my longest journey by far,...........................................
sorry, just had to adjust the way back machine to way way back.
it was on xbox, before i sampled all aspects of the game, and reset my account to experience the game with some knowledge of the game, if you can figure that one out let me know, i've been wondering myself, lol,
while trade and combat elite rank were easy to me, exploration was a bit more tedious, having travelled straight up from the bubble over 5k ly, and having first to discover and map dozens (probably 100 at least), i still wasn't progressing very fast,
i resolved to make the trek to Colonia, but i took the long road, down to witch head, traversed the bottom of the galaxy for 5k ly, then took a wandering path to Colonia,
the trip consisted of jumping the carrier to the max jump range in the general direction of where i wanted to go, while remaining in the original system in my jumpship, then plotting a route to the carrier and scanning and mapping every system and body, just the trip there would probably be near 10 000 + ly,
by the time i got to Colonia i had consumed 12k tritium in the carrier, and not achieved elite exploration rank, my carrier was nearly bone dry on tritium, and tritium had just been "balanced" in a patch by fdev (the balance was there was tritium in the bubble and none in colonia, or surrounds, ????)
now there were no stations in the "Colonia bridge" at the time, they came as a result of the outcry of the players at the tritium situation brought about by the "rebalancing".
i searched on 3rd party sites to try to buy some tritium but all the Cmdr's had packed it in because the tritium sites had gone dry overnight, i found the sites they had been mining and scraped as much as i could from them, traversed Colonia & surrounds buying 100- 200 tritium at various stations that when i started my journey were regularly at 1000-2000, it was very tedious, to say the least,
i eventually gathered 6000 tritium and although that was definitely not enough, my friend and co-founder of our xbox squad was loading his carrier with tritium to meet me wherever i ran out, the bubble having no shortage (by this time all the joy had gone out of the exercise and it definitely was a near game breaking point, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?)
i set out toward the bubble taking as direct a route as possible, all the time knowing that i was at least 5000 ly short, maybe more, as it happens there is an inhabited system 5000 ly toward Colonia, just inside 20,000 ly from Colonia, (a good point to head for as you can plot a route to Colonia in your jumpship from there) my friend was already there in his carrier so i plotted a route and started jumping the carrier, chasing in my jumpship scanning and mapping as i went,
i made it to within 50 ly of my friends carrier, who had his carrier set to squad only, and 10,000 units of some very cheap tritium in the market, i ferried a load of tritium to my carrier in my cargo cutter, made the 50 ly jump to fill my carrier and stow 5000 tritium on it,
after i had dealt with that dilemma, i had completely forgotten about exploration rank until a few days later, back at our home system adjusting the bgs, (some things are best forgotten if you're going to keep playing), and my friend asked if i had gotten elite exploration rank?, i docked at my carrier and handed in my cartographic data, and indeed i had,
since i reset my account i have never bothered or taken interest in exploration rank, or exploration, once was enough, but i still honk, and scan prospective mining rings, so i'm ranger 75%, it'll happen eventually.
this entire trip consumed 8 weeks playing 8- 10 hours a day, every day, the joys of being retired, livin' the dream, lol
have fun 07
