I've been circling this star cluster for hours, no tritium anywhere. Frustrating.
Not to mention a close encounter with a black hole in the previous jump.. yikes.

A black hole orbiting a neutron star. Nope Nope Nope Nope. We all had to get a change of pants after that..

Not going there again.

We did find a lot of Terra-forming prospects around here however. At least we wont be poor.

We finally reached our first milestone at Eoch Flyuae QZ-F d11-1022 which is a edsm Green rated system we found on the original trip to Colonia roughly 2000 light-years away.

We plan to wait here for a while to do some minor repairs, stretch our legs and plan the next milestone while we explore the region in more detail.

We carved our names on a rock with the beam laser to mark the occasion.

Captain Phoenix X, Supply clerk Lindsay Hinton, Flight commander Madelynn Haas. 5 Jan 3307. Asp Explorer Dirty Deeds, New Horizons Privateers X. NHPX.

Looks like we hit another good system for the Tritium highway.

In addition to all the injection materials and Tritium, it has a good mix of ores spread over multiple gas giant ring systems and oh so many geological sites to explore. Edsm also rates this as a green class system. I am tempted to land and fill up on materials in this system.

Just as valuable as earlier systems too, so stop a fleet carrier here to top off your tritium and start shoveling Serendibrite, Rhodplumsite, Monazite, Platinum, Painite, Low temperature diamonds, Alexandrite, Void Opals, Benitoite, Bromellite, Grandidierite, Musgravite, and even more Tritium into your cargo bays.

According to all our scans, and cartographic data - there is nothing in this system but a neutron star and a small ringed gas giant.. but over near Dryio Flyuae ER-V d2-350 1 we all saw it.. something moving in space between the rings and the neutron star..

It was moving really fast i tried to follow it but I overtook it and lost track. I couldn't get a scan lock or even a ping in my radar contacts. It didn't look like it was in frame shift yet it was trailing some sort of material about the length you would expect from wake luminosity, and going almost as fast as me - but the wrong colour.

Ghost ship? Cloaked ship? Space Monster?

Whatever it is we lost track of it.. and frankly are too superstitious to stick around and find out what it is.. or was.

Get us out of here Madelynn..

This system definitely qualifies as the Tritium highway. Hell it could be called the Tritium depot.

Fleet carrier? There is 8 Tritium hotspots in this system!

Explorer? It also has every single frame shift injection material you could want. Edsm classes this as a "green system"

Mining? It has Musgravite, Serendibrite, Alexandrite, Void Opals, Low temperature Diamonds, Platinum, Bromellite, Painite, Platinum, Rhodplumsite, and three asteroid belts for casual mining.

This system is even better than the last 3 we found... and I will never hear the last of it from Lindsay.

Looks like I have another entry for the Tritium highway..

But Gah!,

Lindsay Hinton is all in my face at the moment. The greedy little pain in our butts noticed a super massive deposit of Low temperature diamonds on the far gas giant inner ring. Not exactly unusual but we also found Tritium so he is all over the coms console trying to convince Archon Delaine to send out a Fleet Carrier to mine it all. Has some fool idea he can cut himself in for a percentage of the profits as a finder fee. What an idiot. Finder fee? This is my ship and I found that deposit, not to mention as he would so often remind me in Colonia, he is on my crew payroll.. and I pay him a wage - that means he works for me, Ha!

Besides, Delaine is already sending his carrier to DRYOOE FLYOU IC-C D13-628 after I happened to mention to him in my last report it had Tritium, Diamonds, Opals and a half dozen other exotic elements. I will be the one getting a cut of the action not Lindsay!

Not a lot going for this place, but has a few high metal worlds, one of which wouldn't require much effort to terraform, a scoop-able star and an asteroid belt located a short distance away. The ring of the Gas giant also has Tritium, Alexandrite. Grandidierite and Void Opals. Making it a useful place to stop by in a fleet carrier as part of the Tritium highway...

The rest of the system is pretty much useless beyond science research due to the distances.

Wow. 5 Stars,
One Star has two sets of rings containing Serendibite, Monazite, and Alexandrite. Rings... on a star? Nearly 500 LY from Colonia.. and has tritium.. I guess we can add this to the Tritium highway?

8 Gas Giants, with 7 more rings to explore. 28 landable planets, and asteroids. All not far from Colonia too. How was this place missed?

Even Lindsay Hinton was speechless. He just stood there wide eyed with his mouth open staring out the window. Oddly enough in a departure from her usual hard assed self Madelynn started dropping hints about hoping she gets two rings one day too. Right then, ill just pretend that didn't happen.

"Dryooe Flyou IC-C d13-628 D 2 a" was a particularly aesthetic looking planet of blue veins.

Down to brass tacks. What is in this system.. as i started reading, the smile on Lindsay's face kept getting bigger. I think he is finally starting to get it. This system is getting added to my must stop spot next time I come past i think.. the sheer number of injection materials alone are worth the visit.

Other Resources: Platinum, Benitoite, Painite, Musgravite, Grandidierite, Low Temperature diamonds, Void Opals, TRITIUM, Bromellite.

