Two years ago I took on a mission from Ram Tah and headed out to some Guardian ruins to investigate the mysteries of the Guardian Codexes. I only visited a couple of Guardian Ruins that I had looked up, and then decided that I would try to head off in a random direction and see if I could find anything by myself. I ended up going via the seagull nebula and then via the heart and soul nebulas and visited the formadine rift. I didn't find any more Guardian ruins. My Ram Tah mission had long expired by this time, so I didn't get any payout for the stuff I had scanned. Once back in the bubble I had made a stack of money from the exploration data, and I bought a Type 9 in time to haul a heap of coffee for the Sirius superpowers summit Community Goal, which got me to Tycon Trader level. I think then there were a couple of terrorist attacks and I spent some more money on new passenger ships, and tried them out at station rescues. That was really a lot of fun, and a new experience for me. So I guess I had got a bit of an adrenaline rush, and I decided I wanted to go to Colonia via the neutron super highway, as I had never boosted off a neutron star before. Well, that tok me a few months to get there, because as an explorer at heart, I really had to map every system that I jumped to. By the way, I had already made explorer Elite before leaving the bubble - in fact before even starting on the Ram Tah mission - by just FSS and mapping planets inside the bubble.

Anyway, having spoent all that time getting out to Colonia, I decided to stay out there for about a year because I was enjoying things. But I missed a lot of community goals to do with the salvation cycle, and I also missed out on all the Winking Cat stuff around Christmas 2021 (or 3307 I think?). So about September I decided to head back to the bubble via Sag A. I got back around Halloween, because I was just in time to catch the tail of that event and half compelte it before the time ran out.

My plan, once I got back to the bubble was to get an Alliance Crusader (as I had already bought a CHieftain and a Challenger) and kit it out with a Scorpion SRV to finally check out these Guardian Ruins and Structures. I had seen on a forum that the Scorpion is really god against Guardian Sentianls because it doesn't get knocked over as eeasily by the missiles. (And that is true, but the targeting is a real pain).

Anyway, the Thargoids invaded about then and that put my plans on ice for a little while, as I rekitted my Type 7 as an Economy evacuation bus and did a few rescues. I also tried my hand at AX combat again. I had tried it out at the Witch Head nebula in a challenger, but with fixed AX multicannons and not being a particularly skilled pilot, I was really struggling to hit scouts as they whizzed around the screen. After the enhanced AX multicannons came out, I got some for my Crusader, a large turret and medium gimbals, and found that I could hit scouts pretty well. Still not too flash up against interceptors though. I decided that I needed to get some module bluprints so that I could get some Guardian Module Reinforcements.

So, I went and got the Ram Tah mission again. Now, I have to say, there are now many much easier ways to make 100 million. In fact, during the period I was completing the mission I hink I collected 25 mil in exploration data, and another 700 mill in exobiology scanning. Two years ago, I would have been wrapped with the idea of making 100 mill in 4 weeks. And another thing I found very disappointing was that the glyphs don't show up on the active codex poillars any more. I rememebr being very pleased when I could finally identify what the symbols resolved to two years ago, but now they just keep the spinning image. So I felt much less guilty about using third party resources to make my hunt easier. I could not have worked out what the combinations were anyway without randomly trying everything - and that would have really taken forever.

So, a couple of days ago, I finally cashed in a mission that I originally started two years ago, and it feels pretty good. Now back to making some decent money evacuating thargoid invaded star systems.

I was faffing about around Colonia trying some mining in my Python, and alternating trying my hand at combat in my Eagle Mk II and Cobra MkIII which I had engineered and equipped with fixed weapons to learn how to use them and improve my combat ranking.

Having taken part in the first Colonia Bridge community goal and doing reasonably well out of it (top 50%), I decided to participate in the second as well.

