I thought some of the observations I made on my way to the core may be of use to other Commanders making this journey, as I have found great use and inspiration in reading the exploration journals of others.
I have kept detailed logs of my outbound journey, thanks to CMDR Eldrazzi, who came up with the format for an exploration log and which I unashamedly copied. This I found extremely useful, and the statistics in it may give future explorers some idea of what they can expect in terms of encountered bodies on a fairly linear route to the core. Keeping detailed logs like this adds significantly to the time it takes to explore (maybe by 20-30%), but I found it helpful to know what I’d discovered and what kind of pay-out I might expect when I got back. If I ever explore again I won’t be keeping as detailed records!!
My trip took me 17 days to Sagittarius A*. My route was via HID 165921 (O-type and BH), the Bug Nebula, the V963 Scorpii trend, the Cat’s Paw Nebula, the Blaa Hypai AA-A H55 Nebula and the Eeshorks AA-A H15 Nebula. Of these only Eeshorks was mostly unmapped at the time of my arrival; all nebulas rimward had been mapped. After this, I headed directly to the core.
I travelled through 903 systems and 48 sectors. I performed 121 full-system scans, 343 partial scans of systems and bypassed 440 systems (only scanning the main star). My scanning policy initially was “interesting stuff” and then about halfway towards Sag A* became “If it ain’t Blue, then F.U.”. Doing this I was able to cover an average of 1632LY/day or approximately 53 systems per day with an average jump of 30.7LY (my laden range was 32.2LY).
I “discovered” 14094 bodies, with 1953 of these likely to be first discoveries (unclaimed when I scanned). My complete stats for scanning were:
I took damage on the course of the trip; arriving back with 3 of 4 HS used and 65% hull remaining on my ship, the Santiago. My damage per day broke down as follows:
There were some highlights to my trip. I reached a series of three “stellar remnants” one day before this thread was posted. These systems are: LEAMUAE BV-X E1-2271, SHROGEA KG-Y E2454 and SHROGEA SS-U E2-768. Here’s one in the Galaxy Map:
And from 30LY away:
These are tiny one-system micro-nebulas with a specific orientation to the ejecta and a neutron star in the middle. I was happy to have got first discovery on these three guys and they were the jewels in my exploration crown. From inside, they are nothing special, but you can see some interesting color variation along the axis of the “plume”. The systems were unremarkable:
I also found an Ammonia World orbiting 30ls from a Red Dwarf. Saw plenty of AW but none this close. It must have been pretty toxic down there:
By the time I reached Sag A* I was done… I spent 5min there and then turned for home. I made the decision not to surface scan anything on the way, just honk the horn on the way through. It was bliss not to have to stop and scan! It took me 13hrs to get back. I averaged ~34LY/Min. It may be useful for future explorers to note that your max range is roughly how far you can travel in a minute if you go flat out (while scooping).
Once I got back, I sold my data at Sol which earned me 14.3 million credits. I was at Scout before my trip and the credits earned got me to Ranger. I have never docked so carefully at Abraham Lincoln – but it sure was a nice sight when I got there:
You may note that Earth is at the wrong orientation for the time of day, South America was fully illuminated when in reality it should be the middle of the night (0700UTC).
Regrets? I had a few… namely not taking the 16t fuel tank instead of the 32t. I longed for those extra couple of LY since the route planner will only plot your range based on your laden fuel weight (doesn’t take into account if you have less than a full tank). I recommend new explorers take heat sinks (I wish I had more) although I didn’t need my auto repair modules.
I’ll certainly never make the trip to the core again unless under exceptional circumstances (Community Goal or such) and then I’ll be taking the quick route. This was a brutal journey (>100hrs) and it left me in need of a break…
Anyone who looks through my post history can see that I have been critical of FD’s communication and development choices. Despite this I have put hundreds of hours into ED. The decision to release on Xbox leaves me in doubt that some of the DDA features critical to me will never be implemented (e.g. clickable skybox, detailed explorer functionality and logging, detailed trade computer that works plus stats, much more info and route planning capability in the galaxy map).
