Greetings Commanders!
Newbie Commander Hawk here, both to these forums and the game itself (newbie, he says, with 200+ hours of flight time, yet realises he still knows so little about the game), just completed my first jaunt out to Colonia, thought I'd share the experience for any interested.
First, some backstory (and prep);
I actually started playing last December, managed to muddle through with some basic trading to get some cash, but quickly realised I just wanted to get out there and do some exploring. So, after upgrading to an Asp Explorer and outfitting for a 34LY jump range I took off and did a 30kLY round trip out across the Hawking Gap (I thought it fitting, given my name) and back. Covered about 1200 systems, found a few ELWs and eventually made it back in 1 piece. Took me 2 weeks of solid flying and I was exhausted by the end, but made enough cash to shoot straight to Elite and gain access to Founders World. After that, I quit... for around 9 months. I figured I was done with the game. I'd made it to Elite in at least 1 area, I'd gotten my name on a few thousand worlds, all that. But then a few weeks ago I got the itch to get behind the controls again, and I found myself back in the verse, looking to head back out into the black, but this time, to do it right. This time I wasn't just looking to get my name on worlds, or get to some rank, now I just wanted to explore for the sake of exploring, to find cool stuff and see what else the game had to offer.
But, I knew I couldn't do it with a 34LY Asp. I know some people circumnavigate the entire galaxy in a Sidewinder, but that's just crazy. I needed something more, and I had the money to buy any ship I wanted. I knew the Anaconda was lauded as the best exploration ship, so the choice seemed obvious (I know, real original). BUT, even after outfitting, I was not impressed, and as I said, I wanted to do this exploration thing properly this time, and that meant planetary landings as well. I had to get Horizons, and that also meant engineers. So I hit up the wiki, jumped around all over the place figuring out what I needed to do, gathering supplies, you all know the drill. Took me over a week, but eventually I got everything, including the Guardian FSD booster (grade 5, obviously), and honestly, it was like a whole new world to me already. I could suddenly leap across the bubble in a handful of jumps. I could nip out to Guardian systems and back with no issues (which also lead to some practice neutron jumps out of Jacksons Lighthouse, which was handy), everything was suddenly opened up and becoming clear to me now.
Eventually, I had my ship kitted out and couldn't believe the results. I'd said to myself before starting; "if I could get to around the 65LY range, I'd be happy with that." Turned out, I did much better by the end;
I know, she's pretty token stock, and there's far better and more interesting builds out there, but I travelled 30KLY to be able to afford her. I spent weeks tweaking and upgrading her, bit by bit. She ain't much to look at, but she's mine. Honestly, I was just amazed I was able to get exactly all the things I wanted installed, within the power I could get from her plant, and still get more range than I'd planned for. I couldn't have asked for more.
<Actual journey begins here>
So, with my ship set up, I headed out. But where too? Well, I figured I couldn't exactly call myself an explorer until I'd hit the major milestone "tourist spots", as well as branching out to anywhere else I could along the way, though it does seem counter-intuitive to "explore" where everyone else has already been. But there's certain things you just have to see for yourself, at least once, and top of the list is of course, Sag A*. But I figured I'd hit up Colonia first; it's closer, and there's nebulas along the way to stop off at, the first being the Omega nebula;
Those first 5000LYs flew by like they were nothing. But, still so close to the bubble, there wasn't a lot to find, except 1 interesting pair of worlds I've already posted about elsewhere on this forum. The first nebula is also pretty well picked over, and was a little disappointing. Clearly, I had to move further afield. I continued on, diverting briefly to the Eagle nebula next, and its impressive number of close F class systems;
I'd never seen such a short distance jump before, though I know it's not the shortest. Still, I had fun supercruising towards it for a bit to see how long it might take. After 10 minutes of accelerating to 1000c I had gone about 0.01LY...
...And it was still an hour away. Damn, space is big yo.
Eventually, I moved on, and surprised myself by stumbling into an actual settlement inside the Eagle nebula itself;
Including my first sighting of an asteroid dock. Neat! I didn't stop though, I wanted to press on.
This was about the point where I started finding uncharted systems, and unlike before when all I'd done was FSS and move on, now I started to take the time to really look at what I was seeing, and check out each world I'd discovered for any interesting finds. It was also about this time I started lurking these forums and realising what you guys can actually find and what you look for. From now on, I started checking almost everything.
