(5,374 hours) - Phase 3 - The Veils & Formorian Frontier
02 Aug 2020Evolution
--------------| Overview |
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The overall mission can be found here.
The log is structured into the following sections:
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| Phase 3 |
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This phase has taken 72 hours effort since the Phase 2 update.
This phase was to continue along the Scutum-Centaurus Galactic Arm and travel into the Formorian Frontier Region.
Still being in the Flyai Flyuae nebula (see the last log) and knowing that this was the last Nebula I'd see for a very long time, I decided to moor-up the ship here and carry out some essential ship computer work. Another 2 jumps were made inside the Nebula to Flyai Flyuae VO-A C0 and a month and a half break was taken from flying. The time was spent reconfiguring the computer, building and refining various UI's and starting from scratch with the COVAS recognition engine.
Unfortunately for the data I record in my logs, historic data was wiped from EDD with the ship's computer reset. I mistakenly assumed EDD would link up with EDDN and EDSM to retrieve all the info.
However, on the positive side, except for the two jumps I made, I have the previous info from my INARA logs, plus EDD is recording the information after those 2 jumps. Before leaving, my co-pilot and I checked everything internally and deployed the fighter to check all of the external modules were also working correctly:
Firstly, a route was plotted to head towards the middle of the Scutum-Centaurus Galactic Arm which was 36 jumps. 8 jumps in, an interesting planet was found overlooking the Flyai Flyuae nebula that I'd recently left. The planet is orbiting a Gas Giant over 2K LS from its star and was a water world with a metal rich ring in the FLYAI FLYUAE DG-X D1-20 system:
After the gentle re-introduction, I settled down there for a few days. Late on the 18th, I headed away and travelled at a slow pace to the routes target system, covering the remaining 28 jumps.
A long course was then plotted to THUECHAEI JN-A D1-6 (as planned from the last log), which was 409 jumps covering 19,920 LY.
6 jumps later, an interesting system was found with various profitable planets to map. The ship was stopped for the night outside a terraformable water world - FLYAI FLYUAE IE-E D13-253 - Planet 9:
The following day and with 377 jumps remaining, a vibrant Ammonia world was discovered in the system PRUE FLYUAE RT-O D7-11 system:
It was at that point, that I had a look at where the newly established Deep Space Support Array (DSSA) of fleet carriers were in relation to my course.
I selected the 113th jump in my route to take me to ROEFAA QG-J D10-106, where a short detour would be taken to visit the carrier TFS Carpe Vinum in the system BYAE AOWSY GR-N D6-52.
Around half way there and with 67 jumps remaining, a Class III Gas Giant was found, only 75LS from its class K star in the system DRYIQEAU XX-J C25-38:
24 jumps away and in the system ROEFAA IR-C D17, I discovered possibly the largest Ammonia world I'd ever seen! It seemed almost like a Gas giant with its 72 Earth masses and 6 moons. Comparing that to a small Gas giant with water based life in the same system was only 40 Earth masses, so the Ammonia planet was well over 1.5 times the mass.
17 jumps later, Viatorem stopped off in the system ROEFAA TI-B C16-13 to top up a few materials in an SRV, whilst visiting some ice geysers on the planet 2DA:
I arrived at ROEFAA QG-J D10-106 (which I'd plotted for starting the detour). Next was to set a course to the DSSA carrier in BYAE AOWSY GR-N D6-52. There were 22 jumps / 1,004.01LY needed, so I decided to press on and be able to hopefully see the first human since May. I was looking forward to seeing one of the new carriers I'd heard about from the deep-space data streams!
It was pleasantly surprising that even though my last jump was only 14.7LY, it hadn't been visited before - like nearly everywhere else, this far out at 46,582LY from Sol.
When I reached the system BYAE AOWSY GR-N D6-52 and the area of the DSSA carrier, it was welcoming to have a taste of home, by being greeted by an Earth Like World with a ring system, which the TFS Carpe Vinum carrier was orbiting:
When I arrived, it felt a little unsettling to know that the entire carrier was probably empty, except a few essential crew. I pulled up a 3D map of my location (ED Discovery) to check the EDDN log of previous visits. There weren't many travel records around there which I was a bit surprised about.
To check progress, the (EDDN) totals showed the amounts since I did the ship's computer overhaul, which reset the exploration data to zero in EDD like I mentioned at the start of the log. As expected, there was a gap of two systems between ending Phase 2 and the reset.
EDSM showed the planets in the 2 systems and the missing stat information was based on averages of 1068 systems from the journey since Phase 1.
So far, the Phase 3 results were looking good with 203 jumps, 3,142 scans and 115 planets mapped - worth a value of 220,513,140.
That also reached the milestone of a billion credit exploration data value from the phases. It had reached 1,040,320,844 from the start of the journey when I left the Eagle Nebula.
From there, a course was plotted 20 jumps / 1003.70LY back to the previous main route line via unvisited stars (so, including other types of systems like non scoopable stars).
