Newcomer / Intro What are you up to?

[WeComeInPeace]

I'm a Harrier fan myself. And Concorde. A bit too old skool maybe...

Definitely not! I like both as well. The Vulcan was also a remarkably good looking plane.

Back on track, I went back to switch from the Python to the Mamba, for my trip out beyond the Crab and beyond. Then I bumped into the AspX again, and started messing around with it. The "Mercury" of Shinrarta is a landable 1G planet that is pretty close to Jameson, and it's good for testing if your thrusters are too weak. I've always used the largest possible dirty drives on most of my ships, after crashing on a high G planet. That's not necessary, but there is a point where thrusters become too light (weak). I think I found the sweet spot between low mass and capable handling now, including the PP and PD, resulting in a ~70 ly jump range. That should do it.

The AspX is actually a great explorer (those forum dads also say so) and since I expect to go see Orion et al in VR on my way, if I can find my way "in there", I think I'll give the AspX a go and leave Verity at Jameson this time.

 

[A C Ender]

I'm in the Maia area, the purpose of my trip initially was to acquire a meta alloy for Felicity and return. Subsequently found my first black hole (I had to fly the 40k ls over to check it out) and considering making the Pleiades my home territory.

Spoiler: A weird encounter

Yesterday during a short session I was making a jump, and got pulled out of hyperspace. Ship spinning and everything malfunctioning I saw 3 large flowers (I assume these are thargoids) fly towards me. When I spun another 360 I saw them again, much closer. At some point I regained control of my ship, though my scanners were malfunctioning. I targeted one them but the target was just full of weird boxes. I thought opening fire would probably be a bad idea, so I boosted away a couple times, FA of so I turned around watching them. They were still following...

Eventually I charged my FSD and got away.

Is this normal?

 

[Para Handy]

..............
Is this normal?

It will be very normal for you if you base yourself out there.

 

[aRJay]

That sounds like a hyperdiction the flowers were Thargoid ships, from my perspective not normal at all as it has never happened to me in all the time the Thargoids have been in game for others it has happened often enough to feel like stalking.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

The word "Rigel" can make anyone sound like Max Von Sydow speaking a movie trailer for a Hollywood blockbuster. It's also one of the brightest stars in the night sky. I never knew before that it is a also double star, and what a double star it is! That system is really something to behold

(I forgot how good the Asp cockpit is for VR)

@A C Ender

Those sound like thargoids allright. If you don't frighten them, they are kind of beautiful and rarely dangerous.

 

[Codger]

The AspX is actually a great explorer (those forum dads also say so) and since I expect to go see Orion et al in VR on my way, if I can find my way "in there", I think I'll give the AspX a go and leave Verity at Jameson this time.

Oh, the betrayal!

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Oh, the betrayal!

Now that you mention the war, she did sound kinda angry when I bumped into a star on the way. Btw. Thumbs up to Verity Croft. She did an excellent job

 

[Rustnsawdust]

Oh, the betrayal!

Or a victory for common sense?

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

... and leave Verity at Jameson this time.

Wait... I missed that. Verity? Verity Pushpram? Ole Hammerhead herself?

 

[A C Ender]

It will be very normal for you if you base yourself out there.

On a related note, is there any drawbacks (other than said encounters) to settle in this region of space?

I'm a new commander so I'm learning as I go along. There seem to be fewer missions than I had in the starting area, I'm not sure if that's due to reputation, or something else. I particularly used to enjoy doing massacre missions on pirates to hone my flying skill and earn some cash in a fun way, but I've not seen anything similar out here yet. The only combat mission I found so far in this region turned out to be an assassination of a politician for seemingly no other reason than opposition.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Holy Spaghetti Monster,

Orion is... just wow!

The Horsehead nebula!

Strange eclipse

Orion is very close to the Bubble, so if you haven't seen it, I can highly recommend spending an evening going there. It's a little hard to get to, but if you go by Rigel, it should be possible to plot a route. It's got more eye candy than anywhere else I've seen in the galaxy (yet).

Maybe it was a mistake naming the Asp "Nostromo"...

Now I'm heading towards Messier 1, also called the Crab Nebula. The air is starting to get thin out here, and it's proper dark. This game!

 

[Codger]

On a related note, is there any drawbacks (other than said encounters) to settle in this region of space?

I'm a new commander so I'm learning as I go along. There seem to be fewer missions than I had in the starting area, I'm not sure if that's due to reputation, or something else. I particularly used to enjoy doing massacre missions on pirates to hone my flying skill and earn some cash in a fun way, but I've not seen anything similar out here yet. The only combat mission I found so far in this region turned out to be an assassination of a politician for seemingly no other reason than opposition.

It's more about what station you're at, and what system. If you want to find massacre missions look for systems and factions at war, or civil war. You can see the broad state of a system from the galaxy map, but you have to check the factions separately. Build your reputation there to get good payouts.

Or do what I usually do, and just fly around to different places and see what's on offer. Then stay for a while if it looks like it might get good with a bit of reputation.
----------------
On another note, I've been getting into a very meditative state while mining the last few days. Watching fragments come off the asteroids is very mesmerizing. lol.

https://imgur.com/wARvfof

Source: https://i.imgur.com/wARvfof.gifv

 

[A C Ender]

It's more about what station you're at, and what system. If you want to find massacre missions look for systems and factions at war, or civil war. You can see the broad state of a system from the galaxy map, but you have to check the factions separately. Build your reputation there to get good payouts.

