Chapter 1: Genesis of Operation Ragnarok
Black Book Log:
The name is John Blackstone. I am a Terran Agent given letters of mark to go behind enemy lines to pirate military and civilian supply lines. The goal my my piracy according to my ATF leadership is to weaken the southerners expanding capabilities by forcing them to tie down assets protecting their trade-lanes instead of acquiring new territory.
The mission, code named Operation Ragnarök, is of a top secret nature and because of the serious risk of counter espionage from the Commonwealth Intelligence Agencies my ability to operate in the common wealth freely in severely hampered (see rules section). I will for all intensive purposes be operating in the dark under the guise of an Argon national and completely without support from my government, who have decided that they cannot risk openly supporting my operation either militarily nor financially.
Additionally because of the distrusting nature of the Terran Secret Service I must take great care not to improve race relations with any other race too much as this would likely cause the Terrans to assume I am no longer a reliable asset and label me KOS. If I do for some reason need to raise my relations with a race for a particuar goal the only way to do I imagine is by killing Xenon roboscum that randomly are moving through the particular races space. Fight missions for races cannot be done since this would obviously tick off my ATF handlers.
I am not sure what type of assets I will be provided but according to my Handler a Major P. D. Plinkton, I will be given a captured Commonwealth ship and outfitted accordingly. Why would anyone volunteer for this lovely mission you ask? No idea, I sure has hell didn't but those guys at the ATF Inteligence Service can be awfully persuasive when they put their minds to it. A choice between 15-20 hard labour in a Hull Plating Production Facility L Alpha in an outer Terran Unknown sector or a chance to kill Squidies and Lizard faces in the south is not really a choice. Better to go out strong and quick and if I get lucky I might just get strong enough to show those ATF suits a thing or two...
Mission starts at 0800 tomorrow morning when I am to report to Sector Heretics End.
Assets:
One Space Suit,
Box of matches
Repair laser thingie i never really got the hang of
1000 credits
Chapter 2: Shit Goes South
Arriving in Hanger B2 as instructed I catch a glimpse of a small M5 type craft surrounded by a group of technicians which I assume is part of the captured common wealth assets that have been delegated to Operation Ragnarök. By the look of it it is definitely of boron design a major disappointment as boron ships are generally inferiorly equipped for pirating as they, all with exception of the Scate, lack rear turrets for missile protection. Sadly that was not going to be the last of the disappointments of the day...
In a typically bureaucratic voice Major Plinkton informs me that I will be given command directly of a Boron M5 Octopus Explorer Variant and only an Boron M5 Octopus Explorer Variant. No M6 raiding ship, support vessels, fighter wings, nothing. The reason for throwing me to the wolves in this fashion is simple; no fancy accessories or large expenditures means no paper trails. At this news I'm getting the slightly awkward feeling that this might just be a little harder than I had originally anticipated. Blasting through Xenon Sectors to reach the main Pirating highways located beyond them is going to be substantially more difficult when everything, including a discarded toaster, can upon impact with my little 2 MJ shields, rip half my hull away.
For those of you unaware of the finer aspects of the Boron M5 Explorer Variant let me explain it's wonderful engineering qualities now:
1. While the Explorer Varients of the M5 (introduced in SRM) can be very quick with a max speed of 712 m/s in the case of the Octopus, this particular ship currently maxes out at 261 m/s well within the speed capabilities of the Xenon M which would swiftly bring plasma scorching death upon my rather pathetic looking vessel. Apparently getting one speed upgrade was upgrading enough for the ATF... Seriously its like the designed this to be hard!
2. Another major difference between the normal M5 and the Explorer Variant is the Laser Energy Reload Rate (LER Rate) which on the normal octopus is set at 20 MW. The explorer variants energy hungry extra sensors however have caused sever limitation to the LER rate limiting it to a debilitating 5 MW, the lowest of all explorer variants. This means that two standard IR lasers can be sustained for the impressive period of approximately 8 seconds. The result of my flashlight strength laser power generator is thus that shield suppression to facilitate motivating some souther scum to bail will be impossible on anything larger than an M5.
3. The one redeeming quality in this pile of shit is the fact that all explorer variants have Triplex Scanner leveled sensors already installed. As such good sensors normally are XL in size this might be the one thing that saves me from a plasma-ie death. Knowledge of big bad and angry Kha'ak task-forces ahead of me will let me better perform (to quote a wiser man than myself) the "run screaming like a little girl or RSLG manoeuvre".
So here I am now, heading south in a shittie Octopus; a ship so useless it could be bested in a dog fight by a small child in possession of a light source and magnifying glass...
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge" Containing:
1 x Singularity Time Extension,
2 x Impulse Ray Emitter,
2 x 1 Mj Sheilds
1 x Engine Tuning Upgrade curtsy of the ATF
Authors Note: No idea if this will ever get of the ground but at the very least I hope the start and rules can motivate people to play the game.
RULES:
1. Dead is Dead
2. No buying of ships - Ships must be acquired by piracy or scavenging (see below)
3. No buying of equipment other than from Pirate / Yaki
4. No selling of equipment other than to Pirate / Yaki and possibly Teladi at Ianamus Zura
5. Missions may only be done for Pirates and Yaki
6. Missions may not be ambush-able:
No asteroid scanning, race military personnel transport, non-smuggling good delieveries, or personnel transport mission that ends at a non-pirate facility.
7. Restrictions on Bailed ship acquisition to motivate pirating aquisitions at first but still facilitating getting enough fighters for capital ships at later stages if I survive:
Game created Abandoned ships may not be collected / will be destroyed
NCP Bailed ships can only be scavenged on sight untill I have claiming ability
NCP Bailed M5s may be recoverable once an M3 is acquired
NCP Bailed M4s may be recoverable once M3+ is acquired
NCP Bailed M3s may be recoverable once an TM is acquired
NCP Bailed TSs may be recoverable once an M3+ is acquired
NCP Bailed TS-SFs may be recoverable once 3 M3+ are acquired
All ships may be claimed to scavange parts from even if I dont meet the requirements above but ships cannot be kept or sold and will be destroyed on sight after taking the goods need (destroyed via scripts).
8. Stolen and Recovered Ships may be sold at Yaki and Teladi Shipyards
9. Trade is prohibited in all non-illegal wares. No sector or Universe Traders either.
10. Repair Laser only on personal ship and ship recovery mission target capped at 80% of total health.
M5 can be fully recovered to 80% cap level
M4 can only be recovered to 30% and not more than the 80% cap
M3 + TS + TS-SF can only be recovered to 10% and not more than the 80% cap
Eg: Personal M4 damaged to 35% in battle and can be recovered 30% points to 65%
Personal M3 gets damaged to 73 % but can only be recovered 7% to 80 as cap applies
11. Marines must be acquired as passengers and converted via scripts to Marines or bought from the Terrans
12. Marines may be trained with the Marine Manager to save time. However fight skill may not be trained higher than 1 star below the best marine I have on the to train them on the ship.
13. Factories can be bought but only placed in sectors owned by the player
14. No exploits in General may be used: For example since M5 Explorer variants have already installed Triplex Scanners with aprox. 1.5 milion these ships if stolen may never be sold as that would just be too easy way to get money.
Notable Script Related Restrictions:
1. Equipment Resizement from SRM applies so that Jumpdrive is now XL. This means only M6 and above can jump.
2. Triplex Scanner is also XL ware so can only be used by M6 and above. Note M5 explorers variant do however have Triplex installed.
3. True Relations from IR means that one cannot easily keep ones race relations stable.
Main Scripts and Mods Installed
1. Ship Rebalancement Mod: Rebalances all ships making ships classes more unique.
High Hull Increase to make different classes even more distinct
Weapons Dealers add-on
SSRP equipment rebalance: makes everything more expensive which is both good for loot selling but makes the start alot harder as engine tunings are extremely expensive. It also means that Jumpdrive cant be used on small ships ect.
SRM Jobs + EES - allows NCP's to use SRM
2. CMOD 4: Rebalances Weapons
Factory Scripts
Missile Rebalancement - makes missiles faster to catch ships
3. AWRM Adds more Weapons to the game giving more options and customizability
4. NCP Bailing - Makes NCP be able to bail as a result of NCP battles for more realism
5. Bonus Pack - Do not think it will use any of it but its here anyways
6. CBEAM for connivance and allowing me to acquire player passengers who can become player race marines
7. Marine Trainer Manager to save on training time and allow training on ships
8. Marine Transportation button - Allows marines to be transported with transportation device in front of a ship for boarding to counteract Autopilot stupidity
9. Turret off button and Gazz Improved Turrets - to help counteract the super fast new missiles
10. Improved Races - to make things just a little bit more interesting! Xenon, Yaki, and Kha'ak can claim sectors but are faced by Strong counter attacks from races. Player can also take over sectors. Might change these levels if its too easy.
==Start Information==
Start Used:
Terran Start for quick access to Terran Plot. No standard assets were kept - all assets designated in chapter 2 were scripted in.
[X3TC - DiD] Operation Ragnarök - Pirating from scratch
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NOValdemar
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[X3TC - DiD] Operation Ragnarök - Pirating from scratch
Last edited by NOValdemar on Fri, 27. May 11, 13:57, edited 1 time in total.
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NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 3: Baby-steps
Chapter 3: Baby-steps
Heading south from Heretics End I eventually reach Argon Space. All goes well untill I reach Omicron Lyrae, an argon core sector consisting of a verity of industrial factories with a few tech fabs thrown in for good measure. Upon entering the system 5 or so Capital Ships immediately turn red and decide to turn towards me. Apparently the fake credentials that the tech guys had been punching into my ship's computer were not as good as they were supposed to be. However all is not lost as it seems that though the argon show of force was impressive their complete lack of speed meant that i could easily out maneuver their feeble attempts to take me into custody. The only thing that could possibly have been a problem was an old HCP that was coming in from the west gate but as it had its hulll down to 50% it didnt stand a boron chance in the Sahara of surviving.
