This endeavor began as a passing thought, back in the middle of September. My friend CMDR DARIVS ARCHITECTVS, lacking in suitable things to do in the Milky Way to pass the time, decided it would be a good idea to go out to the rim and see if the galaxy next door had anything interesting going on. Not really, because that's impossible, but he thought it would be interesting to see just how far you could get in supercruise. Well, again. He'd already done it once before around January of 3303, but it only registered four or so lightyears away from the main star. Thus, with the combined power of curiosity and boredom serving as his motivator, he geared up and set out for Semotus Beacon (OEVASY SG-Y D0) by himself to see how far he could get.
If only he'd done some research though, because he would have realized that CMDR Keef Drow had already done it, and to grand effect. According to many sources, Keef managed a staggering 66.3ly further from Sol than the main star, becoming the most lonesome person in the galaxy. Dejected by this revelation, DARIVS set back for Colonia, taking his frustration out on unwitting multicrew participants who just wanted to engage in a little bit of pew-pew (in other words he intentionally set his multicrew mode to 'bounty hunting' so he could hijack prospective bounty hunters and hold them hostage at the edge of the galaxy when there were no other bounty hunting multicrew sessions available. Much mirth and entertainment was generated for all.).
Upon his return, he and I pondered for a bit upon how we were going to beat that. After careful deliberation, we settled upon this:
https://s.orbis.zone/n42
With that sorted, it was time to venture back out. So moved was I by his dedication, that I volunteered to help him get just a little further, building a fuel tanker befitting of such an endeavor (that, and I was bored too).
https://s.orbis.zone/n43
Take that, fast forward a few days, and we both arrive at Semotus Beacon, top off our ships at the secondary star and, with the galaxy at our backs, literally venture off into nothing.
"Cmdr DARIVS ARCHITECTVS (Darius the Engineer):
Approaching the edge of the galaxy. Navigating the last gulf between the galactic arms was a challenge. The auto plotter ASSUMES you can only jump with a FULL FUEL LOAD. ALL my jumps from Colonia to here were 35.4 LY per jump using the plotter. Very slow going. Manual plotting to individually selected stars while having a near empty fuel tank gets me about 64 LY in range. I navigated MANUALLY across the last gulf to the outer arm. No automatic course plotting across the outermost galactic arm was possible.
9/21/18: @ 14:00 CST - Began flying in supercruise in the Galactic Horizon from Ishum's Reach OEVASY SG-TY D0 2 into the BLACK... Exxon Galactica refueling at Star 2. 14:12 - Flight Engineer Cmdr Ethereal Cereal flying the Exxon Galactica completed refueling and trailing Galactic Horizon, serving as a refueling tanker for the Horizon once the Galactica reach point of no-return for return to Colonia.
9/23/18 @17:55 CST - We are not documenting any video UNTIL we arrive at the point 20 days from now when we are WAYYYY out there and I am about to turn around. At that point, we will invite some friends and a bunch of random people to jump into my cockpit in multiplayer to look at the galaxy from far outside it. Cmdr Paroxysm is supposed to host us on his stream at that point also. Up until then, flying in SC is NOT what I would call interesting footage. At present, I am 11.3 LY beyond OEVASY SG-Y D0 2, and Cmdr Ethereal Cereal in the fuel tanker Exxon Glactica is .23 LY behind me. We adjust his course every 9-12 hours to match my vector. When he has enough fuel to return PLUS 168 tons, I will stop, and he will come alongside and transfer all the fuel he can spare. From there, I will continue on alone. Total time in SC is 22 days at 2001c. We are on day 3."
Approaching the edge of the galaxy. Navigating the last gulf between the galactic arms was a challenge. The auto plotter ASSUMES you can only jump with a FULL FUEL LOAD. ALL my jumps from Colonia to here were 35.4 LY per jump using the plotter. Very slow going. Manual plotting to individually selected stars while having a near empty fuel tank gets me about 64 LY in range. I navigated MANUALLY across the last gulf to the outer arm. No automatic course plotting across the outermost galactic arm was possible.
9/21/18: @ 14:00 CST - Began flying in supercruise in the Galactic Horizon from Ishum's Reach OEVASY SG-TY D0 2 into the BLACK... Exxon Galactica refueling at Star 2. 14:12 - Flight Engineer Cmdr Ethereal Cereal flying the Exxon Galactica completed refueling and trailing Galactic Horizon, serving as a refueling tanker for the Horizon once the Galactica reach point of no-return for return to Colonia.
