Made it back a few weeks ago, was fed up of the black.

Made enough to buy and kit out a Python, the Wicker Basket. Made shipping missions a bit easier, and am now racking up cash at a much better rate.

Bought a meta-alloy and shipped to Farseer, so starting on that grind. Apparently an alternate path is to turn in cartographic information, so have dragged the Asp over, and will go out exploring again.

Was kinda creepy.

The more relaxed route is far more enjoyable. Still roughly scanning every 5 systems, skipping ones that are all icy bodies, and scanning water/ELW regardless of where they are.

Starting to give thoughts as to where I will sell my data. I could further my Imperial standing, or give a massive head-start to Federation or Independent, plus give myself a good base for missions with an allied station. As being back in civilised space will once again place me at the mercy of every interstellar crackhead (NPC or otherwise), picking somewhere near the edge of the bubble and circling round to it will give me the best chance of survival.

I have to start working on engineers as well, if I ever do this again, I want to have improved jump ranges. I may start taking passengers on sightseeing tours, as I should have a pretty good explorer rank by the time I'm done.

I made it to Colonia, then stopped for a while. But I need the travelling to unwind, so I'm going to head to Sag A*.

As I don't have any missions giving me a deadline, I'm taking a much more relaxed route. I started by heading straight up from Colonia for a few hundred light years, in the hope I'd overlap less with everyone else making this journey. I've found a bunch of water worlds, and another ELW. My plan is to honk, and try to scan every fifth system in detail (unless there's anything more that 100,000 LS out).

I have about 160 jumps left, and I've discovered 2 ELWs along the way. Failing again would be distressing, so I'm taking a break, and going until I have about 15 jumps left, then another break.

If I'm lucky, I'll be able to pick up the system data for Ogmar before I actually jump in, so I can plot a route directly to a station - confusion over this contributed to my screw-up last time.

I named the Asp Silver Pitcher.

Going to check out Plains of Eidolon for a bit.

I took a break from exploring after the failure last time, went back to trading. I built up another 10m, and salvaged my relationships with the factions that didn't take kindly to my previous failure.

I've prepared a little better this time, picking up a full roster of data delivery missions - this will net me well over 43m if I successfully deliver them all. (If I do this again, I will make sure to limit myself to missions paying over 2m.) This should be enough to pick up another ship there, with the aim of building up enough rep to get good data delivery missions for the return journey (assuming these exist). Also, I'll need a break to decompress from the ~15 hours of jumps.

As I have taken some time off work, I'll make sure to play a litle smarter this time - when 10-15 jumps out, I will log off and take a rest, so I don't crash into a sun and get picked off again .:-*(

Currently sat in Primi in my Asp, which is still unnamed. I went wild and picked up a paint job, so I have an incentive to look at the appropriate screen before starting out. Will start later today, my current mouse is dying, and there's a fresh one sat in an Amazon locker.

Made it there, and was destroyed by a sodding NPC in my target system.

sigh

I'll do it again. This time I'll engineer upgrade my FSD first though.

So probably should have focused on getting the engineers first. Apparently 30LY jumps aren't particularly impressive anymore.

Still, it's been an experience, and I'm about halfway there.

• Starting distance to Colonia: 21,974.85 LY
• Ending distance to Colonia: 11,675.52 LY
• Distance travelled: 10,299.33 LY

That's straight line distance though - by rambling aimless jumps, I've probably done more. Didn't notice that the max pathing distance had been raised to 20LY, so was trying to create ~500LY paths to start with. Was eye-balling and mouse dragging to set the course, so was wobbly as hell (easily visible on Travel Map). Once I clocked this, it became a lot more direct.

I was going to stop when I hit around 400 jumps left, but this figure had jumped to 406 next time I checked. The weight of my fuel must be a factor in this, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort of trying to keep a half-full tank.

Really hoping to get this finished tomorrow, I'm not going to have a lot of time free this week, and don't want the missions to fail.

I forgot to name my Asp before heading out. I am mildly ashamed.

Logged back in after a few months off - didn't get round to buying the prismatic shields, but I'm not overly concerned. I think Engineers are going to be more important. Unpledged to Aisling Duval, so that's convenient - I can fly over the bubble to trade without being attacked. Was going to flip a coin over whether to trade or explore; on my first trade drop was offered 2 1m+ courier jobs over a distance of 20k LY. Picked up a third 1 hop later to pretty much the same place.

As Powerplay isn't an issue for me now, figured I could start running long distance trades - checked the actual destination, and it's right by Colonia! So I'm grabbing my Asp, and out into the black. Although I'm heading towards another bubble of civilisation, so it's more through the black.

I'm not going to start the trip until I've properly named my Asp though. [Default name here] isn't going to cut it.

I've been give 6 days, so this shouldn't be a problem. Let's go to Ogmar! :D

Edit: Seems every place I stop is falling over themselves to give me data transport missions to Colonia and the surrounding area. Sure, I'll give 'em all a go. On the downside, apparently a ton of people will be trying to kill me on the way. On the upside some of these are paying out more than 2m. If I survive I'll make multiples of my entire lifetime earnings to date, and that's without touching the exploration data.

Picked up 12m credits in exploration, moved up to Pathfinder rank.

Will dump 7-8 mill on bumping faction up to get the prismatic shields next week.

Must remember to rename ship. Before the Thargoids return and tear it out of witchspace to blow it up.