During late 3310 the route back from the northern regions lead through the northern and north-western part of the Outer Arm Sector shooting straight south towards and through the Perseus Arm Sector, eventually reaching the Vulcan Gate.

During this expedition many interesting sites and plenty of exobiological species could be catalogued. The following image displays the route as well as some of the species found during these weeks.

I found a moon in close orbit of a ringed gas giant offering a beautiful view during dawn: AINAIWYG PN-Y C2-11 9C. The perfect place to stay and rest overnight.

I am still following a route along the north-south axis through the Perseus Arm and towards Vulcan Sector. Yesterday I passed the line of zero-Y-coordinates on the galactic map.

Today I found a huge ice world, an icy body. In this case it is a planet on an orbit around its sun. The catalogue name of the planet is AINAIWYG PL-P C21-1 planet B1. This planet assembles 18.0495 earth masses, has a radios of 19.038 km and its gravity is 2.03G.

The above data demonstrates the relative rareness of this type of planet. I found many rocky bodies and metal rich worlds of this size but seldom an icy body of this size. This massive and huge icy body had no notable features, no geological or biological or other signals. Nevertheless I landed on this planet because I could. Here is what I found.

The massive icy body showed sharp ice structures of various bright grey-brown colour and had no atmosphere. The following image shows the lift off from this body.

Commander Malc Riverside and I passed each other in the Outer Arm a few days before. River on his way towards the north and into the Outer Scutum Centaurus Arm, myself on the way back towards the colonies via the Outer Arm and the Perseus Arm.

River had one of the new Cobras delivered to his Fleet Carrier. Now we decided to test its abilities. So I beamed on board of the shiny new Cobra Mk V. Eventually we found a beautiful icy body, which was the moon to a blue gas giant. There we had a second test flight together. The surface of said body reminded me on the surface of the dwarf planet Pluto in the SOL system.

On 22nd December 3310, Commanders Riverside and Aldarion set out into the darkness of the Outer Scutum-Centaurus Arm to test the brand new Cobra Mk V on an icy body similar to the dwarf planet Pluto in Sol. Commander River got his hands on on of these racing vessels and now the two commanders did the high speed low pass thing over the glaciers of said moon.

Mission Summary and Debrief

imgur link: Mission Overview and Shorts

YT-link (full video): Full Video Footage of Cobra Mk V Testflight(s)

I was closing a huge loop starting at the Colonies leading South, South West, South, East, North East and North finally reaching the sector Mare Somnia again after nearly 20 months. This loop covered three quadrants and followed the edge of the ED galaxy mainly. I crossed 14 regions on this route so far.

Starting from Jaque’s Station in Colonia at the beginning of this year I was heading South, visiting a few of the mega ships of the Colonia Bridge. Then I entered Temple. Following a line from North to South through Temple I passed the Guardian Structures located there and looped around these eventually inspecting the Guardian ruins. After resupplying via the near DSSA FC I crossed Temple from West to East and finally headed South towards and into the westernmost part of Elysian Shore.

From this location at the eastern Edge of Elysian Shore I navigated along its border to the Vulcan Gate region towards the South-West reaching the easternmost corner of the region Errant Marches before crossing the Formidine Rift from W to E along a southern line.

I also visited the Soul and Heart Nebula (in Elysium Shore sector) before docking at Station X. My route from the Soul and Heart Nebula towards Station X lead through the eastern part of Elysian Shore and the northern parts of the southernmost region named after the famous astronomer Kepler (Kepler’s Crest). From the northern entry area into Kepler’s Crest I set course towards and to Station X.

From Station X I was following the arm along its southern edge towards the East during April. This way I was able to explore the southern edge of the arm and the Sanguineous Rim region. During the following weeks I also reached and crossed Achilles’ Altar region traveling along the outer edge of the arm while slightly deviating towards the arm's center line before entering Lyra's Song region.

