A gameplay driven story (DiD? Dunno, depends on how long I last lols) about one Terran mercenary's will to rebuild his empire after a devastating loss, we begin with:
Operation Zero: Prologue
(The pilots in this story use a somewhat relaxed version of standard USAF radio protocol in their communications. If it is somewhat confusing... I apologize!)
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“Falcon-1-1, Falcon-1-2, check in, over.”
“Falcon-1-2, Falcon-1-1, grav is totally clear... Permission to speak candidly, sir? Over.”
“Granted.”
“This patrol is a complete waste of time. We've been out here for hours, and not a single Xenon or Kha'ak ship has shown head nor tail. I don't give a damn what the kill bonus is for each hostile ship, I've got to take the biggest piss the universe has ever seen and this M3 doesn't have a bathroom.”
“That was rather candid. Alright, Falcon-1, return to formation, vector 1-0-5 to home plate, over.”
“Amen to tha-- hold it... Falcon-1-2, Falcon-1, tally bandits, Xenon Q with small fighter escort, bearing 1-0-5 for 3-0km. Request permission to engage!”
“Falcon-1, we are weapons free! Two, go cover, I'm shooter. Three, four, five, engage fighter escorts. Two, we're hitting the Q. Rock and roll!”
And so it began. Three, four, and five, all busters, began to engage the fighter escorts whilst me and Two, my Sabre, orbited around 10km away from the Q, being careful not to get too close. The busters and Xenon fighters exchanged shots, and four collided with a Xenon M, vaporizing instantly.
“Damnit... Two, we need to help.”
“I'm not putting my neck on the line for a couple of Argon pilots.”
“Earl, you goddamn facist! That's MY MONEY they're flying, and if we don't intervene, I'm going to lose that! We're on our last ropes here so get it together and start shooting down some Xenon before I PERSONALLY destroy your engines, float over there, and tear you out of your cockpit! Am I clear?”
“... Sir yes sir.”
“Then let's go kill some AGI.”
Earl and I gunned it full burn towards Three and Five. At around 3.5km, the panicked cry of “Five, engaged defensive!” was audible over the radio. Shortly thereafter, there was a dull shudder throughout the cockpit.
“Dammit... there goes Five.”
“Are you telling me we just lost the only girl in this company?”
“Falcon-1-3, uh, could I get some help here? I know you two are busy lamenting over the fact that Susie just bit the dust, but uh – oh, Gunne...”
Another dull shudder throughout a cockpit. A look to my left and I could see my last buster going up in flames, with a Xenon M shooting past it.
“Two, no more games. Engage Xenon M 12 o'clock high, you are shooter!”
“Roger dodger, boss.”
Earl let loose a pair of Poltergeist swarms, and the last Xenon M was destroyed. All that was left was the Xenon Q. There isn't much to describe about that battle – standard jousting runs across the 3-9 line on the ship, the occasional missile, and bringing as many EMPC's as possible to bear on that thing's shields. It was simple. That is, until, I looked to my right.
“DIVE! DIVE!”
Two flew straight into a PPC bolt and was instantly vaporized.
“Jesus christ... I'm not getting paid enough for this.”
I set a course back to the Lofn. After I got a good 45km between me and the Q, I felt more at ease again. The losses just began to sink in – while I had roughly eight to nine million credits to my name in pure cash, I just lost nearly all of my combat assets in a single battle. All that I have left is this ship and the Lofn – wait, where's the Lofn?
I open up the sector map, and didn't see a Lofn – just a whole lot more Red. A Kha'ak task force jumped in – what must've been several clusters and three or four corvettes.
Great. My fleet is gone, and a quick look at the bank account shows a million less than what I thought I had.
Well, there's not much I can do about it now. Let's rebuild.
Assets:
Credits: 5,904,771
Serenity (M3, Scimitar)
Century (TS, Baldric)
Scripts and Modifications:
Cadius Ship Pack
MARS Fire Control
Miscellaneous scripts - I started this after having such major losses, and I thought it'd be a good DiD story.
