CMDR Klane のプロフィール > 航海日誌

プロフィール
コマンダー名:
現在の船:
Let's Sort this out [KL-24K]
(Krait MkII)
 
メンバー登録日:
2018/06/15
 
入力した距離:
1,473
 
訪れた星系:
10,454
初めて発見した星系:
1,985
Back home!

Back in the bubble at last and what an enjoyable return, thanks to my squadron taking much of the stress out of the last stage. First I was able to make a rendezvous with the Princess Irulan's Handmaiden fleet carrier out at Bleae Thua NB-O D6-42. Fleet carrier's weren't even a thing when I set out on this journey and it enabled me to repair and refuel before the final approaches. Then on instructions I targeted Psi Octantis as a waypoint where the data could be sold and a second fleet carrier was arranged for me as a pickup to cut and derisk the last 500 light years, plus wing support should any troublesome NPC decide to spoil my day.

This all went as planned over the week and I boarded my transport inwards at the magnificent HR 6870 system, finally meeting up with fellow squadron members from Aisling's Angels. Last minute change of destination to better benefit our princess from my data sales and I've ended up at Eisinga Ring in Venetet. Enjoyed the FC jump and then just some last minute caution swapping into my Krait for the short hop from FC to station. Also swapped over the docking computer, just in case I forgot how. Had a wing escort into the station and arrived safe and sound in a green agricultural paradise. Now for some R & R!

A coming phase change

I am nearing the end of this expedition at long last. If I am honest it has been a tedious slog since NGC 6357. I do not need to make it all the way in to the Bubble just to close the route off. Drojaea FR-K B28-O is the final unsurveyed star on this leg, after which the single jump to Drojaea ZM-Q D6-13 brings me to a "blue tagged" visited star - the end point of a prior outwards survey which can be followed all the way in without needing any more surveying. I currently sit about 300 light years from this destination.

Finding the way has been easy - a virtually flat course with some occasional up and down bumps to make the analysis non-trivial but still not exactly hard and a very, very gentle long term ascent continuing at an exceptionally mild gradient as I cross off the thousand light year markers below ten. Reaching a known Earth like discovery, deep in the Pyramio sector and surface mapping it has been the only notable highpoint, but the journey is at least also a little enlivened by finding now the occasional name other than my own on the passing system maps. This tells me I am reaching better travelled parts. Unfortunately, as I get closer to my goal, the work in each system seems to be increasing on average. I have set myself the task, not only of completing the discovery rosta for each system but also of surface mapping anything I discovered before to leave the same pattern of overall discovery but one level better. if I find systems discovered by other people but not mapped, I like to map at least one for each commander as a mark of respect for their work and to build the great galactic map. It's unlikely most of these systems will be visited again but it is certainly not impossible and it amuses me to wonder if a future commander will observe the odd pattern of discoveries in these systems where I may have tagged the star and some inner planets, others have discovered the outer planets and then I have surface mapped their discoveries. This should tell them something very strange happened with commander Klane. Surely he wouldn't visit this out of the way nothing system in the middle of nowhere twice would he? Oh yes he would :-)

Now, though I'm regretting the intensive work I did the first time round in these regions which is making more work for me this time! The closer I get to the finish line the slower I am going...

Hull currently on 89% owinig to some carelessness in planet mapping but I should have enough vessel integrity to finish safely as long as I don't get attacked at the end. On that subject I've made contact with my squadron, the Aisling Angels and been offered a ride to the Bubble on a fleet carrier to somewhere where I can sell my data for the benefit of the squadron. That'll be interesting and looking forward to finalising the details next week.

Passing NGC 6357

I have reached an important milestone in the return journey, the great dark purple bruise in the sky that is NGC 6357. This is an important waypoint nebula, being the last major landmark in the Inner Orion Spur on the way from Sol to the galatic core and the first inside the spur on the return journey. It's a welcome signpost to home, in the same way that the Greae Phio stellar forge and the Beopp nebulae act as gateposts to the fearsome densities of the galactic core at the far side of the Norma Arm, NGC 6357 on the return journey tells me that the long slow slog of the galactic plains that lie oustide the sidereal walls will soon become a countdown to entry into the Bubble. Of course, soon is a relative word. I am still more than 8000 light years from Sol and in a practical sense nothing much will change in the character of the journey for at least another 3000 light years, yet as I see NGC 6357 slip by on the port bow I feel real progress is being made.

I have visited the nebula itself three times. Firstly on the my initial journey to Sag A and then subsequently on the first ill fated attempt to recover the route, and the second attempt to rescan the now known systems. This time I will get no closer than a thousand light years or so and it will always be above me and to my left. But the long slow slog ascending ever so gently from the Blaa Hypai nebula is over and a new phase of the journey has begun...

