Well, the EU launch managed to bring down Frontier's servers but everything was sorted out quite quickly (given it's sunday evening) and the US launch went smoothly. First waypoint is in the Omega Sector in a week, but there a many interesting places on the way there. First up is Shapley-1, or more precisely the Fine Ring nebula around it. I'm logged out there for the night, after having scanned all systems on the way, and mapped a couple of them. Love the new exploration tools, they make it so easy to find surface features!

The hype is real!

Now officially a billionnaire in cash. Of course most of this money comes from core mining, but I really wasn't lucky with void opals; good thing grandidierite and alexandrite also sell for obscene amounts.

Just became Elite in trading, thanks to the amazingly lucrative ice core mining (even though I bought and A-rated a Python especially for that task). So that's done, maybe I'll go for the extra stretch and try to get a billion credits in cash before Distant Worlds 2 launches.

Haha silly me, I had forgotten about guardian tech FSD boosters. The Queen Bee can now jump 64.36 Ly on a full 48 tons tank of fuel. That's 72.41 on fumes, and I have enough materials onboard for 14 grade 3 FSD boosts, enough to get through any tricky situation.

I could squeeze a little more by stripping down the life support module, but I lack the require engineering access to do that. Next time!

Now back to core mining, let's try to become Elite in trading before Distant Worlds 2 launches.

With my exploration ship ready and waiting for Distant Worlds 2, I thought why not give the new mining tools a try. Two and a half hour later I had 77 million credits worth of minerals to sell. I appreciated ice rings for the beautiful sights but now I have another reason to love them.

Had a little brush with two violent thugs from NaCL last night, it was a fair fight as I was in my shieldless and unarmed exploration-fitted DBX and there were only two of them in combat-engineered Kraits. They even let a whole TEN SECONDS pass by between asking me to recognized Zarek Null as "lord and saviour" and blowing up my ship. Gankers are getting soft these days.

56.72 Ly jump range with 48 tons of fuel onboard, a SRV, and a large AFMU. I guess the Queen Bee is ready for Distant Worlds 2. The Queen Bee is the Lakon Diamondback Explorer that went all the way to Beagle Point as part of the original Distant Worlds expedition. Turns out I could squeeze even more performance in that ship with the new engineering blueprints that have become available in the meantime.