After grinding some cash for a couple days I'm up to 4b. Everyone in the group had started to either break off for other games, or headed out on a vacation. I had been looking in the codex's and noticed something that perhaps I could do nearby. It hasn't been fruitful yet, but if it does I'll log here what it was. I've found a couple of ELW's the last couple of days though, including 2 in about 10 jumps tonight. Good to be hanging my tag on stuff again.

I wasn't able to play for a great deal of time today, but I teamed up with a couple other commanders and we rolled on some pirates. After we shared and turned in, we made 400mil. I've made nearly 1bil in 2 days. I'd love to get my fleet carrier in the next few days and haul my fleet out to Colonia. That's the goal. I'll push combat until all my guys go on vacation, and then finish up with a mining grind.

I spent yesterday flying out to Sag A, and then back down to Sol. I started getting really good at the rhythm of the process. Sag A to Sol took exactly 3 hours. Thats 10 minutes faster than I did Sol to Colonia the day prior, and this was quite a bit further. I started pushing my money grind in earnest today though. I've been stagnant at around 2bil for a while now. I spend money as fast as I make it. At one point I was well over 3bil, but that was pre Anaconda, Corvette, and Cutter. Today I busted out the Cutter and went ham on Musgravite. It only did two loads, but each one takes a few hours. I didnt really have the hang of it all during my first run even though I've done core mining a few times before. I also didnt understand what eddb was telling me apparently and sold my stuff for way less than I could have. My first load went for 152mil, but my second, which took less time and got way more Musgravite, brought in 330mil. For the second session I had found a double hot spot as opposed to the single I used the first time. I also got like 730,000 per unit, and the first one I got 463,000. Oh well, all in all I came in with 481mil. I'd like to be able to get a fleet carrier at some point, but we'll see how long I can grind rocks. I also hit Trading rank Elite today.

Today I ran out of all the things I was wanting to to do in the bubble, and no body else was really on, so I decided to run out to Colonia and use the Neutron Highway for the first time. I had just finished unlocking all of the Engineers minus the one that requires Dangerous combat skill and I still needed G5 on my Life Support, so that was the plan. I also am complete with my rep grinds, and got my combat up to Expert. It wasn't the smoothest trip ever, but considering I have only ever tried a neutron jump once prior, I thought it went pretty well. From Abraham Lincoln to Jaques took me 3hr and 10min. Not any kind of a record by any means, but weeks faster than either of my prior trips. Tomorrow I'm planning on swinging up through the core and then plow right on back to the bubble. 2 of my wing men are going on multi week vacations soon, and another is on ED hiatus. We gained one new one today though. Once they take off I'll make an exploratory trip back to Colonia, Sag A, and finally Beagle Point rather than using the highway.

I've been dipping my toes into just about every aspect of the game lately. Lots of group combat with my Corvette and Chieftain, unlocking all the engineers, building a few nearly maxed out ships including my Chieftain, Corvette, and Anaconda, mining with my clipper. fighting Thargoids, helping all the guys that joined a little while back, grinding guardian sites and planet surfaces for mats, etc, etc, etc. I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to accumulate wealth in the bubble. For every credit I make, I spend one in kind. We've been doing mostly combat the last couple days. At some point I'm going to make the move and head back to Colonia. We still have 5 in our play group, but I feel like interest may be waning for 1 or 2 of them already. I think they may have all expressed interest in going to Colonia, but I wagered early on that I thought on 1 other would make it, at most. :) But we'll see. I'm itching to get back out into the black with my 76ly Anaconda. Maybe this time I'll finally make it out to Beagle Point...

I wasn't planning on jumping right into the Imperial grind right away, but I figured I'd go poke my nose in today. When I got down to Mainani and saw how fast I was ranking up, I was like YOLO. I went from rank 3 to 11 in just a few hours. Tomorrow I'll pick up one more rank in about an hour and be done. I didnt even plan originally to grind up to the Cutter. I was just going to get to the Clipper and stop, but it was so much easier than the Federal rank, so why not. I also decided to buy an Imperial Eagle today just for fun. It's a nice little ship. I may do some missions tomorrow that aid in the community goals. That could be interesting. I've never done any of those before. The current one is to defend a colony. If it's Thargoids though I may have to bail though until I read up on all that.

After grinding for the better part of 3 days I've finally finished ranking up with the Federation to get my Corvette, so that's exactly what I did. I kitted it out for war and went off to a nav beacon. I had CMDR Evereventual pilot a dropship on my first run and it got us both in the combat mood, so he headed off to a low conflict zone. After that he went and bought a Vulture. I also got clipped by a Type 10 that was coming into a station as I was going out with my brand new fully kitted Corvette and we got wedged. Amazing. Then we went went back to a nav beacon and killed a bunch of guys, and then over to a conflict zone again. Unfortunately, Evereventual hadnt sold any of his bounty bonds or his last few scans to UC and lost it all when he blew up. Bummer.

2 days ago I was out past Colonia in my AspX, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I got a call that my brother and 3 of my cousins wanted to pick up the game. I told them I'd be happy to fly back to Colonia to drop of my data and my Asp, grab a suicide Sidewinder, and pop on back to the bubble. So that's exactly what I did. So for the last 2 days I've been helping them get set up with EDSM and EDDiscovery while they downloaded the game, ran the tutorials, and waited for their HOTAS's to show up. One got their's today so I helped him grind up for a DBX which he bought tonight. 2 of the others should get theirs tomorrow. While I'm talking them through their beginner struggles, I've been out in Ochosi grinding out the rest of my Fed rank. I've gone up 2 more ranks and need just 1 more for my Corvette, which I should get tomorrow. After that I'll grind Imperial rank for a bit, but I'm not sure I need to get all the way to Cutter right now. I think the Clipper will be just fine. After that I'll probably take advantage of the prices of materials in the bubble and mine for a bit to grind out my fleet carrier. Once the other guys get comfortable in the cockpit we may do some group PVE combat missions as well. All and all I'm happy with my decision to come back. I really wanted to finish up the rep grinds and buy those faction ships. I was happy to be back in my Vulture again. I also bought a Keelback today which seem perfectly fine.

Today I began to sytematically visit all systems in this region. We'll see how far I get before I get bored. Its crazy how much I played today and how little it seems like Ive done, but I visited a lot of systems. Shockingly though, I didnt find any ELW's on the way out here, and none while flying around. I had found five just by flying through here randomly a couple times. Now that I'm putting hard time in, nothing. RNG I guess.

I've spent the last couple of days chasing the commodities boards. Nothing is ever up to date. The websites are all way behind. The values you see in the ports for other stations are always wrong. You cant make good consistent money out here mining imo. I even bought a and kitted out a T9. I dont mind mining, both laser and core, but not for the scraps and run around I'm getting. So I decided to hop back in my AspX and head back to my favorite set of nebulae. Its about 3000ly from Colonia and just in the drive out tonight I've made gobs more credits than I have in all the time mining the last 2 days. Not sure what I want to hunt out here just yet, but I've got a couple of ideas. On another note, I found out the game plays just as well without the link cable, so now I can keep a rotation of battery packs and play for more than 2-3 hours at a shot. Also Zipp decided to get the game tonight. We'll see how that goes.