The Vulture is Mightier than the Joystick

I've just had to spend an hour re-calibrating, re-mapping and otherwise fiddling with my Thrustmaster T Flight Hotas.   After re-calibrating the joystick and fiddling with the ED throttle controls, I still had no deadzone control zero speed at all.  Very dangerous if you are docking.  In the end I had to unplug the USB plug and swap it and the keyboard around into different ports and then it was suddenly fixed.

What happened to cause this?

I had a little collision yesterday evening with a rock, well I say rock, but I couldn't actually see it because the thing about space is, it's black, and the thing about asteroids in Resource Extraction Sites that are in Shadow is that they are also black, so a black blob passing in front of blackness is impossible to see until you start grinding into it.  Anyway, I yanked the Hotas into full reverse, then when that didn't seem to free me started thrusting laterally left and right to try and work myself loose, another yank backwards on the reverse throttle finally freed me, damage: none apart from the Vultures outer shield ring.  But it seems I may have scrambled my joystick calibration during the encounter.  Isn't the Vulture a tough little ship?

The Imperial Rank of Earl

Got the final Naval Progression Mission to Rank up in the Empire today to Earl.

I just had to kill 9 pirates in a neighbouring system.  Nothing was in the system apart from a Red Dwarf and an T-Class Brown Dwarf.  So I started hunting the Unidentified Signal Sources.

6 pirates down in the first 2 USS's and then I saw a Strong Signal Source, and decided to cautiously give it a go, but as soon as I saw what was in there I was like "No, RUN!!!"

2 wings of high class combat ships comprising Fer-De-Lances and Vultures???  I don't think so.

The final USS contained a wing of 4 pirates comprising 3 Sidewinders and a Cobra.  A bit more my size.  I popped 2 of the Sidewinders before the Cobra even got involved.  Call yourselves a Wing? lol

So back at the dock I turned the mission in an went from Count to Earl.

However, I don't really want to be Earl, its a male title,  I raised a ticket about the Imperial Ranks being Gender Specific back in January.  Frontier's support said they would pass it to the devs; but 3 months later it's still the same and has started a foray on the forums.

David Braben even was asked this point during the AMA session on the forums yesterday:-

 Originally Posted by Alexandra Wolf 

I'm very much a fan of how Frontier has handled gender balance in its NPC characters, but as an Imperial citizen I'm quite disappointed to be hailed as a "Lord" and then "Baron" and so on. Is there a reason why the Empire has no Lady/Baroness/Viscountess/Countess ranks, or is this fixable? (FYI, there has never been a female equivalent of an Earl, perhaps Marquis/Marquess or Duke/Duchess could be substituted?) Also, will ranks within powers avoid this issue?

"You're right. This has come up before too. There is some context here, but I think it is something we want to look at down the line.
Margaret Thatcher insisted on being "Prime Minister" when she took power (ie not "Prime Mistress") and many female actors are not known as actresses at their own request. Similarly women chairmen. So there is an argument that gender-specific roles will lose their specificity over time".

I think the problem is that yes, Frontier would like to do this however there's a long list of things to do that have higher priority and as the female player base is very small - 1 in 20?  They don't see it as a priority for the developers.

But thanks to Misterjunkz, I'm happy now :-)  #EliteDangerous should take note.

@marajaden FIXED :P pic.twitter.com/JiBmUUHMPt
— Mister Junkz (@Misterjunkz) April 25, 2015

David Attenborough

Just got 277k for shooting David Attenborough.  Do I feel guilty.... errrrmm nope :-)

Gopher A Slash

This one really made me laugh...

Mousebladder

Does that mean he pees himself?

Bodge It And Scarper

Spotted in LTT 9810 during the kill wanted ship Community Goal.  Unfortunately he was on the right side!

Nu Community Goal

Was looking at the "imported from" tag on the Station collecting the Metals in Nu.

Looks like stuff has been coming from absolutely everywhere! But I have to ask you, who the hell is hauling Gold all the way from SOL!  ROFLMAO - its gotta be 120 light years, if not more.

