Squiddy McSquids possibly short life - {Possible spoilers inside}

[Yeorin]

I love this! More Squiddy McSquid!

[Tiedyeguy]

Rules:
1. Dead-is-dead
2. No buying ships. If I want it I have to persuade the owner they'ld quite like to donate it.
3. No reloads. If I lose an expensive ship then that's tough.
4. Personal ship repairs only, anything else gets paid for.

Since there seems to be confusion at per his rules, a reminder. Note rule 2. does not rule out buying anything except ships.

[Chealec]

yeah - but there are now 10 pages of this excellent thread - the opening page with the rules was like, sooooooooo long ago man

[herocrafter]

A must read.
Living vicariously though you .

Two thumbs up.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Since there's no way currently of turning your captured pilots into marines, suggest maybe taking them to a pirate base, enslave them, then sell them to the pirates & replace them with the same number of pirate mercenaries - would that be within the spirit of your rules? - same number of marines, only the names would change... (and possibly species )

Good plan, we'll go with that.

So, who remembers that Caiman Miner? Yep, it's true I've just noticed I've STILL got the damn thing holed up in a trading station hiding away from the small cloud of M4/M5's that are staking the place out ready to shoot it if it so much as peeps out. You know given that they're Argon police forces and it's stuck in an Argon sector you'ld have thought they'ld just kick in the door and get on with it. I guess there must be some jurisdictional issues between stations and local border control. Anyway, for the trouble it's caused me I think I may just keep it now. It seems safe where it is and maybe the police will give up eventually?

Right, I need to get back on friendly terms with the Argon partly because I now suddenly have a small fleet that needs jumpdrives and partly because they own 50% of the known 25Mj shield production available to me. Quickest way to get back in their good books is probably to start shooting up Paranids. Let's face it, who isn't pleased to see Paranids getting shot up? Anyways, I decide to head down to Elenas Fortune since that's probably the best place to find both Paranid heading up from the Paranid core sectors and of course any Pirates passing thru. Double the rep opportunity there.

As I'm passing thru the south Atreus gate I'm very nearly hit square in the face by a transport which turns out to be a Dukes TP and a particularly nervous one at that as he can't bail out quick enough when open up. So first salvo of the day nets me a second TP. I'm off to a good start here. This worries me somewhat as I'm assuming yesterday the RNG gods just weren't paying attention and therefore suspecting divine retribution any moment.

Moving down thru Farnhams Legend I come across a couple M3+ tech dealers one of which is an Eclipse. Now I remember the old Eclipse had 125Mj shields, so seems they've done some upgrading there as it now sports a most impressive 200Mj. Speeds been sacrificed a bit but for the survivability bonus that may actually be worth it, especially in my case. Still looks likes something you'd find crawling down your wall tho but then looks aren't everything.

Down thru south gate and I'm in Elenas Fortune and staring straight at a Brigantine beating the snot out of the sector defence. Now this could be interesting to watch, it's the first time I've seen a Brigantine and I have to say it is a pretty nice looking ship actually. Might have to try and capture one perhaps one day. It seems quite effective as Sector defence seems to be throwing themselves quite ineffectually at it, M3 and M6 are popping left and right. The Brigantine has escort so they're helping keep things stirred up too.

Interestingly there seems to be a couple Pirate Kestrels in the mix. More interestingly it appears that Pirate versions are actually slightly better spec than the one I had before. More interesting even than that is the Colossus that's coming up fast from the south behind the Brigantine and more interesting than all those things is what looks thru the vid goggles to be a Titan group coming thru the west gate but which is not quite in gravidar range to confirm. It's going to be interesting.

I'm not quite sure how you creep up on an M2 with an M1 but the Colossus captain seems to manage it somehow. The Brigantine is having such a fine time swatting fighters it's completely oblivious until the Colossus closes to point blank and opens up. It's a commendable move by the Colossus captain and had he been in an M2 with some actual effective weaponry would most likely have been a stunning victory. Sadly he's not. It takes a couple secs for the Brigantine to realise the danger but after that it slews over and shatters the Colossus in moments for the loss of about 20% shielding.

It does turn out to be a Titan group and it's a pity the Brigantine lost some shields as it would have been nice to see the two taskforces slug it out at full strength. As it is the end is never really in doubt but the Pirates make a good show of it and the Titan ends the day losing 90% of it's shields.

Shows over so I get going and spend a good while blowing up Paranid shipping in and around the lower Argon sectors. I do get a couple bails from M4/M5's but nothing that survives the experience due to some overuse of Wasps. Still it's a couple more potential mercs. At least I'm back in favour with the Argon even if the Paranid now hate me with a passion again.

Total Assets:
1x Perseus 'Shifty Business'
3x 25 Mj shield
5x PAC, 1x PBE
2x Caiman SF - L
2x Caiman SF - S
1x Caiman Hauler
1x Toucan Hauler 'Dropship - 01'
1x Hermes 'Dropship - 02'
1 x Hades 'Special Delivery'
1,500,000cr

[BDStyle]

Frankly if the Paranid don't hate you then life is going wrong somewhere.

Loving the story of squiddy N-S. Looking forward to the next installment

[phoenix-it]

Are you sure you want to be a pirate? I don't think I'd keep shooting at them if I wanted to continue using their stations.

[SpenzOT]

IMO the Paranid are more killable than the Xenon and the Kha'ak. I mean look at those poor Xenon. They are working their butts off trying to fulfill their masters orders, despite being hunted everywhere by everyone for being overenthusiastic about their job.

The Kha'ak are being mined by everyone for their valuable Nvidium body parts. I mean if some races *cough*Paranid*cough* decided to start mining your bodies, wouldnt you go ballistic as well?

