This category contains all of my witterings about Elite Dangerous, including what I’ve been up to and my wee trip to Jaques Station, and my exploration trips beyond that!
It’s the end of the road for me. I didn’t make it any further than Pru Aescs NC-M d7-192. It’s still my wish to visit Beagle Point, but not now.
The expedition made it to Beagle Point without me, and most other commanders are already back home. There’s no point in me trying to continue this quest at the present time. I can get a proper shipyard to fix this ship back at Flade Enterprise.
Breaking out of game character, the reason for my lack of play-time on Elite has been a combination of real-life factors, and the change of my primary operating system from Windows to Linux – it’s got to the point where Elite: Dangerous is the only thing I used Windows for.
With the release of Valve’s Proton 4.2, I’ve now successfully managed to get E:D running on Linux, so jumping in-game for a bit of play-time doesn’t feel so disruptive to everything else. In addition, EDDiscovery also (sort-of) works under Mono, though you can’t edit your CMDR settings in EDDiscovery. I found that I could open the EDDUser databse file with DataGrip and set the settings directly in the file though.
If you’re interested, this is the document I followed to get E:D working on Proton.
Curse this blasted new ship! It was only yesterday that everything seemed to be working fine. Today, it’s decided to stop logging journal data. Not only that, but the heatsink trigger appears to be far too sensitive. Breathe on it and it’ll drop a heatsink. :(
I made it as far as Waypoint 1, which I think was 71 jumps (by a quick spot of maths), but I honestly don’t know due to the loss of tracking data. I’m going with 71 jumps.
On the up side, there’s an asteroid base at this waypoint, so I was able to drop some cartographic data off in case of incidents later on.
Item
DR
CR
Balance
Replacement heatsink
-25 CR
-25 CR
Ship integrity repair
-5,489 CR
-5514 CR
Cartographical data
3,878,472 CR
3872,958 CR
Cartographical data
3,823,645 CR
7,696,603 CR
First discovery bonus
98,000 CR
7,794,603 CR
Cartographical data
1,956,710 CR
9,751,313 CR
First discovery bonus
37,000 CR
9,788,313 CR
Total
9,788,313 CR
I went on to do another 89 jumps after that, using 416.6t fuel, but suffered even more issues with tracking. I’m going to dig into the ship’s computer and see if I can figure out what is going on…
Nothing much to report as I head out of the bubble.
I’m already playing catchup to the expedition – unfortunately the replacement ship I bought from Bakewell Point in Pallaeni (replacing the one destroyed by CMDR Rivertide) has been plagued with technical issues that I’ve had to spend far too long rectifying. I’m happy to report that I’ve managed to make a good number of jumps today, so hopefully I can play catchup and continue onwards to the rest of the expedition without further incident.
I headed from Flade Enterprise out to the fleet departure point at Pallaeni to await the first mass jump to HR 5413 as the fleet departed
Unfortunately, as I was awaiting the departure, I was brutally murdered by CMDR Rivertide, a Dangerous-ranked commander in a Mamba. Thankfully, I’d docked at Bakewell Point in the Pallaeni system, so I didn’t have far to travel back to the departure point.
Due to issues with server lag, I didn’t continue the journey beyond the initial jump.
Yesterday I thought I had a bad day with white dwarves.
Today, I jumped with my pre-charged FSD to another neutron star, charged and jumped again, and tried to charge a third time on a third neutron star.
I got too close to the neutron star while inside the jet cone, and was kicked out of supercruise while still inside the jet cone.
Because you get buffeted around inside the jet cone, and remaining in the jet cone for too long causes a lot of damage, my ship quickly lost the ability to fly.
I couldn’t jump to supercruise because I couldn’t reorient to the escape vector – assuming my FSD didn’t glitch out before that point. My AFMU couldn’t keep both my thrusters and FSD healthy enough not to glitch out.
Eventually, my canopy shattered, and at that point it was clearly game over. Being 7.7kly away from home, there’s no way I had any hope of getting to a station for repairs in the 25 minutes of life support I had available.
Thankfully, someone has kindly grabbed my escape pod and escorted me back to Flade Enterprise in LHS 28, where I’ve managed to convince the insurance people to give me a new ship.
Whether or not I’m going to actually get to see these bubblegum worlds now before the update is another matter, but alas I shall try again. Probably spending little to no time gathering exploration data while en-route – I can do that on the way back.
