Vapor Trails is a triumph in many ways. Firstly, it’s amazing that Rush managed to get another album out at all after the tragedy of Neil Peart losing his only child, his daughter and then eleven months later losing his wife. At his wife’s funeral Neil told the band to consider him retired. There would be no more Rush. Over several years Neil managed to gradually recover from his overwhelming grief enough to feel like he could make music again. Vapor Trails is the result of a band finding their feet once more. The whole album seems to be about defeating hardship, the agony of loss, hope for the future. In parts, it is a very difficult listen. Not because the music is bad, far from it, but because some of it conveys Neil’s grief so effectively. The title track deals with Neil’s horror of gradually losing some of his memories of his family and Ghost Rider, a particularly harrowing listen, deals with Neil’s travels alone on his motorcycle as he tries to cope with losing his family. There is hope too though, and two of those tracks I’ve chosen as names for the next ships! Secondly, the whole album is brilliant from start to finish, with each member using new techniques they’d acquired over the past six year hiatus. It is also the first album not to feature any keyboards since Caress Of Steel!

• One Little Victory
• Vapor Trails
• Ghost Rider
• Peaceable Kingdom
• The Stars Look Down
• How It Is
• Vapor Trail
• Secret Touch
• Earthshine
• Sweet Miracle
• Nocturne
• Freeze
• Out Of The Cradle

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Fer De Lance

Ah! We finally come to the Fer De Lance. Built purely for combat it is a truly beautiful ship. I decided to give her a pink racing paint job and it suits her exceptionally well! It’s fast, highly maneuverable for it’s size, easily can go toe to toe with the smaller fighters and it packs some serious firepower.

I used rail guns for the first time, along with gimballed frag cannons and a huge multicannon. This combination proved to be highly effective. I would target the enemy ship’s chaff launcher from afar. You see, I engineered the rails to be long range. At long range rails (which are usually fixed mounts only) are slightly gimballed, and with practice I found I could hit ships from distance and damage the module I was aiming at. Although against the Type 10 here, it didn’t matter whether its chaff launcher was working or not – it’s so damn big you’re going to hit it anyway.

The conflict zone I was in didn’t last very long. I was flying rings around all the other ships and sowing carnage everywhere I went. There’s a reason this seems to be the gankers’ vessel of choice! That slightly off-to-the-right pilot seat is a little off putting but it’s not too bad once you get used to it.

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Anaconda

The Anaconda! Now, I’ll be the first to admit that she is almost as much of a space cow as the Type 9. Not too hot in the looks department either. But I really like this ship. I could outfit her for combat or mining but I’m going to take advantage of her huge jump potential and outfit a long range exploration vessel.

I thought the excellent track Ceiling Unlimited would make a perfect name for this baby. I also needed to exhibit exactly what she could do so I thought a little expedition was in order. I decided to do a round trip of relatively close by stellar phenomena with my first way point being a rather uninteresting binary system – PLIO EURL KR-W d1-18. Only around 1-2 thousand light years away from the bubble. Of course, I’ve set my route planner to take care of jet cone boosting from neutron stars, which is risky, but fine if you do it right. I can boost my jump range to almost 300ly whenever I do this. Although my route took in more neutrons than I realised.

So, why PLIO EURL KR-W d1-18? Well, back when I first ventured out of the Bubble, on my PC account. I headed for the giant M class star VY Canis Majoris and I thought, why don’t I just fly up, as far as my ship can take me? I remember feeling a little disillusioned because every system on the way had already been discovered by someone else and I was desperate to discover one for myself. By now though I had completely given up on this and I just wanted to see what the starfield looked like the higher in the galaxy you got. So up I went. It must have been my fourth or fifth jump when I came across a lone star. I could tell it was a lone star because no planets were displaying in the scanner. I didn’t even honk the discovery scanner. I just scooped, flew around, lined up with the next system and charged the FSD. I then noticed one of the stars in the star field was moving. And brighter than the others. And it was I was just about to pass it. Intrigued, I headed towards it and found I could target it. The message came up soon after, “Discovered PLIO EURL KR-W d1-18a 1” It was a planet, and it just then popped up on the scanner. I brought up the system map and saw there were no names next to the system or the planet I had just found. I had just had my very first “First Discovered” system. I just sat there, staring, almost disbelieving. When I reported this back in the Bubble my name would be next to this system forever! It blew my mind. I welled up a little, it was kind of overwhelming. No other game can give you a feeling like this. I quickly honked and found that the system had several more bodies, which I then found on the FSS scanner. I even mapped them all too! Then I raced straight back to the Bubble to report it! That’s why we have come to this place first, it is a place that is very special to me.

Next, we we will head to a huge star – VY Canis Majoris! Incidentally, on the way there I discovered another “First Discovered” system, which was a great bonus!

The ONTC is a station in a hollowed out asteroid, and serves as a base for exploring the beauty of not only the Orion Nebula but also the Running Man nebula too. There are many very interesting systems here, but, I’ve a fleet to finish and I didn’t want to stay long. I’ll have to come back definitely but you really should pop out here when you can and have a look for yourself. So much to see here!

One thing I was not expecting to find was biological life! I landed on a random moon around a water world, scanned it and discovered two biological signals. So I went to have a look and found something I have never ever seen before!

Ok, now onto our final destination before heading home. I was determined to go and see the other supergiant star, Betelgeuse. I had never visited before and seeing as it is not too far from the bubble it was a must see experience! But getting there from the Orion Nebula is tricky. I chose a waypoint high above, HIP 36601, headed towards that for about 700 or so light years before I was able to change my heading toward Betelgeuse itself.

Unlike VY Canis Majoris, Betelgeuse has planets. The first landable one, Betelgeuse 2 is almost 3000 light seconds from the star. To give you a sense of scale, look at the image above and know that the Earth is only 500 ls from Sol. It is a truly magical place! I would advise anyone to come here. Landing my ‘conda was a bit fiddly as it has just over 1g but it’s well worth it!

Then it was time to leave Betelgeuse. Only one more thing to do on the way back to Valtys and that was to get one of the fighters out for some fun flying.

I had never taken a fighter on an exploration trip before. Now, I will take them every time. The main ship can stay out of danger while you can skim over the surface, through canyons, down into and out of huge craters, and it doesn’t matter too much if you crash. Honestly, taking out a fighter for some dangerous flying is way more fun that I thought it was going to be! I’ll definitely be doing this again!

And then it was time to go home. It was an amazing trip! Testament to the amount of fun that can still be had in the Horizons base game. I hope you enjoyed reading about it, I hope I’ve showcased the exploration anaconda as best as I can, and if you are a console player despondent about the lack of development on consoles, then I hope I’ve given you reason to carry on playing!