Navicula II - Back to Black

[mikekim]

After the success of my recent test run to the Rosette Nebula i figured it was time to venture out again and push the boundaries a bit and possibly take a trip to to Galactic Core and possibly Colonia.

I decided that this run would be in a small ship, rather than the "Supertanker" that is the 'Conda (even though its now up to 50LY after my Lvl 5 access from the last expedition), so a homage to the original game (which i still play from time to time on my BBC B) i decided to make the trip in the Cobra MkIII that has been stored for a couple of years without a good run.

my ship name - Navicula - is Latin for Boat... its a space boat, so seems appropriate

Mission prep..

the cobra paid a visit to Farseer inc to have its drives modded and i ended up with a 36ly range on my specc'd build

picked up a ship kit to modernise it a bit, but left the original Mercenary paintjob.

looks pretty good if i say so myself..

Test flights around the bubble went well, landing is soo much easier than the 'Conda..

so without further delay... onto the mission..

My mission plan is to had towards Sag A* via the Great Annihilator and then onto Colonia, once i hit Colonia i will decide what route to take from there..

I set my first waypoint as 49 Cygni before starting to head up in a North Westerly direction. this would take me a couple of kly off of the beaten track, so there would be a greater percentage of undiscovered systems, rather than every system you visit has been tagged by somebody else..

quite impressed how this ship handles in supecruise compared to the 'Conda, just seems effortless and a joy to spend time in..

did some exploration on Swoiwns-SD-A-B20-2 as planetary scans indicated it was showing 2.4% for Arsenic.

thankfully the moon wasn't totally flat, so managed some SRV mountaineering..

found 6x rocks of Arsenic in 20mins, so quite a good spot..

I'd decided to use the Spansh neutron router website initially to plot a course to the core testing out the Neuton Jumping capability of the Cobra.

Supercharged the FSD and got 150Ly...

rinsed and repeated for about 15 stars then had to think about repairing my FSD... made the rookie mistake of repairing whilst in Supercruise... DOH.. emergency stop..

wont be making that mistake again...

analysing the jumps i was only really gaining 3 system jumps, per Neutron Jump, so decided to follow the star route provided, but rather than supercharge and plot the N-Jump, just plot as normal to the next Neutron star.

the Ly passed with loads of undiscovered systems, including...

my first undiscovered ELW on this trip (Aucopp-GR-D-C15-9-7)

also some quite nice pics for desktops..

other new first discoveries...

My first undiscovered White dwarf... travelled through the stars corona... Supercharged the Jump range to 55ly

also found the first (of many) undiscovered black holes..

love the lensing effect on these and the ominous sounds they make as you pass them...

pressed onwards towards the core then had a thought... how about checking out one of the newly constructed bases... so i set course for Sacaqawea Spaceport, following the neutron trail..

another milestone on the trip 10kly

loads of unexplored systems, no more ELW's but quite a few water worlds..

the landing at Sacaqawea went without any major dramas, so off to claim my ELW and reap the exploration rewards...

362 systems scanned.
8.2Mcr
about 900 first discoveries
ELW number 3 tagged with my name..

decided to rest here overnight before pressing onwards..

 

[mikekim]

Log Entry 2:

After a good nights rest and a hearty Space Truckers Breakfast I set off once more into the void.

My route will be heading north north west towards the great annihilator.
once i hit the Neutron fields I've decided to filter only "N type stars" and run on Economical route.

however before i reach the fields i have a couple more discoveries..

2x more Earth Like worlds to potentially add to the collection..

nice close binary system stars only 2ls apart.. resisted the temptation to fly between them.

once I hit the Neutron fields started plotting 250ly tracks, as anything longer takes ages to plot. (55-65 Jumps)

for anyone who hasn't seen the neutron fields here is a basic screenshot of what its like.

quite a few stars to choose from [big grin]

scooping isn't a problem as quite often you'll find a scoopable star a couple of LS from the Main star

you also see some nice oddities like binary Neutron Stars

"So if I fly where the steams intersect.. can i double my Neutron Jumprange?"
would be nice if it worked...

also found a ringed Earthlike, the only object orbiting a Neutron star.

