Another postcard exploration trip, this time with HD pics

Alex Brentnall · Jun 14, 2015

So following my first major trip (shameless plug here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=142301) I decided I needed to do a run around the rim a bit and check out a few things:

A few spoilers of some Nebula and black holes but here are a few pics from the journey so far. I have the original 168mb .bmp files. if you want any for backgrounds or whatever let me know and I'll try and get a dropbox link or something.

Day 1: Crab Pulsar Nebula, Messier 78 Nebula

I also did a swing past Mintaka B but with the future pics of black holes I left those out, they weren't spectacular.

Day 2: Edge of rim, "Sylaips PV-I C24-0" - My new desktop background

Day 3: Bubble Nebula and "IC 1805 Sector DQ-Y E3" nebula

Black hole:

Bubble:

Day 4: Pra Eaewsy AA-A H56 Nebula

Ringed Terraformable Water World Night sky:

Day 5: Hypo Auf AA-A H37 and surrounding area (It looks like an octopus/squid)

Day 6 (14th June): Hypiae Ausms AA-A H226 and surrounding area

A Neutron Nebula and an incredibly close Trinary system with a Neutron star. Hell for explorers in a nutshell. Try to ignore that 78% hull, I've been incredibly lax around many neutron stars...

View attachment 44296

Current progress as of posting:
58.5 hours in. Yeah thats nearly 10 hours a day. I feel a bit dirty about that too...
Started with ~3800 systems scanned, now at ~5800
Travelled approx 55,000LY

I will probably post a final update on the trip but I don't really have many plans other than do a bit of black hole and Neutron hunting near the core before heading back for the Community goal. If anyone has good suggestions for places to visit on returning from the core let me know and I'll see if I can swing by

Update 17th June:

Day 7, 8 & 9 largely pottering about finding black holes and neutrons in the core.

Day 10 decided to go back, simply can't stand farming neutrons, its driving me mental. I did chance across this amazing nebula though, first discovered and it looks awesome:

I also got this truly epic shot that is my new wallpaper and my favourite "selfie" to date.

Update 21st June:
Real life got in the way this weekend but Im about 4000LY away from Sol now and prepping to get back and sell, will do a roundup post on hours spent etc when I do but I expect this will be on Thursday/Friday since I have a very busy week ahead of me...

Update 22nd June:
Powered back overnight, picked up a shot of the ship inside a solar flare which didn't come out as well as I'd have liked but was still ok:

Also if the owner of this tag is on this forum thank you for brightening up my return to civilisation and making me laugh at 3am...

b0rg9 · Jun 14, 2015

I love that thin-ringed waterworld shot!

Murishani · Jun 14, 2015

Alex Brentnall said:
Day 5: Hypo Auf AA-A H37 and surrounding area (It looks like an octopus/squid)

That is !&*%$ spectacular

Alex Brentnall · Jun 14, 2015

b0rg9 said:
I love that thin-ringed waterworld shot!

Murishani said:
That is !&*%$ spectacular

Thanks. I just noticed that Hypo auf squid like one looks a bit like the Hunger Games Mockingjay logo from a certain angle... Awesome

Edit: Although in hindsight not really that much...

iain666 · Jun 14, 2015

"Day 1: Crab Pulsar Nebula, Messier 78 Nebula"

?!??!

I'm planning to have those a couple of weeks apart. You are seriously motoring.

OK, so I'm in a 26ly Cobra but even if I'm trying to move along I can't suppress the magpie long enough to make that sort of pace. Even if I was playing 10h a day (I would be if I could...) that would still be a 'Week 1' headline for me, not a 'Day 1'

Alex Brentnall · Jun 14, 2015

I should probably point out im in a 38.6Ly Anaconda and have been on fastest setting all the way only stopping to scan BH/NS/EL/WW/AW.

