Over 18,000 Lightyears Without A Canopy
14 May 2019Scubadog
Yes, you heard that right. 18,000 lightyears without a completely blown canopy. You can imagine how I'm feeling right now as I sit, slumped in the command seat of my injured Anaconda, parked on the pad at Colonia Dream. 
I still can't believe I did it. Here's how it all happened.
After the mass jump from Beagle Point with my fellow Silverbacks, I began the 60,000 ly trek back to my home at Colonia Dream in the Ratraii system.
Since my nav computer was incapable of plotting a neutron-star heavy route home to make best possible time, I resorted to manually calculating the route.
If I hadn't done this, my nav computer would have had me doing about four times as many jumps to get home. I knew that this would take a heavy toll on my FSD but, of course, I was well-supplied with AFMS materials to repair my FSD once it dropped to about 75% (below which it likes to routinely fail during scooping or attempts to jump). It meant a lot of bouncing into the galaxy map to program in the next sequence of jumps, which would be tedious. However, all had been going swimmingly as I progressed. Boring and repetitive, but no issues.
And then the unthinkable happened. I always scoop neutron stars WAY out in the cone, and this one, just over 18,000 lightyears from Ratraii, was no different. A little faster on the spin, but still, not unusual. But suddenly all the alarms on my ship were going off, Eden began listing module failure after module failure, and sparks and smoke were filling up the bridge! What was happening?!
My poor Anaconda had somehow been yanked out of witchy space and now it was being mercilessly pummeled by the cone of the neutron star. A quick glance at my status display showed system after system going red, especially the FSD. Miraculously thrusters were still hanging on, but as much as I spammed the hell out of them I couldn't get out of the cone.
Desperate, and hoping against hope that my crewmate, Malina, and I were going to be able to survive this, I clawed at the systems panel and forced a reboot. Now, that is the scariest damn thing you will ever do...reboot your ship while it's in its death throes in a neutron star cone. That momentary scene where your entire ship is dead during the reboot is virtually indistinguishable from how it looks when it's about to destruct. But...then...she groaned to life!
I had 2% FSD back, so I tried 8 times to engage supercruise….and I finally saw it start to charge. But before it had a chance to fully spin up I was met by that unmistakable crack and woosh as the canopy disintegrated and all the air in the ship belched out into space. 7 minutes and 30 seconds of life left.
I had 7:30 to decide if I could hold it together to figure out a survival plan. Thankfully, The Ceti Azeria was now limping away from the neutron star in supercruise. But this meant nothing if we're gasping for breath. 18,000 lightyears from a station. On essentially a regulator. So, I quickly assessed my synthesizing materials. I had 140 chances to synth more air. I had 60 chances to synth more AFMS elements. And 134 jumps if nothing went wrong.
On average, I figured I should be able to get at least 2 jumps per air refill. But 134 jumps was my manual calculation. That was ideal case. But I had to try. So, first, repaired the FSD to full, thrusters to about 40%, and my power distributor to 75%. I had 40% hull at this point, so I fixed the repair limpet controller, synthed a couple of rounds of limpets and fired those of to get my hull to 70%. Burning through a few air refills in the process.
Finally having enough of a ship to maybe make it home, I picked up where I left off. But for the first 20 jumps or so, something was still off. My FSD was repaired, but for some reason it was taking me at least one more jump each time than my calculations allowed for. That's when I realized what an idiot I was and hadn't repaired the Guardian FSD module. I set the AFMS to task on that and then I was back in the swing of things.
From this point it because a careful dance between watching the air, watching the fuel, watching the FSD health. I cut things close a few times on the air, getting down to about 20 seconds of air before the synthesizer had replenished it. I even recorded some portions of the trip back for posterity---mostly because that might be the only thing anyone finds left of me or Malina.
You cannot believe how relieved I was to make that last neutron scoop and that last jump into Ratrii and go limping through the mail slot at Colonia Dream. I even had a few air fills left! Sheesh. 18,000 lightyears, over 130 jumps with no canopy. I would've never believed it. I will never, ever slouch on maxing out iron and nickel.
The lessons to be taken from this experience? First, no matter how good or careful you are, you can always make a catastrophic mistake. Second, prepared is better than lucky but the combination of preparedness and luck are nearly unbeatable. Third, keep your head!. Looking back, I could easily have slipped right into panic and just sat there as Malina and I got cocooned into lifepods, watching The Ceti Azeria meet an untimely end. If you have air and most of your ship still around you there's always a chance to pull your ass out of the fire and at least get back into the frying pan. Fourth, work the hierarchy of needs. If I'd wasted too much time trying desperately to boost thrusters out of the neutron cone I'd have never had time to try rebooting the ship. I needed to get the ship away from the star FIRST. Once dealt with, next was air, repairs, setting course and then coordinating the systems. Finally, forcing myself to settle into the routine the entire way home.
I don't know if I have the record for surviving the longest trip without a canopy, but surely I'm up there near the top.