Around the Galaxy in 7.553 days - a DECE Speed Circumnavigation

As part of the Dead End's Circumnavigation Expedition, I decided to see just how fast a circumnavigation could take place - how long it could take to reach each of the 38 checkpoints of the expedition, from its start at Witch Head Science Center to its finish at Achrende.

As it turns out, pretty fast. I started at 18:55:00 on May 23, 3304, and finished at 08:11:13 on May 31. Was actually about a minute or so less, but for some reason it didn't take the first time I hit f10.

Total time: 7 days, 13 hours, 16 minutes, 13 seconds.

Here's a map of the route:

42419118572_93163241e7_b.jpg

A few statistics:
Total number of jumps: 5420
Total number of new systems visited: 5094
Total distance: 407738 ly
Distance/jump: 75.22 ly (not surprising, considering a 70.57ly jump range, neutron star jumping, and the occasional boosted jump). (Had to edit this, as I made an error in the calculations when I first posted. Math after piloting all day every day for a week... not so good.)

In-character "CMDR's Log" entries about each day of the trip can be found in the Collective Log of the Dead End's Circumnavigation Expedition, here:
Launch
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8 (finish)

The various checkpoints of the DECE Expedition, from start to finish:

Start at Witch Head, 18:55:00 on May 23:

28500315428_22892e0f02_h.jpg

Checkpoint 1: Station X

42324354592_11cf4f62d1_h.jpg

Checkpoint 2: 3 Geminorum

42324359862_5b75ab48c3_h.jpg

Checkpoint 3: Angosk DL-P D5-0 (Distant Angosk)

42324352402_8b3cfb69b7_h.jpg

Checkpoint 4: Angosk OM-W D1-0 (Sepositus Beacon)

42324349902_d840355b02_h.jpg

Checkpoint 5: Lyed YJ-I D9-0 (Amundsen's Star)

41470818675_09f2195553_h.jpg

Checkpoint 6: Hypuae Euq ZK-P D5-0 (Notus - The 'Southern' Meridian)

40565591750_9f1f64a4fd_h.jpg

Checkpoint 7: Aicods KD-K D8-3 (Point Decision)

41650069984_284ce54189_h.jpg

Checkpoint 8: Syroifoe CL-Y g1 (The Syroifoe Oasis)

40565586320_cc63bbfb14_h.jpg

Checkpoint 9: HIP 117078 (PZ Cassiopeiae)

41650073414_9950a0e470_h.jpg

Checkpoint 10: Spongou FA-A e2 (Spongou Nebula)

41650067524_d0ab5a062a_h.jpg

Checkpoint 11: Cyuefai BC-D d12-4 (Westpoint Ormand)

42373581591_9c3b397ed6_h.jpg

Checkpoint 12: Cyuefoo LC-D d12-0 (Manifest Destiny - The Western Meridian)

28500296328_62006715f0_h.jpg

Checkpoint 13: Byaa Thoi EW-E d11-0

41650064774_7a59bd992c_h.jpg

Checkpoint 14: Byaa Thoi GC-D d12-0 (Star One)

42373584461_90d0f2a03f_h.jpg

Checkpoint 15: Auzorts NR-N d6-0

40565576200_0719181c02_h.jpg

Checkpoint 16: Lyruewry BK-R d4-12 (Banded Azane)

41650062104_b617220be3_h.jpg

Checkpoint 17: Hypou Chreou RS-S c17-6

42374253571_ee2da0a79d_h.jpg

Checkpoint 18: Hypiae Brue DI-D c12-0

42417251702_ed734b8cf0_h.jpg

Checkpoint 19: Sphiesi HX-L d7-0 (Erikson's Star)

28503707418_13fbc365aa_h.jpg

Checkpoint 20: Flyae Proae IN-S e4-1

40570820690_8d529260db_h.jpg

Checkpoint 21: Footie AA-A g0 (Blue In The Black)

41494423385_8e304ef4a0_h.jpg

Checkpoint 22: Oedgaf DL-Y g0 (Rimor Captionem)

42347300802_7bc0ba85e6_h.jpg

Checkpoint 23: Gria Bloae YE-A g0

41673705644_db84e2b423_h.jpg

Checkpoint 24: Exahn AZ-S D3-8

27586807437_285b3c63ad_h.jpg

Checkpoint 25: Chua Eop ZC-T C20-0 (Lone Star)

27586815207_f13eb4ea04_h.jpg

Checkpoint 26: Beagle Point (Beagle Depot)

42406369592_21ef3c8482_h.jpg
Checkpoint 27: Cheae Eurl AA-A E0 (The Sublustris Beacon)

27586772927_bafb3ff8a1_h.jpg
Checkpoint 28: Hyphielia QH-K c22-0 (Silentium Shores)

41733942114_2037fec9a3_h.jpg
Checkpoint 29: Praei Bre WO-R D4-3

41733948614_130ab1d213_h.jpg
Checkpoint 30: Suvua FG-Y F0 (Alatar and Pallando)

28584123748_7d6ad538e6_h.jpg
Checkpoint 31: Hypaa Byio ZE-A G1 (The Hypaa Byio Buoy)

41733954884_99992e5257_h.jpg
Checkpoint 32: Eembaitl DL-Y d13 (Ultima Centauri)

