Two days ago I jumped the fleet carrier reaching way point number 10 of its planned route. The fuel consumption I did calculate resulted in roughly double the amount of fuel than the vessel really used for the consecutive ten jumps. The good thing: it would have been bad if the carrier would have used more than calculated.

Approaching Sacaqawea Space Port:

As a result of this I adjusted the formula used for the calculation: the real fuel use now is close to the estimated (calculated) value and I will observe the further results of the calculation to possibly adjust it even more.

Even though it seems I might have gained some freedom by the lesser fuel use and do have choices for some detours, I was out to the icy ring of a gas giant in a neighboring system to mine some Tritium from a Tritium hot spot to start testing this scenario as well.

--- Start of extracted log-entries of the Shadow Head from 29th and 30th NOV 3306 --

Arrival at FC WP#10 WP Lagoon Sector NI-S b4-10 in a dist of 1676.13ly; this FC WP is closest to Omega Mining Inc.;

FC Shadow Head will remain in system for the next few days; CMDR A32A is using ASPX ‘Honest Tuck’;

CCC5: Eagle Sector IR-W d1-117 (reached on 30th NOV); arrival at WP: 30.11.2020-14:35;

Skaudai CH-B d14-34 (Sacaqawea Space Port); arrival: 30.11.2020-16:22 ; heading back towards the bubble, SE-direction, via Elephant‘s Trunk Sector (reaching system Wredgaei ND-U B58-3 at 30.11.2020-18:55; 10 jumps left towards the mining station) – reaching Elephant‘s Trunk Sector at 30.11.2020-19:30; GM Cephei at 19:34; 20.48;

touch down at Imperial Station Foda Port in LAUMA → Ratting;

--- End of extracted log-entries of the Shadow Head from 29th and 30th NOV 3306 --

Last Thursday the Astro Tour participants met at VY Canis Major, the – so far – most voluminous star in the Milky Way. I was busy ratting due to the ‘Epicalypse’ and started out towards VYCM system one and a half hours before the session begun. This time I chose to use ‘Ahab’s Desire’, the same Beluga I used to visit the Zurara for the first time, the same Beluga, which brought me safely to Beagle Point and Salomé’s Moon. Since returning from Colonia towards the bubble on 30th DEC 3305 I haven’t had used this ship, so it felt right to make it run again.

Ahab‘s Desire docked on one of the Tour‘s fleet carriers (‚OFC I Still Love You‘ was the carrier it was docked at, as far as I remember):

In autumn 2018 I brought Ahab’s Desire into this system for the first and second time, so I had one more sentimental reason to use the Beluga, which, meanwhile, became a highly improved vessel.

After warming the outside hulls of our ships basking in the red light of VYCM we were racing towards the Seagull Nebula: Meeting point was the potato station Hell Point. I liked the personal touch of Drew talking about Robert Holstock; in fact I enjoyed the talk while heading towards the Seagul Nebula, where I arrived slightly lagging behind the head of the racing field.

Arriving in orbit of Hell Port

Vista of the Seagull Nebula on approaching using Ahab’s Desire:

Next Thursday the Astro Tour will reach its most Eastern point at or around the Crab Nebula starting that evening from one of the support carriers in the Monkey Nebula and I am intending to join if there is some time left to do so. The good part would be: I, myself have not been to the Crab Nebula yet and there would be something new to be seen.

Commanders on Drew's Astro Tour racing towards Seagull Sector:

The last days were dominated by re-fueling tasks: ‘Epicalype’ we call this rush of stranded commanders. By far the most of these stranded pilots were brand new in the job, just arrived from the Federation of Pilots Academies inside the protected systems of this Federation, some kind of naive, maybe, joining the independent pilots in deep space.

There was one advantage with all these new people compared to the usual clients: in most cases they seem not come that far leaving the protected systems so the vast majority of all these cases could be dealt with in relative close proximity; LRR deep into the dark, mostly unknown regions of the Milky Way became rare during the last nearly two weeks.

