Sure, NOW They're Coming to Colonia
20 Feb 2019Scubadog
I am stilling hanging around systems surrounding Sag-A. I have set down for the night on the solitary landable planet in a small system 2 ly away, and it sure doesn't look like this planet has been cooled all that long. Not a lot of cratering on it, and not a lot of erosion or tectonics to disturb that "just melted into place" look. Many parts come across as almost glassy. Makes for an interesting ride as I go searching for materials.
I've been following a lot of commanders' waves announcing their progress to Colonia. Why the sudden interest in Colonia? And of all times to be out exploring, I pick the time when I could be a one-ship welcoming committee! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see people coming out this way. Hopefully they won't get disappointed and move on. I think the Colonia Council Chamber of Commerce should hire me for their marketing. I do hope to make some new friends when I get back to Colonia. If any of y'all are reading this, my home port is Colonia Dream in the Ratraii system.
Anyway, I had something very odd happen. After I finished my excursion in the SRV to find materials I returned to the ship like normal. I aligned myself under that docking tractor and heard the familiar tweet letting me know I was on the mark. And I waited. And waited. Nothing happened for two full minutes. Okay, so let me try this again. I backed up a bit and moved back into alignment. Again, the same tweet. I waited just over another minute and then suddenly the beam grabbed the SRV--a might more violently than usual--and finally pulled me up into the bay. I was too tired at that point to dig into that mystery, so I've decided to stay parked for a couple of days while Francisca and I go over all the hardware and Eden executes all the system diagnostics. I mean, sure, having a broken SRV module isn't the worst thing to happen to a ship, but it's as damned inconvenient as having your SRV destroyed in a mishap. If it's unusable, it's unusable. I don't like to make a habit of leaving things on the ground when I launch. I figure I still have a week or so before I start seeing DW2 ships slip into the area...I've got the time.
On a side, note, I've visited a number of local systems since I arrived at Sag-A, but I've found zero additional Black Holes or even White Dwarfs. For some reason, I would have expected more.