I'd been running missions for HOTCOL for a while now, couriering this, transporting that, scanning the other, and even occasionally chipping away at asteroids for a spot of mining. The "Punctuitious" was certainly living up to the role I had envisaged of being an all-round craft. This role had in earlier days been filled by the Cobra MkIII class of craft, but with the increased specialisation and equipment requirements, the smaller ship just isn't sufficient anymore. Don't get me wrong, it can be equipped to handle any of the requirements, but only individually, and requires significant refitting between tasks.

The larger Python class however has morphed from being primarily a bulk cargo transporter to being an excellent multirole ship. Excelling perhaps at nothing, but certainly more than capable of everything with only minimal refitting required.

Recently the lure of the Black was getting stronger again, but I was not yet ready to leave Colonia and make the last push back to the Bubble. So when the Universal Cartographics posted a little notice requesting more information on S-Class stars I jumped at the chance to escape the hubbub of civilisation for a bit. I stripped the "Punctuitious" of some non-essential modules and extra weaponry, fitted a fuel scoop, and was soon jumping to pristine systems never seen before by human eyes. Ah; how I had missed this!

The "Punctuitious" is certainly a far more spacious and luxurious craft than my old Asp Explorer, even though she is not nearly so well suited for long-range travel. As this was not a deep-space trip however, being only a couple of hundred lightyears away, it was not a problem for me.

I happily spent the next few months enjoying my solitude, the stunning vistas, and the mostly unexplored systems in this area of space. Interestingly, S-class stars near Colonia seem to cluster together, most being only a jump or two from their neighbours. I hope Universal Cartographics will get the information they require out of this. As for me, I'm recharging my batteries out here away from the hustle-and-bustle of settled space.

Mission-runnning near Colonia, and a new Ship

In recent weeks I have been slowly exploring the area around Colonia and the local systems and stations. Part of this exploration was due to running more and more missions for the Hutton Orbital Truckers - Colonia operations (or HOTCOL).

This lead to some interesting diversions, such as the slight misunderstanding in the "Pergamon" system where I was supposed to scan the datalink of a small installation for potential errors and instead blundered into a secured installation which was not entirely happy to see me snooping about. Not at all. After narrowly escaping with my SRV and having parting shots glancing off my shields as I blasted skywards I had accumulated quite a bounty in the system. Needless to say I also failed the mission.

But that sort of thing never keeps me down for long! Soon after I was busy scanning other surface installations, this time the correct ones!, and running various cargo and data courier missions around the Colonia "bubble".

As the amount of cargo kept increasing I started eyeing off a rather shiny new Python which had just recently been delivered to the Faulcon DeLacy showroom at Jacques Station. Moreover, my trusty "Alacritious" was in desperate need of a complete overhaul quite apart from the initial repairs and refit which she got on my arrival at Colonia. And, to be rather brutally honest, I was well and truly sick of her cockpit after having spent nearly 2 years cramped up in it.

So, after a few more days procrastination, please welcome the "Punctilious" Python to my fleet! Hopefully she will live up to her name and let me continue to fulfil missions around here! Quite apart from the standard mission-running loadout and some basic defences, I've also installed a small refinery to try my hand at some mining as I heard the payout can be quite good!

I took a scenic route from "Arcanonn's Legacy" to visit the "Prisma Renata" base in the "Aurora Astrum" system. Unfortunately after docking I realised that the base was not actually under control of the Canonn Deep Space Research faction, and thus did not sell any exploration data there.

After a bit of a refit I left and jumped to "Eol Procul Centauri" system, where I landed at "Fort Mug" (ForT'MUG!!) and proceeded to sell another 10 million credits of exploration data, gaining allied status with the HOTCOL faction. Yes, this is the distant and far more reputable branch of the Hutton Orbital Truckers...

After an extended break in one of the shower cubicles at "Fort Mug" (it does feel great not to have to use the ship facilities all the time anywmore, although, what -is- that hair doing on the cubicle wall? I'm sure it started crawling..) I returned to my ship and took a scenic route back to "Rodentia Petram" where I made my way to "Rock Rats Reach" again for more data-dumping.

