I do love the idea of those long journeys to the outer reaches of the galaxy. Kudos to those that stick it out, especially the ones who circumnavigated the galactic edge without FSD boosters and engineering.

As an aside, even though Iove exploring, it's when I hit the 15,000LY mark (or hear about an ED update like Odyssey) that I start to regret it and head back. Now that I have two other alts though, I may just use one solely for exploration. As you said OP, it's about the journey, not the destination. :)
I'm sort of with you actually. Hence the OP of this thread and the desire to break this journey down into a far more manageable series of smaller journeys and destinations which just happen to end up at Colonia.

P.S. I've just done something terrible! I'm working now and I just logged a link to some specification documents on our online issue tracking system (which then mailshots everyone on the project). Unfortunately, instead of a document describing the process for a new museum acquisition process it turns out the link I shared was ... you guessed it ... the one to my coriolis ship build. 😬
 
While I'm still mulling over precise details of the build, I have at least decided upon a name for the ship.

Outworn Dalliances

It's an anagram of Colonia Wanderlust which has a certain Ian M. Banks-esque ring to it and also reflects on the fact that I've grown weary of noodling around the bubble doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that and now yearn for an adventure with a bit more substance to it.

And here she is in her current form.

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I must confess I'm having second thoughts about the Gu-97 fighter. It's just not quite as photogenic as I'd hoped. I might switch to a Guardian fighter.
 
Going to California Colonia
Spent my days with a woman unkind
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine
Made up my mind to make a new start
Going To California Colonia with an aching in my heart
Someone told me there's a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair
(Led Zeppelin - 1971)


I've been putting it off for a long time but I'm stating my intention to finally take a proper trip out to Colonia (just as soon as Speedbowl IV is over). I want to do it properly tho, not rush it (which is why I deliberately avoided taking part in Exigeous' Colonia Speedrun earlier in the year) - but try to make a proper journey out of it.

For that reason I'm looking for suggestions of "must see" waypoints along the way so I can break the journey there (and back) into a whole bunch of shorter stages, each with a specific destination in mind along the route (and I don't mind taking a few detours either ... within reason).

I'm looking for all sorts of things. Systems of inherent natural beauty, awesome planets for a spot of SRV exploration, locations of cool stellar phenonema (I've only really seen the common variants in the bubble and not void hearts or peduncle trees for example) plus any other locations of special historical or community interest (for example, I definitely want to visit Evelyn's Light).

So ... please post your suggestions with descriptions (and preferably screenshots or short videos) and I'll start to try and compile a route plan here in the OP of this thread.




Colonia Connection Highway

Conflux abandoned settlements

"Evelyn's Light" - a memorial to jellowiggler's daughter (maybe take "Shan's Charis Orchid")

Thanks to @zibadian I've already been referred to EDSM's galactic map and prominent POI search facility plus its selection of interesting surface features, and also a few specific examples:
Floalt WC-C b16-6 (Chilled Views) - ice world with "spectacular views"
Trifid Sector OI-S b4-12 (Lucifer's Lair) - a rocky ice world in the trifid nebula with Pomeche like surface features
Nyeajaae IT-M c9-19 (Viridian Dreams) - a glowing green gas giant
Preae Ain CG-X e1-14 (Galactic Helium Reserve) - a system containing 23 Helium rich giants (a galactic record?)

Boeph ZJ-R e4-62 AB 1 a - planetary circumnavigation candidate (137 km Radius = 860.79 km circumference)

Spoihaae XE-X d2-9 (World of Death) - the planet that goes inside a neutron cone

Eol Prou RN-I C10-203 1 A - beautiful ridges to drive along

EOL PROU SR-W D1-1199 - binary pair of potato moons (maybe user geyser to jump between them?)

"Skaudai sites" - ruins of the Guardian exiles

Eoch Flyuae PY-R e4-684 (Clockwork nebula)

Clooku GR-U d3-112 (Fields of Elysium) - two ringed ELW's just 1ls apart

Smojoo ZE-R d4-109 (Musica Universalis) - An underappreciated system relatively close to the bubble but somewhat off the direct path

Eor Aowsy GR-W e1-1381 - glowing green giant
Eol Prou KW-L c8-32 - glowing green giant
Dryooe Prou FF-Z d696 - glowing green giant

"The festival grounds" - a short way before Colonia, has enough nebulae to keep you interested in finding your own sights for weeks[/url]

Things to see around Colonia

Foster Terminal in Coeus
the twilight mountains of Concordia Hub in Edge Fraternity Landing
Mortimer's Charm in Kinesi
Hyford's Wreck in the Colonia system
mysterious wreckage orbiting Kinesi 3b
Cmdr commemoration beacon outside Jaques Station
Dove Enigma memorial megaship
"Colonia Point"
- a pair of Wolf-Rayet stars at Thaae Pruae AA-A h5 giving a spectacular view of the galactic plane

TODO while I'm there ..

Just be warned...


