Flew out to Dav's Hope today to find out about the magical materials gathering properties of this place. I was after Electrochemical Arrays, and on my 10th or so log in, I finally found some. I am finding this type of grind a bit immmersion breaking. I might go back to just finding what I find as I go through systems and upgrade my enginerring as I find the pars (or Tech Broker unlocks). Anyway, I will visit Hot Jupiter after this. Three more goes, and if no electrochemical arrays come up, I will be off.

This is a great spot for High Density Composites and Conductive Polymers and Polymer capactors.

After rescuing plenty of Federation Civilians for the Community Goal, I managed to rank up sufficiently in the Federation that I earned to Sol system permit. So, as any good earthling would, I took off to visit there on March 18th. And later that day, I took off to visit Gateway (Edmond Mahon's HQ system) as I had never been there before either.

I was doing this touring in a Viper Mk III, but I went as swapped it back for my deep space DBX to head of to HIP 12099 (the site of Commander Jameson's crashed ship) on March 19th. It is a most interesting site, and I also picked up a lot of great quality data for the engineers.

Then, the next day, I headed off to Merope - the heart of the Pleiades Nebula sector. Visited loads of places - Maia with a big black hole, and Delphi where I found my first Thargoid surface site. Many, many thargoid finnds here - crashed ships and all sorts. Big fun.

On March 15th I bought an Orca and went to Rhea (Felicia Winters' HQ system) and performed a few rescues with it, then on March 16th I bought a Beluga and went to Nanomam (Zachary Hudson's HQ system) to rescue a few there.

This pretty much bled down nearly all of the money I had made from my long deep space exploration trip. I found that as ships requiring large landing pads (as opposed to the small for the Dolphin) both of these ships were much harder to manouver into the damaged stations and dock. They also both heated up much more than the dolphin does, and I did have to use a lot of heatsinks. So much so, that I really couldn't afford to stop and collect persoanl effects without gaining loads of heat and popping heatsinks, something that was much, much easier in the Dolphin. That small ship really is a station rescue specialist.

I think I will repurpose these two for long range passenger missions, but not yet.

So, I had a go at a community goal this week. Several Imperial Stations had been blown up by the NMLA and required a lot of rescuing. I had heard that these were challenging missions to do, so I got my Dolphin and headed to Achenar on March 12th. I performed many passenger rescues and personal effect retrieval (among others). The Dolphin really runs cool. I hardly even needed to use a heatsink. Usually deployed one on the way in, and one on the way out, but I really didn't nneed one on the way out. I had heard other guys saying they needed to pop heatsinnks like crazy, but not with this baby.

I did so many rescues during this time that I managed to rank up to Baron and get an Imperial Clipper.

After Achenar, I headed to Eotienses (Dentonn Patreus HQ system) on March 13th to do a few more rescues there. And then, on March 14th I headed to Kamedhenu (Alissa Lavigny-Deval's HQ system) to rescue a few of her civilians as well.

Feeling very proud to rescue so many Imperials.

In order to participate properly in the CG shipping supplies to Sirius, I called up my big Type-9 Heavy, which has a 710T cargo bay. Unfortunately fully loaded it only has a 15ly jump range compared to over 20ly for the Anaconda. However, there was a system only one or two jumps away that was a great supply of coffee for the summit.

On with the goal. I managed to get into the top 25%, and also pumped my Trade rank up to Tycoon. Just one more step to Elite.

So, having returned to the bubble with my big wedge of money, and having gained Elite Explorer status just prior to my long expedition I decided to visit the Founders World system seeing as I had been granted the permit. As all of the ships and acccessories here have a permanent 10% discount I decided to make a few changes to my DBX and add a couple of AFMUs and get rid of the hardpoints and heavy hull plating which managed to get my jump ranger to 50 ly+. I wanted to buy my first Anaconda, but headed into Li Yong-Rui space as he has a full 15% discount. This actually shaved 5 mill off the cost of my Anaconda, but I headed back to Shinrarta Dezhra in order to kit it out. This all burned through about half of my money. I also applied the Galnet paintjob, which I had received as a newsletter subscriber about three years ago - hahahahaha.

I had a respectable 309T cargo bay in this ananconda, which I have equipped for mining, but in order to participate properly in the CG shipping supplies to Sirius, I called up my big Type 9 Heavy, which has a 710T cargo bay. Unfortuntely fully loaded it only has a 15ly jump range compared to over 20ly for the Anaconda.

Anyway, on with the goal. I have already managed to get into the top 75%.

So, having left the Elephant Trunk nebula I headed towards the NGC 7822 nebula. So many very bright O class stars. But I was disappointed to find that I couldn't find any biological discoveries, just more Prasinum Bioluminescent Anenomes. This trip took me just back into the Elysian Shore. After visiting a few of these stars (there are over 30 O class stars I think) I headed towards the Cave Nebula. This leg took me back into the Inner Orion Spur. Looked around the Cave Nebula a bit, then pushed on towards the California Nebula. Found the Darwin Research Facility in the middle of this nebula and cashed in my exploration data.

