(5,464 hours) - Phase 6 - Formorian Frontier, Hieronymus Delta & Newton's Vault
22 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 6 |
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This phase has taken 22 hours effort since the Phase 5 update.
From PROYOE OD-Z B13-4 in the Formorian Frontier region, a route was plotted to travel through Hieronymus Delta to PREOU CHRIE EJ-Q B32-1 in Newton's Vault region. The route covered 202 jumps and 10,025.20LY, plus any detours to visit interesting locations along the way.
At 38 jumps, only the second system with worthwhile mapping planets was found and I decided to stop there at BLO BRE WE-R C4-30 for the night. Here were twin terraformable high metal content worlds from that system:
On the following day and after 13 jumps, the system BYOI CHRAEI SY-H C23-29 was reached. At that point, a detour of 19 jumps / 919LY was taken to visit the system BLAA GREE AA-A H0. That location contains a black hole known as the Eye of Ereshkigal.
8 jumps into the detour, two HM terraformable planets were found in the BLAA GREE DW-C D81 system worth mapping. In the background, you can see one of the planets and how much different the galactic light is looking from this area:
Only 62.56LY away from the black hole, an Earth Like world was discovered in the system BLAA GREE QU-V D3-6:
I arrived at BLAA GREE AA-A H0 and was greeted by the Eye of Ereshkigal. Nearly a whole day was spent there whilst enjoying the view.
The black hole complimented the darkened galactic light very well. This is a very unique place to visit if you ever head out in this direction:
This final image shows gravitational lensing over the Large Magellanic Cloud:
Later that night, it was time to head back towards the route I'd left earlier. An 18 jump / 918LY course was set for the system BYOI CHRAEI SY-H C23-30.
With 12 jumps left, a terraformable water world and high metal content world were found in the system BLAU BRE CS-N B6-7, where the planets were mapped and Viatorem moored for the night. In the image below, you can see the probes mapping the HM world after dropping from SC:
After 7 jumps on the following day, a class 2 gas giant worth mapping was found in the system BYOI CHRAEI KU-B B54-1, which had a value of 379k credits. For comparison, that's actually more than some pre-mapped EL worlds I've visited.
The target BYOI CHRAEI SY-H C23-30 was reached and a worthwhile metal rich planet mapped, before setting target back to the end of Phase 6 destination PREOU CHRIE EJ-Q B32-1. From there, the distance was 150 jumps / 7,450.20LY.
8 jumps into the route, a terraformable HM world and an EL world were discovered. Rather than spending the night elsewhere in the void, I settled down at the Earth Like planet for the night:
On the next day, I continued ahead for 10 jumps and found another Class 2 Gas Giant worth mapping (for 338k) in the system BYOI CHRAEI MX-L C7-52:
From there, a small detour was plotted to visit the 'Ghostly Lantern'. The new location was only 9 jumps / 416.33LY away in the system BYOI CHRAEI EV-Y D15. It's a 2.3g ice body which orbits its brown dwarf star so closely that a year only takes 3 hours.
I arrived at the BYOI CHRAEI EV-Y D15 system and was surprised to find two unmapped terraformable planets within 100LS of the Ghostly Lantern. I mapped those first, enabled my shields and headed over to the high G world:
After landing, the SRV was deployed and the Carbon material banks were filled, before heading back to Viatorem:
A mini route was taken to BYOI CHRAEI EB-W B15-14 of 9 jumps / 417.33LY to re-join the main path. After getting there, PREOU CHRIE EJ-Q B32-1 was re-plotted (the Phase 6 destination), being 132 jumps / 6,531.49LY away.
7 jumps in, an Ammonia World was discovered only 174LS from its star in the system BYOI CHRAEI NS-U B2-13:
21 jumps later (57th of today), TRUECHOOE YJ-G B24-0 was the last system in the Formorian Frontier, before transitioning into Hieronymus Delta on the next jump to TRUECHOOE QS-J B22-11.
