Tales from the spacelanes...

[Fatleaf]

After a hard day along the 'lanes, ridding the Ooniverse of pirates, a commander needs a quality meal. But this time I was trying to woo a young lady that goes by the name of Sahana, so I needed a quality establishment. A trip to Lago with its orbital named Avernus was just the place with seven star service and Michoolin Star food was the way to go.


I recommend the lobstoid.

It was kind of quiet. I wonder how many know of this fine place?

[Cody]

Ahh, yes indeed... L'Auberge de Lago is a fine place to eat! Probably the only quality restaurant in interstellar space!

[Smivs]

Mind you I hear the staff canteen on the Xeptatl Society research station in the G7 Rift does a mean bowl of cheesy chips

[DaddyHoggy]

I really will put together a Space Trader's Almanac at some point - this stuff is just too good to miss out on...

[Fatleaf]

Mind you I hear the staff canteen on the Xeptatl Society research station in the G7 Rift does a mean bowl of cheesy chips

I have been there! And when they say 'cheesy' They really mean greasy!

[Cody]

Back out on patrol, and running 'clean' for a change… I pulled out of Ororbe, and headed for Tiqu, where I loaded up on 'stones and metal at a pair of rock hermits. I noticed that these poor, cold hermits were offering 100 CR/T for furs, so I headed in-sytem, sold my cargo of computers and bought a holdful of furs at Tiqu main, and then sold them back at the hermit for a handy profit. Having already cleared all the fur stocks at the main station, I then jumped to Anleis via Raleor… Anleis is one of those anarchy systems that is rarely easy, even in an iron-assed Cobra III such as Rolling Thunder. I fought my way into the station aegis, having taken some damage, and was greeted by a right royal furball (bloody fiendish oxp, is that). Being in 'good citizen' mode, I assisted the local cops by splashing a few bandits, but had soon taken more serious damage… that was when a Gecko latched onto me. Gun overheated and shields dropping fast, I lobbed my last hardhead at it, only to see the Gecko attempt to ram me… and in the process, causing my missile that was tracking it to scream past me far too close for comfort (I'd never seen one of Griff’s missiles that close-up before without it actually hitting me). I survived the encounter, thanks to a Viper that distracted the Gecko long enough for me to limp into the dock, taking fire and dodging ships all the way. Anleis is a poor/ag TL 1 system… all you see in the shipyard is fuel, so after tanking-up, and buying another holdful of furs, I launched and jumped back to Ororbe for some heavy repairs. A well-policed TL 13 system, is Ororbe, and I was well pleased to see plenty of Vipers on the long, leisurely cruise in-system. All in all, a thoroughly satisfying patrol… even though the repair bill was horrific!

[DredgerMan]

Ok, there I was leaving Ceanbibi station in my shiny new Dredger Trader with all bits installed and with 161 tons of assorted cargo (all of the machines, computers and luxuries that I could lay my hand on on the Rich Industrial station. Hmmmm, acceleration is rather slow. Hmmmm, pitch and yaw is rather slow. I could already tell that the dredger was not going to be a dogfighter.

But 250 ton of cargo and a decent speed should be a bonus. So I set the computer to navigate me to Tiascebi, a poor agricultural anarchy world.

Athough the acceleration was slow, the speed was enough to start the countdown to the new system almost immediately after clearing the station. That is, after making sure that I didn't ram the beacon that someone very foolishly placed right in the path of the exit. I have found out that those GalCop vipers don't appreciate it if you ram a beacon. But then again, they should hardly complain to me since I wasn't the one to leave it there in the first place. But life, I guess, is so unfair.

Anyway, the jump through witchspace was uneventfull, as was the entry into the new system. No enemies in sight so I torussed away. Only to be stopped by a Python in front of me. I of course raced it and with my quite phenomenal speed (taking into consideration that I had to pull a 250 ton cargohold behind me, won that race quite easily. But by now I had reached the half way point and still I hadn't seen any privateers. Hmm, did Tiescebi change it's government?

I was just about to radio in to find out when suddenly my torus jump was halted again by a swarm of pirates. Actually, two swarms of pirates. I decelerated as per usual to determine the threatlevel of the groups but because of the slow reactions of the ship it stopped quite close to the first group of pirates. And they were already firing on me. With the other group not that far away I decided to turn tail, hit the injectors to create some space between me and the brigands and started targetting the nearest ones with my aft minlitary laser. A Sidewinder, but not for long. Next target a Python ET. Blew up as well but it had launched a missile.

Oops, turned out to be a hardhead. But since I had military shields, boosters and the naval grid I wasn't really worried about a single hardhead. So, I targetted the next one instead, a mamba this time. Although the trader was slow to move, it had one hidden advantage. The slow moving meant it could be targetting an enemy much better than my Boa Clipper could. Straight in the crosshairs and kabam.

The next target, a Cobra Mk III, was able to pull out of the attack due to my aft laser overheating but I knew he would be back. So I turned round, targetted a Python and let it have it with my forward laser. Then the hardhead hit me and knocked a whole quarter (!) of the charge of my forward shield. Wow, I have never withstood a missile better than that.

Big plus!

Another big plus was that after removing all the pirates (including the Cobra that had fled but came back, silly boy) I had plenty of space left in my cargohold to scoop up the goodies. As luck would have it, whilst scopping I encountered another group of pirates but this time I had the range on them and three were dispatched straight away with the forward, and the fourth surrendered to my aft.

There were a few more 'incidents' en route to the station and more opportunity to scoop, so when I finally reached the Aegis after an hour and a half I had wasted 20 pirates, received 540 credits in bounty, scooped an additional 59 ton of cargo, of which 8 were escape pods and felt that everything had gone quite well. The 8 escape pods, by the way, netted me about 250 credits, most of the money had gone 'somewhere else'.