After arriving at ROEFAA WM-H B43-5, I re-joined the main route and plotted a course again, for the phase 3 objective of reaching THUECHAEI JN-A D1-6. From there, the distance was 12,857LY / 266 jumps.
50 jumps were traveled and a terraformable planet with extensive polar regions was found in the system FACHAEA IG-B C2-5. The next day was spent there while overhauling one of the ships panels.
In RL, I use 2 tablets and a phone connected to my PC as panels for Elite (in W10, they're basically extra screens). The overhaul was for the phone which has a custom Rainmeter skin showing 8 audio directional channels, visually representing where sound is coming from.
It used to have a screenshot of Viatorem for the background but now it uses a GIF of the ship. If you want me to share any info, help, files etc - give me a shout.
54 jumps in, I arrived at the system FACHAEA YZ-W D2-4 which was remarkable. It contained 2 terraformable high metal content worlds, one terraformable water world but most importantly - an Earth like world. From there, the distance was 46,922 from Sol, 33,552 from Colonia and 24,071 from Beagle Point.
With 102 systems visited, I arrived in GRIA PRAU JA-Z C16-3. Planet 9 was interesting - being a massive water world covered in a thick mist due to the temperature and pressure.
The surface temperature was 584k Kelvin (3x boiling point of water on Earth), it has 9.5 x the mass of Earth, 3G and very dense Atmospheric Pressure at 765.14 (over 8 x Venus). Similar to the large Ammonia world I discovered earlier in this phase, this world was also larger than a Gas giant in the same system (Planet 11, Class 1, 7.95 Earth masses). I took a low flight over the world to collect some atmospheric samples before continuing on the journey:
19 jumps later, I'd left The Veils region and was in the second system of the Formorian Frontier.
The system was called FLYAE BLAO VN-A D1-30, which contained a brown dwarf with an enormous ring. Its mass was over 9.4 Trillion tonnes and its radius was 1.88LS / diameter of 3.76LS
After another 44 jumps, I arrived in the system FLYAE BLAO CQ-O C22-8 where 3 terraformable worlds were found and I decided to rest there for the night.
The next day, a total of 42 systems were visited. On the 25th jump (in the system PROOE BLI ND-Q D6-33), a nice looking water world was found with a rocky ring quite a distance from the planet. With the image below, you can see the light of the galaxy was definitely getting dimmer, compared to the previous phases:
The following day and after only 2 jumps into the travels, I discovered another Earth Like World in the system AUPHAIQS EH-C D70. From there, only 76 jumps / 3647LY were remaining for Phase 3:
Being this far out and discovering this planet (the 3rd Earth like world in this phase) made me miss home, so I decided to stay there for a few hours. I called a friend on a deep space transmission, ate some food and took some time to relax. It was then time to continue on the journey!
34 jumps later, two metal rich planets were discovered in the AUPHAIRKS OV-B D14-33 system. It was getting late at that point so I settled down next to a 100% solid metal planet with Metallic Magma volcanism and rings:
6 jumps in, I found the DROOTAAE ZM-X C3-15 system which had a water world, an Ammonia world and another Earth Like world. There's been more than I expected out here! Thinking about it, I presume it's because I'm around the same distance as Earth is from the centre of the galaxy (26.5k vs 25.6k for Earth). This planet had 2.7 Earth masses but only 0.7 atmospheric pressures:
24 jumps later (13 to go), I arrived in THE PREIA BYOEA OG-O C22-7 system. It contained 5 terraformable planets with 3 high metal and twin water worlds:
The last few systems had a lot of planets to scan but I finally made it to the Phase 3 objective of reaching THUECHAEI JN-A D1-6. There were no high value planets to map but there were two massive high metal content worlds furthest from the star - valued at over 500k.
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| Progress Stats |
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The progress values for Phase 3 were:
Combining the totals from the three Phases gives the overall progress of:
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| The plan ahead |
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Phase 4 will be to break away from the Scutum-Centaurus Galactic Arm and travel onwards through The Formorian Frontier Region; into The Abyss to visit Beagle Point.
From where I am, I'm not able to plot a course with only scoopable stars but I can set a route with L-Type stars included.
The distance is 14,014LY which works out as 340 jumps.
After reaching Beagle Point but before sending my log in a data stream, I'll visit a carrier, ditch the 64 repairs limpets, enable the FSD booster and travel as far away as I can.
Depending on the stars I find on long range sensors, any of the FSD synthesis enhancements can be used as long as I'm sure there'll be enough fuel!
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| Ship details |
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Exploration ships are usually as light as possible which sacrifices some usage when they reach their destination.
Although Viatorem is an exploration ship, it can also be used for other aspects as well. Some features of Viatorem include:
The ship description and full information can be found on INARA here and Coriolis here
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Thank you for having a read through. Feel free to give me a shout if you have any comments or questions.
Stay safe and fly safe.
o7, Evo