M.R.S.C. Mercator - Carrier Log, Day 91 - Day 120
19 Oct 2020FalconFly
Mining and Reconnaissance, Strategic Carrier
The Mission :
The M.R.S.C. Mercator departed into the Arcadian Stream on 20 Jun 3306 for a long-term Exploration Campaign. On Station at a sequence of Waypoints, its Primary Objectives are :
- discover any NSP (Notable Stellar Phenomena), as none was discovered in this Galactic Sector yet
- discover a new Green Gas Giant, which are easily amongst the most rare and elusive Objects in the Galaxy
Secondary Objectives :
- conduct Mining Hotspot Surveys and report high-quality Double Hotspots to the IMU (Intergalactic Mining Union)
- support Explorers in Deep Space with onboard Services
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Mission Time : 91 Days
The Mercator has entered its 4th month of service... had lots of distractions and errands to run though, so progress was very limited today.
Scan count increased only a little to 469 Systems, plenty of White Dwarfs and Neutrons were checked out as there's lots of these around.
Again, finishing off the Day with a little Painite Mining, giving the FSS a rest for the moment.
However, in retrospect it shows how exceedingly beneficial it is not being tied to any fixed schedule.
Years ago, the BGS sure would have called, lots of Missions would have to be flown, intensive Bounty Hunting sessions conducted or an occasional War to be fought.
All running on fixed 24hr ticks - again and again.
The total and complete lack of those Timers is what I think made me leave it all behind - despite having been extremely successful by all means.
However, over the years all of these Timers increasingly became a burden, like invisible handcuffs tied to a factory conveyor belt.
And that conveyor belt ran... relentlessly.
But now, almost 20000 LY from so-called civilization - that's where the true freedom is at. No Timers, no Schedule, no Pressure. Nothing.
So even if not much of interest comes by passing many Systems - I'd take that freedom over those relentless Timers any day!
And tomorrow, new frontiers already await - be it the next System or a few Carrier Jumps away. Noone around to judge or complain and the freedom of movement remains absolute.
That's Deep Space
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Mission Time : 92 Days
AOR extension to 100LY radius is slowly showing - but progress has been quite limited. 514 Systems done for now.
Needs easily several more Days of scanning to sample the outer shell and have at least some density build up.
In the meantime, continuous Mining has increased the total amount of Metals/Minerals onboard on sale to 3364 tons, with Painite crossing the 1000t mark today.
That's plenty, so more focus will now be placed on Exploration again.
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Mission Time : 93 Days
Another Day of slow progress due to plentiful errands....
545 Systems complete as of today and all normal-normal.
With the Pulse Wave Scanner still having problems, no point in going Core Mining.
Normally, I like to maintain some stock of Monazite, Musgravite, Alexandrite, Grandidierite , Benitoite, Rhodplumsite, Serendibite and Void Opals.
Not only makes for nice change of pacing but there's also definitely some demand for and appeal of those lesser-traded Minerals.
However, the current Mining issues would make such runs a pure wild goose chase. No point in wasting time like that.
As a result, the existing stock of Painite, Low Temperature Diamonds and the considerable amount of Platinum have to remain the primary attraction to potential buyers.
Plus, the M.R.S.C. Mercator is amongst the top price sellers for these, so that'll have to do.
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Mission Time : 94 Days
As yesterday, only minimal progress within the AOR due to lack of time, which has 562 Systems scanned to date.
But then, the plan was to go for the gusto - and with that in mind, I'm taking a scenic detour doing an Out-of-Area trip.
The distraction? Plenty of C-N, C-J, MS- and S-type Stars within 1000LY.
No point in restricting myself to the 100LY radius of the AOR after all, so I'm "repurposing" the Mercator's SAR radius to check out a few shinies.
I don't get to see - let alone 1st discover - C-J type Giants and the likes too often, so I'd be a fool to let this opportunity slip.
The TEV Aurora can add a few more Neutron Systems to the public Databases on its round-robin trip, so that's a win-win.
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Mission Time : 95 Days
The Out-of-Area excursion of the TEV Aurora produced unexpectedly nice results already.