Leaving Omicron and the wounded HCP behind I head out into Nyana's hideout to have a look if what ever punched holes in the HCP's hull left something in its wake when it went up into flames. Sadly what ever had picked a fight with the HCP either hightailed it out of there as soon as its opponent got wounded or it was pulverized to such an extent that nothing was left behind. However scanning through traffic something catches my eye in the form of a Paranid Parcel Courier M5. This begs a lot a questions; first of all what happens if I go pirating a paranid in Argon Border Space? Will the boarder guards I see floating around the other end of the sector react? Don't really feel that I have the ability deal with an m4 and an m3 in my current state but getting a fast tuned m5 with a greater laser regeneration rate would be awfully convenient.
As the paranid inches closer I throw caution to the wind, line up my ship and wait for him to drive into my firing range. As he is substantially faster I must finish him off as quickly as possible. If I don't manage to either kill or force him to bail before he reacts and leaves my firing range he will easily be able to bank around and bring all his added fire power down on my glacially slow Octopus.
Its over so quickly I barely knew what happened. within seconds of entering my firing range i spray bullets strait ahead and into his ship. Even with the few missed bullets I still manage to strip his shields completely and do 20% hull damage before my energy storage units are empty and I have to rely solely on the amount of energy my ships already strained generators can produce.
With his ship loosing hull quickly the Paranid ship's speed drops and I am able to maintain a position on his tail. A few angry words over the comm system and as soon as we pass the 50% hull mark he starts to realize that there is only one way he can escape with his life. My first bailed ship is a Pegasus with 48% health and the best part is the Argon Customs officers are so busy dealing with some interloping pirate M4 that they completely have ignored my little splash into piracy at the doorstep of their core sector.
EVAing over I am slightly disappointed as my rather brazen attack had left none of what must have been 15 Engine tunings intact and the ship now, even if I was going to spend the time repairing it as my personal ship, could only do a ridiculously useless 141 ms. No way I am going to reduce my speed so substantially when that, along with my triplex scanner, are the only things keeping my alive at the moment. Plus with my limited weapon capabilities right now I would probably only be able to annoy anything a little longer in the Pegasus than in the Octopus without the ability to RSLG out of there.
Heading back into Omicron Lyrae I decide to sell the ship to the argon's at their shipyard so while my Pegasus slowly moves towards the shipyard I play chase the fishy with the big bad Guardian M6 and M1 all over the sector. On entering the shipyard I see lots of signs about new and improved anti-piracy laws that allow the Commonwealth races to collectively place the sellers of stolen ships on a 'persona non grata' registry disqualifying them from trading at all race shipyards indefinitely. Not to worry though since the wonderful ATF have provided me with a great little doohickey that should may all my claimed ships appear just as innocent as a new born gonor. The sale of the ship as 'slightly used' despite the 52% missing hull to some idiot living in Argon Prime nets me a cool over 200,000 Cr and I'm well in the black.
Now Im going to high tail it out of here quick as possible. By the time the idiot in Argon Prime gets to have a second look at the duck tape patch job I did on the starboard necelle I will be approaching Teladi space west of Nyana's Hideout. Once there I hope to either aquire a stronger ship or find away to upgrade my ship speed in preparation for a quick Xenon Blockade run. No biggie....
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
234,372 Credits
Heading south from Heretics End I eventually reach Argon Space. All goes well untill I reach Omicron Lyrae, an argon core sector consisting of a verity of industrial factories with a few tech fabs thrown in for good measure. Upon entering the system 5 or so Capital Ships immediately turn red and decide to turn towards me. Apparently the fake credentials that the tech guys had been punching into my ship's computer were not as good as they were supposed to be. However all is not lost as it seems that though the argon show of force was impressive their complete lack of speed meant that i could easily out maneuver their feeble attempts to take me into custody. The only thing that could possibly have been a problem was an old HCP that was coming in from the west gate but as it had its hulll down to 50% it didnt stand a boron chance in the Sahara of surviving.
Leaving Omicron and the wounded HCP behind I head out into Nyana's hideout to have a look if what ever punched holes in the HCP's hull left something in its wake when it went up into flames. Sadly what ever had picked a fight with the HCP either hightailed it out of there as soon as its opponent got wounded or it was pulverized to such an extent that nothing was left behind. However scanning through traffic something catches my eye in the form of a Paranid Parcel Courier M5. This begs a lot a questions; first of all what happens if I go pirating a paranid in Argon Border Space? Will the boarder guards I see floating around the other end of the sector react? Don't really feel that I have the ability deal with an m4 and an m3 in my current state but getting a fast tuned m5 with a greater laser regeneration rate would be awfully convenient.
As the paranid inches closer I throw caution to the wind, line up my ship and wait for him to drive into my firing range. As he is substantially faster I must finish him off as quickly as possible. If I don't manage to either kill or force him to bail before he reacts and leaves my firing range he will easily be able to bank around and bring all his added fire power down on my glacially slow Octopus.
Its over so quickly I barely knew what happened. within seconds of entering my firing range i spray bullets strait ahead and into his ship. Even with the few missed bullets I still manage to strip his shields completely and do 20% hull damage before my energy storage units are empty and I have to rely solely on the amount of energy my ships already strained generators can produce.
With his ship loosing hull quickly the Paranid ship's speed drops and I am able to maintain a position on his tail. A few angry words over the comm system and as soon as we pass the 50% hull mark he starts to realize that there is only one way he can escape with his life. My first bailed ship is a Pegasus with 48% health and the best part is the Argon Customs officers are so busy dealing with some interloping pirate M4 that they completely have ignored my little splash into piracy at the doorstep of their core sector.
EVAing over I am slightly disappointed as my rather brazen attack had left none of what must have been 15 Engine tunings intact and the ship now, even if I was going to spend the time repairing it as my personal ship, could only do a ridiculously useless 141 ms. No way I am going to reduce my speed so substantially when that, along with my triplex scanner, are the only things keeping my alive at the moment. Plus with my limited weapon capabilities right now I would probably only be able to annoy anything a little longer in the Pegasus than in the Octopus without the ability to RSLG out of there.
Heading back into Omicron Lyrae I decide to sell the ship to the argon's at their shipyard so while my Pegasus slowly moves towards the shipyard I play chase the fishy with the big bad Guardian M6 and M1 all over the sector. On entering the shipyard I see lots of signs about new and improved anti-piracy laws that allow the Commonwealth races to collectively place the sellers of stolen ships on a 'persona non grata' registry disqualifying them from trading at all race shipyards indefinitely. Not to worry though since the wonderful ATF have provided me with a great little doohickey that should may all my claimed ships appear just as innocent as a new born gonor. The sale of the ship as 'slightly used' despite the 52% missing hull to some idiot living in Argon Prime nets me a cool over 200,000 Cr and I'm well in the black.
Now Im going to high tail it out of here quick as possible. By the time the idiot in Argon Prime gets to have a second look at the duck tape patch job I did on the starboard necelle I will be approaching Teladi space west of Nyana's Hideout. Once there I hope to either aquire a stronger ship or find away to upgrade my ship speed in preparation for a quick Xenon Blockade run. No biggie....
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
234,372 Credits
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NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Pixel Error: Input new Px domain value
Chapter 4: Pixel Error: Input new Px domain value
Moving on into Teladi Space I find that there is a lovely welcoming committee in the form of a Xenon Task force consisting of 3 PX traveling in the general direction of Argon Space. Thinking that caution was the better part of valor, I take the long scenic route north around the asteroid field to avoid the Xenon.
My current goal is to reach the relative safety of pirate space where hopefully I can upgrade my ship to an military strength M5 or possibly even an under-shielded M4. The problem is that I have to my knowledge two possible routs to make it to pirate space, neither of which is very appealing. One way is north through Split space, the other is south via relatively safe Teladi space. Considering how fidgety my ATF overlords are on a good day, I cant see them being very happy about their newest intelligence asset deciding to take the scenic tour through the territory of cold war enemy numero uno. The problem with the Teladi route however is that in order to make it to safe Teladi space, I must first transverse, what in light of the 3 PX task force heading up my arse, is a very well guarded Xenon blockade sector.
By this point it has become rather clear to me that the PX task-force appears to have given up their main plan of wrecking havok in Argon space and instead feel that chasing and wrecking havoc on me is just as valid a pass-time. Although I'm not in any direct harm from the PXs as their speed is only 180 ms compared to my 260ms, I do feel that if I am going to stand a chance at passing the Xenon gauntlet I must increase my speed. The only place that I am likely to be able to do that is the Teladi Trading Station that is now conveniently being attacked by one of the PXs while the other two move in a pincer like movement towards me. Great...
Turning around in an attempt to tempt the last PX into battle as-well I cut too sharp of a turn and come within an inch of firing range of the most westerly of the Px's. 2.78 km is definitely close enough for my taste. But it all goes well and I spend the next 5 or so minuets taking the PX's on my very own Scale Plate Green Tour. It would be less stressful if it wasn't for the fact that Scale Plate Green is absolutely littered with pesky micro-asteroids, any of which could take half of my health off, reducing my speed to sub PX levels and thereby leaving me to find solace and inner peace in a new existence as an organic frozen blob.
As soon as I get well enough away from the Xenon I bank around and head strait for the Trading Station, and after a failed auto dock attempt, during which my ship slowed me down to such an extent that one of the PX's got within striking distance of myself. I managed bank around again and manually dock myself in the relevant safety of a station under attack.
Unsurprisingly the Teladi at the station were split over whether my presence on the station was a good or bad thing. It seems that my dodging and weaving around the micro asteroids had been the subject of a station wide betting pool; the subject being my survival. With 1: 6 odds, my survival had made a visiting Teladi big-wig from Ianamus Zura very wealth, so much so that he upon meeting he began to warn me of how my argon friends had in Omicron had realized my ship was stolen and decided as a result to place me on the No-Buy list for all common wealth shipyards.
