’m wondering about some things with this run. Normally, if I have a choice, I run about 100-200 ly above the galactic plane; this is especially useful on a Beagle run, due to the aforementioned wall. Having to stay on the galactic plane for the first part of the run – in other words, combining an A* and Beagle run into one – did me no favors.
23:41:00 7 hours so far. Somewhere beyond 30,000 now… That happens sometimes on a run like this. You lose track of space; you lose track of where you are.
If you wonder why some of my writing in these things goes into cloudcuckooland, well, now you know.
Oddly enough, I know better where I am above the galactic plane; I’m about 500 above it at the moment. That’ll be important later. I’ll get to about 700 above the plane, stay there until about 38000-39000 north of Sol, then go down to the galactic plane VERY quickly.
0:00:00, 26 February – On the Elite: Dangerous Facebook community, someone was talking about how they would eat while playing. My thought at that point: “You should try cooking while playing.”
And yes; you learn to do a lot of things in that 13 seconds or so of witchspace.
0:15:00 – about 33,000 from Sol. For those keeping score, I am now closer to Oevasy SG-Y D0 than I am Sol.
0:41:00 – 8 hours in. About 35,000 ly from Sol.
And right now, I am really glad that the long waits to plot a route are done. No more burning 30-45 seconds with every route plot.
0:50:00 – Probably the one thing that has caused more fatigue than anything is the change in where the ship exits witchspace in a system. Used to be it was more or less random. Now, the ship exits witchspace based on the system it came from. As anyone who’s done a Bucky A* run will tell you, no situation is more difficult than when the destination star is behind the current star.
Now, if only Frontier would interject another dose of common sense and allow for FSD charging without line-of-sight…
1:20:00 I am left with an odd question. Is the wall gone?
In searching for stars to plot toward, I intentionally set my cursor (or whatever it’s called) downward, to see the Bleia and Preia systems. And yet… I couldn’t find them. Granted, I didn’t go all that far… so maybe I didn’t go far enough… but that absence surprises me.
Maybe it’s the location, I don’t know. I’ll need to look into it when I have more time.
1:44:00 First faceplant. Was filling a glass of water in the kitchen, and didn’t get back to the computer in time. Yes; even a glass of water can be dangerous on a run like this.
That said… I’m making silly mistakes, and this was one. I hadn’t put on music yet; time I did. Time to let the iTunes Buckyball Mix from Hell get me home.
1:55:00 – 40,000 ly.
2:15:00 – One thing about this area… now that I’m out of the core, one good thing… the destination system usually isn’t precisely behind the current star. Makes scooping and jumping far more pleasant.
2:35:00 – A technique to use when traveling anywhere but the core. Plot as far as you can go – as close to 1000 ly as you can get. Then… don’t make the last jump in the sequence, because it’s usually far shorter than the others. Good, efficient jump technique.
And, clearly, my verbal skills have gone caveman. Next thing you know, I’m going to start attacking black obelisks with animal bones.
Actually, that’s fairly normal. People stop talking as they get tired. Moreover, the 30s and 40s are a long stretch of very little. Energy is still high early on, the 20s are punctuated by A* and the core, the 50s have the approaching Abyss… but the 30s and 40s are just there.
2:41:00 – 43,300. Not as good an average (4.33 kylies/hr) as I would have liked.
3:00:00 – Yeah… I remember this slowdown. It’s nowhere near as pronounced as it was last time; a 58.4 ly range will do that. Here, the slowdown is the difference between 17 and 19 jumps per kylie. Before, the slowdown was from 25 to 29 jumps per kylie.
3:20:00 – Wow. Give credit to Frontier where credit is due. That was the first witchspace jump that took more than 14 seconds. I’m not sure how many hundreds of jumps it’s been to this point; for this to be the first?
And how many of you have been playing this game long enough to remember Mr. Braben’s Wild Ride?
3:45:00 – Fun thought for the moment. Just thinking of the oddity of having an exploration diary that has to be put in terms of minutes.
3:56:00 – Proof that you’ve gone a little loopy: You’re listening to the song “No Time” by the Guess Who, the line “I found myself some wings!” gets sung… and you imagine the lead singer with a basket of Buffalo wings.
4:05:00 – “Mad is the captain of Alpha Centauri
We must be out of our minds.
Still we are shipmates, bound for tomorrow
And everyone here’s flying blind…”
Needless to say, I have a very eclectic playlist.
