I've decided that it's time for me to unlock the engineers in Colonia, to provide me with the necessary modules for my suit and weapons. I'm hitching a ride with a carrier, to achieve this and should start the process next week. I've opted to take one fighter, one trader and one exploration ship. This will give me several options to help attain the required results.

Let see what happens.

o7...

Well since my last post, I've done a few things:

Completed hundreds of rescue missions for stations that have been attacked by the Thargoids, moving literally hundreds of people to the rescue vessels, Used my trusty Python, all geared up for the role. After some 150 for the Imperials and some 100 for the Federation, I have ranked up to King and Admiral. I have all the permits and ships unlocked for the corresponding levels.

I went out to a couple of the Guardian locations, firstly to get some Vessel Blueprints, and then a Module Blueprint. I then preceded to get keys first which was a task in itself. It took some time but the Vessel keys were quite easy, but great graphical representation of the huge Guardian Structure Lightshow. The Module keys were not so easy fighting off the sentinels was a task in itself. As part of the challenge I created myself a nice DBX, however it's not finished, but was built enough to get me out there, and to eventually unlock the Three Guardian Vessels, and the Guardian FSD Booster. This little module is now installed on a number of ships giving me that little extra to get around.

I worked on a new corvette for a little while and came up with a purpose build that could take on anything. It is an absolute dream to take into PVE combat situations, even if there are 4 NPC's involved. It just works. This ship took me up to Deadly with little effort, and after a a month or so I was there.

I've since realised the game doesn't do well with ranks on NPC's through Deadly, you have to kill only Deadly or Elite pilots and unfortunately the spawn rate is quite low. I've moved on to Thargoid Scouts.

I've modified my Krait into something of a Amour and Shield tank. It took some building, getting all the materials for the different modules required, but in the end it worked out ok. I've worked it out that 16 Thargoid Scouts is equal to 1% rank increase, so from 1% to 100% would be some 1600 Thargoid Scouts. Having already done 15%, I am now at 50% in the ranks and it's long hard going. The spawn rate can be either 4 or 7 depending on whether or not they are already in the drop location or not, if not and there are two other NPC ships, then you get 7. The ship is amazing, can take on 7 and still function, I can be out in the instance 4-5 times before returning to the station to repair, restock the ship.

So with 50% to go that's 800 to go, average session I am getting anything from 50 kills, to 100+ so another 8 - 10 sessions I might be at 100% and therefore elite. It's been a long time coming, more time than I ever thought and definitely the hardest rank to achieve.

I've worked hard to map out each engineer for my needs as far a blueprints, combat ships require different module modifications to Explorer ships, and although I have two explorer ships I like, the Anaconda is the most capable. Don't get me wrong the Cobra as an explorer vessel is really nice and manoeuvrable, and what with the GFSD booster, reaches 45-46 Lys at a time, it doesn't have everything I might want. It has everything I need don't get me wrong, and is so nimble, but feels small for the long hauls. So I have all 25 engineers, but mainly 24 with each module I'd like them with, and I've re-assigned 1 engineer after unlocking another.

I think after this exercise I'll go out and get some much needed material top-ups. I'm kind of missing about 20 or so on most raw materials and what with the engineering I've done recently, I'll need another trip out to Dav's Hope, Jameson's Crashed Cobra, and some much needed HGE locations. I do have to finalise some spawning aspects and parameters for those HGE's so it will be good to get that done.

Maybe I'll finish up my DBX, and then create a new mining vessel. I have a Python about ready to start, but I also have a type 9 that needs some tweaking too for Merit runs.

Onwards and Upwards.... See you out there.....o7

Over the last 3 months, I've visited the Zurara Megaship as part of a Lour Tour arranged by one of our steamed colleagues. It was an enjoyable trip and an experience to remember. After which I made a move to Colonia to put some achievement down for myself. During the time spent travelling 24Klys to Colonia I made a stop off to one of the Fleet Carriers where by I repaired my ship, and continued to head to Colonia. When I reached there, I spent time unlocking the four Colonia Engineers and making the necessary arrangements, surprisingly it did't take long for me to sort out the four engineers and prepare the modules for my corvette I needed to increase it's capabilities. My last stop in Colonia was to secure a carrier for return to the bubble reducing the trip back by at least 2 weeks. I do have to thank the owner atlas-777 for the trip back. After returning to the bubble, I switched to my trusty Rescue Python, to help out the stations that had been attacked by terrorists, and as such was able to complete some 70 trips to recover hundreds of people back to normal space. and eventually being promoted up to King in the empire. I started with Marquis, passed through Duke and Prince after completing some random missing to gain the relevant rank.

The next step for me is to move through the Combat ranks with my new trusty Corvette to enable me to up my combat status to Elite. It's been a long time coming, after completing the Exploration rank some 7 weeks in, with Trade Rank some 9 weeks in followed by this last one. I've done some serious exploration over the last year postponing my efforts to increase in other areas, but having completed DW2, LRH5 and the Lour Tour I am done on exploration for a while. I think some needed material collection, and ranking is required now to gain my triple Elite status is what is in order.

Let's see what the next two months provides.

Well I've travelled some 24,000lys from the megaship and I'm 3Kly's ish from my destination, I've spent the last month or so making this trip as I need to expand my collection of blueprints for the likes of Life Support and Shield Cell Banks. Coming out this way has been quite interesting, docked at the Fleet Carrier in Temple, was able to repair the ship after loosing concentration a few times due to lack of sleep. First Discoveries have been off the chart, well into 400 one after another, been crazy. I think I had 6 descovered entries as I approached and left the FC earier. Sights have been great, and the route has been possible in my Cobra. I'm glad I put my Conda into storage along with the rest of my 26 ship fleet, as this little beauty has everything I need and is so nimble. Looking forward now to getting geared up to get those modules sorted and heading back home.

