Elite Dangerous - Grand Tour 02 - Coddington City, Dear Lab

 Elite Dangerous 02 Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40
Coddington City, and the Primary station, Dear Lab
The Grand Tour, PAGE 2

NOTE: All 138 facilities built in this system are listed (and shown) in order of distance from the sun. At least, according to the in-game architect’s view. There's a total of slightly over 18 hours of video, so the video, and the descriptions, are broken into smaller portions across multiple posts.
Some descriptions were written by myself, some with the help of AI. I've personally edited all of them, so if you must blame someone, blame me. :^)

00 Star 01 Coddington City
Security Installation T2           Dock: None

I didn't have a clue who Coddington was.  A bit of googling convinced me he was worthy...

Edwin Foster Coddington (1870–1950) is the most "sci-fi" Coddington you could imagine.
He was an American astronomer who spent his career discovering the very things we navigate in Elite: comets, asteroids, and galaxies.  (And of course, they're out there in real-life space too!)

He is the namesake of Coddington's Nebula (the galaxy IC 2574), which he discovered in 1898.
He co-discovered the comet C/1898 L1 (Coddington-Pauly) and three asteroids (including 445 Edna).
His work at Lick Observatory involved high-level astrometry and cataloging.

His work was part of the essential foundation of modern astronomy, and of course, Elite in the 1980's, and its modern counterpart, Elite Dangerous now.

01 Orbital 0P     Dear Lab – Primary Station
Scientific Outpost           Dock: Medium

This one was the Primary Outpost.  The one we don't have a choice about... wherever it is, is what you're stuck with.  For good or bad.
I was still pretty unsure of the ins and outs of colonizing at the time, especially the names.  It hadn’t yet occurred to me that there’s some flex in the naming process.  Dear Lab was the first name I rolled in this system.  Not what I wanted, originally. 
It felt like the introduction to a letter you’d write to a friend…
"Dear Lab, Hi!  How are things going?"

Now that I know I could change it? I don’t really want to.  The humor sits well.

To be honest, I've got another system that's partially built, and I probably won't be so concerned with names after this one.  It was exhausting, clicking over and over, trying to get a good name.  And buying a custom name is fun, but it adds up a lot after a while.  I'd keep thinking how much ACTUAL colonizing I could be doing, instead of clicking for a good name.  

Elite Dangerous - Grand Tour 01 - In The Beginning - Meeker's Sanctuary

Elite Dangerous 031 Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40
Meeker's Sanctuary
The Grand Tour, PAGE 01

NOTE:  All 138 facilities built in this system are listed (and shown) in order of distance from the sun.  At least, according to the in-game architect’s view.  There's a total of slightly over 18 hours of video, so the video, and the descriptions, are broken into smaller portions across multiple posts.
Some descriptions were written by myself, some with the help of AI.  I've personally edited all of them, so if you must blame someone, blame me.  :^)

In The Beginning - From Closest To The Sun, and Traveling Outward.

The Grand Tour, PAGE 1

00 Star 00 Meekers Sanctuary
Ocellus Starport T3           Dock: Large Ships

This is the first facility in my system.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this station is named in honor of my wife, Monique. Her niece and nephews were unable to say her name when they were young, and it came out “Aunt Meek.”
Eventually, it became “Meekers.”
Today, her great-nephew and great-niece still call her "Aunt Meek."

This is the "first" facility in the system by virtue of it being nearest the sun.
On the other hand, it's the "Final" facility, because it's the very last construction to be built.
This is because of the cost penalty for building Tier 2 and even more so, Tier 3 stations.  I realized early on, the more T2 (Coriolis) stations that were built first, the further out of reach the cost of T3's became.  

So construction on Meeker's Sanctuary began on 2026, January 24th, but wasn't completed until May 14th.  And on May 28th, the weekly update rolled over and... she got the Military Interior.  I worked hard to weight the military high enough to get the Military Interior, as it's the prettiest interior of all the stations, and this station is dedicated to my wife, so I wanted it to look good.
It was a huge relief.  I didn't understand everything about colonization in Elite, and was torn between "Did I do enough?" versus "Did I go too far?"
It was my fear that I'd check all my stations on that last day, and they'd ALL be military!  Thank goodness, "Meeker's" got the beautiful park with trees and statues... but all my other stations still had their individual interiors.

There's a balance there, with Meeker's Sanctuary being the first and the last.  As a nod to that, in the final video of this series I wrap up by flying back to Meeker's at the end.  Full circle.

