Ever since a friend of mine told me about ED and the scope of it, exploration was the number one goal. I tested the game in Beta, getting familiar with ships and getting ready for release. Real life got in the way, and I couldn't play as much as I wanted.
When 1.3 launched, I was done with my Masters, in between jobs, with plenty of free time on my hands. I pledged to Arissa, made some money trading, bounty hunting and spent time reading.
Reading is what I did for a week straight. Exploration ships, exploration fits, destinations, fuel scooping, star types, black holes. Once my wallet was as ready as I was, I sold everything holding me back, purchased a Diamondback Explorer and decided to go on a short trip.
The loadout.
Day 1
My original destination was humble. I was planning to reach the Coalsack Nebula, just 431 LY away. I wanted to test the waters. See if exploration was really what I wanted to do and would enjoy.
I took my time getting familiar with the ship, testing the amount of heat it generates, seeing how the fuel scoop operates and I was already amazed how the little DBX holds up. I never went above 65% while scooping 343 fuel/s, which was impressive for me, having only used fuel scoops on my freight ships like the T6.
About 30 minutes later I have arrived at my destination. This was probably the first time I thought to myself 'Wow". Back within the bubble, while looking up trade runs to generate much needed Credits, I considered anything located over 100 LY away from me 'far away'. The only long hauls I did previously were the rare goods trade routes, and they were 160 LY one way.
Having traveled said 431 LY in such a quick time quickly made me wonder 'what next?'.
Coalsack Nebula
That last picture made me realise where the nebula got its name.
After spending some time in the nebula, scanning systems which have already been discovered by someone else, I decided to go just a little bit further. I looked at the map, searching for a point of interest that wasn't too far away, that I could reach within a couple of hours. I zoomed out a little bit and there it was! Cat's Paw Nebula!
5,300 LY away, it seemed far enough to be a challenge, but close enough that in case of problems, I could turn around and go back home quickly. Okay, major goal was set.
I was looking at the map a little while longer, seeing if I could find something in between that was worth visiting. I have found the system of Shapley 1, a Wolf-Rayet star with a small nebula around it.
I set out once again, scanning every system and taking in the views. Not too long into the trip I have found my first binary system, with another star orbiting the two. A small milestone.
Day 2
I took a break, and the next day I arrived at the Wolf-Rayet, unfortunately it was already discovered. As most systems along my path were. It was starting to become a theme, to boldly go where many have been before! I assumed that it was only natural, I haven't been playing the game for a long time and people have had explored outside of the bubble. Let's move on.
Exactly 15 minutes later I found my first Earth like planet. Undiscovered, it got my heart going!
I continued on towards my destination, occasionally looking back to see my progress. At that point I was over 2,500 LY away from home. About 1/3rd the way towards the NGC 6357 Nebula.
I was scanning everything I could that sparked my interest.
I found my first multiple-star system. As well as my first Black Hole. Both had someone else's name on them sadly.
The 10-star system record was broken within hours, when I found this 16-star system.
At the time I was 4,274 LY away from home, and venturing further and further started becoming addictive. It was getting late, but all I could think about was making that one more jump before I went to bed. It was always just one more jump, one more, and then the sun came up outside my window. Hah. I took a break for the time being
Day 3
The next day I finally started getting close to the Cat's Paw. I could see it grow bigger and bigger.
This is where I found something truly stunning, a T type star with rings! I was excited, because until now I only read about these things, and have seen some screenshots of them on the forums, but only in system map view. I quickly rushed to see it from up close.
And then, I got a little bit too close. FSD Failiure! Emergency Stop! BOOM. That awful sound of my canopy cracking. I droped into the giant asteroid ring, terrified that my ship will become my coffin. Inspecting the canopy up close, the damage wasn't fatal yet, but I was faced with a huge dilemma.
Do I keep going? What if I make this mistake again, and it cracks wide open? If my canopy breaks I will have less than 6 minutes of oxygen and will surely die. How long can it even hold like this? What if I start heading back home and it cracks anyways? I'm already more than 6,000 LY away from home.
What the hell am I supposed to do?!
And then I looked out the window.
I shut down all my systems and just sat there for a long time, staring at the view and thinking. I didn't die, not yet, and even if I did, right there in that ring, it would be a beautiful place to die.
I inspected the damage to my modules once again. Many were below 90% intergrity. I tested the AFMU and fixed up my ship, using up half the charges I had for it. There, all fixed up. Except for the hull and canopy damage. But, if I am careful, I should squeeze out a couple more Ly out of this ship, right? Right!
