Log - Halfway towards the WRS Nebula
07 Feb 2021Eeka
For me, space doesn't make sense without a nice soundtrack. It's simply impossible to be jumping in all these systems without a good musical inspiration. Who could image that Elite Dangerous soundtracks can create just the perfect setup to realize that the star density is becoming normal once again. I've been so focused in all the information the new navigation tools are providing and in the route that i couldn't notice the background changing.
Both the star background and soundtrack brings back the blissful feeling from when i started sailing space with my Sidewinder and Cobra - PS: You're looking at 2 craters
It is good to feel all these systems surrounding the horizon. Living in those desolate regions must be sad. I mean.. it must be a different kind of sad than we usually have in the Bubble.
The last hundredth jumps been with not much beyond ordinary. Mapping some terraformable worlds as i progress.
I eager to reach my next POI. It's a Wolf Rayet Star's planetary nebula, i've been longing to visit it for quite a while now.
I'm 14.7kly from MelRose.
I just achieved 2000 systems discovered by reaching Ridgae RX-L d7-175.
Later on, i've found a very interesting system with 68 bodies, two of them are Helium-rich and lots of other different gas gigants variations, two ringed WW etc. The first couple of planets had a very close orbit to the host star. It was also a fast orbit, noticeable by naked eye and moving away from my ship if i kept 30km/s speed. Unfortunately it was not possible to capture this fast motion from the surface since both of them were tidally locked to the star.
Got sunscreen?
Did i mention i also found a system with only gas giants? 6 of them.
Did i also mention i love gas giants? Maybe someday i'll explain why.
I have not mentioned it in this log yet so here it goes. Boy this ship's painting is crumbling. It feels like the Anaconda is changing skin but i wish it was already ripped off, this intermediary state bothers me.
Is that an 'anarchy' graffiti?? Oh nevermind, we're isolated in space
Last but not least, i've found a nice rugged ice moon and i decided to stop by and take a look, it's a good opportunity to gather some geological data as well. Thing is, i messed up big time for believing the valley had a climbable angle. It was not even necessary to try climbing it back as i entered free fall when descending it. I knew i was screwed when i heard that Orgun has departured to orbital cruise while i was still rolling my way to the bottom.
I managed to control my SRV fall the best way i could and i had 83% hull left when it finally stopped spinning. I'm an android so thankfully i didn't feel stomach sickness. It's a very low-g body so it also helped, because, let's put it this way, it was not a graceful fall.
Time to spend a few minutes figuring out how am i supposed to go back into space. Last time this happened in Ariel, it did not end well. Orgun definitely won't be able to land in this valley and i fear for its safety during any attempt, since the autopilot proved to be dumber than vacuum cleaner robots when dealing with G's, obstacles, momentum etc. The SRV couldn't climb beyond the walls. It was doing so much already by stalling at 60°.
Well.. why the hell was i there anyways? Water geysers my friend! Hell yeah, we'll leave this problem in style. I could hear them bursting nearby. I picked one that would shoot me in the right direction and started my first attempt.
A beautiful gaze, maybe the last
It worked like a charm. Full climbing speed. Full sustained climbing speed. 1Km, 2Km, 3Km altitude.. Successfully left the valley depression and it finally felt like that time was coming before i got thrown into space without a hyper-jump device. I was able to control the X axis of the motion by pointing the SRV's nose to the ground. This allowed me to move towards the spot i landed Orgun in the beginning, but the climb was still going full speed.
Since the SRV's thrusters are pointed down, if i turn it upside down it would help stop the climb right? Big brains yeah.
After 2 full burnt caps i realized it was not working. I was still at escape velocity. I decided to take an external look of the thruster and for my surprise, when the SRV is upside down there's an inverted thruster that pushes it in what would be upward direction. It only works if you're inverted. I should've taken a better look at the manual.
Limited to upwards and horizontal thrust i had to figure a way out of destruction and time was ticking. Since i fell into the valley it was me and myself only. No heroic rescues from spotlight heroes, thankfully. I used the same technique to handle descending on high G planets that is horizontal thrust. After pushing it in a horizontal direction, soon the upward force was extinguished and the speed indicator started pointing down.
As a flying being, i normally have aversion to this indicator reaching red in the downward position but not this time.
Now i had to handle the fall. Before yeeting myself into the geyser i've repaired the SRV's hull with 50% extra resistance, just to be safe, so i wasnt much concerned about this low-g fall. Still, thrusting horizontally helped and i managed to land from a +4km fall with only 1% hull damage.
Time to call home and end this crawling adventure. Note: It is not necessary to jump onto your landing ship due to happiness to see it once again because the dumb autopilot will abort the recall and almost yeet you into orbit again, so just recalling it and waiting for it to land will be enough.
I've reached the Gorgon's system and started roaming around to find anything interesting, before steering into the last 5.3kly road to the WRS nebula.
Thanks for checking in.