The original Distant Worlds Expedition (DW1) happened in 3302 (2016).
Its goal was to reach the opposite side of the galaxy to what is now known as Beagle Point. It wasn’t the first time this was done. Distant Worlds 1 was a community expedition of Distant Suns by CMDR Erimus Kamzel who did the first recorded galactic crossing.
It took Erimus 5 weeks to make the 65,153Ly from Pallaeni to Ceeckia ZQ-L C24-0 which subsequently got renamed as Beagle Point. This is chronicled in a video log available here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlxQlUpqv8OAmzA41B5A2u2_SqVXf2s2Q.
Distant Worlds was the first huge community expedition in Elite: Dangerous and actually got a fair amount of press for the game. Frontier Dev even made the first ever community decal for people who made it to Beagle Point on this expedition.
It’s a long trip, 23 waypoints covering 81,000 Ly, and that’s just to get there! You still have to get home! We are taking the same route, through the same stages and waypoints, to the same destination. Just like CMDRs did in 3302. Not many people ever get to Beagle Point!
Distant Worlds 2 happened in 3305 (2019).
The destination was still Beagle Point but it took in many more sights. This is the route we’ll be taking home.
DW2 was announced after Frontier Dev announced Elite: Dangerous – Beyond.
Beyond was the third season of content for Horizons back in 2018. Chapter Four of Beyond included lots of new exploration stuff. It’s when we got the FSS, Detailed Surface Scanners, Notable Stellar Phenomena. Naturally, the explorers wanted to get out and use it!
Horizons was, of course, the first expansion, when we got planetary landings and SRVs. So another Distant Worlds Expedition must have seemed like a great idea to use all this new stuff in the game!
DW2 was also going to have some real in-game events. Community Goals for building a station near Sag A* and a planetary port at Beagle Point. FDev were up for it. The proposal was a massive initiative and player registrations for the expedition were high!
13,615 CMDRs signed up for DW2! This still makes it the biggest player event in Elite: Dangerous, by far.
Both DW1 and DW2 go from Pallaeni to Beagle Point. Both expeditions are split into multiple stages, made up of multiple waypoints. The waypoints all had dates attached so CMDRs could arrive in time to meetup with everyone enroute. We’ll be following that structure. Though, of course, we’ll be doing DW2 in reverse to get back home.
Distant Worlds logos, information and route courtesy of https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/distant-worlds-a-journey-beyond-the-abyss.198085/ and used with permission. This expedition is not in any way affiliated with the Distant Worlds team and is simply using the information as a fan of the work. o7’s CMDRs.
