I've just had a little jaunt around the near dark, making it out at the furthest point about 5000 ly (the Trifid Nebula). Total distance travelled would be around the 15kly mark. Just got back and sold my data. 500 systems visited, 5 earth-likes, 1 water giant and at least 3 ammonia worlds (I hadn't realised quite how rare they were so didn't make notes
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My first earthlike - ever! This was only 1648ly out of Achenar.

Followed by my 2nd only 13 systems later... at this point I was thinking perhaps ELW weren't that rare after all and everyone else was just exaggerating...

Followed by an Ammonia world that I didn't realise was rare at all... so didn't bother with a close up

However another one came along not too much later

Another ELW

and another- that's 4 ELWs all in different systems in about 120 systems - as a noob for deep space I didn't realise how freakish that was...

Then a trip up to Thor's Eye and the Lagoon Nebula (if you haven't been go... its gorgeous). It has been extensively mapped, but there are some B's that haven't been mapped yet. It's also when I realised that the black holes and neutron starts aren't often primaries in much of the galaxy, but they are around.


Then the Water Giant. Stupidly I thought it had a Jovian holographic and rather gave up on the "rocky" holographic GGs after that.


Another ammonia world with some nice rings


The halfway point of the trip, the Trifid Nebula

My first, and so far only, Neutron Star with my tag on it. I suspect many explorers are optimising routes to find them and black holes (as I was). I got much better at it when I realised they often are secondary stars in systems so the filters don't help so much.

And one of those I spotted.. something nice hiding in all the pink balls.

The last ELW of the trip...


A remarkable system - 3 water worlds, all with Argon atmospheres. You can just see the second of the binary pair peeking over the left shoulder of the planet.


The compulsory pretty "sunrise" pic

And HIP 84876 - a reasonably close Carbon Star with a White Dwarf in the foreground. The Carbon is over 6000 times larger than the White Dwarf, but only has 5 times the mass.

For those interested in the financial aspects of the trip.
500 systems, 16.4m credits, average of 32.8k per system. This nearly doubled my previous explorer earnings, but I'm still only a Ranger.
TRAIKAAE OR-W d1-7 A4, a water world, came it at 55.5k CRs - above the range on Dognosh's chart.
Most valuable system, at 158k, BLEIA EOHN ZO-I B26-0, had an ammonia world, water world and a terraformable.
Funnily enough the already explored HIP 63835, with its 3 black holes, was only a touch less valuable... and is very close to inhabited space.
Although I was making moderate efforts to target Neutron stars and Black Holes (certainly from the half way point) I only found a single neutron star that hadn't already been found.
My first earthlike - ever! This was only 1648ly out of Achenar.

Followed by my 2nd only 13 systems later... at this point I was thinking perhaps ELW weren't that rare after all and everyone else was just exaggerating...

Followed by an Ammonia world that I didn't realise was rare at all... so didn't bother with a close up

However another one came along not too much later

Another ELW

and another- that's 4 ELWs all in different systems in about 120 systems - as a noob for deep space I didn't realise how freakish that was...

Then a trip up to Thor's Eye and the Lagoon Nebula (if you haven't been go... its gorgeous). It has been extensively mapped, but there are some B's that haven't been mapped yet. It's also when I realised that the black holes and neutron starts aren't often primaries in much of the galaxy, but they are around.


Then the Water Giant. Stupidly I thought it had a Jovian holographic and rather gave up on the "rocky" holographic GGs after that.


Another ammonia world with some nice rings


The halfway point of the trip, the Trifid Nebula

My first, and so far only, Neutron Star with my tag on it. I suspect many explorers are optimising routes to find them and black holes (as I was). I got much better at it when I realised they often are secondary stars in systems so the filters don't help so much.

And one of those I spotted.. something nice hiding in all the pink balls.

The last ELW of the trip...


A remarkable system - 3 water worlds, all with Argon atmospheres. You can just see the second of the binary pair peeking over the left shoulder of the planet.


The compulsory pretty "sunrise" pic

And HIP 84876 - a reasonably close Carbon Star with a White Dwarf in the foreground. The Carbon is over 6000 times larger than the White Dwarf, but only has 5 times the mass.

For those interested in the financial aspects of the trip.
500 systems, 16.4m credits, average of 32.8k per system. This nearly doubled my previous explorer earnings, but I'm still only a Ranger.
TRAIKAAE OR-W d1-7 A4, a water world, came it at 55.5k CRs - above the range on Dognosh's chart.
Most valuable system, at 158k, BLEIA EOHN ZO-I B26-0, had an ammonia world, water world and a terraformable.
Funnily enough the already explored HIP 63835, with its 3 black holes, was only a touch less valuable... and is very close to inhabited space.
Although I was making moderate efforts to target Neutron stars and Black Holes (certainly from the half way point) I only found a single neutron star that hadn't already been found.
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