Hello all,

Unfortunately due to real life I have been unable to keep up with the main body of the expedition, but I am still going at my own pace. So far I have reached the first WP(2) and I am roughly half way to WP3. I have already found so many awesome things; this is going to be an amazing journey.

My first impressions of the Sidewinder for this kind of travel is excellent. My Sidey is named Clarence, after a character from one of my favorite shows; Final Space. If anyone knows the show, I just feel like Clarence is best represented by a Sidewinder, it just fits.

Fuel can be a concern since I only get 2 max range jumps before I am empty. It has happened to me several time where my reserve tank fills just after scooping then after my next jump is complete I do not have the fuel required for the next jump. As such I am only plotting scoopable stars. I have been using a bit of a trick to get around my lack of fuel. I will disable the FSD booster, plot my route, then re-enable it. I lose 6ly off my max jump range but since fuel usage follows a curve I actually only use about 1/4 of my fuel per jump instead of 1/2. Sure, I may not be jumping as far but in all honesty I kind of prefer that. Lower jump range = more jumps between waypoints = greater chance of discovering cool stuff! This works for me. I'm sure I will have to quit using this trick while traversing sparse regions (in fact I already had to abandon it while getting to the Perseus Arm).

With no SRV I am not doing much in the way of planetary landings. I have landed a couple of times for photo opportunities but I will probably not risk landing on high G planets. The Sidewinder is pretty nimble but with 36 MJ of shields and somewhere around 140 hull a rough landing could easily be the death of me. I have had one emergency drop so far in a ring system around a Gas Giant. I was approaching it for a photo op but must have got to close to the rings (although I felt like I was not too close...) and the game forced me to drop. No hull damage but some internals took a 1% hit, including my Power plant.

All in all I am enjoying this one so far, although it is only just in the beginning stages. I quite like this form of minimalist exploring. While I do miss the luxury of my Beluga I like how personal things feel with the Sidey. I don't have any SRV's, fighters, or legs to leave my ship with. It's just me and Clarence; 2 pals on a journey of discovery. Lets see what is in store for us in the vastness of the Galaxy.

Take care all and safe travels,

CMDR Red_Beard_98

Hi all,

My most recent trip took me from Colonia back to the bubble. As mention in my last entry I have been exploring in a Vulture recently and it is honestly a pretty darn good ship for this activity.

Engineering really changed the game as far as ship roles go. Pretty much any ship is capable of any role with the right engineering applied. I was able to get my Vulture jumping over 42Ly which is respectable and really all you need for basic exploration. If you want to visit the very fringes of the Galaxy you might need a min/maxed Anaconda, AspX or DBX but if you're just puttering around with no real goal then I think somewhere around 40Ly is ideal. You can move fairly fast but you are also visiting a good amount of systems.

The only problem I ran into with the Vulture was the route plotter. I don't think it liked the fact I only get 2 max range jumps out of the fuel tank before I have to refuel. I tried plotting some routes without filters and several times the plotter gave me 2 non-fuel stars followed by another max range jump that was impossible for me to complete. I have plenty of FSD injections so this wasn't really a big issue but if you are running without all the materials for FSD injections then this could be a serious problem.

I was going to take this ship on the Perseus Reach expedition which is for small ships only however I have decided to challenge myself even more for this expedition. I have designed a Sidewinder that has the necessary jump range to be able to complete this journey which will take me beyond Beagle Point. I hope I can make this happen; Taking a Sidewinder to the farthest reaches of the Galaxy and back is on my bucket list. One major issue with this idea is the inability to take and SRV in the Sidewinder in order to make the minimum jump range for this expedition (41.34 Ly). It just isn't possible even with everything as light as you can make it. I have almost maxed out my materials for FSD injections so I hope that will be enough to get me through this one. I think it should be but I have a feeling I will be manually plotting my way through the Abyss.

Due to not having an SRV I decided to forgo a cargo rack and repair limpets since I shouldn't have to worry too much about hull damage. As such I took a 1A AFMU and in the last spare slot I decided to put in a Supercruise assist module. It was either that or another AFMU which is unnecessary. I may not even use the SC assist much but hey, it's there if I want it and there was nothing else that could really go in that slot (I needed something without weight). This should be an interesting journey.