I had trouble plotting a course directly to the Witch Head nebula, so instead I decided to visit WASP-77 A which has a high G planet (7.95 G) as the nearest planet to it's sun. As I had cashed in my exploration data, I decided I would try a landing on a high G planet. It was a very bumpy affair, even though I knew it was high G, and I am very glad I had shields, otherwise I may have lost a bit of hull integrity. Measuring a touch of downwards thrust was much more difficult than I expected. Another thing that caught me by surprise was when I roamed out in my SRV to the geological signal. I had not noticed the gentle downward slope as I headed to wards the signal, but when I turned to go back, the SRV wheels just spun against the modest 10 degree slope - which I guess was the effect of the high G. I was pondering whether to risk dismissing the ship and getting it to land closer, but I figured that 1) it might blow itself up trying to land or 2) it may end up just as far away and I would be no better off anyway. I managed to find a gentler incline which I could climb, and wended my way around back to my craft.

I saw on Galnet that a new CG was starting and when I checked my map, I realised I was only 8 jumps away from Cubeo - my de facto home base. So I headed home.

I set off from Suyarang on January 3rd for a visit to some Guardian Ruins after getting the Ram Tah mission some weeks earlier. I had just finished getting access to engineer Bill Turner in Alioth (after a lot of mining) and I went to Suyarang to swap my Cobra Mk III kitting for mining for my Diamondback Explorer. Initially I headed to Synuefe XR-H d11-102 as I had read it was the first Guardian site discovered. I arrived there later on January 3rd after a fairly uneventful trip. Following this, I set a course for HIP 39768 for further Guardian exploration, which I reached on January 5th.

Having visited two Guardian sites which I had looked up, I wanted to try exploring space blindly to see if I could stumble across one by myself. I also had to get 5,000 ly from my start point to open up two other engineers - Chloe Sedesi and Professor Palin.

So in aid of this I decided to set a course for the Seagull Nebula, and along the way I made my first "first" system discovery (on EDSM) at Wregoe GK-N b34-6 on January 6th. Unfortunately, according to Frontier the star and one planet had previously been discovered by THEAMAZINATOR, and the rest of the planets were discovered by SPRATDOG. I subsequently found Wregoe EU-H C10-6 which was my truly first system to fully discover and map on January 7th.

I reached the Seagull Nebula on Jan 11th, and it was pretty clear to me by this time that I wasn't going to find many Guardian ruins on my own, nor that I was likely to make it back to Meene in time to cash in what little I had found. This trip had taken me into the Sanguinous Rim region - the first time I had left the Inner Orion Spur, and I decided to push on to the Rosette Nebula. Just as I reached the Rosette Nebula, I saw a post on Facebook talking about an Asteroid Base in the middle of the nebula, so I went and visited New Beginnings and cashed in my exploration data. Unfortunately, it seems that I neglected to start EDMC for this part of the trip so, I am unsure of the exact date, but it was between Jan 11th and Jan 16th, and my Travel Log lists Slegeae FA-H b16-0 visited on the 11th and Cyoide NG-C b58-0 listed on the 16th with a 3,227.14 ly jump (which clearly I could not do in my Diamondback Explorer)

At this point I was far from home and wanted to push on to the Crab Nebula as it was on the border of the Elysian Shore sector. I reached Station X in the nebula on Jan 17th. Along the way I discovered (and was first to map) my first Earth like world in Scheau Phio HH-G B29-0 in a system with an M-Class Red Dwarf. This was also part of my trip where I did not have EDMC running, so I didn't get the badge for an earth like world until some time later, and I also do not know the exact date.

As I was so close to the Elysian Shore, I wanted to head in there, and I had seen a Facebook "Wish you were here" post showing the CMDR Alex McKinnon Memorial at Heart Sector EB-X c1-12 in the Heart Nebula, so I decided to head off in that direction. Along the way I discovered many firsts, including another Earth like world in an M-Class Red Dwarf system - at Phraa Hypa UP-O b52-1 on the 24th Jan. I think this one was the one that triggered my EDSM badge. I also discovered that Farsight Expedition Base was in the nebula (Heart Sector IR-V b2-0) so I took the opportunity to cash in my exploration data again om Jan 31st. As the Heart and Soul Nebulas are so close together, I thought that I simply had to visit them both. I visited Base Camp in Soul Sector EL-Y d7 and was interdicted several times as an anarchist gaction had taken control of the system. I parked here for the night on Jan 31st. I was most unused to being so rudely treated, so I was happy to head back into the black.

My original plan was to head back to the bubble, but I found out about some abandoned bases. I headed towards Eafots LZ-H b10-0 to visit the Fordamine Rift Beta Settlement which I reached on Feb 4th. It was now time to head back to the bubble, but first I wanted to visit the NGC 281 nebula and check out the O class star in the middle of it. I reached BD+55 191 on Feb 7th and was delighted to find that it had four O Class stars and a single High Metal Content planet which had Anenomes on it - the very first time I had ever found any.

Next I plotted a course to the Elephant Trunk nebula as a staging point for my trip back to the bubble. It was in the vicinity of 150 jumps. I arrived at Elephant's Trunk Sector CL-Y e2 on Feb 13th and found some more anenomes in this system. On the trip I found a very cool star pattern, so I tried to work out where it was to go towards it. I believe that I have worked out it is the NGC 7822 nebula, and it is only about 20 jumps away, so I am now headed in that direction.

Previously my plan was to head to the Witch Head nebula (and civilsation) via the California Nebula, but I think I will now go via the Cave Nebula (and possibly the California Nebula after that on the way.