But yeah it was pretty much a race through so far, I want to be back by the 18th-20th to give me over 1 week to get to rank 5 in Li Yong-Rui (200% exploration data sale) and still make the exploration CG. So far so good

I also had a day away from Elite inbetween "day 2" and "day 3" where I couldn't access Elite (9th if anyones keeping up) so I kinda took liberties with that, but the time to days ratio is still valid..

Alex Brentnall · Jun 25, 2015

Stats from the trip:

Screenshots of before and after:

Pre-Sale:

Post-Sale:

Stats (Bonus 200% exploration from Li Yong-Rui was used):

Total profit: 193,395,834Cr
Time spent exploring: 97 hours
Time spent selling data: 1hr 10 mins

Estimated LY travelled: 81,675
Pages sold: 158
First Discoveries: 935
Systems Visited: 3154

Profit per hour: 1,993,771Cr
Profit per system: 61,395Cr
Systems per hour: 31.3
Ly per hour: 842

Made Elite!

On a side note this happened though:
So so annoyed that I had a "hardware crash" the very second I hit Elite and so I don't get to see the popup saying congratulations... I feel somehow cheated, I was looking forward to that screen.

Asayanami · Jun 25, 2015

Here you go CMDR

Congratulations!

Ziggy Stardust · Jun 25, 2015

Profit per hour: 1,993,771Cr
Profit per system: 61,395Cr
Systems per hour: 31.3

I take it the credits are times 3 compared to non-bonus values?

How in the Galaxy can you achieve 31.3 systems per hour?

Alex Brentnall · Jun 25, 2015

Ziggy Stardust said:
I take it the credits are times 3 compared to non-bonus values?

How in the Galaxy can you achieve 31.3 systems per hour?

Yeah basically divide all values by 3 for the base value, I think originally profit was about 65mil or thereabouts.

Erm, not really sure. Now you mention It I may have missed something there. Let me check my excel sheet...

Edit: I have a discrepancy in the CG data. Lembava CG is showing 2877 reports submitted but I'm 100% sure I submitted at 158 pages. At 20 per page thats a minimum of 3141 if the last page had 1 report??
Although I believe the way I did it was to avoid scooping whenever possible and be quick on the FSD trigger. I'd usually turned and honked by the time cooldown was done and just checked system map during the chargeup.
I also did not enter the core with plotting issues.

Edit again: I did 29 system per hour on my previous trip: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=142301&page=2
Doesn't seem too far off to spend less than 116secs in most systems (3600s in 1hr). I need to start scanning properly instead of tourism/racing exploration. ~45secs from entrance in system 1 to entrance in system 2 is my record in an Anaconda without scooping, honk and jump...

Asayanami said:
Here you go CMDR

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net...imation.gif/revision/latest?cb=20150322062250

Congratulations!

Thanks, I needed that

Ziggy Stardust · Jun 25, 2015

I just saw I horribly misspelled: "Great pictures Alex!

"

Spell correction successful.

Alex Brentnall · Jun 25, 2015

Ziggy Stardust said:
Am I being an Elitist Parade-raining Scrooge when I say I'm glad I will make Elite by handing in the required amount of data to make Elite, instead of using the triple data value?

Yeah, I'll be out again too before long to get my "official" wings. I should be on about 110mil profits atm so one more trip should do it. I wouldn't have any problem if im kicked back to Pioneer tbh

I planned to stay out another 2-3 weeks and get Elite officially anyway but the Lembava CG brought me back.

Ziggy Stardust · Jun 25, 2015

Already feel sorry for posting that in this thread

This needs to be a happy congratulatory thread, not my bah humbugs. My apologies.

Will edit it away.

Alex Brentnall · Jun 25, 2015

Ziggy Stardust said:
Already feel sorry for posting that in this thread This needs to be a happy congratulatory thread, not my bah humbugs. My apologies.

Will edit it away.

Haha, no worries. I actually agree the whole easy Elite thing should be removed.. It will take quite a bit to dampen my spirits at the moment though since im currently in a 250mil spending binge at the 15% discounted systems around Lembava

Ziggy Stardust · Jun 25, 2015

"Heheh, I'll have that, that one, three of those"