Colonia Bridge, part 12 (Tsumago to RBNF Orbital)
05 Jun 2022Sarashina
It occurred to me that any given waypoint could serve as a jumping-off point, or base, for a mining operation; but without a fleet carrier, it would be restricted to supplying the station itself with whatever it was prepared to pay for. CB-17 Tsumago wants methane clathrate, although it does accept some minerals, and other things may be sold but possibly at a lower rate than the galactic average. Beggars can't be choosers when they're a long way from home - wherever home is.Leaving Gria Drye on the next 10 hops to the next station - another 430+ Ly away.
Byeia Eurk IH-N b20-18 - little icy jobs, but had to scan 'em all - why? Just why? They pay peanuts!
Byeia Eurk OT-J b22-4 - and again. I think it's FOMO. Checked the system map, only a couple of moons were landable, and nothing interesting. *sigh*
Byeia Eurk YC-D c12-1 - binary star system
Byeia Eurk ED-B b27-3 - much more interesting. Binary system; one a bunch of icy bodies, the other hmcw and a couple of ringed icies. One of the hmcw's rocky moons has some decent yttrium. Everything scanned but nothing mapped. Decided to go down on A3's moon. Very very strange - a pale cyan blue fuzz over a patch of the planet surface. Landed adjacent to this and explored. No obvious reason for it. Trekked off to find what looked like a nearby crater within the large crater I'd landed in. Ha. Eventually recalled the ship and landed on the crater rim. Distances have no context here - I'd have been running on the SRV another 10 minutes before I got there at least, I think, and the mini-crater was actually huge. MoG's new paint job went nicely with the strange colours here. A7 is icy with pristine rings - 4 lots of LTD and some grandiderite. Pocket of void opals. Scanned a bunch of the closer planets.
Byeia Eurk LP-X b28-2 - 1 ggaml, icy bodies as moons
Byeia Eurk IV-X c14-55 FUEL STAR - binary system
Byeia Eurk RX-L d7-146 - silvery and scoopable! - 3 hmcw, metal rich bodies and a couple of gas giants
Byeia Eurk MV-Y a69-0 - little icy jobs, mapped and scanned (Cedric was bored, obvs, or his FOMO's worse than mine)
Byeia Eurk JW-J b36-13 - 4 hmcw, mapped and scanned
Byeia Eurk OC-I b37-13 - and back - didn't realise I was here till I saw the other cmdrs. The carrier, CB-18 RBNF Orbital, is very close in, not far beyond the nav beacon. 1.5M cartographic data, two thirds of it coming from the b27-3 system where I did the mapping. A3 alone was worth half a mil. 46k first-to-map bonus. I was first to discover and map the A7 ring, which is weird - how can you discover a planet but not its ring? Or maybe it didn't have a ring back then...? Most of the rest came from d7-146, A and AB2 being the big payers there. 315k for the current system when I get to the next stop, assuming nothing goes wrong between here and there. Also 74k for the 4 hmcw mapped and scanned.
Decided to park up as time was getting on, having spent way too long mapping things. Interesting to see that weird blue planet, though. Looked like some kind of space fungus. Out of interest, looked at the prices in the market - Void Opals make 291k per ton (26), LTDs 194k per ton (42), Grandiderite 408k per ton (63). Price drops off if you have more than 25% of the total in cargo, so max price for 6 VO, 10 LTD and 15 G. About 240 Ly from "my" system though, so it's about halfway between CB-17 and CB-18.
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