The navigation spreadsheet used to navigate my way to the Heart nebula was also used to navigate my way back in 1,000 ly legs. I finally docked back at Solo station in the Altair system after travelling 15,000 light years, along with another 1-2,000 ly wandering around the two nebulae.
As I scanned each system that I visited on my journey, performing a detailed scan on many planets of systems that hadn't been explored before.
Having sold my cartographic data at Altair, my bank balance increased from 1.42M Credits to 5.65M credits and my explorer rank increased from surveyor (0%) to Trailblazer (85%). I also the first to discovered 75 new objects (or systems).
First new discovery.
the key question now is where do I go next? Do I join The First Great Expedition, or wander about some more.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the
Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Sunday, 2 August 2015
Day 21: Exploring the Heart and Soul Nebulae
Using my spreadsheet to set 1,000ly steps to the Heart nebula I rapidly approached in 30ly leaps. As the nebular get closer, the views become spectacular.
View of Heart and Soul
Closeup of heart nebula, closeup #1, closeup #2
Inside the Heart
After wandering about both the Heart and neighbouring Soul nebula, I started the long journey home.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
View of Heart and Soul
Closeup of heart nebula, closeup #1, closeup #2
Inside the Heart
After wandering about both the Heart and neighbouring Soul nebula, I started the long journey home.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Day 19: Heart and Soul nebulae
When examining the galactic map, I noticed a twin nebula about 7,500 light years away. As this sounds like a good distance for my next journey. It should give me good experience of what space is like far away from the human sector.
One issue in negotiating to the heart nebula is that the internal route finder can only be used for routes to systems less than 1,000 light years away. I produced a spreadsheet that enabled me to identify the approximate locations of systems at 1,000ly steps between Altair and a system in the heart nebula. The spreadsheet can be found here:
While about half way to the heart nebula I noticed a strange series of stars. This looked like a series of stars in a straight line in the vicinity of the nebula NGC 7822. After some time spent trying to identify its location as the stars called S171 <x> where x is a small integer. As there is an article on them describing their makeup they are unlikely to be a good location of new discoveries.
A view of these stars can be found here.
Finished the day halfway through the journey to the heart nebula.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
One issue in negotiating to the heart nebula is that the internal route finder can only be used for routes to systems less than 1,000 light years away. I produced a spreadsheet that enabled me to identify the approximate locations of systems at 1,000ly steps between Altair and a system in the heart nebula. The spreadsheet can be found here:
While about half way to the heart nebula I noticed a strange series of stars. This looked like a series of stars in a straight line in the vicinity of the nebula NGC 7822. After some time spent trying to identify its location as the stars called S171 <x> where x is a small integer. As there is an article on them describing their makeup they are unlikely to be a good location of new discoveries.
A view of these stars can be found here.
Finished the day halfway through the journey to the heart nebula.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Wednesday, 29 July 2015
Day 17: The seven sisters
After a bit of pondering upon how to determining where to explore first, I thought that I would start with some well known objects. One such set are the Messier Objects. As these are a mixture of nebulae, clusters and other galaxies, I can only visit those that are present within our galaxy. A list of objects, by type can be found at seds.
Some issues that immediately became clear were:
After a quick rare goods run to ensure that I had replaced the insurance cost, I set off again, this time to a witch nebular. This led to some fantastic views, as can be seen here.
I have camped out in deep space, hoping to return home tomorrow.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Some issues that immediately became clear were:
- Not all Messier objects (that are in our galaxy) are necessarily present in Elite. I can probably only find this out by visiting and seeing.
- You can search for any system in Elite by typing in its name. However, you have to be exact - spaces, dashes and such like can cause the search to fail. As most objects seem to have a multitute of names, each of these have to be typed in until the one that Elite uses is found.
One solution to this is the list of objects in the elite dangerous explorers encyclopaedia. A useful list that I gives a number of Messier objects as well as other places of interest.
One solution that has been given is to use the SIMBAD site as this will give alternative names for objects. - The locations for astronomical objects is given in, what appears to be, spherical coordinates. For example, M45 (Pleiades or seven sisters) (SimBad Link) is given as "Right ascension", "Declination" and "Distance", whereas in Elite, objects are given coordinates in cartesian. I need to be able to convert between the two before I can successfully navigate to objects where the specific name is not present in Elite. It depends upon whether it will be quicker to figure it out myself or find a site that does it.
