Today I came across some degraded emissions, which look to be the remains of some ship of some kind, and a small data survey cache canister, which unfortunately I don’t have room for alongside my crates of Hutton Mugs.

I also found an interesting trinary system which I thought was only binary until a second L-class popped up.

After a minor overheat incident with a nearby star, I moved on and found a quintary (?) system – a pair of a pair of a pair of a pair.

After a while of jumping, I eventually arrived at my destination of Waypoint 7, set down and did some exploring, during which I noticed that the rocks for materials really do stick out like a sore thumb against the red dirt of the planet, and I also got a promotion to Surveyor!

Anyway, I decided to return to my ship, and it decided to be a complete dick to me, and parked itself on the summit of a mountain – meaning the summit was blocking my SRV from getting to the PVH doors. :(

Today, I finally escaped the T Tauri hell that is the Blae Drye sector.

Nine (!!!) T Tauri stars scooped from, and two that I suspected and took the time to scan before scooping and missed. A new record for incident count tonight. I’m seriously tempted to just remove T Tauri attempted scoopings as an incident category…

In the T Tauri selection tonight, I had two white (B “class”?) T Tauri, and a whole load of M- “class” T Tauri stars.

I also did a stupid and CFISed again while trying to pull up. While waiting for FSD cooldown though, a solar flare went right past my canopy, making me realise just how close to the star I was, though with the FSD not running I was maintaining a heat equilibrium, so I stopped for a few photos.

I found a nice trinary system too, and I was tempted to fly between the pair again, then space madness petered out and I flew in the opposite direction. I also found a stunning B-class that I also stopped for a photo with.

When I eventually escaped the Blae Drye sector and arrived at Waypoint 6, I decided to do my customary land on a planet in the waypoint system. A little over-confident in my driving perhaps, I managed to use SRV thrusters to get to about 22m off the ground, and then promptly rolled the SRV onto the roof. After about a minute of panic whether or not I could get back onto my wheels, I eventually managed, and went in search of a strange signal that popped up on the radar.

After rolling the SRV (again), I came across a Data Link, which is a first for me. Apparently the Federation is wanting a measly 4k credits for the data, so they can wait a while for it.

Today I made significant progress again, though it was not without cost.

One hundred and thirty-one jumps later, and eight incidents (four of which were minor), I’ve made it to Waypoint 4 Waypoint 5.

A pull-up from a star slightly too late led to the first overheat incident, and while only at 100% heat for about a second, it still did 1% damage across all systems. This damage was further exacerbated by a controlled flight into a star, dipping slightly below the yellow line while really close.

Along the way I found a binary system, which while really beautiful, is also much closer together than first anticipated. Space madness wanting to do cool things caused me to forget that stars are hot, which caused the second overheating issue of the day.

Continuing in the same vein and forgetting that stars are hot, I once again decided to combine the previous two incidents and fly beneath the yellow line between two stars, causing a CFIS dropout and overheat damage.

Not only that, but I’ve rekindled my hatred of T Tauri stars, after attempting to scoop from no less than four of the things.

I started off by taking the SRV out for a spin on the planet I landed on last night. After finding a fair number of outcrops near each other, two containing the ever elusive Vanadium, I can now refill my AFMU. I also found the remains of a ship, a few canisters of narcotics and personal weapons, plus two occupied escape pods.

Space madness of course caused me to fly into a star, not sure why. I guess I’ll never know.

I also saw a star and called it out as a TTV before the scans came back, just because it was either huge or TTV given my distance from it. A couple of jumps later though, I decided to repeat the manouver while jumping to hyperspace and promptly fried all my equipment. It was only 137%!

On reaching Waypoint 3, I was slightly disappointed to discover a binary system with no planets at all, so I proceeded a few jumps further on to find a planet to land on, where I found a whole bunch more materials including the much needed zinc, and my first bit of mercury. But onwards I must go if I’m ever going to catch up with FastLizard4.

The system I’m parking up in tonight has a really cool looking high metal content world, with what looks like highly active volcanic activity. Anyway, I decided to set down on a rocky planet, and did a stupid and came in too fast for orbital cruise. Oh well, another incident to chalk up.

Overall, today has been really good, only a couple of incidents and given how much progress has been made, I’m quite happy!

Starting from swoiwns qd-h a92-2, my first incident was a nice “Frame Shift cancelled: insufficient fuel”, which sent me into a nice panic when I realised my reserve was also nearly empty, and the next reserve refill would surely drain my tank completely. Alas, there was still sufficient to jump to a nearby scoopable K class star, but that was far too fine. Not sure that I particularly would have enjoyed calling the fuel rats near out here. I entirely blame space madness.

