Alec's guide to "interesting" colonisation systems and stations.

[Alec Turner]

As colonisation pushes further and further out (quite staggering really - it's worth filtering the galaxy map on human occupied and taking a look to see just how far people have got now) it's becoming more of a commitment to go and visit some of these places but I took a couple of shorter trips today.

Wylair Verdure Center in the LHS 1734 system. LHS 1734 is the lowest mass DC dwarf in the codex so far, and it's the coldest known magnetic white dwarf in real life. The system itself isn't particularly interesting, just that the star holds records. Someone better at finding angles could probably do the screenshot more justice...View attachment 435800

Stations orbiting white dwarfs are far from unique now but I like this one because of the astronomical value so decided to pay a visit. Managed to get a couple of better angles I think.

 

[Alec Turner]

So my own colony Pegasi Sector BL-W B2-5 has a few highlights (nothing that unique but still thought I'd share)
1. Exploration hub in amongst the mountains (also have military base near there)
2. Tourist settlement next to a geyser powerful enough to eject you from the planet's gravity (you stay stuck in orbit)
3. Research settlement with a nice crater view

View attachment 435743View attachment 435744View attachment 435745

Wasn't 100% sure about including this one but the positioning of that tourist settlement is superb! I've tried myself to establish a settlement next to some geysers but it's tricky because if you place it too close the final construction it squashes and removes them. Yours is fantastic. It's a really powerful gesyer on a 0.03g world (got my SRV shot 6km up into the air) and it's right on the edge of the settlement.

I confess I shot one of your guards in an attempt to aggro the settlement and lure some of them into the geyser but although I managed to get a good half dozen guards coming after me, they seemed wise to my intentions and refused to come closer than 100m.

P.S. I appreciate the literal approach to naming, makes life very easy for the visiting tourist!

 

[Pville_Piper]

Not the most interesting system, but this ones my favorite location so far... Newberry Claim in Col 285 Sector DB-E c12-24. Atmospheric planets can be so beautiful. I always try to build in scenic locations, this one is on the edge of a very long canyon. Another is Mcguire Manufacturing in Col 285 Sector ER-J b23-7 which is on the only mountain range in sight, it is built on the edge of a crater that chewed into that mountain range. It makes an easy point to navigate to and line up on the pad from low orbit. Not as critical with the PC2 as with the T-9 or Cutter.

Overall, I really enjoy the colonization, space trucking at its finest!

 

[Blaggerdy]

Picked up commodities here and livery stood out

Orbis starport Unss Takao
Cmdr Gen.Zool
Col 285 Sector HV-Q B20-2

 

[CMDR DuskSarsis]

My second trip of the day. Spent quite a while here as there's a lot to see.

Val-Rasha Starport

Alps-Sarsis Memorial

Amani Installation


Ozanne Depot (under construction at time of visit)


Lily Sarsis Landing

Xshinarai Export


I must say I'm incredibly impressed with the amount of work that's gone into this system, you guys must have hauled some serious steel to get this lot built!

I have applied Cosmetics to the remaining stations, so now:
Lily Sarsis Landing: Clinical Yellow - Outpost
Alps Sarsis Memorial: Clincal Yellow - Orbis
Val-Rasha Starport: Green - Orbis

As depicted in your screenshots. Additionally:
Diera City: Copper Grey - Ocellus

Amani Installation has been updated to Copper Grey - Coriolis

Ozanne Depot has been renamed to the Asuna Metropolis (after a race from one of the stories Alps wrote) and given the Extraction Yellow paint job

Mikase Mooring (named for one of Alps close friends) has been given the Silver Blue - Outpost paint job as well

And additionally: The FINAL three installations for the system are underway. Slink Medical, Vivian Medical, and Guardian Blue Precinct. That last one may even be familiar to some, since Guardian Blue was a fanfic he wrote that was quite popular (for a fanfic). Not stations though, the system has all of the stations it is going to have at this point.

And yes I removed the other screenshots from the quote, but only so as to put all the livery screenshots together for people interested in the livery!

