By "big" I mean an expedition that took more than a few hours 600 ly away from the bubble, which was my first stab at it in my Cobra just to get an idea. 23 days ago, I bought an Asp and set her up for exploration, and decided to head south, using nebulas as checkpoints.
One the first day, just after buying the Asp, I was really tired as it was getting late, but I couldn't wait so I took her out immediately. My departure point was the Alioth system, which is where I bought my Asp. Soon after leaving the bubble, my barely awake state caused some damage as my alt -tabbing caused an emergency stop near a star. Using heat sinks I was able to leave without further damage, and started supercruising away from the star. Partly being tired, partly never having used an AFMU before, I activated it while in SC - causing another emergency drop and cracking my canopy. Not fancying starting a trip with a cracked canopy, I found the nearest port at the edge of the bubble, which was 3 jumps away, as luck would have it. I docked, repaired, and left exploration for the next day.
The next day was effectively the real first day of the expedition. Well rested, with the ship once again in perfect shape, I set out for the Rigel system (I'm part of a development team of the upcoming 4x space strategy game called Lord of Rigel, so it made sense to go check it out in Elite). The rigel's twin blue giants were an impressive sight, too bad not followed by a planetary system.
The entire route was roughly like this: Alioth -> Rigel -> Witch Head Nebula -> Orion / Barnard's Loop -> Jellyfish Nebula -> Monkey Head Nebula (proceeded a bit south from there before heading north again) -> Rosetta -> Seagull -> Thor's Helmet -> Coalsack -> back to Alioth.
During the voyage I took my time, usually going up or down from the middle of the galactic plane, as well as taking a bit less direct routes in order to remain in previously unexplored systems. The first paydirt happened right after passing the Barnard's loop, as I encountered my first ELW.
Unfortunately, even though I was sure I took the galactic grid coordinates for this system, apparently I haven't so now I'm having trouble reacquiring it on the galactic map. If anyone should come across the Col 89 Sector XU-N D7-8 system containing a lovely ELW as it's 6th planet, after you're done cursing my name that's now on this planet, if you could message me the grid coordinates I'd be much obliged
During the trip, I only encountered two ELW's, the first of which was previously undiscovered; the second had already been tagged, even though it was still quite far from civilization where almost all systems were untagged - just my luck. I also saw all the nebulas I outlined, as well as quite a lot of water worlds, gas giants with life, terraformables, etc. I also got my name on a few neutron stars, and visited two black holes, both of which had previously been discovered, unfortunately. I also found that the Herbig Ae/Be stars spin crazy fast
The whole trip was kept under 10 kly because it was my first extended stay in the black, and I wanted to not be across the galaxy in case I get bored of exploration - a fear that turned out to be unfounded, as I was kind of feeling sorry I'm ending the expedition on my way back. However, I always wanted the Clipper, and there's that rank relaxation thing in effect - as I find grinding ranks about as interesting as watching paint dry, I found the opportunity to buy a Clipper without reaching Baron hard to resist, and didn't want to risk the rank relaxation expiring on the 1st of August (just a guess).
The last day had me swing by Coalsack, after which I proceeded straight to the original point of departure, the Alioth system. I sold part of the data there, then spread the rest around federation and imperial systems to get back in good graces with said powers, who kind of forgot about my allied status during my absence, reducing it to friendly. Below are shots of some of the expedition's highlights. As you can see, upon returning I rewarded my trusty Asp with a shiny new muscle car paint job, and then splurged on something real fancy. BTW it took a while for the game to promote me to ranger which is why the shots comparing before / after selling are at different locations.
Some totals..
Expedition length: 22 days (not counting day 0 where a mishap forced me back to port).
Systems visited: roughly 1000, this is a very loose estimate as I unfortunately forgot to check the numbers of systems visited prior to departure.
Profits: a bit over 27 million credits.
Rank progression: Surveyor -> Ranger
Bottom line: Exploration is definitely for me. It's relaxing, it the only game I've seen where the galaxy was done in it's correct, immense scale, and as an amateur astronomer it's hard not to fall in love with that. I already feel strange in the bubble, and will probably head out again soon, this time on a much larger trip; my initial fears of getting bored because of not being able to do anything else were unfounded.
Still, being back is not bad, as shortly after returning I treated myself to the imperial clipper, as you can see in the last shot. Great cockpit, I really hope they make an exploration variant of this ship, an imperial style explorer with a clipper like cockpit would be awesome. It's sleek, stylish lines and beautiful, spacious cockpit are quite a sharp contrast to the utilitarian rugged Asp. I don't really have the funds to outfit her to my liking yet so I used the rest of my money to set my Asp up for combat instaed, keeping the Clipper in storage, happy I won't need to grind that Baron rank any time soon. I think I'll do some bounty hunting before heading out again. What can I say, trading bores me.
