"Today is the day! Today I'm finally going to be able to reach my destination: Colonia!" This is the thought I had stuck in my head as soon as I awoken this morning. But, as we learned on day two, anything can happen in the black. So we have to be careful and plan accordingly. I put my Artemis suit on, poured some coffee in my Hutton Mug, and sipped it while looking at my hold and the three occupied pods I took in last night, all the while thinking about how I'm going to plot course. A little bit of math later, I plotted course with another 28 jumps to go. Took a final look at the planet and rising sun in the atmosphere and took off to orbit. Made my way back into the Inner Centaurus Arm where I discovered an interesting system full of gas giants only. No moons, no rocky bodies, only gas giants. Quite interesting. When I reached the 10 jumps left mark, I noticed that more and more systems were already discovered by previous explorers. "I'm getting close!" was I thinking. From there, the feeling of being alone in an unexplored universe started to fade, little by little. I was making my way back to civilization. The closer I was getting, the better view I had of nearby Nebulas. It's been a while since I've seen while up close. It looks like a giant purple butterfly. Pretty. Before I knew it, I arrived in Colonia. "At last!" was I thinking. I felt a deep sense of relief as I entered an inhabited system with security and made my way towards Jaques Station. Once I got there, there were a fleet of Belugas flying around. While I expected some traffic, I didn't expected so many luxury liners coming in and out of the station. I switched my autodocking computer on, sat back, and relaxed while my ship was slowly getting towards the landing bad. It felt good to be docking at a station again, to be in a safe environment. First thing I did was making repairs. The paint and integrity took a hit from all those jumps but nothing too serious. My ship held out pretty well. Next thing I did was selling my exploration data. I have been waiting for this moment for a while! Not for the money, but for all the new discoveries. Made a comfy 132 millions. Not bad. Proceeded to sell the pods and was happy to finally get rid of those traffickers. I informed the authorities of the location of the remaining pod, even if I doubt they will make the trip. That's more trouble than it's worth. With this out of the way, I disembarked and made my way to the bar where I treated myself with a nice oak aged Lavian Brandy to celebrate. The bartender talked me into buying the Jaques' still; an amazing invention that can turn any liquid into 10ml shots of alcohol. I thought that could come in handy in the next portion of my trip towards Beagle Point. It was time for me to sell my organic data . Went to Viral Genomics and made 1.8 millions for the samples with a first discovery bonus of 3.6 millions! That earned me the Mostly Directionless rank in Exobiology. Last thing to cash in was my Codex Vouchers. I had 457 thousands worth of vouchers, that I almost forgot about. Overall, on that first leg of the expedition, I made roughly 150 millions while discovering 343 systems. Not bad at all. Now that I was in Colonia, I was filled with a "what next?" feeling. It felt like all the excitement of discovery was gone and that there was nothing interesting to do anymore. Emptiness. Well, that feeling only lasted a second since Colonia was just the first stop in my long journey. I wrote my After Action Report, looking back at everything that went well and that didn't, and decided it was time for some engineering in order to reinforce my shields. Some outfitting will be in order to. Will probably add a mining laser, a bigger cargo rack, and a repair limpet controller. I also plan on training with using the neutron stars as boost, not that I intend on using the neutron highway, but to have enough experience so that if I find myself in a pickle and need to use it I'll be comfortable enough not to blow myself to pieces. I'll probably need to stock up on some materials as well for repair limpets and jumponium, just in case. Sagittarius A* is just going to have to wait for me a little.

Highlights:

• Discovered a system full of gas giants
• Re-entered the Inner Scutum Centaurus Arm
• Docked at Jaques Station
• Repaired my ship
• Sold 132 millions worth of exploration data
• Sold the occupied pods
• Bought the Jaques Quinentian Still
• Sold 5.4 millions worth of exobiology data
• Made Mostly Directionless exobiology rank
• Cashed in 457 thousands worth of Codex vouchers
• Discovered 343 systems since my departure from Jameson Memorial