This poses a slight problem as I cannot upgrade or sell anything to anyone anymore. However, Yohulis Gustiosanis Wegoras VI, ever the business man, agrees to use his contacts in Ianamus Zura shipyard to allow me to still sell any acquired ships for a small facilitation fee of course. In addition as the Teladi databases have yet to register me on the no by list Gusto, as my Teladi business partner will from now be known, allowed me to spend all my Pegasus money on 8 engine tuning upgrades which once finished would grant me a top speed of a whooping 451ms. Its good, and it has to be as this is the last time I will be able to upgrade anything untill I find a Pirate friendly port.
Exiting the station, I immediately regret not having a look out the window prior to launch. As soon as the docks open, I am met to my horror with the sight of a rapidly approaching PX 150 meters away spraying what looks as Ion Shard Railgun beams towards the station and incidentally me.
Banking hard to starboard I hit the accelerator and am pleased to find that whallomp! this thing is fast. 5 seconds later I am over a 2 km away and have time to notice that while I was finding out that the ATF technical teams are really monkeys in overalls and their Doohickeys for careless and discreet pirating as useful as spaceflies, the PXs were having a bit of problems of their own. It seems like the Teladi navy decided to get off their asses and do something about the Xenon incursion. After a fire fight the Teladi fighters finally down the last PX, leaving me with a nice debris field and 2 abandoned ships to sift through for loot.
To my disappointment it seems that the Commonwealth Races have added new piracy protection programs which activate on bails after a certain time so it seems that at least for now it is impossible for me to claim abandoned NCP dropped ships for my own. Instead I take what I can from each ship then activate the self destruct sequence so that their original owners cannot collect them. All this nets me 3 x 5 Mj shields, An Enhanced PAC, a Prototype IRE, and most importantly a Docking Computer and Fight Command Software Mk I & II. Though not all of these items are of any direct use in my Octopus I was pleased and rather surprised that I could store them for later use as it appears that Octopus Explorer actually has M class freight capabilities. Who would have known there is one good aspect of the Octopus Explorer.
Time to dock at the Trading Station for a quick meal and a good nights sleep. Tomorrow starts the Xenon Blockade Run.
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge" with 9 engine tunings
17,208 Credits
Moving on into Teladi Space I find that there is a lovely welcoming committee in the form of a Xenon Task force consisting of 3 PX traveling in the general direction of Argon Space. Thinking that caution was the better part of valor, I take the long scenic route north around the asteroid field to avoid the Xenon.
My current goal is to reach the relative safety of pirate space where hopefully I can upgrade my ship to an military strength M5 or possibly even an under-shielded M4. The problem is that I have to my knowledge two possible routs to make it to pirate space, neither of which is very appealing. One way is north through Split space, the other is south via relatively safe Teladi space. Considering how fidgety my ATF overlords are on a good day, I cant see them being very happy about their newest intelligence asset deciding to take the scenic tour through the territory of cold war enemy numero uno. The problem with the Teladi route however is that in order to make it to safe Teladi space, I must first transverse, what in light of the 3 PX task force heading up my arse, is a very well guarded Xenon blockade sector.
By this point it has become rather clear to me that the PX task-force appears to have given up their main plan of wrecking havok in Argon space and instead feel that chasing and wrecking havoc on me is just as valid a pass-time. Although I'm not in any direct harm from the PXs as their speed is only 180 ms compared to my 260ms, I do feel that if I am going to stand a chance at passing the Xenon gauntlet I must increase my speed. The only place that I am likely to be able to do that is the Teladi Trading Station that is now conveniently being attacked by one of the PXs while the other two move in a pincer like movement towards me. Great...
Turning around in an attempt to tempt the last PX into battle as-well I cut too sharp of a turn and come within an inch of firing range of the most westerly of the Px's. 2.78 km is definitely close enough for my taste. But it all goes well and I spend the next 5 or so minuets taking the PX's on my very own Scale Plate Green Tour. It would be less stressful if it wasn't for the fact that Scale Plate Green is absolutely littered with pesky micro-asteroids, any of which could take half of my health off, reducing my speed to sub PX levels and thereby leaving me to find solace and inner peace in a new existence as an organic frozen blob.
As soon as I get well enough away from the Xenon I bank around and head strait for the Trading Station, and after a failed auto dock attempt, during which my ship slowed me down to such an extent that one of the PX's got within striking distance of myself. I managed bank around again and manually dock myself in the relevant safety of a station under attack.
Unsurprisingly the Teladi at the station were split over whether my presence on the station was a good or bad thing. It seems that my dodging and weaving around the micro asteroids had been the subject of a station wide betting pool; the subject being my survival. With 1: 6 odds, my survival had made a visiting Teladi big-wig from Ianamus Zura very wealth, so much so that he upon meeting he began to warn me of how my argon friends had in Omicron had realized my ship was stolen and decided as a result to place me on the No-Buy list for all common wealth shipyards.
This poses a slight problem as I cannot upgrade or sell anything to anyone anymore. However, Yohulis Gustiosanis Wegoras VI, ever the business man, agrees to use his contacts in Ianamus Zura shipyard to allow me to still sell any acquired ships for a small facilitation fee of course. In addition as the Teladi databases have yet to register me on the no by list Gusto, as my Teladi business partner will from now be known, allowed me to spend all my Pegasus money on 8 engine tuning upgrades which once finished would grant me a top speed of a whooping 451ms. Its good, and it has to be as this is the last time I will be able to upgrade anything untill I find a Pirate friendly port.
Exiting the station, I immediately regret not having a look out the window prior to launch. As soon as the docks open, I am met to my horror with the sight of a rapidly approaching PX 150 meters away spraying what looks as Ion Shard Railgun beams towards the station and incidentally me.
Banking hard to starboard I hit the accelerator and am pleased to find that whallomp! this thing is fast. 5 seconds later I am over a 2 km away and have time to notice that while I was finding out that the ATF technical teams are really monkeys in overalls and their Doohickeys for careless and discreet pirating as useful as spaceflies, the PXs were having a bit of problems of their own. It seems like the Teladi navy decided to get off their asses and do something about the Xenon incursion. After a fire fight the Teladi fighters finally down the last PX, leaving me with a nice debris field and 2 abandoned ships to sift through for loot.
To my disappointment it seems that the Commonwealth Races have added new piracy protection programs which activate on bails after a certain time so it seems that at least for now it is impossible for me to claim abandoned NCP dropped ships for my own. Instead I take what I can from each ship then activate the self destruct sequence so that their original owners cannot collect them. All this nets me 3 x 5 Mj shields, An Enhanced PAC, a Prototype IRE, and most importantly a Docking Computer and Fight Command Software Mk I & II. Though not all of these items are of any direct use in my Octopus I was pleased and rather surprised that I could store them for later use as it appears that Octopus Explorer actually has M class freight capabilities. Who would have known there is one good aspect of the Octopus Explorer.
Time to dock at the Trading Station for a quick meal and a good nights sleep. Tomorrow starts the Xenon Blockade Run.
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge" with 9 engine tunings
17,208 Credits
-
NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 5: Operation: Dodge the Calculator
Chapter 5: Operation: Dodge the Calculator
With a great deal of nervousness and being very aware of the paper thin hull my little octopus has, I hit the accelerator and move into Xenon Sector 347. As this might be the very quick end of this blog I am writing each paragraph directly as the action happens to give any untimely death it's appropriate level of detail.
Directly upon entry I am met by a stream of fighters coming in a line from the western gate and more worryingly a P within 1.5 km from me. After banking left and hitting the accellerator I am happy to find that the P is for all intensive purposes not a threat as it has 4% hull remaining and therefore a top speed of 35 ms; finally things are going my way.
Taking the long rout through the center of the sector to avoid the main trade lane where a stream of buzzing Xenon fighters and a couple of Qs are teaching reckless traders why one doesn't go blockade running in slow and under-shielded SFs.
A few seconds after passing the half way line I see a A mamba Vangaurd which had bailed near the Xenon Q but it is impossible to get to and safely enough to perform a EVA walk to claim any ships goodies. Shame really... Say what you want about the split but they do know how to make a fast fighter, also a shame they didn't realize that they need a rear turret.
Just then my council flashes incoming fighters and I'm forced to stop daydreaming. Its not really horrible news merely I've noticed a Xenon Recon Drone which has snuck up on me from the north and was now getting really quite close. I'm not sure if these are armed but if it gets much closer I will have to engage it just to be sure.
The drone heads towards its station home base however so, with the exception of having to successfully circumnavigated a menacing Xenon Q who was currently blasting holes into a Teladi Meat Transporter, I am left with a completely clear path to the Western Gate, .
Exiting Xenon 34, and transversing Eighteen Billion is uneventful. Nothing but rocks and a few stations and thankfully no Xenon. Its very much the same story when I head south into Ianamus Zura although the military in sectors, makes me wonder if I really can rely on Gusto's contacts to let me see my future captured loot...
On a rumor I head into New Income in order to look for a pirate base somewhere in the east of the sector. If its friendly I will be able to find a port and hopefully offload some of the goodies I found in Scale Plate Green. If not I need to find a way to hack it and in order to do that I nee money.
Finding a friendly station doesn't look promising as by the time I reach the Teladi Trading Station I can see a hostile Pirate Privateering Hydra MKI and a group of fighters heading towards the center of the sector. Annoyingly enough the Hydras fighters have the capacity to go of speeds upto 500 when maxed out so any sudden movement and I need to get out of here quickly. In the long run they can still catch me, so i got to be careful and keep my distance.