(VR) Video Log:

I continued to enjoy the hospitality at "Arcanonn's Legacy", selling more exploration data.

I left "Rodentia Petram" and headed over to "Canonnia" to visit "Arcanonn's Legacy".

As with "Rock Rats Reach", I landed outside the exclusion zone of the base and made my way in via SRV. It appears the issue with the skimmers is affecting all the local systems.

Once docked I proceeded to sell off a chunk of exploration data, and was soon allied with the Canonn Deep Space Research group.

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I left Jacques Station and headed to the Rodentia Petram system 2 jumps away, where I wanted to visit the "Rocks Rats Reach" base.

However I had heard of a malfunction with the base skimmers, which apparently like to dive-bomb approaching ships, causing near-instant death. As such I set down about 16km from the base, and approached in my SRV - quite the appropriate rat approach I thought!

Once at the base it took me a little while to find the SRV docking bays, and then commenced selling exploration data. Outfitting here is rather poor, with mostly E-class modules for sale.

COLONIA!!!

Cmdr LuciusCantilius (Eisen) met me about 300LY above Colonia, and escorted me the remainder of the way.

It was a bit nerve-racking, to be honest, as several pirates attempted to stop me on the last few jumps. However, I was well-schooled by Iridium Wing (whose services I regretfully did not end up using, but am nevertheless incredibly thankful for their tutoring) and was able to quickly jump to neighbouring systems before resuming my journey.

Once in Colonia I was overwhelmed by the amount of traffic. At least it was mostly harmless tourists as the system is well-patrolled by security forces, and apart from approaching the wrong station to start off with, I made it safely to Jacques Station.

What a sight! Incredible seeing the station suspended in front of the ringed gas-giant, and that glorious nebula backdrop.

After a brief discussion with the station traffic controller I was allocated landing pad #20, and assigned an approach slot. Carefully maneuvering the "Alacritious" between the numerous Orca-class tourist ships, I made my final approach and managed to get through the docking slot without mishap, and finally touched down on the pad! A pent-up breath was released, and I let go of the controls with trembling hands. Made it!

First things first - organise the station technicians to give the "Alacritious" a full service; she has certainly deserved it after nearly 2 years out in the black and over 300,000 light-years since the last docking.

Here is a video log (uncut) of the final few jumps and docking.

And some pictures:

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I continued exploring a few more systems in the "Clover Nebula", but as I was starting to smell the whisky at Jacques I didn't spend too much time here.

Soon I was heading out to clear space again, but even here I kept running into tagged systems, especially Neutron Stars. Definitely in a well-travelled region of space now! Nevertheless I still managed to leave my mark here and there.

I ended the "day" in a B-class system, touched down on a 1.9g planet with major volcanism, although my brief exploration failed to find any active sites. Nevertheless this gave me the opportunity to power up the AFMU and perform some critical maintenance to the FSD after the recent bout of neutron star jumps had left it in a somewhat fragile state of repair.

Continuing on towards the "Clover Nebula", I was rather surprised to tag a couple of O-class and Black-Hole systems very close to the nebula.

Inside the nebula itself I struggled to find any untagged systems at all.

I turned my nose towards Colonia and left the "Fire Drake" nebula. It has been well-surveyed so any contributions I was making were minimal at best.

I again started chaining jumps together using Neutron Stars, but also took the time out to visit several O-class stars and Black Holes along the route. While some of these were already tagged to my delight most were not.

Two of the Neutron Star systems surprised me with a lovely pair of Water Worlds each. The first system had the water worlds orbiting a red dwarf star a little way away from the neutron star itself, the second system had them as a binary pair orbiting a pair of stars quite close to the neutron star itself.

The "Superbright" which was my next destination was, unfortunately, already tagged by Cmdr TrapperQ. Well, hardly surprising this close to Colonia! As it was still early in the "day", I decided to keep going, eventually powering down my ship orbiting a black hole not far from the "Clover Nebula".