It still feels odd calling myself a Rat--I've always been a Cat person with a Cat-related nickname and a life of Cats. :3
But I like to help people. I almost always play a healer or other support class in MMOs, so when I learned about the Fuel Rats, I joined up the moment I had a ship capable of it. I love the idea of being the "AAA" of Elite--of having an enjoyable, fulfilling source of gameplay that revolves around helping other players instead of shooting them.
There's just one catch: I'm an obsessed explorer and space-nerd, and my calling is out in the Black.
While that means that I'm rarely in a position to help people near the Bubble, it also means that the converse is true: I'm in a position to get to people that Bubble-dwellers might not.
You might've heard the story of last weekend's rescue: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=150703&page=124&p=2593851&viewfull=1#post2593851
For those who haven't, and who don't want to wade through one of my typical walls of text: I was 1500LY into my first SagA* pilgrimage when a call came in from a CMDR stranded 18,000LY from inhabited space, way out antispinward on the Sagittarius spiral arm. Two other Rats and I set out from our respective starting locations and covered that distance in 12 hours of jumping.
It was a hell of a trip, and I wish I'd had the time to take more screenshots and do more scanning along the way--but someone's life (and months of his SagA* exploration data) was on the line, and time was of the essence.
That doesn't mean I came back empty-handed, though. I returned to the edge of inhabited space with 10MC of exploration data, a few lovely videos that need edited, and a bunch of screen shots--most of which were taken after the rescue, on the long return trip. To be honest, I wanted to continue on to SagA*, but after that desperate race my canopy was cracked and the IEV Uneventful Horizon was in pretty bad shape.
But anyway, you want pics, right? There's some from the rescue itself in the above thread, but as for the exploration part, here's a few to start with:
Polar ice cap of a gorgeous water world.
If we ever get the ability to start a colony 18 kylie out, I'm claiming this beautiful ELW.
And this one, which seemeed to have very little in the way of continents--it's like someone picked the "Archipelago" generation option in a Civ game. XD
I love ringed planets. You love ringed planets. Everyone loves ringed planets. Have a gorgeous ringed planet.
These two shots are from a tiny, tiny moon of a ringed gas giant--a moon which happened to have a ring system that felt almost as large as the parent planet.
Later on I'll post a handful of favorites from previous expeditions, but I'm getting ready to take another shot at heading out to Sadge. Hopefully no more 18 kylie rescue calls come in, but that's the nice thing about being an explorer: it doesn't really matter so much where I go. It's about what I find along the way. ^_^
But I like to help people. I almost always play a healer or other support class in MMOs, so when I learned about the Fuel Rats, I joined up the moment I had a ship capable of it. I love the idea of being the "AAA" of Elite--of having an enjoyable, fulfilling source of gameplay that revolves around helping other players instead of shooting them.
There's just one catch: I'm an obsessed explorer and space-nerd, and my calling is out in the Black.
While that means that I'm rarely in a position to help people near the Bubble, it also means that the converse is true: I'm in a position to get to people that Bubble-dwellers might not.
You might've heard the story of last weekend's rescue: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=150703&page=124&p=2593851&viewfull=1#post2593851
For those who haven't, and who don't want to wade through one of my typical walls of text: I was 1500LY into my first SagA* pilgrimage when a call came in from a CMDR stranded 18,000LY from inhabited space, way out antispinward on the Sagittarius spiral arm. Two other Rats and I set out from our respective starting locations and covered that distance in 12 hours of jumping.
It was a hell of a trip, and I wish I'd had the time to take more screenshots and do more scanning along the way--but someone's life (and months of his SagA* exploration data) was on the line, and time was of the essence.
That doesn't mean I came back empty-handed, though. I returned to the edge of inhabited space with 10MC of exploration data, a few lovely videos that need edited, and a bunch of screen shots--most of which were taken after the rescue, on the long return trip. To be honest, I wanted to continue on to SagA*, but after that desperate race my canopy was cracked and the IEV Uneventful Horizon was in pretty bad shape.
But anyway, you want pics, right? There's some from the rescue itself in the above thread, but as for the exploration part, here's a few to start with:
Polar ice cap of a gorgeous water world.
If we ever get the ability to start a colony 18 kylie out, I'm claiming this beautiful ELW.
And this one, which seemeed to have very little in the way of continents--it's like someone picked the "Archipelago" generation option in a Civ game. XD
I love ringed planets. You love ringed planets. Everyone loves ringed planets. Have a gorgeous ringed planet.
These two shots are from a tiny, tiny moon of a ringed gas giant--a moon which happened to have a ring system that felt almost as large as the parent planet.
Later on I'll post a handful of favorites from previous expeditions, but I'm getting ready to take another shot at heading out to Sadge. Hopefully no more 18 kylie rescue calls come in, but that's the nice thing about being an explorer: it doesn't really matter so much where I go. It's about what I find along the way. ^_^
Last edited:
