Exploration: Quest for the loneliest planet

[SvennoJ]

Day 304 Rendezvous point
.
What luck. During one of my cool down breaks I stumble upon another Earth like world!
It's a small one (0.65g) in a 5 star system. It's on a 1000 day orbit and looks like a great place to visit to enjoy the view of 5 suns in the sky.
The calm warm weather looks very inviting. A great place to come back to once remote atmospheric landings are possible as well.
GLAICHA UP-G D10-16 [7799, 52, 44671] SagA 20,317ly Sol 45,346ly

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I push on and make it all the way to Rendezvous point. I greet the markers left by previous visitors and add my own.
All familiar names by now. I find the markers of Kamzel, Erimus, Picker, Flector, Barefoot bandit, Allitnil and Turambar.
Sadly R4nger0's marker is nowhere to be found. I wonder what happened to it.
EACTAINDS GN-W C1-6 [6026, -6, 42548] SagA 17,696ly Sol 42,972ly

.
At rendezvous point I finally spot the first Nebula. It's been a long time since I saw one of those.

.
Having almost traveled 13k already I decide to park here for the little that remains of the day. I have dug up the travel logs
of CMDR Maia Posidana and am anxiously catching up with all that has happened in the past 8 months on the other side of the Galaxy.
It's a nail biter. First forced to return after too much damage then she lost the Magellan in a terrible accident. I'm glad to read that even
the complete destruction of the Magellan did not deter Maia from setting out again, this time in an Asp, the Prometheus.
CMDR Maia Pasidana finally made it all the way to the end of the Perseus arm, and out there met up with CMDR Vanderdecke some 4 months ago.
I simply can't stop reading as she gets lost trying to cross over to the Sagittarius arm.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=109837
Approximate distance travelled: 160.2k

Addendum:

Today has finally revealed to me what happened to CMDR R4nger0. He only just now made it back to the bubble, and it seems I have inadvertently overwritten his name. I wish I could undo my mistake, I didn't realize he was still out there. Thus let it be known, this is the correct system map:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=103513&page=39

 

[Kancro Vantas]

I can't rep you any more CMDR Svenno!! Wonderful Log Thread you have here!!

Really missed in the community!!

Which makes me think that this log, doesn't belong to Dangerous Discussion anymore: it can come home to the Exploration Forum!

I know the Exploration Forum was not created yet when you went to sleep had a trouble with that black hole....but we now have one!!

And this excellent piece of literature belongs there!

Will report to mods, if you don't mind!

Welcome back, for the 1,000th time!

 

[SvennoJ]

Day 305 2000 ly/h
.
Today I get the ship up to its maximum speed. Star density is high enough now to plan fairly direct lines in consistent 39+ ly jumps.
Soon I'm traveling a bit over 2000 light years per hour. The rapid fuel scooping and continuous jumping are very taxing and I'm glad for the
mandatory cooldown breaks. Since I'm making good time I decide to stop more frequently to look around and make some pleasant discoveries.
First I take a closer look at the Greeroi Nebula, a welcome sight after spending so much time in the endless black.
GREEROI SP-D D13-1 [4787, 1006, 38455] SagA 13,470ly Sol 38,766ly

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At one of my stops I discover 2 quite similar ammonia worlds, both paired with a binary planet, orbiting not far from each other around a class L dwarf.
The dwarf star orbits a neutron star which provides the extra warmth to make life possible.
AEMONZ EV-Y D1019 [4315, -1051, 33622] SagA 8,894ly Sol 33,914ly

.