4:10:00 – I’m amazed at just how empty space is looking now…
4:19:00 – 50,000 ly.
In other words, while not in a straight line (because, well, the galaxy doesn’t have a diameter that large), it is certainly possible to travel 100,000 ly in a 24-hour period. Perhaps make a hexagonal route with six stars roughly 16,667 ly from Sadge?
4:30:00 – I’m making silly mistakes still. I was admiring my own flying skills so much I forgot to start charging the FSD.
4:41:00 – 12 hours. 51,600 ly from Sol. About 14,000 from Oevasy SG-Y D0.
4:51:00 – I haven’t had a single major internet hiccup or graphics card hiccup during this run. Thank goodness. Granted, the run isn’t done, but that says a great deal.
Veteran Buckyballers… we tend to be a little paranoid about our runs. To give an idea about the level of paranoia… before starting, I switched the graphics from borderless (which I prefer) to fullscreen (which is more stable), unplugged every internet-capable device that wasn’t within reach, and unplugged the router for about 30 minutes before starting.
Given how often internet hiccups and graphics hiccups happened on earlier runs… well… it’s not paranoia if it works. And, frankly, we’ve already seen just about everything happen.
5:30:00 “Kyrie Eleison down this road that I must travel
Kyrie Eleison through the darkness of the night
Kyrie Eleison where I’m going, will you follow?
Kyrie Eleison on a highway in the light…”
Kind of says it all, really.
5:41:00 – 13 hours. Approaching 56000 ly. Less than 10000ly from Beagle Point and Oevasy SG-Y D0. Still no appreciable slowdown even into 57000.
Keep in mind, 58500 is where the Abyss begins.
I’ll be honest; I have no clue on the Abyss. Well, I do, and I don’t. I know how a 40ly Anaconda cuts through the Abyss. I don’t know how a 58ly Anaconda cuts through the Abyss. Is this the difference between a sword and a vibroblade – or just a sword and a longer sword?
5:48:00 - Oh. I didn’t mean to do that.
On the 25th and 26th of February, 3302, I was… doing the same thing.
Just taking longer.
I knew it was close… I just didn’t know it was the exact date.
5:56:00 – 19-jump kylie. The Abyss is coming.
6:14:00 – The second long witchspace – that one about 23 seconds. The problem with these are those few seconds where you wonder if it’s disconnected.
6:21:00 – At the entrance to the Abyss. Safety net’s off; can’t afford to not allow an unscoopable if it means going on. Here we go…
6:25:00 – Initial results are promising. We’ll see how things go.
6:41:00 – I was hoping for at least 3 kylies/hr through the Abyss. And that’s about what I’m making.
14 hours. 59600ly from Sol.
7:04:00 – It still feels strange whenever I encounter an unscoopable.
7:18:00 – Less than an hour through the Abyss. I can definitely get used to that.
7:20:00 – I was once asked why I spent so much time planning the route, especially in the area beyond the Abyss. The answer is for the same reason I count the number of rows between my seat and the exit row on an airplane: it’s a lot easier to do this sort of thinking in a calm and rational environment than it is in chaos in a diminished mental state.
In other words, if you have to think, think when it’s easy to do so. Fortunately, ideas and thoughts store remarkably well.
And I’ve been flying for over 14 hours. “Diminished mental state” is an apt descriptor.
7:41:00 – 15 hours. 63050 ly down. A little over 2000 ly left.
7:48:00 – I’m seeing longer witchspace times. Not now… please not now…
8:03:00 – I’m still not used to a 58ly jump range. Getting to Beagle used to take several short hops. Now… I just plotted to Beagle from almost a kylie away.
Which brings up the question. Can we get to Oevasy SG-Y D0 in 16 hours? It’s going to be close – especially considering the one thing I don’t have a lot of experience with. I have never used Jumponium.
Ayep. I’ve never used Jumponium before now.
8:17:36 – Beagle Point Reached. 15 hours, 36 minutes, 36 seconds.
Okay. 23 minutes to get to Ishum’s Reach – to the farthest, most remote spot from Sol in the galaxy.
8:25:00 - Familiarity breeds speed. Using Jumponium… not used to it, so the moves are slower than they should be.
8:34:09 – Slow moves, true – but fast enough. Oevasy SG-Y D0 reached. 15 hours, 53 minutes, 9 seconds.