Materials: Iron, Sulphur, Carbon, Nickel, Phosphorus, Chromium, Manganese, Germanium, Ruthenium, Tungsten, Mercury, Zinc, Cadmium, Antimony, Selenium, Tin, Niobium, Yttrium, Technetium, Tellurium, Vanadium, Molybdenum, Arsenic, Zirconium.

Well I just jumped in through the middle of a star.. Not exactly the best way to start a trip to chart out a chain of systems containing Tritium for Fleet carrier transport missions.

Lucky I installed shield upgrades in Colonia.. the only damage was to the crews pants. Was worth it, we made near 300 million while we were in Colonia, it was a profitable trip. But really the place is pretty rough even by my standards, it will be good to get back home.

Still a long way to go until we return to my Solomon System.

Lindsay Hinton is complaining about taking so long to check each system along the way. The guy just spent a year in Colonia bribing people to become powerplay agents for Archon Delaine.. you would think he had some patience.

Apparently not. He is also annoyed we left the Beluga Liner with its luxury cabins in Colonia.. I tried to explain to him again that if we took that ship it would take years to return to Arverda; if he thinks spending a few minutes scanning each system is too slow.. just imagine if he had to jump 1000 times more than we already are over the same distance. The guy just doesn't get it. Next time Delaine asks me to drag another payroll pencil pusher to Colonia, he can do it himself.

On the upside Madelynn Haas has been plotting a course through relatively uncharted space, chances are good we might find something worth a lot of money.

Shut up Lindsay. I don't want to hear it. I will lock you in the crew cabin for the rest of the trip if you say one more word. Finally. Silence.

Now lets see what this system has for us..

(#meanwhileincolonia Part 5)

Lets go find out about that site on Dubbuennel 3B..

On arriving in the Dubbuennel System, I am met with a compromised navigation beacon, several battles going on, and numerous high danger resource extraction sites. After avoiding an encounter with one of the hostiles, I scan the system and discover a mysterious unregistered navigation beacon. Mysterious, because compromised or not there should not be a second navigation beacon here. This beacon is likely from another star system. But what system? There are no obvious anomalies in the area, unless it was dropped here by a ship - I cannot account for its existence. I drop out of superluminal flight and examine the beacon more closely. The memory has been entirely erased. Other than a trickle of power to run the antenna, there is nothing. Perplexing.

Returning to my original mission, I locate Dubbuennel 3b, and do a surface scan. I locate a crash site at 41.52 / -72.47 and approach. There are 4 wrecks here. Maybe even 5, since they are buried partially into the ground. The medium wreck (a cobra or sidewinder?) contains an escape pod and a canister of algae. A large ship is flipped on its roof, and contains a black box and a data core indicating regretfully someone will miss "Gracies" birthday, and given the love comment at the end, the owner did not expect to survive.

The smallest ship appears to be an eagle and contained narcotics and grain. Another wreck is unidentifiable, and an even larger and older wreck contains many broken containers, but still contains an intact beer and food container. Why are they all here? They clearly crashed here at different times, but why all in the same place? Scanning all the wrecks I discover contact information which connects me to an unknown person. They inform me they have some information that needs transporting, and insist I grab it. They direct me to someone called "Arrow" in the Pytheas system who has the data which the anonymous person requests I take to "HOTCOL"on Giles Station in the Deriso system. Strange.

First however I need to get rid of these items, I suspect they are illicit where i need to travel. I pull in at Dunkers Rest, and offload the narcotics on the black market. I hand in the pod and black box, but they offer no new answers to the mystery. the person inside is as confused as I am how they got there.

I jump to Pytheas and am immediately met by "Arrow" who insists I follow his wake, and then he vanishes, I lose track of him when i drop into the wrong wake interrupting a confused cartography department official in a hauler. Returning to wake I spot Arrow again and follow him into normal space.

Scanning him, he apparently flies a Cobera MK III is an expert pilot and works for Likedeeler of Colonia. Never heard of them. Apparently they are active in Dubbuennel system. He has an interdicter installed.. worrying. He connects me via his insys coms to an encrypted relay and our mysterious hidden contact sends me an encrypted signal with a hidden contract to deliver secret information marked expansion data to Deriso.

I transport the data as requested, however what it has to do with the wrecks or the abandoned freighter I have no idea. There appears to be some sort of outbreak or epidemic in Deriso? Could it be related? No idea.

Madelynn who is currently acting as co-pilot, since this ship has no fighters; thinks I am mad following all these bread crumbs. At least Lindsay remained on the other ship.. no doubt he would have had something annoying to say too.

Having met a dead end at this point, I sit back in my pilots seat and consider my next move. I could return to running passenger missions, or leave the ship in Colonia, and take my range upgraded AspX back to the bubble. On the other hand if I can source some modified consumer firmware and analyze some abnormal compact emissions; I could probably upgrade my thrusters even more if I remained here or find some alloys and harden my shields.

The question is where would I find thermic and military alloys or modified firmware and emission data. Nobody here seems to have that available. Perhaps it is time to go hunting for it. Bigger shields and faster engines would be nice...

That is all from the adventures today.. looks like i need to find some engineering supplies!

(ulitmately i spent a few days gathering supplies and engineering then decided to return to the bubble and try to chart a "highway" of tritium systems.)