.
I'm in the core now and can't resist checking out the odd black hole. The warping effect is spectacular with so many stars in the sky.
SCHEAU BLAO IN-B D13-542 [4327, -1151, 33411] SagA 8,729ly Sol 33,709ly

.
A bit further on I find one of those rare earth like planets near a neutron star. It's tidally locked to it's binary terraform candidate partner.
It's a very cold earth with a massive ice cap. Probably for the better, with 32% oxygen forest fires would be rampant.
BRAISOI BQ-P D5-1856 [4217, -1146, 31415] SagA 7,012ly Sol 31,716ly

It's fertile system around the M-class star orbiting in the green zone of the neutron star.
There is another terraform candidate, a water world and an Ammonia world.
The ammonia world is massive, 1.75g, with almost a 1000 atmospheres. It's hard to see the ground beneath the thick clouds.

.
I set a personal record today at 15.1k light years traveled in one day.
Approximate distance travelled: 175.3k

 

[SvennoJ]

I can't rep you any more CMDR Svenno!! Wonderful Log Thread you have here!!

Really missed in the community!!
Which makes me think that this log, doesn't belong to Dangerous Discussion anymore: it can come home to the Exploration Forum!
I know the Exploration Forum was not created yet when you went to sleep had a trouble with that black hole....but we now have one!!
And this excellent piece of literature belongs there!
Will report to mods, if you don't mind!

Welcome back, for the 1,000th time!

Thanks again! And yes if you know who to poke to get it moved then certainly
I'm already itching to start flying again, but probably not at the breakneck pace of the past week, multitask jumping any spare moment.
I hope my laptop can handle Horizons. I still had everything cranked up on return so my frame rate dropped under 10fps while entering the station.
If it it wasn't nerve wrecking enough landing after all this time.

 

[SvennoJ]

Day 306 ELW record broken
.
Today I get word that thanks to FSD boosting technology, CMDR Allitnil has broken my most distant ELW record.
Turns out I woke up just in time to see the bounderies of exploration getting pushed out further than ever before.
Congrats, and I'm glad the limited info I managed to sent back while traveling has been helpful. I'm still on the way back with my original data of that region.
It should still have plenty of value to compare with the new measurements. Plus it seems many CMDRs have been breaking their heads over the western passage
I found to Beagle point. The extra details I still have in my data banks should help, plus FSD boosting will make it an easier passage as well.
.
First I need to take a picture of this Nebula. It's quite a sight in between the neutron star fields.
EOCH BLAO GR-W E1-4245 [3878, -1052, 27441] SagA 4,276ly Sol 27,734ly

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All this light is such a nice change from the empty blackness on the rim.
SCHEAU PRAO ZA-E D12-2900 [2013, -856, 25624] SagA 2,174ly Sol 25,717ly

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Time for a break, floating between the rings of a gas giant.
SCHEAU PRAO ER-M D7-6745 [1762, -944, 25240] SagA Sol

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Today I end my trip at the Great Annihilator. Yet before reaching that monster I find an even better photo op.
A black hole inside of a small nebula. Too much fun.

GREAT ANNIHILATOR [355, -43, 22997] SagA 2,921ly Sol 23,000ly
I travel a little slower today at 11k light years, mainly due to stopping to check out some of the neutron stars I pass on the way.
Approximate distance travelled: 186.2k

 

[SvennoJ]

Day 307 Almost there
.
Today I plot my route back over the by now well traveled shipping lanes between Sol and Sagittarius A*.
I decide to break my journey up in 4k ly stretches to ease the monotony of jump space travel.
That will give me some photo opportunities as well as time to stretch my legs. My first way point is the Mylaifai Nebula.
MYLAIFAI CN-C B45-16 [-613, -342, 19106] SagA 6,831ly Sol 19,119ly
Here I take a good look at my ship in a binary star system. Yep the damage is still all there.

.

I take a last look back at the neutron star fields before heading out of the core.
.
The next stop is at the Boepp Nebula, which offers a spectacular view on approach.
BOEPP XA-D D13-1964 [-440, -516, 16701] SagA 9,224ly Sol 16,715ly

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This system gives me quite a scare when I jump in pretty close to the second sun.

