First exploration trip. Close Encounters and lessons learned. PT I
16 Nov 2020Markus Quenn
This entry will be a bit longer than usual. It will include not only the details of my journey, but also several observations and conclusions on space exploration that I came too through this experience. I will use a date format of month/day/year so it can be easily followed. Some information has been redacted due to security measures.16113306: I headed out into the black from my home base of (redacted) on course for HD 63154 - B 3 A. This location was a waypoint on my trip to Beta Site and is about 1000ly from Sol in the S.E. portion of the Orion Spur. The Guardian ruins there are full of valuable technology, especially the means to build the Guardian FSD booster. The Guardian site here is on a plateau and can be a difficult place to land for larger ships. Even Icarus II had a hard time finding a good spot. The procedure for unlocking the Pylons is well documented, so I will not go over that. I will say that a point defense system placed in a hardpoint on top of your ship will make surveying these ruins a breeze. It was a good tip from CMDR Turranius. o7. I used several Neutron stars to boost my jump range on the way there. This is when my first observation was noted. While the procedure to charge the FSD is rather straight forward, there are significant differences in Neutron stars that need to be considered. A few of them have high velocity cones that require quite a bit of caution to use. On these, my FSD took multiple points of damage when entering the cone and they can be difficult to escape as well. For future reference I marked these with a “S” on my Star Map. After this, the trip to Beta Site was largely uneventful, other than some spectacular views which I have posted in the gallery for all to see. The return trip is where things got a bit dicey.