The pirate base is unsurprisingly hostile to me. Therefore the next step in my road to piracy is to person with hacking credentials to rectify my slight pirate problems, but first of all, I need to get some more mula and that means more piracy.
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge" with 9 engine tunings
17,208 Credits
With a great deal of nervousness and being very aware of the paper thin hull my little octopus has, I hit the accelerator and move into Xenon Sector 347. As this might be the very quick end of this blog I am writing each paragraph directly as the action happens to give any untimely death it's appropriate level of detail.
Directly upon entry I am met by a stream of fighters coming in a line from the western gate and more worryingly a P within 1.5 km from me. After banking left and hitting the accellerator I am happy to find that the P is for all intensive purposes not a threat as it has 4% hull remaining and therefore a top speed of 35 ms; finally things are going my way.
Taking the long rout through the center of the sector to avoid the main trade lane where a stream of buzzing Xenon fighters and a couple of Qs are teaching reckless traders why one doesn't go blockade running in slow and under-shielded SFs.
A few seconds after passing the half way line I see a A mamba Vangaurd which had bailed near the Xenon Q but it is impossible to get to and safely enough to perform a EVA walk to claim any ships goodies. Shame really... Say what you want about the split but they do know how to make a fast fighter, also a shame they didn't realize that they need a rear turret.
Just then my council flashes incoming fighters and I'm forced to stop daydreaming. Its not really horrible news merely I've noticed a Xenon Recon Drone which has snuck up on me from the north and was now getting really quite close. I'm not sure if these are armed but if it gets much closer I will have to engage it just to be sure.
The drone heads towards its station home base however so, with the exception of having to successfully circumnavigated a menacing Xenon Q who was currently blasting holes into a Teladi Meat Transporter, I am left with a completely clear path to the Western Gate, .
Exiting Xenon 34, and transversing Eighteen Billion is uneventful. Nothing but rocks and a few stations and thankfully no Xenon. Its very much the same story when I head south into Ianamus Zura although the military in sectors, makes me wonder if I really can rely on Gusto's contacts to let me see my future captured loot...
On a rumor I head into New Income in order to look for a pirate base somewhere in the east of the sector. If its friendly I will be able to find a port and hopefully offload some of the goodies I found in Scale Plate Green. If not I need to find a way to hack it and in order to do that I nee money.
Finding a friendly station doesn't look promising as by the time I reach the Teladi Trading Station I can see a hostile Pirate Privateering Hydra MKI and a group of fighters heading towards the center of the sector. Annoyingly enough the Hydras fighters have the capacity to go of speeds upto 500 when maxed out so any sudden movement and I need to get out of here quickly. In the long run they can still catch me, so i got to be careful and keep my distance.
The pirate base is unsurprisingly hostile to me. Therefore the next step in my road to piracy is to person with hacking credentials to rectify my slight pirate problems, but first of all, I need to get some more mula and that means more piracy.
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge" with 9 engine tunings
17,208 Credits
-
NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 6: Octopus E v Kestral Death Squad
Chapter 6: Octopus E v Kestral Death Squad
Heading into LooManckStrat's Legacy the pirates are also hostile here. However they have the work cut out for them as I see a rather massive Boron task force consisting of a Ray and a Coelcanth who are attacking a Pirate Syndicate Gannet and its M6 escorts, 15 or so km off to port. With a lot of pirates scattered pretty much everywhere in sector I gain some altitude over the elliptic and try to stay alert.
Moving south though Mi Ton's Refuge I am met with a blue red mixture of friendly hostile pirates. The main action in the sector is a Pirate Syndicate Galleon and Pirate Syndicate Pteranodon (A new m2 ship I have not seen before) who are blasting a Argon Military Cerberus (M7) with IBL rounds. Though the Cerberus has alot of speed and is generally a good ship in this particular part of Mi Ton's it is hampered by asteroids to such an extent that the stationary Pteranodon can get in round after round without any serious retaliation from the Cerberus
I see a paranid M4 I would love to go for but I really dont think it is possible to suppress the shields and take out enough hull before my weak storage units run out. Heading into Desecrated Skies remains uneventful with the exception of having to dodge some pirate capital ships that decide to chase me every now and then. I also find a few dragonfly and wasp missiles lying about. I decide to drop out one of my shields to pick them up just in case.
Im getting tired of running from everything everywhere, which is why I think I was getting foolhardy at the point i got about mid sector. Looking at my gravid I see that a single Pirate Kestrel who had been escort to some sort of capital ship off to the north had been dispatched with intent to show me that mocking Pirate capital ships might not be the best of hobby choices. Taking over a Pirate Kestrel to use as a pirating ship would be just gravy on my missile acquisition so instead of doing the prudent thing and turning around I decide to accept the engagement. Big mistake....
Though I am able to dodge his primary wave of IR, I attempt to swing around and land on his six. This however is met by the horrible realization that the Kestrel mounts a rear turret which at this point is blobbing white PAC streams of death towards my paper thin hull.
Dodging most of the fire I only take 7% damage for my mistake. The next few minutes I spend positioning myself 60 or so degrees off his tangent so as to negate his turret field using some quick math to Pythagorize out what combination of thruster v forward speed is necessary to keep my guns firing on his very nimble ship. The Kestrel is definitely just on the boarder of what I can suppress since with its speed a lot of my IR beams are missing and If I get any closer I will not be able to dodge the PACs from the turret.
After a few turns up and down the sector, I'm am starting to have two problems. One the Pirate capital ship is starting to inch closer to us. The second is that I am not getting anywhere with suppressing the shields long enough to get any real damage done. Deciding to be daring I move closer ripping a few more % hull out of the ship.
Suddenly and without warning the Kestrel twirls around and bares sweet PAC retribution down on me. Taking 43% hull damage my speed is now severely hampered, so much so that there is no way I could keep up with the already quicker Kestrel.
This is now starting too look very dangerous. Its either the Kestrel or me at this point. Locking on I fire my Dragonfly and wasp missiles while using trusters to distract the turret. By firing the Wasps at close range the turret has not the chance to hit the tight incoming stream of angry missiles. The Kestrel goes down and I turn towards the north.
Its very clear I cannot pirate with impunity in the pirate sectors... If it wasn't for the missiles I would have been forced to attempt a retreat from a faster Kestrel. I need to find a safer area to hunt in and this is clearly not it! Giving my Octopus a quick patch job to 80% hull I limp back to Teladi space via the relatively safer Gunne's Crusade route.
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
17,208 Credits
1 x Considerably Downsized Ego
Edit: wrote m7 instead of m2 for the Pteranodon's class
Heading into LooManckStrat's Legacy the pirates are also hostile here. However they have the work cut out for them as I see a rather massive Boron task force consisting of a Ray and a Coelcanth who are attacking a Pirate Syndicate Gannet and its M6 escorts, 15 or so km off to port. With a lot of pirates scattered pretty much everywhere in sector I gain some altitude over the elliptic and try to stay alert.
Moving south though Mi Ton's Refuge I am met with a blue red mixture of friendly hostile pirates. The main action in the sector is a Pirate Syndicate Galleon and Pirate Syndicate Pteranodon (A new m2 ship I have not seen before) who are blasting a Argon Military Cerberus (M7) with IBL rounds. Though the Cerberus has alot of speed and is generally a good ship in this particular part of Mi Ton's it is hampered by asteroids to such an extent that the stationary Pteranodon can get in round after round without any serious retaliation from the Cerberus
I see a paranid M4 I would love to go for but I really dont think it is possible to suppress the shields and take out enough hull before my weak storage units run out. Heading into Desecrated Skies remains uneventful with the exception of having to dodge some pirate capital ships that decide to chase me every now and then. I also find a few dragonfly and wasp missiles lying about. I decide to drop out one of my shields to pick them up just in case.
Im getting tired of running from everything everywhere, which is why I think I was getting foolhardy at the point i got about mid sector. Looking at my gravid I see that a single Pirate Kestrel who had been escort to some sort of capital ship off to the north had been dispatched with intent to show me that mocking Pirate capital ships might not be the best of hobby choices. Taking over a Pirate Kestrel to use as a pirating ship would be just gravy on my missile acquisition so instead of doing the prudent thing and turning around I decide to accept the engagement. Big mistake....
Though I am able to dodge his primary wave of IR, I attempt to swing around and land on his six. This however is met by the horrible realization that the Kestrel mounts a rear turret which at this point is blobbing white PAC streams of death towards my paper thin hull.
Dodging most of the fire I only take 7% damage for my mistake. The next few minutes I spend positioning myself 60 or so degrees off his tangent so as to negate his turret field using some quick math to Pythagorize out what combination of thruster v forward speed is necessary to keep my guns firing on his very nimble ship. The Kestrel is definitely just on the boarder of what I can suppress since with its speed a lot of my IR beams are missing and If I get any closer I will not be able to dodge the PACs from the turret.
After a few turns up and down the sector, I'm am starting to have two problems. One the Pirate capital ship is starting to inch closer to us. The second is that I am not getting anywhere with suppressing the shields long enough to get any real damage done. Deciding to be daring I move closer ripping a few more % hull out of the ship.
Suddenly and without warning the Kestrel twirls around and bares sweet PAC retribution down on me. Taking 43% hull damage my speed is now severely hampered, so much so that there is no way I could keep up with the already quicker Kestrel.
This is now starting too look very dangerous. Its either the Kestrel or me at this point. Locking on I fire my Dragonfly and wasp missiles while using trusters to distract the turret. By firing the Wasps at close range the turret has not the chance to hit the tight incoming stream of angry missiles. The Kestrel goes down and I turn towards the north.
Its very clear I cannot pirate with impunity in the pirate sectors... If it wasn't for the missiles I would have been forced to attempt a retreat from a faster Kestrel. I need to find a safer area to hunt in and this is clearly not it! Giving my Octopus a quick patch job to 80% hull I limp back to Teladi space via the relatively safer Gunne's Crusade route.