Updates to follow...

Well everything is as good as it could be. Finished the expedition to the Formidine Rift, met up with a great bunch of pilots on the way. My Cobra is in peak condition after docking at one of those Fleet Carriers and I've already started moving on.

Alot of the pilots I saw these past months headed back to the known populated space on the back of those carriers, but me, decided I need to take another trip, albeit a little shorter to the one I completed this year.

So I'm heading out to Colonia, I have my eyes set on some nice new engineered Life Support systems, for a range of ships for me to get. I also have to sort out some engineered Shield Cell banks for that beast of a Corvette I'm running, that will make it complete.

Looking forward to some great sights on the way there, maybe the the odd meet and greet if anyone is wanting too, but from the commanders I see here, there are not alot I have on my radar.

Anyways, moving upwards and onwards......

WP7 was great, a meet up with like minded pilots, ship jumping and racing, all good stuff. Now the next portion of the journey, WP7 to WP8, 17K's worth of travelling and exploration. Been interesting so far, but after some 5K have opted to move to visit WP13 first. It's a big stretch of around 20K to get there and about another 4K to head back in the direction of WP8. The last 8K has been interesting some 100Mil of new discoveries and literally no contact and no undiscovered systems. This game has never ceased to be interesting and the fact that everything is new, even for me, says just how big this is. I can safely say, I can blaze my own trail even after nearly 5 years.

Well it's now 12 weeks into the journey, and what a journey it's been.

So many discoveries so many firsts it's really obvious now how big this galaxy is.

I've been finding all sorts of entries in the codex and no once but maybe 10 times over and over every couple of systems. This has got to be seen to be believed.

Ships looking good, 84% power plant so watching that one. Made a few errors on the way though, exited supercruise by mistake, forgot to slow down and stear away from a star watching old TV series.

Everything else in good repair and materials all stocked up.

Came across another pilot who had issues, 10% hull, so repaired him in a few minutes.

Discoveries up to approximately 950Mil now and still so far to go.

Heads strong, but looking forward to getting back to civilistion in six month's or so.

So I've been out here on my 8th week exploring this area of space, and although it's been well travelled already, it's not really well travelled at all. 90% of the systems I've been visiting have been first discovered/ and first mapped, so looking pretty at around 690Mil worth of scans to hand in when I get back to civilisation.

We've had six CMDR's leave over the last few weeks not willing to spend so much time on just one expedition. We are however some 55 strong since my last update which is a big improvement on that figure compared to a few weeks ago.

So as part of squadron management for the LRH, I've completed all bookmarks for the whole of Route 1 waypoints and points of interest. Due to the fact that Route 2 and Route 3 use similar points after WP8, I'm not adding routes 2 and 3 to the bookmark list. Our squadron is only 12 deep at this time, but that's not surprising based on what you can actually do in squadrons.

I've been trying to put down about 5Klys every week but the last two have been quite difficult with RL issues. I'm already on 4.5K this week so it should not be an issue today and tomorrow.

Let see what happens in the next few weeks.

I've been out now since the 14th May working on the next expedition. I've been roped into a moderator role with access to manage the in game squadron for the expedition leader. So far the journey has been a breeze, but I've come to realise that it's not going to be that simple. The full journey with all way points is somewhere in the region of 193,469.30Lys. Now although this is some distance, it's to be completed by March 10th next year.

SO far there are 37 CMDR's signed up to complete the whole task, mapping the unknown reaches of the galaxy. We're maintaining some control over who signs up and avoiding combat ships where possible by following the rules and regulations specified through Fleetcomm and Mobius factions.

So far only one CMDR has fallen fowl to blowing up his ship but due to the circumstances beyond his control, and FDEV re-instated his instance. A task well appreciated by all.

So we are all about to start week 3 of the mission, and I can't wait to register by visit to the next way point. This was some 10,000 from start, with the next one 5,800 and the following one some 13,000. Just to advise, these are not the biggest distances, so are closer to 20,000.

So I'm heading back to the rack today, and will start the continuation of the journey from tomorrow.

Any one wishing to take part and explore, feel free to join the Long-er Route Home Expedition.

Signing off........

Well I arrived on the 1st May late in the evening, and it was a relief to be honest. I'd been flying for a number of hours covering the 13,000LY distance from the Previous way point.

I can safely say that this although my first real trip, has been a real experience, out in the middle of nowhere, no means to Dock at a station, no safety net. Discipline has to be paramount when your doing stuff like this, you don't want to take another CMDR out of there journey to rescue you.

I did however get it wrong once, and forgot to re-fuel before leaving a system, got distracted and left myself without any means to reach another system. So I did get rescued by a Fuel RAT.

I've made so many contacts in the last few months since this started I can't believe even now, this expedition stuff really does bring people together, from all time zones all around the world.

I've been at beagle now for the last week, I scooter-ed across to Oevasy SG-Y d0 (Semotus Beacon) to moon B 9 f (Salomé's Reach) to see what was there, not much, but some nice valley's and wicked colours

I also pop'd across to VonRichthofen's Rescue, and read the Beacon there, if you can locate the information, it's a good read. I didn't post it as it's a spoiler for most.

While I've been out here, I've surprised myself and signed up to another expedition to travel clockwise around the rim of the galaxy back to Sol, so I've set myself up for another 144LY journey and allowing 9 months for completion. So that would put me out there anything from 7 to 11 months without docking, I must be mad.

If your interested read this post and sign up: http://bit.ly/2VMAh3d

Beagle Point

Salomé's Reach