Despite the battle with the thargoid titans ending, a few members of our squadron are not yet convinced the war is over. We organised a few wings of ships to complete surveys of the titan wreckage, namely ones for Leigong, Raijin and Hadad in their respective systems. Besides a handful of inactive thargoid interceptors and the previously discovered signals being broadcasted from the titan wreckage, nothing was amiss. Our routine survey led us to perform the usual tests on the inactive thargoid vessels, namely, bio-samples, light and temperature sensitivity and interactions with thargoid high-value commodities such as probes, sensors, escape pods with false bio-signatures, and various guardian materials.

During one of several temperature tests carried out at Raijin, one of the inactive interceptor vessels began reacting quite violently seemingly out of nowhere. It turned and faced outside the debris field and emitted a high-frequency cry, almost like a long, drawn-out musical wail. Utterly terrifying; none of us had read about this behaviour from thargoids, much less seen it in person. While we were in shock, the interceptor quietened itself, lurched back, and opened a rift into witchspace. I've never seen one disappear so fast.

Aside from this single interaction, the remainder of the survey was unremarkable, so we called it there to regroup at the central fleet carrier a system over. When all the wings checked in later that day, we examined the ship logs to see what conclusions we could draw. There were no anomalies...only the unusual timing of Jacobs activating her SCO drive while performing a planetary check in supercruise and our thargoid friend 'awakening'. The extrapolated ship data confirms that the interceptor was facing the direction of Jacobs' ship after the SCO boost had been turned on. We're not sure what to take from this yet, but further titan sites must be examined to get answers. The squadron is looking to recruit and fill more wings so additional surveys can be carried out in the following week.

-Intercom buzzes to life-

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are taking a small detour into the local HazRes site to perform a system test on the distributor and forward canons. All routine and we should be back on our way to Alioth momentarily. Those in first class may wish to move to the top deck for a clearer view of today's testing with a lovely planetary ring backdrop. During our testing, you may see the seat belt sign turn on and off rapidly. No action is necessary; interial dampeners are active and you may continue to roam around the cabin. Forecast is looking chilly at a cool minus 270 degrees celsius outside with a touch of caustic. The first and second floor bars are currently serving refreshments if you would like a light snack or drink for the remainder of today's flight. We thank you for choosing AeroVea for your journey this morning--

-Intercom goes quiet as another ship explodes-

The longest journey I've done is a trip to Sag A* in an unengineered python. It was about 5-6 years ago now, very new to Elite. Hearing and seeing the stories being shared by other explorers was very inspiring and I wanted to see some of the sights in their screenshots. It was an absolute brutal journey... I remember having the in-game routing tool having to be plotted in 5-10K light year intervals. I knew nothing about the neutron highway or even just using community tools like Spansh. In fact I don't even know if they existed back then.

I finally get to Sag A* after 2 weeks of jumping. Great sights, loved it, nearly cooked myself to death next to it somehow . Got the combat itch and desperately wanted to head back to the bubble. Didn't realise I could just self destruct for a speedy trip home and even so, possibly would have avoided that as I wanted to hang on to my data anyway.

So I made the grueling trip back, hundreds and hundreds of jumps. I think I smashed out the last 8K light years in one sitting. Got back a week later and decided to shelf the game for a bit haha. After a few weeks, came back and decided it was time for some combat. But I had forgotten about all the data I was carrying and missed handing it in when I first returned. Entered a medium combat zone with some weapons and my mostly exploration-fitted python and promptly got blown to bits. Many, many mistakes were made but I would come to appreciate them eventually. Just not at first hahaha.

I'd love to share a pic of Sag A* in all its glory from that trip but I forgot to take one. Like I said, many mistakes.. I've been back since to take in the sights with fewer jumps in between ;)

I'm a big sucker for combat, especially AX combat. Regular combat pays decently but squashing bugs (thargoids) is a literal gold mine . The best part is the fun though. I think that's mainly because of the player groups getting together and organising events.

The titan war was especially thrilling, entering the titan maelstrom was such a great gameplay addition. I'd love more of this eventually, whether it be with a hint of Thargoid or another variety.

Exploration I enjoy as well, not just because it can be lucrative too but it's relaxing, quite the opposite of combat. But when you're out in the void and get the combat itch, there's not many options available.

TIme trial: FSD boost off a white dwarf as fast as possible.

Description: players are to enter a white dwarf system, overcharge their FSD and jump out of the system as quickly as possible. Timer starts from the moment players exit the hyperspace tunnel and stops as soon as they have entered the next hyperspace tunnel. No limiting factors with this challenge, any ship, loadout or white drawf system of choice is allowed. Players can choose any system to exit to as well. A video showing completion of the above is necessary to verify for a submission.