Assets:
1x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
17,208 Credits
1 x Considerably Downsized Ego
Edit: wrote m7 instead of m2 for the Pteranodon's class
Last edited by NOValdemar on Thu, 26. May 11, 23:34, edited 1 time in total.
-
NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 7: Title 11 - Time for some asset Liquidation
From the last chapter it is ardently clear that I cannot pirate in the rough and tumble Pirate sectors. Instead I will attempt to find out exactly how miffed the local Teladi police force would be about me picking of the odd m5 courier running through their boarder space. I figure so long as there is no police or boarder control within my scanner range there is no way they could notice that one measly little delivery boy goes missing.
Entering New Income I see that the area is clear of Teladi police authorities and therefore engage a Boron Courier flying a Harrier M5. It is a success as he bails at 23% health giving over a nice trade extension software in the process. At the shipyard I realize I do not have the funds to repair the ship nor any local pirate shipyard that would be friendly enough to let me upgrade the speed. The damaged craft nets me a cool 288,352 Cr however so when any hack mission does pop up I will be able to jump on it. Back in New Income I stop a Teladi Police Harrier in the area so I leave just so as to not mess with my newly acquired notoriety level of Profit Opportunity.
In Home of Perpetuity I engage an Argon Courior and manage to get him to bail at 20% hull. My strategy for dealign with M5s is now pretty much established. First I find a ship without rear turrets who's speed is either slower than mine or is heading directly for me. I line myself up on his tail if i am faster than him about 700 m away and engage. If he is faster I strip his sheilds and half his hull before slamming in the accelerator passing him and then turn around and get on his six and matching speed. By doing this the un-turreted M5s become easy pray as they can never turn quickly enough to get in a shot.
I might actually keep the Discoverer. Its a good ship but needs alot of repair. Depending on the bill I may fix her up, so send her back to Ianamus Zura Shipyard. Also, I really though that the Teladi Police would make more of a fuss. So far I had assumed you could do piracy in border sectors only so long as there were not any Police or customs ships close by but apparently a Teladi Police Buzzard was within 10 km of me and did not even think to interfere. Seems like the Teladi are the only race south of the border Ive found who arnt stigglers for the rules, especially when there is profit to be made.
Heading south into Pirate space I decide to have a go at an under-sheilded Split High Tech Trader M4. However he couldnt be persuaded to bail and goes up in flames of IRE. Splits are really getting really annoyed with me now as I getting towards the lower levels of Family Outcast, a fact not improved by a slight run in with a now destroyed Split M5 down in acquisitions repository. However by returning to teladi space I see that the local police force have now decided to turned red to me and I have to get on the radio and explain the whole misunderstanding. They were probably just looking for a bribe.
This however is not the end of the chapter because on a whim I decide to head down to Acquisitions Repository since it is mostly devoid of pirates apart from few by the Pirate Base way off the port. This was probably the best thing I have done all day as I engage a P Maximus Pride Freight Transporter M4. Though attacking him was truely at the maximum level of my abilities, I was able to suppress his sheilds and do about 8% damage before my banks were empty and I had to wait for a complete reload before shooting again. So by staying tight on his six and fighting in bursts, I was able to continually nibble into his hull.
Widdling him down i get him to bail at 48% health. Not a cost free bail as I did slightly come out of position at one point and get hit by a few PACs bringing my hull down to 73% but all in all no problems just took some time. Dumping out my 2 x 5mj shields and assorted PAC, and IRE I have so far collected I send my M5 home while i inspect my newest acquisition.
The Paranid Pericles is a decent medium shielded M4, slightly faster than its Argon Buster Equivalent. As I will need some considerable funds to upgrade my M4 to working order I decide to sell the Discoverer I picked up earlier. I was able repair some of the damage done to my new personal M4 class ship with my rather inefficient repair laser. With a 20% increase in hull, I direct my ship, still traveling at a glacial speed of 84ms, to head for the north gate and home.
Beep Beep Beep! Warning Incoming missile... Betty's computer voice just always seems to have a habit of spoiling my day.
Assets:
1 x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge" at 73% hull
1 x Percles 48% hull
673,469 Cr
From the last chapter it is ardently clear that I cannot pirate in the rough and tumble Pirate sectors. Instead I will attempt to find out exactly how miffed the local Teladi police force would be about me picking of the odd m5 courier running through their boarder space. I figure so long as there is no police or boarder control within my scanner range there is no way they could notice that one measly little delivery boy goes missing.
Entering New Income I see that the area is clear of Teladi police authorities and therefore engage a Boron Courier flying a Harrier M5. It is a success as he bails at 23% health giving over a nice trade extension software in the process. At the shipyard I realize I do not have the funds to repair the ship nor any local pirate shipyard that would be friendly enough to let me upgrade the speed. The damaged craft nets me a cool 288,352 Cr however so when any hack mission does pop up I will be able to jump on it. Back in New Income I stop a Teladi Police Harrier in the area so I leave just so as to not mess with my newly acquired notoriety level of Profit Opportunity.
In Home of Perpetuity I engage an Argon Courior and manage to get him to bail at 20% hull. My strategy for dealign with M5s is now pretty much established. First I find a ship without rear turrets who's speed is either slower than mine or is heading directly for me. I line myself up on his tail if i am faster than him about 700 m away and engage. If he is faster I strip his sheilds and half his hull before slamming in the accelerator passing him and then turn around and get on his six and matching speed. By doing this the un-turreted M5s become easy pray as they can never turn quickly enough to get in a shot.
I might actually keep the Discoverer. Its a good ship but needs alot of repair. Depending on the bill I may fix her up, so send her back to Ianamus Zura Shipyard. Also, I really though that the Teladi Police would make more of a fuss. So far I had assumed you could do piracy in border sectors only so long as there were not any Police or customs ships close by but apparently a Teladi Police Buzzard was within 10 km of me and did not even think to interfere. Seems like the Teladi are the only race south of the border Ive found who arnt stigglers for the rules, especially when there is profit to be made.
Heading south into Pirate space I decide to have a go at an under-sheilded Split High Tech Trader M4. However he couldnt be persuaded to bail and goes up in flames of IRE. Splits are really getting really annoyed with me now as I getting towards the lower levels of Family Outcast, a fact not improved by a slight run in with a now destroyed Split M5 down in acquisitions repository. However by returning to teladi space I see that the local police force have now decided to turned red to me and I have to get on the radio and explain the whole misunderstanding. They were probably just looking for a bribe.
This however is not the end of the chapter because on a whim I decide to head down to Acquisitions Repository since it is mostly devoid of pirates apart from few by the Pirate Base way off the port. This was probably the best thing I have done all day as I engage a P Maximus Pride Freight Transporter M4. Though attacking him was truely at the maximum level of my abilities, I was able to suppress his sheilds and do about 8% damage before my banks were empty and I had to wait for a complete reload before shooting again. So by staying tight on his six and fighting in bursts, I was able to continually nibble into his hull.
Widdling him down i get him to bail at 48% health. Not a cost free bail as I did slightly come out of position at one point and get hit by a few PACs bringing my hull down to 73% but all in all no problems just took some time. Dumping out my 2 x 5mj shields and assorted PAC, and IRE I have so far collected I send my M5 home while i inspect my newest acquisition.
The Paranid Pericles is a decent medium shielded M4, slightly faster than its Argon Buster Equivalent. As I will need some considerable funds to upgrade my M4 to working order I decide to sell the Discoverer I picked up earlier. I was able repair some of the damage done to my new personal M4 class ship with my rather inefficient repair laser. With a 20% increase in hull, I direct my ship, still traveling at a glacial speed of 84ms, to head for the north gate and home.
Beep Beep Beep! Warning Incoming missile... Betty's computer voice just always seems to have a habit of spoiling my day.
Assets:
1 x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge" at 73% hull
1 x Percles 48% hull
673,469 Cr
-
NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 8: A spanner in my plan...
Missile Incoming? Where? My sensors are so bad I can't see where the damn firing ship could be. The missile must be still out of range but if its a fast one it won't be for long. A few seconds later I spot what looks like a Pirate Capital coming up from below my position.
It appears to have fired two Firestorm Torpedos, both coming at me at 250 ms. This means I have to turn and shoot it down as I do not have a turret that could do the job for me. Mind you its tedious but it could have been a lot worse given that he could have chuck any number of fast and deadly swarm missiles my way.
With both missiles down I can now see my attacker is, as suspected, a Pirate Titan painted red to scare the living crap out of things. However as its moving at 63 ms it cant really touch me. I may be slow but I'm not that slow.
More missiles incoming - Another firestorm and a few tempists; all dangerous but not hard to stop. I guess the Titan thinks that since two failed a few more would make such a big difference. I mean seriously what is the point of harassing and chasing one little m4 with your big capital ship. There must be loads of stations to extort, police to fry, and loot to be collected, yet they still decide to hit the small tiny upstart for shits and giggles.
Back in Ianamus Zura I repair my new M4 which I've named "Grey Makrill", a boring name for a pretty boring ship, right now atleast. Total cost was 224032 Cr leaving me with 449185 Cr for any possible hacking job that may arise. Ianamus Zura seems to have been the scene of a massive battle just a few min before I dropped in since its littered with a host of good weapons and missiles. Hornets, Hammerheads, and Firestorm torpedos everywhere, only problem is that they are all larger than M size so I cant collect them.
I spend the rest of the day zooming around the universe in my Octopus in search of somewhere that will let me upgrade my M4 to operational speed. Right now with just over 100 ms its too slow to catch the next logical capture ship I need; an M3.
After making it through Argon Space into Hatikvah's Faith I realize that not all the pirates in the universe are has hostile to me as the current group of delinquents inhabiting the unclaimed sectors near Ianamus Zura. Though the Pirate Base in Hatikvah's won't let me land many of the ships around there are friendly including a very awesome looking Pirate Carrack with its impressive outboard mounted guns. If my relationship with the pirates continue souring in Ianamus, I'm going to have to make a play for one.