I decided to keep going, thinking: If I die on the way, oh well. I'm not the first explorer to suffocate in the black, and certainly not the last. Let's see what else it out there!
I plotted a general course heading below and towards the inner rims.
Heading below had but one objective - to get off the core-superhighway and away from the discovered systems.
Day 4
Every once in a while I looked back at Sol, still wondering if the cracked canopy will hold, and if I should start heading back, but soon enough those thoughts went away as I started discovering more and more systems no one has ever seen before me!
Earth-likes, Water Worlds, rings, no rings, you name it. It was getting exciting the further I went.
I even found my first Neutron Star I kept reading so much about, and an Earth Like Orbiting it.
Before I knew it, I was 10,782 Ly away from home. I was almost as far away from home as I was close to the center of the Milky Way! It was amazing to me, because this was supposed to be a test run for the DBX. I have never explored a day in my life before, and here I was, out in the black, corner of no-and-where, with a cracked canopy, hardly knowing what I was doing. I was still scared, though. I didn't know how much the ship could take, I didn't know what lies ahead, I could make a mistake at any second and burn to death. Or freeze to death.
I could stop there, start heading back, repair my ship in civilized space and maybe head out again. Wondering about my next move I started reading. This is where I learned about the famous Neutron Star Fields.
I have seen Neutron Stars before, I was actively hunting them on my trip, and I've seen maybe a dozen so far. But apparently there are huge fields out there, with Neutrons right next to eachother, out for grabs, many untouched by humans. I started investigating, and there it was. The field. It was about 4,000 LY away.
That was my next objective. The next thing I will do before I go back.
DAY 5
I rushed towards the field. I only honked the horn in each system I passed, and unless it had an ELW, I would stop for nothing. The promise of the fields was too appealing. It took a couple of hours of mindless jumping and fuel scooping, but eventually I started seeing this:
One more hour and I was there. Stars upon stars, layers upon layers, I would spend hours seeing nothing but neutron stars. And that's exactly what I did for a while. It was fun. It was different. I could pick and choose which systems to go to, and none had been discovered yet. I even started actively hunting black holes and to my surprise there were quite few.
I thought to myself "So this is how all those pilots I kept hearing about got their 'Elite' Badge". The potential money was something to think about. That is if I make it back. Elite. Maybe. Maybe I can reach it. Maybe if I spend days scanning these Neutrons. I tried. The next 2 days I did nothing but jumping from NS to NS, racking up first discoveries as much as I could. But it also became very dangerous for my ship. Each time I jumped, while tired, distracted by reading or watching something on the other monitor, I would eventually make a mistake. And so I did. More than once. Then, a critical moment happened. I was used to the Neutrons being a single star system, and even if they had multiple stars, they were usually very far apart. Until that one system. I jumped in and the huge ass B class star swooshed right besides me on my way (jumping in) to the NS. I thought I was gonna crash into in upon landing but lucky for me I jumped pass it. This was probably the scariest moment up to this point in my journey. I thought I was going to die right there and now.
Hull hit 88% integrity, the cracks were looking at me from each side of the canopy and I started wondering if this was even worth it. After all, I still need to make it back in one piece. The ship can only take so much beating before it gives in. Do I want to be that guy? Fly my ship into the ground? No. The ship is my home. I must take care of my home.
The field will still be here for the taking for a long time still.
Time to move on.
I reached the edge of the field in a couple of hours.
It's a shame I didn't record how many systems I had visited before my departure.
I only started paying attention to the number of systems once I entered the Neutron field. 1410. At this moment I'm at 1726.
people have stated that ~1700-2500 NS are needed in order to get enough Cr to get to Elite on a single trip, however, I have plenty of ELW and BHs thrown into the mix. I still doubt at this point that I have enough, even with the 50% first discovery bonus.
I scanned a bit more, making the total visited systems exactly 1810, so about 400 more than when I arrived at the field. That was good enough.
Day 7
So what's next? Do I go back? Keep going? I studied the map once more.
At that moment I was less than 10,000 LY away from Sagittarius A*. I might as well pay it a visit, since considering the distance I have traveled already, it felt like a small detour.
I plotted a route in the general direction of the core. I was tired, being at it for days already, it felt that the trip to SagA was exactly what I needed to finish the fist trip of the DBX.
Few thousand LY further into the core, I jumped into a death trap again.
No damage sustained, but it woke me up for sure.
The sky outside was starting to fill with light more and more. It was amazing to me how dense the core really is.
I turned down the optical filters on my canopy and started enjoying the bright stars I was jumping to even more (EDFX).