Rewards: this sounds more like a tiered reward but I prefer the idea of having to beat a certain time to qualify for a reward. Say, under one minute to complete the above. I think players will want to resubmit as soon as they're over taken by another cmdr, so to avoid the constant cancelling and resubmiting, I think the same reward for all successful participants will be a neat idea. Just could do an ordering of fastest times in their curated article :) I was doing this activity often with neutron and white dwarf stars so I'd be happy to submit an example if Just considered running this. White dwarf exclusion zones should make this challenge very spicy.

Took a trip to the local Haz Res for some light bounty hunting in the imperial eagle. It doesn't have much staying power, even with the advanced missile racks. This is a single Cyto burst laser with short range mod (inertial impact) and two missile racks with rapid fire (penetrator munitions).

Its very fun and fast (720 m/s boost), just not as nimble as some other small ships. I took out a dangerous anaconda. Cyto made short work of the shields and the missiles popped the power plant.

I think a great crossover would have been with Hell Divers 2. There's a lot of the same elements there with on-foot cosmetics and weapons. The biggest similarity has to be the fact we fight 'bugs' in both games. I can't imagine having a cape in Elite but would have been an interesting unlock or reward for defeating the titans in addition to the ship decals. What would really sell the idea would be on-foot thargoid combat and AX rifles.

Not sure what capacity Elite has to make use of the fleet carriers in the same way that HD2 uses them to drop armaments and supplies. There are escape pods on carriers already you can make use of but not in the same way. I'd love to see a crossover explored here but they're very different games. I'll continue to hope, haha.

I can't remember exactly where in between the bubble and the witch head nebula this was. I'd be guessing not too uncommon to find moons of the same type and look in one system but first time I really took notice.

Just About Challenge: An epic creative project to add flavour to or expand on the Elite Dangerous universe.

Description: There's been several art related challenges already, both in and out of game, some about themes and others about celebrations. Some of those submissions were very detailed and piqued my interest about how they would work within the Elite 'story'. For example, the 'suggest a new ship' challenge had me asking myself lots of questions about the designs and how this would tie in-game; what did the manufacturer have to say about its new ship or what features were they proud of? Would there be 'TV' advertisements and what things would they say to get you to buy it? Another example is the more story-focused 'report from the front lines of such and such' challenge. What if we could expand on this and watch a news segment or listen to a short podcast about what happened? What about a short episode about a first-hand account on discovering a lost-at-space generational ship? What about a detailed scientific report with interview on the material composition of a thargoid sensor from a lab assistant under Professional Palin? What about the cullinary delights of the galaxy and making up, presenting and baking, your own Elite recipe from the 3300s?

In short, the challenge is about taking creative liberity and adding detail to the Elite universe.

Requirements: Players are required to submit a piece of 'art' that expands on or adds to the rich, deep lore behind the Elite universe. The 'art' piece can be any kind of creative works like painting, creating music, creative writing, video production, tailoring or outfit design, 3D printing, and so on. However, it must add to or expand on the lore behind Elite.

Rewards: I think tiered rewards are best suited for these types of challenges.

Time: 2-3 months is a reasonable amount of time for this challenge in my opinion, especially if it carries a heavy reward.

Welcome to my very amateur take on ranking ships capable of piracy! Ships are ranked in their capacity to be quick (in & out), agile (slippery), hold cargo (room below deck), manage limpet controllers (the crew) and as a secondary measure, their ability to remain cold to slip in and out of black markets. The tiers are a reflection of a ship's overall ability to perform relative to other tiers and their ship size.

In the S tier, we see ships capable of quick getaways while also packing some impressive firepower. The slower ships in this tier may not be as quick but make up for it with extra cannons on deck. Ships here can hold a decent to generous amount of rum in the hold relative to their size and all are capable of sporting a crew of limpets.

In the A tier, these ships are capable pirate vessels but are outclassed by the above tier in speed, firepower, or cargo capacity. Still very decent pirate ships and would be proud to be stuck at sea with any of these!

In the B tier, some vessels are starting to suffer from larger shortcomings than the tier above. They could be an easy target due to their size or lack of agility. Or they might have the speed but lack the firepower to make that trade ship walk the plank. Capable ships in the hands of an experienced captain but there are better choices.

In the C tier, these ships will need to push the absolute limit to be sea-worthy pirates. They might be able to hold endless barrels of rum but would take forever to set sail. Or they're too highly specialised in other roles like sea combat and have no room for anything else. Not to mention, some of these ships run hot!

In the D tier, I'd rather be in Davy Jones' locker than be stuck inside any of these vessels. Too hot, too slow, no room for cargo, no room for limpets or ship crew! Or maybe, not enough cannons! You call yourself a pirate in any of these? You're a braver sailor than anyone I know!