The Fields are slow progress, but i'm now only 5.5Kly from the GA...

 

[mikekim]

Log entry 3:

Still farming the neutron fields... man this is slow going, as each jump is between 2-4ly. kept this up for about 800 systems and then fancied a change of pace.
at 3.5Kly from GA i decided to step it up and routed for "F&G" type stars on normal mode..

wow what a change of pace from 200+ jumps per Kly to 30..

and then the earthlikes started appearing...

another 5 in a matter of a couple of Kly..

also had this one but being the non OCD explorer i thought i'd leave it for someone else to tag..

500k... to far for my taste..


so with each passing jump the first major destination on my mission approaches..

damn.. thats one big black hole..

yep.. go on say it.... you'll do 200k but not 500... lightweight..


next up... onwards to Sag A*

 

[mikekim]

Log Entry 4

Its surprising how distances don't really mean that much once you've been out in the void for a while..

Take this entry for example.. next stop Sag A* 3.9kly.. a mere 118 jumps.. set off without even batting an eyelid...

still running the "F&G" filter, the only thing of note to report is....

my first twin Earth Like System (you can just make out the other ELW in the distance..) the planets are 5.2ly apart.

loads of Water worlds scanned as well.. there are probably hundreds of elws around this area if you have the patience to go economic routing.

**** Drum roll ****

The Supermassive Awaits....

and I thought the last two were big...

Quick spot of tourist stuff.. nearly crashed into the damn beacon coming out of supercruise.
should have come with weapons.. 3 Belugas were here when i arrived.. could have had some fun

went and scanned Source 2 as well.. while i was there targeted SOL (just for the picture) /disengage tourist mode

My paintjob looks a bit different from the start of the mission a couple of weeks ago..


next stop on the galactic tour..... Colonia (via the Neuton Fields) so might be a while before the next log entry.

 

[mikekim]

Log entry 5

Neutron stars everywhere......

running economically through neutron star fields is a grinders paradise at points you can only plot 250ly stages because of the density of the stars it takes 10+ minutes to plot.

loads of Earth like worlds to report on this leg... so many in fact that i'm only going to post a couple of pics of them

Another 13 undiscovered worlds found on this leg... This was plotting routes using Only Neutron stars and occasionally A Class when got bored of Neutons.

This leg I've probably done the best part of 1000+ Neutron stars..

time to start heading towards Colonia, to cash it in....

the 2.3 update hit while i was 2.5k from Jaques.. so last night i had a couple of hours to try and make it there..

Navigating to the destination was a challenge, due to the galaxy map issue, having no idea how far each plotted route was when selecting, but was estimating around 800ly plots.

Found my first post 2.3 ELW

couldn't work out the new camera, so a straight printscreen will have to suffice for now :S


Docking at Jaques was issue free apart from not taking a screenshot of the occasion

now the moment of truth...

Systems visited this leg: 1908
value of Exploration data: 148,942,367cr

annnnd.....

probably one of the first elites post the 2.3 update.


overall the Cobra MkIII is a fantastic exploration tool, far better in my estimation than a conda for this kind of trip.. if id have run my conda a know i could have had a 48ly jumprange fully loaded, but the 36 on the Cobra was never an issue, the maneuverability of the craft made it a joy to fly for long periods

Over the whole trip i only spent 3.5k on repairs minimum the hull went down to was 98%

Full trip stats:

Systems visited: 2632
Distance Travelled: 54,156
Credits: 157,108,707
Highest Payout: 1,632,111
Earth Like Worlds: 22
Water Worlds: 98
SRV Distance: 46km
Undiscovered items: 95% of everything seen on trip
Ranking: Ranger 9% to Elite
Game time spent on trip: 5D 2H 26MIN