And this brings us to now.
I have about 3,000 LY to go to reach Sagittarius A*. The computer is starting to struggle with course plotting due to the density of the stars around here. I imagine the final distance will take a long time to travel. I am very excited to finally reach my destination in the coming days, perhaps even today.
Updates to follow.
EDIT: Updates!
Ship Log: entry #2151
Location: 30: -21 : 25,900
I have arrived at my destination. The biggest Black Hole ever discovered.
Sagittarius A*
View attachment 46015
Special Thanks to Radio Sidewinder for playing Steve Jablonsky's - Ender's War (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OR6_OkMao4) right at the moment I entered the system. It made the whole thing even more epic.
In orbit around Source 2:
View attachment 46020
View attachment 46024
View attachment 46023
Looking on the map, it's full of stars, and I'm right at the center of it! Feels truly amazing. I could stay here forever.
View attachment 46021
I will probably spend some time just taking this in. But I need to decide:
What next?
Is this it? Should I go back now? Is there anything that can top this? Hah.
A few hours later I have arrived at The Great Annihilator.
View attachment 46121
You can see the fumes from my engines being sucked in! Either that, or it's a very cool optical illusion (No, I wasn't going backwards, I checked!). 750km away.
I took pictures and started plotting a course away from the core.
THE INCIDENT
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159610&page=3&p=2440048&viewfull=1#post2440048
RP MODE ON (a lot of text, in character)
I still had images of the supermassive black hole in my head. Once you see something like that, it's hard to shake off the feeling of how small and insignificant we are in comparison to the vastness of the black. My thoughts were slowly drifting away from what I have seen, as my navigational computer went totally haywire, struggling to plot the most simple course within the core. Another reason why the core is such a dangerous place to be. Millions of stars to go to, it's so easy to get lost. I shut down every secondary subsystem, leaving only the essential hardware online just to give the NavComp all the juice it can get, as if I wasn't already flying barebones. Even the fridge is off, something I might regret later. It took a little creative engineering to wire the backup circuits alongside the already installed ones, but it doubled the processing power, and with the clever algorithm I purchased from the Sirius inc. it seems to be working out. At least now I know those credits weren't spent in vain.
It's been many hours since I left the core and both I and Katsuragi could use a break. Even Julia started complaining, which I find funny enough. I'm not used to her new "humor" setting, that new AI protocol I've installed could probably use some tweaking. Still, it is very welcome, as it makes it easier to forget that I am very much alone out here.
I found this little GV2 type star near by my location and the NavComp was reading 3 egzoplanets so I decided to have a look. It turned out to be nothing special at all, but I always liked G-types, something about the light spectrum makes me feel at ease. I moved Katsuragi into orbit around one of the metal-rich planets, that should give me about 10 hours of shade, enough to get a good night's sleep.
-"Julia, power down the ship, go into night-mode, please."
-"Affirmative. Autopilot engaged. Dimming the lights. Sweet dreams, Commander."
The holo-panels flickered and disappeared, at the same time as the lights went dim-red throughout the ship. Wasting no time, I went to my bunk to catch some much needed sleep. The door to my room slid shut cleanly behind me. There is still a long way ahead of me - I thought.
I laid down in my bunk, strapped myself in and closed my eyes. I could still hear the humming of the power plant - it has become my lullaby over the years. I can hardly fall asleep without it, something I really hate about sleeping in those new fancy orbital stations near Sol.
--
A low-pitched klaxon sounded, assaulting my ears and waking me up. It took a second before I realised that wasn't my alarm clock. I sat on the bed, looking for my clothes.
"Julia, what's going on?" - I asked while putting on my suit.
No response. What the hell, I thought. I stood up, as the klaxon continued to echo, asking a little bit louder.
-"Julia, what is the emergency?"
Still nothing. Something is very wrong. The AI runs on a separate node, there's no reason for it to shut down. I walked to the door expecting it to slide right open, but it didn't. Motion sensors must be off as well. I manually forced the door open and as it did, my Remlok instantly triggered covering my head whole in a fraction of a second, making that awful sound I dread so much.
Kuso! - I shouted, and rushed to the cockpit as fast as I could. The tiny HUD illuminated my face, letting me know that I have less than 15 minutes of oxygen left in the suit. The life support must've been knocked out as well! I'm lucky the sleeping quarters run separately from the rest of the ship, or I would've been dead. The dim lights are still on - that means I still have power. It took me 10 seconds to reach the consoles. Everything is off. The cracked canopy is covered in condensation and is starting to freeze over. Good. I was afraid it finally gave in and I was venting atmo, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
So what the hell is going on?! Mumbling curses I sat down, trying to wrap my head around what was happening. I checked the panels, all off. Indicators all flickered red, except one. The power plant. That one was green. Tell me something I don't know - I thought.
