What would a kindergarden-trip be without the grown-ups feeding the children, wiping off the mess they made, helping them on their way to the toilet?
What would a school be without a caretaker, fixing all the broken sinks and windows after the kids played football outside?
What would a logistics company be without the secretary watching after the boys keeping their trucks in order, so that they don't drive with flat tires and dirty hoods?
Correct: Nothing.
It doesn't matter where, as soon as there is a bunch of half-qualified idiots living on one spot, everything will grind to a halt sooner or later. If, in your trading fleet, one half of the ships already have their high-quality 25MJ-shields, the other half still runs on one MJ per ship back from the time when money was short. Again and again, ships get little scratches during small collisions - but not enough to completely replace the ship, still too much speed loss for a continuous running. If you'd send all those ship to the next shipyard for repair, you'd most likely forget about them for hours, until you notice the fabs flashing in that area. And for changing the shields, you could employ a robot - still, pilots are too stupid for that.
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The "Sector-Mother" - mostly male though - looks after the player's trading fleet. If a ship is damaged in any way, she will take this freighter out of normal traffic, meet with it in the next free station and tell the pilot the way to the next shipyard for repair. If however the Mother's homebase trades with every resource necessary for a complete ship repair - Ore,
Teladianium, Microchips, Computer Components, Cloth Rhimes and Energy Cells -, she will be able to repair the ship on her own. The Sector Mother will also try to equip the ships with the best equipment she can find in her home's cargo bays:
- Some energy for any ship that has a jumpdrive installed
- Mass Driver Ammunition for ships with Mass Drivers
- Fight Drones for any UT
- 1MJ, 5MJ, 25MJ and 125MJ-Shields if an upgrade is possible
- Ore,
- Teladianium,
- Microchips,
- Computer Components,
- Cloth Rhimes and
- Energy Cells
As it turns out, the "Sector-Mother" is being started by the command "Supply Trading Fleet" in the trade menu of every TS. The pilot then selects ships at random in his jump radius and meets with them at a station. Then, they transfer ware and information: The supplier hands over the necessary supply for Jumpdrive, Mass Driver etc., they exchange shields. If the hull is damagerd, the selected ship will then be sent to the next shipyard from there to be repaired at the expense of the Sector-Mother's homebase.. The running command will be continued as soon as the repair is done.
The following extensions change the behaviour of the ship:
- Triplex-Scanner: Ship will only move to sectors a Satellite or Advanced Satellite has been found
- Duplex- AND Triplex-Scanner: Ship will search the whole universe, not only the sectors that are within jump range of the homebase
- Fight Command Software MK1 AND Fight Command Software MK2: Ship avoids every sector an enemy is to be found in
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Resources
Textpage 8763, PageID 8763
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