As for cargo transported... the colonization spreadsheet i used to plan it out estimates around 1,622,013 commodities on average. The VAST majority of which was transported before the PC2 was even announced. So around 2102 round trips. Having a carrier helped but... yeah. It was a lot of work, but it kinda felt good. Since he passed I hadn't really been able to DO anything myself. So this was something I could actually do and put some effort into. And admittedly a stupid amount of money. I mean, every station has a separately purchased paint job, and every single installation, station, settlement, and in between, has a custom name. I don't want to do the math on that one myself...

 

[Alec Turner]

Vela Pulsar

Gromov Gateway. This outpost maintains high-velocity orbit around the pulsar. From what I've seen, it appears to be the norm with new stations orbiting neutron stars, though I haven't explored enough of them to say for certain. An outpost in my other system (which will follow this post) is living the same life. The following two are video clips:

Clip #1

https://imgur.com/a/AVRH1Ab

Clip #2

https://imgur.com/a/oklbYaT

View attachment 435735
View attachment 435736

There is currently a Coriolis construction site in progress, however, the people that are supposed to build it are facing challenges docking at the station. If you linger around the site, the neutron star might pull your ship into its own orbit. Though it is still very much possible to dock and quite easy if you ask me. If you want to help speed things up, you can try docking and dropping some commodities at the site, so that we can see how the pulsar affects a Coriolis this time.

Clip #3

https://imgur.com/a/jz0gsvF

HIP 41539

This next one is an absolute banger of a system, one of the most bizarre I've seen in the context of colonisation (although I'm not big on black holes or neutron stars). This system has everything Vela Pulsar has and more.

First of all, let's take a look at this first black hole surfing the purple class B star (which itself is part of a close binary) right as you enter the system. Since the black hole has only one colonisation slot, I'm planning to put a T3 Orbis station around it once I have enough points. It will probably bug out anyway as is often the case with low orbit stations - this is something I've been running into far too often. However, if anyone feels like contributing to this vista down the line, feel free to bookmark the system.

Clip #1

https://imgur.com/a/QBE9VyG

View attachment 435740

Knight Sanctuary:

View attachment 435742

As an example within the same system, this is what we can expect from a station orbiting a black hole. Tesla Sanctuary (after Nikola Tesla).

Clip #2

https://imgur.com/a/7mWS8RA

This is unfortunately your typical "catch me if you can" station. Docking failed, but I was able to slip into its path, close enough for it not to crash into my ship but pull me into its orbit. Unfortunately, apart from the holo-ads, the station remained invisible.

Clip #3

https://imgur.com/a/cN2fVbf

Like the Vela Pulsar, the local neutron star hosts a fast-orbiting outpost, only with a slightly better view. X Vista:

Clip #4

https://imgur.com/a/u8E0jy4

This neutron star, however, emits pulses at a lower frequency compared to Vela Pulsar:

Clip #5

https://imgur.com/a/YJ3QkH4

View attachment 435746
View attachment 435747

The neutron star grumble:

Clip #6

https://imgur.com/a/L3dcpoa

The system also features a duo of gas giants. Acton City.

View attachment 435752

Visited both of these today - really cool systems! It's awesome seeing the stations zip around a black hole or neutron in supercruise and satisfyingly terrifying on final approach (when your so close to the black hole but aren't quite sure where it is, or when you're right in the V of the neutron, blinded by the light and so close that you're sure you're going to hit the exclusion zone any second).

The view from your Coriolis construction platform in Vela is awesome (sorry, didn't bring any construction commodities with me on this trip) ..

.. as is the view from Gromov Gateway.

I'm not sure I'd experienced this before but docking at these places is pretty wild, where you're stationary in relation to the station but the whole galaxy is just constantly wheeling around you. Possibly not for the motion sensitive.

Had to pay a visit to the Gromov bar too of course.

Also went out to Kaiser Landing in Vela which seems like a great spot to watch solar flare activity (just missed the best of this one unfortunately).

I didn't actually get any shots in HIP 41539. It's an amazing system but it's more about its orbital ballet than the appearance of specific photographable locations.

