Orion Spur East - the First Deep Space Voyage of the AEV The Sky Calls

[AndrewCrisp]

After some moderate successes in voyaging to the California and Cave Nebulae, as well as some training in geological surveying, I'm pleased to announce my first deep space expedition is now underway. The Alliance Exploration Vessel The Sky Calls is heading deep into the eastward section of the Orion Spur. It's mission: to chart new worlds, survey single K star systems, and search for the unknown, the unexpected, and the unimaginable!

The Ship:

AEV The Sky Calls (ID: SA-64N) is a standard Asp Explorer with a Grade 3-engineered 5A Frame Shift Drive, a grade 6 Fuel Scoop and a 4C Fuel Tank, a hanger and 2 SRVs for ground exploration, two class-3 AFMUs and a heat sink launcher for repairs and some insurance, and the standard array of discovery and detailed surface scanners. I've also taken the liberty of bringing along a collection of books and vids, as well as plenty of frozen meals. After all, I'll be a long way from the nearest starport.

Also, I've applied a fresh coat of paint. Let's see how long it lasts...

The Route

Departure was from D'Eyncourt Gateway in Lalande 27055 earlier this afternoon. My basic route is pretty straightforward, going 250 ly north of Sol and close to 10,000 ly east. The return leg will be 250 ly south of Sol, travelling through some of the thicker portions of the Spur. I have yet to decide on a destination port - something I'll consider on my tour.

Each waypoint on the map is approximately 1,000 ly apart; which is the distance I believe I can cover in an hour. I plan to make progress at about an hour each day, with additional time for scans and ground excursions as I see fit.

Goals

In addition to logging the longest voyage of my career to date, I have a few specific goals for this expedition:

The Single K Star Snapshot

At some point deep into the mission (probably past the 4,000 ly mark or Waypoint 5), I plan to sample and scan 100 star systems that have a single K-class star as their primary, noting planet types, masses, and orbital distances, and compiling the data to produce a snapshot of single K systems. I hope to answer the question on how these star systems form in this part of the galaxy. Is there a "typical" K system, with variations on a theme?

For the sake of simplicity (and sanity), I will be excluding multiple star systems from this snapshot, as the presence of additional stars alters the way a system forms (not to mention, giving rise to more orbital combinations than I can efficiently deal with right now). Also, given that there are 17 planet types, plus asteroid belts, I've decided to group planets together into a few classes, divided mostly by water content. These classes are:

Rocky Planets
Metallic Planets (contains High Metal Content and Metal-Rich planet types)
Rocky-Ice Planets
Temperate Planets (contains Water Worlds and Earthlike Worlds)
Ammonia Planets
Icy Planets
Standard Gas Giants (contains all 5 classes of gas giant)
Water Life Giants
Ammonia Life Giants
Helium Giants
Water Giants
Asteroid Belts

Distances will be divided into a logarithmic scale starting at 0.1 AU, and proceeding to 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10, 20, 50, and 100 AU.

I will be ignoring moons for this survey.

Depending on the effort of the survey, and how quickly I can process results, I may repeat the snapshot in other sectors along the flight path.

Planetary Surveying

This is a low priority goal, due largely to the poor tools available and the great difficulty involved in finding geysers, fumaroles, and other natural phenomena, but I do plan to examine at least fifteen worlds along my journey to add to the list of known geological and organic sites.

Search for Nonhuman Intelligence

I also plan to keep an eye out for signs of alien civilization, as well as any indication of human exploration, such as abandoned settlements and generation ships.

Beyond that... who can say? I will probably divert from my planned course to investigate interesting phenomena if I chance upon them.

Whatever I find, I'll be certain to post about it in this thread!

Let's see what's out there...

 

[roboteconomist]

Good luck Commander! Looking forward to the selfies.

 

[Noogillim]

Been down that way most of my time.

Watch out for the odd NPC planet side that turns out unfriendly! (that was pre 2.3)

I use the Magellanic clouds as my direction finder.

On a good day you can do 2000lyr/hour on a slow day about 50km on a surface when you keep rolling down cliffs


Watch out for non refuelables you can hit patches of them on the long hops but easily take side excursions to the refuelable systems.


Oh and you can go months at a time without meeting another soul.

I hang along that arm working on the theory that "they" come from the Magellanic clouds - no evidence yet gratefully!

