A few days ago I set myself a very vague sort of goal: "Get to that bright spot in the middle of the galaxy."
I know, it's a rather vague goal, but I really want to get into exploration. However, I lack perspective. This post is really to talk about gaining on that.
Ship Specs:
Lightweight Alloy
Power Plant D5
Thrusters D4
Frame Shift Drive A5
Life Support D4
Sensors D5
Fuel Tank (Capacity 32)
Fuel Scoop A6
Auto Field-Maintenance Unit A3
Auto Field-Maintenance Unit A3
Shield Generator A3
Advanced Discovery Scanner
Standard Docking Computer
Power: 14.83MW of 15.30 MW
Cargo Capacity 0
Fuel Capacity 32
Mass 370/473.0T
Jump Range 33.21Ly
Rebuy: 2402455
______________________________________________________
UI Color
<MatrixRed> 2, 0.31, 0.82 </MatrixRed>
<MatrixGreen> -1.01, 0.1, 1 </MatrixGreen>
<MatrixBlue> -0.97, 0.75, -0.41 </MatrixBlue>
_______________________________________________________
Coping with Boredom / Stress (stars):
Brought a flute, guitar, and keyboard.
History of Westeros Pod-Casts
Kingkiller Chronicle Audio Books
School Work
_______________________________________________________
The UI Color was a really great change from the industrial orange the last time I set out. Pink turns out to be non-existent before reaching the core areas of the galaxy. This meant I could re-fuel with the relative comfort of known I really would be able to distinguish my UI from the colors the stars put off. It also makes distant objects just pop when something's out there and the sensors have picked it up. Totally changed the mood of everything in a much needed direction for me.
Next came "lighthouse" and "zero": "Home". I haven't really settled on a "home port" in the game yet, but after discovering Miranda some time ago I fell in love with the Imperial sector. I decided Bessel would become home base because it's a white Ring Station in orbit of a beautiful blue earth-like: a nice thing to see leaving or coming back.
After getting all of my ducks in a row I flew out to Coal Sack, then up and sort of out parallel with Orion for a bit. "For a bit" turned into "several days".
I guess I'm following the American WWII strategy of island-hopping. When I went to Orion my goal was to find "fuel depots" and really that was it. The fuel depot would be a star, easy to refuel from, and within the length of the 900Ly plot range set by the nav-computer. I have stuck to the idea that if there are at least 3 "Fuel Stars" on that path I'd be fine. If not, the next time I went that way I'd be sure to find a path that had them. I used this same way of thinking on my way out toward the core.
Both on my way out and on my return I had the general impression that the journey didn't really begin until I reached PRAEA EUQ CY-O B33-2. I spent a couple of days out here looking for a system without names on it. It was 923.31Ly from my point of departure. By the way I meandered out there it was probably closer to 1641.33LY - which is the number I have in my journal. This number (for me) approximates what I'm defining as "the edge of the bubble". It's how far out you want to go to be absolutely certain you're going to be charting meaningful data. I guess the mentality at work here is that if I'm going to explore I might as well do it in a useful way for the community.
If you open up your galaxy map from Navigation and pan the camera above our home region you'll notice that we're on the second to last arm of the galaxy. The point between us and the next arm... I began calling it the "The Lonely Ocean." This didn't really strike me until I had reached the arm across from us. Following the idea of "island hopping" intended to look for a system with an earth-like, fuel depot star, and a good view. What constitutes a "good view"? I don't know. I imagined this would take a while so every time I found something I imagined might have that I hit screenshot and move on. Ya, I know, not very romantic, but I had a lot else on my mind. The initial part of my journey was very cerebral.
I had this idea that after finding an earth-like depot area (doesn't that just scream "trash dump?") I had the general idea that I'd sort of do an expanding spiral around it to look for others. The goal of this was to create a "plate" to land on for the next time I'd go out this way. To visualize, "If ships are bbs being shot at the core of the galaxy, it's reasonable to want a place to 'aim' for. Such places would form into the 'island depots' for fuel, possibly space stations, and generally form a 'road' to take." The imagine in my mind was fire ants: they do this.
Possibly as a result of setting this goal my mood on the trip was first really good. I found quite a lot of undiscovered water-worlds and earth-likes out around PRAEA and BYUA, but then may have made a decision that change that. I turned toward grid; 0 : -153 : 10.000. The idea I had was that as I approached the center of the galaxy there would be more stars: correct. Further, there would be a greater likelihood of earth-likes: wrong.
