An engineering / exploration expedition to colonia, Sagittarius A, and back.

[Mr Robert House]

So I really want to go to sag A and do some exploration, colonia is "only a short detour" and while I'm there, unlocking all the engineers and making the colonia council like me seems like a good idea. Is there anything else of note to do over there?

How do I get invited by the colonia council? Do they have a mission contact in the bubble? If not then I really hope they have some large stations for me to run data or boom deliveries

A 70 ly ship is pretty easy to do and gives 350 jumps there (neutron boosting seems broken when plotting it in game so ♥♥♥♥ that) I was going to use an 80 ly conda but then realised I have to actually do things when I get there and afaik module availability is bad.

So I need a ship that can:

Scan water and metal planets and land on any that have good amounts of engineering resources (easy)
get some cheap pirate kills to get 100k bounty vouchers with the help of security
Get 25 escape pods (get 25 from damaged stations in the bubble and bring them to colonia?) how else can I do that? (Lol those poor people if that is the best way)
Mine 10 osmium (mining laser/ refinery/prospector/ collector afaik)
Carry a reasonable amount of cargo for the above and to get progenitor cells (will check if I have to bring those it can get them there)

https://s.orbis.zone/3ezk I think that has everything covered, although I'll definitely need help with the bounty claiming

Not sure how long it will be until I get round to this as I still want the engineer at Jameson memorial to make engineering easier.

Really don't want to get halfway there and realise I forgot Something

[malorob]

colonia council rep made easy.....

get lots of data on your journey out to colonia and hand it in. done got a invite.

[Tokfan]

Don't worry about the stuff for the engineers (mining/bounties/rescue pods).
You can buy yourself a ship and outfit it (well somewhat but good enough) in Colonia that will satisfy those things.
No need to haul those things with you.

Also: Don't forget to hit up some save points along the way and sell that data to Colonia Council;
https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Colonia_Connection_Highway
You'll be allied long before you reach Colonia if you head there first.

Which leaves the ship.
You're not going to scoop at neutron stars, and only land at planets...
DBX should be good enough, or if you have the cash snag a Krait Phantom which will give you plenty of space for fancy quality of life stuff (repair limpets, amfu, cargo racks etc) while not impacting your jump range too much.
The Krait P will also become your unlock-all-the-engineers workhorse since you can easily slap on 3 large weapons, 2 mining lasers, refinery, cargo racks, shield, collector limpets for the stuff you need to do.
It's 100% money back for modules vs. 90% on ships so yeah, the Krait is what I'd bring.

Looking at your build, oh ok a conda... well.. ditch the combat & mining stuff and pick that up out there. As far as shields go, you really only want it for planetary landing & mining. 100k of bounty is one or two kills in a high rez with cops. So don't bother with the shield boosters.
Nothing out there is going to fire missiles at you (unless you play in open and go to the core - beware gankers!) so point defences are unnecessary too.
You've lightweighted the burst laser so a stock one will be more efficient, rip that out.
Unless you are flying with a buddy, throw that fuel transfer out aswell.
The amfu is a bit oversized for you not messing with neutron scooping, so lowered that a bit.
Also axed the cargo capacity.
Replaced the bi-weave with a smaller standard shield (same engineering) to free up more juice.
Downsized the power plant.
I upscaled the SRV hangar to carry one spare - just incase.

End result is something like this;
https://s.orbis.zone/3e-7
Do note the power distributor with the Grade 5 Engine focus.

Anything you'd need for the engineers is avaliable in Colonia, sure there might not be the state of the art stuff but I did it with a Python bought from Jaques Station and slapped on whatever they sold and it worked out just fine.
https://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/universe/colonia/jaques-station/#
https://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/universe/ogmar/whirling-station/#
https://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/universe/ratraii/colonia-dream/#


Edit: Consider a SLF bay... it's a good cabin fever killer.
Edit 2: Oh yeah, buy a ship -any ship and park it at Colonia. that way you can teleport back there whenever you want by blowing up your current ship and choosing "my stored ship" -just make sure you don't do it in an expensive ship with engineered stuff.
(They might have fixed this, gotta jump online and check -was a year since I did that last time).

[Mr Robert House]

Thanks

So rather than going there and back with a complex multipurpose ship I should just:

Make a max jump range anaconda with just the exploration tools, go to colonia via the rest stops and sell data as I go (might try neutron boosting too, especially if there are saves on the way)

Outfit the anaconda at colonia for unlocking each engineer individually, one at a time. The module selection seems good actually, which is good since the anaconda will just consist of me sitting on a giant FSD when I arrive.

Get the engineers to G5, pin good blueprints, then strip the anaconda again and head for sag A

Go and buy a sidewinder, most likely I'll have to go back to colonia somewhere and just self destruct immediately. With a ship ready back in the bubble to spawn in I can immediately return home, leaving the anaconda in colonia. Assuming the self destruct teleport works that is. And I can repeat that to get back to colonia.

The last part with the suicide teleporting is kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but so is the time it takes to get there so yeah, seems reasonable. Would be cool if once you get there there was a ferry back, or you could have a ai crew member and they could take you there while your not playing.

Could just buy a ship as a spawn location at colonia and fly the anaconda home to get more data actually.

Edit: I don't really need the anaconda for this actually but it does have the best jump range and can do the progenitor cells all at once so I'll get another one (since it's possibly getting left there)

[Mr Robert House]

The only issue left is the escape pods. Carrying 25 helpless souls to colonia is not only funny but I think it might be faster than doing hours of uss scanning, even though it does cost some jump range. They're easy to get in the bubble because of the thargoids damaging stations. I'll try and find out how long it takes to get the pods in colonia and decide if I should kidnap them.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

引用自 Mr Robert House：

The only issue left is the escape pods. Carrying 25 helpless souls to colonia...

Don't do that. There is a damaged megaship in one of star systems there (something beginning with "L", can't remember). You can hatch-break its escape hatch to release escape pods. Use collector limpets to pick them all.

[Mr Robert House]

引用自 Dolphin Bottlenose：

引用自 Mr Robert House：

The only issue left is the escape pods. Carrying 25 helpless souls to colonia...

Don't do that. There is a damaged megaship in one of star systems there (something beginning with "L", can't remember). You can hatch-break its escape hatch to release escape pods. Use collector limpets to pick them all.

Hmm I read about that but it was an old post and seemed complicated. I'll just go there with the pure jump range build then.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

引用自 Mr Robert House：

Hmm I read about that but it was an old post and seemed complicated. I'll just go there with the pure jump range build then.

Yes, I believe I've read the same post, when googled for those elusive Colonial pods. I did it 3 days ago, it was still working. You need to equip 1 hatch breaker and several collector limpets (target 6 limpets to operate at once - the escape hatch releases pods in batches of 6). You can equip those at Colonia.