Cups, Races, Jumps, Moons ...

I feel like I might have a bit of catching up to do !

There's been lots of internet spaceships over the last week ... Also work stuff going on and the build up to the cricket World Cup final. You can probably guess that I've watched as many of the world cup games as I could. At some point, there might well be a team of the tournament post coming out ...

May also have rewatched a very old film again last night. The models still look great even after all these years.

That was the starting point for a shorter expedition to see some of the prettier sights in the local neighbourhood. There's my ship there in the foreground, with an asteroid space station behind which is located in the rings of a local gas giant. Looks spectacular with the Witch Head Nebula around too.

There we go. A little planetary expedition. Looks like they had the water all steamed up. Any use for tea ?

One stop along the way. The Dumbbell Nebula, with a tourist station (that doesn't allow Commanders on board to sample the tea) orbiting a water planet.

That was one of the favourite shots of that expedition. I'm calling it "Adrift on a Nebula Sea". (Except I was fully fuelled up and not really adrift).

There's another shot from inside a nebula, with a Wolf Rayet star in the background. They're very hot stars which have consumed almost all of their hydrogen and are fusing the heavier elements instead. In Elite, they're big white stars that you can't scoop for fuel.

If I remember right, that will be me basking and refuelling at a F or G type star with what looks like an older, smaller M type star in the background.

Before finding another of the Wolf Rayet stars.

It was getting near time to call a halt on that expedition though. Time to head home. (Another 2001 shot, showing the quality of the effects in that movie).

I've been out considerably further over the last few days, including experimenting with neutron star boosting. You start in ships that can do hops of up to 7 to 10 light years and better engines can make them reach around 20 light years. Choosing a lightweight exploration load out gets that to around 35. Engineering that to the nth degree means my current ship can do hops of 61.5 light years at a time with a little cargo. Neutron star boosting is a highly dangerous technique where you fly through the cones of a neutron star (here's one) ....

... and that supercharges your hyperdrive. I've been testing jumps of just over 240 light years today. But you don't get to see what was at the stars on the way with that, so I won't be doing it too much.

How far have I got ?

There we go. The green lines show my course plot since restarting the character. I'm currently heading for a black hole system called the Great Annihilator before turning in for the galactic core. From there, it'll be towards the opposite side of the galaxy and a loop around the East side.

Soon. I felt a little burnt out on the game perhaps today though, so while yesterday's trip was the northerly leg of the trip to the left of that picture, today's activity was the much shorter line heading out.

I found a good place to stop though. Back on it soon. Have a good next week everyone.

Oh - also took advantage of the heat to defrost the freezer as much as it could defrost yesterday which gave me a good excuse to visit the pizza shop after restocking again. Good times.