After a two failed attempts at an m5 and m4 (ships which even if caught I wouldn't be able to get home through the hostile Argon Territory i passed through to get here) I decide to move west to beat a path to meet up with the Yaki who are rumored to live somewhere to the west of the western Paranid Territories. Moving into Nopileo's Memorial I am bombarded by a wall of red, xenon red. This sector truly shows the Xenon at their best; 2 Js, 2 Ks, and 2 super m2 Zs, the latter of which sport an impressive total of 48 lasers spread over 6 points.
Keeping my distance and taking out the odd missile, means that I can still avoid most of the fighters without entering weapons range and I glide through the gate despite the Js best attempts at physically placing itself in the way. In Danna's Chance I finally find what I'm looking for in a Pirate Base that is completely blue surrounded by several blue pirate capital and support ships. There is no way that I will be able to get my M4 here nor find any place to repair an m4 I could cap over here well enough to get it back to the only shipyard in the universe still open to me. However I am able to splurge out on fixing the max speed up on my Octopus to a very formidable 713 ms. Nothing can catch me now, or at least nothing I know of.
Heading south into Paranid space a spanner in the form of an angry Yaki Armada smashes all hope I have of finding an easily accessible friendly port this side of the Xenon and Argon blockades. Disappointed I head home to have a plan rethink. Maybe pirating at 100 ms isn't impossible, I mean i could hit up some pesky freighters which would keep my ATF overlords happy for a while... Tomorrow we find out.
Missile Incoming? Where? My sensors are so bad I can't see where the damn firing ship could be. The missile must be still out of range but if its a fast one it won't be for long. A few seconds later I spot what looks like a Pirate Capital coming up from below my position.
It appears to have fired two Firestorm Torpedos, both coming at me at 250 ms. This means I have to turn and shoot it down as I do not have a turret that could do the job for me. Mind you its tedious but it could have been a lot worse given that he could have chuck any number of fast and deadly swarm missiles my way.
With both missiles down I can now see my attacker is, as suspected, a Pirate Titan painted red to scare the living crap out of things. However as its moving at 63 ms it cant really touch me. I may be slow but I'm not that slow.
More missiles incoming - Another firestorm and a few tempists; all dangerous but not hard to stop. I guess the Titan thinks that since two failed a few more would make such a big difference. I mean seriously what is the point of harassing and chasing one little m4 with your big capital ship. There must be loads of stations to extort, police to fry, and loot to be collected, yet they still decide to hit the small tiny upstart for shits and giggles.
Back in Ianamus Zura I repair my new M4 which I've named "Grey Makrill", a boring name for a pretty boring ship, right now atleast. Total cost was 224032 Cr leaving me with 449185 Cr for any possible hacking job that may arise. Ianamus Zura seems to have been the scene of a massive battle just a few min before I dropped in since its littered with a host of good weapons and missiles. Hornets, Hammerheads, and Firestorm torpedos everywhere, only problem is that they are all larger than M size so I cant collect them.
I spend the rest of the day zooming around the universe in my Octopus in search of somewhere that will let me upgrade my M4 to operational speed. Right now with just over 100 ms its too slow to catch the next logical capture ship I need; an M3.
After making it through Argon Space into Hatikvah's Faith I realize that not all the pirates in the universe are has hostile to me as the current group of delinquents inhabiting the unclaimed sectors near Ianamus Zura. Though the Pirate Base in Hatikvah's won't let me land many of the ships around there are friendly including a very awesome looking Pirate Carrack with its impressive outboard mounted guns. If my relationship with the pirates continue souring in Ianamus, I'm going to have to make a play for one.
After a two failed attempts at an m5 and m4 (ships which even if caught I wouldn't be able to get home through the hostile Argon Territory i passed through to get here) I decide to move west to beat a path to meet up with the Yaki who are rumored to live somewhere to the west of the western Paranid Territories. Moving into Nopileo's Memorial I am bombarded by a wall of red, xenon red. This sector truly shows the Xenon at their best; 2 Js, 2 Ks, and 2 super m2 Zs, the latter of which sport an impressive total of 48 lasers spread over 6 points.
Keeping my distance and taking out the odd missile, means that I can still avoid most of the fighters without entering weapons range and I glide through the gate despite the Js best attempts at physically placing itself in the way. In Danna's Chance I finally find what I'm looking for in a Pirate Base that is completely blue surrounded by several blue pirate capital and support ships. There is no way that I will be able to get my M4 here nor find any place to repair an m4 I could cap over here well enough to get it back to the only shipyard in the universe still open to me. However I am able to splurge out on fixing the max speed up on my Octopus to a very formidable 713 ms. Nothing can catch me now, or at least nothing I know of.
Heading south into Paranid space a spanner in the form of an angry Yaki Armada smashes all hope I have of finding an easily accessible friendly port this side of the Xenon and Argon blockades. Disappointed I head home to have a plan rethink. Maybe pirating at 100 ms isn't impossible, I mean i could hit up some pesky freighters which would keep my ATF overlords happy for a while... Tomorrow we find out.
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NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 9 Murders & Acquisitions
Chapter 9 Murders & Acquisitions
Switching to my M4 is a very different feeling from my now zooming M5. The first thing I notice is that with my limited scanner range I will have to stick very close to a gates to be sure to spot incoming and exiting targets. Hopefully by attacking some freighters I will be able to acquire an duplex scanner pretty quickly which would allow me to not have to look over my shoulder for incoming pirate ships every 2 or so minutes.
The first target that I think seriously about is a Boron SF caring energy cells. Without a freight scanner I am playing a risky game but I know that bulk good transporters rarely have too many fighter drones onboard so it shouldn't be much of a problem. The reason I've chosen the Boron SF is also that such ships, while well shielded, do not have rear turrets. This makes them perfect pirating targets for startups.
Flying up on his six I position myself in very close proximity and match speed. Matching speed is a very important function and should in my opinion have a prime position on all ship consoles. Slamming in on him with all my guns he dumps out 3 Fighter Drones Mk1. I get two of them down before they are able to react and chase down the third pretty quickly. With my full 15mj of shielding and some shifting flying MK1 drones do not really pose any threat unless you really get overwhelmed.
Returning to my target however I find that I might have miscalculated the strength of the Boron SFs shield recharge rate. After a few passes it becomes clear that I just do not have the fire power to suppress the shields to deal any hull damage. With 3 x 200Mj shielding I don't know how I ever assumed I would be able to do that much damage with my Pericles tiny Laser Storage units.
Abandoning hope of forcing the fishy to bail I instead go for two Argon Mercury ships sporting 5 x 25 Mj shielding instead. Though they both have rear turrets by placing myself ahead of the ship before an engagement and cutting my engines I can fire a considerable amount of rounds into his shields before he is able to turn around an line up his turrets towards me. The first one a Mercury Tanker bails at 35% and hands over a Duplex Scanner to boot. My second target a Mercury SF bails at 60% but was not completely cost free as some hubris on my part lead to me taking 18% damage to my hull. As its full of Energy cells I decide to not sell the SF for now and instead ship both hulks to Ianamus Zura.
Scanning a few M3 in the area I get tempted to go for a Mamba Vanguard but as its currently 2.5x faster than me I felt that this would be more than fool hardy. I also can see a few pretty interesting M3+ including the split Chimera and the Argon Eclipse. Of the two I prefer the Chimera for its speed but the ability to mount Ion Disrupters on the Eclipse means its a must acquisition for a future M6 capture operation. I aim to outfit at least 2 such ships for any such mission in order to give me flexibility if one gets fried.
By this point a few angry pirate capitals and fighters have begun appearing in the area so I decide to hightail it back into Teladi space and call in my octopus to do a quick run through all the friendly sectors looking for either Yaki or Pirate missions transport missions or hacking opportunities. After going through most sectors I finally get lucky and bribe a Yaki looking individual to give me access to the New Income Pirate Base. Selling the Mercury Hauler for 973,767 I have more than enough money to upgrade "Grey Makrill" to operational speed. with a max output of around 285ms I will now be hitting up any Boron M3s careless enough to go without escort through pirate space.
Assets
1 x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
1 x Percles "Grey Makrill"
1 x Mercury SF with some Energy Cells aboard.
1,273,469 Cr
Switching to my M4 is a very different feeling from my now zooming M5. The first thing I notice is that with my limited scanner range I will have to stick very close to a gates to be sure to spot incoming and exiting targets. Hopefully by attacking some freighters I will be able to acquire an duplex scanner pretty quickly which would allow me to not have to look over my shoulder for incoming pirate ships every 2 or so minutes.
The first target that I think seriously about is a Boron SF caring energy cells. Without a freight scanner I am playing a risky game but I know that bulk good transporters rarely have too many fighter drones onboard so it shouldn't be much of a problem. The reason I've chosen the Boron SF is also that such ships, while well shielded, do not have rear turrets. This makes them perfect pirating targets for startups.
Flying up on his six I position myself in very close proximity and match speed. Matching speed is a very important function and should in my opinion have a prime position on all ship consoles. Slamming in on him with all my guns he dumps out 3 Fighter Drones Mk1. I get two of them down before they are able to react and chase down the third pretty quickly. With my full 15mj of shielding and some shifting flying MK1 drones do not really pose any threat unless you really get overwhelmed.
Returning to my target however I find that I might have miscalculated the strength of the Boron SFs shield recharge rate. After a few passes it becomes clear that I just do not have the fire power to suppress the shields to deal any hull damage. With 3 x 200Mj shielding I don't know how I ever assumed I would be able to do that much damage with my Pericles tiny Laser Storage units.
