[TC] A Pirate's Revenge [Book One Complete]

[Triaxx2]

I sold it, rule is no Paranid ships. The only exceptions are the Demeter I used to ensure I survived jumping into Kha'ak Sectors, and when I claim one before stripping the cargo and then blowing it to shreds, or the occasions when I sell them full of more cargo than I can carry conveniently.

I think I'm going to allow selling the capitals though.

[Nathancros]

I sold it, rule is no Paranid ships. The only exceptions are the Demeter I used to ensure I survived jumping into Kha'ak Sectors, and when I claim one before stripping the cargo and then blowing it to shreds, or the occasions when I sell them full of more cargo than I can carry conveniently.

I think I'm going to allow selling the capitals though.

would be unfair if u couldnt sell paranid caps, wat would hurt them more... losing their ships in battle, OR, having their ships sold to the teladi and then bought back to them at GREAT expense, just to have u steal them again.

It would hurt their egosentric minds, also the continual paying for their ships back would drain there coffers of credits*which no matter what yo do, you cant Directly target *


atleast that to me is the more.. vengeful course of action

and we all know the unholy 3 eyes deserve it!

[Triaxx2]

Awesome idea.

[Nathancros]

Awesome idea.

i do my best

[Triaxx2]

Chapter 92: Splitting with other people's things

Only because Teladi'ing sounds silly. Since the first thing I'm going after is the Phoenix. I've assigned a Discoverer designated Bird Tailer to follow the Albatross from Ianamus Zura. I'll get a burst memo as soon as they enter New Income. Since the Albatross isn't the speediest TL to ever fly, I'll have more than enough time to setup to take it. Presuming I'm not in the midst of something else, like stealing a Destroyer, which will sadly, have to take precedence.

Tears of Greed seems to be the best of the locations to jack a Phoenix from, and arriving I notice that there's also an Arena hanging near the west gate.

It doesn't go quite so well as I hope, since we end up farther from Viper Strike than I intended to get so the Tomahawk's take longer to reach target and even though they don't blow up each other, the hammers don't take off as much as I hoped. I seriously need both more Hammer, and some Tomahawk manufacturing capacity.

Once the marines are away and on board, it's a foregone conclusion, but getting them there was harder than I anticipated. Once again, I capture no weapons. This is less depressing than I thought, so while I'd love to have gotten the ISR's, or the IBL's aboard, I'm after the credits it'll bring more than the weapons. What I do get however, are 4 2GJ shields from it. Those are, just at the moment, worth more than the weapons. Calling for Command, I close range to pick up the Marines. Why command when it still has 86% hull? Simple enough. For one, Command has the legs to jump it down to Patriarch's Conclusion, for another, even with 86% hull, it's unshielded since I stripped those off, and while Command isn't fully shielded, it does have 6 GJ currently active. Which is enough short of a Q, that I can jump in and interdict. Dropping into Belt of Aguilar, which is where Viper Strike jumped to get out of the way of all the angry Teladi, and collect the boarding pod and 8 Flails it snatched up before jumping into deal with most of the shields on the Phoenix. Returning to New Income, which I'm using as a Temporary Base while I A) scout out Rhonkar's Might to ensure I'm not going to find myself facing two destroyers, a Carrier and some Tigers. Of course, if they're working together, it might be a bit more complicated. The idea of trying to time both captures to occur within enough time that one armed and shielded doesn't destroy the other which will be disarmed, and probably unshielded, is the sort of thing that headaches, and nightmares are made of. In fact, I'd rather kiss a Paranid than try that sort of thing. Since scouting is what M5's do, I send Unsuspected to Ceo's Buckzoid, and to the EQD. There's a Harrier aboard, with nothing else to do, so I'm going to send that through into Rhonkar's Might, so I'll have an eye in the sky of what's going on. Yes, a Raider variant would be better idea, but I haven't got one, so there's no need to think about that. Thus, Unsuspected becomes essentially a bus, and jumps.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, my Personal TS is jumping around under remote command to all friendly Military Outposts which sell Boarding Pods, collecting them, and any Flails, or Tomahawk's they have in stock. I could do this with Mos Eisley, but it's currently spending time in the Yaki Shipyard. Flipping through the universe map, I skim the Southern Paranid sectors, and learn that the Pontifex Seclusion Military Outpost sells boarding pods. Since they won't sell to me, there's only one thing to do.

