After hitching a ride on a Fleet Carrier, Resplendent Fervor, back to the Bubble, I am now doing a bunch of Federation mission with the aim of getting my Sol permit. Whacked a pirate today; I must admit to not being 100% comfortable about it, but if I was, it would be a problem.

After nearly 15 months, I have finally made it to Colonia.

It's a big achievement for a Commander without a Fleet Carrier and doing it in a Diamondback Explorer more so, I would say. I won't hurry back - I plan to do some missions around here first. Also buy a new ship...

Been a long time since I updated this, but I figure that I might as well do so. I've gone a long way since my last post. From Rohini in August, I have gone through nearly all the stations on the Colonia Connection Highway. I left Vihara Gate in Kashyapa today and made another 30 or so jumps. Colonia is just over 100 jumps away.

My aim is to get there before this calendar year is out, then I will spend a while in the area before hitching a lift via Fleet Carrier back to the Core, with the aim to get my Sol permit.

Arrived at Rohini today and have now left on my next 251 jump sequence. I didn't quite get enough exploration earnings out of this to hit the Ranger rank, but will definitely get it on the next stage.

I have also upgraded my ship in a number of areas, including an AFMU unit (storing my planetary vehicle hangar, which I barely use), an increase in power capacity and a more powerful FSD that pushes my jump range up to 18 light years.

I'm pretty close to Rohini now, where I aim to get an AFMU to protect against drive problems going forward, especially if I go neutron star riding.

Today's run saw no systems that I'm a first time visitor too, suggesting the Rohini area is pretty well mapped out.

Having decided to take a quicker route, I am now following something of a neutron highway to Rohini, where I will buy an Auto-Field Maintenance Unit so my Frame Shift Drive won't get fried during the other neutron jumps.

Unless I find a Fleet Carrier heading to Colonia first, I aim to get there by the end of the year.

Have arrived at "Camp Three" after another long jump - and it isn't even the longest on this trip - that saw me put my Supercruise Assist and Auto Dock out of action from too many emergency FSD drops.

I managed to discover an entirely new system while I was out there and with over 16 million credits in the bank, I'll be well placed to buy something much faster for the journey back.

Which I plan to do via Fleet Carrier, thank you.

After some extensive jumping, I've finally reached the second 'camp' on the Colonia 'ascent', landing at Hillary Depot in Blu Thua AI-A c14-10. It's on a very atmospheric red planet and I might take a quick SRV drive around before heading off.

Getting a cool couple of million on exploration is very nice. I've also just reached Pathfinder and also, appear to have discovered a record size non-terraformable rock.

Still a long way to go. Bring a good podcast or six, IMHO.

Not many jumps today. I'm going to be making occasional stops along the way to land on planets and have a quick drive around. I like the capacity to take any real samples, but it's nice to have been the first person on some of these worlds.

I've just travelled through the Scutum Dark Region and am now 10 jumps from Mammon. While there, I've discovered a couple of new systems, had some close encounters with brown dwarf stars and used the Galactic Codex to pass the time while waiting for my tanks to fill.

Should have a rich payout when I get to Mammon, then another long journey begins. Perhaps I'll listen to an audiobook.