DISTANT WORLDS II 3305 PART 1/3 - WP #1-5 (Trip #6)
14 Feb 2019XhaleR
Almost a year has passed since I signed up for the DISTANT WORLDS 2 expedition to the other side of the galaxy, and finally the time has come as we soon will be on our way towards Beagle Point with over 13 000 (!!) commanders signed up for this long awaited journey. This is by far going to be the largest event in Elite's history and I am really looking forward to do this epic journey across the galaxy again; this time along with thousands of other commanders. Beeing away for maybe a year and traveling over 200KLYs, this is going to be one huge journey (and logbook)!
I wish you all a safe journey! o7
12.01.3305 - RENDEZ VOUS AT "BROOKS POINT" THE DAY BEFORE DEPARTURE
One last look at my homebase for a long, long time before pointing my nose to the rendezvous point in Pallaeni. My explorerconda "Prometheus", which has taken me across the galaxy all the way to Beagle Point once before has been further engineered to a jumprange of just over 70LY's, equipped with 4 SRV's and a fighter onboard. Things are looking good!
Landed at Brooks Point to rendezvous with some other DW2 commanders before the departure tomorrow.
13.01.3305 - WAYPOINT 1 - LAUNCH DAY
DW2 launch is finally here and we've all met up at the DW1 tourist beacon getting ready for the first departure (Europe) in 20 minutes.
Spending the night at "The View" in HR 6164 enjoying this awesome view just about an hour after the epic DW2 mass jump from Pallaeni. This planet has 3.3G gravity and landing here can become a really unpleasant surprise if you're not used to high gravity landings. According to EDSM, 31 ships was destroyed here within 24 hours after the DW2 departure and most of them probably during an attempt to land right here at The View. RIP cmdrs! Distance from Pallaeni: 1201LYs.
14.01.3305 - GETTING INTO THIS RELAXING "EXPLORER MODE" AGAIN
Landed at planet A 4 in Cycladia POI for the night and met up with some new friends. There is also a spectacular ringed ELW in this system well worth visiting. So spectacular that I totally forgot to take pictures, so you have to come out here to see it for yourself.
Distance from Pallaeni: 2603LYs15.01.3305 - A CLOSE LOOK AT "THORS EYE"
Even if surrounded by thousands of other DW2 explorers, I am starting to sense this nice and quiet "beeing alone" feeling again after reaching almost 4000LY's away from the bubble. On my way to WP2 I stopped by to spend some time at a few POI's on the way.
First stop was at Labirinto with some nice misty mountains and deep canyons.
My next stop was the famous "Thor's Eye" black hole where I got as close as 150km before it started to get really hot and shot some nice pictures. Met a few "first time" explorers that had never seen a BH before, so I stayed a bit longer and guided them to a safe distance to enjoy this awesome gem (approaching a BH can be a really scary experience the first time!)
Landed at Amundsen Terminal refuel outpost in the Lagoon nebula for some maintenance, a nice cold beer and a good nights sleep. Also made a good pile of credits selling my explorer data here and instantly became an ally of the place. Was a bit surprised of the landing procedure for this "Space Shuttle" Beluga - but it sure looks cool.
