The second of the holiday expeditions landed on Tuesday last week… at least for those of us playing on PC. Over on Reddit the XBox people are always anxious because their update takes longer to arrive. But they should be happy they are not on the Switch, where some of these do not arrive at all.
The holiday expeditions continue
This time around it was a return to Expedition 17: Titan, which initially ran back in February as part of the Worlds: Part II update which shook up the planetary environments, gave us underwater exploration, and brought on gas giants. That was a huge update.
I did not run the expedition back then, so was keen to give it a shot with this second chance. So I spent my lunch on Tuesday jumping into it. Things were busy enough during the evenings in EVE Online with the operations in the Drone regions that I wasn’t sure when I might find the time. So I went to the anomaly and got going.
The Titan Expedition Begins
I loaded up stacks of the usual stuff, fuel and survival supplies, and headed right in. Things start out with you on a gas giant. If you’re wise, or you read one of the guides (like the one that promises to get you done in two hours) you will get a bunch done on the planet.
If you’re like me, on the other hand, you’ll be keen to find your ship and get moving onward. As usual, everybody’s ship was parked in a lager on the starting planet.
Arrival at the ship support group
At least I recalled enough to pick up some supplies on the way because you need to repair you ship before you can get going. I did that then took off. I did have the presence of mind to visit the space station so I could teleport back there
The ship was a bit of a space truck again. Not fast or sleek. But it did the job.
My expedition space truck
And, as that picture above implies, on my first jump towards the rendezvous I had one of the freight attack scenarios pop, rescued it, then took it over and moved in.
My freighter for the expedition
Having gotten used to a freighter with the previous expedition, I set up shop in it and used it for most of my travel between stars. I was only thwarted by the fact that all the rendezvous were of the new purple class that requires the special drive that my space truck came with but the freighter did not have.
The Atlantid Drive
Without that I was prevented from jumping into those systems with the freighter.
Access denied without the correct drive
I made up for it by just jumping to the closest star I could manage, then undocking the space truck for the final leg of the journey.
The phases each had their own aspect of exploring the elements of the Worlds Part II update features. The most irksome for me was the ocean exploration. Granted, we just did that very thing in the last expedition, but somehow I ran out of oxygen… you end up using a lot of it to fill up various life support… and could not make the summoning station for the Nautilon submersible exocraft. So there I was, floating on my ship in the middle of an ocean and I had to pack up and go find some oxygen elsewhere.
Once you build the station you can summon the Nautilon from anywhere, which was a good thing because one of the tasks was to find an under water freighter wreck, which I did not know was even a thing. It turns out there are several such sites to explore under the sea. So I learned something from the expedition.
After that I was on a roll and knocked out most of the rest of the phases pretty quickly, heading back to the first system and the gas planet there to do a handful of tasks including building a base, building and roaming a bit in a Colossus exocraft, and getting pulled up into a whirlwind. That last some people were having problems with… but I had no issue finding a whirlwind on that starting planet. Once again, do as much as you can there.
Things moved along quickly, in part because I was accidentally getting stuff done for later phases a lot of the time. I rolled into phase five with literally one real task and then the whole “get to the rendezvous” tasks.
Arriving in Phase 5 and already almost done
The phases were also a task shorter than usual because each included not just arriving at the destination, but then taking a screen shot. That is pretty much a gimme.
I did get the one for naming a discovery because I peeked ahead, prompted by some oddly named stuff.
Indeed, it is a bush like I’ve seen before
Once I did the ancient bones task, I found my way to the final location, got the update, then took a screen shot for the final task.
Arrival at the final location
One of the rewards you get at the end of the expedition is a living ship named The Wraith.
The Wraith described
It is a strange looking thing and I ended up taking it out for a spin once I finished the expedition.
The Wraith in space
It is… different… with some different abilities.
Charge the Scream Suppressor!
Is that supposed to suppress my own screams at flying a living vessel. Anyway, it offered the ship up to me there at the last rendezvous, but I opted to get back in the space truck to fly to the anomaly.
The space truck and the sentinel parking attendant
I had finished up the expedition.
The Titan Expedition complete
Once back at the anomaly I did the big cash out of my earnings.
Expedition pay out
That wasn’t so bad. I also tossed all the upgrades and various bits of fuel and what not back in the terminal to send it to my main save so I could continue using it all over there. I did not opt to copy the space truck over to my main save… I already have a corvette that is a better truck… nor the multi-tool.
Next up on the holiday schedule is the Relics expedition, coming on December 3rd, which will be the last of the batch of the holiday expeditions that I have not done before.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 