The Accidental Journey - My Exploration Log

[SvennoJ]

Awesome thread. It's great the read about the experiences of fellow explorers.
I'm also in it for the journey, yet all about getting to the most distant places. I've covered over 115k in 3400 systems (35 days)
.
I have the same problem with the planner. I'm currently trying to cross over into the northernmost spiral and keep getting route unavailable everywhere I try, even back.
But I can still follow the route tree about 100 to 140ly at a time and slowly make progress. I guess the planner only works in a very narrow cone, as the tree I'm following wildly changes direction.
.
And a tip, activate the debug cam right before you jump. That will reset the throttle to 0 and you arrive at 30 km/s. Can alt-tab and never have to worry about it.

 

[shadragon]

I have the same problem with the planner. I'm currently trying to cross over into the northernmost spiral and keep getting route unavailable everywhere I try, even back.
But I can still follow the route tree about 100 to 140ly at a time and slowly make progress. I guess the planner only works in a very narrow cone, as the tree I'm following wildly changes direction.

Here's the thread describing the navigation issues I had. Read to the end.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=129982

Basically, switchbacks seem to give the route planner issues when the stars thin out.

By following the short range route tree as you mentioned you should be able to get through. I didn't discover that until I had turned around, backtracked and lost 1,000 LY of progress.

 

[SvennoJ]

Here's the thread describing the navigation issues I had. Read to the end.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=129982

Basically, switchbacks seem to give the route planner issues when the stars thin out.

By following the short range route tree as you mentioned you should be able to get through. I didn't discover that until I had turned around, backtracked and lost 1,000 LY of progress.

Yep, I've had all the same issues. The most baffling is when you have a route of for example 400 ly and want it one star shorter and get no route available.
The route tree still keeps me going but it's hard to say if I'll make it across at the point I'm at. It would also be nice if the tree was a bit more visible. It's hard to see where all the lines go to, especially up and down. 2 steps forward, 1 step back, 2 up, 2 down, and a couple sideways to get there.

 

[shadragon]

Day 36

Position Update:




Am roughly half-way to my goal and progress is picking up. I need to make a bit of a detour to avoid a patch of stellar desert, but I doubt this will be a major inconvenience. Found a way to dramatically shorten the amount of time I spend in a system (See below) and this weekend I covered almost 750 LY. Ship is still in good shape with 98% hull and I'm getting some great footage for my exploration video. Discovered a red-hot high-metal lava world surrounded by ice rings which I thought was a great place to go sightseeing. I dropped out of SC between the planet and rings then transited into the field to make a video.

Spoiler

Water Giant.

Spoiler

A "simple" system I encountered.

Entered three tickets last night. 1) The ADS will sometimes not record all items in a solar system and I'd have to do it again. 2) The auto-throttle keeps accelerating me past planetary bodies even though the throttle is set to minimum (30 KM/s). 3) The scanner is saying it completes a scan then begins scanning again, effectively double scanning. I made videos of all three bugs and submitted them with the tickets to Support. Annoying, but none are hampering my advance thankfully.

Two new Earth-like planets discovered within 5 systems of each other along with a series of water worlds. Oh and I discovered something called a water giant. Found two of them this weekend and I'd never seen those before. Series of ammonia worlds were encountered as well.

Been in deep space now at least two hours a day for 5 weeks and still not bored. The galaxy is giving me a never ending bunch of different planets, moons and stars to entertain me.


Updated stats:

Earth like: 7
Black holes: 2
Water world: 62+
Water Giant: 2

Hull: 98%
Modules: 100% (Repaired - Three AFMU's still available)


Shadragon's Third Rule of Exploration: Stay out of the gravity well.

I noticed that as I approached unexplored bodies, the scanner would always keep going until I was inside the gravity well. Once the scan was complete, it took me sometime to get back up to speed because the planetary body was literally holding me back and it would take me up to a minute just to get back to a % of light speed. Now, as soon as the scanner starts, I bring the throttle down to minimum and wait for it to finish. Once done, I can turn towards the next unexplored object and be up to 12.0 C in about thirty seconds. Reduces my time spent in any given system dramatically.

 

[markasoftware]

Wow, seems pretty cool out there. When I tried exploring I bored myself quite quickly, so I guess I'll have to be satisfied with seeing the highlights you post here instead. Keep up the good work!

 

[shadragon]

Day 57

Position Update:



Approaching two months in the big black and not a lot new to report. Been making my way further down the spiral arm I'm in and have not encountered any other CMDR claimed systems in the last 5,000 ly. Did find a system with four water worlds which made for a nice smile. Three were terraformable as well. Only two new ELP in the last 2,000 or so light years and they were found within 10 ly of each other. Am wondering if ELP's are clustered in certain areas(?). Am still travelling economy mode and scanning everything I encounter. Many systems here have secondary stars 400,000+ ls away which makes my life easier. I'll make that trip for an ELP or Ammonia world, but not a lot of those out here so I've been skipping most.

