After spending over half a year bounty hunting to earn enough money to put together a decent exploration ship, I decided my first expedition would be to Alpha Cygni, as I have always appreciated this star, which happens to be one of the brightest in our galaxy. Looking at the map, it's not that far away, right? Well...
I started out from Gateway, an old favorite starting point for many Alliance explorers. I decided to document the journey with screenshots. Most of them are probably not too interesting, but I tried to get flybys of the more interesting or rare planets and finds, and then anything pretty as well. Now, I don't play ED every day, and in fact I don't have a ton of time for it so this journey took me almost 4 months to finish. Part of the reason it took so long was because I'm not a racer. My route was Alpha Cygni and back, but I wasn't in a hurry. I wanted to see what was along the way. When I can land on planets, that'll make my journeys take even longer. I'm more of a surveyor than an explorer in that regard. Anytime I saw something neat, valuable or not, I'd take a closer look. If it wasn't neat, I'd usually scan it if I could do it quickly, and I'd always take the opportunity to try to scan inner planets while fuel scooping. I'd occasionally stop off in metal rich asteroid belts and rings to do some prospecting. Even found gold in a ring once. I'll admit, I didn't see anything super rare, but it was a memorable trip - maybe because it was my first, maybe because it was long and I had a few close calls with killer systems. I spent a long time out there without seeing anyone else, not even an NPC. My first encounter on my way back with anyone was a gang of pirates. Go figure. Fortunately my ship is built for two things: Exploration and Survival. Speed, Shields, even a small investment into lightweight armor just in case. And of course the best scanning and exploration gear money could buy. And if nothing else, I could maybe dissuade a player pirate from killing me on the way back by saying "The data I carry is vital to the Federation!". Course, that wouldn't work on Imperials, but I was never one to pass up a good reference.
I screenshotted pretty stuff as well as useful data - rare planets and prospecting finds specifically. Maybe I should have gotten more shots of the route, but you can pretty much work out the route I took there and back from the system names. None of this is going to go down in history, no UA's, no SAP-8's, but some of it might be useful. There's alot of screenshots, maybe I overdid it. But someone might find them interesting. I also recorded the first discoveries and my pilot data at a few points, just for reference. Anyway, I'll submit it here for those who might be interested, and if any of you see the name Iridium Nova when traveling through Wredguia, you'll know just who that is.
Because there are alot of screenshots, I zipped them up and put them here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40870714/Iridium Nova - Expedition to Alpha Cygni.rar
I'm not sure where I'll go on my next expedition, or when it will be. Maybe I'll just wander out into the black. That might be fun too.
UPDATE: In retrospect I've realized that a number of my screenshots are missing from the zip. Unfortunately I had a drive crash during the expedition which deleted my photos of Alpha Cygni and its planets, among others. Hopefully on my next expedition I'll have better luck. Those were some neat planets - especially if you like fried chocolate balls.
I started out from Gateway, an old favorite starting point for many Alliance explorers. I decided to document the journey with screenshots. Most of them are probably not too interesting, but I tried to get flybys of the more interesting or rare planets and finds, and then anything pretty as well. Now, I don't play ED every day, and in fact I don't have a ton of time for it so this journey took me almost 4 months to finish. Part of the reason it took so long was because I'm not a racer. My route was Alpha Cygni and back, but I wasn't in a hurry. I wanted to see what was along the way. When I can land on planets, that'll make my journeys take even longer. I'm more of a surveyor than an explorer in that regard. Anytime I saw something neat, valuable or not, I'd take a closer look. If it wasn't neat, I'd usually scan it if I could do it quickly, and I'd always take the opportunity to try to scan inner planets while fuel scooping. I'd occasionally stop off in metal rich asteroid belts and rings to do some prospecting. Even found gold in a ring once. I'll admit, I didn't see anything super rare, but it was a memorable trip - maybe because it was my first, maybe because it was long and I had a few close calls with killer systems. I spent a long time out there without seeing anyone else, not even an NPC. My first encounter on my way back with anyone was a gang of pirates. Go figure. Fortunately my ship is built for two things: Exploration and Survival. Speed, Shields, even a small investment into lightweight armor just in case. And of course the best scanning and exploration gear money could buy. And if nothing else, I could maybe dissuade a player pirate from killing me on the way back by saying "The data I carry is vital to the Federation!". Course, that wouldn't work on Imperials, but I was never one to pass up a good reference.
I screenshotted pretty stuff as well as useful data - rare planets and prospecting finds specifically. Maybe I should have gotten more shots of the route, but you can pretty much work out the route I took there and back from the system names. None of this is going to go down in history, no UA's, no SAP-8's, but some of it might be useful. There's alot of screenshots, maybe I overdid it. But someone might find them interesting. I also recorded the first discoveries and my pilot data at a few points, just for reference. Anyway, I'll submit it here for those who might be interested, and if any of you see the name Iridium Nova when traveling through Wredguia, you'll know just who that is.
Because there are alot of screenshots, I zipped them up and put them here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40870714/Iridium Nova - Expedition to Alpha Cygni.rar
I'm not sure where I'll go on my next expedition, or when it will be. Maybe I'll just wander out into the black. That might be fun too.
UPDATE: In retrospect I've realized that a number of my screenshots are missing from the zip. Unfortunately I had a drive crash during the expedition which deleted my photos of Alpha Cygni and its planets, among others. Hopefully on my next expedition I'll have better luck. Those were some neat planets - especially if you like fried chocolate balls.
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