Bridging the Abyss
19 May 2019Kissamies
While returning from the Beagle Point and Salomé's reach, I had this bright idea to cross the Abyss and not just anywhere, but further to the west than most people and going south-south-west. I had no idea what I was getting into. My Krait's low 60s jump range is more than adequate for most travel, but the Abyss made me understand why some people use very extreme builds stripped to bare essentials to squeeze out as much light years per jump as possible.It started with a neutron star, Fleckao CC-B d1-0. Had to use a couple of injections to reach it, but that didn't seem so bad. Then, after the supercharged jump it really started. Injected jump after injected jump, many of them more than 110 light years. My engineer was taking jumponium to the FSD core by wheelbarrow. Well, it was actually a microgravity hand cart, but that doesn't conjure as powerful mental image. I had fairly respectable stores thanks to my habit of making base camps on volcanic sites and idly collecting materials whenever I land, but those were being depleted rapidly. I had to land several times to collect more germanium and arsenic. More than once I couldn't help but wonder whether to use that last piece of arsenic on the jump or save it for myself. Luckily, it never came to that. I was always able to harvest more.
Towards the end of this grueling journey I reached the Abyssinial Hidden Paradise and its 8 earthlikes clustered relatively close in this very sparse region. They were beautiful systems, which also yielded valuable scans, or so my ship's computer predicts, at least. Most of them had various stellar phenomena as well. Odd that any of the earthlikes I discover are never associated with those. I still had some more Abyss to cross, but I finally reached the other side and there was a pleasant surprise, two of them in fact. First was an undiscovered earthlike world, with no notable stellar phenomena, mind you, and other was a nice ringed ammonia world. They felt like rewards for surviving this task.
So I have defeated the Abyss, but it's not a task I will soon want to repeat. I shall also strive to keep a sizable stockpile for materials for FSD injection whenever I go to a long exploration trip.