Or do what I usually do, and just fly around to different places and see what's on offer. Then stay for a while if it looks like it might get good with a bit of reputation.
----------------
On another note, I've been getting into a very meditative state while mining the last few days. Watching fragments come off the asteroids is very mesmerizing. lol.

https://imgur.com/wARvfof

Source: https://i.imgur.com/wARvfof.gifv

That's kind of what I've been doing, flying around in the general area and looking at different stations and scanning systems. I've only just learned how to discover if s planet can be terraformed... That certainly sped up my income! At this moment taking my longest in system route so far; 140k Ls. Takes a while!

 

[Para Handy]

That's kind of what I've been doing, flying around in the general area and looking at different stations and scanning systems. I've only just learned how to discover if s planet can be terraformed... That certainly sped up my income! At this moment taking my longest in system route so far; 140k Ls. Takes a while!

May I recommend EDDiscovery if you are on PC - I never go anywhere without it running - an amazingly helpful app.

Release - EDDiscovery 18.X is now out! New modules panel upgrade and Engineering

ED Discovery is a Windows/Linux application which assists you in piloting in the Elite Dangerous universe. Started by Commander Finwen, it has been greatly expanded in the last few years by a team of programmers who have added many features. Major Features: History of your journey through...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Chris Simon]

I went back to switch from the Python to the Mamba, for my trip out beyond the Crab and beyond. Then I bumped into the AspX again, and started messing around with it. The "Mercury" of Shinrarta is a landable 1G planet that is pretty close to Jameson, and it's good for testing if your thrusters are too weak

The best thruster testing facility is on Achenar 3

 

[WeComeInPeace]

The best thruster testing facility is on Achenar 3

Thanks, I'll try that when I get back

I tried to "stack" a couple of "subs" of the Horsehead Nebula through the astro imaging software called PixInsight. I only had 4 subs, but I would say doing astrophotography in ED is possible. Crazy that you can fly around the Milky Way to find a better camera angle nowadays. We couldn't do that back in 2019

 

[A C Ender]

Thanks, I'll try that when I get back

I tried to "stack" a couple of "subs" of the Horsehead Nebula through the astro imaging software called PixInsight. I only had 4 subs, but I would say doing astrophotography in ED is possible. Crazy that you can fly around the Milky Way to find a better camera angle nowadays. We couldn't do that back in 2019

View attachment 146454

I've no idea what you mean, but that's one good looking picture!

 

[Trotsky2112]

I've no idea what you mean, but that's one good looking picture!

Agreed. I love some of the in-game environments we have in this game. I hope that, with the inception of space legs, we will have the same remarkable standard of vistas on Earthlike and Water worlds (alderann and kamino pleez?)

 

[WeComeInPeace]

I've no idea what you mean, but that's one good looking picture!

Thanks for reminding me. I hate when people use fancy words just to use them, or assuming everybody else understand, and that happens more often than one might think.

I'm an old amateur astronomer. When you take a picture of, say a galaxy, you basically take a picture of something that looks extremely dark on a black background. The Andromeda galaxy is three SIX (oops) times larger than the Moon in the nightsky, but it's so faint that nobody notice it's there every night.

(In reality the galaxy is MUCH fainter than the moon)

Therefore you expose an astronomy image for a very long time. When you take a normal picture you expose in the order of hundredths of a second. When you take a picture of a galaxy or a nebula, you sometimes expose for several days. That would normally result in the only bright parts of the image, being the stars, becoming very overexposed. Therefore, instead you take a series of similar images with an exposure time of 10-30 minutes, called "subs", and then combine them into one image, using a process called "stacking". The result is an image with very little noise, meaning that the very faint galaxy can be enhanced without also enhancing the noise.

Likewise you can do that in ED. You can take a series of images and combine them, resulting in a better image without some of the errors the software creates while generating 90+ frames per second. The point is that those errors will be somewhat specific to each "sub" and therefore, they will disappear in the "stacked" final image. Then you can tweak the image to bring out details that would otherwise be hard to see.

 

[Chris Simon]

Thanks for reminding me. I hate when people use fancy words just to use them, or assuming everybody else understand, and that happens more often than one might think.

I'm an old amateur astronomer. When you take a picture of, say a galaxy, you basically take a picture of something that looks extremely dark on a black background. The Andromeda galaxy is three times larger than the Moon in the nightsky, but it's so faint that nobody notice it's there every night. Therefore you expose an astronomy image for a very long time. When you take a normal picture you expose in the order of hundredths of a second. When you take a picture of a galaxy or a nebula, you sometimes expose for several days. That would normally result in the only bright parts of the image, being the stars, becoming very overexposed. Therefore, instead you take a series of similar images with an exposure time of 10-30 minutes, called "subs", and then combine them into one image, using a process called "stacking". The result is an image with very little noise, meaning that the very faint galaxy can be enhanced without also enhancing the noise.

Likewise you can do that in ED. You can take a series of images and combine them, resulting in a better image without some of the errors the software creates while generating 90+ frames per second. The point is that those errors will be somewhat specific to each "sub" and therefore, they will disappear in the "stacked" final image. Then you can tweak the image to bring out details that would otherwise be hard to see.

I should try this!
I use similar technique for photographing places without people. Just take several photos of the same place and because the fleshy blobs of annoyance are the only thing that tends to move, it's easy to tell the software to remove them in the stacked image.