Smash it good. And since I have only one ship currently capable of that, the Rapscallion, to Patriarch's Conclusion I go. Dropping in, I swap over, and head to Pontifex. I shall jack his military outpost, and take his boarding pods.

Dropping into the face of two Deimos and a Zeus, I decide this is possibly a less than inspired move. Fortunately, while the Brigantine isn't well shielded, it's not badly shielded either. Turns out not quite well shielded enough. I might consider installing a Turbo Booster on this bad boy. Taking a couple thousand points damage to my hull, I don't lose anything. But this is an important tip. When attacking Paranid sectors. Send a scout first. Better, send two.

Next time, I think I might want to bring a full fleet. You know just in case. I did, incidentally, get my Boarding Pod. I did check by the way. It's 7 million credits less to completely repair the Born of Ashes than it is to buy a new Phoenix. 69 million credits for a new, 62 million for a complete repair job.

I've decided two things, first I'm going to spend some cash to repair Venomous Cobra. Second I'm going to use that to take the Pythons. Not that I don't trust Gunboat to do a bang up job, but since as M2's go, the Python is tops in the field of being fast, I can't out run it in Gunboat. So I need the speed over the shields. There's no question of being hit, because I know how to avoid fire. But the closer you are, the greater the chance of getting hit, and being out run means... you get it. So Cobra it is.

Probably when engaging the Panther's as well. Anyway, the Phoenix only went for 40 million, which is kind of surprising. Though I suppose that's typical Teladi price inflation. I'm kind of disappointed that the Ray sold for more, though it was honestly a harder capture on the Phoenix.

Pythons... I haven't tried those before and I'm really kind of unsure exactly how I should do it. If they're fully shielded, a Tomahawk Barrage will cut 5/6 of the shields out of the way in short order.

If it's only 5GJ, that's awesome because a clean strike means an easy launch, and subsequent capture. Which of course, means that they'll both have the full tri-fecta AFS, HPD, and ISL. Plus probably lots of missiles.

And Tigers. With massive Escorts.

Incidentally, I've noticed it's easier to take Destroyers inside their home sectors because they're usually unescorted. Carriers... well, not precisely easy, because they carry their own escorts, but they don't typically have them out in the air, so if you're quick, you can smash and grab before the fighters launch, and then put the throttle wide open. Done right, the fighters don't trip as red so they'll just leave peaceably. On the other hand, if they are angry, simply putting the carrier in danger will tend to make them jump out to defend it. I have yet to try taking a regular M7, and the M7M's I've taken have all had escorts, though I have to admit, Venomous Cobra was really a five alarm pain in the ass, since I took both Heavy Dragons and then Cobra itself. The second one was actually easier, just because there were only fighters, and I wasn't interested in taking those.

That said, I got nearly as much for the Cobra as I did for the Phoenix.

I just had a thought. When I sold the Ray, I sold it at a Split Shipyard. The Split are enemies with the Boron. I wonder if that affects the price? I wonder if selling ships to an enemy will give more credits than selling them to a neutral power? Or perhaps even to an ally? Interesting thought. Perhaps I should see if the Boron or Yaki give a better deal when I go to sell one of the Pythons from Rhonkar's Might? Might be a good experiment.

So while I'm thinking these thoughts, I notice something. An Argon Colossus, home based in Black Hole Sun, heading in that direction. Up through Ianamus Zura. So the question becomes, do I risk losing the chance at an IBL Forge, for the potential salvage in 347? Or do I stay here and ignore the potential profitsssss?

Wrong question. Better question: Why the hell would I make a choice?

Ianamus Zura is a Shipyard Sector, and as such, with assets in the sector, both the Adv Sat, and Bird Tailer, I can talk to the Shipyard. Doing so I buy a Harrier Hauler, and set it up to follow the Colossus. Now I can watch that on the map and see if there's any salvage worth getting. Personal TS though, jumps in and docks at the EQD to pull the two Gauss Cannons. Then to Eighteen Billion to snap up the two Boarding Pods, and some EBC's there. Yes, this is costing quite a bit of cash, but A) I've got some to spare, and B) I'm going to use most of this in the capture of more ships to sell for more money. So that's a good thing.