Then I was following the south-eastern outer edge of the arm towards the Northeast, where I finally entered the Tenebrae region. I explored parts of this sector before reaching the gab (bridge) towards Hawking's Gap on my route leading back southwest, south and west out of Tenebrae and towards Hawking's Gap sector.

From the Southeastern corner of Hawking's Gap I traveled north, through Dryman's Point region until I reached the DSSA FC Gilles Villneuve located roughly at the center of the region neighboring Dryman’s Point to the North, the Sagittarius Carina Arm region. From this coordinate I was turning into north-western direction when leaving the Gilles Villneuve, which I reached a day before.

The new heading pointed towards the Mare Somnia region and a system I discovered nearly 20 months ago: Blia Aoc AZ-S d3-19.

I reached it at 25th of June 3310.

The following images present the route I traveled during the last six months.

I am planning to leave the bubble again in the near future. Since I arrived back at Eleumo – after the 3308 journey towards the North-East of the ED galaxy and the far reaching north-western loop through the Milky Way – I took some role in the AX activities unfolding in the bubble, met some of the engineers I already knew as well as some of the new engineers dealing with spacesuits and man portable weaponry. I also took part in some settlement and search and rescue activities. Even in the deep black I found some occupied rescue pods. One or two I carried with me during the north-western loop due to the fact there were no search and rescue services available at most of the following docking possibilities. I guess meanwhile nearly all or even all of the DSSA fleet carriers do facilitate at least some Odyssey services but the search and rescue service are not that commonly found in deep space.

During this summer in the bubble I visited a few systems, stations and places I know since many years like the Caleta, Shasir or Tlapana systems; I went to check out some of the Guardian Sites east of the bubble again, I prepared the Shadow Head for the planned South-Eastern trip as well. But I did not visit Sol, the cradle of humanity. Last time I went there was in 3307. As well I was told the New Horizons Space Probe, the first probe passing Pluto and Charon in 2015, could be found there. So far I only visited one of the Voyager Probes, which were launched in 1977.

Of course I am still planning for the south-eastern loop but I postpone this plan for the time being and head out for the colonies at the Inner Scutum Centaurus Arm also known as ‘Colonia’, which is in fact just one of the systems located at this mini bubble, the system where Jacques, the android barkeeper, stranded when jumping Jacques Station but failing to reach Beagle Point due to the jump drive malfunction dropping him at the system now known as Colonia. Thankfully this drive technology became much more reliable with the fleet carriers of the Brewer Cooperation.

I will leave the Shadow Head in orbit around Eleumo A 4 while travelling towards the colonies. Its crew should have the opportunity to visit their families and friends in the bubble: the last journey of the Shadow Head to the Centre via the colonies took a whole year so leaving the carrier at Eleumo seems to be the right thing for the moment.

I don’t know if all settlement activities given as a gathering mission were achievable without firing a single shot and leaving everyone present unharmed while still being able to reach the given objective. I don’t know if something like this was ever tried or really done, even.

Remark: Gathering missions are the missions asking for the removal and relocating of physical objects and / or data retrieved from a settlement to fulfil the mission goals and succeed, which in other words is theft of data, commodities or goods in these cases. Of course massacre missions or killing contracts from the mission boards or from one of the mission givers are not part of this discussion due to the fact these are by definition out of the above question.

There is a kind of mission defining as an objective to leave everyone in theatre unharmed. I took on a few of these and mostly was able to solve these missions. Then, there are missions demanding as an objective to prevent a raised settlement alarm at any time, which is a similar objective but still different. These missions are different due to the fact it is possible to disarm these alarms on the related panel placed in one of the buildings of a settlement (so far I always found settlements where there was only one such panel) and thus fulfilling the goal of the mission without raising a settlement alarm by any action whatever it would be.

