Day 119 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

This is my final entry from the expedition. Today, after nearly four months out in the black, I have finally made it back to the bubble. It feels quite strange really, seeing life around you after being surrounded by nothing by the emptiness of space for so long. I nearly forgot to issue a landing request before docking! Wouldn't that be a fail if I got blown up now...

Anyway, my ship was in a pretty good condition. Some modules were a little beat up due to crashing into a star once or twice, but nothing too bad. My paint job is at 0%, but I think I'll keep it that way. As a nice reminder. I also haven't cashed in my scan data yet. I had pledged myself to Li Yong-Rui, and am working towards getting rank 5, so as to get that 200% bonus for scan data. I already have a lot of it, but if I can even triple it? Yes please.

I'm slowly getting back into the bubble life. Distant Worlds was an awesome experience though, and I definitely won't forget it.

Day 104 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

Finally, after over 3 months of pretty much nothing but jumping from system to system, and endless scanning, I have reached the Beagle Point. Pretty exciting, I've been in love with the stars for quite a while, and yet have never been here before. My arrival here marks the end of the Distant Worlds 2 expedition for me. But my journey is far from over. After all, my home's on the other side of the galaxy now.

On my way back I'll probably take a route around, a little, to, hopefully, discover some more interesting sights. Haven't decided which way exactly yet, though. Of course before I depart, I'm also going to visit Salome's Reach - the most distant, reachable object in our galaxy.

Also, quite ashamed to admit it, but of course I got overconfident now that I've reached the destination, and bumped into the ground while landing. 40% of my hull gone in a second. ON A 0.17G PLANET. Luckily I have repair limpets though, so that wasn't too much of a problem.

Day 69 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

So, we've left the Explorer's Anchorage. As far as I know, from now on, we are on our own. There will be no more stations along the way, until we come back to the core. That means we have to be way more careful. So far my trip has been going well and without any major incidents, so hopefully it will stay this way.

I've made it to the 8th Waypoint a couple days ago. But there's still some time left before the next one is announced, so I got a little bored and decided to explore nearby areas a little. Been pretty lucky with that, came across a bunch of ELWs and WWs, and even a Wolf Rayet star. If that luck stays with me for the whole trip, I should have quite an amount of credits to receive once I come back from the expedition.

For now, I'm parked at a planet I've found. The ship's all settled and I'm ready to get some rest now.

Day 42 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

It's been a while since the last log. I've been quite busy on the ship, my power plant's been acting kinda funny, causing me to stay a little behind on the expedition. But luckily, despite the difficulties, I managed to make it in time to all the waypoints of the expedition.

Yesterday I arrived at the current, 6th, waypoint. But there I've heard that a new station has been deployed. One I helped to build. Right next to Sagittarius A*. So, well, I just couldn't wait, and just made it to the station - Explorer's Anchorage. Expedition's next task will take place here, so the next waypoint's going to be here for sure anyway, so at least I'll have some rest next week.

The station itself is very bare bones. Which is understandable. So far we've only gathered resources for the base of the starport. Next week, probably, a new campaign will start, with the purpose of outfitting the station with as many services for explorers as possible. Judging by how well the first community goal went, this one should be a breeze as well. Can't wait.

Day 18 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

Today I made it to another waypoint on our journey, Conflux Settlements. For now I simply parked my ship next to it, but I'll probably get into an SRV and explore the place a little later.

There wasn't that much to see on the way here. The Quantum World was probably the most interesting. With only around 160km of radius, it is the smallest known planet. Of course I sat the ship down on it's surface and had a drive around in an SRV. NGC 6565 was also a stunning place, with it's Wolf Rayet star shining upon the rings of the gas giant. Beautiful views.

Day 13 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

The mining finished on Wednesday, almost 24 hours early. Wow is all I can say really. We managed to gather 3 million tonnes of materials for the new station. It's quite a success. I contributed almost 900 tonnes, which put me in the top 25% of commanders. Either way, today I cashed in my reward and stored all my mining gear on the station.

After that I decided to do a little trip into the stars. I didn't even realise how much I missed the Black. It really felt good being out there again. I went about 2k Ly above the galactic plane, about as far as the ship allowed me too, without using any fsd boosting. And then back to the station. On my way I discovered a bunch of new systems, and some water worlds and terraformable planets. Sadly no Earth Like Worlds. The payout was still quite nice though.

Right now I'm parked at the station and waiting. We depart for the next waypoint on Sunday.

Day 6 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

As expected, there are so many people participating in the resource gathering, that they actually extended the goal. While usually Tier 8 is the final one, they added 3 more. The last one, Tier 11, is actually almost as big as all other tiers combined. I've gathered almost 350 tonnes so far.

It also seems that my blasters, seismic charges and displacement missles are useless here. The only thing I've used so far is the mining laser. So next time I go out to mine (most likely tomorrow), I'm going to store all that gear and equip my hardpoints with mining lasers only. That way it will take way less time to deplete an asteroid.

Day 5 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

Today the community goal has finally begun. My mining gear had already arrived at the station, though at it turned out, I actually didn't need to have it transfered all the way here. The station apparently ordered all kinds of mining modules that are now avaible right here. But oh well. I swapped in all the blasters and limpet controllers and went off to mine.

Oh, I've also changed the paintjob of my Conda. Usually I run with pulse purple, which looks very nice. It's probably not the best choice for mining. As beautiful as it is, it can be seen from kilometers away. And I'd rather not be noticed by a pirate while mining. So instead I went with a golden paint. Looks almost just as nice, but isn't nearly as shiny. Once the mining is done, I will switch back to the pulse paintjob.

Managed to dig up a bit above 100 tonnes today. There is a lot of commanders working towards the goal though. It's been only a few hours since the event has started, but it's already reached Tier 4. At this pace, we'll be done in no time. I just hope it won't end too soon, would like to get some more mining done! It really is an exciting thought that the minerals in my cargo bay will soon be a part of a brand new station, right in the center of our galaxy.

I've decided to also start counting days, so... Day 3 of the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition

Took a little longer than planned, but I finally made it to the second waypoint. Just in time too, from what I hear, on Thursday the mining for the new station is supposed to start. The outfitting here at Omega is... well, it could be better. The only hardpoint avaible is a cannon... So I am forced to have my mining gear delivered all the way from the Bubble, it's already on it's way, should be here in about 15 hours.

Today, as I was making my way to the station, I've also finally started encountering undiscovered systems and planets. So I was able to get my name on a few. To my surprise, I've seen pretty much no other commanders at all today, even at the station. But, it is a little late, perhaps most are already parked for the night.

Either way, now I just need to wait for my gear, and for the event to start. Might do a little exploring of the nearby systems tomorrow, to pass some time.

The first day of the expedition has just passed for me. The ship's landed on a nice planet that I found on my way, and I'm about to have some rest.

Managed to do most of the trip to the second waypoint today. I've visited a few interesting locations on the way, like Shapley 1, Cycladia, Labirinto, Thor's Eye, and The View. Was lucky enough to bump into a few other commanders in the latter location and have a brief chat. One of them had a little trouble with the gravity (3.3G!), so I fired a repair limpet his way. After a couple minutes I was off to continue my journey. Other than that it's been quite lonely and calm out there. Well, except for the close encounter with a star. Lost a little bit of hull and modules' integrity.

Tomorrow I hope to reach the Omega Mining Operation base.