Better not swing that way while fuel scooping.
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Navigating onwards, Bleae Aewsy Nebula becomes the next spot for a break. Here I seek out a ringed gas giant to float among the rings while having dinner.
BLEAE AEWSY RB-U C4-4 [-264, 577, 11937] SagA 13,979ly Sol 11,954ly

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And my last stop today is at the NGC 6357 Nebula, a collection of brilliant O-type stars. Not all that special after having just come from the core,
yet they stand out much more prominently out here, forming a bright beacon that I have been following for the past few hours.
CL PISMIS 16 [965, 140, 8094] SagA 17,831ly Sol 8,153ly
15.4k ly traveled today, I am beat. Yet fully energized as well. If I can keep up this pace, I'll be home tomorrow.
Approximate distance travelled: 201.6k

 

[SvennoJ]

Day 308 Arrival back at Mau
.
The last day, I set off early heading straight for the Lagoon Nebula.
I'm a bit too overeager and trigger the emergency stop while fuel scooping. A dumb mistake which costs me a little bit of damage
every time it happens. I debate wether to relax the proximity settings as the emergency stop does more damage than the slightly
closer than usual fuel scoop swoop would do, yet decide not to risk it. I still have plenty materials left in the AFMU units.
A closer emergency stop would only cause overheating and undue stress on my already battered hull when trying to escape again.
It's not a nice feeling though and I'm glad my safety harness is nice and snug. Plus the ominous groaning of the entire ship
as it recovers after the sudden drop is a good incentive to be more careful.
HERSCHEL 36 (Lagoon) [-468, -93, 4474] SagA 21,431ly Sol 4,500ly
After passing the Lagoon Nebula I venture out a bit from the star as I thought I glimpsed a familiar sight in the sky.
And there it is, Bernard's loop! I'm almost home, back in well known night skies.

Next stop is the Corona Austr Dark region from where I'll travel under the bubble to Hip 10460.
CORONA AUSTR. DARK REGION [-10, -179, 490] SagA 25,410ly Sol 522ly
That way I'll stay away from any traffic and only need six jumps to go straight up to Mau at the end.
My final stop over is in the R CRA Sector, time for final checks and make sure the ship is ready to enter port.
I find a nice ringed gass giant to settle down for a few hours and let the AFMUs do their work.
R CRA SECTOR HB-X B1-5 [-4, -183, 344] SagA 25,556ly Sol 389ly

First contact! Just after bring the ship to a complete stop a ship appears on the radar.
It's an Imperial clipper. Conflicting emotions immediately flood my mind, will they be friendly?
The owner of the ship announces himself as Pattrick Donally, while already scanning my ship.
Before I can say anything he curses at me, what are you doing out here without any cargo, then he promptly leaves.
A pirate preying on miners I guess. if only he knew the value of the scientific data I have on board, better not stay here any longer than I have to.
I let the AFMUs do their diagnostic checks and do a final recalibration to make sure the fine manoeuvring thrusters are working correctly.
Crashing the ship while entering port is my biggest fear atm. Bigger than the potential of meeting another pirate out here.

I end by testing the landing gear, hoping it still works after the abuse the hull has gone through.
It makes a nasty noise while it extends while two of the loose hanging panels on the bottom of the ship break off and float away.
But it's all there, all legs fully extend.

Retracting it goes without problems, all lights green. I deploy it once more, this time without any unwelcome noises.
Satisfied I fire the engines back up, leave the icy rings behind and continue on my way.



I don't meet anyone else on my way, not that I spend much time looking for them. There it is, the final jump and an old familiar sun jumps into view
MAU [-20, 24, -120] SagA 26,020ly Sol 124ly

Approximate distance travelled: 210.3k

Almost immediately I'm overwhelmed by all the traffic. I stay out of the shipping lane and clumsily overshoot the station on approach.
My skills are a bit rusty after all this time, yet it's fine, no traffic on this side.