00 Asteroid Belt 00 NONE  
(Only Allows Asteroid Stations)

There's not really a spot for this, since there's no station in the Asteroid Belt, so obviously no video of it.  I made an assumption early on, without realizing I was making an assumption.  I believed you could put anything in that slot that would go in any other orbital, with the added option that it could host an Asteroid Station. 
That was wrong.  As a result, I didn't plan for the necessary T2 points here. (At this stage, it would take 20 T2 points.)

I didn’t want an asteroid station at that location.  There’s already one mid-system that was deliberately planned for.  By the time I realized that slot can ONLY take an asteroid station, it was too late.

It’s annoying, but looking back, there’s nothing I would change about the rest of the system.  Everything else is as it should be, and this asteroid slot was always going to remain empty.  Would have been nice, though, if they had included a T1 option for the slot.  

Elite Dangerous - Naming 138 Facilities - Grand Tour System Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40

The Name's the Thing – Or, How I Named 138 Stations, Settlements, Ports, and whatnot...
Introduction To The Grand Tour, PART IV

Probably boring to read about, but naming all the facilities was fun. A few have custom names, but the vast majority were random… eventually. Some facilities were incredibly stubborn and took many re-rolls to get a good name.  Others rolled good names right off the bat. I tried to spend less than an hour clicking the button for a good name, but some just didn’t cooperate.

• In most cases, priority goes to Science Fiction authors, preferably from around 1900 - 1990.
•  2nd Priority went to RNG rolled names that had a personal connection for me. 
  You’ll notice there are no less than 8 places named LUNA. That’s because she’s our only dog. We both spend a lot of time and attention on her.  If Luna's name came up, I always took it.
• Sometimes, a name just made me laugh, and that was good enough.
• Then there were the ones that refused to roll a good name.
  In some cases, I just gave up and took the first one that seemed sort-of-okay. Went back later and tried again.  Sometimes I had to accept names outside my chosen parameters.
• A small number cost ARX for custom names. 
  Memorials to family who have passed on; tributes to still-living family (Mainly Monique, and Mom); or a fond tip of the hat to favorites, like Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, and Terry Pratchett.
  
  

I used Google to help me identify names I didn’t recognize, and AI to write many of the descriptions. Not only is AI theme-appropriate “Science Fiction” to a child of the 1960’s, it’s also a time-saving godsend. I've edited all the AI descriptions in varying degrees, and the rest are purely my own fabrication. No need to blame AI for everything.  
This project has already taken many months; I'm grateful for anything that saves time.

All these ‘biographies’ will probably bore most readers. I wanted somewhere to document what each choice meant to me, because this helps me retain my own memories better. So if you’re interested, I’m grateful. And if not… it’s okay. This is mainly an effort to keep memories that are meaningful to me.

There are 32 videos, 30 actual blog posts.
You can see an index of all the posts, with direct links, by clicking "Grand Tour Index Page" near the top of the each post.
The blog posts include descriptions explaining the meaning behind each name.  Many I knew from reading them when I was younger, some needed research before choosing. 
All 138 facilities are listed in order of distance from the sun.  At least, according to the in-game architect’s view.

Each facility displays location by:

• Planet/orbital designation
• Facility name
• Type
• Largest landing pad.

The following posts (and videos) are broken apart to keep reasonable lengths per page.

Elite Dangerous - Building the Cobra Mark 5 Tourist Tripper - Grand Tour System Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40

Cobra Mark V – Custom build for In-System Tourist Tripper, the Goddess Mnemosyne.
Introduction To The Grand Tour, PART III

When I finished colonizing Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40, there were 138 total facilities that had been built over the course of 6 months plus.   I play… slowly. And colonize solo. It takes a long time.

For personal reasons expressed elsewhere, I now want to create a video library. One visit at a time, a reminder of how much fun this was.

Not all facilities can dock my Panther. Nor even a Corsair. There are a number of facilities with only small landing pads. No need to consider the ones without landing pads, but it’s common sense to select a small ship for the Grand Tour. Whatever size the landing pad, a small ship can always fit.

Having been a fan of the game since the C-64 and Amiga days in the mid-1980s, it had to be a Cobra.
The Mk3 would have been iconic. The Mk4 would have been exclusive. (It was only released to a specific group of players.) I liked the Mk4 back then; it was less maneuverable, but significantly tougher. Haven’t flown it in years.
But now there’s the Mk5. All I’m hearing is that it’s by far the best small all-rounder. Before the Kestrel, it might have been the best small ship period, but it sounds like the Kestrel is now the best small combat ship. 