Multiple new Earth-like Worlds were discovered, including not one but two rare ELWs directly around Carbon Stars.
Only one out of a thousand Earth-like Worlds have such characteristics, with only 217 like them in the public Databases for the entire Galaxy.
On top, plenty of brand new Neutron Systems were added to the public Databases.
With such discoveries in a single Day, can't complain about that...
Checking off the remaining non-sequence Stars of the list will likely take another day - but doing so has already paid off.
As usual these days, time remains very limited and it's a good thing the Mercator follows no fixed schedule anymore.
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Mission Time : 96 Days
The TEV Aurora has returned from its Out-of-Area operation after numerous non-sequence Star Systems were visited within 1000LY....
Now it's back to working the AOR a little bit, although the entire area clearly seems dry in terms of Biologicals.
I guess sometime around next week, I'll go scouting for the next Waypoint, which is expected to move the Mercator further up North and deeper into the Arcadian Stream.
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Mission Time : 97 Days
Some more Systems have been scanned within the AOR, bringing the totals up to 584.
Another sample in Icy Mining for LTDs was done as well - but with the Pulse Wave Analyzer still malfunctioning, the yields remained as poor as expected.
Afterwards, the TEV Aurora was launched again and is operating numerous high-mass Systems on another Out-of-Area campaign.
No point in leaving untagged B-Class , O-Class and Black Holes behind.
Plus, one never quite knows what might turn up there - after all the other non-sequence Star run turned out surprisingly good.
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Mission Time : 98 Days
While numerous high-mass Systems were checked out, not much turned up except some Surface Bios already known for the Galactic Sector.
With that done, it's time for the Aurora to return to the Carrier...
Still plenty of Systems left to seep through there and lots of errands mean that progress with be fairly slow.
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Mission Time : 99 Days
Total scan volume in the AOR has been increased to 638. Systems...
Not bad, considering tons of errands didn't leave much time.
Still, back working the area around the Carrier is good, as it brings me closer to completing the tasks around this Waypoint.
Apart from a new ELW, no surprises - but at least it's something.
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Mission Time : 100 Days
It's now been a full one hundred Days in Deep Space for the M.R.S.C. Mercator.
The current AOR contains 683 scanned Systems as of today.
This 3rd AOR being a hybrid, its outer 50LY radius shell still isn't defined very well yes as opposed to its higher inner 50LY density.
Still a few D-Mass Systems left, though and several days worth of C-Mass Systems.
On the financial side of things, the Carrier Ops earned in excess of 2.2 Billion Credits out in the Black, so that's deep in the green area as well.
Maybe in a week or so, the Mercator will leave Station and head to its 4th Waypoint.
Then, it's to another 100 Days of searching - or finding. Who knows?
Personally, I'm nearing two Exploration Milestones.... But not quite there yet, not yet.
No cigar until the fat lady sings. That'll have to wait a few more days
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Mission Time : 101 Days
System count is now at 743 scanned Systems in the current AOR, so there's some average progress....
Other than that, nothing except a few new Earth-Like Worlds.
Only very few D-Mass Systems that were overlooked remain, otherwise the C-Mass Systems are being checked off the list one by one.
Overall, I guess that leaves maybe some ~150 Systems, with the C-Mass typically adding quite some Gas Giants.
But at this point, I'm not expecting any surprises - it's all about finishing up at this point.
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Mission Time : 103 Days
A few more Earth-Like Worlds in the bucket and over 100t more Painite have been added to storage.
Although I was sure I had all D-Mass Systems checked off the 100LY radius, some leftovers keep popping up.
Same btw. happens with C-Mass Systems... just when I thought I cleared out a whole Sector of the AOR - another look reveals more leftovers.
...almost as if these things were growing on trees there.
In a nutshell, my earlier estimations for the total amount of remaining Systems were blissfully off.
But that merely means I'll stick around for a few days longer than expected, no big deal.
Plenty of errands demanding my attention make the progress seemingly random, so I'm on nothing even remotely close to a schedule anyway.
Total count for the AOR sits at 788, guess it might actually reach 1000 Systems.
The surprisingly soft footprint in the visual Maps should have given me a hint that things weren't as close to completion as I reckoned.
