Профіль пілоту BioEgo > Щоденник

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Ім'я командира:
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starfish [BI-11B]
(Beluga Liner)
 
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9 груд. 2020
 
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Anguish end

I'm almost done crossing the Angustia (Anguish) region and about to enter The Perseus Crags marking my return to one of the main galactic arms.

Meanwhile I've also just left the Errant Marches sector to enter the Vulcan Gate. I've been spending a few months and quite a few thousands light-years in the Marches so it feels strange to finally read another sector name on the HUD when jumping.

The voyage is far from over though, since there are still about 20KLy between me and Colonia.

A fallen explorer

Today I found something that remembered me of my own weaknesses. It was a fallen DBX on a lonely moon in a far out system in the Angustia region. It's a fate I myself went very close to meet more than once, when doing high-speed surface reconnaissances and crashing my ship into the ground. Luckily for me my shields saved me from the worst case scenario, even if my hull was pretty heavily damaged.

At the moment I'm at 66% hull....and I've been in worse shape during my travels.

So it was with a feeling of dread and awe that I approached this "memento mori".

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Approach at dawn

Today I witnessed one of the most impressive view in my career as an explorer. I really fancied the day we could once again land on atmospheric planets. Granted todays tech only allows for thin atmospheres, but it is still enough to provide a true spectacle when the light conditions are right.

I was approaching a moon of a ringed gas giant and I found myself travelling across the terminator line, where night and day meet. It wasn't the first time, but when you do that on an airless rock you just see a stark separation between illuminated areas and dark ones, with long shadows...nice but nothing in comparison to the show of the sky at dawn!

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Enriching the CODEX

Today I've added three new entries in the CODEX for the Errant Marches region. This time it weren't totally new species but new variants of already discovered species.

The colour of the day it seems was green since I found:

BACTERIUM AURASUS (GREEN) enter image description here enter image description here

STRATUM PALEAS (EMERALD) enter image description here enter image description here

OSSEUS SPIRALIS (TURQUOISE) enter image description here enter image description here

A new lifeform

I'm starting to understand how the new DSS works. Basically instead of giving out the exact location of an high concentration of geological or biological features, it provides an heatmap that should help locating interesting areas on the surface.

Then it's up to you to travel around until you actually find something. It's like it was back in the days of old, when you had to wander around with your SRV to find materials, but with the heatmap you at least have an higher chance of finding something. It makes thing a little more complex, but overall the experience is nice.

So while trying to get the hang of it all, I happened to stumble into a plant life form, and based on the codex I've been the first one to find it in the Errant Marches. So please everyone say "Hi!" to the FONTICULUA CAMPESTRIS (MAUVE):

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Learning the ropes again

I started thinking about myself as a pretty experienced explorer, but the new upgrades I downloaded to my ship's equipment are making me feel like a total noob :(

Let's take the DSS for instance: once it was just a matter of scanning a planet, get the list of features on the Nav panel and select the one I wanted to visit. Then it was just a matter of landing the ship in the right spot (and possibly in one piece).

Now I found a planet with 3 Biological signals: I thought "Great! This is a good opportunity to see xenobiological entities from up close!", so I got to the planet, DSS'ed it and...I got no entries in the Nav panel. Instead there was a choice to filter the signals by type (Bacterial colonies, shrugs, fungoids) and a sort of heat-map overlayed the planet. I assumed that landing in one of the marked area would mean a good opportunity to find the selected life form....but it obviously isn't so easy.

Oh well, maybe next time I'll understand how this works.

Anyway it was a nice opportunity to test the limits of my ship: it seems that with very tenous atmospheres (this one was less than 1/100th of an atm) I can land with my standard planetary suite.

Admiring the galaxy rising over the mountains and the different colours of the sky during full day and sunset is pretty nice!

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Upgraded!

I managed to download a pretty big update to the Wanderer's systems. Finally I can override the security checks to let me disembark the ship planetside!

I've obviously took the first opportunity to take a few selfies "in the wild"

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I've also noticed several upgrades in the UI of the navigation systems. It now marks some atmospheric planets as landable, but the ship is refusing to do so...probably I need to buy some additional shielding. It makes sense: downloading a patch to override the hatch opening controls is one thing...but ship components cannot be just sent over the Galnet ;)

It seems however that the new scanner firmware is much more effective in finding wrekages from orbit now, that's a nice feature.

I got off exploring a small one and took a selfie with both the Wanderer and the SRV

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Speaking of new features: it seems the landing computer is now trying to autoland also on planetary surfaces. Let's say that the first experience has not been very good, with the system failing to find an optimal landing spot, so for the time being I'll keep it offline and land manually as I'm used to.

Signing off for the day, tomorrow I'll be going back on route to Colonia.

Change of plans

It's been a while since my last entry. I've been meditating about what to do next. After leaving the DSSA Andromed Calling the original plan was to head north through the Mare Desperationis toward the Outer Arm Rift. Once there I'd turn due east and head for Colonia.

I'm not sure whether it was the name of the region I was traversing, the Sea of desperation, or simply a mild case of "explorer burnout", but I didn't really fancy the idea of spending all that time crossing an almost empty region.

So I decided to simply make route directly to Colonia. Since then I've made it back to the Outer Arm proper and I'm now approaching the Angustia region extending between the Outer and Perseus arms.

The funny thing is that while I was out there, close to the western frontier, with almost no stars in sight, most of the systems I visited had been already explored...now that I'm back in a more dense region of space, and closing in to inhabited areas I'm once again tracing my own path of discovery through never visited star systems!

It goes without saying that I've been taking a few pictures here and there.

In Oemoll LX-N c9-3 I decided to give a closer look to the rings of a blue gas giant enter image description here

First I simply dived in the outer ring... enter image description here

...and then I decided to give a closer look to the gap between the two rings (you can see it in the first picture). Unfortunately I only managed to take a static shot, but it was impressive seeing the asteroids of the inner ring spinning rapidly in front of me while those behind me where almost stationary (relative to me of course). enter image description here

In Byea Thoea AR-P c5-0 I found a nice planet for landing and I took this picture during final approach: I know it is just a barren rock in empty space, but it looked nice and colourful. enter image description here

Blooe Dryoo CI-Q d6-5 had a nice pair of ringed ones orbiting one another....and my fetish for rings compelled me to take a pic :) enter image description here

In Blooe Dryoo RE-G b57-0 I took a nice picture of the huge moonrise of a very small moon: perspective is key here since both the moon I'm landed on and the one rising have the same size and orbit extremely close, making even a very tiny icy-body loom over the horizon like a mighty giant. enter image description here

Logging of for now, I've still quite a few thousands light-years between me and Colonia. I won't probably update very often the log, but I'll try to make an entry from time to time to keep track of what I'm doing.

Andromeda Calling

Finally made it to the DSSA Andromeda Calling. It's nice to be back where other humans are, but the trip is not over.

For the time I'll enjoy a bit of rest on the carrier: while it is still canned air, at least I'm not sleeping in the Wanderer for the first time in a long while!

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Three in a row

Just witnessed a star alignment...is it a good omen?

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