I decided that I might try kitting out my Krait as a thargoid hunter.

I've hullstacked it a little, but kept some biweaves also. loads of Hull reinforcement and a module reinforcement. engineered it up with heavy duty enhancements then got me some dirty drives for boosting thrust - only engineered to lvl3, but heading toward Mr Palin (once I get a couple of missing components) its boosting to 450 - so not terrible, but not fast enough to outrun a thargoid yet.

I have 2 size 3 guardian shard cannons, 1 remote flak launcher, 2 AX multicanons, plus a 2 bay ship launched fighter with an AX armed SLF

so, after watching a few youtube vids on tackling these guys, I felt ready to have a shot at a thargoid. What a disaster :)

I've not been in combat for ages, never really had fixed weapons (I'm no pro fighter) and never faced a thargoid before.

The first thargoid I encountered was an interceptor of some variety. I struggled to hit it with the fixed weapons, and didn't seem to do much damage when I did. My hired pilot, Eric Vance (worked up to deadly rank), tried to help, but wasn't of all that much use. I couldn't seem to replicate the videos - the heart would repair before I destroyed it. It was a rubbish showing all round. I left it too late to run - the caustic damage, constant pounding on my ship and damaged modules took too long to for my FSD to charge up - game over.... Most annoying was the loss of my copilot :( spent some time grooming him up from novice to deadly.

Round 2 - repaired, I flew out again... and dropped into another USS - this time, a pack of marauders attacked me. This was easier - but I realised too late that I'd not rearmed my canons or picked up another pilot, so it was just me shard canons and the marauders. I fared better, and landed hits more often, but again the caustics nibbled away at me, and by the I'd killed 3 of them, my armour was very damaged and down to 15% we were both down to just a couple of % armour - but I decided to run for it - max boost, FSD charging..... but my armour ran out before my FSD could highwake me out of there.

oh well - live and learn. Will keep trying - with over a billion in the bank, I estimate I can suffer another 167 insurance claims before I'm broke.

Finally ticked over the billion credit mark tonight. Time to look for a new challenge - back to building a thargoid buster next I think.

things ticking over ok (Robigo Mines to Sothis A5 and back) - bit mundane, but catching up on some netflix shows while I earn cash. only playing a few hours here in there, but making millions with minimal effort is nice. up to $720M or so - will keep at it til I get to the billion mark and get that badge :) Then I'm starting on a thargoid buster

So - decided i needed to cash up a bit before my next adventure. Considering taking on some Thargoids, but need some cash to prep and build a ship. so - I kept hearing of Robigo Mines - so giving that a shot. So far its ok - I've not quite optimised my python, but pulled in nearly $100M in a couple of hours - would have been more, but the missions started to dry up a bit - only smaller rewards on offer. still - I'm happy with that. couple more sessions and i think I'll have enough for my plan.

Once I was able pin Prof Palins drive tech as a blue print - shot back to pick up the anaconda from Medupe, then off to a technology broker and got my first guardian tech - a guardian FSD booster - adding 10.5Ly to my jump range. i have have a modest 55Ly for a reasonably laden Anaconda. Still need to tweak the fitout a bit to better survive a long range mission.

Not too sure when I'll set off on that mission. might stick in the bubble and make some money first.

Finally got to see a black hole in the wild - Maia B didn't expect it - I was simply trying to get some materials so I could talk to Prof Palin and pin his blueprint. In anycase, it was cool :)

So I've reached the rosette nebula and (finally) crossed 5000Ly from my start point. Gets me an invite from Mr Palin - Explored this nebula a little and now then 'popping' back to the bubble.

![View of the Rosette Nebula] https://inara.cz/gallery/0/55099/ "Rosette Nebula"

So what started out as a quick 'lets visit a guardian site' has turned into a 'lets go see some nebula's while I'm out here... and then lets just go at least 5000Ly out to get the last of the original engineers sorted - Prof Palin'

so.. here I am - not well planned, but zipping along in my AspX - currently about 3000Ly out from the bubble - closing in on 5000Ly. so many permitted zones out this way - who manages these? why can't we fly into them - will the galactic cops come after me? given that most of it is undiscovered anyway - how will anyone apart from me or my galactic satnav know - I just won't sell that data :D

Well, time to give this guardian tech a crack - flown out in my asp to HD 63154, planet B 3 A will see how this works

not easy to land nearby - even in an asp. I get glimpses of landing spots, but they seem to vanish as I near the ground.

long: 40.7995 lat: -106.50 0.16

well , that was a right pain in the butt. I'm am shocking at navigating these sites in an SRV. I constantly got lost and disoriented. had to keep popping out to the camera view, zoom out, and figure out where I was. compounding the issue, was the hair trigger on my throttle (dead zone now set), some graphical anomalies (I could sometimes end up driving under the surface) and just the annoying terrain around the site - so bumpy and hilly, and I kept getting my SRV wedge -once I even got totally stuck, and had to log out to free myself.

still - got there in the end - enough to get a guard FSD booster unlocked. I may have another crack - get a second blue print and more modules - just while I'm in a site that I semi know now.5

Trying out some configs I found on the net for my corvette. Seen some crazy configs (effective shield vs explosives of 37000MJ - crazy)

so - seeing how I get on -haven't quite got all the components for engineering, but can get a decent percentage done - may not be grade 5 initially, but enough to do some damage and have some fun. May have to get back into combat for a while - still at 72% dangerous - so got a ways to go on my elite combat rank.