40648721000_fd463e3f86_h.jpg
Checkpoint 33: Synookaea MX-L d7-0

41554669905_f2b6167721_h.jpg
Checkpoint 34: Blea Airgh EI-B d13-1

42406677442_6eed614fa0_h.jpg
Checkpoint 35: Ood Fleau ZJ-I d9-0 (Magellan's Star)

42408297442_1f7137f5b5_h.jpg

Checkpoint 36: Plae Eur DW-E d11-0
40655721070_5cb08a1765_h.jpg
Checkpoint 37: Haffner 18 LSS 27 (Skull & Crossbones Nebula)
27596377047_4ef44824fe_h.jpg
Checkpoint 38 (finish): Vogel Enterprise, Achrende
40661175180_14b8e19601_h.jpg

Overall, this was fun, but an incredible challenge. Imagine an old-school A* run, or a modern Beagle run, every day, for 8 days. It certainly wears on a person. Was certainly fun, and a heck of a challenge, but this one hurt to finish.
 
Last edited:
That's one heck of an achievement, so well done.

I'm interested to know how many hours a day you were flying to achieve this?

EDIT: Actually, to answer my own question, assuming 1 jump per minute, (being a bit too kind), that's 90 hours play. That's over 12 hours a day!!! Holy cow!
 
Last edited:
Wow. Well, I suppose that speedrun route can't really be topped, now can it? Congratulations on making it all the way through!
 
Crapola, 7 days, what a trip.

First of all, you should visit the doctor to have your mental health checked.

Second, I hope they build a station and place it in one of these boundary systems and name it after you or give you a choice of what the name should be. Or change say the name of a boundary system, say Crab Sector DL-Y d9. You certainly deserve some kind of reward. Fantastic effort, well done.
 
Last edited:
First words: "Holy expleting expletives!"
Looked at the OPs name and my next words were: "Of course it expletive was!"


Serious congratulations, I doubt thats a record that will be broken in a hurry! I did a quick number crunch and flight time absolute best case you are talking 33 hours pure flying time with a perfect pre-planned route and zero mistakes. Take away the perfection of a Sag A* run and that's 36-40hrs minimum.
Even doing 12 hour shifts thats still 3.5 days solid of nothing but Elite and jumping so doing it in 7 without going insane is pretty phenomenal!


Your move FD, when will you unlock Andromeda/Magellan clouds? :)
 
Nice one Hanekura!

Next target is "around the galaxy in 80 hours" which likely isn't anywhere near as hard. Just do a loop keeping at least 25,900 LY from Sag A*. Should only require ~2,400 jumps even without neutron boosting.
 
A few thoughts, after having gotten some sleep:

First, thanks, everyone. Special thanks to Macros Black for setting up the DECE expedition, and to the rest of the DECE group for their help, prospecting, and companionship.

Second, this is what 400,000 ly of travel does to your paint job:

40669547570_c3e58ba186_h.jpg

Basically, what I did for a week (with the exception of one day; had a meeting I couldn't get out of) was wake up, maybe fly, maybe get lunch, eventually eat at some point, fly, make supper, fly some more until I got tired, and then go to bed. I moved the television next to the computer, to keep me entertained while flying. So overall it was about 80-100 hours.

Technical issues: For a couple of days, my internet was extremely unreliable; it would cut out on average every 10-15 minutes. My solution to this was one I'd used before, oddly enough on my earliest A* runs: use my phone as my internet connection. (When you hear me reference using an "auxiliary computer" in the DECE Collective Log, those are cases where I'd simply unplugged my regular internet, and plugged my cel phone into the computer.) Then, well... less than an hour before Achrende, Frontier has its weekly server maintenance. Could not believe the timing on that.

Planning: As Alot once put it, "boring spreadsheets". I first started planning this late last year. This was before the changes to engineering and to jumponium materials. To say that it was a very fine line under the previous system was an understatement. I plotted entry routes to each of the checkpoints with the goal of seeing if it was possible to make a run without an SRV. To say that it was close was an understatement: I calculated that a ship that had a jump range of 67.5ly or greater could make the run while using just under 1000 jumponium materials. (I was despairing for awhile during those calculations, as it took some work to get the number under 1000.) The changes to engineering and to materials made the run significantly easier.

I had two real opportunities to get this done. The first was in early March. I flew for a day, made it about 5000 ly beyond Angosk, woke up day 2, and just stared at the ceiling thinking, "Do I really want to do this right now?" That's one reason why I didn't talk much in the early entries in the DECE Collective Log: I wasn't sure I'd continue this. Probably the toughest point for this is waking up exhausted after day 1, and continuing on. Once a couple of days have passed, then stubbornness kicks in, and you're not going to quit after that.

AFMUs and neutron star jumping: Neutron stars were always on in the route; if the standard route plotter wanted a neutron star, I would use that. For a couple of legs of the journey I used Spansh to route; this naturally involved far more neutron stars, and had some benefit in certain cases. (Generally, if I wasn't seeing a benefit, I stopped using it.) What was interesting, though, was its effect on the use and health of the AFMUs. Here's where the AFMUs finished at the end of the run:

42478564731_0405b02601_h.jpg

I honestly wonder how much further the ship could have gone before the AFMUs either ran out or gave out.
 
Top Bottom