I'm currently way out on the Carina Arm, on an anti-clockwise tour around the galaxy. I've been heading for the EOCK PRAU AA-A H31 nebula for the last few weeks in my 19ly Corvette. The Nebula is just the next waypoint on my journey, not a destination in it's own right.
Now this nebula is some way 'south' of the galactic plane, and while travelling through the core of an arm is simple enough at or about the galactic plane, when you are crossing arms, or as I need to do to reach this nebula, travelling well below (or above) the plane, the stars thin out a bit and it makes route plotting a little more of a challenge, which is a lot of the reason why I haven't just gone for a high jump range ship.
To give you a bit of an idea of how the jump range affects route plotting, consider that a normal 1,000ly plot on the galactic plane, in the core of a spiral arm means I can cover that 1kLy in around 50-55 jumps. In a less densely populated area it might take 60-70 jumps to cover 1kLy because the route meanders all over the place to connect the dots.
So I've spent the last day or so traversing 1,500ly or so, broadly diagonally down towards this nebula, but mostly travelling horizontally and finally I am within 1,000ly of the system I bookmarked as a waypoint months ago (I left the bubble before Christmas). I know I'm not going to be able to just plot a route straight there, in this ship, this far out it's more like navigating a maze with lots of dead ends. There are so many systems that the plotter cannot find a route to that when picking a system to work towards, I get the 'plotting failed' more often than not.
So just because I'm close enough to try for the first time, I try to plot a route, fully expecting it to fail & looking forward to a bit of a challenging 1,000lys, using the occasional jumponium to get to my waypoint.
The route plotted virtually instantly, fair enough it's 82 jumps but it's almost disappointing (but also a relief) that the self-imposed challenge I was expecting to have to rage against has just conceded without a struggle
The galaxy is full of surprises, even this far out
Now this nebula is some way 'south' of the galactic plane, and while travelling through the core of an arm is simple enough at or about the galactic plane, when you are crossing arms, or as I need to do to reach this nebula, travelling well below (or above) the plane, the stars thin out a bit and it makes route plotting a little more of a challenge, which is a lot of the reason why I haven't just gone for a high jump range ship.
To give you a bit of an idea of how the jump range affects route plotting, consider that a normal 1,000ly plot on the galactic plane, in the core of a spiral arm means I can cover that 1kLy in around 50-55 jumps. In a less densely populated area it might take 60-70 jumps to cover 1kLy because the route meanders all over the place to connect the dots.
So I've spent the last day or so traversing 1,500ly or so, broadly diagonally down towards this nebula, but mostly travelling horizontally and finally I am within 1,000ly of the system I bookmarked as a waypoint months ago (I left the bubble before Christmas). I know I'm not going to be able to just plot a route straight there, in this ship, this far out it's more like navigating a maze with lots of dead ends. There are so many systems that the plotter cannot find a route to that when picking a system to work towards, I get the 'plotting failed' more often than not.
So just because I'm close enough to try for the first time, I try to plot a route, fully expecting it to fail & looking forward to a bit of a challenging 1,000lys, using the occasional jumponium to get to my waypoint.
The route plotted virtually instantly, fair enough it's 82 jumps but it's almost disappointing (but also a relief) that the self-imposed challenge I was expecting to have to rage against has just conceded without a struggle
The galaxy is full of surprises, even this far out