At the Blaa Hypai Nebula

Now I have reached the Blaa Hypai neubula, some 7,400 light years (in a direct line) from the point where I picked up the blue trail again. All the stars in between are safely and accurately surveyed and I've risked a few landings on the way and picked up a Codex discovey or two in the Norma arm and the Norma expanses.

It's not been an easy journey and it has been long. The way passed through two nebula before this one, including Eeshorks AA and the famous stellar forge at Greae Phio. Here I had to navigate an upwards curve from the bottom lands and then an upwards leap, picking my way delicately thruogh the density of Greae Phio to find the more sedate but difficult very gently downward sloping path into the sidereal wall. Stellar densities are higher here than I had been accustomed to recently but still nothing like so terrible as on the higher outbound path, and the way yielded to patience. I've been keeping up with stellar triangulation, supplying the data for at least one trigonometric calculation at every stop and sometimes more than one. Tedious but necessary work for the serious explorer.

It has been a long slog since Greae Phio but now I am in the clouds of Blaa Hypai, the most beautiful (for my money) of these three neubula. It shines in luminous reds and blues against the black backdrop of the outer galaxy. Star density near the nebula drops rapidly as we transition from the Norma Arm to the Norma Expanses. For the first time in a very long while I am sharing discovery on systems with other commanders who have been here before me. I see evidence of two kinds; some that beat me to be here before my first trip and quite a few who came after me. It's still a desolate and remote spot, though. I make sure to leave plenty of planetary survey mapping evidence behind whilst still leaving something for future commanders to complete. It's amusing to add planetary maps to my own original discoveries and also on top of other commander's discoveries. I wonder if those that visit here afterwards will be confused by this patchwork of discoveries which doesn't make much sense if I made only one visit to these worlds. Yet who would make a second visit to somewhere so distant? Commander Klane, that's who! All this work lengthens the time spent within each system. Although the average jump distance has increased, the survey work more than makes up for the increased speed between stars.

Ahead of me, I must next find the way into a darker and emptier sector, trending gradually to the right and eventually connecting with one more earth like discovery before I hope to finally stitch the route together with my previously explored limit, about three thousand light years from Sol.

Then I must find a safe place to sell all this data!

Hull currently on 93% - could do without any more accidents.

A strategic retreat and a way home.

As the new year dawned I finally came to the reluctant decision which I had been avoiding for so long. I must abandon the goal of stitching together the blue trail in this sector of the galaxy. It had been my obsession for so long but now this tiny point in a storm of light all around, a place which had meant nothing to me on my original outbouind journey and where I had probably stopped for no more than a few minutes, threatened to become my grave if I could not move on.

Looking below me into a blissfully less dense region of stars I could see a marker for an earth like world from my original outbound leg. It was perhaps three thousand light years away and further from the core than my current location, yet still relatively close as galactic distances go. I would strike out for it, using the maximum jump range of my souped up Asp. It was a relief to be able to open up the engines and fly once again.

As I made this new bridge between inbound and outbound legs, I started to survey the outbound route in the coreward direction, adding markers to each waypoint identified and replotting the route to the furthest point on each occasion. Thus it was that my course traversed a curve which eventually met the blue trail at right angles, almost a full thousand light years from the original way point. Picking up stars on the route here was not too hard (relatively speaking). I was down in the galatic lowlands and I had a continuous collection of systems leading me to that earth like known location. I set about regaining the blue trail with enthusiasm. It was time to go home!

Lost in a blizzard of stars....

So much time has elapsed since my last update and where did all that time go? Most of it was spent staring at the lights of hundreds of suns, trying to trace the outbound infernal blue trail backwards from an apex in the Athiap sector (representing the closest I have yet reached to the core on the blue trail) to connect the previously visited dots over more than four thousand light years back to the Nebula where I first lost my way in the forward direction.

To begin with everything proceeded relatively smoothly. I bypassed the world of death mentioned in my previous accounts without attempting a landing and finally struck new stellar systems for the first time since that disasterous crash. I eventually reached a junction on the blue trail only a few hops from the earth like world that was my original way marker without further incident. I didn't look forward of that point any more than a handful of jumps. It is possible that there is a relatively easily traceable route ahead beyond the place I rejoined the survey route. I must hope so, because one day I plan to return here and try to continue the quest to find that first pioneering path to the core.