Hollywood Nights
She stood there bright as the sun on that California coast
He was a midwestern boy on his own
She looked at him with those soft eyes, so innocent and blue
He knew right then he was too far from home

"Too far from home". That's what he said. Mark my words! I think all in the words from this song are quite appropriate... "Night after night, day after day, it went on and on..."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn6Y6Tmlh1k
 
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I must confess I'm having second thoughts about the Gu-97 fighter. It's just not quite as photogenic as I'd hoped. I might switch to a Guardian fighter.

If I may give my suggestion on the "photogenic" aspect, may I propose you the Taipan? It's literally the Krait Mk II mini-me, down to sharing the same scaled down engine assembly. Not as zippy as a GU I know (don't know the Guardian's stats), but I think it can lend itself to plenty of photo-ops. Also, you already know that people like @CMDR Exorcist will make most of any Guardian SLF shots look miserable by comparison with his. :p
 
As someone who's been out there, Colonia is a bit of a disappointment.

I traveled there the hard way in my unengineered diamondback explorer, the wiki that lists all of the stations along the way, I think 2 of the ones listed don't exist, so that was fun for me to find out, I won't spoil it for it for you, I'm sure it will be fun for you to find out aswell.

You will see alot of brown dwarfs along the way, just sooo many brown dwarfs, I am having ptsd just thinking about them, be prepared to take some detours for fuel.

But it's not all bad, there are two stations along the way that I found interesting, one of them orbits an earth like planet, so the implication there is there might be a planetary colony, too bad we can't land on these planets and meet the people.

Another station is on a rocky planet located near a nebula, I think it's just on the edge, if you look up at the sky you will see a massive cloud of dust like it's about to engulf the system, if you enter the dust cloud there is a cluster of stars very close to each other, with alot of rocky planets you can land on, and if you land on one of these planets and look up, you can only see the stars within the cluster and the rest of the night sky is obscured by the cloud, very fascinating.

I am going to apologies for not being able to provide any names, but these stations are of the ones listed on the wiki for colonia highway.
 
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It seems (found out today, no further testing was performed) that you can not 'refill' guardian fighters at fleet carriers
 
UPDATE: 09.12.3306

I've started building the table of suggested locations at the bottom of the OP (still got a way to go yet). They're sorted on distance from Sol. Ultimately I'll split this into two tables, one for the journey out and one for the journey back.
 
Note to self: crib some waypoints from the Dove Enigma expedition ..

ETD next weekend - I've taken part in my last Scarab Mastery event for a while, feeling very happy with the ship and loadout, I just have one last engagement in the bubble (perhaps ... watch the xmas livestream on Thursday) and then it's time to get this journey rolling. If anyone has any last minute suggestions for things to see on the way (particularly locations for cool stellar phenomena) then now's the time!
 
Day 1 - 18.12.3306

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And so it begins. After yesterday's excitement curating a little Buckyball Triathlon ..

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.. for Frontier's 2020 Anniversary livestream in front of 10,000 Twitch viewers I am now definitely ready to leave the responsibilities of the bubble behind me for a while. I'm starting at Napier Installation in Ross 671 (site of yesterday's race) but despite the list in the OP here I don't yet have a firm destination in mind so initially I decide to just head down about 250ly to Kuwemaki (home of enigineer Hera Tani), don't know why, just somewhere to go while I settle in.

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And so, farewell to Napier Installation, farewell to my friends in the ongoing Scarab Mastery Championship and farewell to the bubble - adventure beckons!

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Kuwemaki is a cool location, but uneventful and I realise I have literally zero idea why I came here.

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For my next tentative step out into the black (and perhaps that's what this is, just a couple of those hesitant little steps we take before the big leap) I decide to visit one of the lowest inhabited systems in the bubble, Guinasan.

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Nothing there but a small outpost. Enough of this hesitancy ... I plot a course for Mammon Monitoring Facility, the first location on the list. Time to actually leave the bubble behind.

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It's a very cool system, very pretty.

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I have no need of its facilities tho' so I plot a course for the next stop along the Colonia connection highway (Hillary Depot on Blu Thua AI-A c14-10 : A 4 a) and leave this rather lovely asteroid base in style.


Then it's time to settle into what will no doubt become a very familiar rythmn - jump, roll in to a good fuel scooping trajectory, check the FSS, carefully time engaging the FSD against the last bit of fuel scooping with the aim of allowing the temperature to rise into the 90's but not beyond, and off we go into the next jump!


About 25 minutes later and I arrive at Hillary Depot to discover it's a superb location, with the planetary base sitting at the foot of an ideal little base jump.

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Yeah, OK ... this journey's gonna be fun! Time to let one of my SRV's stretch its legs a bit.

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Right, that'll do for day one - 2,107 ly covered, some 20,000+ left to go. Colonia Adventure here I come!
 
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Wonder what Mammon ATC thought of you reversing out of the dock, probably cursing the winds that brought a buckyballer to their door :)

Great to see you on your way.
 
Wonder what Mammon ATC thought of you reversing out of the dock, probably cursing the winds that brought a buckyballer to their door :)
In fact that's my standard docking/undocking approach now ... taking every opportunity to hone skills, plus I hope one day, while doing that at Shinrarta, to startle a passing commander (hasn't happened yet but I live in hope).
 
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