I've been staying close to my home system since the "Dogs Head Exp." mainly playing about with different load outs for my Anaconda. After spending more on an 8A power plant than the whole ship cost, it is able to power the mix of lasers, cannon, missile launchers etc I fitted for a combat role.

I then removed the four smallest weapons and replaced them with; two mining lasers, a sub surface displacement missile launcher and an abrasion blaster. Three 5A collector limpet controllers and a 5A prospector limpet controller and it makes an excellent strip minner. It can blast through an astroid fairly quickly and the collectors mean I'm ready to go as soon as it's depleted. Having four prospectors out at once also helps speed things up. The remaining weapons and counter measures give some protection against pirates trying to jump me whilst mining or on the way home.

Tonight I submitted to an interdiction and quickly took out the Novice pirate (my rank is Mostly Harmless) that tried his luck near Cleve Hub. Although, when trying out the new set-up, in the early hours of the morning, I made the mistake of taking on a wing of three pirates, got flustered, selected all the wrong fire groups and found myself looking at a Cr$22M insurance bill! The only small consolation was the fact that I had only just started in the Planetary Ring when they attacked, so I didn't loose much in the way of cargo. Small mercies....

Dog's Head Expedition Report

I took a 280 jump trip out and about, taking in the Seagull Nebula on the way. It makes for an impressive sight as you close in on it. I've named it the "Dogs Head Exp." as the route looks a little like a dog's head on the EDSM mapping page. I found a fair few new systems and dipped my toe into the two neighbouring Galactic Sectors. I had to take a detour on the way back as my original route went straight through the Permit Locked area close to Orion's Nebula. It took me as little while to work out why the map kept failing to find a route home.

I've also stripped down and sold a couple more ships I don't fly anymore. The Mamba, which looks nice, but has poor visibility and after much thought, my original Exploration ship, an Asp Explorer called "For Tea II". It didn't make any sense to just keep it for sentiment reasons.

I decided it was time for another adventure outside the familiar routes around my adopted home system Eravate. My Krait Phantom Exp Twenty Three is able to jump just over 52ly now I have engineered the FSD and a few other bits and bobs. As I never know when I'm going to be online at the same time as an old friend who also enjoys ED, I try and keep such trips to a few days. It's always a pleasant surprise to find previously unvisited systems without having to travel too far. Conventional wisdom seems to suggest you need to travel ~2000ly before you start finding undiscovered systems, but in my limited experience, the key is to look at the map and discount all the routes that lead to the nearest Nebula's and other tourist attractions. Using that method, you start to find new places within around 500ly of leaving the highlighted areas on the Power Play map.

Well, after stripping out and selling my Beluga Liner (which happened to be in the top 1% of luxury cruise ships) my funds were back over 300M. Having now partially fitted out my newest ship, funds have sunk from a touch under 320M to 204M. It would have cost a lot more had I not cannibalised weapons and Utility modules from some of the ships I use less often. Time to go back to harvesting LTDs to build the funds back up. I'll have to check if my total assets have now topped the 1B credits. Not too shabby for around 10 weeks since I bought the ED!

The first record uploaded to EDSM was 8th July and in the month since then I have made 1006 jumps, with an average distance per jump of just under 30LY.

Added two new ships to the fleet: A Vulture & an Anaconda, which took my funds down from ~300M to ~150M credits. After stripping out and selling the Beluga, I'm back up around 300M.

I've also done two short exploration trips: Yesterday I visited the Betelgeuse system and today the Coal Sack Nebula. Got a great image of Betelgeuse from the second planet, which is around 3AU from the star. The Coal Sack was rather disappointing as there were far more stars visible from inside the Nebula than I'd imagined.

Added the Imperial Eagle and Alliance Crusader to my fleet of ships. I'm planning to test fly everything and get rid of the stuff I never get round to reusing.

I also want to use the Navigation Tools to plot my next trip out of the Bubble.

I'm delighted to see the amount and range of information available with EDSM and so I'm really glad I have it another try after having previously had issues syncing with my PS4 account.

I've started to upload my data from my linked PS4 account. This site should be helpful on my next exploration trip.