The Strength to Rebuild
Moderators: TheElf, Moderators for English X Forum
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Treelor
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The Strength to Rebuild
Last edited by Treelor on Thu, 11. Mar 10, 22:25, edited 2 times in total.
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eldyranx3
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Treelor
- Posts: 315
- Joined: Mon, 5. May 08, 01:25
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Treelor
- Posts: 315
- Joined: Mon, 5. May 08, 01:25
Operation One: Survivor
=====================================
<<the following is a transcript of an audio log from the ship Serenity - the original file is available at: http://filesmelt.com/dl/the_strength_to_rebuild.wav >>
*sigh* Date: 768-05-02, 10:44AM. If whoever listens to this doesn't have time to listen to the whole thing, then let this sum it up: never, ever, in my life, have I been so glad to see an equipment dock.
This entry starts out in Family Njy. I had just docked to a station after losing all of my combat assets and reviewed the universe map from there. I came to the conclusion that in order to prevent further losses like this in the future, I would need to create a financial backbone that can support combat operations in the future - that meant going to the western Argon block and finding Terracorp HQ, where I hear they have some trading pilots for hire. I guess I can't make all my money from someone else's blood. I headed south to Thynn's Abyss, and realized that my route includes Xenon Sector 472 - no big deal. However, if the massive Xenon fleet was any foreshadowing of what that sector would be like, I didn't notice it until after I had scraped through.
As soon as I jumped in to 472, my sector map lit up red with fighter drones. I did an immediate dive down towards the negative y axis and gunned it full power, hoping to get away from whatever launched those. I had the MARS Fire Control system installed on my fighter that so many corvette captains seem to love, which includes the Goblin software for fighter drones, so I used those to counter the fighter drone attack. Around ten minutes of tangling with the drones, two of the AGI fighter ships caught up to me and nearly brought my shields all the way down. Soon after, the AGI frigate was on top of me. I didn't really have any time to think, I just mashed the console until a bunch of my Mk2 fighter drones got spat out and went for the Q as I strafed the side of the ship with my EMPCs.
Around 1/4 shield left on the frigate, and a rather large patrol of an AGI destroyer and several fighter wings is only around 10 kilometers away.
I don't remember much of what I thought at that moment other than: "Shit! SHIT!"
I left my fighter drones for dead and made a break for the south gate. There was no way I could win this battle, but maybe I could come out alive. After a few minutes of flying I was out of gun range on the AGI frigate, and turned on SETA, thinking I was home free. About 1km away from the gate, my shields started a rapid drop and I heard PBE shots hitting the hull. I didn't have time to react, and I was out of there right as the shields collapsed.
As the warp tunnel collapsed and Black Hole Sun materialized around me, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I'm safe again.
For now.
PS: I would just like to add that my inability to follow my own transcript means that the audio recording of this log is slightly different. I think it better shows my sense of humor, if that means anything to those who view these public logs. Also, I'm sorry for the lack of compression, but it seems the encoding software got damaged in the attack and I'll have to replace it when I get to Omicron Lyrae.
======================================
Assets:
Credits: 6.2mil
Serenity (M3, Scimitar)
Century (TS, Baldric)
(I mis-named the M3 in the original post, that was the name of one of the ships I had lost. My bad. Corrected the mistake in the OP as well.)
=====================================
<<the following is a transcript of an audio log from the ship Serenity - the original file is available at: http://filesmelt.com/dl/the_strength_to_rebuild.wav >>
*sigh* Date: 768-05-02, 10:44AM. If whoever listens to this doesn't have time to listen to the whole thing, then let this sum it up: never, ever, in my life, have I been so glad to see an equipment dock.
This entry starts out in Family Njy. I had just docked to a station after losing all of my combat assets and reviewed the universe map from there. I came to the conclusion that in order to prevent further losses like this in the future, I would need to create a financial backbone that can support combat operations in the future - that meant going to the western Argon block and finding Terracorp HQ, where I hear they have some trading pilots for hire. I guess I can't make all my money from someone else's blood. I headed south to Thynn's Abyss, and realized that my route includes Xenon Sector 472 - no big deal. However, if the massive Xenon fleet was any foreshadowing of what that sector would be like, I didn't notice it until after I had scraped through.