The highest number of rescues during a day peaked up to over 500 cases during 24 hours during the last week (I guess there were 526 cases as the new all-time record). I was wondering if it would have had made sense to permanently post fuel rat reaction forces into certain systems during the last ‘epicalyptic’ week.

In comparison to a usual rescue the DBs became significantly longer than average due to the high number of questions being asked by the clients and/or due to the fact, some basic game-mechanics had to be explained completely (e.g. ‘what is the outfitting screen?’; ‘where and how to place modules?’).

However: TFRM proved to have been able to cope with the workload generally, which is good and interesting to see.

Yesterday I started evacuating personnel from the Kepler star port. Until this morning I used the Cutter Adelheid Adele, which was helpful to rescue a multitude of people.

During the coffee break the Stanislaw Lem was parked on a free patch of the Kepler Orbital Rescue Ship to keep free the few landing pads for ongoing rescues:

Once I did return to the Shadow Head today, I swapped the ship and jumped into the cockpit of the Python Stanislaw Lem, which I use for serving outposts, normally. I was able to improve the heat resistance of that ship and jumped back from the Karbon system - via six transit systems - to the Atropos system.

Phase one Docking at the burning station:

Arriving at the damaged station I was able to collect materials as well as both kinds of rescue pods (occupied and damaged pods), black boxes, personal items and wreckage components. So people using rescue pods during the abandoning process were saved too.

Phase two Collecting of objects from inside the overheated structure:

I finished several evacuation missions too, which were to be found at the black board of the rescue ship. Doing so might be nice for pilots trying to rank up their superpower rank(s).

Phase three (landing on the designated landing pad) Docking inside the burning station under emergency protocol rules: If a ship is hovering over the wrong landing pad for too long, e.g. due to an explosion shockwave relocating the ship, or the pilot ejects cargo while staying inside the station, the resulting fine will prevent the commander from accessing the emergency services once docked. After paying these fines at the close rescue ship (via rescue ship station board - contacts), passengers can be picked up from the burning stations and become rescued again (as long as the pilot is not gathering a new fine inside the burning station).

Phase four (boarding) Emergency Protocol means: A stations mission board is empty as well as all other station services except the Passenger Services are down too. As soon as a ship is docked it will be pulled inside a hangar; no worries commander, inside the hanger there is an emergency unit cooling down the ship as good as possible preventing any damage during the time inside the hangar and enabling the boarding process: Now, the aim is to fill as many passengers into the cabin as possible before leaving the station. Be aware: as soon as the ship is pulled out of the hangar, its temperature will increase again without using heat sinks.

Phase five Leavung the burning station, cruising to the near by rescue ship and handing in rescue items via the search and rescue screen, handing in the passengers and selling whatever may be left in cargo (except limpets if one more run is intended):

Remark to yesterday’s log: The two last lines of the flight plan for the Shadow Head in December do show two distances from Sol, which are not correct. Falsely orientated vector components were used for these calculations and the navigator at Shadow Head’s flight deck corrected the two lines with the recent flight plan. There might be a time table issued by the Nav-Team of the Shadow Head at a later point in time.

This week has seen various preparations due to the planned journey of the Shadow Head towards and to the colonies.

There are three main aims to be followed:

1. The Shadow Head takes part in the Christmas Carriers Convoy 5 (short CCC5). At the recent date there are 38 carriers involved to move from Karbon to Centralis, a system in the colonies, from the 28th November to 24th December; the official launch date is set to the 1st December 3306.

Between start and destination locations there are 5 more way points. Since an individual route between Karbon and Centralis was planned ships carried by the Shadow Head will be available for the travels into the waypoint systems. This makes even some more sense due to the two other main aims of OP RUDOLPH (refer to point 2 and 3). The flight plan can be seen in the log before.

Due to the limited fuel storage capacity of the Shadow Head the given route might have to be followed strictly to reduce the efforts to secure and load additional Tritium. Nevertheless the approximate fuel consumption is calculated and will be monitored during the journey. The full recent capacity of Tritium including depot and storage capacity totals 12.826t.

