RoundTrip!

[Basti]

New OP, as it is time to start.

The plan: Do a round trip through the galaxy, staying somewhat the same distance from the center of the Milky way as Sol is from the Center.

Means, roughly this path:

The complete trip would be around 150.000 LY. My ASP can do a bit more than 30 LY per jump, means we are talking about roughly 5000 Jumps here. 5000 Jumps without docking at a station, living soley on scooped fuel. 5000 Jumps where any and all errors could be fatal weeks, if not months later.

I expect I can do 15-30 jumps per day on averange, making this whole plan take between 160 to 330 days, so between 1/2 and 1 Year.
Yes, I know, thats a long time. But it will be worth it. Not because I may be the first to do it, not because all of that sweet sweet exploration money at the end, and not because of the fame if i succeed, but soley because if it can be done, it must be done.


I write a in character blog every few days, updating my location, the route i took (the route will be recorded for the entire trip, in case someone wants to follow me ) and showing off cool stuff I find along the way. Said blog can be found here:

https://edintotheunknown.blogspot.com


Wish me luck.

 

[Basti]

The Ship: http://eliteshipyard.nfshost.com/#/...5Rr5Rr,2-8S8S7_6u6u8S8I,52M7TC0Ko0Ko0Ko2UI2jw


The Route: http://edintotheunknown.blogspot.de/2015/01/the-route.html

Current Location: NGC 4463 Sector VY-C b15-3

 

[anikaiful]

Get a heatsink in one or two slots, just in case...

Could switch shields and scoop - shield a class higher and drop scoop a notch smaller.

 

[Slategrey252]

Interesting concept. Go for it Pilot. Circumnavigate the hell out of the milky way

 

[Kitiara]

It's *POSSIBLE* I think...... the problem will be the los density regions between the arms at that radius. I think it's possible though.

Ship Integrity is not an issue. It will do nothing other than weaken your hull by 30%.

What is an issue is maintaining your systems and hull. Your maintenance unit won't repair the thrusters, canopy, hull, discovery scanner, surface scanner. Making mistakes while scooping, or approaching a planet to scan will be potentially very dangerous as you have no way to repair your hull.

Go for it.... but be careful and remember that incident could cost you it all. I and one other explorer that I know of have had incidents where we have come out of frameshift between a contact binary and been unable to avoid hull damage.

 

[Rampant]

This is a brilliant endeavour.
.
I wish you all the best.
.
Cheerz
.
Mark H

 

[Kitiara]

Get a heatsink in one or two slots, just in case...

Could switch shields and scoop - shield a class higher and drop scoop a notch smaller.

The shield is really an irrelevance. It does nothing to reduce heat damage. Weapons are an irrelevance too and will only reduce jump range

 

[Basti]

So, no weapons and point defense, but heatsinks in case I get to close to a star?

Makes a lot of sense, could help.

I drop the point defense for Heatsinks then, but keep the weapons. It just feels safer that way. ^^

The shields will also stay, god knows if I will need them or not.



Does Thermal Plating help for heat?

 

[Pekaafax]

A risky undertaking to be sure. I assume you'd fly in solo mode?

I hope you create a blog or something for documenting purposes!

157000 light years... *boggle*

 

[Bloomoo]

It's probably doable if you don't go insane first!

I've just done a ~15k round trip over the last 5 days to try and visit Cygnus X-1, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment ( https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=91474 )
However I did that by doing jump -> scoop & scan -> check for anything interesting in system view -> jump, only stopping if it was a particularly interesting system.
So you should be able to do it in a comple of months if you don't stop at every system.

 

[anikaiful]

The shield is really an irrelevance. It does nothing to reduce heat damage. Weapons are an irrelevance too and will only reduce jump range

Yea, but a good shield isn't a horrible thing to have though - one might get a stray (=buggy) interdiction in middle of nowhere while scooping fuel, who knows.

 

[Nøhr]

+rep for this enormous undertaking. Hope your canopy holds, the thing will begin to crack after a few weeks of flight.

 

[Basti]

+rep for this enormous undertaking. Hope your canopy holds, the thing will begin to crack after a few weeks of flight.

That is my biggest fear really, that the ASP just breaks apart even without mistakes being made.

But we shall see. No way to know if it is possible till ya try.

 

[Uueerdo]

Yea, but a good shield isn't a horrible thing to have though - one might get a stray (=buggy) interdiction in middle of nowhere while scooping fuel, who knows.

Was thinking the same, plus he did mention exploring a system here and there, which might increase the chances of such encounters. Even with low chances of it happening, with his estimated 7850 jumps, it won't have to happen too often or take too much hull per encounter for it to become a definite consideration in his plans.

 

[Rock-Hermit]

7850 jumps? Sorry to say that there's a heck of a lot of busted sectors in elite, especially near the centre. There's no way you will avoid them in a trip that has that many jumps involved. All you'll be doing is identifying busted systems for FD, ticketing them and waiting for someone from support to get to you tcket and move you a stable system.
Rinse and repeat several hundred times on a trip that long.