Speaking there of, a new objective has popped into place. Personal TS drops into Contorted Dominion, and there, sitting on the Gravidar, is a Boron Kraken, heading to Queen's Retribution. It's fully shielded, and very, very tempting. Unfortunately, I don't have enough Hammers to Punch down the shields, and without that, it's not worth the frustration of it. However, it will indeed be a capture for a later occasion. Yes, I could arrange some capture wings, but I've found a technique that works and I'm sure as all hell not going to screw with it now.

So the Kraken gets tagged for another day, and I continue watching the gate. Seizewell on the other hand, has another pair of Gauss Cannons, which means I've got enough for half a turret. Or, with the IPG's I've just picked up in Patriarch's Conclusion, enough to mount with some shield busters and knock through caps quick.

And yes, I do realize that IPG's are Corvette weapons, but have you ever tried to fire a full barrage of IPG's from a Corvette? Those that do mount them (Centaur Variants, Osprey Variants, Hydra Variants, and the OTAS Skiron) don't really have the energy to fire more than one round from a full bank. And bigger ships tend to have better things to mount, or only do it in the forward mounts. So yes, it's a bit under powered, but when you realize that they can use their entire energy bank to fire those, and use a lot of them, then it starts to seem less odd.

Surprisingly, the Gannet can use the IPG. I'm not really sure why though I have to admit, it means I might have a slightly altered method of capping some ships, like TM's, and M6's. Not that I spend a lot of time snapping up TM's, or M6's. The day seems to be going more or less swimmingly, with Unsuspected dropping off the Harrier to hunt down the two Pythons and then heading to Depths of Silence, where they finally have some L Pikes for sale. I pick up 10 of them, and while it costs some credits, I justify it by the fact that I'm going to use them for the purpose they were meant for. Killing things.

I think perhaps that it's time to see just what it is that Operation Final Fury needs me for. I'm going to take Rapscallion, just in case it's one of those 'Jolly wander off and smash me a couple of Kha'ak Destroyers tout-sweet.' kind of missions. I really admit to hating those kinds of missions. Though frankly I'm a little more impressed by the Kha'ak Corvette than the Destroyer so far. Of course the Q is supposed to be the most dangerous ship ever, and it's not exactly a big threat, at least I haven't found it to be so. But then, I guess if you're working in between the various Xenon sectors more than I do, I suppose it's a problem. But since my operations are all outside the corridor of hell, I suppose I avoid that problem.

On the other hand, the fact that the Xenon even exist does cause a bit of a hassle. Which means that there's only one thing to do.

Smash a lot of Xenon. But first, I'm going Purple hunting.

[Nathancros]

dont get yourself smeared into a fine paste by those khaak buggers!

P.S


Dont forget the Mortein/Raid/Bugspray

[Triaxx2]

Chapter 93: Kha'ak Hate you, Kha'ak Hate me

They hate our whole families.... Which means that I totally support the operation to wipe them out. Frankly I find them to be a bit more than a little over-hyped, but I've not really encountered them in numbers that are sufficient to be a problem, particularly not for anything with FAA on board. Which means my first task, is to arm Rapscallion with FAA in all but the front and L/R turrets. Those will keep their IBL's, since I'm almost sure that we'll be seeing Kha'ak Capitals.

I think that when I expand the Weaver's Complex with more Hammers, and some Tomahawk capabilities, I'm also going to put in several FAA and CFA forges, as well as some PPC and GC manufacturing. 3 of each should be enough to do the job, and in fact, it might be more than enough.

I've decided that I don't really need to manufacture PAC's, since the universe seems to have that covered fairly well. I am going to design a shield complex though. 1 of each, unless the Paranid have them exclusively. In that case, I don't need them. Since that will mean I'll have excess food production, I can then send that to the other factories as I need them. So in short, I'm going to need yet more money. Which means I need a lot of missions to warm up to the various races, in order to steal their ships, and then sell them for money.

And I've just learned that the Peregrine I had set up as a Chip Hauler for Command and Control was destroyed in Perdition's End, and why the hell was it there? It had a blasted jump drive! It had FUEL! It had a pilot with a brain! Aigh!

Morons! I've got to accelerate the completion of the Teladianium Deliveries. Jumping up to UW534, I begin construction of the mines, I might not tow them into place right away, but I'm going to free up Great Hauler 2, and use some TS's to fill it with the remaining Teladianium and drop into the Hub. Moving the Ore there will be a piece of cake, since I've got both LH, and Weaver's full of Ore. And I will shortly have UW534 full of Ore as well.