Good news is that the goal should have been completed this afternoon, but Frontier have raised the levels with "additional orders" so we can carry on earning loads of money here for another day or two, and the rewards are already at the Ninth tier now this evening :-) so big bonuses will be due to everyone partaking.

I got knocked out of the top 15% today whilst I undertook the dreaded "W" word today, but 2 hours this evening popped me back up there.

One Expensive Wing-Waggle!

Its happened.  I finally got blown up.  All my own stupid fault too.  Shows me right for showing off the new Clipper paintjobs and wing waggling inside the station at a fellow CMDR.  Doh.

I get the paid loitering warning. yep, ok, hands up I confess I did that, but when I backed up and returned to my own pad, it didn't like me being their either, even when I landed on it so KABOOM!

Yep, you are reading it right, that little wing-waggle cost me 2.8 million credits - plus another 1.6 million in unsold Beryllium cargo.

Why so much for a Clipper?  I've been fitting her out with A-Rated modules of course!  Finally bought the top thrusters for her yesterday and she did top out at 440m/s whilst boosting. Hope I get a bloody good bonus from the Nu Community Goal to help me get the cash back.  But to be honest its only a small dent in my funds, I've made more than that since Friday trading metal for the Community goal.

Anyway, floating pieces of lime green Imperial Clipper were seen floating around the station afterwards, the station should really organise a clean-up crew (or maybe have used a hankie!).


There she was, the last picture I took of my first Clipper who has served me so well these last few months. Sob! Ce la vie.

The Long Run Home

Leaving the Horsehead, I went up a few light years to the Trapezium Sector to have a closer look at Messier 78.

And now... the long run for home.  I'm not listing it here as I didn't explore anything as I didn't stop to scan any worlds unless they looked like possible Earthlikes, but alas 2 Kevin Costners (water worlds)! And I went the most direct route possible back to Tsu.  A total of 1920 light years travelled and 112 jumps (17 light years averaged per jump) took me 5 hours.

This was my only slightly sticky jump, I was fine, but it could have been much worse.  You gotta keep an eye out for those close binaries!

So after a long Easter weekend filled of 4 days exploration, travel and wonder, I've made a journey I've wanted to make since I was a little kid (fly out and see Orion).  I made over 5 million credits from the Exploration Data, my level has gone up to the top 15% in the Alliance Exploration Programme Community Goal and my exploration ranking has gone up to Ranger.

The galaxy feels a lot smaller now.

Explorer's Log: 6-APR-3301

After leaving the Spirograph Nebula behind I travel the final 650 light years towards the Horsehead Nebula.

When I first set out on this journey I didn't know if I could even reach Orion Nebula, let alone all the way through it and beyond to the Horsehead Nebula, but by some spark of luck the 19.75 light years that my (unstripped) Clipper can currently jump was just about enough to cover the largest hyperspace jumps, but only just, there has been a few occasions where the only route involved a 19.5 ly jump or even slightly more.  I may have made a few detours here and there on the trip out here, the route plotter sending me at right angles occasionally especially past the Witch Head Nebula where the stars started getting very diffuse.

First object of note was the 1999 Nebula, which is quite tiny, but inside you couldn't see Orion at all, there must have been a lot of dust in there blocking the view.

Next oddity, a T-Tauri that looked like an F-Class star - not orange or white, but yellow. That's the first one I've seen, maybe it's a bug?

The Running Man nebula is getting larger now, Barnard's loop is practically filling the module area of the screen.

MX Orionis 1 was a pretty "ice cream" gas giant.  All these systems were discovered of course, I think they must have been tagged by the first players to reach the region back in Gamma.

There's quite a lot of M-Class stars in Orion's Stellar Nursey as well as a couple of giant stars.  I even spotted a Neutron Star on the map in there, but didn't approach as I did not want to risk taking any damage on this first long trip.

Although I really had to laugh at this guy's name!