You should get assurances from a dev that its possible to do that journey before committing to it. From what I've read the number of busted sectors increases the further out you travel away from colonised space.

Kudos for the ambition though

 

[CmdrJacks]

Can you pick me some lemonade while you're out? ta

 

[Kayweg]

The ship will not disintegrate beneath your butt from wear and tear, no worries there.

The main challenge will be to fly 150.000 ly (and countless fuel scoops) with virtually no errors made.

Then there's the monotony. What seems like a fun project now can quickly end in regret. You'll realize that you barred yourself from everything else the game has to offer. No trading, no storyline, no combat etc, just this one activity...travel.

Another thing, and do correct me if i'm wrong here, the fact that you still are working towards an Asp indicates to me that you have no prior experience with long distance travelling.

Perhaps once you have the ship, try and plot a 5000ly round trip, just so that you get a basic idea of the scale ?

I am by no means trying to discourage you, but sheer enthusiasm will not be sufficient preparation.

Of course, i don't know you as a person, perhaps you're the most stubborn, persistent and focussed of us all.....well, you'll have to be.

gl

 

[Uueerdo]

The main challenge will be to fly 150.000 ly (and countless fuel scoops) with virtually no errors made. Then there's the monotony. What seems like a fun project now can quickly end in regret.

I can just see his character flying into a star on purpose shouting "I am so alone!"

 

[777Driver]

Definitely get a field repair unit, you will make mistakes when refueling, you cant repair the hull or thrusters but other components will take damage. Also no point in the life support, just get the lightest one you can find. 25 minutes of oxygen wont help you 5000LY from the nearest breathable atmosphere.

I took a trip to the California Nebula and discovered something really cool, if your FSD takes damage it will fail on you, mine kept cutting out and refusing to charge, I would get intermittent errors messages (FSD failure) I had a cheap field kit that repaired slowly, next time I will buy the best repair kit available.

Edit - reread your equipment list.. looks like you are sorted

 

[Basti]

A risky undertaking to be sure. I assume you'd fly in solo mode?

I hope you create a blog or something for documenting purposes!

157000 light years... *boggle*

Open of course. Wont matter tho, the likleyness of seeing another player are rather slim.

And yes, heavily documented. Not sure if I just write a blog post every few days, or do a Vlog. Propably the latter, as there is the potential for some comedy in this all, and moving pictures are better than screenshots, especially when you look at the milky way from the other side.

7850 jumps? Sorry to say that there's a heck of a lot of busted sectors in elite, especially near the centre. There's no way you will avoid them in a trip that has that many jumps involved. All you'll be doing is identifying busted systems for FD, ticketing them and waiting for someone from support to get to you tcket and move you a stable system.
Rinse and repeat several hundred times on a trip that long.

You should get assurances from a dev that its possible to do that journey before committing to it. From what I've read the number of busted sectors increases the further out you travel away from colonised space.

Kudos for the ambition though

Thanks for pointing that out. If it happens that I end up stuck, I hopefully can get a ticket going. But since I will be heavily documenting the whole trip, I assume they will notice and fix rather quickly. Hopefully the basic issue is fixed before I ever run into it.

The ship will not disintegrate beneath your butt from wear and tear, no worries there.

The main challenge will be to fly 150.000 ly (and countless fuel scoops) with virtually no errors made.

Then there's the monotony. What seems like a fun project now can quickly end in regret. You'll realize that you barred yourself from everything else the game has to offer. No trading, no storyline, no combat etc, just this one activity...travel.

Another thing, and do correct me if i'm wrong here, the fact that you still are working towards an Asp indicates to me that you have no prior experience with long distance travelling.

Perhaps once you have the ship, try and plot a 5000ly round trip, just so that you get a basic idea of the scale ?

I am by no means trying to discourage you, but sheer enthusiasm will not be sufficient preparation.

Of course, i don't know you as a person, perhaps you're the most stubborn, persistent and focussed of us all.....well, you'll have to be.

gl

Valid points, and I know that I will end up in a situation where some cool content comes to the game, and im on the other side of the milky way, to far to just get back in a timley manner. But thats okay, this undertaking isnt something that just spun up in my mind, its something I wanted to do for ages in a game, and Elite finally allows me to do it. Even better, elite is 1:1 scale, so its a real archivment, rather than just some gimmik.


I fear that I end up crashing my ship. But I will do absolutly everything possible to prevent errors on my part. looking at what systems im about to jump into may greatly reduce the likleyness of me ending up materializing inside a star, and the now equipped heat sinks hopefully allow me to prevent disater, in case s**t hits the fan. Still, its going to be a while before I will see a station to dock, so there certainly is the risk of me screwing up. But damn, if that happens, I will try again.

It shall be done, not because of profit, but because it can be done!

I can just see his character flying into a star on purpose shouting "I am so alone!"

Never!




Updated the ship loadout, full on heat sinks now.

Asp will be bought and equipped within the week if everything works out (and my trade route doesnt go dry. ).