Since the crew responsible for maintaining EDs servers feels they need to take them down for 40 minutes, I might as well write here and go over what I’ve seen.
I made it to the Crab Nebula, and slowly making my way to the Heart and Soul Nebula cluster. The reason I say “slowly”, is this is one of the longest journeys between the Outer Arm Vaccus and the Perseus Arm (as it’s called unofficially by EDSM(Elite Dangerous Star Map).
Approaching and leaving the Crab Nebula, was pretty wild. When looking ‘south’ and seeing … nothing, just a void of nothingness. And looking ‘north’ towards the galaxy, you feel like you’re on the outer edges of it. Fucking wild.
I also got to the ‘beating heart’ of the Crab Nebula; the Crab Pulsar. A neutron star which was seen as I approached the nebula.
Neutron Stars are really, really tiny stars. But they’re also VERY hot stars. Which is why they can be seen for long distances.
They are so tiny, that it’s impossible to get close enough to it and not burn up by the tremendous radiation and heat. Not to mention, escaping the thing is also tricky (but not impossible).
Anyway, the main reason to bring this up is crossing the edge of the Outer Arm Vaccus back to the Perseus Arm. This is a 4kLy journey, requiring four travel points near 998.000Ly (due to the 1kLy route plot limit).
This total distance, according to EDSM, requires a staggering total of 133 jumps (JUST to get to the Heart and Soul Nebula cluster). I still remember going to Maia in that badly-built Viper Mk3, that it took 50+ jumps. I can now make that in 10-15.
Going this far is starting to take a toll on my patience. Once again I feel this is taking too long, wishing this thing was done, hoping this gives me a HUGE payout for all of this scanning… etc. I know I can take a break from the game and go play another, but I feel I must complete this expedition before the GNE (which is 23 days away from now).
I got plenty of time to kill. Just split between myself. One side is getting overly frustrated with small annoyances (scan times, having to be careful around stars when scooping, having to manually plot my course), and the other wants to see the sights (such as the Bubble Nebula).
I felt bored and annoyed before, but seeing the Nebula cluster soooooooo far away from me and not feeling like I’m getting any closer, is REALLY annoying me. The jumping. The scanning. The feeling of seeing the same old systems. Driving on the same old moons. Shit’s getting repetitive fast.
One thing I’ve planned for, is a change to the final waypoints of the long return. Instead of visiting the Veil West Nebula (since we are once the GNE starts), I’m going to bypass it and head straight for Maia. This is probably going to be the longest stretch of the journey — back to the bubble. Of course, not as long as we’re going to go to reach the Galactic Core.
Currently I had to make an emergency landing on an unknown alien moon before the servers went down. Made it with 30 seconds to spare. Due to what time it was, thought it was best to do this before heading to bed.
I should make it to the Heart and Soul cluster by tomorrow. And by then, I’ll finally be in range of the Bubble Nebula.
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EDIT: When I got back ingame, I found myself floating above the moon. As if I never landed. I believe I know what happened (it’s quite obvious).
The server saving stopped as I was descending towards the moon. So even though I landed, it was never saved as having landed. Which is why I was floating about 3,000m off the surface of the moon.
Also… I’ve FINALLY FUCKING MADE IT to the Heart & Soul Nebula Cluster!!! 😀 GEEZus… that was a LONG ass route between the Outer Arm Vaccus and the Perseus Arm! I had to do five waypoints to reach the fucking thing.
Yet the funny thing is, it pales in comparison to the 5k+Ly distances we’ll have to go for the GNE. So when I get back to the bubble and sell all of my exploration data, I might consider working with the Engineers of upgrading my jump distance. I did mess with it before I left on my expedition, and got really…annoyed when I saw an RNG aspect of ‘rolling the dice’ of getting that perfect mix of speed VS mass & power.
But I REALLY don’t want go through that hell. Hilariously, I have to..to get back home. 😛 Fuck me.
But at least I’ll soon be within jump distance for the Bubble Nebula. That should hopefully make this journey worth the effort.