As an aside… I mentioned diminished mental states. Do you know how hard it is to convert the pictures to jpg, then upload to flickr? Even something this simple feels like a challenge.
Anyway, mission accomplished. I wanted to show just how small the galaxy really was. Given I literally went to the opposite end of the galaxy in less than 16 hours? Yeah, it’s pretty small.
Might talk more tomorrow. That said… not many words left. To give an idea, I'm trying to figure out how to private-message friends who are on... and it's a blank. Time to post this, then wish everyone good night.
Until then, some links:
Start in Galileo
A stop at A*
A* in all its glory
Checking in at Beagle Point
Beagle Point shines on
Made it to Oevasy SG-Y D0
Oevasy SG-Y D0
A long way from home
Equipment 1
Equipment 2
Good night, everyone.
For those who don't want the details, and just the quick summary:
Sagittarius A*: 5:49:35
Beagle Point: 15:36:36
Oevasy SG-Y D0: 15:53:09
It’s time for another run to the edge of the galaxy. As for why… why again… well, the main reason why is a change from last year. Last year, when I made this run, I had no jumponium, and engineering hadn’t been introduced yet. Despite this, I was still able to make it to Beagle Point in less than 24 hours.
There are some things that will act at cross-purposes in this run. For instance – and this may seem a contradiction – I intend to make it to Beagle Point and then Ishum’s Reach in record time, but set a very poor mark in the A* Challenge. The reason is that jumponium, something I’m intending to use when I seriously run in the A*, is going to be conserved for gallivanting around the edge of the galaxy
That said... this time, I do have jumponium, and I do have engineering, to the point of having a 58.4ly jump range. So... let's have some fun here.
16:41:00, 25 February 3303 – Launch from Sol.
Okay, that’s odd. Didn’t notice it in prep, but no audio for the game.
17:01:00 – Finally diagnosed why no audio, and fixed. Lost a few seconds doing it, though.
Making 13:40 per kylie is a wonderful thing.
17:41:00 – One hour down, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.6 kylies down. I love Engineering…
17:53:00 – Don’t you hate it when you leap into a star system, and you’re placed sufficiently far from the star that you can’t scoop right away?
18:30:00 – Observation: Pain – the right kind of pain – can be a great focus. Like any good Bucky racer, I’ve prepared, and that includes preparing the snacks. Extremely spicy snacks. Snacks so spicy that, if you were to give them to friends, you would have a lot fewer friends – but at least they’d be interesting friends.
Sometimes it helps to have lived in a place where spicy food is a normal thing.
18:41:00 – Two hours in, and I’m starting to see why some people oppose advances in the tech/gameplay in Elite. I’ve already covered 9 kylies in two hours. A sub-9-hour standard-class A* Challenge run - and the number of people who’ve done that you could count on one hand – requires about a 3 kylie/hr rate. So engineering on a run – and this is not the most technically clean run I’ve ever done – puts travel through the galaxy on a different level, providing a 50% boost to speed. Some people might think this ‘isn’t fair’ for newer players to have these advantages.
That’s certainly one way of looking at it. I prefer to look at it another way: You can’t compare what Up2d4t3 did with a modified Anaconda to what Alot did with a standard-class Anaconda, any more than you could compare what Alot did with what Zulu Romeo did. Different machinery, different conditions, different situations. Take the moment for what it is, and do the best you can with it.
Recently some people have been complaining about the multicrew features in 2.3 coming up, that it would ‘cheapen’ exploration for someone to be able to join another explorer’s crew and see things that only ‘real’ explorers ‘earn’ the right to see. I really don’t see the point of such arguments, to be honest; there’s a difference between watching someone else getting there and getting there yourself.
Besides, to quote Spider Robinson, “A shared pain is lessened; a shared joy is doubled.” I have no problem sharing the joy.
Which brings me to one other thing… I plan to test Multicrew in 2.3 Beta. From Ishum’s Reach. That is taking the moment and doing the best you can with it.
18:48:00 – I’ve run through stars before when jumping into a system. I just don’t remember it being quite so… dramatic. More specifically, I don’t remember the ‘boom’ as you’re going through it. Certainly shocked me a bit.
Forgot to take the loadout shot. Going to need to use some kind of substitute – likely the right-hand panel that shows the equipment.
19:30:00 – About 13 kylies gone. Roughly halfway to A*; roughly 20% to Beagle Point.
