Emma wrote:I liked Loriath's reply. But I am quite interested in exploring etc, so I might try this, at least once. I think it would probably take me at least an hour per 1000 lYs. And I guess you need some special setup on your ship, if there are no facilities out there. With mining and SRVs, can you make yourself totally self-sufficient, including weapon ammunition? Is there anything along the way, like pirates, or is it just empty? I notice on Sothis runs that I never get jumped by pirates in the middle sections.
How long it takes you really depends on how much you scan on the way. If you only scoop fuel and run the discovery scanner at the same time (called "scoop, honk, and jump" or simply "jonking") you can be in a new system every 50-60 seconds. This allows you to get to Jaques really fast, but you will not have much exploration data to sell On the other hand, if you do a detailed scan of every single planet and moon, it can take you up to an hour to handle a system. This way, you get a lot of exploration data to sell and your name on the maps in a lot of places, but it will make the trip even longer.
In addition to the equipment that Loriath already mentioned, there is one other important factor for this trip: Do not do this alone, do it as part of a group, or the space madness WILL get you. I made my first trip to Jaques (and back home via Sagittarius A*, the huge black hole in the centre of the galaxy) alone in an AspX, and that was a drag. I did six more trips to Jaques and back in a trade cutter (~1000 jumps when loaded on the trip out, ~700 jumps unloaded on the trip back) as part of the "Jaunt to Jaques", and that was actually FUN because I was able to chat with the other Jaunters on the J2J discord.
Additionally, I cannot recommend doing Jaques as a first exploration trip. In real life, this would be like deciding to do sports to get fit, and taking part in a marathon as the first thing. Start slow by putting an ADS and a DSS on your ship and doing detailed scans of every star, planet, and moon that you see in the bubble. If you are doing missions, use something like ED Discovery or Captain's Log (or both at the same time) to record where you passed, and do the scanning once you have gotten rid of your mission cargo. This not only gets you used to the pace, but you will get LOTS of Unidentified Signal Sources (USS) with threat level 0 while doing this, and will be able to pick up tons of engineer materials from them on the way. Don't scoop any cargo cannisters as those will increase the chance of interdictions, only pick up the materials. If you enter an USS where a rescue operation is underway, do passive scans of the rescue ships for some nice data materials. Stay away from distress calls and weapons fire detected ones.
After that, start some small exploration trips outside the bubble to the nearby tourist spots. The Pleiades Nebula is an obvious first choice, and you can visit your first black hole there. Not to mention various Barnacles, UAs, UPs, and the alien wreck. The California and Dumbbell nebulas are quite close to the bubble and offer some nice sights. Veil West Nebula is a little further out but looks even better.
And once you have the experience, go to Jaques. If possible, as part of a group. Keep an eye on the expedition hub on the Frontier Forums if there is any organized group heading out, and do the trip as part of that group. Unfortunately, the roster for the Small Worlds Expedition closed this week, that would have been a good starter expedition even though it does not get anywhere near Jaques. The roster for the Galactic Nebula Expedition has been re-opened even though we are already underway and we will pass through Jaques. However, GNE is a trip of at least 46000 LY or so that is scheduled to take several months until we get to Sag A*.
On your other questions: NPC pirates will only spawn within 1000 LY of the bubble, once you are past that, you will not see NPCs until you reach the no fire zone or the RES sites at Jaques. USS will spawn in space but at a much lower rate, and the only have large and small survey data caches. Random planetary points of interest also spawn with either a crashed nav beacon, ship or SRV. Expect some random cargo and/or materials from the crashed ships and SRVs, and data packages from the Nav Beacons.
All this might change once 2.2 is released, of course.
Getting fully self-sufficient is impossible, unfortunately. You are not able to repair your power plant or your hull outside a station. You are not able to restock emergency oxygen, heat sinks, limpets, point defence ammunition, or lost SRVs without a station, either. What you can do is:
- reload your guns, mine launchers, and missile launchers using synthesis
- repair, reload, and refuel your SRV using synthesis
- repair ship modules other than the power plant and the active AFMU using an AFMU (that is why you should carry two)
- scoop fuel