Logbook entry

I'm kinda ready for this to be over Something fun to look back on but I'm just the other-side-of-tired now and not looking forward to more work/jump/work/jumping tomorrow! Barring any catastrophes though, hopefully this will be my last entry from space!





I'M SO SICK OF JUMPING!!!

I'd say I have a pretty good tolerance for jump fatigue; I've covered a light year and a jump or two in my travels to find the shiny and the beautiful around the Milky Way, during normal expeditions. And I'm no stranger to doing it in what some folks would consider goofy ships too, so it's not just that. But this little challenge has been by far the most stupid and most painful journey I've been on as an amateur poker-of-the-galaxy.

It's not been that bad when I look at it objectively and I'm sure after a hot bath or several, a week of sleep and a mountain of junk food later, I might well look at doing a "proper" speed run at some point in the future. But right now my head is killing me, I'm cramped, dirty, tired and my wrist is on fire - and I just want it to end!

I'm so close to home now, less than twenty-thousand or so to go and it's the absolute last leg - and yet it feels like it might as well be a million! I swear each time I look at my jump counter, I feel like someone is pulling the galaxy from under me and I'll never get there! Don't mind admitting I was a bit - I think the term is "tired and emotional" earlier

No.1 AFM is dry, and No.2 is close to it. I've got one synthesis in case but I want to try and get around with just what was in the magazines at the start if at all possible. The FTL drive, hull, power - everything's fine; but the sensors are pretty badly fried from all those close-calls and the life support isn't doing so good - all that heat and smoke from the "hot-jumps" must've taken their toll and it's no picnic in the cockpit right now!

I'd carried on down the  Sagi-Carina arm this morning and things had been going fine, until I drew level with the last "hop" onto the Perseus Arm. And true to form, the Tenebris region was giving my navcomp a headache. SO much futzing around, poking, prodding, riccocheting around the edge like some kind of drug-crazed mayfly trying to find the earliest possible crossing point. I finally found a spot where I could just (and I really mean just ) about squeak across onto the Perseus Arm.

That had taken forever though; I think I'd genuinely travelled about eighteen thousand light years in distance just looking for that crossing point, but only about nine thousand in actual displacement. So by the time I made it across and started down the Perseus Arm, I was so far behind schedule with several hundred jumps still to make that day!

Which is why I'm sat here at some ungodly hour, utterly exhausted and trying to doze; but it's SO cold that my shivering keeps waking me up. I was a little worried about how beat up the electronics had gotten because of all the heat, so I've powered off as much as I possibly can - but the flip-side of that is there's ice forming on the canopy! So I'm curled up in the pilot's seat as it's the warmest place on the ship right now, hugging my knees and trying not to think of frostbite!


One more day, Amelia...just hold together one more day



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Progress Graphic:

Apologies for the recycled/library photo in this log of the thargoid - really don't have time to stop and shutterbug! All the whining about my stupid wrist is sadly very true, it's pretty darn painful at the moment! So I might have to take it a bit easier than I hoped but I should still be on track for returning to the Gnosis in under a week, fingers crossed! So if you're onboard already, hopefully see you soon




Oww...

...has been the general theme of today! My wrists are playing nasty games with me, shooting sharp little protests up my arm every time I pitch the Viper around a star. As I approached Beagle yesterday, my right wrist was getting really uncomfortable, so I tried to pilot by again reaching across the seat and using my left-hand, which was still pretty awkward and got uncomfortable fast!  So began a scene from some kind of comedy, where I tried to craft a makeshift armrest for my right arm to ease the strain a bit, whilst still keeping up my jump rate. So I was lunging around the cockpit looking for something suitable while still staying in reach of the flight stick >.<

In the end I gave up, I just couldn't find anything. It was getting to the point I was seriously wondering if I could start flying the stupid thing with my feet, poking and prodding the flightstick around! Only problem was that the FSD jump switch would need to be hit by my toes, all-in-one Remloks don't come with removable socks, and I wasn't about to be the first person arrested for indecent exposure at Beagle Point by arriving in my birthday suit!