Distance from Pallaeni: 4554LYs
16.01.3305 - BIOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES
Took a little detour to visit the Cinnabar Moth nebula on the last leg to WP2. After a whole day of flying it was nice to spend the night on a quiet little planet and picked a biological site to investigate. Discovered a field full of nice looking Blattinus Bioluminescent Anemones which was added to the codex. Will investigate a bit more tomorrow before heading of to WP2. Distance from Pallaeni: 5754LYs
17.01.3305 - WAYPOINT 2 - OMEGA NEBULA
Arrived safely at WP2 today and docked at Omega Mining Operation asteroid terminal to spend the night there. Except for a new paintjob the Prometheus is still without a single scratch after almost 6KLYs. Going to find the bar and join some other cmdrs for a few beers before going to bed. It's been an awesome journey so far! Distance from Pallaeni: 5881LYs
23.01.3305 - MINING LIKE CRAZY
Greetings commanders! Have been staying here at waypoint 2 for almost a week now for a bit of local exploration and meeting new friends. I also wanted to do my part in the mining CG, so I parked my explorer conda for the rest of the week and bought myself an ASPX, set it up for mining and joined in. Within the first hour I was sensing this massive dedication and enthusiasm in the chat to contribute for the building of our new station at SagA*. With well over 5000 (!) commanders participating, this has to be one of, if not the largest community goal ever done in Elite's history, and something that I am very proud to be a part of, handing in almost 800T of materials with my mid-range ASPX miner. The mining job has gone beyond everyone's expectations, and the initial goal reaching tier 10 was completed within a very short time. It actually went so well that Frontier decided to raise the goal to the next level at tier 11, which more than doubled the amount of materials from tier 10. So now we are at almost 3 million tons of materials and are about to round it up. Very, very impressive! As the CG probably will end today, I will use the last few days before heading on to WP3 to just relax and join some friends at the basecamps. Expecting some action and fun there during the weekend while we're waiting for the next wp to be revealed on sunday.
27.01.3305 - LEAVING OMEGA NEBULA
After a very successful week at Omega Mining Operations, it is time to move on and head towards the next waypoint. Winged up with some friends to do the initial (mass)jump together as usual. I'm never getting tired of this!!
28.01.3305 - A VISIT TO "THE ARKGAMANON MOUNTAIN RANGE" POI
Just relaxing out here in the black, so I spent some time exploring on my way to the next POI. Discovered a few waterworlds before reaching the mountains at Arkgamanon. Landed on a peak there and took my SRV out for a spin. Didn't go well as I quickly misjudged how close the edge was and suddenly was in a basejump 15km above the ground. One out of four Scarabs was gone. Lost another one in a bungy jump with another cmdr, so this is a dangerous place for ground vehicles!
Distance from Pallaeni: 6159LYs
30.01.3305 - LONG TIME, NO SEE...
Arrived at Eagle's Landing today and it was nice to see this little refuel outpost again. Last time I visited this place was on my previous trip to Colonia and Beagle Point. Have some work to do on the ship, so I will be busy installing two new SRV's and do some minor repairs on the powerplant before moving on towards WP3. Distance from Pallaeni: 6841LYs
01.02.3305 - WAYPOINT 3 - GATHERING AT THE "CONFLUX ABANDONED SETTLEMENT"
Safely reached WP3 today after a detour to the "Lair of Unicorns" to watch the colliding moons, which was supposed to happen today. But space can be unpredictable, so unfortunately nothing happened today. Met some other (rather disappointed) commanders in the system before setting the course to the basecamp to meet some friends. But I will surely be back here again some other time to watch this gigantic collision. My detour was in total over 4500LY's so I even crossed into the "Inner Scutum Centaurus Arm" region. But did some great exploring on the way and discovered a lot of interesting and profitable systems, so no hard feelings!
Arrived at the basecamp late in the evening and the place was pitch black on the "dark side of the moon", so I had to use my nightvision to navigate. But a few kilometers away from the site I could turn it off when I saw the brightest and most awesome landing beacon anyone could expect as I was met by a circle of ships parked on the ground with their lights on. What an awesome sight, and it is definetely one of the coolest experiences so far on this journey. Had a drink of Lavian Brandy and watched some funny acrobatic moves from a few condas making a pyramid before retiring for the night. A new day tomorrow and looking forward to see what's up for the rest of the weekend. Distance from Pallaeni: 8989LYs
03.02.3305 - MOVIN'N ON...
WP4 has been revealed and it's time to leave our "home" for the last week at the Conflux Delta site. It has been some nice and quiet days, just relaxing and meeting old and new friends. Have explored some systems in the nearby area and found some interesting geo sites. The route distance to WP4 is about 6KLY's so I'll take the time to explore on my way. Will also be nice to visit the guardian ruins site so far from the bubble.