Due to the continuing overpopulation of brown dwarves, a second diversion to fuel scoop was unfortunately required. A lovely F class gave me the required fuel. As luck would have it, the next star after that was an A class, and I need to learn the difference between throttle up (mapped as R Bumper) and Primary fire (for discovery scanner, mapped as R Trigger). Space madness.

An unidentified signal source led me close to an M class star – a little too close, and I ended up taking heat damage, so my AFMU got a little more use. The bad luck I’ve had for brown dwarves seems to have come to an end, or I’m in a really nice patch of stars, I dunno.

I took some time to drive around on a planet 3 jumps from my destination, found some Chromium, and I’m definitely getting better at driving the SRV in low gravity. I now just need to find some Vanadium so I can refill my AFMU.

Anyway, I made it to waypoint 2, and I’m parked on the high metal content world which is Bleia Eohn YC-V C5-22 A 1.

Today I set off from Waypoint 1, covering a little bit of ground to Waypoint 2. Not a huge amount happened, though I did take the SRV out for a spin on an icy planet, and found a lot of materials in the surrounding area, including iron, sulphur, and phosphorus.

Not a huge amount happened, other than {tiredness|madness} causing me to accellerate full-throttle towards a brown dwarf, which was *much* closer than I thought. Those things are small!

Other notable happenings include 2 refuel diversions, plus an interesting system with no less than six stars – two M class, two L class, a T class, and a Y class.

Today was full of torment and anguish, as my route through the stars has seemingly taken course through many, many unscoopable stars. I was getting slightly worried by the sheer number of brown dwarves (both T- and Y-class) and those pretty red L-class stars – I was beginning to think I’d have to divert. Soon enough though I came across a very pretty white F-class star that I managed to refuel from.

Having not checked the galaxy map (I blame tiredness), I was beginning to think my luck was just bad as the next line of brown dwarves and L-class stars came along. Once again, I was starting to get a little bit low on fuel, and starting to worry. A quick check of the galaxy map told me the last jump I could make on my planned route with current fuel level was a nice scoopable K-class

Subconsciously wanting to liven things up a bit, I decided it would be a good idea to just look at the next star. Another L-class red thing. While this is normally just a waste of time, either space madness or tiredness from today’s lack of sleep told my fingers “you don’t need to pull back your throttle, just keep it at full while you fly towards the star”. I think we know how this ended up…

All in all, I was supposed to make 52 jumps tonight. Thanks to my beautifully planned route with not quite enough scoopable stars, I actually had to divert four times for fuel, which added a further three necessary jumps. I think I have some tweaking to do with the route planning settings.

But, alas! I made it to Waypoint 1, where some brief exploration of the system revealed a very low gravity, but landable planet for Curiosity to spend the night.

Today I left Hutton Orbital, taking a bit of a backtrack to Oduduro to pick up that 2C AFMU I forgot to buy from Macomb Palace. After taking the SRV out for a spin and grabbing some materials, I proceeded (via Alpha Centauri) to Waypoint 0: LHS 3447 (6 jumps)

I made much less progress than anticipated today, thanks to real life getting in the way, but I’ve started the journey into the void. Being distracted, I tried to fuel-scoop a T Tauri star, and was distracted enough not to notice I was getting far too close to it, until I crashed…

So, I’m planning a journey out to Jaques station out in Eol Prou RS-T d3-94, so I’m going to be logging my journey slowly through these posts.

I’m flying a Viper Mk4 (which I’ve named Curiosity), carrying 16 tonnes of Hutton Mugs, which I plan to sell onwards at Jacques. As such, I’m departing from the one and only Hutton Orbital with a nice full cargo hold, and with a piddly 16.18ly jump range.

I’ll be trying to log cool/stupid stuff, as I go, but here’s a few statistics to start off with:

• Distance to Eol Prou RS-T d3-94: 21,998.94ly
• Incidents so far: 0
• Technical issues so far: 1
• Best-case jumps remaining: 1,360

I’ll be following the route set out by FastLizard4 during his concurrent Jaques trip, as such I’ll be following these waypoints initially:

0. Alpha Centauri / Khun / LHS 3447 (maybe?)
1. Col 359 Sector XD-I a68-0 (1033.19 ly)
2. Bleia Eohn YC-V c5-22
3. Aucopp LY-O b53-6
4. Drojeae LA-Y c17-14
5. Blae Drye WV-T d4-101

Other than that, I think I’m pretty much ready to set off, I just need to plot some waypoints and check my ship can follow those paths, and then we’ll see where it takes me.

Once I set off, I’ll keep a stickied post of my status, and post individual updates as I go.