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)

Tuesday 3 March 2015

Time passes out there

I had a long relaxing weekend (to avoid confusion: I publish my blog entries on a n+1 scedule - editing takes a bit of time!). Coming home late night on Friday, which was an unusual bright and sunny day, I looked up and saw the stars. And I realised, it has been rather long time since I saw the real ones. One of the drawbacks of living in a bigger city, I guess, but also large part due to the largely crappy winter weather which we had the last monthes.

And I also realized that, even though Elite: Dangerous is already a very nice simulation of what could be up there, with some very nice graphics, they never can do justice to the real thing. I realized also, I would be scared to fly up there all alone.

And on top, floating in just a bathtub, which all those cute little vessels in Elite: Dangerous actually are. Hell, even an Anaconda seems to be not much bigger than a Boeing 747. And I am sitting out here in a Cobra, which is merely a little bigger than your average modern combat yet. I think this is one of the few aspects which EVE: Online actually did better; the spacecrafts are more sizeable and thus feel more realistic to me. This galaxy is too big for rowing it in a bathtub.

Wregoe VG-C D13-30. Another white star is close by, but it is only accompanied by gas giants and ring planets, so I move on. By hindsight, probably a mistake, since all those rings could be high metal content and thus bring in some cash. No matter, I want to move on.

My hull is at 94%; leftover from an interdiction where I somehow could not submit properly to. Or maybe already part of the "usage-decay" system?

Some star systems further, again some findings. Even though CMDR Tryfan explored a part of this sytem already, a lot of planets are still "virgin", and many of them have a blueish aura about them. This means again quite some travels in supercruise, but, hey, it is exploration, this is what I am here for, right?

But first, I have to deal with a pesky Cobra pirate. It is nice how they come at you and deliver you their bounty voucher, this time only ~9,000 CR, though. Then I sweep the close-by planets, about 1,000 to 5,000 ls out. Then those close to the next star; about 48,000 ls out. Then the third star; 237,500 ls out...



- this perspective on orbit lines relays a sense of correspondence










This is where I am glad that I installed a second monitor, so I can do something in parallel while doing so... and music, to feel in the Elements. Yes, it sure is a different way to play a computer game. Reminds me of all those old turn based games where you acted when you felt like and thus complemented perfectly to watching that movie or series in parallel, which you always wanted to know but was not too exciting for itself alone. Well, let´s say without a TV, it is just a more serene way to have your leasure.

A bit annoying are the countless asteroid belts, which the nav system treats as a stellar object each. You have to click though all of them to find out whether there might be a planet amongst them. They are not shown in your view either, and I wonder what would happen if they actually were there and you flew through one of them in supercruise with 40.0c... aand maybe that´s exactly the reason why Frontier did not implement them (yet)?

Well, anyways, after about 45 minutes later, having surveilled more than a dozen of high metal content planets and one water world, it is finally time to move on. KK, thx, goodbye Wregoe VG-C D13-28.




- without the illusion of actually sitting in a cockpit, the long travels would be only half as immersive








I move on, this is my third session out there; checking how far I have made it out, it is only about 500 ly from Yakabugai. Amazing. How long did those CMDRs travel to make it so far out as 17,000 ly? I get the feeling that being a that far-out explorer would make me unsuited for continuing this blog on a per-session basis. After all, there is only so much which can happen.

Zooming a bit farther through the galaxy map, upwards where I want to go, the star population thins out notably after about 1,000 ly and finally seems to end at about 1,200 ly out. This is not far enough "up" in order to appreciate a full view of the galaxy with all its spiral arms. More so, I can´t find a route higher up than 500 ly more from where I am; distances between stars increase, and from there on seems to be about 30 ly already. I guess an Asp would be in order to really really get out farthest possible. Yes, I should have thought about this before, but this is the inherent disadvantage of my moment-to-moment playstyle; I just want to get up and running and do something entertaining. After all, real life is full of planning issues already. So, it takes me 500 ly out from civilisation to realize the limits of this trip. Of course I can and maybe will then continue on a horizontal course, as long as I feel like doing so.




- about 1000 ly more up from where I currently am, this star is one of the highest above the galaxy








And such the time passes. A few interdictions, but nothing dramatic; I am not ungrateful, as with each jump, the burden to actually bring home this accumulated mountain of data increases.

Log out.

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