As promised, here follows a short postmortem of my short (-8k) trial expedition to the outer rim, starting from populated space as this is the shortest distance to the edge. I primarily went out to see how far it’s possible to travel, but I was also curious if there were any earth-like planets or water worlds to be found.
Catalogue of water worlds I scanned on the way out and back:Gludgaa SI-B d13-5 4
Gludgaa SI-B d13-5 4 a | Candidate for terraforming
Gludgaa IF-R d4-2 4
Hypou Ain GQ-G d10-29 4
Hypou Ain GQ-G d10-29 5
Hypou Ain FU-Q c18-7 B 5 | Candidate for terraforming
Hypou Ain IJ-B c13-8 A 3 | Candidate for terraforming
Hypoe Hypue OE-E d13-16 A 3
Hypoe Hypue OE-E d13-16 A 4
Myeade ZM-D c12-2 7 | Candidate for terraforming
Hypou Ain PJ-T c3-7 A 1 | Candidate for terraforming
Hypou Ain JX-B b27-2 B 1 | Candidate for terraforming
Gludgaa MF-Y c14-3 6 a | Candidate for terraforming
Gludgaa VI-E b53-1 A 2 | Candidate for terraforming
Oddities:Myeade ZM-D c12-2 6 | Candidate for terraforming, High metal content planet with water-rich atmosphere.
Navigational hazards:Ploi Thua EV-G d10-12 A | Two very close together stars in a quadruple system, with a gas giant. I entered the system with one of the stars being on the far end of its orbit, but I would wager ending up between them would not be a pleasant experience.
Things I have learned from this journey:
Light pollution makes it very dark the further away from the arms you get, until you get some distance between you and the local star, I found this itching (yes itching is the best adjective for it) on my mind. It’s stressful because you don’t have anything to look at outside your ship, no visual stimulation to speak of.
Proper planning would’ve made my trip more successful, I did not expect running into a field of T- and Y-class stars, every few jumps I would need to take stock of my fuel level and locate the nearest scoopable star. Pretty soon I was planning 100LY routes, which is when I decided to turn back with my tail feathers between my legs.
Getting further out is very doable, but it does require planning ahead of time, or more patience. Either which way, setting the galaxy map to Realistic instead of Map in View options is your friend. It speeds up locating potential sources of fuel immensely.
Will I commit to an expedition like this again? Most likely, I know it’s quite possible to get further out. With some theorycrafting and mapping beforehand and a few weeks to do it.
Right now I’m on vacation though, next week I will be helping out a friend who just started, showing the ropes and letting them find something to do outside the frame rate black hole that is the starting systems.
If anyone still wishes to have me on their friends list during this time, feel free, consider me an unreliable link to home.
And last:
Some system map images of the planets listed above.
Fashion shots.(Beware of GEMfx)
Fly safe.