Abandoning hope of forcing the fishy to bail I instead go for two Argon Mercury ships sporting 5 x 25 Mj shielding instead. Though they both have rear turrets by placing myself ahead of the ship before an engagement and cutting my engines I can fire a considerable amount of rounds into his shields before he is able to turn around an line up his turrets towards me. The first one a Mercury Tanker bails at 35% and hands over a Duplex Scanner to boot. My second target a Mercury SF bails at 60% but was not completely cost free as some hubris on my part lead to me taking 18% damage to my hull. As its full of Energy cells I decide to not sell the SF for now and instead ship both hulks to Ianamus Zura.
Scanning a few M3 in the area I get tempted to go for a Mamba Vanguard but as its currently 2.5x faster than me I felt that this would be more than fool hardy. I also can see a few pretty interesting M3+ including the split Chimera and the Argon Eclipse. Of the two I prefer the Chimera for its speed but the ability to mount Ion Disrupters on the Eclipse means its a must acquisition for a future M6 capture operation. I aim to outfit at least 2 such ships for any such mission in order to give me flexibility if one gets fried.
By this point a few angry pirate capitals and fighters have begun appearing in the area so I decide to hightail it back into Teladi space and call in my octopus to do a quick run through all the friendly sectors looking for either Yaki or Pirate missions transport missions or hacking opportunities. After going through most sectors I finally get lucky and bribe a Yaki looking individual to give me access to the New Income Pirate Base. Selling the Mercury Hauler for 973,767 I have more than enough money to upgrade "Grey Makrill" to operational speed. with a max output of around 285ms I will now be hitting up any Boron M3s careless enough to go without escort through pirate space.
Assets
1 x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
1 x Percles "Grey Makrill"
1 x Mercury SF with some Energy Cells aboard.
1,273,469 Cr
-
NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 10: Green Lightning
Chapter 10: Green Lightning
Heading into LooManckStrat's Legacy I see a pirate M6 Heavy Dragon directly next to me when I go through the gate. I thought this was going to be an issue but he just drives along without engaging me. It seems that he was already in a fire fight with a Race Military M1 vessel. I wait around for a little while and spot an Boron High Tech Trader in a Barracuda M3. Jackpot; the Barracuda is a perfect entry vessel if you are looking for an M3 to cap as even if it has good speed when maxed the race drivers of the craft generally have bad rudder turning and vitally no rear turret. By just sticking on their six you can lead them and slowly nibble down the ship till they bail.
Pulling up on his six as he comes close to the north gate, I open fire stripping a majority of his shields before he has any time to react. After some time dodging asteroids and keeping a good eye out for pirates on the gravidar I finally make him bail at 47% Hull remainder. Best part of the whole thing is that I could see the sheilds recovering which means that at the very least i got something left on it. Now just to get it home.
When I say Jackpot I mean Jackpot. 47% hull with 5 High Energy Plasma Throwers, which, along with one I picked up in my Octopus in Ianamas Zura a while back I now have six. My happiness was short lived however as during my fire fight I seem to have inadvertently shot a few bullets into the Northern Gate of LooManckStrat's. For some reason the local Pirate Base took this personally and sent both a recon drone and a Response M3 after me to reap vengiance. Since the bail was quite successful I still have 92ms in my new M3 which isnt fast but it isnt horrible either. The gate is 3km away from my current position so I have a feeling the pirates will go without their retribution today. Note to self: don't insult the pirates by nailing their gates.
Well back in Teladi Space I get a chance to check over my new craft. 1 x 25 Mj sheild intact is a pleasant sight. Im not certain but I think I might have another laying around in my M5. Six HEPTs is truely awesome as it means I can kick any m3 really hard if they try something on me. I also got 10 Fighter Drones in the capture which could come in handy if I need to distract something big while i get out of the area.
Furthermore I captured a singularity Time Accelerator which is nice since so far Ive had to exchange the one I have between my two ships every time I switch between them. This has the added bonus of releaving stress on my part. I have been sort of worried every-time I have taken hull damage that I would loose the Singularity Projector as that would make traveling very tedious. As for the more material details of my ship; there is alot of damage to be repaired but the vessel sports 3 engin tunings already installed so will be up and running quickly. If there arnt too many pirates around I will try and add a few more when I get to New Income.
All in all, not bad for a days work. Sadly my incident with the pirates earlier seem to have ticked off the pirates in New Income; so much so that place is no longer available for me to tune my new M3. Aw well, it cant be helped. Now I atleast have some firepower to aim around.
Back at the Shipyard I find I have another admin problem. I have been saving one of the SF's I captured because it was full of Energy Cells and could be used for storage of valuable goodies I pick up. Sadly with my very limited cash flow I will have to let it go, inorder to get the capital to fix my Barracuda. The sail nets me 2.5 million of which half goes to covering the costs of filling in the holes in "Green Goblin"...
Now for some proper pirating... M3+, SF and other associated goodie carriers here we come!
Assets
1 x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
1 x Percles "Grey Makrill"
1 x Barracuda Raider "Green Goblin"
1,806,650 Cr
Heading into LooManckStrat's Legacy I see a pirate M6 Heavy Dragon directly next to me when I go through the gate. I thought this was going to be an issue but he just drives along without engaging me. It seems that he was already in a fire fight with a Race Military M1 vessel. I wait around for a little while and spot an Boron High Tech Trader in a Barracuda M3. Jackpot; the Barracuda is a perfect entry vessel if you are looking for an M3 to cap as even if it has good speed when maxed the race drivers of the craft generally have bad rudder turning and vitally no rear turret. By just sticking on their six you can lead them and slowly nibble down the ship till they bail.
Pulling up on his six as he comes close to the north gate, I open fire stripping a majority of his shields before he has any time to react. After some time dodging asteroids and keeping a good eye out for pirates on the gravidar I finally make him bail at 47% Hull remainder. Best part of the whole thing is that I could see the sheilds recovering which means that at the very least i got something left on it. Now just to get it home.
When I say Jackpot I mean Jackpot. 47% hull with 5 High Energy Plasma Throwers, which, along with one I picked up in my Octopus in Ianamas Zura a while back I now have six. My happiness was short lived however as during my fire fight I seem to have inadvertently shot a few bullets into the Northern Gate of LooManckStrat's. For some reason the local Pirate Base took this personally and sent both a recon drone and a Response M3 after me to reap vengiance. Since the bail was quite successful I still have 92ms in my new M3 which isnt fast but it isnt horrible either. The gate is 3km away from my current position so I have a feeling the pirates will go without their retribution today. Note to self: don't insult the pirates by nailing their gates.
Well back in Teladi Space I get a chance to check over my new craft. 1 x 25 Mj sheild intact is a pleasant sight. Im not certain but I think I might have another laying around in my M5. Six HEPTs is truely awesome as it means I can kick any m3 really hard if they try something on me. I also got 10 Fighter Drones in the capture which could come in handy if I need to distract something big while i get out of the area.
Furthermore I captured a singularity Time Accelerator which is nice since so far Ive had to exchange the one I have between my two ships every time I switch between them. This has the added bonus of releaving stress on my part. I have been sort of worried every-time I have taken hull damage that I would loose the Singularity Projector as that would make traveling very tedious. As for the more material details of my ship; there is alot of damage to be repaired but the vessel sports 3 engin tunings already installed so will be up and running quickly. If there arnt too many pirates around I will try and add a few more when I get to New Income.
All in all, not bad for a days work. Sadly my incident with the pirates earlier seem to have ticked off the pirates in New Income; so much so that place is no longer available for me to tune my new M3. Aw well, it cant be helped. Now I atleast have some firepower to aim around.
Back at the Shipyard I find I have another admin problem. I have been saving one of the SF's I captured because it was full of Energy Cells and could be used for storage of valuable goodies I pick up. Sadly with my very limited cash flow I will have to let it go, inorder to get the capital to fix my Barracuda. The sail nets me 2.5 million of which half goes to covering the costs of filling in the holes in "Green Goblin"...
Now for some proper pirating... M3+, SF and other associated goodie carriers here we come!
Assets
1 x Octopus Explorer "Montezuma's Revenge"
1 x Percles "Grey Makrill"
1 x Barracuda Raider "Green Goblin"
1,806,650 Cr
-
NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 11: Time for an acquisition spree! ........ bloody pirates.....
Chapter 11: Time for an acquisition spree! ........ bloody pirates.....
So far I was forced to use what ever weapons that I had in my M4 for lack of alternatives. Now however with more storage space and some shiny new weapons I've chosen more varied and hopefully deadly selection of 4 Hepts and 2 PAC Prototypes and 2 IRE. This way in a hot pursuit of targets I can strip shielding quickly but still maintain some degree of hit percentage on quicker enemies with the use of the fast and frequent IRE beams. I might switch out the IRE with some Phased Repeaters when I get a hold of them but untill then this is how I'm going to start out. Other than that I am still undersheilded by 20Mj so I need to find another 25mj shield somewhere. Still heading out into LooManckStrat's Legacy Im still feeling confident of getting a lot of good new fighters today.
Oh, great.... the pirates are back to chasing me everywhere... bloody boring.... Also apparently pirates have different ways of dealing with people in m3 than in m4s. Now they are chucking disrupters to stop my motors followed by salvoes of hornets missiles to instant hit me. I am not cuffed, not chuffed at all...
Some kind of missile he my shields and before I know it they were down well bellow 30%.... High tailing it out of there is made more difficult by the fact that, in my damaged state, I am barely 20 ms faster than my pirate carrack attacker. I am not really sure how he was able to sneak up on me so but as I was worrying about all the incoming missiles he approached from the south to within 4.5 km of my position from where he is thoroughly enjoying himself by firing salvo upon salvo of IBL rounds after me.
Needless to say I need to deal with these pirates. Using a rotational truster program and changing heading every now and then I dodge most of the rounds and head back to Ianamus Zura, Switch over to my M5 and go looking for pirates needing help or any mission that will allow me to gain access to a pirate station. I need more speed or more pirate friends to be able to pirate safely again.