I'm slowly making my way toward an older patch of space (The spiral arm I'm in is mostly new stars) and I hope to find some more exotic systems in that region. Full disclosure, my game time has been divided between E: D and GTA5 since it came out on PC. I have explored every day though to my credit.

Ship is holding up well and morale is still high. Limited screenshots for this report I'm afraid as the pace of my exploration has sped up and I'm not going into gravity wells unless it is absolutely necessary.

I'll be making my turn for the edge of the galaxy in the next week or so. The lack of decent star density between me and the edge is stopping me from going direct, but I have plotted a path I think will work with my Asp's jump range and don't think it will be an issue to get there. Distance from SOL is now over 9,100 ls, but I'm sure I've gone at least 12,500 ls in my circuitous travels so far. I'm fairly certain no one has been in my target area before me which is satisfactory to say the least.

Here's a gassy system for you though. Did take a while to scan.

Spoiler

Got gas?


Updated stats:

Earth like: 9
Black holes: 2
Water world: 71+
Water Giant: 9

Hull: 98% Canopy: No visible stress.
Modules: 100% (Repaired - Three AFMU's still available)

 

[shadragon]

Day 94

Position Update:




Been a while since my last update, but honestly until a couple of days ago there was nothing of consequence to report. I've been tootling along a few hundred light years every day and am close to the edge of the galaxy. From what I can see, I have another 5-6,000 LY to go to my goal. Ok, close-ish.

Three bad scooping incidents in two days sent my hull to 94% and shook up my internal modules a little. This was after the 1.3 patch and after 15K LY of scooping with only one bad incident, I thought I had the process down. Emergency stops threw me out of SC during scoops which has resulted in my being extra careful when fueling. I've reduced my speed in subsequent attempts and while this has increased my time spent fueling, I have not crashed since. The AFMU's did their job on the first two occasions, but I left the internals at 98% on the last emergency stop to conserve the rest for the return trip.

I've visited something in the region of 2,000+ systems and am still scanning everything save belts and rocks. Finding some funky planet combos, but nothing to write home about really. The area of space I chose has not been visited by anyone so far. Every single system in the last 10,000 LY has been virgin. No nebulas, proto-stars or black holes out here and yet I'm still experiencing a sedate peace of mind during my travels. I thought I'd be bored, buy I'm still keen to carry on.

Am trying to decide what to do on reaching my goal. An internal debate is raging as to whether I should turn around to head home and behold the wonders of 1.3 or turn right and keep going. I suppose it will come down to the viability of my ship hull at the time.

Here's a selected screenie from last night. This is a five star system, but the fifth is 550K ls away and looks like another star in the top left.

Spoiler

Updated stats:

Earth like: 12
Black holes: 2
Water world: 112+
Water Giant: 17

Hull: 94% Canopy: No visible stress.
Modules: 98% (Repaired - Three AFMU's still available)

 

[Tacyon]

are you still running with the kit you posted on the OP?

I've got a A6 on my Asp and here is how I do it. Aim for the edge of the star, throttle up to just above 30km and watch your scoop rate. With the A6 fuel scoop I like to stay at 550-600 on the fill rate and as soon as I get that rate, my temps are at about 62-64%. Cut the throttle to zero (30km) and wait seconds to fill up the tank. I usually get down to about 40% and then fill to 100% in 20-30 seconds estimate.
If you pay attention .. you'll have no issues.

 

[Tacyon]

Correction .. Fuel scoop is a C6 .. and I just got back from a trip out to the outer edge of the outermost spiral arm as well. Basically headed out until my forward progress was severely hampered via manual navigation. For the past week I'd been doing the Navigation lines .. and picking the forward most point .. Ran into many "Can't Route". Took three days of non stop, not stopping to scan, to get back to "home base". Then had to remember how to dock. Actually .. needed to remember what the keys were.

shadragon, at 17,755ly from SOL .. did you head straight out to the edge .. or did you take the scenic route ?

My path lead me to be about 10,000ly from SOL. granted .. I didn't run into a wall .. but it was becoming very difficult to forward progress.

 

[shadragon]

@Tacyon - Scenic. I set a goal to make it to a specific spot on the edge of the galaxy and tried to make my way there. As previously described, I had to make a few detours and my total distance traveled to date is in the 25-26,000 LY range at least. At of last night I've been to 2,750 systems.

