The Magellan Star Journey - Scouting for Crystal Shards
30 Nov 2021Eeka
So, after a few months in hibernation i've finally decided to reactivate the fleet.This time, thanks to CMDRs Richard Fluiraniz, Halpy and others with a very interesting adventure towards the Magellan Star. How would you bring an explorer back to activity with anything less than an exciting expedition?
I've signed up for it and with something that couldn't be described as anything else but a coincidence, i've joined their scout group. The task was to find interesting points of interest along the route of the expedition, in specific points where little were cataloged. Also, we should find routes across the low density regions in our course.
Despite the warnings, this stubborn explorer loaded and deployed MelRose to the mission, without a plan. It is also worth registering that i've done this mistake twice, since i tried going back to the bubble for the FSDv1 CG (which i failed because i arrived late in the friday and decided to start in the saturday, but it was already complete) and went back into the void one more time.
Still, it is serving greatly as support station from which i managed to test Evolutia as a new medium range exploration vessel, Babushka II in deep space mining and finally having some time to enjoy Nefeli's flight once again.
Lucky me stumbled uppon biological signals in a GG moon, beautiful Crystal Shards. It was a sweet sweet surprise, considering that after i found them for the first time on my first journey into the southern borders of the galaxy, i've always wanted to find more. This time though, i had more experience in exploring, less anxiety and was willing to enjoy each moment (instead of just going for the burn out that is speed running the galaxy, as new explorers often mistakenly do).
Something came to my mind. What if... there were more around? Last time i managed to find 3 sites, relatively close to each other, so what if i could find more now?
And this was the assignment i set for myself as a scout. I started searching all systems in the surroundings. One of the purposes of this entry is, of course, document the methodology used.
Initially i just jumped from system to system, aimlessly and it's pretty overwhelming. You need no more than 5 minutes in the galmap to realize how vast the current sector is and how much time is needed to sweep, let's say, 10ly of systems. Something else needed to be done to improve the efficiency of my search.
Thankfully, CMDR Richard Fluiraniz shared a lot of experince of his own (and this guy knows so much about exploration), including how systems are named across the galaxy. I'm not diving into details but you basically have the sector name (Hegue), the generation sequence of this group of systems (PA-A) that starts from AA-A and goes all way up to ZZ-Z, then you have the system mass class (D) going from A (lowest mass) up to H (highest mass) and finally the number of this system in the current sequence (0) going from 0 up to i dont know how many. Giving you an example: Hegue PA-A d0.
This allowed me to filter my search into only systems of the D class. After finding more sites i noticed that only systems with two or more stars had the Crystal Shards, allowing me to narrow my search even further.
In total i've found 6 systems with Crystal Shards, two of them containing jumponium material, providing the expedition with a useful point of interest to refill their stock before jumping into the lower star density areas:
Hegue pq-y d14
B 3 c - Antimony (+niobium, germanium, selenium and vanadium on geosites)
B 5 a - Technetium (+niobium, germanium on geosites)
Hegue KK-A d8
A 6 - Tritium HS
B 2 d - Tellurium
Hegue NV-Y d1
B 4 b - Antimony
Hegue IP-A d5
B 4 b - Polonium (+arsenic, germanium and selenium on geosites)
B 4 h - Antimony
Hegue PA-A d23
C 2 a - Antimony (+ vanadium, niobium and germanium on geosites)
Hegue PA-A d23
CD 2 b - Antimony (+selenium and arsenic on geosites)
CD 3 a - Antimony
CD 3 b - Polonium (+vanadium and niobium on geosites)
CD 3 c - Yttrium (+vanadium, arsenic and chromium on geosites, plus nearby planet with cool vistas)
Yeh that's a lot of antimony
Even better, they would not have to deviate from the original route, as it is very near the second waypoint, coming straight from the first waypoint. I've earned a page in the PoI guide, with this funny shot i took:
So, i didnt go too far as the other brave scouts, i stood near the start but i was able to find helpful points of interest for the team, thus accomplishing my duty. How cool is that? During this effort i've unlocked my 4-star badge in exploration as well, which is also nice!
But there were many other cool vistas besides Crystal Shards:
I may continue to finish sweeping other system groups before departuring towards the Magellan Star, or i might just leave it for the coming explorers to find if they want. I have not yet decided.
MelRose is ready either way. I just need to plan my journey forward now.
Thanks for reading this far. Stay tunned because i'll post updates.