8/8/3306 - A full day.
09 Aug 2020Bear McPike
Started the day off with taking the Digger (Clipper) out for it's first mining run. Boy does she move! Arrived at my favorite mining hole and dove right in on the hunt for Void Opals. Within 3 hours my last limpet was spent and my holds were full. Here's the stats;128 Limpets used.
Scanned 4 Brom., 4 Alex., and a Grand. core asteroids.
Mined 6 VO, 5 LTD core asteroids and 2 LTD sub-surface cores.
Left the rings with 55t LTDs and 73t VO.
After checking the cortex for best selling rate locations, I set course for the Hrymonada system...
And then...
Not realizing I'd missed a step in plotting my course - I arrived in the Tascheter Sector LD-J A9-2 system and found that I had not calculated the tonnage in and was now unable to jump to the next start due to fuel... <face palm moment>
I hopped on the comms to let my squad know I was in trouble. Thankfully our squadmate, Stubbz06, heard my call on our comms and reported that he would be more than happy to run some fuel out to me. Saved the day he did. Offered to pay him for his troubles but he graciously refused payment and asked that I pay it forward when I can. I truly run with a great group of commanders. I soon found myself underway again and wasted no time in making a short jump to fuel-scoop the tanks full.
Upon arriving in Hrymonada, and while plotting my course to the Reynolds Park Station - a pirate attempted to interdict me but failed as we were to close to the sun and we both hit the exclusion zone. I don't know what happened to him, but there was not sign of him once in normal space. Hopefully the bastard burnt up. My systems took a little damage, but I was able to manage the situation and with the nimbleness of the Digger, I was out of the stars pull and back in SC in no time.
Only to find, that my destination was unable to accommodate the size of my ship... <sigh> one of those days - I should'a stayed in bed.. Thankfully I was able to locate an alternative location to sell off the LTD and got that course plotted to HIP 4005 (remembering to plot correctly this time). I was able to make the run with little to no problems - only one additional pirate 'tried', but I was able to shake him with ease. How do they know when I've got a full hold??!!
Once I was docked at Chebyshev Dock, I made the needed repairs from the star mishap and bumps 'n scraps with the asteroids. Unloaded the 55t of LTDs at 718,481 CR/ton. Net'd a nice 39,516,455 CR. Not as much as I would have made back at Reynolds, but was pleased to lighten the load as the next stop to sell the VOs was all the way out in the Pleiades Sector KC-V C2-11 system.
That trip was surprisingly uneventful. Well almost. 2 jumps to go and sure enough, Thargs!! Applying the tactics I used a few days back yielded the same result - costing far and fast enough to evade the damn bugs once in normal space. I just know one of these days - they're gonna hit me like that and I won't have enough fuel to spin up the FSD again to complete the jump.
Am I foreshadowing my doom?
Completed the journey to Kipling Orbital and off loaded the 73t of VOs at 1,689,912 CR/ton. Worth the trip for a cool 123,363,576 CR.
While I was in transit out here, Cmdr Dante_Spectre and I were chattin' things up... He was running some favors for that ole snake engineer Prof Palin. The man was in need of some Thargoid sensor fragments. He asked me for the same thing - don't know what he's doing with them all - hopefully nothing unholy... But I was lending some info to DS on where I found mine. He had heard of another location in the HIP 17862 system. As I was out that way, I flew through to take a look myself too. Talked him though preping them so they wouldn't damage his holds (slimy acidic buggers), and soon he was on this way..
I headed back to Smith Terminal to change ships back to the phantom to do some exploring and to head over to gain another permit to yet another locked system. While there I made arrangements to have all my ships delivered here so I could put them to use if need be. Made for a nice break.
Soon though, I was underway again heading to the Tau Ceti system.
Along the way, my sensors picked up an unusual signal in the Teegarden's Star system. In orbit around the second planet in the system, I found an unregistered comms beacon. The thing looks ancient but seems to still be opperable. I was unable to establish a data link with it however shortly after arriving there is transmitted the following message;
SECURE 9 14 18 1 RISKY MOVE DRIVE TECH WHAT CHOICE IGNORING EVERYTHING CONN A 3 A SECURE
Something I'll have to look into. But for now, first things first, on to Tau Ceti.
Arrived at the Gilmour Orbital and found the representative for the Sublime Order of Van Maanen's Star. Turns out they were in the market for some exploration data and as it turned out - I had just what they were looking for. Was a nice trade if I may say so - they got some data and I got my permit... and a little over 6 Mil in CRs too!
Upon completion of our transactions, I hopped over to the Van Maanen's Star system to see what was there.... yep, moving right along... But hey, one more system I can access.
Now to take a look into that Conn system to see what was up with that beacon... On moon A3A, I did locate an abandoned base. The markings were all the old school INRA from the days past. Recovered some logs at the station.
I remembered seeing some info on the cortex about INRA and checked my notes and found I'd scribbled in the margins to remind myself to check out the Ain and 12 Trianguli systems. In the Ain system, I located another unregistered beacon, but unlike the first - it didn't transmit anything, so I proceeded to the 12 Trianguli system and located another old INRA facility on planet (A1). The logs recovered there lead me to the Alnath system where another set of logs lead me to the Hermitage and HIP 59382 system. At the HIP 59382 system on the (1B) planet was a little different though, I noted and scanned a Krait and Cobra parked not far from the abandoned station. Gave me moment of pause but I landed, recovered the data and logs and then got outta there. The last set of logs have me headed to HIP 7158 (A2D) but I've reached the end of my day so I parked at the Drake Plant Station in the G 59-7 system for the night.
I'm interested in seeing where this goes. Each of the logs gives a little more incite into the events that lead up to the end of the first Thargoid war.
More to come - but for now - g'nite.