19:36:00 – The rant about changes in the game, about how we do the best we can with what we have at the time, brought one other thing to mind. Musical composers of any era, no matter the era, generally worked with the best and most modern tools they had. For Bach, this meant a harpsichord; for Beethoven, this meant piano, violin, and the various parts of the symphony; for Bob Dylan, this meant a guitar – including an electrical guitar, to the horror of folk music fans in the 1960s. If those baroque and classical and romantic composers were around today, they’d likely be writing five-minute songs for vocals, electric guitar, keyboard, and drum kit. Sometimes this meant oddities; occasionally you’ll see a famous composer write a work for a glass armonica or a theremin. But, in all of these cases, the composers did the best they could with the equipment available. And we are much the richer for it, no matter the tools they used.
In closing, I give you the following thought. Bob Dylan – with Autotune. I think we all would have been much happier if that had been around in 1965…
20:00:00 – I’m likely going to have to face a choice in a few minutes.
I’ve had the filter on the route plotter set to just K and M stars. The problem is, the more stars filtered out, the longer the route plotter takes; the last one took about 15 seconds more than I wanted, even though it used a ‘magic number’. Debating whether or not I should open it up to all scoopables and run with it.
20:08:40 – Yeah, the last plot took 23 seconds. It’s time to widen the search parameters, and hope that the big stars don’t mess us up too much.
20:22:00 – Well, changing the parameters reduced it to 14 seconds. Will see if that’s worth it.
Keep in mind… any speed run is about tradeoffs. Is that extra nine seconds worth possibly taking more time to scoop due to a hotter and larger star? Is having this extra bit of fuel worth the loss in jump range? Is having a shield – and the loss of jump range it represents – worth knowing that your first time out of the mail slot is the only time out of the mail slot?
And, of course, about five stars into this set… an A class. Got through it okay… basically stuck to the edges, scooping about 500 kg/sec, and didn’t lose any real appreciable time.
20:41:00 – Four hours in, about 18 kylies down. Makes me think about a 5:45 A* time, which is what I expected.
20:50:00 – Feels like the worst of all worlds when it comes to route plotting. Now I’m debating something dangerous – going to all stars are eligible. That would mean being very careful. I have a two-jump-and-safety tank, so I could do it if I was careful.
Of course, since when have the words “careful” and “Buckyball” been used in the same sentence, except with the word “NOT” added?
As bonkers as it sounds, the best way to go about an A* run might be to just accept all stars in the plot, and plan around the unscoopables.
21:30:00 – It’s looking like a 5:50 A* run – even worse than what I’d projected. Ugh.
22:23:00 – 10 jumps to A*.
On future runs, I’m going to have to go old-school, and just not have star class filtering. It just takes too long to plot.
22:30:35 – Reached A*. Didn’t stay long. Long way to go.
22:46:00 – Well, I’m officially off the page.
Planning a run to Beagle Point and beyond isn’t quite like planning an A* run. With an A* run, it’s a lot less difficult to scout out a route. Going to Beagle… there’s a part that you must scout out in advance (the Abyss, the Briar Patch), there’s a part that’s a good idea to scout out in advance (the run from the bubble to A*), and there’s a part of it that’s very difficult to scout out in advance (the area between A* and the Abyss.) When I scouted out my A* route, I put in one bookmark beyond A*.
The next bookmark is the entrance to the Abyss.
The difficulty in making it out here to scout means that it can surprise – and will, if you’re not familiar. Around 35k from Sol is the Thargoid Wall, a massive set of permit-locked systems several kylies wide and deep, and up to 700 ly above and below the galactic plane. And unless you know it’s there, either through scouting or reading something like this, it will mean a long and time-consuming detour.
It’s why I’m wondering about some things with this run. Normally, if I have a choice, I run about 100-200 ly above the galactic plane; this is especially useful on a Beagle run, due to the aforementioned wall. Having to stay on the galactic plane for the first part of the run – in other words, combining an A* and Beagle run into one – did me no favors.
23:41:00 7 hours so far. Somewhere beyond 30,000 now… That happens sometimes on a run like this. You lose track of space; you lose track of where you are.
If you wonder why some of my writing in these things goes into cloudcuckooland, well, now you know.
Oddly enough, I know better where I am above the galactic plane; I’m about 500 above it at the moment. That’ll be important later. I’ll get to about 700 above the plane, stay there until about 38000-39000 north of Sol, then go down to the galactic plane VERY quickly.
