First Voyage of the Firefly.
28 Aug 2019Rex-Cramer
On a lark I decided to build myself a long-range jumper. Something that could make quicker work of 2000+ lightyear trips. My Asp was originally setup for mining and thus it's core modules are a bit heavy for making long jumps. I don't want to scrap the engineering work on them though and I decided to give the venerable DiamondBack Explorer another try. My original build was something of a failure. A jack-of-all-trades that was not really gratifying to fly. This time it's focused. A 12M credit exploration ship for long distance runs. I purchased the ship at Colonia Dream and equipped it with all the D-rated gear I could find there. Then I switched back to my Krait and had the DBX transported to Jaques in Colonia to finish up the outfitting. It's largely all D-Rated with the exception of the shield generator. This was not available in D and so the only good option was to go with A and we'll add the "Stripped Down" engineering to it to hold the weight down. I was a bit limited in material but I was able to get the important bits done. Getting the FSD to grade 4 and getting the undersized power-plant enhanced enough to handle the basic load.
It also deviates a bit from the normal explorer load-out in that it carries weapons. A mining laser for materials in rings if desperate, and two pulse lasers for at least a modicum of self defense.
As it stands I was able to get to 49LY with remote engineering. A visit to the engineers will be needed to fully complete the setup. It was good enough though to take a quick excursion to try it out. A red nebula is visible to the 'north' from Colonia. I've had my eye on heading out there for a while but in a 28LY ship, it's not appealing. It's about 1,200 to 1,400LY to it. However it's just a nice easy stroll for "Firefly". I took out in my brand new crimson ship and set a course for the nebula. With some neutron boost it's just 10 jumps away.
I first jumped 200LY above Colonia. This was to try to maximize the number of new systems I'd hit rather than follow highways of other exploration. It worked nicely. I found a number of new systems and a few more neutron stars, a couple with planets. Once I was within 3 jumps of the nebula's outer limits I turned off neutron boosting and started looking for Black Holes. They were not difficult to find here. A quick look in GalMap showed 4 close together. This area is filled with neutrons and white dwarfs as well. Indicating it was once filled with hot-bright stars that burned themselves out early on. What a cool place.
The first black hole I dropped into was an undiscovered system. Right off the bat, Firefly earned me something I've wanted from day one, a black hole that I discovered. I'm sure there are more to find but most all I have run across up to now have been tagged. This was a real treat. The other 3 I targeted were tagged but many had undiscovered planets in the system. My best find was a metallic ring around a brown dwarf that orbits a black hole. It includes painite, serendibite, and platinum hotspots. When I say hot, I mean it. Heat at the painite location is 62% and it's likely that you would need to use heatsinks to exit the ring without heat damage. It's 1,200 LY distance means it will not see much mining for now, but I will note it for the future when our assets let us reach these remote deposits more easily.
One of the systems I explored out here included my first biological find. Bark mounds were found on two sites on the dark side of a small world orbiting a red dawrf. This was itself a cool find as I had not previously found any biological sites. However the best moment came later when I was about to lift off. I turned off my lights and night vision to better appreciate the dark view. It was then I noticed the bio-luminescence on some of the mounds. just small dots of light scattered throughout the mounds. If I had not turned off my lights I would never have caught it. I hovered over the site to take in the view but none of the pictures really show it. It's just a "you had to be there" moment. A very satisfactory end to this quick evening stroll of a trip.
I'm back to Colonia now. I really just wanted to get a feel for flying this little gem and see if it was worth hanging onto. The answer is 'yes' without qualification. It's nimble, easy to land, even on higher G planets, and it's small foot-print lets it land on most any terrain. A very worthy ship for it's specialized role. This will let me easily reach and prospect interesting locations all around the Colonia region. I will make return trips to this location to finish up my survey of local black holes and white dwarf compact-stars. This will very likely be my ride back to the bubble if/when that time comes.
Colonia really is a very neat place to live.