Instead, I now had it in mind to reverse the trail and fill in the gaps. But the stellar density here is enormous and finding the next star was as hard here as at any previous point on the route, short of the point of actual failure. Nevertheless I made reasonable progress, covering the first several hundred light years until coming to a full stop at Dryaa Pri VG-S d5-2164

Here I was becalmed from more than a year, trying in vain to locate the next waypoint on the route. It was seemingly impossible. I guessed I might have started to drift off the main line and down but extensive searches in all plausable directions yielding nothing. I sat and waited for inspiration. And waited. And waited....

I'm nearly there!

Almost of a month of recouping losses but now I near the end of stage 7. This last leg has been a lot harder than I remembered. Only three more jumps, though, and I will reach the infamous system of death once again. Am I going to repeat the ill fated landing attempt? Probably not to be honest! I've claimed 475,000 of Codex credits but I shall be very cautious before I try another high gravity landing, even though I have preserved 97% hull vs 76% the first time.

Repeating mistakes :-(

Initially, my plan to rapidly reconquer the route by rapid retracing went well. I completed stage 1 in quick time and stage 2 was well underway when I did something foolish. I was hitherto scanning systems but I had limited my surface scans and not landed anywhere so as to speed up the journey.

I decided to break this rule and land at Byeia Euq VY-S e3-2 where I knew there were vacuum anemones on one of the airless little worlds cicrcling the sun. It was my first landing since the disater much closer to the core and I so nearly turned this one into another disaster! Hitting the ground hard I had only 7% of hull left by the time I recovered and completed a safe landing. I surveyed and picked up some resources then scanned the map. Trifid Sector IR-W d1-52 was a "nearby" station. It was 50 jumps away, well off my route, but I felt I had not choice. There is nothing deeper into the coreward journey and continuing with this level of damage would invite destruction.

I travelled at near right angles to my desired route (in fact it angled back to the Bubble a bit). And I made it! Scanning all the way I had to cross a nasty little barrier of unscoopable stars close to the destination, which I would like to add, is a great place to visit in an asteroid station buried in a ring. Lovely location. I repaired my ship, sold my data and went back to the next system in the route, mission acomplished. 50 million richer, I pushed on into the black. There was a long way to go, but oddly having banked stage 1 (and half of stage 2) I felt much better about the whole mission. Even if I die now (and that would still be a disaster!) I won't lose everything.

Back in the saddle...

I knew if I hesitated for more than ten minutes, it would be the end. There was only one way to attain my goal. I had to put all that lost time behind me and get straight back on the route.

So I did. I launched from Blu Thua and I set my map to look for visited stars, then one by one I jumped back along the same route I'd just been so brutally forced to retrace, using those blue star markers and gobbling up scanning each system as fast as I possibly could.

There are pros and cons to this. On the one hand I can cover the Blue Trail much faster now it really is blue, since I don't have to search it out one star at a time. On the other hand it is painful to be rescanning what I scanned once before and knowing it will still take a very long time to get back to where I hit the ground too hard.

I'm never going to get the Codex money back and I had almost 2 million credits in the bank. But I can still make the odd landing and continue building some resources and maybe picking up fifty thousand here and there or at least the two and a half thousand for previously discovered types.

I divided the journey into seven stages. Taking each of these as little goals will keep me going when the whole thing seems too daunting.

1) Blu Thua to the Cat's Eye Nebula via the Smojai rise

2) Cat's Eye to NGC 6357 via an earth like in Lysoorb

3) NGC 6257 to an earth like in Clookeou. A long thankless track across the plain plains of Plaa Ain, then bouncing round a number of sector and galactic boundaries without anything in particular to see. This is 4000 light years and the hardest of the seven stages.

4) Clookeou thriough to an earth like world at the base of the Great Sidereal Wall in Gria Hypue

5) From Gria Hypue, punching through the Sidereal Wall to a system I've dubbed Trinity in Blu Ain where there are three earth like worlds together. This is the shortest of the seven stages but travelling through some of the densest stellar regions.

6) From Trinity down to the nebula in Boepp and the point where I finally had to leave the old trail because I couldn't pick it up beyond the nebula.

7) Fast track up to Dryau Ausums and on down to the system of death...

And beyond that? Continue with my original heavily interupted plans of course!

Shrogaei KE-O d7-835 : System Of Death

It has been a long time since I've felt able to resume these logs. Disaster! At Shrogaei KE-O d7-835, well before I reached the nexus point I made the fateful descision to try to pick up some possible Codex data on a high gravity metallic world. Coming in hard and fast I hit boost at exactly the moment when I should have been braking hard. Bang! I wake up in Blu Thua with not far under 20,000 light years of continously scanned route all gone in a flash. It's the outer darkness. The skies seem bleak and empty after the corewards regions I've been travelling in. What to do?