Flieger, grüß' mir die Sonne, grüß' mir die Sterne und grüß' mir den Mond. Dein Leben, das ist ein Schweben, durch die Ferne, die keiner bewohnt! - Hans Albers, F.P.1 antwortet nicht (Adaptation in the 80s: Extrabreit)

Saturday 18 October 2014

Wrestling with the galaxy map

Nicollier City, Ao Shun. First thing I do, as usual, is to check the outfitting supply. Bingo. There is a
Class 4E frameshift drive, which propels my Lakon Type 6 transporter from a 380t (4F) to 435t optimal mass range. The jump range shown in light years is bugged, so the range show as 17 ly probably not accurate. I launch and exit to the main menu in order to pass by the mass lock bug. Relogging, I get an endless spinning ship. But I can close the window from desktop without task manager. Relog. Range: 25ly. That´s great!

Studying the galaxy map, I have troubles to recognize even where I came from. I am somewhere in the lower middle part of "the beta2 pill". I spot Dharai, an independent high tech system,  18 ly out. I am curious what I would find there. Hiowever, I am still undecided of what to do or to achieve in those last few days of beta2.



Maybe a Viper with good scanner in order to prepare for mining? Or Sidewinder even? But then... 4,7 m Credits missing for an Asp, and no real advantages of other ships besides combat. After a long and fruitless pondering, I lift off.

Gelfand Survey, Dharai. The bulletin board is empty? But lots of commodities in high supply! Agri medicines, animal monitors... should I check for the nearest agri system? Pareco is one jump only away. But the galaxy map´s lines eluded me, because as I fill up 100 tons of agri medicines, the range fully loaden is then only 16 ly. Which requires me a 2-jump, via STKM1-1676. Damn, an endless hyperspace again, black screen. But there seems to be a tiny improvement; no "server not connected" message on first relog!

Arriving after this interlude, I see Robinson Port is 12.000 ls out, which is not good for a time efficient trading route. Then I realize: 2 jumps! This is still STKM1-1676. Hmpf, I am again unconcentrated. Finally arriving in Pareco, interesting enough, the station there is called Nicollier Exchange, very similar to Ao Shun´s Nicollier City. I wonder what is the reason behind?  At least, here is a black market. I sell my 100 agri medicines for a profit of 33k Credits. Missions are better, I guess. The bulletin board is empty, too.

Now, what to do, what to do? Really difficult. Looking for high pop systems for good commodity trading; there is a cluster of systems with an agri, extr plus 2 refinery, but I quit the galaxy map and loose their position. Searching again; maybe crossing the pill, as I am currently very much at the border? Jumping via LP 45-128 and Perendi? There is H Draconis... mom... this one I recognize from the old beta1 bubble! So I would actually travel back to "old space", whereas I wanted to go towards new worlds! Orientation is really difficult. This example shows me: Probably it is the best to get familiar with a specific corner and then slowly expand?

Another hour of pondering what to do, where to do. An assumption: Rich trade opportunities come from rich worlds. Rich worlds are those with high populations. So, I look for worlds with high populations, which have matching trade partners, preferably also of high population, close by, e.g. agri-industry-high tech, etc. After quite some time wrestling with the galaxy map view, one crash there, I have identified about five clusters which could fit. I then decide to try to "cross the pill" to get to Mistana.

For my possible later reference, the clusters I looked through are as follows:

Mistral (agri, 439mio pop), LTT16972 (ind, 1,2bio pop), HIP2422 (ref, 0,212mio pop), LHS3631 (high tech, 12mio pop).

NLTT53889 (hightech, 12m pop), Pisamante (ind, 8,9mio pop), Gora (agri, 414mio pop), LTT16523 (ref, 0,46mio pop)

Apishim (agri, 1,1bio pop), Coquencitis (ind, 30mio pop), ... Tapipinouphinien (WTF crazy names, ref, 0,15mio pop), Jurua (ind, 56mio pop).

Adept (agri, 1,5bio pop), Lora (extr, 7,4mio pop), Chapoyo (agri, 458mio pop).

The route goes again via Evergreen, Pemede, LHS3631. Let´s see if I can make sense of some trade routes there!

Mhm, Merle Dock, the only station in LHS3631, is 1400 ls away. Not good already. I dock and take note in my usual routine. All ships are available at the ship yard. No 64 ton cargo racks in the outfitting screen. Overall, very disappointing for a 12million population system; only 4 commodities in low supply. But all metals on high demand, except for copper and titanium. So, let´s find a refinery system? Andjeri is only 5ly and there are missions for it, too.

Argh, crash to black screen on my hyperjump there, I almost had forgotten about that crap. Relog, crash again. Hmmm... could it have to do with the missions or cargo I am carrying? I had three empty jumps without a problem! Oh, next one is blurry and I have the galaxy as background, inclusive the blue location pointer. Not a good sign. Aaaand, crash.



Since it is late, I should stop here now. But I do not want to loose the missions, so I relog one last time for solo play. Damn, again the galaxy as background, not good. Hyperjump crashes again, as expected. Relog, doing a tutorial mission, and after that at least the background is reset to normal. Hyperjump works, too!

Avogadro Station is very close to the sun, and my d-scan detects overall six objects in range. Finally at Avogadro Station, the supply of minerals is low, low, low. I buy one gold, the rest is not worth it. Launching, I notice another sun, and again a small sun, which both seem to be also in close orbit of the main star. Another interesting system this is. After some scouting in supercruise, the second sun is not so close as it appeared, but it is indeed another sun with a close orbiting brown dwarf. Since I saw this already in at least one other system, it seems that constellations like this are not so uncommon, after all.

Vogel Port is another disappointment. No commodity market, no missions on the bulletin board. But some new data to buy from the cartographers. I always buy all data just to have better access to information. There is still enough out there to explore, anyways. Although I wonder, what value is that data actually for me? Just to know some planet names seems a bit too little. If it was also about the composition of planets and asteroid belts, it would be helpful for mining, at least. Therefore, I am curious how they will further develop the exploration system from its current beta stage.

It is late, so I pull a stop here. Overall, all my planning and musing probably just helped me learn a bit how to orientate myself in the galaxy map. The cluster I chose to explore so far was rather unexciting, though. Maybe this beta2 is really just made to fly brainlessly around and discover stuff by random? All my planning did not bring me really far, so far...

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