During the initial placement, there's a bit of a trouble, as Ore Mine L Alpha interdicts a Nividium 3 Roid. Fortunately a Hornet, and a bit of Tractor Beam pushing solves the problem handily. I do need four more Ore Mines though. Sending DW/H down south to snap up another 4 Ore Mines, I start the process of moving all 22 roids into position. I've decided on a distance of 25km from the gate for the mines since this will give anything incoming into the sector a chance to stop, swerve, curve, or other wise engage in evasive maneuvers. Anything that cannot successfully complete an evasive maneuver withing that distance will sadly, become nothing more than a large carbon smear on the back side of the wall of asteroids. Now the question you might be asking is how exactly does one align 22 asteroids in that precise of a pattern so that all of them face the correct direction. The answer, sadly, is with a lot of time and effort. Since it is impossible to predict the final placement of the mine structure for maximum efficiency, all 22 mines will have to be manually realigned.

The process for realigning can take one of three forms. One of these is an outside alignment. This involves maneuvering the mine into place, and then using the Tractor Beam to tow the superstructure around to face away from the gate. This is both difficult and dangerous, not only for the tower, but also for the mine itself. There are reports of one mine smashing into another such that both mines are destroyed, not only annihilating the Roids, but also causing them to be destroyed irretrievably because of the structural weakness added by the super structure of the mining facility.

The second method, is to tow them directly away from the gate to align them facing away, and then to push them with the tractor into place. There are two problems with this approach. One is that there might well be unforeseen complications because frankly it's bloody hard to see around an asteroid under the best of conditions and pushing with a Tractor Beam is hardly the best of conditions. The second, is that at the distance from the gate most of the mines are, a slight adjustment there can lead to a massive distance as you approach the gate itself. And finally, while this is not technically a problem it is an annoyance. 2-12m/s is the best speed for pushing a mine to avoid smashing into it because of the huge mass you're attempting to move, and thus for the longer distance asteroids, it's very, very, very time consuming to push them into place.

The third method, and the one I prefer for most towing of this sort, is to make a large, long loop, and align on the approach. Yes, this can be more time consuming than A, and sometimes more than B, it does however have the advantage of being done at 80m/s and with the ability to see exactly where you are going.

Once all the mines are roughly in position, then the second method can be used to maximize the precision of placement. I prefer to set them up with a single central asteroid, and then arrange the others around that one. With the pushing technique, they can be arranged in any manner I choose.

Fortunately, all of the Nividium asteroids are on the inside of the sector and well outside the 25km distance from the main gate. (I say main, because there is also a destroyed gate in the south of the sector, which serves excellently as a focal point for capitals jumping into the sector. However, I am unsure if I like the idea of having it there. If I know it's there, there's nothing at all to say that other races can't jump in using it as a beacon. I'll have to think on this. Perhaps there's a way to destroy it completely, or at least move it some where it can't do any harm? I've heard rumors of a super powerful tractor beam system that's capable of moving things like that. It's been suggested that it was developed after a Xenon Super weapon that was used to crash a trading station into a military outpost, but that it required a destroyer to do it. Which means that Rapscallion might well find itself on towing duty. Yeah, that's the sort of thing that makes you wonder if this piracy thing is all it's cracked up to be. 50 million credits worth of ship rending death and destruction, acting as a glorified tugboat.

Well, I'll have to do some research. If it proves effective, I can always tow the gate out and plop it in the middle of a field of SQUASH Mines, or tug it out into the atmosphere of the planet, or moon, or whatever that is out there. That'd really screw with anyone trying to jump in a full attack fleet, having it drop right into the atmosphere of a planet and get smashed into tiny pieces of junk falling from the sky.

I like the mine field idea better though. I'll see about... acquiring a couple more OWP's, and some Lasertowers and drop them in a couple of clusters outside the field. Anything that shows up there is going to have a hell of a bad day.

I wonder what the effective radius of a SQUASH mine is? If it's not too big, I'll stack mines. If it is, I'll just layer them at 1.5 their total effective range. That will give small ships the challenge of maneuvering around them, while giving big ships no chance to survive, and minimum of multi-triggering. After all, having a million credits worth of SQAUSH mines arranged in a field is an awesome, but not if they all blow each other up trying to take out a single M5, and then leave it wide open for an M2 to point jump in on my head.