I did a couple of quick runs to close locations to Colonia, but there were scant materials to be found, but at least that got me on the board as a participant. Had a look on Eddb and I could see that some of the CG required supplies were available a little further afield at Kashyapa (2,500 ly) and Gandharvi (5,000 ly) and Rohini (10,000 ly). So I loaded up with some stuff I could sell at an industrial station, as well as my full complement of Jaques Quinentian Still and headed off for Kashyapa. I made a bit of distance on my way, but after logging off I couldn't play for a couple of days due to a real life day trip to visit relatives after the Covid lockdown finished. When I logged back in two days later, I learned that the CG had finished within the first two days and my trip was now effectively pointless.

However, I decided to persist with the run anyway and turned it into an exploration trip and scanned everything I could, and mapped any water worlds and terraformable HMCs I could find. Ended up making about 70 mill when I cashed in at Kashyapa and immediately became an ally of the Charterhouse Guild. I also made a bit of trading profit as well. As the CG had finished and I only made top 100%, and the reward to collect was only 1 mill, I thought I might push on to Gandharvi anyway to see what that system was like and collect more exploration data.

Unfortunately my casual exploration trip had made me careless, and I left my ship scooping while I went off and did a couple of other things around the house and came back to klaxons blaring and "taking heat damage". It wasn't too bad, and I continued my trip until I fell for the same mistake again two days later. However, this time I had left it for longer and severe damage had been done. My heatsink launcher and several other modules were at 0% and even my FSD was at 51%. With another 77 jumps to Gandharvi (and some Neutrons stars that would damage the FSD further) and only 20 jumps back to Kashyapa, I decided to go back for repairs.

I think at this point I may just head back to Colonia and collect from the CG, then switch to my Eagle to try to improve my combat rating to Expert so that I can unlock Petra Olmanova in Asura.

I decided to take a long run in my newly acquired, Colonia based dolphin. I accepted a job to travel 19kly to Pyroifoea CP-X c2-4 in order for this bloke to "collect data", which translates to "scanning the visitor beacon". Using the ED Galaxy Map it took around 550 jumps.

Left on September 8th and got there on September 17th, then took a bit of a run to CL Pismis 13 to check out the nebula on September 20th. I used the Spansh Galaxy Plotter to generate this run and it was only about 50 jumps.

Then a couple of days ago I headed back. I decided to use the standard ED Galaxy Map to plan my route. I realised as I did my trek to CL Pismis 13, that the downside of using Spansh is that it only goes through known and mapped systems - so I would never discover a new star system, and I certainly wouldn't discover a new Neutron Star system. And on the way back to Colonia I actually found a couple that had never been visited before.

I jumped in my DBX to improve a couple of modules, and then in a drunken evening I accepted a mass of missions (mainly mining) and attempted to complete them. My intention was to swap to the Python and jump out a bit a do some quiet mining in peace.

I discovered on Discord that the Prismatic Imperium (who run my home system of Cubeo - Powerplay HQ for Aisling Duval) had an associated group out here - Colonists of Aurora - with a home in the system Aurora Astrum, so I went out for a visit. And on my way I got a couple of disturbing messages. Two of my mining missions (which had "wing" recommended - I assumed just for the amount of materials that needed to be mined) alerted me that I had an Incoming Enemy Alert. No probs, I thought I will ignore them in my weaponless DBX. However, I was repeatedly interdicted twice in every system I jumped to - One Anaconda, and one Fer De Lance. And then it dawned on me that if I just switched to the Python to mine, they would jump in on me while I was mining, and my Python being all mining hardpoints would quickly become mincemeat.

So, I headed back to Colonia to swap to the Krait Mk II, and took off for Luchtaine in order to equip a stack of turreted pulse lasers and engineer them as well as I could.