UPDATE: I made it to the galactic edge on the 20th of June. 18,788.67 LY from Earth and I could go no further out. I made a video of my position and will post that soon.



I was able to get out to the edge with little issue. However, reaching the edge was like stepping into the proverbial briar patch. I explored a few dozen systems trying to get further out, but without a 50+ LY drive, it was impossible. I wanted to get back to submit my data for the exploration CG at Lembava. I tried to work out an alternate route back, but kept hitting dead ends. I had a record of my travel through Slopeys flight log and back-tracked twenty systems until the star density improved then diverted to take another path back.

This took me into five days of hell. The spider web navigation only showed 1-2 system paths and those were sparse. I'd follow them twenty or thirty systems along before hitting another dead end. I'd back track to another junction and take that path. Traveled 750 LY distance and only ended up 90 LY from where I started.

Decided to use Slopey's flight log to back track and discovered I had not turned it on for that session. Furthermore, I could not see a path back to where I was. I was stuck for four days. Navigating by the spider web, taking a jump, looking at the updated spiderweb plot and deciding which way to go. I honestly considered self-destruct at one point when I encountered the same star system three times. Spent a minimum two hours a night for five nights until finally through brute force of trying every junction I found a way out. I did discover an ELP which surprised me. As of last night, I'm in an area that has dozens of spiderweb possibilities instead of two or three. I can't make it back in time for the CG so I'm going to take a wide detour and collect more data. I'll make my way back slowly and hopefully make the next exploration CG.

Be warned if heading for the edge. Keep records of your travels because you can end up in areas of sparse stars and few options. I got out more to luck than skill as the number of choices of which way to go is staggering.

I didn't consider myself an explorer when sitting at the galactic edge looking out into the big black. However, after freeing myself from that stellar desert, I do now.

 

[shadragon]

I know I've been quiet for some time, but I've been focusing primarily on my other account for my CMDR Drain Bamaged YouTube series.

Tomorrow will mark my 200th day out exploring. I've been out since March 7th bopping from system to system as I come back from the galactic edge. Not a lot to see out there so I don't have a lot of screenies to share. Dark and stark is the best I can describe it. I'm only closing on a planet if it's an ELP or something else truly remarkable.

However, I'm still going with the ship in decent shape. At the lazy pace I'm going I won't be back to the core for at least three more months and as I'm still healthy hull wise, I'm thinking of deviating off into the galactic core for a pilgrimage to Sgr A*. Taking the scenic route as it were.

I must say, it's rather nice to not have deadlines or a driving urge to get back home. After a few hours of pew pew, it's nice to swap over to my main account and just watch the stars drift by. I'll have to come back at some point, but for now I'm happy floating on the edge of oblivion.



Updated stats:


Earth like: 14
Black holes: 2
Water world: 124+
Water Giant: 22


Hull: 94% Canopy: No visible stress.
Modules: 98% (Repaired - Three AFMU's still available)

 

[shadragon]

Yes, I know. It's been a while since my last entry.

Today marks my one year anniversary exploring out in the black. I'm currently 15,720 LY from Earth and still moving away gradually. To date, I've scanned 3,321 systems and apart from a sudden drop in hull % caused by an erroneous dropout from hyperspace I'm in fairly decent shape.

Took me several weeks of tedious navigation to disengage from the galactic edge, which I'm tenderly calling the brier patch. I'm now in a galactic arm, working my way toward Sag A* before the journey home begins.

My plan has not changed since I left. I'm scanning everything save rocks, asteroids and ice balls while working my way to the center of the galaxy by a very roundabout route. If lucky, I should be home by Christmas.

Updated stats:

Earth like: 16
Black holes: 2
Water world: 145+
Water Giant: 35


Hull: 86% Canopy: No visible stress.
Modules: 98% (Repaired - Three AFMU's still available)

 

[shadragon]

21,987 LY From Sol and still going strong. I still haven't put into a station which makes it a year and almost eight months I've been in the black. I hit the "wall of stars" last night as I make my way deeper into the center of the galaxy heading towards Sag A*.

This weekend I put on almost 5,000 LY in travel and picked up ten additional black holes. There's at least six others in the area and I'll be snaffling those before moving on. Once I hit Sag A*, I'll begin my journey homewards. I've moved from economical to fast nav plots as I passed the 5,000 system milestone at some point last week. With my data computer bulging with navigation data and almost two years, I'm looking forward to getting back to core space.

One addition to report. I found a system with an ELP, WW and ammonia world. The ringed ELP is still eluding me, however.

Updated stats:

Earth like: 18
Black holes: 10
Water world: 192+
Water Giant: 56

Hull: 100% Canopy: No visible stress. (Repaired)
Modules: 97% Average (Repaired - Three AFMU's still available)