I've also rethought the defensive strategy for the primary gate. So far I haven't seen a single Xenon incursion into UW 534, and while I'm not at all sure that's going to continue, I am sure that the Xenon will not be too much of a problem. Why? For one thing, I'm going to place the third HUB gate set between UW534, and 534, and second, I'm going to mine the bloody hell, out of both sides of the gate. No traders will want to go through the gate, so they shouldn't blow themselves up, and any Xenon that attempts to harass the HUB, or the rest of the universe is going to be in for one startling surprise. That should keep the damage down, while at the same time saving me the cost of a defensive fleet. Of course, in order to emplace the mine field on the Xenon side of the gate, I have to engage and destroy any capitals they have in the sector, while a TL, most likely Great Hold, deploys the SQUASH mine field.

Since that will indeed be a somewhat daunting task, I'm going to take the opportunity to take all the available and armed capital ships I can put together out for a spin. Which means I need to rearm Knight's Lance, Born of Ashes, and Unsuspected Gains. And then I've got to arm the other ships I have. Guard Dog is easy, since it's going to be a fighter's nightmare, covered in as many FAA as I can cram aboard, and Shriking Banshee won't be a problem either, having Gauss in the Left/Right Turrets, FAA all over the rest of it, and then EBC in the nose. The Condor, I think I'm going to arm with FAA and some PSG I've picked up from idiot Paranid Traders who dropped cargo at the first lick of the PRG.

Naturally, Rapscallion will be along, acting in it's usual capacity of smashing many things. And the Colossus will be along, bringing probably 60 Pikes to the fight. I might have to cap and sell a couple of Destroyers just to afford the arming and equipping of that, not counting the repairs I still haven't completed on it yet.

At the moment, so many plans rely on getting that second set of HUB gates operational and getting Microchips to Command and Control. Everything else will flow into place once I can repair my own ships without having to pay the shipyard for it.

I think I've rambled on too much now. Except that now I'm going to ramble on a completely separate subject. I think the general idiocy of CLS pilots is really stupid. I mean, I understand that they're intended to be dumb, within a certain value of dumb. Yet at the same time, they can be incredibly dumb about things they should be smart about. After all, when I tell a ship to jump somewhere, pick up microchips, fuel and then jump back, I expect it to do just that. When it does, that's great. When it doesn't it's not only perturbing, but it can also be expensive. After all, TS's are not cheap... I can accept when it's a programming failure. When I'm the one that's screwed it up, that's fine. When it's not me. I am damnedably irritated. And yes, I understand, sometimes there's just no way to get enough fuel. But it's not like the Barren Shores Complex, which is where it should have been fueling, didn't have tons of it. And unlike others, my stations are willing to give up energy as fuel for the ships supplying them. At least they're supposed to.

I've decided that none of the three gates in the sector is a good place for a Hub Connection. So I'm going to slot it in between Wretched Skies and (Sector East Wretched Skies). Then it's only short jaunt, and a much smaller chance of encountering Paranid Traffic.

Plus it shortens the distance for ships jumping between Legend's Home to Barren Shores. Which should improve response time for fuel delivery, and Chip moving to Unsuspected, Decadence and Command.

Pity there's no better way to store them unless I put a TL somewhere.

I wonder if there are any more easily jacked Atmo Lifters hanging around Terran Space? Of course, after those last two heists, I might want to work on my reputation with them just a bit. I wonder if moving the EST Angel I've had working LoH area forever would be a good idea? Set it up in Jupiter I think and give it a few sectors of freedom to work with? It does seem to end up in places flung far and wide. I saw it in Seizewell the other day. It does seem to be smarter about it's jumpdrive use though. I guess when it's given free reign to make whatever trades it wants, it's perfectly capable of doing what it needs. I've got two, but I'll be damned if I can recall where the other one went or what it was. I'm pretty sure it's still around, I just haven't seen it in a while.

Oh well, I'm sure it'll turn up eventually.

Okay, on to new business. Arranging the mines in UW 534 is taking a bit more time than I originally anticipated. I'm going to have to think this one through quite thoroughly.