I stumble around trying to find the entrance. All the close contacts on the radar confuse me and I'm worried one of those
fast patrol ships with potentially rookie drivers will accidentally hit me. They have full shields, I have none and a severely weakened hull.
Circling around I finally line up for the entrance and even remember to ask for docking clearance. Not that I have too, an old familiar voice
from traffic control already hails me, surprised and excited to see me on approach. "Did the old victory lap around the station I see"
"Never thought I would see you again, welcome back!" "Was 25 not your preferred landing spot in the back? Here you go."

Tense moments ensue. The stations seems to be spinning a lot faster than I remember, and the entrance way looks awfully small.
I crawl closer at only 55 m/s, reminding myself I'm sitting at the top of the ship and position it accordingly not to scrape the bottom of the hull.

As I enter the slot down the center an impatient outgoing Asp rudely squeezes by while it angrily flashes its lights at me.
Looks like everything is still the way it was when I left. A sudden feeling of claustrophobia hits me after I enter and spot my landing pad.
It's weird to feel that now, as I'm just about to be able to leave the confines of my ship for the first time in 9 months or 10 weeks from my point of view.

I slow all the way down to 15 m/s while inching closer to the pad. The landing crew is waving me on and tell me to ignore the countdown
timer. Take as much time as you need. Slowly I come to a halt, dead center above the platform.

I check my landing gear again and sit there for a minute to take it all in. The landing crew below me is checking out the extensive damage.
They acknowledge that the landing gear looks fine and tell me there are no obstructions in the way. Just to be safe they tell the dockworkers
and gathering onlookers to get out of the way in case any debris falls off on touch down.
Another minute later I gently float down and softly make contact with the station. The slight vibration as the ship settles down shoots through me
like an electric shock. It has happened, I am connected again.

Cheers erupt as the engines cycle down. Next comes the long decontamination process, best to be on the safe side.
The cleaning crew sends me images of the damage and desperately want to know what I did to that poor Anaconda.
They inform me it's going to take longer than usual to clean out all the bits that were exposed to vacuum and space dust from all over the Galaxy.

When all is said and done my ship is basically declared unfit to fly with 0% structural integrity and swiss cheese for an outer Hull.
The total repair costs are estimated at over 1.5 million credits, that's for the outside damage.
That's only a small price compared to the valuable data that's safely stored inside the ship's data banks.

Before exiting the ship I link up with Universal cartographics to start the high bandwidth transfer of the countless zettabytes of data I've gathered.
They are impressed with the wealth of information and call in a few extra technicians to help facilitate the data transfer.
Meanwhile I exit the ship and set foot on solid ground, err space station, for the first time in 9 months. Time for a well earned, non recycled drink!


It takes a full day for the download to complete, and will take many months to further analyze.
Information travels fast inside the bubble and even before completing the full transfer I receive a transmission from the Pilots federation
promoting me to the rank of Elite explorer. I feel honored, and the enormous cash sum that comes with it from Universal cartographics
allows me to by a whole new Anaconda! Perhaps I shall keep this ship the way it is, I've rather grown fond of it.

What's next? I don't know yet. First I need some time to digest this trip, then probably buy one of those fancy SRVs.
Get my old Asp out of storage and learn how to land. The distant world expeditions sets off just 10 days from now.
I don't know if I'm upto going back out so soon, yet I'll be sure to pay Pallaeani a visit before then.

 

[SvennoJ]

I have decided to join the Distant worlds expedition. Life back in the bubble just doesn't do it for me. It will be weird to travel along with so many other CMDRs, yet at least they are all the kind that don't want to shoot me out of the sky for no reason. So currently I'm practicing landing and am prospecting for jump boost materials. A big task it seems. Finding earth like worlds seems to be easier than finding a piece of Pollonium. It doesn't matter, for now being able to land and drive around on planets is reward enough on its own.

