About those helium gas giants, huh? Haven't found any, but instead I did discover the trick to finding helium-rich gas giants instead.

Said trick is to find a boxel that contains them, and then scour the boxel from start to finish. With how the universe works, each boxel has similar star system generation. I don't really know a good way to explain it, but I will try.

Basically, each boxel is a cube. A section of space with the dimensions 1280x1280 ly. Let me throw in an example. Let's take the Gru Hypue XV-M d7 boxel. The start of that boxel is Gru Hypue XV-M d7-0. The last number in that system name goes up to... about 120? I didn't actually check, but boxels do contain quite a lot of systems, though it entirely depends on density.

So if you find a system that contains a rare planet, be it a helium-rich gas giant or Earth-like world, chances are that the boxel of that system contains a good number of those planets.

In the case of helium-rich gas giants, the boxel has to generate a higher-than-normal percentage helium atmosphere for gas giants. It will always be the same. A little over 30% helium and you will start finding helium-rich gas giants. So if you find a boxel that has a regular gas giant with a helium percentage of, say, 31.8%, then it will be that percentage for ALL gas giants in that boxel, and it will start generating helium-rich gas giants. If you come across that, start from 0 (beginning of the boxel) and work your way up, you will find quite a lot of them.

A good place to start is checking the codex for any. Then, head over to that system and start from the beginning of that boxel. I did that, and achieved first discovery on quite a lot of helium-rich gas giants. Same trick works for pure helium gas giants too, if you're supremely lucky to find one. I believe only about 19 helium gas giants have been documented to date, so they are by far the rarest stellar object in the entire universe.

But hey, those helium gas giants wont discover themselves. Get out there and get exploring! In any case, I'm satisfied with my search and now I'm heading over to Colonia again.

-CMDR Nupsu

Whew, that took a long time. But it looks like I made it back. No time to rest, though. I immediately got back to work.

I had my eye on some pre-engineered modules. Specifically, a V1 SCO FSD and V1 DSS. The DSS was simple enough to obtain, I already had high grade materials to trade down. The FSD, however... yeah, that took a bit.

Apart from the materials that I simply had to trade for, I had to get my hands on a titan drive component and some propulsion elements, both of which are only obtainable from Thargoids. So I made my way to a fallen titan.

Yikes. I had never seen Thargoids before, and I had some close encounters while I was scouring the wreck for components. They sure are spooky. Good thing there were others here that were looking to fight the xenos, so they left me alone and I could scavenge in peace.

A few hours later, I finally managed to snatch a titan drive component from the wreckage. Got about 4 ly increase to my jump range by switching to the pre-engineered FSD. Not astronomical, but still pretty good.

With that, I'm heading back into deep space. I'm getting closer to having the credits to buy a fleet carrier. Only 2 billion more... so close. So very close. Stratum Tectonicas will deliver me unto greater heights.

-CMDR Nupsu

In light of recent events (the whole HIP 87621 debacle), I decided to start heading back to the Bubble. I'll see if I can optimize my ship more via engineering, I've been told that getting a 90 ly jump range for the Mandalay should be easy. Seeing as mine is at 76, I still have plenty of room for improvement.

I believe I have about 30% of the credits required to get a fleet carrier. That would be my ultimate goal in all this, though from what I hear, the upkeep is also pretty high for such spacecrafts. A cargo hold of 25000 units, and one ton of tritium going for 50k credits... yikes.

It's recommended to top off fleet carriers with all the tritium it can carry for exploration purposes. So that would be... 1.25 million credits. Nevermind, it's actually not that bad at all. One Stratum Tectonicas can pay for that 80 times over.

In any case, it's 200 jumps back to the Bubble from where I currently am. It will be quite the trip, I'll still be scanning everything I come across and pick up rare exobio samples on the way (looking at you, Stratum Tectonicas). I love my job.

-CMDR Nupsu

I didn't find any rare white dwarfs, so I decided to move on to the center of the galaxy. It took a short bit, but I made it. That was quite the view. Terrifying, humbling.

I'll be spending some time in the center. Due to an anomaly, the center of the galaxy is mostly devoid of any rare systems, so I will be moving on soon, most likely northeast. I decided to up the challenge a bit and try to find a helium giant. I believe there's only 17 of them cataloged to date, so it will be quite the adventure.

Oh right, it's also my birthday today. Maybe I'll use some of my birthday money to buy a giant raccoon plushie. That would be a nice addition to my Mandalay.

-CMDR Nupsu

What a strange section of space I have come across. So many white dwarfs and Herbig Ae/Be stars. I went to one of the Herbig systems, and it was a binary star system of a T Tauri star orbiting a Herbig. Quite a sight.

I'll be here for a bit to search for rare white dwarfs. Need to be careful though, those exclusion zones are deadly.

-CMDR Nupsu

I have a diary? Neat. Anyway, I just made it to Colonia and sold all my exploration and exobiology data, netting me my first billion. Feels good.

I think I'm gonna go hunt for carbon and Wolf-Rayet stars. There are still some undiscovered types, so maybe I'll get lucky. If I get bored, I'll make my way to Sagittarius A*. All the black holes I've discovered so far have been absolutely tiny, so seeing a supermassive one would be cool.

-CMDR Nupsu