Eventually I crossed the sector border, which was great, because now my codex could start refilling itself with new stuff! It was like finding everything all over again. I also started hitting a lot more neutron stars at this point, as I'm sure you're all familiar with. Goddamn these things are great! I didn't even need to try and look for them, the auto-router was already fining me tons in easy range and the LYs flew by. I think my best was a run of 4 without a stop, which I could just barely manage safely with my fuel. Jumping over a thousand lightyears in 4 jumps would have been unthinkable to me when I first started. However, it was here that I encountered my first real difficulty. Stopping off at a HM world orbiting a neutron I neglected to check the gravity and suddenly found myself dropping 600m straight into the deck at full force during landing. Shields instantly failed, hull down 25%. Whoops! Managed to land and get the geological samples I was after, and quickly got back into orbit to patch myself up. Luckily I'd packed a repair controller alongside my AFM so a quick limpet synth and I was back to full, including the module damage I'd been taking from the neutrons, which was starting to rack up too. Lesson learnt; check the planets gravity Hawk!
At this point I was around 70 jumps from my target, but decided to make 1 more slight diversion ("only" about 2kLYs) before powering on to Colonia, to the BLAA HYPA AAA-59 nebula, as I'd noticed it had a neutron inside the nebula itself, which I had never seen and was curious to check out, and there was an O class on the edge;
Naturally, I wasn't the first one here, but it was cool to see. Interestingly, this nebula seemed to have a lot more single star systems, with very few planets around, at least in the ones I checked.
However, my journey had to come to a close at some point, and after crossing the final gap I finally arrived in Colonia, jumping in with 1 last 284LY neutron boost like a boss. And as it seems is custom with returning to civilised space, I instantly found myself interdicted, because of ing course I was! After outrunning my pursuer, I then made for the orbital, only to find my parking space was taken as well. Typical!
Can a man not catch a break?!
So now, as I sit here at the bar in Jaques station, I look back on my journey and see how far I've come, not just physically on this trip, but overall how I've changed. I've come quite a way since I first sat behind the controls of that first Sidewinder, struggling to control my throttle whilst in supercruise and getting blown out of the sky during the combat tutorial! Good times. But my journey is not over yet. Indeed, I've barely made it halfway to the core, and even that's not going to be the end. I've been to a lot of places now, and though many are interesting curiosities, I can't help but think there's still so much more to find. I won't be sitting around here long before I head back into the black, that's for sure. No more months long gaps between journeys this time. I'll hit up the sights around Colonia and set out on my next big adventure within a few days, though I think this time... I'll take a more scenic route....
Newbie Commander Hawk here, both to these forums and the game itself (newbie, he says, with 200+ hours of flight time, yet realises he still knows so little about the game), just completed my first jaunt out to Colonia, thought I'd share the experience for any interested.
First, some backstory (and prep);
I actually started playing last December, managed to muddle through with some basic trading to get some cash, but quickly realised I just wanted to get out there and do some exploring. So, after upgrading to an Asp Explorer and outfitting for a 34LY jump range I took off and did a 30kLY round trip out across the Hawking Gap (I thought it fitting, given my name) and back. Covered about 1200 systems, found a few ELWs and eventually made it back in 1 piece. Took me 2 weeks of solid flying and I was exhausted by the end, but made enough cash to shoot straight to Elite and gain access to Founders World. After that, I quit... for around 9 months. I figured I was done with the game. I'd made it to Elite in at least 1 area, I'd gotten my name on a few thousand worlds, all that. But then a few weeks ago I got the itch to get behind the controls again, and I found myself back in the verse, looking to head back out into the black, but this time, to do it right. This time I wasn't just looking to get my name on worlds, or get to some rank, now I just wanted to explore for the sake of exploring, to find cool stuff and see what else the game had to offer.
But, I knew I couldn't do it with a 34LY Asp. I know some people circumnavigate the entire galaxy in a Sidewinder, but that's just crazy. I needed something more, and I had the money to buy any ship I wanted. I knew the Anaconda was lauded as the best exploration ship, so the choice seemed obvious (I know, real original). BUT, even after outfitting, I was not impressed, and as I said, I wanted to do this exploration thing properly this time, and that meant planetary landings as well. I had to get Horizons, and that also meant engineers. So I hit up the wiki, jumped around all over the place figuring out what I needed to do, gathering supplies, you all know the drill. Took me over a week, but eventually I got everything, including the Guardian FSD booster (grade 5, obviously), and honestly, it was like a whole new world to me already. I could suddenly leap across the bubble in a handful of jumps. I could nip out to Guardian systems and back with no issues (which also lead to some practice neutron jumps out of Jacksons Lighthouse, which was handy), everything was suddenly opened up and becoming clear to me now.
