Today I finally made it to the DSSA Enigma.

After patching up the Destiny's Edge 2 I left my scenic spot to continue the journey. Route plotter imagined 17 jumps and I kept it to that this time.

So, some jumps later, some scanning and mapping and the need to repair the FSD again due to further neutron boosted jumps I arrived at my destination.

The DSSA Enigma is located in a beautiful spot and alarmingly close to a gas giant and within its ring system. Crikey. Was worried I'd hit the planet. Anyway, I arrived safely and promptly validated my exploration data, cached my codex discoveries and had the Carriers maintainence crew give the ship the once over. The AFMU is great but no substitute for a properly trained crew.

Not sure what my next move will be, soon off to Colonia but perhaps I'll hang around for a few days first. We'll see. Nice to have made it though either way!

Slow couple of days.

I ended up decided to "do the right thing" and scan a terraformable (Scaule LF-T b50-7 B 4) about 250KLs out from the primary star. Bit of a trek. Not sensible economically but not everything ahs to be about money.

While I was out there mapped a another body and its moon and set down to investigate one of the geo sites there (Scaule LF-T b50-7 B 2 a, Geo 18).

Pretty spot with the primary body hanging hugely in the sky while the silicate fumaroles vent and the nearby star bathes all in orange red light.

Tomorrow I should patch up the Destiny's Edge 2 while we are touched down (never repairs that neutron jump damage) and continue on my way to the DSSA Enigma.

Meanwhile I've learnt the Cmdr Smiler is way ahead of me and almost back at Colonia now!

Today the route plotter decided it couldn't find a route to the DSSA Engima, at least at first. Given I had a route yesterday and was within 30 jumps this was a little odd.

Anyway, some messing about eventually got the plotter to agree I could get there and even manage to shave a jump off. Really not sure what is going on there.

I travelled on a little further, down to 20 jumps remaining now.

Several terraformables and an encounter with a rather close binary but otherwise uneventful. I wonder how close I'll be by tomorrow and if Cmdr Smiler is far behind or already there.

A break yesterday and just spent some time messing about on the ship. Today though back to some jumping. The route planner was having fun with me today, setting me back several jumps at one point. I then spent some time messing about with it to try and recover a short route - this worked and shaved a few systems off but you have to wonder if it is quick just to make the jumps after fiddling so long. Probably in this case, just. Discoveries wise not a huge amount to not, not even much in the way of terraformables. One system did have a water and ammonia world (both not terraformable) but that was about the most excitment. Quite a few life bearing gas giants too. According to the route planner down to 29 hops remaining... We'll see what it say tomorrow.

Right, so definitely beyond the half way point from the Smilers Observatory to the DSSA Enigma. A bit of route plotting fun again, this time a single dropped jump. I'm now down to 50 hops left. No more neutron jumps again tonight, still getting on. Not much else to report, the odd terraforable and gas giant. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

So yesterday left off with me 66 jumps out from the DSSA Engima. Today the route planner decided that was 72.. Right. So fiddling around and it stubornly refused to change its mind, so I lost most of my previous plotter gains. A little later I managed to shave a couple of extra systems off but still, frustrating. So by the end of the days travels I was down to 63 systems remaining. We'll see how it goes. Along the way a fair few terraformable water worlds, so that's nice. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Continued on my way to the DSSA Engima today. The route planner somehow shaved an extra 10 jumps off the remaining total from yeserday, so, hmm. Anyway, by the end of today's travels I was down to 66 remaining and had scanned and mapped sveral terrofrmables, water worlds and gas giants. No neutron hops today. I'm still have to finishing mapping my current system (Iwainch FM-Z c2-22) before I carry on tomorow.

Today I departed the Smilers Observatory, thanking the maintaintence crew for their efforts, and began the return journey to Colonia.

At Cmdr Smiler's suggestion I am aiming to return via the DSSA Enigma, another fleet carrier station roughly half way between Colonia and the Smilers Observatory. Route plotting suggests on the order of 115 jumps, including various neutron hops.

Made reasonable progress, around 20 jumps, including a couple of neutron hops. The automatic plotter managed to fluff one of those jumps, aiming for a system only just beyond the Destiny's Edge 2's standard jump range - correcting this along the recommend course shaved a few extra hops off and by the end of this section I was down to 90 jumps remaining. If I can keep up this progress I ought to make it to the DSSA Enigma fairly quickly - but this seems unlikely.

Worth noting that I've been scanning and mapping along the way so I could be making better time if I really need to. Still, that is why I'm out here right, to find things. So various life bearing gas giants, terraformables and water worlds all were properly scanner and mapped. The odd extra moon too.

I also mamaged to cook the ship a little on one of the first jumps out, got a little too over enthusiastic with the fuel scooping and quick jump. Must be more careful, I don't have a carrier full of repair staff on call to help out if I run in to trouble now - not for a bit anyway. Patched everything up with AFM (a good idea with the neutron hops in any case) but I don't want to be leaning on that too much.

Tomorrow the journey continues.

So I've been considering heading back toward Colonia and possibly the bubble for a little while now. Still, today started with a tour of local systems, primarily with class G main stars. Got some scans in and a bit of mapping. Founds some water worlds and terraformables, the odd Bark Mound site.

At one such spot (Phleedgoe OT-G d11-177 ABC 1 a , geo 5) I met up with Cmdr Smiler. Smiler has also been considering the return journy now that Smilers Obsevatory has been well established by the nebular and is registered with the DSSA. Smiler notes that the SO is now receiving vistors and performing its task as part of the network as well as its own going mission to study class A stars. To that end he is also resolved to leave within the next few days.

Given Smiler is ready to leave and the carrier established I will start to make my way back tomorrow too. I had been planning to start in the next week or two so now seems to be the time.

Smiler suggests returning via the DSSA carrier Enigma. Since this is only slightly out of our way on the trip to Colonia I'll follow this suggestion. Our schedules are rather different however so it remains to be seen if we'll meet up along the way.

Today started off with some exploration of system Phleedgoe PC-W b47-9. This is a binary system with a primary class M star. The first body in the system was a terraformable waterworld and around this a small moon with bio signals which, as ever, turned out to be Bark Mounds. So not hugely fascinating but previously unexplored and a nice little system.

After this I met up with Commander Smiler who is just returned from a trip to one of the DSSA carriers.

We met back at Phleedgoe JE-K c24-17 8c where I had previously found it necssary to geyser jump to my ship. This time geo 6 was in shadow and as fun as that might have been I elected to set down at geo 40. This was much more open with widely dispersed geysers. I arrived first and managed to jump over Smiler's Anaconda as it came in to land - perhaps not the most sensible thing to have tried..

Still, a fun time had messing about with the SRVs, fighters and so on. I managed a decent jump of 2.44km from one geyser, more than I'd expected. Commander Smiler blew me out of the water with around 3.6km though, crikey. We both managed to survive the return - though I imagine the hull repair system was cursing all the scratches.

Some experimentation lead to be discover that you can't repair an SRV using repair limpets from a ship - shame. Perhaps we'll have improved repair capabilities in due course. Refuelling also not possible but I guess that make more sense given the difference in fuel systems.

After that a trip back to the SO for refreshments.

[Note: Odd network effect left Cmdr Smiler without his Anaconda, which got swapped over to a Krait somehow. Smiler reports that the Anaconda was gone on return to the carrier and is hoping FD will be able to reinstate it!]