After a quick rare goods run to ensure that I had replaced the insurance cost, I set off again, this time to a witch nebular. This led to some fantastic views, as can be seen here.
I have camped out in deep space, hoping to return home tomorrow.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Day 16: Does my Asp look fat in this?
Sorry, I have been working on that title for some days now - this gives an idea of teh level of boredom when travelling to and fro across the space lanes to cellect rare goods and sell them at over-inflated prices.
Today I reached my first goal: to be able to afford and kit out my Asp-explorer.
The configuration for my Asp can be found here. key features are a top range engine, fuel scoop, decent fuel capacity and top sensors. General information about my new ship can be found here.
My two commercial trips at the start of the day meant that my bank balance went from 13.4M to 15.2M. This dropped somewhat after purchasing my shiny new ship, especially as I decided to keep my old Cobra in storage, as opposed to trading it in.
Now that I have my exploration vessel, the key question, to quote the immortal words of Buffy the vampire Slayer: "Where do we go from here?"
With the galaxy to explore, there are a lot of possibilities. I think I will start with some simple trips to nearby objects or regions, before embarking upon long trips to the galactic core, the rim or the full circle.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Today I reached my first goal: to be able to afford and kit out my Asp-explorer.
The configuration for my Asp can be found here. key features are a top range engine, fuel scoop, decent fuel capacity and top sensors. General information about my new ship can be found here.
My two commercial trips at the start of the day meant that my bank balance went from 13.4M to 15.2M. This dropped somewhat after purchasing my shiny new ship, especially as I decided to keep my old Cobra in storage, as opposed to trading it in.
Now that I have my exploration vessel, the key question, to quote the immortal words of Buffy the vampire Slayer: "Where do we go from here?"
With the galaxy to explore, there are a lot of possibilities. I think I will start with some simple trips to nearby objects or regions, before embarking upon long trips to the galactic core, the rim or the full circle.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Day 15: Nearly there
Started my day with 11.6M credits and finished with 13.4M credits. As usual this was achived in two legs/ runs, ie one leg starting a Kamcabe, visiting the nearby ststems and selling at V595 Lyrae. The second leg working my way acros th system, ending at Altair and then selling at Kamcabe.
Having noticed that systems with high production rates are more efficient (who would have thought), these runs were far quicker. However, a single leg still takes about 2 hours. I have started taking statistics on how long each jump, each docking and each selling takes so that I have the information required to set up a travelling salesman optimiser, should I need to do this again.
As my fully kitted out ASP-explorer required around 14.7M (including the 5% insurance), I should make this with tomorrow's trips.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Having noticed that systems with high production rates are more efficient (who would have thought), these runs were far quicker. However, a single leg still takes about 2 hours. I have started taking statistics on how long each jump, each docking and each selling takes so that I have the information required to set up a travelling salesman optimiser, should I need to do this again.
As my fully kitted out ASP-explorer required around 14.7M (including the 5% insurance), I should make this with tomorrow's trips.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
Day 14: Beyond 10M
A profitable day today, with 3 trips performed. This meant that the day started with a bank balance of 8.91M and ended with 11.06M credits.
One learning point from the new route is the importance of the size of the cargo from each port. On my last leg I collected 24 tons of cargo from Altair, more than 4 other systems combined.
If I was to continue for this for much longer, I need to identify an efficient route that takes into account the likely amount of product present at each system, as well as the proximity between systems. It feels like another genetic algorithm version of the travelling salesman problem is to come.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
One learning point from the new route is the importance of the size of the cargo from each port. On my last leg I collected 24 tons of cargo from Altair, more than 4 other systems combined.
If I was to continue for this for much longer, I need to identify an efficient route that takes into account the likely amount of product present at each system, as well as the proximity between systems. It feels like another genetic algorithm version of the travelling salesman problem is to come.
________________________________________________________________________________
'Elite', the Elite logo, the Elite: Dangerous logo, 'Frontier' and the Frontier logo are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments Plc.
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