One the first day, just after buying the Asp, I was really tired as it was getting late, but I couldn't wait so I took her out immediately. My departure point was the Alioth system, which is where I bought my Asp. Soon after leaving the bubble, my barely awake state caused some damage as my alt -tabbing caused an emergency stop near a star. Using heat sinks I was able to leave without further damage, and started supercruising away from the star. Partly being tired, partly never having used an AFMU before, I activated it while in SC - causing another emergency drop and cracking my canopy. Not fancying starting a trip with a cracked canopy, I found the nearest port at the edge of the bubble, which was 3 jumps away, as luck would have it. I docked, repaired, and left exploration for the next day.
The next day was effectively the real first day of the expedition. Well rested, with the ship once again in perfect shape, I set out for the Rigel system (I'm part of a development team of the upcoming 4x space strategy game called Lord of Rigel, so it made sense to go check it out in Elite). The rigel's twin blue giants were an impressive sight, too bad not followed by a planetary system.
The entire route was roughly like this: Alioth -> Rigel -> Witch Head Nebula -> Orion / Barnard's Loop -> Jellyfish Nebula -> Monkey Head Nebula (proceeded a bit south from there before heading north again) -> Rosetta -> Seagull -> Thor's Helmet -> Coalsack -> back to Alioth.
During the voyage I took my time, usually going up or down from the middle of the galactic plane, as well as taking a bit less direct routes in order to remain in previously unexplored systems. The first paydirt happened right after passing the Barnard's loop, as I encountered my first ELW.
Unfortunately, even though I was sure I took the galactic grid coordinates for this system, apparently I haven't so now I'm having trouble reacquiring it on the galactic map. If anyone should come across the Col 89 Sector XU-N D7-8 system containing a lovely ELW as it's 6th planet, after you're done cursing my name that's now on this planet, if you could message me the grid coordinates I'd be much obliged
During the trip, I only encountered two ELW's, the first of which was previously undiscovered; the second had already been tagged, even though it was still quite far from civilization where almost all systems were untagged - just my luck. I also saw all the nebulas I outlined, as well as quite a lot of water worlds, gas giants with life, terraformables, etc. I also got my name on a few neutron stars, and visited two black holes, both of which had previously been discovered, unfortunately. I also found that the Herbig Ae/Be stars spin crazy fast
The whole trip was kept under 10 kly because it was my first extended stay in the black, and I wanted to not be across the galaxy in case I get bored of exploration - a fear that turned out to be unfounded, as I was kind of feeling sorry I'm ending the expedition on my way back. However, I always wanted the Clipper, and there's that rank relaxation thing in effect - as I find grinding ranks about as interesting as watching paint dry, I found the opportunity to buy a Clipper without reaching Baron hard to resist, and didn't want to risk the rank relaxation expiring on the 1st of August (just a guess).
The last day had me swing by Coalsack, after which I proceeded straight to the original point of departure, the Alioth system. I sold part of the data there, then spread the rest around federation and imperial systems to get back in good graces with said powers, who kind of forgot about my allied status during my absence, reducing it to friendly. Below are shots of some of the expedition's highlights. As you can see, upon returning I rewarded my trusty Asp with a shiny new muscle car paint job, and then splurged on something real fancy. BTW it took a while for the game to promote me to ranger which is why the shots comparing before / after selling are at different locations.
Some totals..
Expedition length: 22 days (not counting day 0 where a mishap forced me back to port).
Systems visited: roughly 1000, this is a very loose estimate as I unfortunately forgot to check the numbers of systems visited prior to departure.
Profits: a bit over 27 million credits.
Rank progression: Surveyor -> Ranger
Bottom line: Exploration is definitely for me. It's relaxing, it the only game I've seen where the galaxy was done in it's correct, immense scale, and as an amateur astronomer it's hard not to fall in love with that. I already feel strange in the bubble, and will probably head out again soon, this time on a much larger trip; my initial fears of getting bored because of not being able to do anything else were unfounded.
Still, being back is not bad, as shortly after returning I treated myself to the imperial clipper, as you can see in the last shot. Great cockpit, I really hope they make an exploration variant of this ship, an imperial style explorer with a clipper like cockpit would be awesome. It's sleek, stylish lines and beautiful, spacious cockpit are quite a sharp contrast to the utilitarian rugged Asp. I don't really have the funds to outfit her to my liking yet so I used the rest of my money to set my Asp up for combat instaed, keeping the Clipper in storage, happy I won't need to grind that Baron rank any time soon. I think I'll do some bounty hunting before heading out again. What can I say, trading bores me.
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