As soon as I jumped in to 472, my sector map lit up red with fighter drones. I did an immediate dive down towards the negative y axis and gunned it full power, hoping to get away from whatever launched those. I had the MARS Fire Control system installed on my fighter that so many corvette captains seem to love, which includes the Goblin software for fighter drones, so I used those to counter the fighter drone attack. Around ten minutes of tangling with the drones, two of the AGI fighter ships caught up to me and nearly brought my shields all the way down. Soon after, the AGI frigate was on top of me. I didn't really have any time to think, I just mashed the console until a bunch of my Mk2 fighter drones got spat out and went for the Q as I strafed the side of the ship with my EMPCs.
Around 1/4 shield left on the frigate, and a rather large patrol of an AGI destroyer and several fighter wings is only around 10 kilometers away.
I don't remember much of what I thought at that moment other than: "Shit! SHIT!"
I left my fighter drones for dead and made a break for the south gate. There was no way I could win this battle, but maybe I could come out alive. After a few minutes of flying I was out of gun range on the AGI frigate, and turned on SETA, thinking I was home free. About 1km away from the gate, my shields started a rapid drop and I heard PBE shots hitting the hull. I didn't have time to react, and I was out of there right as the shields collapsed.
As the warp tunnel collapsed and Black Hole Sun materialized around me, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I'm safe again.
For now.
PS: I would just like to add that my inability to follow my own transcript means that the audio recording of this log is slightly different. I think it better shows my sense of humor, if that means anything to those who view these public logs. Also, I'm sorry for the lack of compression, but it seems the encoding software got damaged in the attack and I'll have to replace it when I get to Omicron Lyrae.
======================================
Assets:
Credits: 6.2mil
Serenity (M3, Scimitar)
Century (TS, Baldric)
(I mis-named the M3 in the original post, that was the name of one of the ships I had lost. My bad. Corrected the mistake in the OP as well.)
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X1000
- Posts: 896
- Joined: Mon, 22. Jun 09, 16:59
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Treelor
- Posts: 315
- Joined: Mon, 5. May 08, 01:25
You should read a bit closerScripts and Modifications:
Cadius Ship Pack
MARS Fire Control
Miscellaneous scripts - I started this after having such major losses, and I thought it'd be a good DiD story.
I think it was inside Njy's Deception. If not, it was definitely in that area.
Last edited by Treelor on Fri, 12. Mar 10, 20:33, edited 1 time in total.
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X1000
- Posts: 896
- Joined: Mon, 22. Jun 09, 16:59
D'oh.Treelor wrote:You should read a bit closerTreelor wrote:Scripts and Modifications:
Cadius Ship Pack
MARS Fire Control
Miscellaneous scripts - I started this after having such major losses, and I thought it'd be a good DiD story.
I think it was inside Njy's Deception. If not, it was definitely in that area.
What where you doing with busters and a Lofn in Nij's Deception?
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Treelor
- Posts: 315
- Joined: Mon, 5. May 08, 01:25
Whoring up the combat missions like a huge noob, lol.
I might be able to make another post later today - a *lot* has happened and it might be a bit difficult to remember the things I didn't write down. Its a lot of financial progress, however, as planned. I put that small fortune I had pre-story to use.
UPDATE: Not that anybody was reading this or anything (except for like, two people), but the save dun got corrupted, so let's just assume that a big giant black hole opened up and sucked in the entire X-Universe.
I might be able to make another post later today - a *lot* has happened and it might be a bit difficult to remember the things I didn't write down. Its a lot of financial progress, however, as planned. I put that small fortune I had pre-story to use.
UPDATE: Not that anybody was reading this or anything (except for like, two people), but the save dun got corrupted, so let's just assume that a big giant black hole opened up and sucked in the entire X-Universe.