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 the travel to a couple of remote outposts towards the Formadine Rift, then onwards to visit the Dynasty Expedition rally points, and finally to the Heisenberg 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.