Advent Day 21 - Elite Elite Gingerbread Cloudy Reaper

Hello everyone,

Advent Day 21 and what do we have :

There we go. Another gingerbread marshmallow, being a cloudy base for the Bespin Cloud Car from Star Wars today. Nice little model, one of the best of this bunch. I put in last year's Cloud City (and cloud car) model too, just behind there.

Today's Mass Effect is more concept art from Mass Effect 3, where the enigmatic and relentless Reapers have arrived to wreak terrible destruction on the sentients of the galaxy. They were a group of machine AIs, which would return every 50,000 years or so to wipe out all those sentients who were beyond a certain level of sophistication and it's our turn when Mass Effect comes along. The DLC of Mass Effect 3 adds a little more backstory to what we knew. Must play through the games again sometime, although I have that "I have many other games unplayed ... it's a shame to go back to one that's been finished".

I've been having another flying day today. For nebulae, I thought I'd run an expedition* that's popped up with the title "First Nebula Circle For Rookie and Salted" and it was a good, quick 13,000ly or so around a small selection of the nearby nebula. (One issue - there are heavy permit locked zones between two early waypoints and it needs a bit of a zig zag).

*Expedition - this is something that EDSM tracks and assists in the organisation of (Linky). I don't join in with the multiplayer aspect but I have enjoyed using them as a series of waypoints to find Shiny Pretty Things In Space.

But before that, today's theme is "Triple Elite". I'm not quite there yet :

Getting closer though. I reached the rank of Elite Explorer earlier in the year. That's gotten a lot easier since this character restart, mostly due to the vast improvement in the exploration system. There's a full list of the ranks at this convenient link. A bit more trading and I'll hit Elite in that one as well (Tycoon is the last but one rank) but combat will need more work. That'll come in time. Expert in combat is the middle rank with Master, Dangerous, Deadly before Elite.

But I do enjoy the exploration more than the combat or the trading. Where was I today ?

A slightly moody shot looking on at a very distant Rosette Nebula.

Little bit of ring surfing along the way.

A spectacular close up of the Rosette.

And heading off again. I was very curious here about how the cockpit was casting a shadow over the bow of the ship.

The Python isn't supposed to be that good at exploration, because the jump range isn't as extreme as some ships ... but the Odo's Courage has done me proud. There's still an almost 54ly jump range on this one, although I was missing the detailed surface scanner and didn't fit a rover bay. It was handling neutron star transits very nicely without being bounced around as much as the Asp or Orca were.

Next stop was a little teaser of the Jellyfish Nebula.

And closer in. I have to say I'm loving the Predator paint jobs. I switched the colour out before this run started and the more purple shades have been very pretty.

There was no rover on board but I thought I'd still try and get a landing in. Gas Giant is peeking over the horizon as well.

And we're off again, this is what I was seeing while heading through hyperspace to another neutron star.

The game allows for some truly spectacular shots.

Finishing up for today, the last stop on the trip took me to the California Nebula.

And looking back at the sun.

That's all folks for today ! See you tomorrow and if you're disappearing to Xmas festivities, have a great holiday.