After 20 more jumps and in the system SMOOTEIA OH-H B51-8, it suddenly dawned on me that I was meant to take another detour to visit a crystalline shard site called Tellurium Fields. I'd gone slightly past the intended switch place but it wasn't too far, so I still went ahead with the side trip. The detour would take me to BLA BLOAE RF-L D9-77 which was 24 jumps / 1,195.40LY.
6 jumps into the detour, a terraformable High Metal planet and 3 Water Worlds were discovered in the system TRUECHAE GN-W C1-22. Here was the most valuable planet at just over 3m credits, planet A2:
I arrived at the target BLA BLOAE RF-L D9-77 and flew 361,438LS to visit body B2D, containing the Tellurium Fields. Viatorem was landed at the site and the engines switched off for the night:
After waking up the next day, the SRV was deployed to investigate the site and gather the last 7 Tellurium needed to fill the capacity:
If you're curious about exactly how much Tellurium there is, for a perspective the first four element groups I found were all Crystalline Clusters and the radar below shows how many there were on sensors - I'd never seen anything like it!
When coming into land last night, some red canyons were seen that caught my attention. I took a flight over, deployed the fighter and had some fun flying in something manoeuvrable for a change:
^You'll notice that Viatorem showed 'unmanned' when I was in the fighter. Hmmm, yes, unfortunately it was at that point that I realised I'd left my pilot Ethan at Beagle Point! I thought he was elsewhere on Viatorem but on retrospect, it was odd that I hadn't seen him since leaving BP in Phase 5. He's not going to be happy! I sent a datastream and asked him to transfer to Explorer's Anchorage in STUEMEAE FG-Y D7561. Then I will pick him up when I next visit a station, near Sagittarius A in a later phase.
After flying the fighter and re-docking, Viatorem was landed again and 4 Niobium collected, meaning all element capacities were back at 100%. Then a course was plotted to re-join the main route at SMOOTEIA GL-E C25-9, which was 24 jumps / 1,195.23LY.
At 9 jumps, I was in the TRUECHAE LQ-G C10-7 system and a metal rich planet was found only 8.23LS from its star. The star had a solar mass of 0.86 and a solar radius of 0.93. That meant because the planet was so close, it had an incredibly high surface temperature of 1814k. The star isn't in the image itself but you can see the brightness from the reflection:
The target system SMOOTEIA GL-E C25-9 was reached and contained a terraformable high metal content world. Once again, the main course was set for the end of Phase destination PREOU CHRIE EJ-Q B32-1 which was then 83 jumps / 4,048.03LY.
With 48 jumps done, there hadn't been many planets worth mapping in this area but I managed to find a nice metal rich lava world in the system FLYAI GRAAE LT-O D7-11. I flew behind the planet to capture the eclipse and retired to my cabin for the night.
Only 35 jumps / 1674.86 remained for the final day. That was to continue to travel through the Hieronymus Delta Region and away from the Scutum-Centaurus Galactic Arm. The route would take me into a sparse area known as Mare Desperationis which would be where I'd arrive in the Newton’s Vault (after 14 jumps) and lead into the Norma arm for Phase 7.
11 jumps in and 3 jumps away from Newton's Vault, a water world was found in the system FLYAI GRAAE ZH-V C5-3, which can be seen below:
4 jumps later, a terraformable high metal world was found with a dense covering of Sulphur-Dioxide clouds in the system FLYAI GRAAE DC-B D1-21:
I pressed on, covering the Newton’s Vault region's last 20 jumps and arrived at the Phase 6 target of PREOU CHRIE EJ-Q B32-1. There weren't any planets of interest to visit so Viatorem was stopped off next to twin ice worlds, shown here:
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| Progress Stats |
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The progress values for Phase 6 were:
Combining the totals from the 6 Phases gives the overall progress of:
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| Route |
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This section shows the route I'd taken via EDSM
Shown just for Phase 6:
Shown for Phases 1-6:
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| The plan ahead |
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The next phase of the expedition will be to continue onwards through Mare Desperationis in the Newton's Vault region and cut through the Norma Arm, heading to the far side of The Conduit region.
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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