Slightly Intrepid: December 2020

28 December 2020

Pioneer 51

Prospecting for yttrium in the Ploi Thua sector

For several years I couldn't play Elite Dangerous at all, what with my ISP being incompatible with the Frontier server requirements. A few months ago my street finally got fibre installed and I switched to a different provider, and could therefore play the game I've spent over a thousand hours in once more. As always, it's been a process of relearning the game mechanics, with an added dose of the traditional Elite Dangerous chore of resetting all the keybinds the game seems to wipe every so often, thereby bringing you back to square one. At first I reacquainted myself with the combat gameplay, and then taught myself the asteroid mining mechanics that were introduced a few years back.

Then it was time to delve into another new gameplay area - the revamped exploration system. The old system involved a discovery scanner 'honk' on first emerging from witchspace into a new system to reveal the bodies orbiting the star, followed by approaching planetary bodies of interest close enough for a detailed scan. The updated exploration system is now more complex, but it's an interesting complexity. A commander entering a new system still triggers a powerful scanner burst on jumping adjacent to the main system star, which reveals all the system's stars plus the number of planetary bodies in the orbital plane. Then after travelling a short distance from the main star to gain a clearer sightline, the Full Spectrum System Scanner reveals the trace signals of all the different planetary bodies, and the commander can tune the scanner to identify each body, locking on to the correct frequency for each body and zooming in and out to complete the scan. It's a fiddly process but ultimately quite satisfying, and the FSS' ability to identify particular planetary types allows a commander in a hurry to just latch onto particular bodies, such as water worlds and Earth-likes, while ignoring the less lucrative icy bodies.

Once I'd got the hang of this new skill I decided to head out of the civilised bubble for my first exploratory expedition in years. I rigged my Anaconda-class, Cahokia, with a compact power plant and distributor, lightweight engines and an enormous 28MCr fuel scoop, a minimal shield to protect from bumpy landings, and an SRV bay to explore planetary surfaces. All the Cahokia's weaponry was sent to storage to reduce weight, and ultimately this bare-bones approach boosted the ship's maximum jump range to a smidgen over 54 light-years, without the benefit of fancy Guardian jump booster technology.

Commander Totinges departed from Arrhenius Terminal in the Bard system, 150 lightyears from Sol and home of the Cosmic Caretakers Corporation, and headed rimwards through the Oochost and Hegeia sectors. The first major find of the journey was in the Hegeia sector, where the Cahokia came across a remarkable system (Hegeia ZS-U D2-48) with two water-worlds and a beautiful earth-like world. Further afield, Commander Totinges found a system with twin water-worlds (Gludgoi IH-D D12-50), and another with an earth-like and a water-world (Hypou Ain LY-2 D13-32). The furthest extent of the journey was at Hypou Ain JG-V C16-9, 5536 light-years rimward of Bard, and the point at which the Cahokia turned back towards civilised space so as to reach a settled system in time for Christmas! After 106 jumps the final destination on the trip was Hiyya Orbital in the Arjung system, which has long been a popular destination for Commander Totinges on his travels about the galaxy.

The successful exploration mission took Totinges' exploration rank to Pioneer 51 (up 20 rank points), netted 40MCr for the bank balance, and set a new record for highest total system scan payout, at 7.8MCr. Next step will be to hop into Totinges' Krait Mk.2 and read up on how to unlock the Guardian frame shift drive booster to make the next exploration expedition even speedier.

04 December 2020

Cour des Miracles

The name of the rue de la Grande-Truanderie (Great Scam) refers to one of the Paris's 12 cours des Miracles, so called because when the most severely crippled beggars returned there at the end of each working day, they suddenly found themselves cured, lively, and nimble. Each had their specialty: the francs-mitoux pretended to faint at street corners, the piètres hauled themselves about on crutches, the coquillards claimed to be pilgrims in need, the sabouleux were phony paralytics or epileptics, the rifodés crawled on deformed limbs, the mercandiers affected to be war victims, and so on. They had laws, a language, and a leader called Le Ragot (today, slang for gossip), who was succeeded during the reign of François I by Le Grand Coësre. Every night, the beggars gave their chief a percentage of their gains and then spent the rest on a feast, since their law required them to keep nothing for the next day, but eat, drink, and be merry until all their money was gone. Towns within the town, the cours des Miracles had as many as 40,000 inhabitants in 1560. The Police Lieutenant La Reynie cleared them in 1667.

- Dominique Lesbros, Curiosities of Paris, New York, 2017, p.69