 

[AndrewCrisp]

Thanks for the advice, Noogilium. I'm pacing myself - 1,000 ly an hour (plus time to explore in some of the systems I visit along the way) should be a good enough compromise between speed and exhaustion. We'll see how it goes as I move on.

(On second thought, I might make slower time than that - today's excursion from Waypoint 1 to Waypoint 2 took nearly 5 hours to complete, including some of the exploration I performed. If I have a similar route, then each Waypoint will likely take 2-3 days to reach. Good thing I'm not pressed for time).

I'm not too worried about hitting patches of non-scoopable stars; I've set my galaxy map to filter out most brown dwarfs and other potential dead ends, and the result should be routes that keep me fairly safe. In addition, I've got a respectable supply of synthesis materials, so I can use an FSD boost if needed. But if I do run into trouble, well, there's always the Fuel Rats

Anyway! Update time!

I reached my Second Waypoint at Plio Eurl WQ-C c13-3 just a short time ago. I'm now 1,583 light years from Sol. This system is dominated by gas giants, some with a small collection of moons. Having just arrived after my journey from Waypoint 1, I'm putting off the detailed survey until tomorrow, and I've set down on a shepard moon right next to Planet 1's extensive ring system.

This particular moon is reported to have silicate vapour geysers, but its size and lack of prominent features makes it a poor hunting ground for volcanic activity. But it does make for a good refuge, and the moons of this giant have a fair supply of FSD boost synthesis materials.

My first waypoint, Wregoe ER-C c13-0, had only the central star - no belts or planets of any kind. Before setting out for Waypoint 2, I poked a bit around the local neighborhood, and found a gas giant teeming with life:

The trip to Waypoint 2 was fairly uneventful. I did find some water worlds, as well as a few other gas giants with water-based life. While passing through Wregoe AI-H b25-1, I had the good fortune to witness a massive flare:

(The flare was looking better than this, but it took time for me to aim and take the shot. Did I mention I'm inexperienced when it comes to cameras?)

And I found my first water-rich giant on entering the Plio Eurl sector:

Tomorrow I'll set out for Waypoint 3, and hopefully break my personal record for distance from my home space.

 

[AndrewCrisp]

Update from Waypoint 3: Plio Eurl LG-O d6-25

It's taken me longer to reach my third waypoint than I initially planned, but this leg of the journey has been productive. I've surveyed my first geological survey candidate world, took a detour to the Puppis Dark Region B, and found an astrophysical enigma.

Geological Survey World 1 - Plio Eurl WQ-C c13-3 2 E a

Spoiler

This was a moon of a moon, a small icy body 519 km in diameter. Both it and its larger, argon atmosphere companion orbited a gas giant seeded with various forms of water-based life. Scanners registered it as volcanically active, which I gather is a result of the tidal stresses between the moon, its companion, and the gas giant primary. I surveyed three sites, looking for volcanic activity.

My first site revealed nothing but rock-strewn canyons; some areas were fogged in, suggesting outgassing was taking place, but I could find no vents or geysers present. I settled in for the night on a plateau after an hour of searching. The next day, I performed a suborbital hop to a second site. Again, I found no geysers, but I did find I was not alone. A Vulture was hovering near a crash site in one of the canyons at the second site, listed as belonging to no faction. My limited experience during the War for Godwin Installation taught me that Vultures can be dangerous vehicles, and while I had a respectable shield generator aboard, I had no weapons beyond a single mining laser, so I kept my distance and examined the crash site from the air. I could not identify the crashed vessel - it was little more than twisted plating and not much else. I couldn't even see any sign of canisters, escape pods, beacons, or other detrius one finds at a site. Picked clean.

It's possible the lone Vulture has already examined and salvaged anything it could, living up to its namesake. Or could the Vulture pilot had destroyed the ship here? Whatever the reason, I chose not to land or linger nearby, and performed another suborbital hop to my third site.

The third site, much closer to the equator, did contain a small but highly active geyser field. I found a safe location nearby, set down, and took out the SRV for a closer look.

Spoiler

The lavender colour of the geyser plumes, while beautiful, was mystifying. What could cause this colour? Some high concentration of minerals was a possibility, but I also considered the possibility of a byproduct of subsurface life. This world orbits a life-bearing gas giant, after all, and that life had to have come from somewhere. I lacked tools to sample the plume, and so this question will have to be answered by a more dedicated expedition.