To reach the above mentioned Tritium loading capacity all ships offered for sale at the Shadow Head’s Shipyard were sold and the additional storage could be used by the Tritium Section.

2. During the same time as the CCC5 takes place there is The Enthusiastic Christmas Colonia Trip, which also will be part of the journey during December.

3. As well the Astro Tour moves into the same direction towards Evelyn’s Light and Colonia and there might be the possibility to join it too.

Flightplan and route calculations for the Shadow Head for December 3306:

Latitude and Longitude - November 3306 – Astro Tour: Orion Trip

-- Extract from the Fleet Carrier Daily Reports --

11th to 12th NOV 3306 The FC Shadow Head was moved from its location in the Pleiades further into the South-East fairly close to the Witch Head Sector. The targeted system Witch Head Sector GW-W c1-2 could be reached after two carrier jumps via Synuefe LJ-C B18-0.

All sections report system status as nominal and the night-shifts took over a for an uneventful duty.

NFTR

13th NOV 3306 Successful deployment of the Shadow Head to Garoju System via

Taurus Dark Region ig-x b1-3

Caleta (topping up Tritium at Caleta)

Garoju

All sections report system status as nominal and the night-shifts took over a for an uneventful duty.

The Shadow Head was returned to Garoju on the 13th NOV 2020; on arrival all systems reported nominal; the manager of the Tritium Depot was happy to report a Tritium level of 100% and an additional storage of 561t of tritium in freight section FH-32c; she is looking forward to use section FH-32e and f soon and handed the related requests to the FC management.

Outfitting Management reported the exchange of a cargo rack with a fuelscoop for the Stanislav Lem and the maintenance status off all vessels docked could brought up to 100% too.

Four mechanics had to be sent out on the flight deck for maintaining landing pads 07, 09, 10, 11 and 12. The management is aware of the leaked videos of a commander The Mechanic and assures additional rations of progenitor cells were issued as well as some special paid leave for the rest of the week. Medical Section and Personal Management confirm the related actions. NTFR

-- End of Extract from the Fleet Carrier Daily Reports --

Something reminds me on a Thargoid Interceptor in this image taken from the Orion trip of Drew’s Astro Tour on the 12th NOV 3306; maybe I was too deep into Thargoid territories during the last days, I can’t tell.

-- Personal Logbook Entry Commander A32A –

Still accompanied by Commander Saiti; this is his first trip into space outside of the bubble. I guess he was a little bit shocked about how disperse human activities are inside the Orion space. As well he seemed to be annoyed by the large number of Alien Signal Sources throughout these systems; I should show him how the filtering options on the Navigation Panel do work.

Saiti told me he had to be rescued by a fellow Fuel Rat a couple of hours before after he bought a Chieftain at Hanna Enterprise – yes the same Ocellus star port I rescued personnel from and delivered goods to at the start of this year. I am sure Saiti will find out about best ship roles, outfitting and engineering. I explained a few basics and I guess he is on the right track to inhale all the information and learn how it works best.

Readying for the meeting on Planet 7 (Witch Head Sector GW-W c1-2)

The meeting point on planet 7 was marked by the given coordinates of 9.24 Lat; 169.51 Lon. I asked commander Saiti, who was part of the wing, to try to find out how to reach these coordinates. I hinted as well it could become less easy as it seems and if it would turn out too fiddly I would explain how it works. I asked him not to NavLock on my ship and to try it on his own since I am convinced this is an important part of the learning process; as well: I could not have been sure he wouldn’t touch down at the given point without any problems, so I myself was curious what would happen.

I used the Gun Ship ‘Warzenschwein’ to descend towards the meeting point and boosted it into orbit of planet seven, then following the procedure to pin it down to the coordinates. Saiti followed and I have to state, he was eagerly investing a lot of effort to navigate his Chieftain to the coordinates.