CMDR Kenfuss, signing off. o7

Today was supposed to be the last day towards Colonia. Fate decided otherwise. I started the day by analyzing my very first biological samples on the planet I set camp on. From there, I plotted my route with 176 jumps to go. Most of the day was calm and uneventful but I did see a bunch of pretty sights and nice first discoveries. I encountered a beautiful terraformable water world, my first B class star, my second biggest system FSS (50 bodies), took a few breaks on atmospheric planets with more biological discoveries, my first ringed water world, my first atmospheric camp with direct view of a ringed planet, a gas giant with transparent rings, discovered a system with 4 terraformable planets, discovered my first class V gas giant, a gorgeous cotton candy like gas giant, and most important of all I discovered my very first Earth like planet! It was long awaited after thousands of light years of travel and definitely made my day! Another thing that struck me was the stars density. While stars brightness was apparent from end of day one, today was really about the shear density of them. There are so many out there that my ship was lit from every angle. It was a beautiful sight! Although, it can be a pain to for the plotting computer to successfully plot course through the vast number of options available. By the end of the day, I had 35 jumps to go and decided to make camp and rest on a nearby atmospheric planet. When I approached and mapped the planet, I discovered several distress beacons. I haven't seen any of these in a while and decided to check out the first one in sight. Carefully made my way to the crash site and was greeted by sentries. Took them out with my SRV and discovered 4 occupied evacuation pods. Knowing that adding cargo to my ship would make the trip to Colonia longer, I decided to load the pods in my SRV anyway. I couldn't help to think about those poor souls stranded in the Black. That could have been me when I almost crashed to death on day two. Problem was, I only had 3 cargo spaces left in my ship; one being taken by my Hutton Mug. I had to make a decision. Throw the mug away, meaning I would have to do the trip there again, or save a life. I took a good look at the pods but also remembered the salvage that was found in the wreckage. It was all narcotics and weapons. Illegal stuff. I was saving the lives of some smugglers with poor ethics. Traffickers. A life is a life but I was not about to throw my Hutton mug away for some low lives. They knew what they were doing and knew the risks. So, I jettisoned on of the pods and loaded the other three to turn them to the authorities when I get to Colonia. Were they people transporting medicine I would have considered otherwise. But, hey, this is the law of the Black. Made camp and rested for the night, sleeping on my two ears.

Highlights:

• Entered the Inner Scutum Centaurus Arm
• First biological sample analyzed
• First B class star discovered
• Second biggest system FSS (50 bodies)
• First ringed water world discovered
• First atmospheric planet with a view
• Entered the Norma Arm
• First discovery and footfall of a terraformable planet with atmosphere
• First Earth like world discovery
• First class V gas giant discovery

CMDR Kenfuss, signing off. o7

Today was an action packed day that almost cost me my life. When landing on a 0.38G planet, while approaching a crater in which I wanted to land in order to rest, the game glitched and the ground from the edge of the crater went from 500m below me to 0 in 1 second. This resulted in my ship hitting the ground hard, loosing my shields, and the hull dropped to 11%. What was extremely weird is that the rendering under my ship after the hit resembled a black hole. The ground was warping under my ship and coming towards me. I hit the thrusters to get out of it and once I reached the altitude of 2km, the glitch disappeared. After a very exciting and promising first day, this second day began as a nightmare. I was left in shock after this very strange experience, thinking I almost died and lost all of my exploration data. I calmly returned towards the ground and landed safely. I gathered myself for a second, did a sitrep on my ship and weighed my options: calling the Hull Seals, finding a DSSA nearby, or continuing forward knowing the trip wouldn't allow any error or glitch. Since my modules were all intact, all options were viable. I decided to contact the Hull Seals while I was searching for a DSSA at the same time. The Hull Seals were 50 jumps away for a 1.5h flight time my way while I found a DSSA 71 jumps away. I decided not to bother the Hull Seals as I technically was not stranded and went after finding the DSSA. Successfully made my way to the fleet carrier and repaired. Huge thanks to CMDR KARAYA, owner of the RR-DSSA ROCKSTEADY for saving my butt! By the way, the carrier is stationed at one of the best locations in the galaxy with a gigantic ringed star. What a view! From there, I was able to plot my trip to Colonia directly for the first time and resumed my journey with 242 jumps to go. The rest is a long list of discoveries and peaceful flying.

Here are the key points of today's journey:

• Discovered my very first notable stellar phenomenon (3 crystals and 1 mineral)
• Discovered a very cool coffee colored gas giant
• Crashed my ship in a glitch
• Contacted the Hull Seals (very professional guys, by the way)
• Found and plotted a course towards a DSSA
• Left the Inner Orion Spur
• Entered the Norma Expanse
• Discovered my first Gas Giant IV (red marble)
• Docked and repaired at RR-DSSA ROCKSTEADY
• Sold 15 million worth of exploration data
• Plotted 242 jumps to Colonia
• Discovered my first gas giant with ammonia life
• Experienced 2 games crashes and difficulties connecting to Frontier servers for about 1 hour
• Discovered multiple terraformable HMC and Water planets
• First footfall on metal and icy bodies with atmosphere (good views)
• FSSed an unexplored system of 52 bodies
• Noticed the starts are getting very bright now
• Set camp in an icy body with atmosphere and biological signals
• Got my very first biological sample (to complete)
• Jumps to Colonia remaining: 176

CMDR Kenfuss, signing off. o7

Today I left the Bubble from Jameson Memorial on my first deep space exploration trip on my way to Beagle Point.

I plan on stopping in Colonia, then Sagittarius A*, then Beagle Point.

I should take the time to visit The Great Annihilator black hole on the way as well.

On my first day, I discovered various beautiful Gas Giants (I/II/III) with one very particular I named the Tiramisu Gas Giant. Truly beautiful.

I also discovered a water world, set foot on several icy and rocky bodies and set camp in a huge crater to rest.

Note: disactivate orbital lines when taking pictures...