I need to restart the systems. Damn it, without the AI I can't even run diagnostics, let alone fix the damn ship. I will have to do this manually and I haven't done that in years! I reached down to get the PC, and booted it up. Thank god for batteries. I plugged the little screen to the console. Soon enough it started showing scrolling lines of code. The tiny clock on my Remlok HUD was counting down. As the PC finished hooking up to the ships computer I started running diagnostics. Another minute passed. Rebooting sequence started automatically. I cannot start up the ship using this little PC, but at least I can initiate Julia and she can turn life support back on. More lines of code. Right-hand side panel came online, blank. Went off again. Let's try again in safe mode. More flickering. Got it! That felt like an eternity. Restoring AI. While that reboots, I turn my attention to the NavComp, plugging the PC directly into its console and going through the same process. Oxygen ticking down, I have now less than 10 minutes left. Breath slowly. You got this. The little screen showed error after error. The NavComp is no-go for now. Damn it!
The short blue wave-like line appeared above the console. AI is online.
-"Julia! Initiate emergency repair sequence at once!"
-"Yes, Commander."
-"Finally!" - I said, letting out a sigh.
-- Flushing system cache.
-- Initialising integrity check.
-- Integrity check success.
-- Fault detection scan.
-- Analysing.
-- Analysis complete. Creating crisis log.
-- Power plant capacity exceeded.
-- Launching emergency reconfigure.
-- Restarting input files.
-- Attempting control reroute.
-- Global system failure.
-- Injecting custom overrides.
-- Force restart, collapsing redundant nodes.
-- Rebuild complete, reboot initialising.
The lights started turning on, as I looked around the cockpit. I unplugged the PC from the Nav console and put it on my lap. Julia has it covered. The holo-panels started to appear on the console in sequence. The radar turned on. Good, at least I'm still in orbit. I was pushing the thought of crashing into that metal ball to the back of my head, but it was there.
-- Life support failure.
-- Repair sequence failed.
-- Initializing reserve systems.
-- Reserve systems online, operating at 89% capacity.
-- Restoring atmosphere.
-- Systems online.
-- Navigation online.
-- Engine online.
-- Thrusters online.
-- Communication online.
-- Emergency repair sequence completed.
I leaned back on the pilot's seat letting out a sigh of relief. All the indicators in the green. The ship seems to be intact after all. I tilted my head to look at the modules panel, there seems to be no damage sustained, at least not new damage, after all this ship has been through a lot already.
-"Ship power up sequence completed, Commander. All systems nominal."
-"Are you okay?"
-"I am completely operational."
-"Julia, what the hell happened to my ship?"
-"Ship wide systems failure. Cause unknown."
-"What do you mean unknown? What does the logs say?"
-"No logs prior to systems failure found, Commander."
-"What about the backup? Scan the database!"
-"Secondary data bank corrupted. Recovery attempt failed, Commander."
-"What?! What do you mean failed? What about the Nav data? What about the ship log?!"
-"Commander, no such data exists."
-"Initialise recovery of the secondary data bank cache immediately!"
-"Acknowledged."
I quickly leaned towards the NavComp panel to pull up the data. There was nothing. No system maps, no detailed scan results, nothing. I switched to another panel. Over 1500 image files, still there, I quickly flicked through some of them to make sure they are intact. They were. Well, at least I have that. What in the world happened to my ship?
-"Data recovery initialised, Commander. ETA: 48 hours. What would you like to do next?"
That is a great question, Julia. What do I do next?
I have recovered what I could, but most of the data was lost in an unexplained event. With a little help from Julia I reverse-engineered the route and systems I have visited using the images, recordings and notes I made. I hope that's enough for the Sirius Inc.
I plotted a course for the nearest nebula, about 4000 LY away.
A few hours later I have arrived at the MYLAIFAI Nebula. Some pictures form the route:
I stopped by this binary (that decided not to murder me by fire):
View attachment 46541
And found this very bright B-type, surrounded by T types.
View attachment 46542
View attachment 46543
And the nebula itself:
VY CANIS MAJORIS TRIP
LINK TO STORY: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159610&page=7&p=2466756&viewfull=1#post2466756
Read on, through the thread for updates!
- CMDR Asayanami Dei
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