I managed to kill the first Fer De Lance with my turrets, but my initial engagement with the Anaconda did not go nearly so well. I had to jump desperately out of the system to avoid being blown up. I headed to a station and hired a pilot for my fighter so that I could have a bit more firepower. And I also decided that I needed a new strategy. Given that I was able to handle the Fer De Lance ok, I decided to fight the interdiction from the Anaconda, and finish off the stream of Fer De Lances. Oh yeah, that was the other bit of frightening news - there were 7 Fer De Lances, and 9 Anacondas chasing me. So the Fer De Lance part went pretty much to plan. By the end I was even able to finish them off without losing my shields completely. But the Anacondas were much harder, even with the able assistance of my fighter pilot. I got a couple of them down to pretty low hull, and then they jumped out. When I went back to the station to repair and re-arm, then came back out again to get interdicted, they were in a brand new ship, with full shields and full hull. I had a Wake Scanner equipped, so the next time they jumped out on me, I scanned their wake and followed them (I had originally just equipped the scannner to try to find Datamined Wake Exceptions by scanning everything I came across). When they interdicted me in the next system, they still had the hull damage, and the shields had not fully recovered, so they were easier to finish. The downside of this practice was that they usually jumped to uninhabited systems, which meant that without a Kill Warrant Scanner, I was not able to earn a bounty off the kill. I had been staying in inhabited systems for exactly this reason. Well, that and the bonus that System Authority ships might show up. And, the bounties on these ships were worth about a million each give or take.

So, I managed to finish off the Fer De Lances and all the Anancondas without needing a rebuy - phew. Then I finished off one "Collect Personal Effects" mission (in Tenjin) that I had which I had tried earlier, and found it to be a Threat 2 Degraded Emissions, and as expected, when I went to scoop the canisters some enemies dropped in and started firing at me. I think the first time I was in my unarmed DBX and hot footed it out. I certainly wasn't the second time. I deployed the fighter and approached the canisters and waited for the bad guys. Once I finished them off (only some Vipers and Asps) I was free to collect the salvage.

After delivering this mission in Asura, I headed to Macrath for another similar mission. On the way I got more bad news. Two other wing mining missions I had were also sending enemies after me. Six Vultures, and another nine Anacondas, but the condas were worth less this time around (but just as hard). I was running out of time to complete the salvage mission, so I tried another strategy. I jumped into the correct system, and then fought the interdictions in turn. Having beaten them both, I was able to scan the system in peace and find my mission target. This time, blissfully, it was a Threat 0, but I deployed the fighter anyway just in case. But it was unneccessary, the collection passed without incident, and I jumped to Asura to finish the mission. Of course, once I jumped I had two interdictions to fight, but they are much easier than killing the ships. Mission completed. Sweet.

Now I still had the task of finishing the attackers. I again chose the path of fighting the Anaconda interdiction and submitting for the Vulture. I could finish the Vultures without losing any hull, but I'm not sure that I would have been able to without my fighter operating. The Anacondas were entirely a different thing, but by the last two I managed to finish them without completely losing my shields.

So, in the past few days I have defeated (admittedly all NPCs, but they have beaten me before) 18 Anancondas with Deadly pilots 7 Fer De Lances with Dangerous pilots and 6 Vultures with Master pilots

I feel pretty good about myself. In fact, I might go and buy a little Cobra Mark III while I am out here and learn to fly with flight assist off and see if I can take down some bigger ships. We will see.

Now I have to actually get the mining done - if they don't send more ships after me. (I really hope they don't).

I purchased a Python and fitted it out as a mining ship. Unfortunately this means that it has no offensive capacity whatsoever. I ran a few missions so that I could unlock the Double Engineered FSD from the Tech Broker, and also the Engineered Detailed System Scanner.

Then I stored the Python and bought a Krait Mk II which I kitted out as a Passenger ship, but with a Fighter Bay so I could try a bit of that out. On the 29th July I reached Dryooe Flyou MX-B d13-587 with my Krait. It was a system which I had bookmarked on my way to Colonia intending to come back and map all the planets. I think I set out on the 25th July, but because I had no AFMU I decided not to do any neutron boosting. This led to many discoveries as a consequence. I returned to Colonia on Aug 1st, and started running a few passenger missions.