So nothing for it - suck it up and put up with the grumbly wrist! Flying visit to BP which was a nice mid-challenge checkpoint!



(That's Alan. He showed up a couple of days ago. Pretty sure he's not real. Can't be certain.)

Onwards! So for the rest of day 3.5, it was time to start down the Sagi-Carina arm. And I was a bit disheartened - star density on the periphery was a lot lower than it had been on the Outer Arm and the travel was a lot more erratic. So despite several hundred jumps, I hadn't made much progress by the end of the day. The temptation to push on and squeeze in one or two hundred more jumps was fairly strong, but I'd already built up enough sleep debt and any progress I made that night, I'd have paid double for the next day. So I was pretty down when I crawled into bed that evening!

So here we are on Day 4. Star density is improving, phew! And at this point, I cannot wait to get home and have the longest bath in history! What with the cockpit basically being an oven most of the time, my skin is grimy from sweating in a Remlok all day, my hair stinks of electrical smoke and I just want to climb into a tub and never get out >.< Something to look forward to!

I've heard all the kerfuffle about the Cone sector of course, via the Galnet broadcasts while I've been jumping. I've never really had a problem with the thargoids and to be honest, I was just interested in jumping around a fresh bit of space, poking around and exploring as usual. But scuttlebutt is out of control at this point and it's the end of the world as we know it, apparently! Well I'll let the sabre-rattlers do their thing and Coral and I will just go ahead as planned and hitch a ride to see what's out there. As I say, I've never had a problem with those space-starfish, even had a nice encounter with one of them once, but if they do decide to squish me, so be it

The future's not ours to see - que sera, sera





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Progress Graphic: and a quick edit - since I'm going to (HOPEFULLY!) be finishing monday evening, doing marker posts at n.5 days seemed to make more sense ANYWAY - ignore my waffle. Current progress!

Making good time, slightly ahead of schedule. And rather than be sensible and grab a few minutes more sleep, I ended up updating my log >.< Anyway, tried to do this one "back in character" as I really it missed it in the last one! Also, for what it's worth, if anyone does want to do a similair thing, I really wouldn't do it during a work week - I'm lucky that I work from home to my own schedule, but getting up at stupid o'clock this morning to play catch-up on "Witchspace Working" wasn't much fun!

ANYWAY - stuff!





Rather unsuprisingly - the mind wanders a bit when out here in the dark.

The galactic spiral is almost always off my starboard window, the intergalactic rift to port. And some time this "morning" I think, I started getting that feeling I have around the Mare Desperationis - that something is trying to gently tug me away from the light of our spinning disc and pull me out into the dark. Bit freaky and not something to dwell on when you have hundreds of thousands of light years of it ahead of you!

The jumps are just blurring together now; I've pulled all-nighters back in flight-school as a cadet, but this feels so much worse. I don't know if I've just gotten soft or if it's the constant pressure to focus and max every jump; but I'm so tired right now that I think if I do make it back to the Gnosis, I'll be asleep through the whole trip!

My right wrist was getting rather painful from all those jumps, so I tried to pilot the little Viper with my left-hand - but it's kinda hard to reach across to the right arm of the chair! I'm aching all over from hours in "the chair" when I crawl into my bunk for a catnap; and I've got a perpetual headache although I'm not sure whether that's from the lack of sleep or the electrical smoke that fills the cockpit as I cook this poor little ship with literally every jump! Oddly enough though it's not the odour of burning circuits that I smell when my mind drifts off...

When I was a kid, back on Capitol, I remember we had a huge honeysuckle tree that climbed up the outside of our house, right outside my bedroom window. I remember it mostly as it was a sneaky way in and out of the house for me, when I was up to no good! What I remember right now though, sat out here alone in the dark tens of thousands of light years from home, is the smell of the little yellow flowers in bloom. It's a lovely memory and if I close my eyes, I can imagine being back in that room looking out through the branches, hearing the birds twittering away and the leaves rustling in the breeze...