To date, this is the ultimate Cobra. It’s like they took all the best of the Mk3 and Mk4, then ramped it up with Caffeine and jet fuel.
Up to this point, I hadn't built one yet, and this was a good reason to finally play around with it.

It needed to be excellent at in-system hops, so SCO was a no-brainer.
It had to be a durable shield/hull tank, because I'm not good at combat.  Always build something that can survive my mistakes.
Needs speed and agility, because if I’m flying a tiny little ship, then escaping is important.
And it needs enough firepower to fight back, because running away is annoying.

The Cobra Mk5 checks all the boxes. It’s the spiritual successor to the ship that started it all. It’s a fast, agile, tough fighter when it needs to be. Even loaded to the gills, it gets 39 LY jump range. (And really, it doesn’t need jump range anyway, since it’s an in-system mudskipper.)
Just for those times when it does need to travel (like engineering)… it’s got a pocket-sized Class 2 Fuel Scoop. Glacially slow to fill the tank, but it beats running out of fuel somewhere.

It’s a beauty of a ship. Great aesthetics. Easy to fly. Lots of punch when you hit the gas.
(I’m no expert, but if you want to see the build, here’s the link: https://tinyurl.com/Cobra-MkV-Mnemosyne

It doesn’t have to be the best there ever was.
 Just has to meet my needs.



 After building and engineering, wanted to fly it. And it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve truly played, because writing all this and planning the trip kept my free time occupied. Time enough to get rusty.
Figured a quick jaunt to the Nav Beacon was called for. Get some flight practice, and a combat refresher. At worst, she was relatively cheap to build, a rebuy won’t kill me…

The result surprised me. Fought mostly lights and mediums, but there was one Elite Anaconda that I thought would end me. Only it was like playing on easy mode. I’m over-reacting, losing my targets, getting confused and forgetting what buttons to push… and never took any damage.
 Never even took significant percent off the shield.
Maybe the Nav Beacons tend to give inexperienced opponents, but it was a fantastic ship to get back up to speed in. Extremely forgiving.

After these videos are done, I’ll test it in a HazRez and see if she still feels tough...
(NOTE:  She does, but not for too long.  High Rez is easy, but HazRez I can only stay for a while.  Or run, recover, and come back.)

Next, a cool name. I considered several. Nothing clicked until Grok suggested Mnemosyne.
The Goddess Mnemosyne presided over Memory, and Remembrance.
With cognitive problems, that’s not only apropos, kind of TOO on-the-nose.
The whole purpose of this project is to give me tangible memories for when my actual memories fade. Naming her Mnemosyne is a good omen.

Even better, Grok suggested MUSE9 for the call sign. Mnemosyne was the mother of the NINE muses, the spirits of inspiration for humanity. The entire theme ties in beautifully to this project.

Great ship, great name, and the engineering is done.
Time for the next step.

Elite Dangerous Colonization - Grand Tour Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40 (PART II)

 When I check my system on Spansh and Inara, they have a lot of errors in the facility names and completion status.  Weeks later, there are still “construction sites” showing.  Old ones that have not been under “construction” for significant time.  I hope that will correct itself in the next few weeks now that I’m no longer building this system.
Even the architect view in Elite shows 3 active constructions, which is wrong.  There are no active constructions, all builds are complete.

That’s why the list in the previous post included my personal spreadsheet.  To keep Raven Colonial accurate while building, I couldn’t work from live data.  Had to use saved data and update Raven manually.  Since I wasn't certain my data would be saved or reflected accurately, it's all on a manually maintained spreadsheet.

Elite is my favorite game of all time.  Ever since the 1980s with the Commodore C64, and later, the Amiga.  “Elite Dangerous” ramped it up, made it modern, and in spite of the occasional misstep, kept the spirit of the original.

“Dangerous” came out 2014 in Beta.  I joined the Kickstarter Beta in 2014.
(Elsewhere I've mistakenly said 2015, but recently checked my Frontier receipts, and see that 2014 is the correct date.)
The servers have been running for over a decade.  I’m grateful, and try to buy a few ARX now and then as a thank you. 
I'm worried that Elite won't be around forever, at some point the servers will go down for the final time.