So time for a rest maybe…
CMDR Sky Haussmann of the Santiago
I have kept detailed logs of my outbound journey, thanks to CMDR Eldrazzi, who came up with the format for an exploration log and which I unashamedly copied. This I found extremely useful, and the statistics in it may give future explorers some idea of what they can expect in terms of encountered bodies on a fairly linear route to the core. Keeping detailed logs like this adds significantly to the time it takes to explore (maybe by 20-30%), but I found it helpful to know what I’d discovered and what kind of pay-out I might expect when I got back. If I ever explore again I won’t be keeping as detailed records!!
My trip took me 17 days to Sagittarius A*. My route was via HID 165921 (O-type and BH), the Bug Nebula, the V963 Scorpii trend, the Cat’s Paw Nebula, the Blaa Hypai AA-A H55 Nebula and the Eeshorks AA-A H15 Nebula. Of these only Eeshorks was mostly unmapped at the time of my arrival; all nebulas rimward had been mapped. After this, I headed directly to the core.
I travelled through 903 systems and 48 sectors. I performed 121 full-system scans, 343 partial scans of systems and bypassed 440 systems (only scanning the main star). My scanning policy initially was “interesting stuff” and then about halfway towards Sag A* became “If it ain’t Blue, then F.U.”. Doing this I was able to cover an average of 1632LY/day or approximately 53 systems per day with an average jump of 30.7LY (my laden range was 32.2LY).
I “discovered” 14094 bodies, with 1953 of these likely to be first discoveries (unclaimed when I scanned). My complete stats for scanning were:
I took damage on the course of the trip; arriving back with 3 of 4 HS used and 65% hull remaining on my ship, the Santiago. My damage per day broke down as follows:
There were some highlights to my trip. I reached a series of three “stellar remnants” one day before this thread was posted. These systems are: LEAMUAE BV-X E1-2271, SHROGEA KG-Y E2454 and SHROGEA SS-U E2-768. Here’s one in the Galaxy Map:
And from 30LY away:
These are tiny one-system micro-nebulas with a specific orientation to the ejecta and a neutron star in the middle. I was happy to have got first discovery on these three guys and they were the jewels in my exploration crown. From inside, they are nothing special, but you can see some interesting color variation along the axis of the “plume”. The systems were unremarkable:
I also found an Ammonia World orbiting 30ls from a Red Dwarf. Saw plenty of AW but none this close. It must have been pretty toxic down there:
By the time I reached Sag A* I was done… I spent 5min there and then turned for home. I made the decision not to surface scan anything on the way, just honk the horn on the way through. It was bliss not to have to stop and scan! It took me 13hrs to get back. I averaged ~34LY/Min. It may be useful for future explorers to note that your max range is roughly how far you can travel in a minute if you go flat out (while scooping).
Once I got back, I sold my data at Sol which earned me 14.3 million credits. I was at Scout before my trip and the credits earned got me to Ranger. I have never docked so carefully at Abraham Lincoln – but it sure was a nice sight when I got there:
Regrets? I had a few… namely not taking the 16t fuel tank instead of the 32t. I longed for those extra couple of LY since the route planner will only plot your range based on your laden fuel weight (doesn’t take into account if you have less than a full tank). I recommend new explorers take heat sinks (I wish I had more) although I didn’t need my auto repair modules.
I’ll certainly never make the trip to the core again unless under exceptional circumstances (Community Goal or such) and then I’ll be taking the quick route. This was a brutal journey (>100hrs) and it left me in need of a break…
Anyone who looks through my post history can see that I have been critical of FD’s communication and development choices. Despite this I have put hundreds of hours into ED. The decision to release on Xbox leaves me in doubt that some of the DDA features critical to me will never be implemented (e.g. clickable skybox, detailed explorer functionality and logging, detailed trade computer that works plus stats, much more info and route planning capability in the galaxy map).
So time for a rest maybe…
CMDR Sky Haussmann of the Santiago