When I reached the coordinates I inspected the scene: slowly descending from around 110km above the surface I saw the meeting point was located right inside the center of an asteroid crater. There was no prominent central peak visible and it occurred to me this crater must have been relatively old since the inner part formed a relatively smooth, slightly convex plain: it seemed like the expected relief energy (for a younger structure) eroded away until the recent day. There was some terrain elevation difference along the inner side of the caldera and the plain leveled down towards the steep slopes of the outer rim of the structure.

Early meeting at the assembling point at the center of the crater at the given coordinates:

The crater we were meeting at is the biggest such structure of several craters inside a massive impact formation of an even older impact event – at least, by eyeing the region underneath during the planetary descend, it occurred to me the found situation matched such possible sequence of events.

After touch down I asked Saiti if he wished to know the trick, which he confirmed. So I talked him through the navigation along the circles of latitude and longitude. For all pilots trying to manually navigate to some given coordinates on a planetary surface in the ED universe: here is the trick (maybe it is a spoiler).

To reach latitude coordinates you need to head towards 0° to increase the latitude; heading towards 180° decreases the latitude. These two directions match a virtual circle on the surface of the planet with its center at the center of the planet; this circle is a circle of longitude so moving along it also means you do not change the longitude, which is given by the second number of the coordinates. That means while holding the longitude constant, you only change the latitude of the moving ship.

While doing so you are closing up to a given latitude. Keep the nose of the ship above the horizon (at zero degrees for the angle towards the surface and above the yellow circle on the HUD. If keeping a negative angle here (nose aiming under the yellow circle) you may reach the level of glide phase and as you know you will then descend quickly).

It is a good procedure to orbit the planet and then slowly spiraling down towards the surface until you reach a point above the glide level, where you are able to follow the above explained method of navigation. Be aware of the fact you might have to correct the angles constantly and the friction between the hull and the atmosphere might cause some noise. Be aware of the following too: the speeds and altitudes vary due to the gravitation.

Now, I told you how to navigate to a set latitude. How you will reach the longitude? Well, after the above said this is easy: Move your ship along a circle of latitude keeping this value constant while changing the longitude. It works out similar as for the latitude. The only difference you have to take care for is the direction. The plain of a circle of longitude has a 90° angle to a circle of latitude, so the directions you have to choose do have a difference of 90° compared to the above mentioned directions: head for 90° to increase longitude and for 270° to decrease longitude.

If this all might puzzle you a little bit, keep in mind:

a) Moving parallel to a circle of longitude (0° and 180°) changes the latitude.

b) Moving parallel to a circle of latitude (90° and 270°) changes the longitude.

– End of personal Logbook entry –

November 3306 – Second Week Investigative Missions – The Dark Wheel – Wreck Sites – Thargoid Interceptors

From 8th to 10th – so far – A32A resumed to support the Dark Wheel with the quest for Raxxla. As he thought before: let alone the huge space and territories TDW has to maintain while, during the same time, to prepare the expansion of the faction into new areas becomes more complex. For the first time plans did not fully work out as hoped while on the other hand the occupied systems need to be managed.

Did anyone expect everything working out as smoothly as during the first two months of the project? Of course not: finally it is not even known, if the foundation of the mission will be achievable within the Elite-World, isn’t it? It has to be stated too: The operation as a whole is overwhelmingly successful due to a great number of independent pilots contributing to its cause.

Nevertheless there are draw backs – as expected by A32A at least – and with a multitude of everyday obstacles has to be dealt with. It remains true still: Overall the mission seems to be on track and is, by all means so far, a huge success; if it will be possible to reach the main objective, the uncovering of further, unknown facts about the subject of the given quest or Raxxla itself, remains a mystery until today. Exciting? Yes, truly fascinating.

Visiting The Pleiades with Commander Saiti:

Supporting TDW A32A focused on LTT 5455; there he fought for GQ General Corporation in the combat zones against the Workers of LTT 5455, a native faction of the system. After four days it seems GQV Corp. will win this conflict as intended by the TDW BGS- strategists.

As an additional task for LTT 5455 the Faction Wolf 562 Inc. is in an election state. So A32A did support their efforts to win the elections, too. It seems the elections result in favor of Wolf 562.

