Reaching Kashyapa was very much a painless trip during this last week of Elite Dangerous with plenty of stops to keep the fuel tanks full and lots of planets to scan. Vihar Gate, the station I was stopping by on this leg, orbits a spectacular Earth-like world that’s surrounded by a ring which makes for a picture perfect location. It’s a shame that planetary landings on such worlds is not possible (yet) because it’d make for some pretty cool views I can imagine. While not as well stocked as Caravanserai Station from the previous leg, Vihar Gate had more than enough to cash in my data and bounties while getting the ship up to spec again. I made 16 million credits from exploration data from that leg so it’s still been another profitable run.

For this period I’d broken my travel down into a lot of smaller stages when I found an hour or two to play on the Xbox over the course of a week and it turned out to be really useful beyond just making economical use of my time. Each new session had forced me to replot the route on the Galactic Map and sometimes I found it had shaved a jump off the trip from when I last played due to my constant refueling changing the plot calculations. Even if that only equates to a couple of minutes it’s time saved overall so it’s been worth checking regularly.

The next stop is Colonia with 76 jumps to go. Approaching humanity’s second bubble in the galaxy means there’s going to be less undiscovered stars as I get closer (and therefore less credits to earn) plus the chances of ship encounters goes up too. I’m also starting to plan out the next route to Sagittarius A* and find any potential stops along that route from Colonia so it’s not the end by any means, just a lot closer than I’ve ever been before. So not a lot to report this time but hopefully that will change soon as I arrive at my main stopover on this big trip.

On a side note it’s been fun seeing achievements ticking over again on the Xbox with this game and make my Elite Dangerous gamerscore look a little more impressive. It’s been a while and I suppose it might help to explain in part why I find it easier playing this on console rather than PC as the stat tracking tied to many of these achievements helps provide me with incentive to go further. If I’ve traveled 900LY from home, why not go another 100 and get that recognition? After five years of playing and only reaching 50% progress on achievements I can’t say I’ve been madly pursuing them but every once in a while when I get close to one it’s fun to knock it over. 🙂