So after getting the Guardian Gauss Cannon unlocked for my AX Challenger, I headed back to the Witch Head nebula and swapped it over for the Deep Space Explorer DBX. I took a run from there out to the Spirograph Nebula to find more stellar phenomena, which was good, but I had equipped a couple of AFMUs when I was in the bubble so that I could try out Neutron boosting. I read a few stories on the internet (mainly the Elite Dangerous facebook group) which seemed pretty scary, so I was somewhat apprehensive.

I set out on July 4th from the Spirograph Nebula and used the Spansh plotter in earnest for the first time. I hit my first Neutron Star at Col 359 Sector TO-I d9-36 and followed the instructions I had read, making sure that I entered the tail pointing away from the star and it all went fairly smoothly.

By the time I reached Colonia on the 11th July, after more than 100 jumps (many boosted), I was very comfortable with the procedure. I think I will stay here for a while to look around a bit, and unlock the engineers out here.

This community goal had popped up, and I wasn't too far away from the Guardian Ruins in Synuefe XR-H d11-102, so I decided to give my newly improved Challenger a bit of a run out there.

I had a 72 tonne cargo capacity in this ship, and while I don't normally like to rort the system with the relogging thing, it was the fastest way to gather a full hold of the artifacts. When I plotted a course to Delphi, I was pleased to discover that it was only 25 jumps away.

I delivered my cargo, and was astounded to find that I had ended up in the top 25% (with one delivery). The reward for the CG was to unlock a Guardian Gauss Cannon, so I immediately equipped it on my Challenger annd went out to try it out.

I am still pretty crap against Thargoid scouts, so I would not contemplate taking on an Interceptor yet.

I took my Challenger across to the Alaunus system for two reasons. One - because there was a Generation Ship (Lycaon) to investigate, and secondly because there was supposed to be a Q-Type anomaly in this system, and I had never previously seen any Notable Stellar Phenomena on my DSS or up close.

As an added bonus, when I dropped in to the area with the Notable Stellar Phenomena, there were metallic crystals there as well as the anomalies.

I upgraded my DBX to a 50 ly jump ship, and headed out to the Witch Head nebula to upgrade my Alliance Challenger which I had bought out there to attempt (badly) to fight Thargoids in a previous Community Challenge. I don't think I killed any on my initial attempts, but I got scared pretty well. They mashed me up fast. I also needed the cargo capacity of the Challenger to collect all of the materials I needed to unlock the size 4 corrosion resistant cargo rack. I had foolishly tried to collect some Thargoid components for Professor Palin in my DBS for a mission that popped up in Merope, but they burned through my cargo doors (taking internal damage) and fell out into the void. I had actually paid for these too, so I was pretty miffed.

I wasn't able to get better than B rated stuff from most of the outfitters in the nebula, including Chloe Sedesi, who I had just recently unlocked due to a fortuitous visit to the Pleiades nebula and getting my sensor fragmennt quantity courtesy of some Thargoid Scavengers at a Thargoid surface site in the Delphi system. I tried plotting a course out of the Witch Head nebula with my Challenger, but because of its relatively poor jump range (even after engineering it) I could not find a way past the Col 70 permit locked system.

On April 9 I eventually found a system (and bookmarked it - Synuefe DH-T d4-10) that was far enough below the galactic plane that I could, after reaching it, plot a course straight back into the bubble. After gathering the required materials, I went across to the Technology Broker in GCRV 3791 and bought the double engineered size 5 Frame Shift Drive. Sweet.

So, today I went to Hot Jupiter to check it out as a materials gathering site. It's really slow to get to because of the gravity wells betwen the big gas giant and the star. Then I decided to attack the visiting Beluga thinking it was unprotected. False. It dropped mines at me, which I was not at all expecting and they pretty much knocked out my shields immediately. Then it jumped away to Khun - about 10 Ly away, and the home system for Engineer Elvira Maartuk. Good to know it's so close.

Anyway, I sacked this as a fun thing to do - Don't much like shooting up innocent tourists anyway.

Off to the Hind Mine in T Tauri as a pit stop on my way back to the Witch Head Nebula. Only 40 jumps to T Tauri. Oh well.