Pity it's not possible to do it by remote. Being able to run the towing ship that way from a ship a bit off where I can see where the station is going would be terribly helpful. I wonder... Perhaps I can work around that... I'll have to think on it.

Urgh. Towing mines is BORING. And it completely justifies the capitals. Doesn't help that I keep finding out other roid's are in my way. I just blew up a Nividium Roid with the assistance of a Mobile Drilling System brought to me with the Vulture Miner I'm now using to pick up the salvageable bits. There is indeed a Prospector aboard, but A) I've already done all the hard work, and B) he's not allowed to be actively involved in the mining process. This means that the Nividium breeding process can take place, and generate more Nividium. It turns out that it is indeed possible to break up Nividium without a powerful mining ship, or a massively shielded warship. It's also very, very easy with the enormous ass end of an Ore Mine.

So after slapping the mine into place, I moved to my personal TS and bounced out of the sector, first sending the Falcon Hauler I picked up somewhere and stowed aboard Unsuspected, which is now docked at the Military Outpost in Depths of Silence, and sent it to Herron's Nebula. It's now offloading whatever Nividium is acquired by the Vulture Miner in UW534, to Decadence, mainly because Decadence has nothing at all else to do.

Still no word on the status of the replacement of either the IBL, or PBG forges in Loomanckstrat's Legacy. Bird Tailer informs me that watching the ass end of a Mammoth is probably less boring than towing mines, only because of the minor threat of Pirates. I pointed out that I'm generally friendly with pirates, something to do with the two weed/booze pairs in Avarice, which are booming business wise. In fact, they're producing more money than any other complex I have. Though at the moment it's because of the lack of ability to transfer chips out of the Barren Shores Complex, otherwise I'd have no problems what so ever, but the irritation of them trying to move through Paranid sectors, which are clearly enemy is really getting on my nerves.

I also don't have any intel on the Pythons in Rhonkar's Might, so I'm going to slip into my Heavy Dragon and go hunting. Great Trunk on the other hand, seems finally willing to get out and about and do his bloody job, which is actually quite a nice thing for a change. It's very, very, nice to find out some one is doing what they're supposed to. Still no idea just who the other EST I have floating around is. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

[Nathancros]

hey mate could we get an assests list? im starting to get confused..

i know decadance is a Ryu.

i know unsuspected is a gannet*isnt it??*

i think great trunk is a mammoth..

i think born of ashes is a phoenix..


But after that im confused

[Triaxx2]

Born of Ashes is Pheonix, because I lost some marines. That's one of the reasons I'm ticked at the loss of the couple chapters.

Unsuspected is a Galleon.

Gunboat Diplomacy is a Gannet.

Great Trunk is an Elephant.

The Mammoth is Delivery Wagon Hub.

And there's an asset list forth coming for chapter 99. I just have to reach that point. It'll make sense when I get there, I promise.

[Nathancros]

Born of Ashes is Pheonix, because I lost some marines. That's one of the reasons I'm ticked at the loss of the couple chapters.

Unsuspected is a Galleon.

Gunboat Diplomacy is a Gannet.

Great Trunk is an Elephant.

The Mammoth is Delivery Wagon Hub.

And there's an asset list forth coming for chapter 99. I just have to reach that point. It'll make sense when I get there, I promise.

kk thanks for that mate XD

[Triaxx2]

Chapter 94: Scouting Reports

I've made a decision. It's not a particularly important one, but it is one that had to be made.

When I capture the Pythons, the operation will be called 'Snake Charmer'. There's not really another good name for it, and as a 1,2,3 snatch and grab, it should be a piece of cake.

I hope it will be anyway. I'm noticing a slightly odd dearth of capital ships of all kinds. Even the Split who are normally very militarily inclined, don't seem to be too active of late. The Paranid do, since I caught wind of a Deimos running west through Barren Shores, and while I did consider engaging, I reconsidered after several factors became apparent. First, it was just passing through, which I guess is a kind of terrible thought for a Pirate, but the other reasons are that all the necessary assets were scattered in places around the universe that were both remote from the situation, and widely separated from one another. After all, Rapscallion is in Patriarch's Conclusion, Unsuspected is in Depths of Silence, and I was all the way up in UW534.