9/23/18 @17:55 CST - We are not documenting any video UNTIL we arrive at the point 20 days from now when we are WAYYYY out there and I am about to turn around. At that point, we will invite some friends and a bunch of random people to jump into my cockpit in multiplayer to look at the galaxy from far outside it. Cmdr Paroxysm is supposed to host us on his stream at that point also. Up until then, flying in SC is NOT what I would call interesting footage. At present, I am 11.3 LY beyond OEVASY SG-Y D0 2, and Cmdr Ethereal Cereal in the fuel tanker Exxon Glactica is .23 LY behind me. We adjust his course every 9-12 hours to match my vector. When he has enough fuel to return PLUS 168 tons, I will stop, and he will come alongside and transfer all the fuel he can spare. From there, I will continue on alone. Total time in SC is 22 days at 2001c. We are on day 3."
Now, despite my physical lack of limpets on the journey out, I brought along enough charges to synthesize an additional 120 onsite. The combined limpet capacity (minus one bit of inattention at my cargo capacity while synthesizing), plus the fuel that DARIVS already had onboard meant he had a total of 647t of fuel at his disposal. As his flight engineer, copilot and general voice of reason I felt obligated to do the calculations of how far he could get so he didn't totally run himself out of fuel. While issuing the ULTIMATE FUEL RAT CHALLENGE would have made for some great entertainment, we felt that running ourselves dry on the rim of the galaxy was already overdone, so the aim became to jump back.
Cmdr Ethereal Cereal:
09/25/18 @ 21:00 EST - 21.1 LY out from the main star. I've run my fuel tanks down to about three quarters capacity. I'm nearing the end of my leg of this journey. In roughly two days' time, I will refuel CMDR DARIVS ARCHITECTVS and make my way back to Colonia, where I will refit to meet up with CMDR Taen. I find it quite interesting that because the system just before Semotus Beacon (OEVASY RG-Y D0) is next to us relative to our supercruise vector, the jump distance to return to that system has not increased the way our distance from the main star has. A normally 50.07ly jump is, as of this log, only 56.5ly away. We'll be getting much further out than we originally planned.
Cmdr DARIVS ARCHITECTVS:
9/27/18 @18:25 CTS - The Exxon Galactica is pulling alongside in sublight for refueling of the Galactic Horizon. We are 30.7 LY out from the main star of Ishum's Reach, 65,678 LY from Sol. The record is 65,714 LY from Sol, so we are very close to surpassing it. Refuel completed at 19:10 CST. The Horizon's fuel tank is approximately 95% full, all due to Ethereal Cereal's very accurate calculations on the tanker ships fuel load. Every single limpet which was synthesized was used. 167 tons of fuel was transferred.
Distance remaining is 87 LY before point of no return is reached. That will be 117 LY from the Primary Star of Ishun's Reach. Speed = 4.366 LY/hr. Fuel consumption rate 1.21 tons/hr Estimated fuel remaining 460 tons."
09/25/18 @ 21:00 EST - 21.1 LY out from the main star. I've run my fuel tanks down to about three quarters capacity. I'm nearing the end of my leg of this journey. In roughly two days' time, I will refuel CMDR DARIVS ARCHITECTVS and make my way back to Colonia, where I will refit to meet up with CMDR Taen. I find it quite interesting that because the system just before Semotus Beacon (OEVASY RG-Y D0) is next to us relative to our supercruise vector, the jump distance to return to that system has not increased the way our distance from the main star has. A normally 50.07ly jump is, as of this log, only 56.5ly away. We'll be getting much further out than we originally planned.
Cmdr DARIVS ARCHITECTVS:
9/27/18 @18:25 CTS - The Exxon Galactica is pulling alongside in sublight for refueling of the Galactic Horizon. We are 30.7 LY out from the main star of Ishum's Reach, 65,678 LY from Sol. The record is 65,714 LY from Sol, so we are very close to surpassing it. Refuel completed at 19:10 CST. The Horizon's fuel tank is approximately 95% full, all due to Ethereal Cereal's very accurate calculations on the tanker ships fuel load. Every single limpet which was synthesized was used. 167 tons of fuel was transferred.
Distance remaining is 87 LY before point of no return is reached. That will be 117 LY from the Primary Star of Ishun's Reach. Speed = 4.366 LY/hr. Fuel consumption rate 1.21 tons/hr Estimated fuel remaining 460 tons."
Within the next few hours, he'll be reaching his final end point (right around 121ly), and it will be only a matter of time before he makes the jump back to OEVASY RG-Y D0. On Monday, 15 October, CMDR Exigeous will be streaming the return jump. Will he make it back, or will he falter? Stay tuned for Monday to find out!
(His current status. You might say he's a tiny bit nervous.)
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