0:00:00, 26 February – On the Elite: Dangerous Facebook community, someone was talking about how they would eat while playing. My thought at that point: “You should try cooking while playing.”
And yes; you learn to do a lot of things in that 13 seconds or so of witchspace.
0:15:00 – about 33,000 from Sol. For those keeping score, I am now closer to Oevasy SG-Y D0 than I am Sol.
0:41:00 – 8 hours in. About 35,000 ly from Sol.
And right now, I am really glad that the long waits to plot a route are done. No more burning 30-45 seconds with every route plot.
0:50:00 – Probably the one thing that has caused more fatigue than anything is the change in where the ship exits witchspace in a system. Used to be it was more or less random. Now, the ship exits witchspace based on the system it came from. As anyone who’s done a Bucky A* run will tell you, no situation is more difficult than when the destination star is behind the current star.
Now, if only Frontier would interject another dose of common sense and allow for FSD charging without line-of-sight…
1:20:00 I am left with an odd question. Is the wall gone?
In searching for stars to plot toward, I intentionally set my cursor (or whatever it’s called) downward, to see the Bleia and Preia systems. And yet… I couldn’t find them. Granted, I didn’t go all that far… so maybe I didn’t go far enough… but that absence surprises me.
Maybe it’s the location, I don’t know. I’ll need to look into it when I have more time.
1:44:00 First faceplant. Was filling a glass of water in the kitchen, and didn’t get back to the computer in time. Yes; even a glass of water can be dangerous on a run like this.
That said… I’m making silly mistakes, and this was one. I hadn’t put on music yet; time I did. Time to let the iTunes Buckyball Mix from Hell get me home.
1:55:00 – 40,000 ly.
2:15:00 – One thing about this area… now that I’m out of the core, one good thing… the destination system usually isn’t precisely behind the current star. Makes scooping and jumping far more pleasant.
2:35:00 – A technique to use when traveling anywhere but the core. Plot as far as you can go – as close to 1000 ly as you can get. Then… don’t make the last jump in the sequence, because it’s usually far shorter than the others. Good, efficient jump technique.
And, clearly, my verbal skills have gone caveman. Next thing you know, I’m going to start attacking black obelisks with animal bones.
Actually, that’s fairly normal. People stop talking as they get tired. Moreover, the 30s and 40s are a long stretch of very little. Energy is still high early on, the 20s are punctuated by A* and the core, the 50s have the approaching Abyss… but the 30s and 40s are just there.
2:41:00 – 43,300. Not as good an average (4.33 kylies/hr) as I would have liked.
3:00:00 – Yeah… I remember this slowdown. It’s nowhere near as pronounced as it was last time; a 58.4 ly range will do that. Here, the slowdown is the difference between 17 and 19 jumps per kylie. Before, the slowdown was from 25 to 29 jumps per kylie.
3:20:00 – Wow. Give credit to Frontier where credit is due. That was the first witchspace jump that took more than 14 seconds. I’m not sure how many hundreds of jumps it’s been to this point; for this to be the first?
And how many of you have been playing this game long enough to remember Mr. Braben’s Wild Ride?
3:45:00 – Fun thought for the moment. Just thinking of the oddity of having an exploration diary that has to be put in terms of minutes.
3:56:00 – Proof that you’ve gone a little loopy: You’re listening to the song “No Time” by the Guess Who, the line “I found myself some wings!” gets sung… and you imagine the lead singer with a basket of Buffalo wings.
4:05:00 – “Mad is the captain of Alpha Centauri
We must be out of our minds.
Still we are shipmates, bound for tomorrow
And everyone here’s flying blind…”
Needless to say, I have a very eclectic playlist.
4:10:00 – I’m amazed at just how empty space is looking now…
4:19:00 – 50,000 ly.
In other words, while not in a straight line (because, well, the galaxy doesn’t have a diameter that large), it is certainly possible to travel 100,000 ly in a 24-hour period. Perhaps make a hexagonal route with six stars roughly 16,667 ly from Sadge?
4:30:00 – I’m making silly mistakes still. I was admiring my own flying skills so much I forgot to start charging the FSD.
4:41:00 – 12 hours. 51,600 ly from Sol. About 14,000 from Oevasy SG-Y D0.
4:51:00 – I haven’t had a single major internet hiccup or graphics card hiccup during this run. Thank goodness. Granted, the run isn’t done, but that says a great deal.