The Paranid are just arrogant, smug pricks that are pretty stupid creatures and butt ugly to boot. How can you not hate them more than the Xenon or Kha'ak?

[supakillaii]

Uhm you mean Homes, right, as if I remember correctly, Kha'ak homes are in N(i?)vidium asteroids

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

With my Argon rep now firmly back in the black I can get my fleet up and running properly so a fairly boring escort job back to Argon Prime and then I leave them to get themselves off for kitting out. Getting this lot fully upgraded and repaired however is going to cost fair amount so for now I spend what I've got on getting the Hauler upgraded fully and set him up as my logistical support freighter. His task will be to keep my supplied with missiles and sell off any loot

Jumping back to Atreus south gate I arrive just in time to meet a pirate convoy heading down into Farnhams, two Blastclaws and a TS. The TS doesn't interest me but the Blastclaws do as it seems they can mount ION Disruptors and I'll have need of that in future. Both are armed with those PBG's and I don't fancy trying to take both at once but they're not paying me any attention anyway so I let the TS go thru and once the first of the Blastclaws is committed to jumping I hit the second. Seems he doesn't want to bail but he does drop two Hammerheads which is pretty nice. Heading thru I just jump the second one but he fires a missile at me and blows himself up in the process. Not a huge success to date but early days.

With nothing particular of interest in sector I head over to the nearby factory to see what missions are on offer. The only one there that interests me is a scanning one. Apparently they'ld like me to scan a load of freighters in pirate space for which I'm offered 8% of the total cargo value. Now I've not done one of these before so I've no idea what they consider to be 'valuable freight' but the obvious solution here is just scan everyone and their dog, can't go too wrong then.

Jumping down into Split Fire where the main flow of traffic is I zip around there and Brennans Triumph scanning absolutely every ship that passes by until the 10 min timer runs out. The payout for the mission isn't huge, only about 40k, but what I've discovered is there's a rather large amount of expensive goods flowing thru the pirate sectors. Which is handy because I'm going to require a fairly fat wad of cash to repair, rearm, upgrade and generally get my little freighter fleet up to scratch.

With criminal intent in mind I head back to Argon space and spend what cash I have on getting my Hauler fully upgraded. The plan is to go on a piracy run down thru the Split Fire -> Hatikvahs Faith sectors and bag as much loot as possible. I'm fairly sure of a pretty good haul given what I saw earlier. Soon as everything is ready I'll get going but for now what I want to do is work on the Merc problem. It turns out I've acquired a total of eleven cheery volunteers by this point and I just need to get them educated for the job. That's going to take a little while so sooner they get in training the better.

On an earlier pass thru the pirate sectors there was a Merc training facilty down in Danna's Chance so with my Toucan loaded up and ready I jump into the sector to make sure the coast is clear only to find it most assuredly is not. Not only has the Merc facility been destroyed but as the jump effect clears I appear right in the face of a second Pirate taskforce and staring down the barrels of a second Brigantine. And they're not happy to see me.

Fortunately it appears the Brigantine captain is as shocked to see me up his left nostril as I am to find myself up it and as he slews around and fire starts landing around me I hear that noise that every capital ship owner dreads, grating hull-metal. Luckily for me the Brigantine succumbs to carelessly steering into the gate before he can bring any flaks to bear and cracks up in a huge explosion. That just leaves his slightly confused escort to deal with and while they try to sort themselves out I launch everything I've got and blanket the area in missile fire. It's a less than 30 second enagement but at the end of it the only one left alive is me.. with this to show for it.

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/danna.jpg

I think that will sort my immediate monetary concerns..

Total Assets:
1x Perseus 'Shifty Business'
3x 25 Mj shield
5x PAC, 1x PBE
2x Caiman SF - L
2x Caiman SF - S
1x Caiman Hauler 'Logistical Support'
1x Toucan Hauler 'Dropship - 01'
1x Hermes 'Dropship - 02'
1 x Hades 'Special Delivery'
2,000cr

[BDStyle]

Wow NS, thats a pretty damn good haul for such a fortuitous event heheh. Its funny because it could have gone oh so wrong....

[SpenzOT]

Whoa save those Incendiary Bomb Launchers. Those are rare as hens teeth and oh so versatile.

[KiwiNZ]

That is indeed some loot there.

Good going, mate. Keep it coming.

[Lancefighter]

Guass cannons, IBLs, cluster flak arrays?! Collect all that stuff, thats worth a pretty penny right there!
like suggested, keep those IBL's safe somewhere, they will come in handy later. The EBC's are good substitutes for HEPTs if your perseus can use them...
Collect that stuff quick before others steal it!

[Mopy]

Woo! Nice haul and some very lucky business going on there too. Can't complain though, as it makes good reading.

Now it gets interesting deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to buy with the profitsss Looking forward to finding out what you decide.

[shireknight]

wow-ee Christmas came early for Squiddy

[jordan kirwan]

thats squiddys chistmas shopping done
keep those IBLs you will need em later

[cobra mk2]

I cant believe you're still alive, but now after this has happened I'd give odds of 6/1 of you making it thru another week. Any takers?

btw - I was gonna suggest earlier that you start posting pics of your adventures now and again. How about it ?

p.s. Did anyone else find the thought of a squid flying about inside an octopus kinda surreal

[Whitegaurd]

I'm just worried that one day Squiddy's gonna fall victim to %35 of accidental deaths in known space.
Gate Collisions.
Sounds like he's getting dangerously close to this sort of thing.

[Necrosexual]

Indeed I have collided with gate event horizons when there was nothing there! You can only be so careful then one of these glitches gets thrown your way and its over!