It turns out that the rarity of earth-likes remains fairly consistent by volume. Therefore, let's say you took an area 1600Lys square. Inside this there may be 5 to 20 earth-likes and 100s to 1000 non-earthlikes. Well, just take that idea and magnify it by the volume of systems present by the square area. What you ends up happening is this heart-wrenching realization that the Fermi Paradox is possibly the saddest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox. "Where is everybody?" It's not like I went out there looking for alien life. At least, not the variety that come in flying 2000 mile long beryllium star ships. A tide of algae didn't seem too much to ask for though...
Hense the name, "Lonely Ocean," that I'm forever calling that spot between our ring and the next one over (towards the core). This realization was slow dawning. Possibly because I resisted it. It made perfect sense, but who wants to live in Scablands, Washington? A place completely wiped clean by sudden massive flooding might suggest life, but it's just an example of elemental activity between one large body (earth) and several small bodies (water and comets/asteroids). This sense of scale to the rarity of life really packs a punch when you realize just how bloody awful the universe is. The elements are winning.
This puts life on about the same footing as finding something richly sugary and sweet in the Amazon. The Amazon rain forest is one of the densest seats of life on the planet, but it is so dense that gratuitous flavors in a lot of food is missing. Some of the tastiest stuff as 'nips' of flavor instead of the rich continuous tastes found in foods of other climates. That's the sugars being sparse. Same thing here with the real absence of life all over the place. And where it is found it's just this very hair thing veneer.
Anyway, this started to bug me about the time I reached: BYAA AIRM LM-W F1-1077
I found it by sheer dumb luck. The fact that I found it about the same time I came upon this whole realization... I... went home. I just turned the ship around, set course for Lighthouse and made the whole flight back in one sitting. I needed to re-think life a bit. All implications intended and those not yet realized...
Bessel seemed like a huge station when I left. It felt terribly vulnerable when I got back.
I'm sort of digesting this right now I guess.
I'm not even sure what kind of perspective this is. The only thing I keep thinking is, "We're doing it wrong," and I'm not even sure what I mean.
On other thoughts, Aisling Duval should move her territories down and outwards toward the Veil Nebula East along with Edmund Mahon because they have the best chance to access that direction and reach a greater density of stars. Duval, if needing to go it alone, could also cross into the PRAEA and BYUA regions given her location without probably being pursued by anyone, but would eventually run up against the lonely sea and that private Idaho. Agriculture and a ton of confused freed slaves seems like a happy marriage/partnership for long-term long-view colonization goals. I'd also move the territories away from the Federalists who creep me out.
Anyway, going back to brewing now.
I know, it's a rather vague goal, but I really want to get into exploration. However, I lack perspective. This post is really to talk about gaining on that.
Ship Specs:
Lightweight Alloy
Power Plant D5
Thrusters D4
Frame Shift Drive A5
Life Support D4
Sensors D5
Fuel Tank (Capacity 32)
Fuel Scoop A6
Auto Field-Maintenance Unit A3
Auto Field-Maintenance Unit A3
Shield Generator A3
Advanced Discovery Scanner
Standard Docking Computer
Power: 14.83MW of 15.30 MW
Cargo Capacity 0
Fuel Capacity 32
Mass 370/473.0T
Jump Range 33.21Ly
Rebuy: 2402455
______________________________________________________
UI Color
<MatrixRed> 2, 0.31, 0.82 </MatrixRed>
<MatrixGreen> -1.01, 0.1, 1 </MatrixGreen>
<MatrixBlue> -0.97, 0.75, -0.41 </MatrixBlue>
_______________________________________________________
Coping with Boredom / Stress (stars):
Brought a flute, guitar, and keyboard.
History of Westeros Pod-Casts
Kingkiller Chronicle Audio Books
School Work
_______________________________________________________
The UI Color was a really great change from the industrial orange the last time I set out. Pink turns out to be non-existent before reaching the core areas of the galaxy. This meant I could re-fuel with the relative comfort of known I really would be able to distinguish my UI from the colors the stars put off. It also makes distant objects just pop when something's out there and the sensors have picked it up. Totally changed the mood of everything in a much needed direction for me.
Next came "lighthouse" and "zero": "Home". I haven't really settled on a "home port" in the game yet, but after discovering Miranda some time ago I fell in love with the Imperial sector. I decided Bessel would become home base because it's a white Ring Station in orbit of a beautiful blue earth-like: a nice thing to see leaving or coming back.
After getting all of my ducks in a row I flew out to Coal Sack, then up and sort of out parallel with Orion for a bit. "For a bit" turned into "several days".
I guess I'm following the American WWII strategy of island-hopping. When I went to Orion my goal was to find "fuel depots" and really that was it. The fuel depot would be a star, easy to refuel from, and within the length of the 900Ly plot range set by the nav-computer. I have stuck to the idea that if there are at least 3 "Fuel Stars" on that path I'd be fine. If not, the next time I went that way I'd be sure to find a path that had them. I used this same way of thinking on my way out toward the core.