Veteran Buckyballers… we tend to be a little paranoid about our runs. To give an idea about the level of paranoia… before starting, I switched the graphics from borderless (which I prefer) to fullscreen (which is more stable), unplugged every internet-capable device that wasn’t within reach, and unplugged the router for about 30 minutes before starting.
Given how often internet hiccups and graphics hiccups happened on earlier runs… well… it’s not paranoia if it works. And, frankly, we’ve already seen just about everything happen.
5:30:00 “Kyrie Eleison down this road that I must travel
Kyrie Eleison through the darkness of the night
Kyrie Eleison where I’m going, will you follow?
Kyrie Eleison on a highway in the light…”
Kind of says it all, really.
5:41:00 – 13 hours. Approaching 56000 ly. Less than 10000ly from Beagle Point and Oevasy SG-Y D0. Still no appreciable slowdown even into 57000.
Keep in mind, 58500 is where the Abyss begins.
I’ll be honest; I have no clue on the Abyss. Well, I do, and I don’t. I know how a 40ly Anaconda cuts through the Abyss. I don’t know how a 58ly Anaconda cuts through the Abyss. Is this the difference between a sword and a vibroblade – or just a sword and a longer sword?
5:48:00 - Oh. I didn’t mean to do that.
On the 25th and 26th of February, 3302, I was… doing the same thing.
Just taking longer.
I knew it was close… I just didn’t know it was the exact date.
5:56:00 – 19-jump kylie. The Abyss is coming.
6:14:00 – The second long witchspace – that one about 23 seconds. The problem with these are those few seconds where you wonder if it’s disconnected.
6:21:00 – At the entrance to the Abyss. Safety net’s off; can’t afford to not allow an unscoopable if it means going on. Here we go…
6:25:00 – Initial results are promising. We’ll see how things go.
6:41:00 – I was hoping for at least 3 kylies/hr through the Abyss. And that’s about what I’m making.
14 hours. 59600ly from Sol.
7:04:00 – It still feels strange whenever I encounter an unscoopable.
7:18:00 – Less than an hour through the Abyss. I can definitely get used to that.
7:20:00 – I was once asked why I spent so much time planning the route, especially in the area beyond the Abyss. The answer is for the same reason I count the number of rows between my seat and the exit row on an airplane: it’s a lot easier to do this sort of thinking in a calm and rational environment than it is in chaos in a diminished mental state.
In other words, if you have to think, think when it’s easy to do so. Fortunately, ideas and thoughts store remarkably well.
And I’ve been flying for over 14 hours. “Diminished mental state” is an apt descriptor.
7:41:00 – 15 hours. 63050 ly down. A little over 2000 ly left.
7:48:00 – I’m seeing longer witchspace times. Not now… please not now…
8:03:00 – I’m still not used to a 58ly jump range. Getting to Beagle used to take several short hops. Now… I just plotted to Beagle from almost a kylie away.
Which brings up the question. Can we get to Oevasy SG-Y D0 in 16 hours? It’s going to be close – especially considering the one thing I don’t have a lot of experience with. I have never used Jumponium.
Ayep. I’ve never used Jumponium before now.
8:17:36 – Beagle Point Reached. 15 hours, 36 minutes, 36 seconds.
Okay. 23 minutes to get to Ishum’s Reach – to the farthest, most remote spot from Sol in the galaxy.
8:25:00 - Familiarity breeds speed. Using Jumponium… not used to it, so the moves are slower than they should be.
8:34:09 – Slow moves, true – but fast enough. Oevasy SG-Y D0 reached. 15 hours, 53 minutes, 9 seconds.
As an aside… I mentioned diminished mental states. Do you know how hard it is to convert the pictures to jpg, then upload to flickr? Even something this simple feels like a challenge.
Anyway, mission accomplished. I wanted to show just how small the galaxy really was. Given I literally went to the opposite end of the galaxy in less than 16 hours? Yeah, it’s pretty small.
Might talk more tomorrow. That said… not many words left. To give an idea, I'm trying to figure out how to private-message friends who are on... and it's a blank. Time to post this, then wish everyone good night.
Until then, some links:
Start in Galileo
A stop at A*
A* in all its glory
Checking in at Beagle Point
Beagle Point shines on
Made it to Oevasy SG-Y D0
Oevasy SG-Y D0
A long way from home
Equipment 1
Equipment 2
Good night, everyone.
![[VR] optimal_909](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/109/109067.jpg?1553781733){kind=avatar}