"So long, basecamp!"
After takeoff 27 ships winged up for nice massjump. Very cool!
07.02.01.3305 - NEW DISCOVERIES
Found a nice place to land for the night to relax as we are getting deeper and deeper into the black. It's been a quiet week since leaving the Conflux settlement at WP3 and I have spent the days just exploring new places, which this expedition is all about. Discovered a nice triple waterworld system with a total of seven terraformable bodies that paid A LOT of credits at Sacaqawea Space Port. Also visited some nice POI's that was recommended along the route, and passed some guardian ruins sites that I visited on my previous trips to Beagle Point. Have been on my own almost the whole week, but with my "distant" radio stations and the squadron chat available at all times I'm never feeling alone. But it's always nice to land on a new basecamp, sharing our latest exploring highlights and just have some fun.
This time we can also celebrate that our squadron won the Season 1 explorer leaderboard yesterday, and I heard that there is also a winners prize waiting for the us in the outfitting area at the next station. Well done, Fleetcomm!!
10.02.3305 - WAYPOINT 4 - A RELAXING WEEK
Time to leave for the next waypoint after a week at wp4. I've been spending most of time here just relaxing and doing small jumps to explore the nearby systems. As we are still over 13 000 cmdrs doing the same route, I suspected many of the nearby systems had already been discovered and mapped when beeing so close to the base. But I found several new WW's and even a few ELW's on my way and this just shows how many systems there are left to discover.
But we always got time to play around and have some fun at the basecamps. Someone had brought an "ancient football", so we joined up for some SRV soccer. This is also a Geo site with some powerful geysers to jump, but I learned the hard way that this can be risky business. Launching like a rocket almost 6km into the sky followed by a REAL hard landing at 300m/sec was a bit more than my Scarab could take so it just blew up in a cloud of dust. Luckily I have three left, so I took my chances. Safely returned to my ship I watched a few others doing these crazy jumps and one even managed to survive in some miraculous way as you can see HERE!
It's always nice to find a nice landing spot in the evening and having a late night cruise in the Scarab. Found a few nice Geo and Bio sites with this colorful Rubeum Bioluminescent Anemone to add to the codex.
"Three, two, one, ENGAGE!!
56 ships (counted) leaving WP4 in a giant massjump. Takes my breath away every time
Distance from Pallaeni: 13058LYs
11.02.3305 - GAGARIN GATE
Arrived at Gagarin Gate planetary outpost in the evening to do some repairs, fix up the paint and fill up the SRV bay to get ready for tomorrows new discoveries. Sold a week of explorer data and got me another 150 million cr.
It's quiet here and not more than a few other commanders visiting. Will join them in the bar for a cold one before going to bed. It's going to be a long day in the cockpit tomorrow, heading for the next POI. o7 Distance from Pallaeni: 14240LYs
13.02.3305 - WP5 - POLO HARBOUR
From Gagarin Gate I took a detour to see "The Crux" and it was certainly worth the extra jumps seeing these crossing pulsars. Many undiscovered systems on the way to Gandharvi where I docked at the Ocellus starport "Caravanserai" after a long day in the cockpit. Opened a bottle of Lavyan Brandy to celebrate one month out in the black since we departed from Pallaeni 13.january. Still going strong!
From Gandharvi I continued towards Polo Harbour and stopped by the "Death Spiral" and "Michelle's Legacy" on my way. The Death Spiral was a really special place having a class V gas giant orbiting its white dwarf in only 15 minutes, and also passing through the jet of it. Michelle's Legacy was also a "must see" as this system has 6 black holes!!
Arrived at WP5 in the evening and landed at Polo Harbour outpost. As we will stay here until sunday, there will be plenty of time to just relax, have fun and meet the rest of the fleet. I guess I will spend a day just exploring the nearby system to look for something interesting. But right now I'm just tired and it's time to hit the sack. Goodnight! o7
Distance from Pallaeni: 17510LYs
END OF PART 1
DW2 Part 2