And how on earth did you manage to dock at Tesla Sanctuary? When you say you slipped into its path, was that in supercruise or normal space? I had numerous attempts at both but could never latch on to the outpost's frame of reference so I was always left with it whizzing around and past me.

 

[Thulean]

The view from your Coriolis construction platform in Vela is awesome (sorry, didn't bring any construction commodities with me on this trip) ..

Unfortunately, systems like these with low orbits and very short orbital periods will almost certainly bug out in the game's current state. The reason that Coriolis construction site hasn't been finished is exactly that. It is possible to deliver resources to it, but it takes quite a bit of finesse, as the time it takes to deliver them is limited before another active station captures the player into its own frame of reference and then into its orbit as it passes by, making it appear as if the station the player wants to dock at starts "running away". Much harder in a slower ship, so that site is going to be lying dormant for a while.

I've counted 4 different (from the player's perspective) variations of "catch me if you can" stations/construction sites so far.

I'm not sure I'd experienced this before but docking at these places is pretty wild, where you're stationary in relation to the station but the whole galaxy is just constantly wheeling around you. Possibly not for the motion sensitive.

I haven't hung around these low-orbit stations for too long, but it does seem like such configurations in actual fact affect ship handling as well.

I didn't actually get any shots in HIP 41539. It's an amazing system but it's more about its orbital ballet than the appearance of specific photographable locations.

And how on earth did you manage to dock at Tesla Sanctuary? When you say you slipped into its path, was that in supercruise or normal space? I had numerous attempts at both but could never latch on to the outpost's frame of reference so I was always left with it whizzing around and past me.

The idea was to place a T3 station around the first black hole to make that part of the system more scenic. Though I am pretty sure it will bug out too just like the neighbouring construction site (Kepler Sanctuary) orbiting the BH's parent star did. There have simply been too many bugged sites like this.

I wasn't able to dock at Tesla Sanctuary after it went live, but as is the case with such fast-orbiting stations, it is possible to let it pull the ship into its frame of reference and as a result into orbit, if the player aligns exactly with the station's path in normal space. It might result in the ship's destruction, but during my attempt, the outpost didn't even render nor instantiate properly for it to disintegrate my ship.

 

[Alec Turner]

it is possible to let it pull the ship into its frame of reference and as a result into orbit, if the player aligns exactly with the station's path in normal space.

Ah OK, I guess I just never quite got it aligned right. I spent maybe 20mins nudging myself bit by bit closer into the path of the outpost but it never hit me nor pulled me into its frame of reference.

 

[Thulean]

Ah OK, I guess I just never quite got it aligned right. I spent maybe 20mins nudging myself bit by bit closer into the path of the outpost but it never hit me nor pulled me into its frame of reference.

It takes a bit of precise fine-tuning of the position, to put it mildly. Seems that players have had more success doing that with large stations to the point where they even become visible on approach. Outposts don't for some reason. My guess is that outposts just orbit so quickly that they can't be rendered at all.

 

[Trinity Star]

Nalenes Rest, just after construction. Orbits above the inner rings.

Col 285 Sector GP-B b28-7

Col 285 Sector GP-B b28-7 - star system | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

The companion site for Elite:Dangerous with the game database, market data, trade routes, outfitting, engineers, blueprints, crafting, Thargoid war, squadrons, logbooks, galleries, galaxy information and much more...

inara.cz

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Unfortunately, systems like these with low orbits and very short orbital periods will almost certainly bug out in the game's current state. The reason that Coriolis construction site hasn't been finished is exactly that. It is possible to deliver resources to it, but it takes quite a bit of finesse, as the time it takes to deliver them is limited before another active station captures the player into its own frame of reference and then into its orbit as it passes by, making it appear as if the station the player wants to dock at starts "running away". Much harder in a slower ship, so that site is going to be lying dormant for a while.

Strangely I never had this happen, but when I finished building my neutron coriolis I found that the bar that shares the same orbit will occasionally dip into the station instance, close enough not only to be visible but also show up on radar and trigger the "structure detected - scan for more details" notification.