“Go on an adventure,” they said. “It will be fun,” they said. What could go wrong? So, off to Jameson Memorial I went to refit my Anaconda, which until then had been my cargo ship—armed to the teeth, I might add—ready for any pirate scum that fancied a tussle. With a fistful of credits and an "I know best" attitude, I began to tinker. Goodbye, excess cargo racks. Cheers, cannons—you’ve been great. Shield boosters? Nah... hell, let’s downgrade to a Class 3. These hull reinforcements are making me sluggish—get rid of ’em. I’m traveling far, gotta save fuel. Hell, strip all of it. Best install a fuel scoop; give me a big one. Oh, and while you’re at it, install a repair limpet controller.
With the outfitting completed and a fresh coat of tactical white paint slapped on, I figured, I’ve got some materials lying around—let’s engineer this bad boy. After all, we are venturing deep into space. Lightweight all around—jump range is starting to climb. How far, I wonder? This, my friends, is a slippery slope. Well, with a few more tweaks, I’m sitting at 80+ LY worth of void-vaulting jump range. That’ll do, right? Right?
Excitedly, I eased out of port, ready to head off to Beagle Point, then the furthest point from Sag A. With a course set, I engaged my frameshift drive, lined up my navigation instruments, and eased the throttle forward. She took a moment to spin up; the low hum and slight vibrations seemed to fuel my adrenaline, eyes widening and heart rate quickening. Woah! With a crack, it let rip, hurtling through the fabric of space effortlessly. What a ship! I’m a genius! 83 LY covered in an instant—this is going to take no time at all.
Well, time it would take—and lots of it. Breaking the monotony now and then by cruising around interesting systems, discovering suns and planets that had never seen the likes of humanity. One or two of the cheekier suns forced my safety measures to drop me out of supercruise—clearly some anomaly, couldn’t have been me. Escaping these had proven tricky; I had forgotten my heat sinks, so some modules had gotten a little fried. Thankfully, I had the foresight to install that AFMU—got me all fixed up in no time.
On one occasion, I remember stumbling across a planet that resembled a pearl—beautiful, looked like a great place to stop and stretch my legs. Would make for some great sights too. Right, line up with my chosen spot, manage speed, and aim for about a 40-degree angle for orbital re-entry. Check. Smooth glide profile. Check. Reduce speed for landing... reduce speed... what the hell is going on... reverse thrust! Pull up, pull up! Smack! I’d just severely damaged my vessel. Class 3 shields—not nearly enough to take the knock. All the engineering had dropped my hull integrity to a minimum. I now sit planetside with 19% on my hull monitor. Turns out the planet had a gravitational pull far higher than what I was used to—not something I ever really checked. Now extremely upset, I observed my now wrecked ship, no longer concerned with the beautiful planet I had just landed on. With a grunt, I kicked a piece of the sandy regolith and returned to my cockpit, carefully spinning up my thrusters and jumping back into hyperspace.
Right, ship systems are stable, but my chassis is in tatters. Time for a fix—repair limpet controller, it’s your time to shine. Engage! Imagine my surprise when the error “out of ammo” appeared. No worries, I’ll synthesize some... dammit! Where’s my iron? Used up in the lightweight armor packages, no doubt. Feeling very troubled and weary, I decided it’s probably best to head home. I have no limpets, my AFMU is depleted with no vanadium to replenish it either. Time to salvage what data I have collected and limp home—live to fight another day and all that. So, let’s plot the fastest route back to the bubble. Neutron stars!
It was during this neutron journey that I learned that FSDs aren’t huge fans of these stars, and it wasn’t long until the module was all but crippled. I was still 7,000 LY away from the closest port, running out of resources, my ship in a bad way, modules failing, hull creaking, and myself—spent. There was not much left to do. So, with the final keystrokes on my console done, I made my way aft of the ship and, with a deep sigh and one final look over my shoulder, stepped into my escape pod.
TL:DR This game has many ways to trip you up if you are not diligent and thorough. Limpets - Fuel Scoops and Repair Systems will undoubtedly plague you at some point. Remember when building a ship to any extreme, you will have to make sacrifices somewhere, often to your detriment.