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Mission Time : 104 Days
Well, new ELWs keep coming in at a surprisingly high rate in C-Mass Systems....
So while dry in terms of Primary Mission Objectives or Biologicals, at least the AOR is redeeming itself this way. Can't complain about that.
Additionally, the outer 50LY radius shell of the 3rd AOR is finally showing "some teeth", as the low-density cloud is now taking shape more visibly.
Visible progress is always good, a proven and solid motivator to carry on even during dry or slow phases of the Campaign.
Total System count for this area has climbed to 856 and will very easily exceed 1000 when complete.
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Mission Time : 105 Days
And another Earth-Like world today, at this pacing the Campaign could easily be mistaken for an ELW Campaign.
That's my usual luck - whenever I hunted ELWs, they were usually hiding fairly well... but when I'm not actively seeking them, they just show up.
Guess that's why I'm still dry on my Primary Objectives lol - I should switch to hunting ELWs, then I'm sure I wouldn't find many but increase my chances elsewhere
System count is up to 916 right now, so there's solid progress after alot of slowdowns during the last week.
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Mission Time : 106 Days
System count for the AOR now resides at 982 and there's still tons of C-Mass Systems left.
The hybrid AOR will likely blast way past 1000 easily, far more than I anticipated.
The plan was to cut down on System scans at little but the remaining volume is still very considerable.
I'll just keep working it until it is complete, no harm in that.
Guess -1500LY elevation here is still a tad too high Star Density to "quickly" complete a 100LY radius AOR this way.
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Mission Time : 107 Days
Counting 1030 scanned Systems 100LY around the Carrier now - but still plenty of Systems left.
Other than that, almost Copy&Paste, day by day. Another day, NTR - Nothing to Report, except another Earth-like World to make up for it.
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Mission Time : 108 Days
Setting up the last batch of remaining leftover Systems to scan now.
Total count is at 1090 now, so it's about time I can finally finish it off in this AOR.
Getting that feeling already - the feeling that it's time to leave...
And one of the two personal Exploration Milestones have been reached. That took a long, long time and is very nice to see having finally come around...
I guess I'm some kind of serious Explorer now
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Mission Time : 109 Days
System count now up to 1149 and not a whole lot of the current batch of Systems remaining.
Depending on how many leftovers are found, this 3rd AOR could be finished up in a matter of a few days.
I'm still surprised how many Earth-Like Worlds were in those C-Mass Systems, which mostly were K Class Stars.
...and the 2nd large Exploration Milestone has been hit :
I'm now in the Top 100 EDSM for Systems discovered first.
Entering - let alone climbing up that list - was something I deemed virtually unpossible a year ago.
Well, let's see how that works out in the future. Next stop would be at Rank 90.
(not running that competitively - but that's definitely fun to watch)
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Mission Time : 110 Days
Pushed the System count to 1204 now - but already saw during scanning that there were still some C-Mass and even a few D-Mass Systems hiding...
lol, I knew these things were growing on trees here....
Oh well, that leaves tomorrow with mapping out the (possibly) last leftovers of the leftovers in the AOR.
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Mission Time : 111 Days
...another large clean-up run done, at this time some 30 marked Systems are left to scan in the AOR.
( but I'm sure I still overlooked some lol )
Total count is now up to 1282 Systems....
Visual progress indication is a tad hampered currently by ED Astrometrics not updating all Maps correctly anymore since a few days.
The shown Data is the Galactic Regions Map, already >2 days old and there's typically some additional delay before fresh data is validated and incorporated;
Either way, seeing myself working towards a new AOR within 48hrs...
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Mission Time : 112 Days
With another clean-up run complete, System count now at 1318 Systems.
However, another look... revealed yet another batch of leftovers scattered throughout the AOR.
Alright, maybe this next run does the trick. It definitely will the be the last one in the current location.
However, the recent experience has shown that manually cherrypicking Mass-Code Systems leaves considerable room for error, requiring a - somewhat frustrating - high amount of reiterations of the applied Scan Pattern.
Being already stressed that way even in fairly low Star Density, I must admit this technique - while eventually effective and successful - would be nearly impossible to apply in normal or even high Star Density.