Spoiler

I did take some mineral samples, however, including this amethyst crystal. This particular crystal had high amounts of mercury as a contaminant; which makes me wonder anew what life lives underneath. The samples tested negative for any form of bacterial, viral, or prion life, but I put them and the SRV through sterilization protocols just to be safe. One hears stories of alien contagions brought back from the void by incautious explorers - excellent fodder for the horror vids, but not something I want to make a reality.

After that, it was off to Waypoint 3... but not before I decided to take a small detour towards Puppis Dark Region B. This meant doubing back a little, so I didn't spend long on the detour, but I did find some terraformable water worlds and a planet bearing ammonia based life on the surface before returning to my route:

Spoiler

I could make out islands and continents on the surface; no signs of civilization or technology, so no-one to contact.

The rest of my journey to Waypoint 3 was uneventful until the very end. One jump short, I arrived at an anomaly; whether a simple instrumentation glitch or a true mystery remains to be seen. Plio Eurl NJ-F b26-1 is a binary star system - no planets, about 4.7 billion years old. The primary star seems an ordinary M-type dwarf star, .3 Solar Masses and .5 Solar radii. But the scanner lists it as a Red Giant.

Spoiler

While a software glitch may be the most likely explanation for the discrepency, there is another explanation, though I'm not sure how likely it will be. It is possible I have arrived here at the moment the star has switched over to hydrogen fusion in the upper layers, in which case the star will begin to expand to many times its size. For safety's sake, I pulled out to the T class brown dwarf companion and observed for a time, but after seeing no real change in the primary's radius, I departed for the waypoint. If the star is undergoing expansion, it may take some time to complete, another ten thousand years or so. I don't think I have that kind of time to spare.

Plio Eurl LG-O d6-25 - Waypoint 3 - echoes Waypoint 1 in one respect, in that it has no planets. But this A-type star does have companions, an M-type dwarf in close orbit; soon to become a contact binary, I suspect, and a more distant G-type star. The system is fairly young - slightly over 800 million years old.

I'm now 2,493 light-years from Sol, which only just breaches my previous record for greatest distance on an excursion. From here on out, it's astra incognitia for me. My next report will be from Waypoint 4, an additional thousand LY eastward, in a couple of days time.

 

[Kolato]

Woah i thought i was the only one using the AEV prefix. Right on commander!

 

[AndrewCrisp]

First up, sorry for the wait - this last week was... something.

Kola2: Thanks for the compliment! It seemed to fit, and the alternative was Alliance Star Ship which wouldn't make a prefix fit for polite company!

In any event: I reached Waypoint 4 this past Friday, after a week of detours and delays. The detour was through hanging around the NGC 2546 Sector, which if my explorations and EDSM are correct, is an unmapped star cluster. I attempted a basic survey of the cluster but soon realized I had no real method to do so, so the half-dozen B and A class stars I explored will have to suffice for now. I did find a ringed terraformable in the cluster:

Spoiler

High orbit over a rocky terraformable planet.

The rings gave me a chance to practice safe ring entry and egress so that's something.

So far, though, my journey to date has been getting more and more of a slog to complete. I feel like I've been slipping into a pattern of jump, scan, scoop, and map, before repeating; which is not only tiresome, but is somewhat lacking in the wonder department. Elite Dangerous' reward system for exploration is starting to show its limits, I suspect. Without in-game rewards for surface exploration or close-up examination of planets and nearby space, the only thing left to mark our progress are third-party sites, and the only reward for finding something new and unique are bragging rights. I wish I could say that was enough.

But, nevertheless, here I am at Ploea Eurl GG-O D6-6, whic I've come to dub as "Andrew's Doubt", in keeping with my current train of thought. An A-Class star 3,375 light-years from home, it is also home to my fourth geological survey site, another moon of a moon.

Spoiler

Ploea Eurl GG-O d6-6 1 C a, with its parent moon and grandparent gas giant in the background.

These worlds are not only small, and thus easier to search, but the tidal forces should guarantee plentiful volcanic sites and thus increase my chances of a find. This particular world is listed as hosting Silicate Vapour geysers, which I understand are rather hard to find.

While searching this world, I'll also be re-evaluating my exploration strategy, in hopes of finding a method that will let me finish this expedition without turning back in defeat.