Newcomer / Intro Should I return for the Engineers or keep heading to Colonia? (Now have Horizons)

I've been playing Elite Dangerous for a little while now. I never got the Horizons DLC because I didn't really care much about planetary landings, and mostly wanted to do space trucking and exploration. But now, when Horizons suddenly went on sale on Steam, I couldn't resist getting it. This has left me with a dilemma. Having earned my first few million credits doing mostly trading and exploration, I wanted to set myself the goal of getting to Colonia. But, as I didn't have access to Engineers as I didn't have Horizons, I don't have an upgraded FSD, making it a pretty time-consuming trip. I'm now more than 2,100 light years from Sol, so it seems annoying to turn back, but I still have something like 20,000 light years to go for Colonia. Does it make sense for me to turn back to the Bubble to get the Engineers to upgrade my FSD or do any other Bubble-specific Horizons things before I resume my journey, or should I power onwards towards Colonia? Any advice greatly appreciated.
 
You need to unlock some of the engineers in the bubble first that will send you invitations to the engineers in Colonia so I recommend unlocking them first. On Inara.cz there's a list of engineers and there are arrows between their pictures that show you who will be unlocked next.
 
Mel will get you g5 fsd, thrusters, shield gen, sheild boosters, interdictor and burst,beam, pulse lasers
Etienne will get you g5 pp, pd and life support
Petra will get you g5 armor, hrp and heatsinks
Marsh will get you g5 collector and prospector limpets, refinery, fuel scoop and multi cannon

But you need invitations first from engineers in the bubble
 
... or of course you could just clear your save and start again - you will be surprised how quickly you get your credit balance back the second time around.

If you are one of those people that doesn't mind having in-sewer-ants claims in your stats - you could just hit the self-destruct button.
 
Yes, in a lot of ways it makes sense to turn back to the bubble and unlock some engineers first. Or even just one. You can build a very capable exploration vessel using only Felicity Farseer and the Guardian FSD booster; it's about 95% as good as a fully minmaxed ship (for exploration purposes). I made a 56LY Dolphin and flew it to Colonia and Beagle, without unlocking anything else.

So it really depends on how irritating you find a sub-40LY jump range. If you're enjoying the journey, then go ahead and continue. You should make piles of money from exploration data when you stop into a station, so if the journey back seems too daunting, suicide back to your starting system and you're likely still far ahead. And keep in mind that you don't have to go all the way to Colonia to pull this off. There are a number of stations along the Colonia Highway where you could redeem data at UC and then punch out.
 
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