Take care all.

CMDR Red_Beard_98

I recently headed out of Colonia in a randomly chosen direction for no reason other than to explore. I didn't have any particular destination or goal in mind however shortly after leaving I found something interesting to occupy me.

Along my route I found a couple systems with Helium-Rich Gas Giants (HRGG). My initial find only yielded a couple of the planets. I searched surrounding systems as it is my understanding that these planets sometimes cluster together in helium rich areas of the galaxy. I found only a few and moved on. Then a hit a few systems in an area with the beginning designation of "Dunee". I found one system with HRGG's, then another, then another. I became intrigued.

I began visiting every system in this area. I began to notice patterns regarding which systems yielded HRGG and which ones did not. I noticed that K and G star class systems had the highest potential of having HRGG's. I can't say for certain if I found any HRGG's in M or F class star systems but if I did they were very few. So I began to focus my search on only K and G stars.

So, I filtered my Galaxy map to only show K, G, B, O and some of the rare stars (just in case). I left on B and O stars only because I quite enjoy visiting these stars. This is when I noticed that the area I was in had a distinct lack of B and O stars. And by distinct lack I mean there were none. However, there was almost what appeared to be a border where B class stars became extremely abundant. I ventured into the region where the B-class stars began and even though I was still only checking K and G stars I found no HRGG's. I then went back to the region where the B-class stars were non-existent and again began finding plenty of HRGG's. I found this to be and interesting observation. I found another point "above" my HRGG rich region where B-class stars began appearing again and found a similar result when I ventured there. No more HRGG's. In all i visited over 300 star systems in this region. EDSM has not yet updated my results of how many HRGG's I found ( I had 32 discovered prior to this). I will Update this log with my numbers at a later time.

Please note that this is only one small region. I have no idea if my discovery of not finding HRGG's where there are B-class stars is significant in any way or just a mere coincidence. I would have to find and survey several more regions before I could make that claim. I also did not stay there as long as I would have liked to. 300 systems is a good amount but there was so much I did not get to. I have many bookmarks in that area so I can go back at a later date and pick up where I left off. If you are reading this and decide to check it out for yourself that is also fine. What I really hoped to find was a Helium GG. There are only 12 discovered on EDSM and from my understanding 11 of them were placed and not proc gen'd. The one proc gen HGG is also mostly nitrogen so I'm not sure exactly how that works. Maybe HGG were never meant to be proc gen's and that one is an anomaly.

I stopped this survey to go back to Colonia where I hope to meet up with a Commander who is currently circumnavigating a rather large planet (I think it's the largest landable planet discovered). I then need to had back to the bubble to meet up with a group I have joined for an expedition starting and February of 2020.

As a side note, all of my surveying of this region plus my travel from the bubble to Colonia was completed using a Vulture. I also plan to take this ship on the expedition I mentioned (Perseus arm expedition). I get about 42 Ly jump range and only 2 max range jumps before my fuel tank is almost empty. It sure make you think and plan ahead. Highly recommended.

CMDR Red_Beard_98

Edit: I just discovered you have to actually publish these journal entries... Looks like my DW2 one is a bit overdue.

Another Edit: I was finally able to get my EDSM data updated thanks to some helpful Commanders on the forums. In total I discovered 170 HRGG's in 299 systems in the Dunee region.

The Distant Worlds 2 expedition; what can I say about it. It was a great experience organized by some great Commanders.

I have always wanted to go on a long exploration journey but my small group of friends who play Elite: Dangerous never seemed as interested in partaking in such a long time commitment. The longest exploration trip I took solo was about 17 000 ly from the bubble at which point I turned back to help one of my buddies with some missions.

When I heard DW2 was being organized I signed up and I thought I would be one of the last with registration #4870; almost 5000 Commanders already seemed like such a large number! then as the days went on and the start of the DW2 expedition neared the numbers ballooned to 13 000+ Commanders! How amazing is that?!