The point is: probably it is possible to fulfil all (gathering) missions without harming any NPC inside a settlement. On the other hand it seems the intention of the game might make such totally not harming policy for progress at least very hard or even impossible: not the tactics usable and being able to be applied in such (settlement) operations but the strategies of the on-foot (ODY) game layout might be – at least in parts – constructed in favour and need of cruel harm in some instances: It occurs there are (on-foot) materials one only is able to gather from missions involving a higher threat level, which usually means the use of force by hopefully solving the missions. As well it seems solving only gathering missions might not improve the mercenary ranking, which totally would make sense. Hence the question remains whether there should be the possibility to allow ranking up mercenary rank by the sneaking method. It remains true as well: all ED commanders know about the fighting nature of the galaxy, right?

So would it be possible to improve the on-foot equipment by only conducting no-blood gathering missions? All commanders surly did realize the hen-egg-problem when starting on foot missions. In order to being able to survive at least some of the missions there is a need for upgrades and engineering of space suits and weaponry. But in the above discussed sense this doesn’t really matter since it might be possible to achieve all or at least some of the gathering missions without any upgrades and engineered equipment if it were possible to solve all such missions without harming anyone of the NPCs, right? True, if one assumes that all needed materials for upgrades and engineers are collectable by gathering missions themselves or by the related mission rewards. I don’t know if this is the case to be honest but if so, it would be a long way to do so but it might be a long way anyway.

Nevertheless the puzzles set by the no-harm-policy of gathering missions to me is probably the most interesting part of the settlement operations. These puzzles are more rewarding being solved where possible than just to take the best equipment and using the brute force methods being possible due to the fact it adds more complexity and another level of problem-solving, a new dimension being able to be explored.

Last remark: I found gathering missions, which might be not able to be solved in a not harming way: Some missions require gathering materials from the power plant of a settlement, while this power plant is one of the single room environments containing not only one NPC but two NPCs moving on paths covering the diagonally opposite sites of the plant’s single room. It is hard to imagine these could be solved following the no-harm-policy but I am not sure if it were possible to achieve such a thing; maybe somewhere out there in the ED galaxy there exists a cloaking device. I am sure it can be found with Raxxla.

Now what about the Chem Plant Raid?

I took on a gathering mission: the aim was to steal some weapon blueprint from a laboratory inside a chemical plant or industrial building of the related settlement type. This mission was a covert type of mission, meaning one of the objectives were not to raise any settlement alarm. The panel for the settlement alarm was set on the second level inside the industrial building, which had two levels: the ground level consisted out of the main hall, while the second level consisted out of four runways along the four building walls leaving all the central parts of the second level open: through the glass panels of the roof it was possible to watch the main part of the ground level in the centre and parts of the runways along the edges of the walls of the second level. As far as I remember there wasn’t any chance to scan the security profile of the scientist walking along one of the longer runway sides through the glass panels of the roof. Due to this fact I e-breached my way in though one of the two entering-ways on ground level, which were lying on the opposite long side from the runway part where one of the scientists walked up and down. Both entries lay at ground level close to the corners of the building on one and the same building wall.

There were two stairways located left and right to the centreline of the opposing short wall from where I entered. These led up to the runway frame along the walls. The laboratory containing the probe was located in a single smaller room at second level in one of the far corners of the short building side with the stairways. The laboratory of course needed a class 3 entry permit.

Before entering the building I tried to verify the inside situation as good as possible and as far as visible through the glass tiles of the roof: One scientist, as mentioned, was moving along the long runway side opposite to the wall where I entered. A second scientist walked along in an area between the two corners of the ground level where the door I entered was located checking some of the controlling devices of the facility and around some of the containers and shelves being placed in the central rectangular space of the first level. And third, there was an armed guard, circling around the central space of the first level covering all building sides occasionally (but at frequent points) changing the direction of his movement or stopping at waypoints of his patrolling path. I was able to scan the security profile of the scientist on ground level after a while of trying and observing without detection and despite of the patrolling guard. It was helpful that the building did not have a rectangular base: on the side where I entered with the laboratory at second level at the far side of the stairway wall the rectangular ground shape of the building extended having an annex to the rectangular ground shape of the building containing a few more storing containers too.

