Beagle Point 2A LEGACY CRATER
CMDR OZ

The universe saved its most symphonic crescendo for my landing at Beagle Point.

“Landing gear deployed” echoed from the ships COVAS and ten seconds later I touched down. After my four-month jaunt up the Galactic highway, I finally touched down at Legacy Crater, marking the end of my expedition.

• 

• 

After the grind of traversing the Abyss, it was cathartic to bring an end to Distant Worlds 2. It wasn’t without a touch of melancholy however.

14,000 pilots launched from Pallaeni on January 13th but only 4,000 made it to the end of the galaxy, myself included. From Cycladia to the Omega Nebula, Omega to the Dryau Awesomes, the Awesomes to Sagittarius A and Sagittarius A to Beagle.

The system stands as the undeniable pinnacle for the galaxy’s explorers, as far removed from the in-game civilization as you could get. A dangerous, lonely trip that saw the majority of the fleet turn around at Sagittarius A*.

Four years after the first Distant Worlds expedition, the second iteration of this epic mass expedition generated an unprecedented number of participants and media coverage.

I became ponderous while Elite’s orchestral soundtrack continued to blare around me.

My last docking was at the newly developed Explorers Anchorage over a month ago, leaving me in the black for a significant amount of time with nothing but the ship, my thoughts and the 3305 Breville Coffee Maker issued as-standard with every shiny new Krait MKII.

Despite early-onset Space Madness beginning to settle in, the expedition has been relatively incident free after the Galactic Core systems. MK2 systems are optimal following the mapping of the Aphelion, hull integrity is 98% after tangling with the Fly Trap Nebula and staggeringly I still have a full compliment of SRV’s and Fighters sitting in pristine condition despite some ludicrous behavior behind the wheel.

With the expedition complete and the fleet dispersed, I haven’t made physical contact with another commander since running combat ops with other commanders at the Explorers Community Goal.

The Holo-Me hasn’t known the touch of a woman in many moons and he’s seen a lot of damn moons over the last four months.

He reclined blissfully in the cockpit, pleased with himself after an expedition well-flown. He’s a mess to look at but by god that’s a certified explorer right there.

Personally I’m an avid advocate for space-legs, not just because I think it would be an exciting game mechanic but because that fat-ass desperately needs to go for a walk.

What I present to you now, CMDR’s, is my Distant Worlds 2 ship log entries, broadcast for posterity while I take a brief cryo-induced sleep and plot my next route.

I’ve programmed the system to periodically upload transcripts of my travels to the net until such time as this glorious pioneer’s nicely thawed and moisturized person re-emerges like a beautiful, albeit girthy butterfly from its icy cocoon.

Maybe he’ll manage to regrow the hair he lost abusing the conveniance of the neutron highway.

Continued: WP1

Pallaeni: A young pilot with a point to prove

This story, believe it or not, starts in the infamous permit-locked Cone Sector.

More specifically on The Gnosis, which was scheduled to jump into that mysterious triad of forbidden space last year.

11,000 hopeful CMDR’s and one Thargoid Hyperdiction/subsequent attack later, community uproar dominated the airwaves.

Corpses and ship-wrecks began to pile up in the no-fire zone that the Thargoids clearly took issue complying with, CMDR’s who engaged them ended up in the detention ship a thousand light years away, and those travelling in exploration craft were forced to huddle together inside the protection of the mega-ship while caustic missiles whizzed overhead.

The entire situation was unfathomable and utterly glorious. And the impetus for a much greater adventure.

I was content with my lot after the incident. When I eventually did try and make a break for it, footage of my ASP getting bounced by a Thargon Swarm on return garnered 68 likes from pilots on the GalNet forums.

By the time I limped back to Ez Aquarii with my tail between my legs, they were calling me ‘Gone in Sixty Seconds’, a reference to how long it took for the frail frame of my defenseless Explorer to be ripped apart. It was a generous estimate.

As a CMDR whose career was in its adolescence I was just thrilled to be part of this gung-ho interstellar gang.

What I left wanting out of the saga, however, was that feeling of the unknown.

It’s what attracted me to The Gnosis in the first place, the tantalising prospect of finding something hidden in that mysterious Bermuda Triangle of permit-locked systems.

A Thargoid homeworld? The last surviving remnants of the Guardian race? A free Anaconda?

Alas, I was back at the Magnus Barbers bequeathing a tuft of hair on Holo-Me’s head when a transmission lit up my hand-held.

“Distant Worlds 2 is a six-month expedition to the far outer rim that culminates at Beagle Point. The mission statement is to take thousands of CMDRs on a journey of discovery, to see what mysteries the galaxy contains, and to construct a starport at Sagittarius A*.

Sounded like a good time to me. I parked the ASP, flipped a ‘Gone Explorin’ sign on the dash and whizzed off in a Krait.

January 13 3305 – Distant World’s Tourist Beacon

CODENAME: OZ
#6018
VESSEL: KRAIT MKII – H.M.A.S BIG THICC
JUMP RANGE: 50 LY (Give or take)

For as much preparation as we put into engineering ship modules, unlocking Guardian enhancements and all the other spinning rims, there’s absolutely no substitute for flying in style.

With the thought in my head that I’ll be spending four months away from the bubble with a finite amount of opportunities to mix up the aesthetic, I took a lot more care beautifying the MKII than I did prepping for the four-month vaycay.

So when I rolled up to the tourist beacon sporting a bright yellow coat of paint and a voluptuous ship kit, I called it a job well done. I dubbed it Her Majesty’s Australian Ship the Big Thicc, a reflection of the ship and pilots supple chassis.

And because of my thicc love of exploration, don’t @ me.

It was ten minutes to the first mass jump. Safe Disengage Ready popped up and I obliged, coming to a halt in normal space.

Only to find absolutely no-one there.

It was awfully still except for a contingent of NPC Beluga’s flying in perfect, eerie reverse-tandem. No CMDR icons on radar.

As someone whose grip of Universal Co-ordinated Time is slim at best it’s possible I could be really late or really early.

A message notification popped up and I think, finally, we’re on here. This was it, me and 14,000 of my best buds taking the galaxy by storm. I opened the message.

“Don’t forget, this liner is in the 1% of-“

I killed the message tab and considered painting the beacon with Beluga scrap metal before another message came in on the system-wide communications.

“Any CMDR’s in open play are encouraged to switch to the private server before launch.”

I tuned into one of the Discord voice chats. A whole host of CMDR’s were at the beacon but flying in a Distant Worlds 2 private group that I may or may not have failed to opt into when I signed up for the expedition. Benefits of flying in this group included participation in the mass jump.

Most importantly it offered relative safety from gankers.

It was looking like a breath-taking case of interstellar mismanagement from the bald-headed Oz.

Suddenly feeling conspicuous in my bumblebee yellow Krait, I heard two ships drop into the beacon. I wondered if they were friend or foe and realised that if it was a gank I wouldn’t know until it’s too late.

Because nobody ever expects the gankquisition.

The two Phantoms confirmed they were Distant Worlds explorers and we exchanged pleasantries. We formed up in a wing with a minute to go and prepared to jump as part of the Oceanic contingent.

In my head I imagined a lot of ships with a kaleidoscope of vapor trails jumping simultaneously into the beyond like I’d seen on Youtube. The reality of my DW2 ribbon cutting was three pilots who didn’t know how to co-ordinate a mass jump pissing off in all different directions and a near-fatal server crash looming over our heads.

And by god I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Off we fwipped on a journey across the galaxy.

TBC