The last few days have been eventful. Three days ago, I went to mine the valuable Alexandrite to a hotspot in the rings of the planet Iota Pavonis 3. It was a new experience for me, because I had not yet tried to mine with the Seismic Charge Launcher and I wanted to try it. OK, I managed to crack one of the asteroids and extract several tons of Alexandrite. After selling it at Griffith Station in my favorite Burojinura system, I was promoted to Merchant.

At the same time, I had a mission underway to extract 25 tons of Osmium. In the end, I did not manage this mission, because I was moving in systems where there were relatively few resources of minerals. I extracted only 17 tons, which I handed over to traders. I should have kept them and sold them. I'll be smarter next time. In addition, I was shot down by pirates during this mission, so the disappointment of that day was doubled.

That's why I quit mining for a while and went on a planned trip to see engineer Felicity Farseer, who invited me to her world in the Deciat system, right after I got the Scout title, during a planet exploration. So now I'm on my way and it will probably take some time before I get there.

I visited the LHS 3167 B system yesterday, where I tried to mine in the A Belt Cluster. But there was more or less just Coltan. Otherwise just 'dust and dirt', as one pirate once remarked, scanning the contents of my cargo bay. I then flew with the material to the beautiful Cartwright station, which looks like a terminal in Dubai. The greenery itself, beautiful architecture, fountains, towers and statues. Very nice! So the architects cared.

Then I jumped into the Arima system, where according to reports, there should be a large amount of valuable raw materials on planet 7B. I discovered more than 10 interesting geological sites there. I went to one. It was a crater with steep walls and undulating terrain, full of humps and holes. A really great test for my SRV vehicle and for me. I had to land about 2.5 km away from the site, due to the unsuitable terrain, and reach the place using SRV. In any case, it was an interesting experience. On the way back to the ship, as I climbed the steep slope, my vehicle overturned and began to roll down. Fortunately, only a few meters and then it turned back on its wheels. Ugh! My heart was in my throat. I was very happy to board again finally and fly away.

I also visited a ring with hotspots near the planet Arima 7. I wanted to try mining Low Temperature Diamonds. But shortly after my arrival, a pirate started attacking me, so I preferred to fly away quickly. These places with valuable minerals are not very safe. I chose another hotspot with Tritium. No one was there at that moment. So I extracted a few tons of Tritium from the subsurface layers using Sub-Surface Displacement Missiles. I had to synthesize the missiles in the ship, because I did not buy any in advance. Next time I have to remember that.

I sold the mined Tritium at the nearby Ataturk Station fleet carrier. Then, before going to bed, I decided that I would fly somewhere into a safer system than Arima with anarchy. This turned out to be a fatal idea finally. I flew to the neighboring LHS 499 system, where I wanted to refuel with fuel scoops upon arrival. It's an M-class star, a red dwarf, scoopable. So I got closer and closer to the star, but the fuel scoops didn't work. It wasn't until my FSD drive finally reached an emergency shutdown and I started frying very quickly in the hellish corona of the star. Of course I didn't have a Heatsink Launcher, as always. So I could only wait for my ship to burn to ashes. Again. Then I experienced the resurrection and reappeared at Ataturk Station... Sometimes there is simply no escape. When I found out where the problem was, I discovered the cause. My fuel scoops were turned off, to save energy. I have a weak power plant, so sometimes I turn off some systems when I don't need them. Oh no! That's why I lost my ship. I can now promote myself to (Own) Ship Destroyer.

I always wondered what the "Xray Papa Echo" voice welcome message meant when I entered the no fire zone of any station. Now I know. These are the first three letters of my CMDR name in the NATO phonetic spelling alphabet. See here.

Bad day today. I lost another of my ships after several hours of mining. I've got this hard mission - mining 25 tons of osmium in the systems with low resources. First I lost my ship with precious cartrographics data, when pirates shooted me and then I lost also my mission, when I mined only 17 tons in time. Really bad day.