Put a ring on it
16 Aug 2019Openflanker
Progress has been slower than I had expected. Doing 1000 LY in a day does feel like a lot, but when you have only done 1000 LY of a 20000 LY trip then it genuinely makes the trip seem never-ending. I was taking it as easy as I could. Jumping, scooping, honking, FSS-ing... Just looking at the marvels of the universe. Every system feels like a Christmas present. You jump into it hoping that there will be something new, something you've never seen before. Something ....... just something. Generally you are unlucky, it's the exploration equivalent of socks or underwear. But sometimes you get the shiny toy car.
So it was when I jumped into Praea Euq ER-V d2-3. It's not an extraordinary system but there is one planet in it that is a little different. Planet 6. Planet 6 is a High Metal Content world with rings, we've all seen them. But this one is landable! Oh yeah! I have never landed on a ringed planet and as it is 2.96 Earth Masses with a gravity of 1.39 G I needed to be a little careful.
First things first I mapped it and its rings. There were some mining hotspots, this far out of the bubble it would take a committed miner to plunder them. I angled the ship's nose toward the planet surface, worked out where the best spot for landing would be (it's all about the photos peeps) and headed in. About 40 km above the surface I dropped into the glide, I hate this part of the descent. The controls are so vague and the ship shakes like a wet dog on a cold night. The hull pops and you can hear everything inside the ship shaking. Then it's gone and you have flight control back.
Finding a landing spot was easy. The planet surface is lightly marked from asteroid strikes but nothing extraordinary. I found a nice spot, dropped the gear and eased onto the deck. All in all not difficult.
I prefer high gravity to low gravity, the SRV is easier to drive when it has more traction. So I zoomed out and scouted the surface. Being completely honest, apart from the rings, it's dead boring. But the rings make it.
I settled in for a few hours sleep, sleep came easily. After a nice coffee I strapped back into the chair and lifted off. Cycladia (Blu Thua GI-B b55-2) is the next stop.