On the other hand, my struggle with cognitive and memory issues has its ups and downs.  For 3 years, I lacked the cognitive skills to play Elite.  In mid-2024 I started improving and decided to re-learn Elite.  Took a while, but by early 2025 I was back in “The Black,” playing Elite again.

A year later, and it feels like I may be losing some progress.  My plan for this entire system has been to complete it, then make videos visiting every facility, one by one.  I'm calling it the Grand Tour.
If things go well, by the end I’ll have a library of iconic videos, reminding me of the incredible ride Elite has been.
Something so that when the servers are gone, or if I’m no longer able to play, I can pick a video, watch a cherished memory, and smile.  

Once the facilities are all visited and documented, there’s HazRes, Mining, Missions, Trading, Exploring… Maybe I’ll record the process of building and engineering a new ship.  Maybe even look into on-foot missions, or Exobiology.
Probably not those last two.  They don’t sound fun. (The new vessel, Nomad, will be released next week, which may change my opinion of exobiology.  Eventually.)

I also have to consider that learning and retaining knowledge isn’t as natural as it used to be. 
It’s a hell-of-an-effort involving notes, spreadsheets, journals.  Detailing how to do things so I can easily find that note the next day and remember how to do it again. I don’t mind learning new things, but have to be highly selective about which things are important enough to make and maintain the effort.

Anyway, that’s the plan.  It keeps me busy, and with luck, will provide memories for an uncertain future.

Elite Dangerous Colonization - Grand Tour Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40 (PART I)

 PROJECT INTRODUCTION:

This is the culmination of a project that specifically began Dec 7th, 2025.
Finally done building system Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40
It’s not the first, won’t be the last, but this one is home.
The Navbar above contains a full linked index of all the blog pages.
At the bottom of this page is a complete spreadsheet of all 138 Facilities in this system:

NOTE: I couldn’t build a station in the Asteroid Belt.
Made an assumption very early on, that you could put any normal orbital in that slot. Turns out you can ONLY build an Asteroid Station there. Nothing else. Now I lack the T2 points to build a station there.
In hindsight I can't see doing anything differently. Everything is where I want it, just as it is. 
But it irks me not to complete every empty slot.

Started colonizing this system December 7th of 2025.
Finished colonizing it on May 14 2026, all of it solo.
It took 6 months and 1 week to colonize everything in this system (ahem… again, except for the asteroid belt. Dammit.)
Finished creating the videos and blog pages, and linking them together, on the 4th of July, 2026.
Meaning it took almost exactly 7 months to complete this project. 
(It's short by 3 days... let me have some poetic license here?)

I used the Panther Clipper Mk II exclusively for this system, though the build underwent several tweaks over time to increase the tonnage.  (Dropped the shield, went Hull Tank, mix of lasers/multi-cannons.)  I'm not a good combat pilot, but no pirate has ever defeated her.  (Having high security helps.)
Named her Imperium Stellae Ultra (Call Sign 'Nfinity'). 
Bit of a Toy Story reference, translated as "Star Command and Beyond."

Took a couple of short breaks for CGs, primarily to get the Level 5 Surface Suits. I don’t like the on-foot part of the game, but it made sense to do a quick CG for a free level 5 suit.  
Other than that, it was six months of unbroken colonizing.

There are 3 T3 builds:
One Planetary Hub.
One Ocellus.
And a Dodec my wife bought for me.
Thank you Monique, that saved a month of hauling.
(Additionally, I solo built an Orbis in my first system with an Imperial Cutter so please don’t hassle me about paying to win.)

There are:
5 Coriolis stations, and 5 matching Civilian Outposts on each corresponding planet.
1 Asteroid Station
(No, not the one I didn’t build… this one is in some planetary rings roughly mid-system from the sun.)
30 Large Landing Pad facilities.

The rest of the stations are a mix of Mediums and Smalls, mostly built to farm points or to balance the system score. Plus I like high security, so there’s a lot more security/military facilities than truly necessary.

I initiated construction on Meeker’s Sanctuary on Monday, January 24, 2026.
It was named in honor of my wife, Monique.  As children, her niece and nephews couldn’t pronounce her name so they called her Aunt Meek. Later, it became Meekers. Now, her nephews’ children still call her Aunt Meek.

Began actual construction on Meeker’s Sanctuary on April 4th, 2026.
The delay was planned, because the more T3 facilities, Coriolis, and Asteroid Stations you build, the more Construction points each following one costs. T3 stations go up 6 points at a time, T2s only go up 2 points per build.
I bought an Ocellus (T3) in advance, while it was still affordable. Didn’t begin working on it for a couple of months because I wanted functional stations first which could then be used to build the rest of system.