When solving a chain mission for Wolf 562, which meant a huge gain of influence for the faction in LTT 5455, Director Ysabella Harmon, the faction leader of Wolf 5455, provided a hint for A32A, which appeared to be promising: her message contained the system name, planet designation and coordinates of a wreck; Ysabella mentioned as well there had been no recovery team at the given site as well as there were an active data core, some commodities and materials to be found within the wreck. The given location was: Pleiades Sector IH-V c2-16 d2; Lat.: -4.54 – Long.: 138.94

Planetary scenery at the given coordinates:

A32A made the decision to seek out that that wreck, once finished the fighting in LTT 5455. Why not returning to The Pleiades after having been there lately (last week) joining Drew’s Astro Tour?

When making this decision Aldarion was in conversation with another commander, CMDR Saiti, who seems to be a young and yet not experienced commander. A few days before, Aldarion met commander Saiti in the Fuel Rat's Lounge in Fuelum supporting him to solve some of his first missions taken from mission boards at stations in and around Cuebo system.

Aldarion asked Saiti if he wanted to see some new stuff, mentioning the wreck site message and pointing out the Pleiades are known for Thargoid activities, which became noticeable later. Saiti agreed to join the mission to investigate the wreck and Aldarion prepared his fleet carrier Shadow Head to travel to the destination system. Commander Saiti would have needed a longer travel time given the jump ranges of his Eagle and newly bought Dolphin were not the longest. So the carrier became handy and useful to travel quickly.

Arriving in the Pleiades Sector A32A asked Saiti if he ever saw Thargoids, which Saiti denied. So a couple of explanations and advises later Aldarion targeted some Alien Signal Sources (5) to visit. Turned out the first drop on such a signal had some wreckage inside the usual corrosive cloud as well as an occupied rescue pod but the interceptor had left already (the rescue pod was handed to the IDA installation on the surface of planet D2 later).

Thargoid Sighting together with CMDR Saiti (Pleiades Sector):

Finally, after combing the system, commander Saiti was able to see two interceptors for the first time, which, in itself, made the trip worth to be done. Anyways, the wreck on planet D2 was not investigated, yet. On the other hand CMDR Saiti got an invitation by Elvira Martuk, since he did travel further than 400ly from his starting system, which was a nice detail too (first engineer invitation).

The wreck site presented the two commanders with a beautiful view under the companion planet of planet D2, which is one of two closely orbiting rocky planets of similar size and composition. The wreckage seemed to have been an Anaconda looking like parts of the belly structure of that ship. In any case the wreck must have been a huge ship, once. The iron oxide colored reddish dust and sand covered most of what was left by the once proud ship. Within the wreckage there were a few materials and a container of corn, one ton of brandy and a container of scrapped material, ironically. Reading the data core Aldarion found out the ship’s pilot survived the crash and was able to repair the SRV leaving the crash site. Operation IDA runs a planetary base in a distance of 79 km, maybe the pilot was able to reach it (TII Research Facility).

Meeting at a wreck site at Pleiades Sector IH-V c2-16, planet D2:

Docking at the close base of two planetary installations, TII Research Facility, which belongs to and is run by IDA, Aldarion handed over the occupied rescue pod asking Saiti, if he were keen on visiting the Maia Black Hole in the neighboring system: agreed and done.

Another crash site at Mia B3D - in the background, over the horizon at the centre of the image there is the position of Maia B star, the singularity in the system; it can be spotted due to the distorsion of the bright dust in this area bent by gravitational lensing (at the right of Maia B the Andromeda Galaxy is visible):

The Black Hole in Maia is placed in a distance of over 300kly from Maia A, the main star of this system. After we were staying at Maia B (the Black Hole) and scanning the tourist beacon Aldarion received a message from the manager of the IDA installation the wing visited before. They were missing a ship crew of four souls and requested further investigation.

Aldarion agreed and finally was able to locate and recover all four rescue pods on another crash site on the surface of Maia B3D returning them safely to the IDA installation in the neighboring system, then calling this eventful day a day signing off duty.