Eventually, I had my ship kitted out and couldn't believe the results. I'd said to myself before starting; "if I could get to around the 65LY range, I'd be happy with that." Turned out, I did much better by the end;
I know, she's pretty token stock, and there's far better and more interesting builds out there, but I travelled 30KLY to be able to afford her. I spent weeks tweaking and upgrading her, bit by bit. She ain't much to look at, but she's mine. Honestly, I was just amazed I was able to get exactly all the things I wanted installed, within the power I could get from her plant, and still get more range than I'd planned for. I couldn't have asked for more.
<Actual journey begins here>
So, with my ship set up, I headed out. But where too? Well, I figured I couldn't exactly call myself an explorer until I'd hit the major milestone "tourist spots", as well as branching out to anywhere else I could along the way, though it does seem counter-intuitive to "explore" where everyone else has already been. But there's certain things you just have to see for yourself, at least once, and top of the list is of course, Sag A*. But I figured I'd hit up Colonia first; it's closer, and there's nebulas along the way to stop off at, the first being the Omega nebula;
Those first 5000LYs flew by like they were nothing. But, still so close to the bubble, there wasn't a lot to find, except 1 interesting pair of worlds I've already posted about elsewhere on this forum. The first nebula is also pretty well picked over, and was a little disappointing. Clearly, I had to move further afield. I continued on, diverting briefly to the Eagle nebula next, and its impressive number of close F class systems;
I'd never seen such a short distance jump before, though I know it's not the shortest. Still, I had fun supercruising towards it for a bit to see how long it might take. After 10 minutes of accelerating to 1000c I had gone about 0.01LY...
...And it was still an hour away. Damn, space is big yo.
Eventually, I moved on, and surprised myself by stumbling into an actual settlement inside the Eagle nebula itself;
Including my first sighting of an asteroid dock. Neat! I didn't stop though, I wanted to press on.
This was about the point where I started finding uncharted systems, and unlike before when all I'd done was FSS and move on, now I started to take the time to really look at what I was seeing, and check out each world I'd discovered for any interesting finds. It was also about this time I started lurking these forums and realising what you guys can actually find and what you look for. From now on, I started checking almost everything.
Eventually I crossed the sector border, which was great, because now my codex could start refilling itself with new stuff! It was like finding everything all over again. I also started hitting a lot more neutron stars at this point, as I'm sure you're all familiar with. Goddamn these things are great! I didn't even need to try and look for them, the auto-router was already fining me tons in easy range and the LYs flew by. I think my best was a run of 4 without a stop, which I could just barely manage safely with my fuel. Jumping over a thousand lightyears in 4 jumps would have been unthinkable to me when I first started. However, it was here that I encountered my first real difficulty. Stopping off at a HM world orbiting a neutron I neglected to check the gravity and suddenly found myself dropping 600m straight into the deck at full force during landing. Shields instantly failed, hull down 25%. Whoops! Managed to land and get the geological samples I was after, and quickly got back into orbit to patch myself up. Luckily I'd packed a repair controller alongside my AFM so a quick limpet synth and I was back to full, including the module damage I'd been taking from the neutrons, which was starting to rack up too. Lesson learnt; check the planets gravity Hawk!
At this point I was around 70 jumps from my target, but decided to make 1 more slight diversion ("only" about 2kLYs) before powering on to Colonia, to the BLAA HYPA AAA-59 nebula, as I'd noticed it had a neutron inside the nebula itself, which I had never seen and was curious to check out, and there was an O class on the edge;
Naturally, I wasn't the first one here, but it was cool to see. Interestingly, this nebula seemed to have a lot more single star systems, with very few planets around, at least in the ones I checked.
However, my journey had to come to a close at some point, and after crossing the final gap I finally arrived in Colonia, jumping in with 1 last 284LY neutron boost like a boss. And as it seems is custom with returning to civilised space, I instantly found myself interdicted, because of ing course I was! After outrunning my pursuer, I then made for the orbital, only to find my parking space was taken as well. Typical!
Can a man not catch a break?!
So now, as I sit here at the bar in Jaques station, I look back on my journey and see how far I've come, not just physically on this trip, but overall how I've changed. I've come quite a way since I first sat behind the controls of that first Sidewinder, struggling to control my throttle whilst in supercruise and getting blown out of the sky during the combat tutorial! Good times. But my journey is not over yet. Indeed, I've barely made it halfway to the core, and even that's not going to be the end. I've been to a lot of places now, and though many are interesting curiosities, I can't help but think there's still so much more to find. I won't be sitting around here long before I head back into the black, that's for sure. No more months long gaps between journeys this time. I'll hit up the sights around Colonia and set out on my next big adventure within a few days, though I think this time... I'll take a more scenic route....