The Flame Nebula was pretty from a distance, looks a bit like the Eye of Sauron from this picture taken from The Running Man Sector.

Up close though the Flame Nebula loses much of its definition, you need to be farther away from it to appreciate it.

Once past the uterine wall of Orion's womb - well that's how I thought of it - the Stellar carpet gets very thin, and you can't see the Orion Nebula you just passed through hardly at all - you can just make out the dust in this picture - which is all you can see of the Orion Nebula itself looking back towards the other nebulae, home, and of course the galactic central core.

Then it was on into the Horsehead Nebula itself.

Once 1000 ls away from the entrance star, all space in the Horsehead Nebula just turns pink!

A bit further in now, and once again looking back towards home.

And finally, I made it.  You can't go any further there are no more stars.  I'd expect with an Asp you can jump beyond the back of the Nebula and carry on into interstellar space towards the Crab Nebula - but my journey was at an end. In front of me was the Horse's head.

You can just about make out the horse's head in the game, but the elevation is wrong and you don't see far enough above this band of dark dust to see the horse's neck.  Look behind the dark hump in the clouds above the Clipper's back to see the head shape.  (I do remember reading that they amended the Galactic map to give the Horse Head a little more definition in one of the updates, but its obviously not been applied in here also).

The Spirograph Nebula

First reached by myself on the evening of the 5-APR-3301, the Spirograph Nebula or IC 418 is a planetary nebula 1100 light years from earth and is one third of a light year across.

It was given the name Spirograph after the patterns in the gas seen in enhanced telescopic images taken from Earth resemble the Spirograph toys which you can make pretty coloured geometric patterns with a series of different sized plastic wheels. I had one myself as a kid.

To find it in Elite Dangerous, make your way towards the Witch's Head Nebula then as you reach it hang a left.

The Spirograph Nebula is stunning.  I learned about it from twitch streamer O_Dingo77, who in turn learned about it from one of his viewers Harbinger73 (who's got the discovery credit for the entire system).

The nebula is lit internally by the large B-Type star at the centre BD-12 1172.  It gives off the same UV glow that other blue giants like Beta-1 Tucanae give off too, giving any close objects including the first couple of high metal planets (all with rings) and unearthly purple glow.

Farther away from the central star, the green glow of the nebula really starts to come to life. it even turned my cockpit green.

It made me wonder as I was flying around and scanning the outer system that it life formed and if it ever did reach sentience in this system, they would grow up believing that this greenspace was the norm, and would get quite the shock when they left their home system for the first time and saw the true darkness of space.  It would make a wonderful plot for a sci-fi story!

The B-Class star also has a couple of brown dwarf companions and also a captured M Class star too. Planet 16 is also a hot "Venusian" world and is classed as a terraformable due to the high water content in the atmosphere.  If this is ever settled (although I can't see it happening in my lifetime) I'm bagsy'ing some real estate there now!!!

And of course the backdrop itself makes a wonderful setting to show of the beauty of the Imperial Clipper.  The teal colour of the nebula reminds of of the warm seas of the Caribbean or some other exotic locale.

And finally, looking back from the next jump here is the Spirograph Nebula as it appears from outside (blue fuzzy patch next to the clipper's nose) dwarfed by the ever growing size of Barnard's Loop.

And so, I leave the Spirograph behind as my journey towards Orion continues, I didn't really want to leave the system, but I can't wait until the Alliance Exploration Programme extends this far out and they build a station in this system, it will make a wonderful space tourist destination.... in 500 years we'll have the Spirograph Nebula Hilton :-)

Explorer's Log: 5-APR-3301

The journey to Orion continues.....

Came across my second Earthlike World as I passed through the Witch's Head Sector FG-Y D16. This close to the Nebula and in the "Orion Corridor" nearly all of the stuff here has already been discovered by other players, and Mark Agrippa has his name on this one.  The blue in the background of this picture is the back of the Witch's Head Nebula.

And Barnard's loop and the Nebula huddled within are growing larger and larger with every jump.