Playing with my Tractor Beam. So, heading to the Heavy Dragon, I don't feel too bad about missing a chance at the convoy. It'll come again, or another one will. For now I'm willing to allow some lee to my enemies. Destruction is always enjoyable, but being able to slam my enemies must take a backseat to surviving my onslaught. It's no good to plot revenge if I won't survive to see it through. So for now I give them a pass. But there will be a reckoning. I will see to it.

But for now, scouting...

So, the scouting report is in. There's a shipyard, two Pythons and a Raptor. And a Tiger. I'm not truly interested in the Tiger, though I suppose if I have some pods and missiles left over, I might steal it as well. Python A is the one patrolling near the gate. It's got AFS and HPD, and a small escort, consisting of a Dragon and a few fighters. Done right, a single Firestorm would deal with both Dragon and Escort and piss off the Python all at the same time.

Python B patrols the northern area of the sector, about 20km off the shipyard. Nothing fancier than the average unpleasant Split crew members that I can detect on scanners, though there's no Bioscanner aboard the Heavy Dragon. It's defended by a few fighters, but no Corvettes.

The Raptor on the other hand, patrols some 50km north of the Shipyard, and has 6 fighters, but no other escort. It's got HPD, but it's almost like they're asking me to steal it.

The Tiger patrols near the Shipyard and EQD, which frankly is kind of scary since if I blow it up, there's the chance of stray Hammers or Tomahawks busting a move all over the Shipyard and EQD, and turning them hostile. I'd rather that not happen, but there's also the chance of it interfering as I steal the other three ships. Yes, I have decided to steal the two Pythons and the Raptor.

Insane? Probably. But, I also want to take the Heavy Dragon that's Escorting the Tiger. Why? Because I'm liking the one I'm flying enough that I don't necessarily want to let it go to the job of Escorting Great Trunk, which was the original intent.

Instead, I'm going to see if I can snatch another one, and keep this for me. So, the operation is:

Operation: Grab three or four capitals, a corvette, and try very hard NOT to die.

Right, well, with a minimum combat speed of 54m/s, on Python B, I'm sure as all hells not doing this job in Gunboat Diplomacy. Not only because I don't enjoy getting shot up by Enormous capital class weapons, but also because I'm not interested in getting vaporized by fast moving fighters. Of course, I will use it for snagging the Heavy Dragon, just setting it off and firing a couple pods in to snag it. Yeah, technically it's over kill but it's easier than trying to chunk the jarheads out the airlock. Of course, I have heard of some sort of transporter technology designed for beaming marines aboard but so far all attempts to put my hands on it have proven it to be rumor.

Hang on. It seems that there might be some movement on the IZ Albatross. I might find myself with a new TL shortly. If the report is accurate, I'm going to initiate operation:

Operation: A bird in the hand is worth an IBL forge.

Of course, I'm going to have to be sure to use only the best of the best to make sure I don't lose the forge, but so far they've proven capable of keeping large chunks of cargo intact. Even so, there's always the chance they'll get trigger happy and shoot some unique part. Okay, it's more a matter of random chance that something gets hit, because really, trigger happy is what they do. And I'm glad of it.

So all I have to do is get them onto the target. Naturally that's the hard part. And entirely my job. Shouldn't be too hard. 4 hammers is enough to flatten the shields. Of course, it only works when the target doesn't shoot them down. They'll be running straight on into the nose of it, so that'll work. The only thing I can think is the general annoyance of the missile tube placement on the Gunboat. Being able to time the launches.

Well, it seems the Albatross in IZ was just moving out of the path of some traders, so I'm docked in Legend's Home, spending a large pile of money to have the Venomous Cobra fixed completely. Then I'll jump south to New Income, pick up the marines and boarding pods, and missiles, and then I'll be jumping up to Rhonkar's Might to begin snatching capitals.

I think the plan is going to be Python A, Python B, Raptor, Tiger, Heavy Dragon. Jump Boa is out collecting Jumpdrives, since I doubt I'll be able to capture them intact. It's possible, and would be helpful, but it's not likely. Sadly, one of the downsides of the Cobra is the lack of cargo space. And the big advantage of the Gannet-class is the overwhelming cargo space.

Finding myself with a distinct lack of Boarding Pods, I jump first to Eighteen Billion, and then to BHS, and Hila's Joy. 14 Pods, 34 Hammers and a 160 Flails, I should be good for this spree of capturing. I do admit being sorely tempted by an idiot Thresher in Hila's Joy with 1.4GJ of shielding.