Once construction began on Meeker’s Sanctuary, it took 1 month and 10 days to build.
If that seems slow… it is. With some cognitive and memory issues, 3 round trips at a time is usually all I can do before “falling asleep at the wheel.” Pushing past that results in lots of mistakes.
Usually minor errors, but sometimes I’ll fly into a planet or a sun, which slows things down. Sometimes I forget to buy commodities to deliver; or forget to turn in the ones I just arrived with.
It’s easier and less frustrating to take a break, do something brainless for a while, take a nap, then come back fresh.

6 months and a week later, here’s the final structure of my system:

There are 138 total facilities, counting both orbital and planetary together.
If the facility name includes a name in parenthesis, that means the name was changed later and it may not be updated in Spansh or Inara yet.

The column headers below are:
Order - the order the facilities appear in the Architects' View.
Video# - There are 138 facilities, but only 31 numbered videos (plus a special case video.)
Duration - How long each video is.  It depends mostly on how many facilities in each video.
BODY - This is the planetary body the facility is orbiting or on.
Facility - The name of the facility.
Type - What type of facility it is, for those who want to know.
PAD - What size ship, if any, can dock.  Large, Medium, Small, and NO.

The Satilla River Tuplar Tree, in Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40

The Satilla River Tuplar Tree
Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40

On December 12, 2025 I had enough T3 points to deploy the Dodecahedron! There’s been mixed feelings in the Elite community about the Dodec. For me, it was a Godsend. Colonizing solo, big plans, going to take months.  This system will be my HOME, with 74 orbital and 62 planetary slots to build.

The Dodec Insta-Build saved me around 3 weeks of time. I previously built an Orbis as a memorial for my Dad in another system. Then a T3 planetary port in this system. Still plan an Orbis (or Ocellus) in this system. Paid my dues, still paying them. My wife gifted me the Dodec. I’m grateful.
I wanted it to be special, with meaning. Named it the SATILLA RIVER TUPLAR.

The Old Satilla River Tuplar Tree has been gently anchored in my memories for decades. I grew up on the Satilla River. One of best places in the world was where the Tuplar tree grew out on a small spit of land at the side of a quiet cove. (It's long gone, the tree died and rotted away many years ago.)

It was a giant of a tree, home to great fishing, had big "seeds" or small "fruit,” I'm not sure what you'd call them, but they were reddish yellow, and elongated. Had a huge tangle of roots, half in, half out of the river... more or less, depending on whether the river was low or high. Mostly low in the spring and summer. Fishing was best then.

The Tuplar's trunk was gigantic. If anybody was of a mind to swim in that deep, dark, tannin-dyed water on the outer side of the tree, it would have probably taken 5 adults linking hands to go all the way around it. Me, I was a little afraid of being in the water on the deep side of the tree.

We swam in the Satilla, but that particular spot seemed especially foreboding. Going by line length, even when the water was low, it was 10 feet or more.

The ground side was always shady, and pretty. Sometimes there'd be a snake or large skink nesting in the split base of the tree. You could climb around if you were bold, and drop a line straight out from the water-side of the roots and trunk. It would easily drop down 10 feet or so even when the river was low. 

It was my preferred fishing place. I'd often prop up two or three lines on the shore, climb a nearby twisted oak that had a perfect branch for reclining on. If the fishing was slow, I'd read a book.  When I’m unsettled and in need of peace, this is often my chosen memory.

Twenty-odd years ago, I could find online references to Tuplar trees.
Google used to know that Tuplar was a colloquialism for “Tupelo” tree. Now Google thinks I’ve lost my mind.
Grok thinks maybe it was a family colloquialism descended from the Creek language "ito opilwa," swamp tree.

Our Tuplar tree was a landmark to generations of my family. Mom, who will be turning 88 in a few days, remembers that tree being a giant even when she was a child.
My generation is growing older, and our branch of the Satilla River Thrifts and Wainwrights will likely be the final generation to remember the Tuplar tree. “Tuplar” itself will be forgotten.

I’m grateful to Elite Dangerous for the opportunity to make permanent changes to our chosen systems in the game.

 I know Elite has a finite lifespan, but for the duration my system will have a Dodec station dedicated to the memory of the Satilla River Tuplar Tree.