Just to lay some cards out as a preamble - I'm old enough to remember playing Elite on the BBC Model B and the ZX Spectrum, I tried the PC version on a laptop and got p'ed off with the number of keys so I bit the bullet and bought ED again for my PS4, and I mostly stay in Solo game mode and play for an hour or two most days. And this is my first post here!
Having wandered about the bubble for a bit, I bought an Asp to go exploring. Visited Barnards Loop and related areas, found the megaship named after Carrie Fisher, took a brief trip to the near bits of the Outer Orion Spur and the Sanguineous Rim, found an Engineer and tweaked my drive. It was fine, but I'd run out of spaces to fit a planetary scanner once I'd bought a Scarab for some surface exploration. So, I made what might be thought of as a weird choice. I bought a Krait Phantom. The tweaked 5A drive transferred, as did the 5A fuel scoop (which I then upgraded to 6A) and I didn't bother with the mirrored armour I'd fitted to the Asp (I read somewhere that the Krait handled heat better than the Asp. They seem to be right BTW). I left the mining laser and some weapons still fitted which left me with a theoretical max jump of just over 41LY, in practice around 38.5LY. I decided that was good enough and headed off towards SagA*.
I had no concept HOW FAR it was! I quickly got my Honk, Scoop and Jump down to 50 seconds but doing that for an hour at a time is knackering. If anyone was to ask about long distance exploration, I'd offer the following:
Most importantly, it's going to take a while to get anywhere interesting. 700ish jumps is the best part of 12 hours continuous jumping, so accept you're not doing it one day and break it up into manageable chunks.
Pause every 20 or 30 jumps and actually scan the system properly. Map some rings and mine some low temperature diamonds. Land, take some pics. Do anything to break up the pattern a bit.
Don't get too blase about your process for each system, because you WILL crash into the unexpected black hole when you're tired!
Lighten your ship as much as you can. The difference between 35 and even 38LY is massive when you're traveling 26,000LY. From Sol to SagA* it's an extra 50 odd jumps. That's a whole hour!
Make use of a site like EDDB.io to help with your journey. If you let it look for Fleet Carriers as well as stations, and you're not fixated on taking the fastest route, you can stop and hand in your Cartographic data every 100LY or so. And repair your ship (from the accidental close encounter with a black hole).
Fleet Carriers are usually there for a reason, so stop and have a look. There's often an interesting nebula or black hole.
Occasionally, take yourself either up or down out of the plane of the galaxy. After reaching SagA*, I headed straight down as far as I could. Being able to see the whole of the main swirl of the galaxy is really pretty cool.
I'm now heading for Colonia, but from far below the plane, so still visiting and scanning lots of unvisited systems on the way. 325 jumps (about 270 to go....)
Having wandered about the bubble for a bit, I bought an Asp to go exploring. Visited Barnards Loop and related areas, found the megaship named after Carrie Fisher, took a brief trip to the near bits of the Outer Orion Spur and the Sanguineous Rim, found an Engineer and tweaked my drive. It was fine, but I'd run out of spaces to fit a planetary scanner once I'd bought a Scarab for some surface exploration. So, I made what might be thought of as a weird choice. I bought a Krait Phantom. The tweaked 5A drive transferred, as did the 5A fuel scoop (which I then upgraded to 6A) and I didn't bother with the mirrored armour I'd fitted to the Asp (I read somewhere that the Krait handled heat better than the Asp. They seem to be right BTW). I left the mining laser and some weapons still fitted which left me with a theoretical max jump of just over 41LY, in practice around 38.5LY. I decided that was good enough and headed off towards SagA*.
I had no concept HOW FAR it was! I quickly got my Honk, Scoop and Jump down to 50 seconds but doing that for an hour at a time is knackering. If anyone was to ask about long distance exploration, I'd offer the following:
Most importantly, it's going to take a while to get anywhere interesting. 700ish jumps is the best part of 12 hours continuous jumping, so accept you're not doing it one day and break it up into manageable chunks.
Pause every 20 or 30 jumps and actually scan the system properly. Map some rings and mine some low temperature diamonds. Land, take some pics. Do anything to break up the pattern a bit.
Don't get too blase about your process for each system, because you WILL crash into the unexpected black hole when you're tired!
Lighten your ship as much as you can. The difference between 35 and even 38LY is massive when you're traveling 26,000LY. From Sol to SagA* it's an extra 50 odd jumps. That's a whole hour!
Make use of a site like EDDB.io to help with your journey. If you let it look for Fleet Carriers as well as stations, and you're not fixated on taking the fastest route, you can stop and hand in your Cartographic data every 100LY or so. And repair your ship (from the accidental close encounter with a black hole).
Fleet Carriers are usually there for a reason, so stop and have a look. There's often an interesting nebula or black hole.
Occasionally, take yourself either up or down out of the plane of the galaxy. After reaching SagA*, I headed straight down as far as I could. Being able to see the whole of the main swirl of the galaxy is really pretty cool.
I'm now heading for Colonia, but from far below the plane, so still visiting and scanning lots of unvisited systems on the way. 325 jumps (about 270 to go....)