The first Python goes well, succeeding with 88% hull, and ALL the shields. And a jump drive. Some days it's great to be wrong. Of course I did decelerate a bit too much at the end there, and almost got blasted in a last ditch effort from the crew to annoy me seriously. Because nothing is more annoying than sucking vacuum. Swinging around, I head towards the next Python.

This one will be trickier, since A) They're now on alert, and B) it's got a massive escort, as opposed to the minor one that the last had. I'm unsure if I should go after this one, or head after the Raptor instead. No... I'm going to take this Snake, and fund some fun with it. I hope.

Well then... Being down to a mere 68 Flails and entirely out of Hammers, the Raptor is going to get a pass. But that's okay. For now I'm happy with two Pythons, one at 88% and one at 87%. Technically a few points of damage on each one are my fault, after getting just a tad heavy on the flails, though the latter one was mostly expended on the escort. Two Hammerheads from the Heavy Dragon do a remarkable job of quickly thinning the herd of escorts.

And a few flails expended against a Kha'ak Cluster for goodwill never hurt anyone.

The Second Python came with nothing more exciting than a dozen PBE's. I'll transfer them to the one I'm keeping and then sell this one. It also came with a jump drive. And I I picked up one of the Chimera's that bailed, after they tried to BBQ me. So that docks with Jump Boa and I'll move the jump drive to it before I sell the Python. Great Wyrm now joins my fleet, and will be ready when the time comes to attack the Paranid a new. First, I'm going to check in with Knight's Lance and see what the word is if my IBL harvesting operation in Weaver's is turning any purpose, or if I should stop bothering.

Of course it would be a moot point if the lazy bums in Loomanckstrat's would get off their asses and pay for the replacement of the IBL forge there so I could steal it. Until then though, I'm going to calculate the resources I need to add some sorely needed Hammer and Tomahawk production to Weaver's.

And the answer is that it's going to be expensive. Heck, even at 47 million a capture, it's not an easily funded enterprise. Fortunately the Weed/Booze plexes in Avarice are turning an easy profit. In fact, I think I might consider expanding them to another pair of Fuel/Weed Combo's to pump the production.

With operations suspended until I find some more Hammers, (Gunboat has enough if the IZ Albatross makes it's move.) I'm heading back to UW534. Safely tucked into Commodore's Yacht, I go back to the infinite fun of towing mines. I never knew piracy could be SO BORING.

[Nathancros]

piracy only becomes boring after u have ur own m2 ..

i still prefer stalking the trade lanes in a M6 XD

[Triaxx2]

As do I, but I don't recall most pirates being quite as obsessed about mine towing as I am.

I do get back to the real pirating soon, but I really wanted to get the mining in place, and the game crashing every time I hit F3 for the all important external view of the Mines, really put a damper on getting it done. Not to mention studying for Algebra. Even towing asteroids is more fun.

[Nathancros]

As do I, but I don't recall most pirates being quite as obsessed about mine towing as I am.

I do get back to the real pirating soon, but I really wanted to get the mining in place, and the game crashing every time I hit F3 for the all important external view of the Mines, really put a damper on getting it done. Not to mention studying for Algebra. Even towing asteroids is more fun.

algebra is the reason i left school ,

and obsessed? only slightly me thinks

[Triaxx2]

Lining them all up into a screen around the gate one by one? 22 Roids? Obsessed.

[Nathancros]

Lining them all up into a screen around the gate one by one? 22 Roids? Obsessed.

or just overprotective of ur sector?

[Triaxx2]

That too, to obsessive levels.

[Nathancros]

That too, to obsessive levels.

aha oh well XD, its a virtue, and a curse

anywayz cant wait to see when someone tries to come thru it


also, did any ships(xenon,khaak, hell even a teladi scavanger come thru as u were obsessed with floating rocks?

[Triaxx2]

No, though it is on the far side of Xenon 534, so it's not likely anything but a very determined task force will reach it.

I'll have to take a cruise through 534, and see what's currently defending it.

[Nathancros]

No, though it is on the far side of Xenon 534, so it's not likely anything but a very determined task force will reach it.

I'll have to take a cruise through 534, and see what's currently defending it.

haha maybe annex it and use captured xenon ships to destroy any taskforces headed thru it?

then it just seems like they were destroyed by xenon