In Acquisitions Repository I find a Guy name Chi t'Nnt who will unlock a Pirate Base or factory for me for 210,500 Cr. I would really want him to unlock all of the stations but apparently you can only choose one. Regardless with 210.000Cr spent the New Income is friendly once again! Woop Woop!
On my way over to outfit my M3 finally I find a mission to transport two Pirates to New Income but apparently they need a luxury TP transport... Seriously vain pirates, I would have been able to get them there so quickly that they wouldnt even notice that my hold stinks of fish.
At the Pirate Base I meet up with my Barracuda Raider and head for the tuning bay. With total expenditures of 1.1 million I now have a fully pimped out Barracuda which I can use to hopefully loot alot of more interesting ships. Fund Levels are down to 757,000 Cr which means that I still can jump on any furture hack jobs available.
So no real pirating yet, but if you want to survive a DiD scenario you need speed and you need to keep whatever friends you can have close.
Assets:
Ships as above
757,773 Cr.
Access to New Income Pirate Base
So far I was forced to use what ever weapons that I had in my M4 for lack of alternatives. Now however with more storage space and some shiny new weapons I've chosen more varied and hopefully deadly selection of 4 Hepts and 2 PAC Prototypes and 2 IRE. This way in a hot pursuit of targets I can strip shielding quickly but still maintain some degree of hit percentage on quicker enemies with the use of the fast and frequent IRE beams. I might switch out the IRE with some Phased Repeaters when I get a hold of them but untill then this is how I'm going to start out. Other than that I am still undersheilded by 20Mj so I need to find another 25mj shield somewhere. Still heading out into LooManckStrat's Legacy Im still feeling confident of getting a lot of good new fighters today.
Oh, great.... the pirates are back to chasing me everywhere... bloody boring.... Also apparently pirates have different ways of dealing with people in m3 than in m4s. Now they are chucking disrupters to stop my motors followed by salvoes of hornets missiles to instant hit me. I am not cuffed, not chuffed at all...
Some kind of missile he my shields and before I know it they were down well bellow 30%.... High tailing it out of there is made more difficult by the fact that, in my damaged state, I am barely 20 ms faster than my pirate carrack attacker. I am not really sure how he was able to sneak up on me so but as I was worrying about all the incoming missiles he approached from the south to within 4.5 km of my position from where he is thoroughly enjoying himself by firing salvo upon salvo of IBL rounds after me.
Needless to say I need to deal with these pirates. Using a rotational truster program and changing heading every now and then I dodge most of the rounds and head back to Ianamus Zura, Switch over to my M5 and go looking for pirates needing help or any mission that will allow me to gain access to a pirate station. I need more speed or more pirate friends to be able to pirate safely again.
In Acquisitions Repository I find a Guy name Chi t'Nnt who will unlock a Pirate Base or factory for me for 210,500 Cr. I would really want him to unlock all of the stations but apparently you can only choose one. Regardless with 210.000Cr spent the New Income is friendly once again! Woop Woop!
On my way over to outfit my M3 finally I find a mission to transport two Pirates to New Income but apparently they need a luxury TP transport... Seriously vain pirates, I would have been able to get them there so quickly that they wouldnt even notice that my hold stinks of fish.
At the Pirate Base I meet up with my Barracuda Raider and head for the tuning bay. With total expenditures of 1.1 million I now have a fully pimped out Barracuda which I can use to hopefully loot alot of more interesting ships. Fund Levels are down to 757,000 Cr which means that I still can jump on any furture hack jobs available.
So no real pirating yet, but if you want to survive a DiD scenario you need speed and you need to keep whatever friends you can have close.
Assets:
Ships as above
757,773 Cr.
Access to New Income Pirate Base
-
NOValdemar
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Mon, 20. Dec 10, 22:39
Chapter 12 Acquisitions Spree part II - Now for some pirating in style
Chapter 12 Acquisitions Spree part II - Now for some pirating in style
The Pirates might have been miffed with my shooting up of their gates a while back but heading into LooManckStrat's I see no direct threat to me as the sector defences are still busy fighting race military ships to care about me. Thus with the pirates distracted I get a lot of important pirate reputation building accomplished within a short time.
First ship I decide to engage is a Paranid Perseus. As soon as his shields were crippled he couldn't bail out any faster. The Perseus is a good turret equipped ship particularly at 74% hull. I may even upgrade to it as my pirating ship unless im able to cap a m3+ before getting the cash to do so. Even if I do decide not to fly it I doubt I will sell it on as It will make a perfect addition to the M3 Pirating Squadron I intend to set up to help with M6 boarding operations.
It seems like I was hitting some kind of role today as the ships were bailing left and right. First I get a Mamba at 27% hull which had a 25Mj sheilds. Dumping out the shield I ship it out to Ianamus to be stripped of any equipment and sold.
About two minutes later I get a Barracuda at 39% hull with 2 x 25 Mj, a 200 Mj shield and a transportation device. I take the transport device onto my Green Goblin as this is a very useful device and ship the new Barracuda home.
After that it seems like my pirating skill dried up as I fail to motivate both a Split Mamba and a Boron Perseus pilot to bail. Didn't matter much as a Pirate M1 had begun taking an interest in my activities at this point so I have to relocate anyways.
Of the three captured ships I quite like the Persius. The mamba and the Barracuda are simply not very good ships for long term AI driven survivability. While I can swing around and take out missiles I find that less experianced AI pilots tend to ignore missiles and just cary on their current task which inevitably leads to a massive friendly casualty list for me. As my fighter acquisition is limited to the ones I can collect survivability becomes a must. As such all fighters I employ for a future fighter squad will have the requirement of a rear turret.
In Acquisitions Repository I decided to go for some freighters to use as storage for acquired weaponry. Not very hard to cap freighters as long as you get through the sometimes massive shielding on some of them. I managed to get two caimans, but by mistake got rammed by a a paranid freighter I was having a go at so i lost 32% hull. Have to go back and repair my ship... cost 750.000 so great now I'm broke...
Lastly I picked up a split chimera but its only at 10% and the fact that i have absolutely no money I doubt I will be able to upgrade to it any time soon. Might just be better to wait around till another M3+ drops by and go for that instead.
The rest of the day involved a failed attempt at an Eclipse and the acquisition of another m3 Paranid Perseus at 53% hull remaining. I just need some weapons and money and I will be a good way to creating a powerful fighter force.
All in all a good days work which is deeply reflected in the now rather more impressive assets list!
Assets:
1 x Barracuda Raider "Green Goblin" 100%
1 x Chimera 10%
2 x Caiman 66% 24%
1 x Barracuda 39%
1 x Mamba 27%
2 x Perseus 74% 53%
1 x Pericles "Grey Makrill" 100%
1 x "Montezuma's Revenge" Octopus Explorer 100%
Funds: 15,582 Cr
The Pirates might have been miffed with my shooting up of their gates a while back but heading into LooManckStrat's I see no direct threat to me as the sector defences are still busy fighting race military ships to care about me. Thus with the pirates distracted I get a lot of important pirate reputation building accomplished within a short time.
First ship I decide to engage is a Paranid Perseus. As soon as his shields were crippled he couldn't bail out any faster. The Perseus is a good turret equipped ship particularly at 74% hull. I may even upgrade to it as my pirating ship unless im able to cap a m3+ before getting the cash to do so. Even if I do decide not to fly it I doubt I will sell it on as It will make a perfect addition to the M3 Pirating Squadron I intend to set up to help with M6 boarding operations.
It seems like I was hitting some kind of role today as the ships were bailing left and right. First I get a Mamba at 27% hull which had a 25Mj sheilds. Dumping out the shield I ship it out to Ianamus to be stripped of any equipment and sold.
About two minutes later I get a Barracuda at 39% hull with 2 x 25 Mj, a 200 Mj shield and a transportation device. I take the transport device onto my Green Goblin as this is a very useful device and ship the new Barracuda home.
After that it seems like my pirating skill dried up as I fail to motivate both a Split Mamba and a Boron Perseus pilot to bail. Didn't matter much as a Pirate M1 had begun taking an interest in my activities at this point so I have to relocate anyways.
Of the three captured ships I quite like the Persius. The mamba and the Barracuda are simply not very good ships for long term AI driven survivability. While I can swing around and take out missiles I find that less experianced AI pilots tend to ignore missiles and just cary on their current task which inevitably leads to a massive friendly casualty list for me. As my fighter acquisition is limited to the ones I can collect survivability becomes a must. As such all fighters I employ for a future fighter squad will have the requirement of a rear turret.
In Acquisitions Repository I decided to go for some freighters to use as storage for acquired weaponry. Not very hard to cap freighters as long as you get through the sometimes massive shielding on some of them. I managed to get two caimans, but by mistake got rammed by a a paranid freighter I was having a go at so i lost 32% hull. Have to go back and repair my ship... cost 750.000 so great now I'm broke...
Lastly I picked up a split chimera but its only at 10% and the fact that i have absolutely no money I doubt I will be able to upgrade to it any time soon. Might just be better to wait around till another M3+ drops by and go for that instead.
The rest of the day involved a failed attempt at an Eclipse and the acquisition of another m3 Paranid Perseus at 53% hull remaining. I just need some weapons and money and I will be a good way to creating a powerful fighter force.
All in all a good days work which is deeply reflected in the now rather more impressive assets list!
Assets:
1 x Barracuda Raider "Green Goblin" 100%
1 x Chimera 10%
2 x Caiman 66% 24%
1 x Barracuda 39%
1 x Mamba 27%
2 x Perseus 74% 53%
1 x Pericles "Grey Makrill" 100%
1 x "Montezuma's Revenge" Octopus Explorer 100%
Funds: 15,582 Cr