Statistics
Current location
LHS 28
Next waypoint
Xeehia GT-G d11-9 (12623.17 ly, 289bcj)
Distance from Xeehia GT-G d11-9
12623.17 ly (289 bcj)
Distance from Blua Hypa HT-F d12-1226
2949.29 ly (68 bcj)
Distance from Dryoea Flyuae AA-A g392
5445.78 ly (125 bcj)
Distance from Kyloarph QY-S e3-1561
3201.86 ly (74 bcj)
Distance from Colonia
2408.91 ly (56 bcj)
Distance from HD 175876
19639.68 ly (449 bcj)
Distance from LHS 28
2468.52 ly (57 bcj)
Incident count
1
Jumps made
2
Jumps remaining (best case)
1118
Space madness
95 %
Incidents
Unsafe drop from Supercruise within jet-cone (causing destruction)
As I progress through the galaxy, I’m noticing more and more that stars and systems seem to be grouped into areas. At first I was encountering a lot of single-star systems with many planets, then a lot of systems with no planets but many stars, and now I’m encountering a lot of white dwarves and neutron stars.
I did, however, encounter this pretty thing – a very fast neutron star near a pretty class-L star.I guess it’s just interesting seeing how different regions of the galaxy have different types of things to see.
However, I finished today with a few incidents with white dwarves – the jet cones are much smaller than that of neutron stars, so I’ve unfortunately tripped the supercruise safety mechanisms when trying to supercharge my FSD, and forcibly dropped out. Of course, white dwarves are also pretty hot, so I’ve had a few overheating issues as well.
Statistics
Current location
Nyeajaae NQ-Y d6
Next waypoint
Xeehia GT-G d11-9 (5221.27 ly, 120bcj)
Distance from Xeehia GT-G d11-9
5221.27 ly (120 bcj)
Distance from Blua Hypa HT-F d12-1226
2949.29 ly (68 bcj)
Distance from Dryoea Flyuae AA-A g392
5445.78 ly (125 bcj)
Distance from Kyloarph QY-S e3-1561
3201.86 ly (74 bcj)
Distance from Colonia
2408.91 ly (56 bcj)
Distance from HD 175876
19639.68 ly (449 bcj)
Distance from LHS 28
2468.52 ly (57 bcj)
Incident count
7
Jumps made
43
Jumps remaining (best case)
949
Space madness
20 %
Incidents
Unsafe drop from Supercruise (into star)
2
Overheat
4
Unsafe drop from Supercruise (into star causing overheat)
With the new E:D lighting system just around the corner, there’s a few worlds which I want to go and visit with the old lighting system.
I’ve heard stories of fluorescent green and pink gas giants in the depths of space, and I simply have to see these for myself before they’re toned down with the next update.
I’m taking my Asp Explorer “Pathfinder” as a prelude to Distant Worlds II which is happening early next year. I’ve got this loadout, which gives me a decent jump range of 43.78ly laden, oh, and did I mention I’ve already left?
With the recent announcement of Distant Worlds II now being open for signup, I’ve quickly jumped on the chance to be involved in the second round of the amazing exploration trip. While I unfortunately missed the last one, I’m not going to make the same mistake again!
I’ll be using this post as an introduction to my intentions, but I expect to have a new post with the final plans on it later. Keep an eye on the tag for this expedition.
The approximate route of the expedition leaves from The Bubble, travels via the Sagittari Conflux, through the galactic core, across the Perseus Stem, Styx and Scutum-Centauris Arm, through The Abyss and up to Beagle Point, then back roughly following the route of the USS Voyager’s voyage home from the Delta Quadrant.
There are a lot of different Commanders taking part – at the time of writing I’m one of 1,728 who have signed up for this.
This expedition is planned to leave after the final chapter of Beyond is released, with the expected enhancements to the exploration functionality of the game. Therefore, the expedition is not expected to depart until Q4 2018 or even Q1 2019.
I’m planning to take Pathfinder, my Asp Explorer. The provisional outfitting that I have puts me at an approximate jump range of 46.02 ly, so this is what I expect to have pending any additional engineering I do. Pathfinder will be switching it’s ship ID from STW-05 to it’s new Distant Worlds 2 designation – 1M2-DW
Looking over signup list, I see both CMDR Obsidian Ant (#108, 18P-DW) of YouTube fame, CMDR Felix Macedonica (#455, 011-DW) of VonRictofen’s Rescue / Macedonica’s Leap fame and also CMDR Harry Potter (#2223, 0A1-DW) from SDC. While I’m excited to see Obsidian Ant and Felix Macedonica on this list, SDC’s presence, while unsurprising, I’m less enthusiastic about.
Anyway, for now, this is mostly just to say “I’ll be there!”, and as more details are released by the DW2 staff team, I’ll start planning a more detailed mission.