At all time I was sneaking and avoiding the detection by any of the persons inside the facility but firstly I was avoiding the detection by the armed guard. Nice puzzle, would I be able to solve it? Upon reaching the second level I found some building and station controls at the area between the two stairways. I could disarm the station alarm as well as disabling the security access system for all doorways. This released me from possibly trying to scan the security profile of the scientist moving on the second level. I can’t remember but possibly I did carry another e-breach device with me anyway. As well I could access the info panel locating the location of the desired weapon blueprint. Until then I did not have a concrete idea of where I could find the locker containing it. It might be possible I used the e-breach device to break the info panel and to be able to read out the code for the locker located inside the class 3 security zone after disabling the stationary Access Control System; I think so but I can’t remember exactly when writing this report. I did not download the data from the data panel located in the area between the stairs due to the fact I was unsure if the scientist on the second level would be able to become aware of the download. As well I was unsure if the armed guard at the first level, who – very interestingly – did change his patrolling behaviour, now patrolling the upper third of the central first level covering the area with the stairways as well, could possibly detect such an action. The guard would remain on this path as long as I further observed it.

The laboratory did not have any person inside, which allowed me to find and retrieve the wanted probe before sneaking out of the building avoiding to be seen by the guard around the stairways. It felt good reaching my Scarab and leaving the settlement. This was a hard puzzle to me and finally I recalled my AspX Honest Tuck returning to the mission giving outpost.

The 4th and the 5th September I fought inside a medium intensity combat zone at Debrocat Bay. The orders were issued by the Frontline Solutions office in Haipeng Port.

An old friend of mine asked me to support the efforts of his faction “The Stumblingtroop”. I could not resist to provide my support for this faction whose name somehow seemed to match my combat skills or at least combat equipment.

Surprisingly we won most of the zones in debate – we lost less than 10% of the numerous combats and the ‘stumbling’ troopers fought pretty well. In fact, the affair went that good I even became promoted twice during the missions.

Mostly I preferred to call an Apex Taxi for the return to Haipeng Port after a won mission due to the fact using these Frontline Vultures during the trip into the zones was nerve-wracking enough: I easily can afford the additional costs for the lift by a nice Apex Ship. Interestingly both, the Apex as well as the Frontline pilots were mostly the same during these 26 hours; what a life, carrying out such long lasting shifts – welcome to the military, it is, I guess.

I learned that Apex pilots always prefer to land approximately 400m off a combat zone even when the fights are over: fair enough, though, even if that meant I used a third of my oxygen to reach the taxi ships. Transport via Apex was always fine and the service friendly. Once, the Apex pilot boop’ed the edge of the rotating ring of Haipeng station but was able to recover her ship quickly and both of us had a good laugh. The officer at Haipeng Port’s FL Sol. Office seemed to be very stiff and formal but ‘hey!’, maybe she liked to be overly formal, even after seeing me for the 15th time.

It is possible to bring down Foot Combat Dropships using small arms rated class one even if it is a little bit tedious due to multitudes of reloads and ammo gathering. This situation usually seems to occur if fighting inside such planetary settlement CBT zones were a close match and both the opposing combat groups do not have any resupplies left. In theory one is able to intendedly produce such situations.

Synuefe XR-H D11-102: Some of these blocks made out of rock and stone (as it seems) contain Guardian Signatures and can be scanned: There are Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Epsilon Signatures, which can be collected as materials and can then be used to make Guardian Tech Brokers produce Guardian blueprints. Selection of a signal via HUD (preferably the HUD of an SRV) and using the correct scanner does the job for each signature.

