That’s me under 2k jumps to go!

I spent a long time today roaming Kyloall AE-B D3297 1 this evening, finding no less than two new elements, and having a lot of fun with how the SRV just sticks to the ground on the high-gravity planet.

:O Tungsten!

:O Technetium!

I love this new material discovered animation. I can’t have that many left to discover now…

Some of the valleys on this quite mountainous bit of planet are impressively steep. You can’t see it that well in this screenshot though

Some of the resources though were in really awkward places to get to, stressing the SRV engines to the point momentum was the only option in some cases

And the really hard ones to get to had the most useless materials there.

I even had to take a run at this hill to get back up to my ship. Poor SRV…

One more centimetre and it’d be over the edge…

The sensor sweep gives an idea of the valleys here….

Another day in paradise, away from the hustle and bustle of Colonia!

Who am I kidding, it’s the only thing keeping me from SPACE MADNESS.

I started the session by watching CMDR Felix Macedonica‘s Twitch stream of his epic rescue by CMDR Chiggy Vonrictofen, in which Chiggy travelled from the Zunou sector to Jaques for a refit, then out to (almost) Beagle Point where Felix was stranded – a truly stunning rescue.

After that, I didn’t have quite as much time remaining as I’d hoped for to allow me to make more significant progress, hampered further by a few interesting planets.

Interesting HMC world, with a “water-rich” atmosphere. This is my new favourite way to describe the Scottish skies…

8% Vanadium on this planet, though you’d never have known it

By this point, you may be wondering where the “ran out of SRV fuel” incident came from. Well, I got distracted by something else while sat in my SRV, forgot to turn off systems to conserve fuel, and was suddenly confronted with a “Shields Offline!” message. What could possibly have killed my shields this far into deep space? Oh, yeah. Fuel.

That’s small for a ringed planet…

Nothing much to report aside from that which is below in the stats, and some pretty screenshots!

Pro tip: don’t put the external camera directly behind your engine. It gets… shaky… back there

Nothing much to report!

Some progress towards waypoint 2, but route planning says 48 jumps to go.

Not a particularly long session tonight, as my thoughts were elsewhere with the current faction issues in the Sol system.

Oh well, at least out here I get away from it all, and get to see sights like this:

There’s no shortage of impressively complex systems out here though, such has this system:

And a lot of volcanism…. ok, I’ll admit it, this planet is almost entirely a ball of lava.

Apart from one minor overheating incident which has damaged some modules, including my AFMU, not too much, other than the notable point that I have reached Waypoint 1!

I’ve been thinking of rules for exploration since my most recent… mishap. I think I’m gonna start with an obvious one – in fact I get the feeling these are all going to be obvious things to those not suffering the effects of space madness.

1. Don’t explore without your shield.

I mean, for the most part it’s probably fine to fly without a shield, but the point here is don’t land without a shield. Especially on high gravity worlds. The only reason for shutting off your shield is power conservation, and to me this means you’re doing one of two things

• Sitting still for a while, be it AFK or wanting screenshots of ice
• Running really low in fuel

In the first case, you’re gonna be starting up modules again anyway. In the second case you should have planned it better, and now v2.2 is out there’s not much of an excuse as you can exclude T Tauri and other non-main-sequence stars from your route plotting.

For pure efficiency’s sake, my weapons, cargo scoop, PVH and AFMU are all disabled, as none of those perform any role in keeping me safe out in deep space.

Having said that, let’s see how many times I “bellyflop a planet like a skrub”, as CMDR Braxton Doyle oh so eloquently described yesterday’s main event. Yes, I’m departing Colonia for Sgr A* again. I’m hoping I at least make it to Waypoint 1 this time, also notably a different Waypoint 1, as I’ve decided to use CMDR Braxton Doyle’s instead as it’s a little closer.

I found this pair of a pair of planets which I found interesting – I’ve seen this with stars before but not with planets – a pair of a pair:

I’ve also found this system which looks interesting, so I took a wonder around to see what the sights to see where, getting surface scans of everything I could.

I’m glad I did come looking, since I’ve found  a water world – Eol Prou KW-M d7-1763 6 – but it has an Ammonia atmosphere!? I’m guessing this will answer some of the questions raised by CMDR Braxton Doyle and I on our way out to Jaques.

I found a few systems I thought were worth taking a look at, but nothing really that noteworthy.

I’m parking up for the night on Eoch Pruae AE-W c16-13 A 1 a, some 23 jumps from Waypoint 1. A 1 is a gas giant with water-based life, which I thought was quite neat. The planet I’m actually on, A 1 a is just the standard Icy Body, but it does appear to have deposits of Vanadium, which I’m temoted to get, but not tonight.I also want to find one of the water geysers that are reported to exist on this planet, though taking a ride in one in an SRV might just end badly, especially since this planet only has 0.08G gravity (smooth landing, no belly flops this time!)

Today I decided to depart for Sgr A*!

Before I left, I collected the money I was owed for taking part in the last community goal – mining Palladium for Jaques. Apart from the money I got from selling said Palladium, I got a nice little packet of money for my troubles too!

And so, I left Colonia, leaving Spirit behind in storage at Jaques, maybe one day I’ll return.

The session started out quite well – taking a lot of scans of the systems I was passing through.

Then I discovered this interesting system, which had this every tempting planet on it, including Geysers. I thought I’d quickly run down and land to see what all the fuss was about.

… and that’s where the good fortune stopped. I’d disabled my shield to save a bit of fuel, and I hadn’t noticed the high 2.5G gravity, so when I boosted down at about 180m/s about 3km above the surface, my thrusters just couldn’t cope with the gravity and reducing my velocity.

Crunch.

I hit the ground.

Hard.

The initial impact took my hull down to around 72%, but my nose was on the ground, rear skywards. By the time I’d landed properly on my landing gear, (at which point my shield finally decided it could help – too late…), my hull was down to 67% – a third gone from a single landing.

A brief consideration on the matter, and the point that I was only 22 jumps from the nearest starport lead me to the obvious conclusion that I ought to go and repair my ship before continuing.

I didn’t expect to be back so soon.

It feels like I’ve been bitten by something scary, turned tail and run away back home.

Ach, well, at least my ship is parked plugged in to external power, and now back up to full health, and I’ve managed to sell a little bit of exporation data at the same time!

So, 43 jumps made, zero progress towards my target. One (major) incident. Let’s hope my luck is better next time!