I heard a rumour amongst the stars ...

There is a station.

It orbits a planet around a far flung star.

To reach it, involves an epic journey.

The reward for this journey ? The almost mythical Hutton Orbital Mug.

Many Commanders aspiring to the Elite have attempted the trip. Some have even made it. You can acquire a recreation of the true Hutton Mug here (at the Redbubble shop I grabbed the pic from).

But Hutton Orbital isn't just about the mugs ... There are always rumours popping up about Hutton Orbital. Ships for free. Massive trading profits. Ultra rare and valuable goods. Missions with huge rewards. If you believe all the rumours, then Hutton would be made of pure gold.

However I did hear one rumour and it rang truly enough that I thought I had to check it out. The rumour was that if you went to Hutton on a certain day, you could pick up one of those rarer ships that ordinarily, you would have to spend a lot of time currying favour with the Federation or Empire. I do like the pretty Imperial ships, so I thought I had to check it out. And these are big ships too, that normally can't land at Hutton.

One long trip to Hutton later in my Imperial Clipper ... I have wanted one of those Cutters for a long time now. And it is a long trip, hopefully worth it ? For the non initiated in Elite, Hutton Orbital is in the Alpha Centauri system. This has 3 stars, Alpha Centauri A and B are where you enter and they're quite close to each other. Most space stations in Elite are 50 to 1000 light seconds away, which doesn't take much travel time at all. Hutton Orbital is at a planet around Proxima Centauri, which is 0.22 light years away from the entry point. Or 6.8 million light seconds.

That takes a while .... hence the rumours that crop up. Not many people want to make the trip to check them out, or the rumour is spread as an answer to daft questions being asked. Enough natter ! This needs pictures !!!! As per usual, click for bigger. I play the game on 1440p so there are lots of pixels to see ...

Here I am on the way there in the Clipper. It takes a while and you can get up to quite a high speed. In the old Star Trek (Original Series !) warp scale, that's warp 12.3 as the speed topped out at 1866 times the speed of light.

But I'll fast forward all that and here I am coming out at the station.

I did spot something from the outside though. What's this ?

For the MUG !

It looks a pretty desolate place from the outside. Coming into land ...

Finally, safely inside :

And finally, looking at the station services page.

But you wanna see the big ship on the pad don't you ? Here we are ! The Imperial Cutter as promised ! Looks like a tight fit.

There is a bit more to it than that though. You cannot go to Hutton without picking up a mug. It'll be worth it to cover the cost of getting the hull back up to spec after the trip. The Clipper was down to 32% costing 151k to repair !

Look-at-that .... all those mugs and not enough gin to put in them all.

Make the trip ! But make sure you take something big or that offer to pick up the Cutter or Corvette won't be available to you. Hurry though ... or they won't let you land for that Cutter or Corvette.