I also used a Python to collect some Guardian artefacts: The quickest way to do so is to use collector limpets to retrieve the commodities from the surface. As far as I found out: The only use apart from selling these at a market for a relatively low price were to combine different of these artefacts to finish the Ram Tah missions. I did this over three years ago. Since nowadays it is possible to carry four units inside the Scarab’s cargo hold it might have become smoother to finish the Ram Tah missions if this ship engineer is issuing these missions still. How to finish the so-called Ram Tah missions I have described in the related logbook entry from over three years ago.

Remark: The best result collecting goods from a planetary surface I have made using B classed collectors I dropped from a height between 150m and 200m. The B classed collectors are heavier built and do not destroy themselves as many often as the other classes of limpets when making contact to ground. As well it is some elevation needed for the ship deploying the collectors; otherwise the automated collection will not function or might involve multitudes of limpets crashed and destroyed. The last tip for this kind of collection is as follows: Sometimes it makes sense to move the ship over the top of the targeted artefacts or commodities to prevent the limpets from crashing into parts of the ground structures since the limpets sometimes calculate a direct course back to the ship without regarding the ground structures. If a pilot is not in a rush the effect of steep climbing angles also could be realized by a higher ship elevation or a combination of elevation and position relative to the object to be collected. This method works with all kinds of commodities spread over a planetary surface.

There are no Guardian skimmers present at the Guardian Site of Synuefe XR-H D11-102.

When arriving back at the bubble there was the possibility to gather new AX technologies. It was claimed one needed at least one additional system permit, which turned out to be present already in my case. I did – as mentioned – upgrade some ships to adapt these even better to their task facing and handling Thargoids at war. Also there were a few smaller Thargoid ships – I met a few of these nasty behaving small bugs during the AX missions around this time. I was able to buy and equip the new ship modules where needed as well. One allows for a raised number of AX weapons mounted on the ship using it.

Then there was some hype about upgraded or pre-engineered Fragment cannons or some special “One Shot Builds” facilitating Guardian Fragment Cannons. Years ago, during the time when I finished the Ram Tah missions and even years earlier as well, I cooperated with some tech brokers, who were able to generate a bunch of Guardian modules and even Guardian Fighters from gathered Guardian Blue Prints and Guardian Materials.

Of course the first and most important Guardian modules were the differently sized Guardian FSD boosters. Even though I also obtained a greater number of other blueprints used to build a variety of Guardian modules and a good number of Guardian weapons, namely Gauss Cannons.

I was thinking about using some blueprints for Guardian Frag Cannons or other Guardian modules and weapons, which also would need some Guardian technology components as well. In fact, until the recent I day own a number of Guardian blueprints never being used with one of the tech brokers due to the fact I ran out of the material called Guardian technology. On the other hand guardian modules seem not to work inside the Thargoid Maelstroms and even cause unwanted attention in systems targeted by these Thargoid vortexes. We found out lately, there are Thargoid Mother Ships located in the Mealsrtoms, which are guarded well and possibly may hold human prisoners. So the question remained: Does it make sense to gather even more Guardian Blueprints?

On the other hand it remained true: Primarily I was eager to visit some of the Guardian Sites again to find out if there were any changes since I visited these last time (during the era called “Horizons/Beyond”). Nearly a month later, in September 3309, I found out by reading Galnet there were Thargoid activities reported in at least a few Guardian systems, namely in the region Wregoe BU-Y b2-0. A Dr. Jeong-Hio Shin validated at the end of August all observed Thargoids left these Guardian systems when sensing Human activities and presence there for unknown reasons. Well, during my visit to the region around the systems Synuefe EU-Q C21-10 and Synuefe XR-H D11-102 including some personal exploration of planetary surfaces and neighbouring systems, I found a few ship crash sites, listening posts and other irregular signal sources; I as well met a few other commanders at the Guardian Structure at Synuefe EU-Q C21-10 but I definetly found not a single sign of any Thargoid activity until August 3309 (which of course does not mean there weren’t any). Jeong-Hio Shin can’t be falsified by my own exploration but I had to state as well: I could not confirm or detect Thargoid activities in the systems I visited in August 3309.