Both on my way out and on my return I had the general impression that the journey didn't really begin until I reached PRAEA EUQ CY-O B33-2. I spent a couple of days out here looking for a system without names on it. It was 923.31Ly from my point of departure. By the way I meandered out there it was probably closer to 1641.33LY - which is the number I have in my journal. This number (for me) approximates what I'm defining as "the edge of the bubble". It's how far out you want to go to be absolutely certain you're going to be charting meaningful data. I guess the mentality at work here is that if I'm going to explore I might as well do it in a useful way for the community.
If you open up your galaxy map from Navigation and pan the camera above our home region you'll notice that we're on the second to last arm of the galaxy. The point between us and the next arm... I began calling it the "The Lonely Ocean." This didn't really strike me until I had reached the arm across from us. Following the idea of "island hopping" intended to look for a system with an earth-like, fuel depot star, and a good view. What constitutes a "good view"? I don't know. I imagined this would take a while so every time I found something I imagined might have that I hit screenshot and move on. Ya, I know, not very romantic, but I had a lot else on my mind. The initial part of my journey was very cerebral.
I had this idea that after finding an earth-like depot area (doesn't that just scream "trash dump?") I had the general idea that I'd sort of do an expanding spiral around it to look for others. The goal of this was to create a "plate" to land on for the next time I'd go out this way. To visualize, "If ships are bbs being shot at the core of the galaxy, it's reasonable to want a place to 'aim' for. Such places would form into the 'island depots' for fuel, possibly space stations, and generally form a 'road' to take." The imagine in my mind was fire ants: they do this.
Possibly as a result of setting this goal my mood on the trip was first really good. I found quite a lot of undiscovered water-worlds and earth-likes out around PRAEA and BYUA, but then may have made a decision that change that. I turned toward grid; 0 : -153 : 10.000. The idea I had was that as I approached the center of the galaxy there would be more stars: correct. Further, there would be a greater likelihood of earth-likes: wrong.
It turns out that the rarity of earth-likes remains fairly consistent by volume. Therefore, let's say you took an area 1600Lys square. Inside this there may be 5 to 20 earth-likes and 100s to 1000 non-earthlikes. Well, just take that idea and magnify it by the volume of systems present by the square area. What you ends up happening is this heart-wrenching realization that the Fermi Paradox is possibly the saddest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox. "Where is everybody?" It's not like I went out there looking for alien life. At least, not the variety that come in flying 2000 mile long beryllium star ships. A tide of algae didn't seem too much to ask for though...
Hense the name, "Lonely Ocean," that I'm forever calling that spot between our ring and the next one over (towards the core). This realization was slow dawning. Possibly because I resisted it. It made perfect sense, but who wants to live in Scablands, Washington? A place completely wiped clean by sudden massive flooding might suggest life, but it's just an example of elemental activity between one large body (earth) and several small bodies (water and comets/asteroids). This sense of scale to the rarity of life really packs a punch when you realize just how bloody awful the universe is. The elements are winning.
This puts life on about the same footing as finding something richly sugary and sweet in the Amazon. The Amazon rain forest is one of the densest seats of life on the planet, but it is so dense that gratuitous flavors in a lot of food is missing. Some of the tastiest stuff as 'nips' of flavor instead of the rich continuous tastes found in foods of other climates. That's the sugars being sparse. Same thing here with the real absence of life all over the place. And where it is found it's just this very hair thing veneer.
Anyway, this started to bug me about the time I reached: BYAA AIRM LM-W F1-1077
I found it by sheer dumb luck. The fact that I found it about the same time I came upon this whole realization... I... went home. I just turned the ship around, set course for Lighthouse and made the whole flight back in one sitting. I needed to re-think life a bit. All implications intended and those not yet realized...
Bessel seemed like a huge station when I left. It felt terribly vulnerable when I got back.
I'm sort of digesting this right now I guess.
I'm not even sure what kind of perspective this is. The only thing I keep thinking is, "We're doing it wrong," and I'm not even sure what I mean.
On other thoughts, Aisling Duval should move her territories down and outwards toward the Veil Nebula East along with Edmund Mahon because they have the best chance to access that direction and reach a greater density of stars. Duval, if needing to go it alone, could also cross into the PRAEA and BYUA regions given her location without probably being pursued by anyone, but would eventually run up against the lonely sea and that private Idaho. Agriculture and a ton of confused freed slaves seems like a happy marriage/partnership for long-term long-view colonization goals. I'd also move the territories away from the Federalists who creep me out.
Anyway, going back to brewing now.