The DW2 logo and the DW2 route plan above are sourced from the DW2 signup thread – more information about the DW2 expedition (and if you want to sign up yourself) can be found at the relevant forum thread.
tl;dr: Cool stuff happened, I’m going to see it for myself.
What can only be described as a seriously concerning chain of events has unfolded before me today, not only due to my somewhat-late discovery of the Dynasty Expeditions, which appear to have been leaving beacons on routes across the galaxy, and now we’ve found one of the mega-ships from that expedition based on some decoding work done by The Children of Raxxla, with some troubling log entries as first discovered by CMDR Jackie Silver. CMDR Shabooka has summarised it all here:
Needless to say, I’m wanting to see this for myself, so I’ve plotted a rough route across to Syreadiae JX-F c0 to find it for myself. As this involves crossing the infamous Formidine Rift, I’ll be using another CMDR’s route across the rift until I’ve actually got some idea of what it’s like. This will be the first outing for my Anaconda, which has this load-out.
I need to be acutely aware that this is not like my last exploration trip where as I got further and further away from home, the star density increased massively – I’m heading out to the galactic rim, where a serious shortage of scoopable stars is a distinct possibility.
My planned route is roughly-speaking to make a quick tourist stop in Tionisla, and then take a bee-line to thetravel to a couple of remote outposts towards the Formadine Rift, then onwards to visit the Dynasty Expedition rally points, and finally to theHeisenberg Bridge starting in Myoideau RF-N c20-1 of the Perseus Arm, which provides a guided set of waypoints to Hyopae Aescs YE-R d4-2, from where I will cut up the Cygnus Arm to Syreadiae JX-F c0. What I’ll do after that, I have no idea. While I’m coming this way, I may try and find some of the Dynasty beacons too (yes, they’re plotted), and I’ll be on the lookout for some tourist stops along the way too.
I’ll need to keep in mind CMDR Heisenberg6626’s warnings – a jump range of 32.7ly is more-or-less needed unless I use jumponium, and of course, with lessons learnt from my last exploration trips, I’ll be kitting out heat sinks and multiple AFMUs.
This is going to be a long, dangerous journey, another trip away from the Bubble of civilisation. Multi-crew is now possible thanks to this shiny new Holo-Me technology I’ve had fitted, so CMDR Braxton Doyle and I can still go bounty hunting in the asteroid fields around Aequeelg, and he can come and see the sights for himself if he chooses.
I’ll keep this post updated with my overall plans via the dynamically-generated information at the bottom, but for now, this is still definitely in the planning stages. Given the event that’s supposedly happening a couple of weeks from now, on the 29th April with CMDR Salomé, I might stick around the bubble just long enough to see that.Now that Salomé is dead, I want to go and see the evidence for myself. I’ve already been to check out the logs from “R” in the Teorge system, and this has my curiosity piqued.
Changes
Update 2017-05-01: Salomé dead, Teorge listening posts, not going to Tionisla (already been when in Teorge; anticlimactic), plus remote outposts
Update 2017-06-07: I’ve set off, but chickened out with my 32T fuel tank that let me do only three jumps without refuelling. I’ve added an additional 64T fuel tank and a fighter bay to just play with. This has unfortunately knocked 5ly off my jump range, but hey.
Update 2017-08-17: Turns out I got involved in attempting to rewrite my ships’ operating system (or something like that, I don’t know where the project eventually got) in deep space – rather than fly out. Turns out there’s a new version of the OS on the horizon anyway, so before that hits general availability I want to complete my mission! I won’t be turning this into a deep-space exploration trip like I’d possibly hoped, instead I will take Red Dragon back across the Heisenberg Bridge, and back to Flade Enterprise to await the new update.
Update 2017-09-25: I’m home, finally. 2.4 arrives tomorrow, with the Thargoids. I hope I’ve got the kit I need here at Flade Enterprise… not sure I want to do a cross-bubble shopping trip. Looks like I’ve managed to net myself another 18,102,623 credits in exploration data, with a further 51,524 in first-discovery bonuses. Not as big a haul as I’d hoped, but I was racing back to the bubble without doing much in the way of exploring.
There have been real confirmed reports of first contact with an unknown ship. As such, I’m skipping some of the sightseeing on my return to the bubble, and planning to make a beeline back as fast as possible. This will probably mean only scanning the primary star of a system at most, no more planetary scans, and also possibly attempting to use neutron stars to boost my journey back.
Anyway, other than that, waypoint 15 reached, waypoint 16 plotted towards Eyes of Riker still.
