The Jaques Rescue Mission

[Don Vito]

I'm still at Jaques, just bought a T6 and fitted it out for mining because I still can't steel myself for the trip back.

One day I'll get back to the bubble..

[Loriath]

I'm still at Jaques, just bought a T6 and fitted it out for mining because I still can't steel myself for the trip back.

One day I'll get back to the bubble..

There is a faster way.... Its brave.. some say foolish. It may even be, shall we say....

INSANE!

Do you want to know more?

[JohnLuke]

There is a faster way.... Its brave.. some say foolish. It may even be, shall we say....

INSANE!

Do you want to know more?

Humm...... I'm thinking that it involves a Sidewinder and a criminal act, followed by a police action. Do I win a prize?

[Don Vito]

There is a faster way.... Its brave.. some say foolish. It may even be, shall we say....

INSANE!

Do you want to know more?

Well don't keep me in suspense!

[Cmdr Kharma]

Having never done it I might be wrong....But I think it goes sthg like this.....

1. Find a decent station that would carry the stuff you are equipped with....

2. Fly to said station and sell or downgrade your modules....

3. Sell ship.....

4 Buy sidewinder....

5. Launch

6. Attack station or sys auth vessel......

7. Wait for inevitable destruction.....

8. Choose zero cost option on rebuy screen....

9. Boom you are back at your original starting station.....

That's original as in when you started playing the game for the first time.....Not the last station you docked at....

[Loriath]

Having never done it I might be wrong....But I think it goes sthg like this.....

1. Find a decent station that would carry the stuff you are equipped with....

2. Fly to said station and sell or downgrade your modules....

3. Sell ship.....

4 Buy sidewinder....

5. Launch

6. Attack station or sys auth vessel......

Winner. Cost you 10% of the stripped down cost of your original ship and you are back in the bubble in about 25 seconds.

[Emma]

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.

[Loriath]

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.

Thanks

Ok, so you need a BIG Fuel Scoop. Biggest you can afford. Your going to be scooping A LOT! The bigger, the less time spent scooping, the lest time your ship is heating up, the less time for something to go wrong, like you get distracted and fly into the star or similar. It happens to all of us. We forget to throttle down on jump, hear a noise and turn to investigate, look back and we are taking heat damage. Even if you can Jump 50 LY in a shot, Jaques is 22,000 LY and Sag A is 26,000. Thats a LOT of jumping, and scooping.


Now you need an ADVANCED Discovery Scanner. Not Basic, not Intermediate, ADVANCED. When you honk you want every pebble in that system exposed and found for maximum payout.

And you need a Detailed Surface Scanner. This is so you can get all the details of any planet that you scan. This raises the Payout for the scan by quite a bit.

A Buggy? Sure, if you like. That is up to you, but even though I love Flying a Buggy, I never used it on my trip to Jaques, and only once on the Halfway Halfassed tour that I did, and that was only for Pictures.

As far as worrying about being jumped, the space madness does't jump you, it sneaks up on you. And that is about all you have to worry about once you get outside the bubble of Human Existence. I truly believe you are more likely to shoot yourself than Aliens while out in the deep black. So even if you did run low on Ammo, there is Synthesis for reloads.

But, if your a crap pilot like me, with an attention span of a Gnat, you DO want to bring an AFMU with you. Two in Fact. One main to repair your ship when you screw up, and another to repair the FIRST AFMU. Leave them powered off until you need them. They use a LOT of power. Oh and never EVER try to repair your FSD while in SuperCruise. Don't ask why, but you will figure it out.
And if you do need repairs, do not try to repair everything at once. If your stuck there on Emergency Life Support and you are waiting for all these things to repair, your burning up life itself. Do a Couple at a time. You may need that life support at some point.

As far as jump range, long before jumponium, even before these so called engineers, people were exploring in whatever they had. Sidewinders have crossed the galaxy, Crappy Range Vipers have been to the centre. My Transit Van Hauler took me 18K ly in a cruise around the spiral arm.

That said, less jump range means more jumps. More jumps takes more time. More time means MORE SPACE MADNESS!!!!!!!!

Enjoy

[Walter]

I have a different experience and that is why I say it's entirely down to you. It comes down to why you're making the big trip.

If you're going simply you're ticking it off a list of things to be done, then it's likely to end up a a bit of a grind fest.

If you're going to make money out of exploration, forget it. I've been out for three weeks and just cashed in at Jaques. It paid out 36m - and I've done a lot of detailed scanning - so not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme.

I started out going as far and as fast as I could, getting as close to the 1000LY series of jumps as possible, jumping into a system fuel scoop/advanced scan honk, then jumping to the next. With my 20LY jump range, that was a sequence of 50 or so jumps. The first time it wasn't too bad. The second time I found myself checking to see how many more jumps before the end of the sequence. After the third time I logged off and watched a film - I couldn't take more than an hour or two at a time and I usually spend twice that each day.

So I slowed down. I picked a G-type star as a target not more than 500LY ahead, usually less - it could have been any sort of target. If the star didn't have a water world or earth-type, I searched all the neighbouring stars till I found one that did and then did a detailed surface scan of all the inner planets. This method broke the tedium and I started enjoying it more. After 35 000LY I was glad to land at Jaques - there are explorers who would consider that a short stroll.

If you're still not sure, follow Loriath's advice and fit up a ship as if you were going a long way. Head south - you'll soon be in uninhabited space and quite likely to find a previously unscanned system - many, many systems get bypassed by people in ships with huge jump ranges who want to get somewhere in a hurry. Take your time to look at the scenery. After two or three days you'll know what to do next.

TL;DR: It takes all sorts.

[Cometborne]

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