Only problem is, if I close my eyes, I'll kerplode into a star

SO - not much time for reverie! And I wouldn't call it space crazy (that's when you start wearing your pants on your head and talking to your socks) but I keep vacillating between bouts of agoraphobia one second, then chronic claustrophobia the next! I think it's got a proper medical name but I'm just calling it Deep Space Brain Pogo Syndrome. Catchy right? The only other "medical thing" that's happened apart from my gimpy wrist is I managed to smack my head on the back of the pilot's seat - I think it's called a myoclonic jerk or something; it's that thing you do where you suddenly jerk awake when you're falling asleep sometimes? Saved my butt from frying, that's all I know, but I've got a lovely bump building back there!

Anway - short and sweet progress summary; got past Wagar's Reach on the Outer Arm. Screamed and shouted at the navcomputer as it struggled to plot the earliest possible crossing of the inter-arm gap, to preserve the integrity of the circumnav challenge. After using all the sneaky plotting tricks I knew from the old days and banging it with a hammer, finally managed to goose it into finding a route that I swear went back on itself sometimes (always fun to jump into a system and see the target exit showing as being almost back the way you came!) and after a lot of lip-chewing nail-biting empty-tank jumps later, boop - helloooo Scutum-Centaurus arm! Managed to barrel along it a fair way before calling it a night.

Looking forward to tomorrow; Beagle is where I break the back of this trip and anything from there on just brings me closer to home! So I'm gonna go to sleep now for a few hours and although I hope I'll dream of that honeysuckle tree and the wind in the leaves, I'll probably just hear:





Goodnight, wherever you are

I say this all the time - but I don't think I've ever been this tired in Elite >.<

And it's only 30 odd hours in! This one's "out of character" I'm afraid as I'm just too exhausted. And there's been no time to stop for pics, other than "proof of progress" screenies of the galaxy map. I set out from the Gnosis on the morning of the 28th, but Q3 Beyond downtime hit immediately, so I kinda "reset" and started just after 4pm BST - hence the "Day 1.5" thing. Managed to get out to the rim by the end of the day on the 28th, albeit scaring myself silly working out the number of jumps ahead of me!

The Viper is performing like a champ, but it's exhausting! The tiny scoop, the dinky fuel tank and the heat generation mean each jump is quite the challenge to ensure you hit the magical 45-second jump cycle on every one, or at least get as close to it as possible. It's absolutely nothing like the disengage-brain type of jumping you get with the usual long-range boats and while I wouldn't mind it for short range hops, even enjoy it - I hit about 1200 today alone and each and every jump required a heck of a lot more thought than the usual conda jumps! I think my average peak heat per jump is hitting the mid 90's - I can't risk it too much as I only have a size 2 and 1 afm which are reserved for FSD repairs, and I think I have 1 synthesis at most!

I did "the lap" a long time ago and was relieved to find that the stellar density on the rim was a fair bit higher than I remembered; I'm trying to hug the outside of the arm as much as possible, to ensure that I'm not cutting any corners, but that means lower star density which inevitably means more zigzagging and hence a LOT more ly travelled per unit of displacement; that coupled with the lack of boosters out here means travel is slower than core travel by several factors; I've probably only done about 60-65k in the last day and a half, but jumpwise it would have been more like going to BP and most of the way back to the core. And there's several more days of it ahead! >.<

Sorry, this is all very dry stuff - I'm just absolutely exhausted and writing this in Witchspace between jumps, as I'm just about to call it a day. I popped a little graphic below to show current progress; I've taken a bajillion galmap screenies etc to act as proof which I'll compile later (and are getting copied daily to a few individuals to prove no shenanigans! ) but for now, I kinda figured a little picture would be easier to follow. I realise this log is very much not my usual goofy stuff and is probably horribly uninteresting to most, it's just a bit of an aide memoir as I don't really know up from down at the moment!

Rather than posting a few more separate ones on progress as the challenge goes on, I'll just update this post to save spamming the Inara logboards.

Anyhoo. Time for a few hours sleep before the cockpit calls again!

Tc all,
LDC