I originally geared out my Anaconda for the expedition but last minute decided to switch to a Beluga Liner. As much as I like the Anaconda you just can't beat the view from the Beluga and let's face it, going on an expedition has a lot to do with having a good view! In my opinion the Beluga also has superior internal slots when it comes to outfitting for a long exploration trip. I just wish the Beluga could take larger than a size 6 fuel scoop given the stock 128T fuel tank and size 7 FSD. A 6A scoop is enough to skim a star and move on without stopping but after doing a series of neutron boosted jumps it can take a while to fill the tanks back up. speaking of neutron boosting, that is another place the Beluga shines. with the 128T tank and size 7 FSD a Beluga can do 10 max range jumps before needing to refuel. with my final jump range of approximately 51.5 Ly that means I can neutron boost to 200+ Ly multiplied by 10 jumps means 2000ly before needing to stop and refuel; that is an incredibly fast way to move around the Galaxy! While I did not put this to good use travelling out to Beagle point (I wanted to take it slow and discover as much as possible) I put it to very good use on the return home. Sure the Anaconda (and several other ships) can have much larger jump ranges but 50+ is enough for me! I was able to cover around 40 000+ ly of distance in around 10 hours of game play on the return journey neutron jumping in my Beluga, not bad in my opinion! (that includes FSS scanning systems and mapping high value targets).

I'm not sure if the way I handled the expedition is similar to how others took part. I am not going to lie, I did not take part in many meetups along the way, only stopping at 4 of the scheduled way points. My reason for this is being my first long exploration journey I wanted to put my name out there on as many systems as I could and I felt following a planned route would mean a lot of my discoveries might actually end up belonging to someone else. Maybe that sounds selfish but I enjoy finding things that have never been seen before. I did assist with the 2nd community goal with building the station by Sag A* delivering around 750T of material. That was enough to get me a top 50% spot in that community goal which was okay with me. I probably could have done more than that but I got distracted with void opals which sold for a pretty good price, I made over 100 million credits during that community goal.

I very much enjoyed being part of the Distant Worlds 2 squadron (I mean the second squadron for the DW2 expedition). It was filled with some very knowledgeable and friendly Commanders and made the journey much easier and more enjoyable. Having people to chat with really kept the space madness to a minimum.

I started DW2 with the mass jump on January 13th (yup, the one that crashed the servers for a while) and made it back to the bubble on May 18th. I can understand why my friends don't want to commit to such a journey, it can take a lot out of you but I love the exploration aspect of the game.

The following is the build I used on my Beluga: (sorry, formatting on this section didn't turn out as expected)

Core Internals Hull: Lightweight Alloys (reinforced, Deep plating)/ Power plant: 5A (Armored, thermal spread)/ Thrusters: 6D (Clean drives, Drag drives)/ Frame shift Drive: 7A (increased range, Mass manager)/ Life Support: 8D (lightweight)/ Power Distributor: 6D (engine focused, Cluster capacitors)/ Sensors: 5D (lightweight)/ Fuel Tank: 7C, 128T

Optional Internals Fuel Scoop: 6A/ Planetary Vehicle Hanger: 6G/ Cargo Rack: 6E/ Fighter Hanger: 6D/ FSD Booster: 5H/ Shield Generator: 5A (Enhanced low power, Low draw)/ Auto Field Maintenance Unit: 4A/ Auto Field Maintenance Unit: 3A/ Fuel Transfer Limpet: 3A (lightweight)/ Repair Limpet: 3D/ Detailed Surface Scanner

Hard Points & Utility Mounts x2 Pulse Laser: 2F gimbals (lightweight, Low draw)/ x2 Heat Sinks (lightweight)/ NOTE: All engineering is max, or very close to max.

After completing this long journey there are definitely some changes I would make to this build but overall it worked out great. I ended up with just over 51 ly of jump range with a full fuel tank. During most of the trip I had all non-essential modules turned off, including shields and this put my resting heat at 19% which was awesome, never had to worry about over heating during and extended fuel scoop after neutron jumping. My heat while scooping never went above 70% while at maximum scoop rate.

Changes I would make? Up-size my shields to a 6A (same engineering) while down-sizing my cargo rack to a size 3 (never had it close to full). I would also downsize my Fighter Hanger to a 5 (Didn't need 2 different fighters) and up-size an AFMU to a 6A. I think that covers all the slots.

This has been a very long log book entry but lest face it, there's a lot to cover. My final words will be: DW2 was a great experience and a huge thank-you goes out to the organizers and participants, we were all part of something awesome.

-Commander Red_Beard_98