Just got done today entire menu of Palin access, unlock, and rank up to level 5. If I knew then what I know now....perhaps this will help the next guy -
1. Don't spend so much time dithering over the 'perfect' AspE exploration build - just go with largest FSD jump and toss everything else if the point is get there and suicide for instant return back
if purpose is to unlock Palin ASAP (and not actual exploration combined), then you definitely only want to build:
a) longest FSD jump distance - not a single exploration 'extra' --> no ADS, DSS, SRV hangar, etc. Just (1) heat sink and (1) AFMU just in case
b) jump - arrive - don't even bother with scanning star - just dip rescoop and jump again
c) took me ~1 min per jump, entire cycle of land, recharge, count down, and in-jump animation
2. If you use Colonia Highway route, don't land at the outposts. I screwed myself for the suicide trip back because initially my plan was land there, strip ship of valuable class 6A fuel scoop and engineered 5A max FSD, then exit outside, and suicide. Normally, if you take insurance suicide you end up at last station visited, so I planned to take the free sidewinder.
My plan was this would allow turning in all my exploration data as I did take an ADS this time and honked as I rescooped, and save my expensive fuel scoop + FSD. The base cost of the AspE I was willing to write off as cost of getting back instantly. But I was an idiot and did not plan ahead - not sure if Google search would have shown it but the outposts do not have outfitting nor shipyards.
So when I landed, I locked myself to that save point, and wasn't able to strip my ship off in order to do a suicide with restart at start system with sidewinder.
This was Hillary Station at first outpost ~2k LY out. So what I did was take off, go the remaining ~3k LY to achieve Palin 5k, then suicide in space to return 3/5 of the way back - to Hillary Station. Which left jumping back ~2k LY again. If I knew there was no outfitting or shipyard, I wouldn't land there and just skip the entire ADS part too - just go and jump over and over, get the 5k done, suicide, and come back.
3. After unlocking Palin, the hunt for UA fragments was very easy - if you use the ancient alien ship instance way. YMMV the hunt for USS way. But unless you have some huge moral issue with relogging, getting UA frags via alien ship crash is ~3min for all 25 frags (*with just 1 single relog). There's a thread on the Eng subforum if you want the coordinates and method details
4. I did not know Maia did not have a single shipyard anywhere, so did not plan ahead to get Palin ranked up + craft (3) DD5 upgrades.
I went out in AspE, got there, then found out no shipyard at Obsidian Orbital or the 2 large planetary surface bases. So no way to call my other two ships over via transfer. Knowing what I know now, I'd have stripped all 3 ships I planned to upgrade of their drives and put into storage, fly out with 1 ship that can install any of those 3 thruster class sizes, land at Palin, and then use the transfer module function to transfer all thrusters I planned to upgrade. Go play solitaire or whatever for 40-60 min, then do the upgrades once modules arrive.
Unfortunately, I did it the hard way and had to go back and forth couple times.
My luck did turn though and on 2 of my 3 DD5 upgrades, I rolled an awesome better than max multiplier. I got close to the max on the base roll, and then hit the secondary effect lotto that boosted the overall multiplier beyond the base max.
Now I'm randomly searching for more DD5 mats.
1. Don't spend so much time dithering over the 'perfect' AspE exploration build - just go with largest FSD jump and toss everything else if the point is get there and suicide for instant return back
if purpose is to unlock Palin ASAP (and not actual exploration combined), then you definitely only want to build:
a) longest FSD jump distance - not a single exploration 'extra' --> no ADS, DSS, SRV hangar, etc. Just (1) heat sink and (1) AFMU just in case
b) jump - arrive - don't even bother with scanning star - just dip rescoop and jump again
c) took me ~1 min per jump, entire cycle of land, recharge, count down, and in-jump animation
2. If you use Colonia Highway route, don't land at the outposts. I screwed myself for the suicide trip back because initially my plan was land there, strip ship of valuable class 6A fuel scoop and engineered 5A max FSD, then exit outside, and suicide. Normally, if you take insurance suicide you end up at last station visited, so I planned to take the free sidewinder.
My plan was this would allow turning in all my exploration data as I did take an ADS this time and honked as I rescooped, and save my expensive fuel scoop + FSD. The base cost of the AspE I was willing to write off as cost of getting back instantly. But I was an idiot and did not plan ahead - not sure if Google search would have shown it but the outposts do not have outfitting nor shipyards.
So when I landed, I locked myself to that save point, and wasn't able to strip my ship off in order to do a suicide with restart at start system with sidewinder.
This was Hillary Station at first outpost ~2k LY out. So what I did was take off, go the remaining ~3k LY to achieve Palin 5k, then suicide in space to return 3/5 of the way back - to Hillary Station. Which left jumping back ~2k LY again. If I knew there was no outfitting or shipyard, I wouldn't land there and just skip the entire ADS part too - just go and jump over and over, get the 5k done, suicide, and come back.
3. After unlocking Palin, the hunt for UA fragments was very easy - if you use the ancient alien ship instance way. YMMV the hunt for USS way. But unless you have some huge moral issue with relogging, getting UA frags via alien ship crash is ~3min for all 25 frags (*with just 1 single relog). There's a thread on the Eng subforum if you want the coordinates and method details
4. I did not know Maia did not have a single shipyard anywhere, so did not plan ahead to get Palin ranked up + craft (3) DD5 upgrades.
I went out in AspE, got there, then found out no shipyard at Obsidian Orbital or the 2 large planetary surface bases. So no way to call my other two ships over via transfer. Knowing what I know now, I'd have stripped all 3 ships I planned to upgrade of their drives and put into storage, fly out with 1 ship that can install any of those 3 thruster class sizes, land at Palin, and then use the transfer module function to transfer all thrusters I planned to upgrade. Go play solitaire or whatever for 40-60 min, then do the upgrades once modules arrive.
Unfortunately, I did it the hard way and had to go back and forth couple times.
My luck did turn though and on 2 of my 3 DD5 upgrades, I rolled an awesome better than max multiplier. I got close to the max on the base roll, and then hit the secondary effect lotto that boosted the overall multiplier beyond the base max.
Now I'm randomly searching for more DD5 mats.
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