Yesterday I met up with CMDR Kancro Vantas in Shinrarta Dezhra. It turned out we were both prospecting only 1 hyperspace jump apart. It didn't take long to hop over, except for a little trouble on my part trying to figure out the landing navigation, unsure what side of the planet Kancro was on. Just follow the marker he said, well I rather not fly through the planet to get there.
I was flying my old Asp Explorer at the time, a bit easier to set down than the Anaconda. It's still very finicky in where it will touch down and the landing computer has a tendency to park it over a bump in the terrain so I can't get back under with the SRV. Better to take the Anaconda which has a lot more ground clearance.
After humping the planet for a bit the ship finally settled and not long after we were trying our luck together. Only CMD Vantas had forgotten to tell me about the land mines... Half an hour later my SRV suddenly exploded without warning. Luckily the ejector seat functioned properly and following the auto retrieval procedure returned me to my ship in low orbit. After a short hop to Jameson memorial I was back with a new SRV, the insurance details can wait.
However combining our efforts still did not yield any jump boost materials. We did find an odd encampment guarded by a few wanted sentries. No clue who wants them dead or why, yet they provided good target practice to blow off some steam. It turned out they were guarding canisters of gold, why, for who, no clue. We split the gold which was enough to pay for a new SRV.

Luckily there is still almost a week left before the expedition sets off to find some boost materials. Not that I'll need them for a long time, as I decided to sacrifice 8t of fuel for the SRV and some crappy shields to help with the planet humping process called 'landing'. Only 3 max range jumps per full tank, yet no loss in range.
http://coriolis.io/outfit/anaconda/...-3i0505120t0t43v6f32f2i.AwRj4ys5ZUxA.Aw18ZlA=
I'm still undecided about taking a spare SRV. The sudden loss of one yesterday makes them seem a lot less sturdy than I thought they were.
However I'll probably also not be driving at top speed while not anywhere near emergency facilities.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Awesome trip Svenno. View attachment 93121

Will always remember that lone green tag sitting at the far side of the galaxy when I was heading towards the core. Glad to hear you're coming along!

 

[SvennoJ]

I fixed the image links in the thread, it seems picpar hosting site doesn't exist anymore or images expire. Hopefully Imgur lasts longer.

Currently I'm on a new discovery tour, closer back home

Exploring the world in the Beechcraft Bonanza

I have flown around the world at an average height of 2,500 ft, discovered many new places, all with real time and weather. Flight plans are attached if anyone is interested. Simply save the .pln file in \Users<user-name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\ and you can load them on the...

forums.flightsimulator.com

One day I'll be back to the Elite Dangerous universe. Hopefully with planetary landings on planets with atmosphere and more life.

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

I fixed the image links in the thread, it seems picpar hosting site doesn't exist anymore or images expire. Hopefully Imgur lasts longer.

Currently I'm on a new discovery tour, closer back home

Exploring the world in the Beechcraft Bonanza

I have flown around the world at an average height of 2,500 ft, discovered many new places, all with real time and weather. Flight plans are attached if anyone is interested. Simply save the .pln file in \Users<user-name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\ and you can load them on the...

forums.flightsimulator.com

One day I'll be back to the Elite Dangerous universe. Hopefully with planetary landings on planets with atmosphere and more life.

Hey Svenno, good to see you're still around. Hope the exploration bug bites you again if the Odyssey season brings us some goodies (we live in perpetual hope )

Fly safe o7

 

[SvennoJ]

Great to see you're still at it. The distant worlds expedition I joined was very special, lot of fun.

The exploration bug is very much still there, closer to home atm. I'm using FS2020 to explore our own planet in detail, together with Google maps and the rest of the vast internet. Last night I stopped by Arkalyk in Kazakhstan. It's were returning cosmonauts go to after landing in the vast Steppe in Kazakhstan. (2010 return below)

So far I've landed at 2,260 star systems err airports/airstrips, flown 123K ly, err nautical miles.

Main takeaway, it takes a lot longer to get around Earth than to Beagle point and back!

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

I've got FS2020 installed but haven't got around to trying it yet. It does look awesome though!