Week Five Out
If there is one great thing about coming out into the vast blackness of space, it’s that you get plenty of time to think. Over the past week I've been considering a number of subjects from the exploration trip itself through to the philosophy and psychology of being a commander. It seems 15,700Ly can give some extra perspective to events going on around the galaxy and in the bubble. The peace of deep space provides a welcome escape from the bubble’s excesses of violence.
The events over the weekend involving the targeting and destruction of Commanders, however small in the scheme of things, stems from the hugely obvious fact there is NO law and order in place to deter. I can go out into space, scan for several months only to have all that work destroyed in seconds because one individual commander can destroy my ship without too much inconvenience to himself. I , on the other hand, get a huge ship insurance cost, loss of all data earnings, time etc. Well there’s balance for you. Planning a safe return will be a high priority for me, and most likely it won’t be in open.
Ten days into phase two of the trip and things are going well. The last week has been all about scanning as much as i can, so much so that i didn't touch down on a planet surface until yesterday. Over the next five to six weeks, i intend to keep up that pace as much as possible (Neutron farming mostly ) before returning to a more relaxed approach for the final stage of the journey in early April. I’ll probably be scanning just as much but moving faster across systems — currently I'm moving very slowly doing around 350Ly a week!
After looking at a calendar I've realised that the 12 week mark comes on 20th April so that is the date when i turn for home. The return (scanning all the way) should take a couple of weeks. Next week will mark the halfway point for the trip so i can probably best assess how things are going then, but so far I don’t think I'm doing too badly. System scans are going great, ship condition is good too so the only real concern is making sure i get to the waypoints on time — well at least within 24 hours of the ETA.
Supply wise I'm doing OK though I'm still looking to replace the vanadium i used to resupply the field maintenance units a couple of weeks ago. For something that isn't rare, I'm having one hell of a job finding deposits of it. I currently have just two lots of Vanadium in the inventory and i need four to replenish the AFM units again. It not a huge priority but i would like to have the option to refill again. I’ll make more landings this week and search.
I’ll finish with my favourite moment of the week which was visiting a system with a class B (blueish-white) star as seen in the image at the top of this post. The light and the surrounding glow from the star was just fabulous.
More next week when i reach the halfway point of the journey.
