The Black!
25 May 2022Atkinsoncharlie
Its been a while! I had the luxury of playing so much during lockdown and was able to achieve a lot but as they say all good things must come to an end. Just over a year ago I started a new job which has been pretty intense and between family and work, space time suffered. I literally did not play Elite for a year.... I missed it! I was able to get my hands on a PS5 (vs the PC I had been eyeing) and I have to tell you it has made a massive difference. Graphics are much better, loads super fast, plots much faster, its great! As work has began to normalize I have been back in the game and loving every second.I decided to shelve my combat ambitions for a time. I was in the bubble and although it was glorious ripping other ships apart, and sometimes getting my ass kicked, I got to a point where I was thinking about exploring whilst fighting and trying to rank up for combat. So I swapped out the Vette for my little Diamondback Explorer "Nervous Energy", kitted it out for the long haul so she has a jump range of around 66LY and, with no clear plan, started jumping.
It soon became clear that I was randomly heading to Sag A. I have been there before, along with Colonia, so I figured it was time to make the push for Beagle point. Like why not? When I set out I was 44% towards my Elite Exploration goal and I figured that jumping across the galaxy would certainly get me close to that goal at least.
One thing I did not take into consideration were mats. Once you get away from stations and carriers repairs are something you have to take care of when using Neutron Stars to boost your range. Neutrons certainly take their toll on your FSD over time (about 1% degrade per jump as far as I can see). I had loads of mats but I didn't have much Vanadium so I started jumping into systems, scanning and looking for planets that I could land on with a % of Vanadium greater than 4%. It didn't take that long to grab enough Vanadium to ensure that I was able to repair The Nervous Energy when needed.
Next problem came when I boosted into a system scanned and got ready to move on but I was stuck. I could not get to the next system, it was too far and I was at a regular star. I struggled with this for a day, checked out some blogs and worked out I needed to use economical instead of fastest for plotting. At that point I probably had about 30+ jumps left that included Neutron Stars, without boost and using eco that went to another 150 jumps. Obviously, I was really bummed out about this, having crossed the Galaxy I was almost just done with the jump scan repeat grind but I figured I come this far so get over it. What was interesting was that from that point on, every system I jumped into had already been discovered! This was a path well trodden. Still some of the systems were really cool but I wasn't here for sightseeing I was on a Beagle point mission.
From the Bubble to Beagle it probably took me about 4 weeks at about 1.5-2.5 hours around 3-4 sessions per week.
Arriving at Beagle, it is quite unremarkable. You can jump on, and of course I did until I could go no further. Nervous Energy's range is great and its a perfect little ship to explore in. At this point it was about being on the edge of space staring into the Abyss. The novelty did not last long though and I headed back to Beagle, found a Fleet Carrier and did some well needed repairs to Nervous Energy. I have read lots of articles about selling exploration data at a carrier. Im really less interested in the credits and more interested in the rank so I did not sell any of the data I had which at that time was equal to about 5mil. The research I had done pointed to the fact that I was going to lose 25% of that value and therefore I would not get anywhere near the Elite rank I was seeking. I decided to take a couple of days break to and decided what was next.
The beauty about Elite Dangerous is that there is no right or wrong way to do things, following in the footprints of others is cool but if you want to be a true pioneer then you have to just get out there. Coming back to Nervous Energy after a few days off I decided I was going to amble my way back to Colonia on a road less travelled and see if I could discover some new systems to get that exploration rank up. Im literally in no rush and Im now not using Neutrons. Within about 1000LY from Beagle I have discovered 20 new systems. Not bad. No earth likes yet but there's plenty of time for that.
Once I get back to Colonia I will unlock the final engineer there and maybe transport some of my fleet and hang out there for a while. Who knows??? It would be nice to have my Python and Corvette on hand in Colonia. I think its going to take a while to get back to any kind of civilization and as long as I dont get blown up (Nervous Energy has no weapons) then I should be close on if not achieve Elite Exploration upon arrival at Colonia or one of the Colonia outposts.
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