Saving Engineer Liz Ryder (Lizzy)

From Sunday, 4th October 3306, to Thursday, 8th October 3306, I was fighting to protect engineer Liz Ryder (Lizzy). This conflict took place in Eurybia System, the engineer’s home system.

The Empire tried to take the engineer Liz Ryder into custody. She was blamed to be responsible for the attacks on the four Imperial Stations a few weeks before without any substantial proof. Whoever tried to blame the engineer started this conflict with the aim to cover up the real responsibilities.

Interestingly the assassination of Prince Harold Duval took place during the same time and – so far – was not investigated: instead the following funeral ceremony produced headlines throughout the bubble. The Empire is under pressure but from what side and for what purpose is not completely known while the big players are moving their pawns and the opening game now is completed.

A great number of independent pilots (8871 independent commanders, to be exact) took their part in the defense of the engineer and Blue Mafia Syndicate, which officially supported and protected Liz Ryder, was able to deter the forces being raised against all Imperial traditions to bring down a respected member not only of the Empire itself but of the Galactic community as a whole.

Of course I paid my tribute to the defense of Liz Ryder handing in 24.521.691cr of combat bonds resulting from the fight for freedom and truth.

As well I proved my medium fighter Styx is able to survive and win high intensity combat zones without being part of a wing.

Returning Styx to its carrier Shadow Head:

Protocol 3rd OCT 3306 – status: most secret

Contents: Following: Personal logbook entry by Commander Aldarion 3TwoAlpha

“Aldarion, we do know each other for over two decades: one of my skippers hired you as navigational assistant for my campaign over at the Pleiades. You were a young, energetic man filled with enthusiasm and idealism. I observed your way since these days and saw you retrieving the Pilot’s license when you finally left my services as an system integration officer.

I saw you growing older, gaining experience and trading a good part of the idealism for realism; I saw you making your mistakes, while I did mine, I saw your raise within the Imperial society too.

Saying all this, I know you always tried to find your own path through existence and I am convinced you are an honorable but even more honest person.

Now, while I am confirming your efforts for your support of the funeral of Prince Harold, knowing you rescued several thousands of innocent Imperial Citizens from that burning space port a few weeks ago, you are telling me you will go to fight back Imperial Forces to protect your friend Liz.

Well, we both know the effect of such an engagement in a local conflict on your reputation with the Empire as a whole most certainly will be temporal and not changing our personal relationship at all since I know your situational assessment of this diplomatic charade is correct at least for the most parts.”

While talking the Senator verified his recent upload to the closest central imperial data core buried somewhere deep down inside Oterma Station, after having sent some special reports to Hoover Colony orbiting Baal B 10.

“You just filed your special reports, Senator. We both know there were Fed Ships bringing down some of the rescue vessels a few weeks ago. You included my contact reports and ship scans as well as the analysis indicating the abnormalities I found hidden inside these data.

One I know for sure: Liz herself never would have supported these attacks of neutral grounds killing innocent people. We could or could not discuss her agenda but whatever will be the official narrative: the true story – in a best case scenario - might slightly cover some aspects of what is going on but – in the most likely case scenario – the official narrative will hide the true nature of this aspect within the grater picture. The Galactic society with all its people will be distracted from the grand scheme by raising – or should I better say constructing - certain details of public interest. We both know, distractions and the fogs of war always are the tools used in these situations.

All the given views will, of course, depend on who will be the narrator and what the intentions of the forces controlling the narrator might be. So I prefer to follow my own agenda and act as dictated by what I humanly can know and do; in this case my friend needs protection, Senator.”

Raising up both of us bent down as described by Imperial Protocols and the Senator finally added: “Go and serve loyalty and Imperial traditions: defend your friend, Aldarion.”, then typing on the device sewed on the sleeve of his left arm signaling the Guards outside to open the doors.

I left heading back to my docked AspX Honest Tuck intending to buy another Cutter in Zeta Horologii at May Port.

– End of entry --