But after that run, I think I am going to enjoy my trader. It's near enough prefect for sniping and the massive cargohold means I'll never have to worry about whether I should scoop something up or not or wait and hope to grab myself an 11 kilo platinum pod.

I there is a negative point, then I would say it's the interior finish. The paint is already coming away from the wall-panelling in the kitchen and that after less that a day?????????!!!

DredgerMan

[Gimi]

DredgerMan;

First, welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat!
That is a great first post. Keep typing and entertaining us.

[Cody]

Aye, a goodly tale, DredgerMan... welcome aboard!

[DaddyHoggy]

An excellent opening tale from a new member of the forum - thank-you, and welcome...

[DredgerMan]

Thanks guys. Greatly appreciated.

But after another two runs I have come to the conclusion that my dredger trader is, in fact, a battle magnet. And in didn't say anything of that in the sales prospectus!

I mean, there's me feeling quite cheerful launching to return to Tiescebi, jump, and bang, sirene's wailing.

Turns out that there is this Thargoid spy satellite just round the corner. Well, not for long, I can tell you.

So there's me checking the space wondering if the standard Thargoid guardian vessel will make an appearance, but no, nothing and I am starting to torus away to the station when bang. Incoming! But not one guardian, no three! Two Thargoid warships and a Thargoid transporter. Took me a while to believe that, I can tell you. I mean, I've never even seen or heard of a Thargoid Transporter. That didn't stop the warships from starting to blast at my shields though. So I empty my forward into warship number one, kaboom. Then I switched to aft and turned around. As I did, my crosshairs picked up the transporter so I thought I might as well. A bit tougher than expected but kaboom, never the less.

Unfortunately by that time, the remaining warship and six Thargons had reduced my shield to oblivion and I was actually taking damage. Well, not me, of course. But my ironhide was. So switching around again to bring my cooled off forward to bear on the warship a few squeezes later I was able to pick off the pesky Thargons, playing dead in space. Well, they were eventually.

Just to satisfy my curiosity I then revisited the position the transporter had occupied and hey, there were cargo pods! I quite happily scooped them up, wondering what wonderful things they would contain. Did I mention the wonderfully spacious cargo hold of the dredger trader before? If I didn't then wow, it's spacious!

Anyway, having made sure there was nothing left I then jumped to the station, to have them have a look at the stuff I scooped. Guess what they said.

"Well, they're alien," they said. "And they're items, so I tell you what. I'll buy them off you as alien items."

Cheapskates.

I mean, I lost three whole tons of luxuries in that attack, that's 303 credits gone! Of course I picked up the three metal fragments from blasting the big Thargies, and alien item and alloys sold for a decent 324, but my ironhide still needed to be repaired and that wasn't going to be cheap! I was going to loose money on it! How can you be expected to attack those bugs when GalCop is too miserly to make it worth your while, eh?

Anyway, I then reloaded to return to Ceanbibi. I decided it would be a good milkrun and I needed to have my ironhide repaired, didn't I?

So, jumped, scanned the space around me, nothing.

But as soon as I torussed, sirene.

Three Thargoids, one a battleship, the other two terrorizer frigates. Who-ever came up with that name anyway, terrorizer frigates? Snort. Whimps, that's what they are. But the battleship wasn't. But with constant switching from front to back even the battleship blew up. Eventually. Of course, the Thargons were then quickly dispatched. any alloys picked up (did I mention the spacious ...... oh, I did?) and on my way to the station when I was halted by a group of pirates. And when I say a group, I mean a GROUP. There were twelve of them!

I managed to kill 11 off them, the third, an Asp Mk II escaped through injectors. Boy, I hate Asp Mk II with injectors. Whimps, As soon as the going gets tough, they get going. Scardy-cats, that's what they are.

Anyway, more pods to pick up. Did I mention the .... Okay, okay, okay, I heard you the first time. No need to shout, you know? Sjeesh.

Anyway, finally returned to the station and guess what, ironhide put me back 150 credits. But the bounty on the battleship covered that nicely. Oh yeah, and who came up with the bounties for the frigates? 3 and 15 credits?? You gotta be kidding me! Three???? Can't even buy a ton of clothing with that on Tiescebi! It's a joke, that what it is!

BUT, after all this, I must admit that the trader has held up very well. Just the repainting job, that's probably going to be costly. Hmm, better get back out there and make some more credits to pay for it. Well, I won't get fat from catching bleeden terrorizer frigates, now will I?

See you all out there in space!

DredgerMan.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Tactical note here, D-man. Energy bombs make short work of the lighter Bug ships. One-button Bugspray! Cruisers and battleships can survive the blast, but it damages them and makes them easy pickings for a laserectomy, if you hit them fast before their shields recharge.

[DredgerMan]

Much appreciated, Commander, even if I am not going to follow it.

I mean, spend 900 of my hard earned cash just to lay some bugs to waste? There's no real economic sense there. I've got a tabber but use that only in dire emeregencies and so far I haven't seen anything yet that would class a few bugs as that.

Especially considering you can get bounties like 3 credits for a frigate. Mind you, I only got something like 26 credits for a rogue navy frigate even though that was a 'proper' ship to fight.

Again, much appreciated, Commander, but I am afraid I am too mean for that.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Penny-pincher. Compared to the cash raked in by trading from a huge hold like that, 900 creds is pocket change.

But what the frak, whatever flies your spaceboat.

[DaddyHoggy]

Penny-pincher. Compared to the cash raked in by trading from a huge hold like that, 900 creds is pocket change.

But what the frak, whatever flies your spaceboat.

Look after the pennies and the Credits look after themselves...