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Mission Time : 113 Days
3rd AOR is now complete!
Apart from a nice amount of Earth-Like worlds, though, it has proven to be completely dry in terms of Biologicals (or NSPs).
The usual Statistics :
1404 Systems scanned
17 Earth-Like worlds
22 Ammonia worlds
141 Water worlds
6 Water Giants
1372 Gas Giants
Fun Stat : 7070 Icy bodies
Now it's off to Waypoint Delta, the 4th one of this Campaign.
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Mission Time : 114 Days
The Mercator is now on Station in the Oephairgh BW-X b14-122 System, which sits at some distance to the previous Waypoints.
Got comfy in the new area very quickly; Carrier is placed near a Tritium source, which already provided some resupply to the Tritium depot.
Entire Neutron Uplinks within 100LY have been scanned, otherwise the immediate area didn't have many exotic Systems to offer.
Half of the AOR is filled with high-mass Systems, however, so I'll definitely get a chance to hunt Anemones if they exist around here.
On AOR size and metrics and with the experiences gained from manually picking C/D-Mass Systems in mind, I've decided to make this a "lax" AOR.
Instead of putting focus on size, I'll run a limit of 1000 Systems for this one.
Seems reasonable sample size and warrants a realistic pacing onward to future Waypoints.
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Mission Time : 116 Days
After locating a Planetary Nebula within 1000LY of Waypoint 4, it was checked out.
And to my surprise, its immediate surroundings aren't densely explored as I expected.
For that reason, the Mercator has left Waypoint 4 and moved to a Waypoint 4b in the Eord Ploe GG-Z b29-30 System over what's a weak Tritium Double Hotspot.
As this looks far more promising than Waypoint 4 itself, might as well thoroughly check it out and return back later.
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Mission Time : 117 Days
Various Systems around the Planetary Nebula have been checked out but surprisingly nothing interesting turned up so far, which is a tad disappointing.
Looked like a very promising candidate area.
I'll likely remain down here for a little while and return to Waypoint 4 after I sampled a sufficient amount of Systems.
Tritium has been topped off already with some surplus going into the Reserves, so the Fuel cost for the little detour has been compensated in a timely manner.
On a sidenote, looks like someone purchased a little over 100t of Low Temperature Diamonds. Surprising, as there is no Carrier in the immediate vicinity.
Especially in the light of the continued issues with the Pulse Wave Analyzer, the prices offered by the Mercator seem very competitive.
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Mission Time : 118 Days
After sampling a sufficient amount of Systems, the Mercator returned to Waypoint 4 at Oephairgh BW-X b14-122.
Call it intuition - but apart from the expected Anemones, the detour to the Planetary Nebula yielded nothing exciting and I didn't expect it to surprise me after what I saw.
Now it's back to filling the 4th AOR with meat, which will easily take several weeks.
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Mission Time : 119 Days
Back at Waypoint 4, the AOR is slowly being populated with scanned Systems.
Tritium reserves have already been topped off, so there's no Tritium debt remaining from the little detour.
With 158 Systems scanned, the area is still vastly unexplored, though.
Facing some 45000+ Systems within 100LY, the plan remains to sample approx. 1000 Systems and then move on.
On a sidenote, the offered prices for SAR Salvage have been increased yet again.
With so little traffic around the Mercator, it might help attract someone that picked up something along the way.
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Mission Time : 120 Days
The M.R.S.C. Mercator has been operating in Deep Space since a full 4 months now.
Quite a while, at least by my Standards.
With an exact 200 Systems scanned in the current AOR, the task here is 20% complete.
The existence of Anemones in the AOR has been confirmed today, so at least the area holds some Biologicals.
Better than nothing.
And after being out in the void over 1/4 year now, Rule #32 applies : Enjoy the little things!
The high star density permits putting all of the Carrier Scouts back into action, so I also enjoy the variety of Ships being employed to get the job done.
With some 800 Systems to go while on Station here, it means the Carrier will maintain position for over 2 more weeks.
On a sidenote, no new Earth-Like world has turned up so far - neither at the detour location nor here.
The Nav/C/D/E Scan Pattern being employed should make one show up sooner or later though.
