It would be neat if the main station could be destroyed, requiring a replacement to be made at the nearest Tech 14 or so world and have to jump it from system to system to the required destination
Less so if you were inside it at the time...
That does raise an interesting point for me though, it's not unusual in the current version for groups of offenders and fugitives to attack stations. In my current game on the Pandora, I've seen several Rock Hermits destroyed.
Since the outside world does continue to go about it's business while the player is docked what happens if the Rock Hermit I'm currently docked at is attacked? does my presence make it temporarily indestructible like a main station, or might I suddenly find myself facing "Press Space Commander" while docked?
In my current game on the Pandora, I've seen several Rock Hermits destroyed.
Do you have Pirate Coves installed? That's about the only way I can picture a RH coming under attack..
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
In my current game on the Pandora, I've seen several Rock Hermits destroyed.
Do you have Pirate Coves installed? That's about the only way I can picture a RH coming under attack..
Nope. I've never felt the need to increase pirate presence around Rock Hermits. They tend to attract that as it is. I do have the Rock Hermit locater installed though, which places a beacon in front of every one...
"Look, this isn't like the Kit Kobras. The Neolite line is fully recognized and approved by all insurance companies. You're Hobby is covered."
From inside the escape capsule, I continued to sulk. Fleabag sat on the control panel, completely indifferent to my woe. "Bite me. That ship had all my favorite stuff in it. I just installed a tanning bed."
"Yes, and isn't that how you got caught with your pants down...so to speak?"
"Hey, it's easy for spacers to get a pasty complexion if they're not careful. Besides, I was in Ceesxe space. They got, like, a whole squadron of Navy ships flying around. Who would be dumb enough to attack me?"
"Oh geeze... Look the insurance will cover everything the black box doesn't determine to be a preexisting condition." That was insurance code for, if it was damaged during the battle before the actual explosion, tough.
"But I lost all my stuff, man! I just got a poster for my favorite classical music performers."
"Who's that?"
"Metallica."
"But you still got all the gold and platinum you've been saving, right?"
"Yeah..." Lucky for me I keep all that in my cabin, in case of just such an emergency."
"Well, precious metals are at an all time high right now. Come out, sell the goods, and we'll get you a new poster."
"You don't understand. It's the humiliation. I've been shot down something like five times. First time was lethal, and another pretty close to it."
"Happens to the best of us."
"But mostly the worst."
"It's not like you have aspirations to be Elite."
"Well..."
"In a Hobby?" Redspear snickered. "You do realize that's as much a clever play on words as it a bird of prey, right? That's not a fighter's ship. That's fighter fodder."
"It's got potential...at least till I can buy a Cobra or something."
"Look, would you just get out of the bloody escape pod so I can get you to sign these papers and I can order your replacement? You can sulk later."
"But I customized it and everything."
Redspear sighed. "I still have the stencils somewhere. I will buy you another can of black spraypaint. Okay?"
Reluctantly I opened the hatch and got out. "Fine."
"Good. Now, come on. We'll go to the Last Tap and you can buy me a pint in exchange. Okay?"
I followed him out of the hangar. "You think anyone will have trouble with me using the same ship registration? No "Bad MF-2" or anything."
"I'm sure you'll be fine."
"Because that totally didn't count."
"Uh-huh."
"Now, if a Thargoid got me, then maybe my next ship would be the MF's Revenge!"
"Uh-huh."
"And if the Space Ninjas came after me--"
"Mossfoot?"
"Yeah?"
"Shut the hell up."
Last edited by mossfoot on Wed Jul 23, 2014 5:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
NO!!! dont you dare shut up..... that last piece was good.....
Arthur: OK. Leave this to me. I'm British. I know how to queue.
OR i could go with
Arthur Dent: I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
or simply
42
"Rickets is the number one cause of space jockeys not getting laid."
"Oh brother."
We were at the Last Tap, and Red was helping me get out of my funk. I'd ordered my usual: Tea, Earl Grey, Spiked. He ordered his usual, chocolate beer. We each found the other's choices disgusting.
"You know, I've been thinking about your ship."
"Oh?"
"You've been trying to get your old ship back, right? The Fer-de-lance?"
"Everybody needs a goal."
"And yours is buying an overpriced luxury yacht." Redspear took a swig. "Well, you're going about it the wrong way."
"How's that?"
"You can only carry five tons in that bucket you have now. Do you have any idea how long it's going to take you to buy a new ship with that kind of loadout?"
I shrugged. "I mostly deal with precious metals these days. Easier to carry."
"Yeah, but you can't always count on finding a good deal with those. These aren't the heady days of the Constore Bubble."
I snorted. Yeah, when those bulk trading stations tried to undermine the whole economy when they first came out. Some traders just traded back and forth between it and the planet making a profit. Didn't take long for the bottom to fall out of that and have things stabilize. They're still around, but the days of single trade thousand credit profits are long gone.
"Well I already expanded my cargo hold," I said.
"I'm saying cargo is not the way for you to go."
"What do you suggest? Rescue and Recovery aren't really trusting me with much more than letters these days. Not since that pilot I was supposed to rescue got kidnapped by pirates and...well, you know the rest."
"Hey, everyone makes mistakes. I'm sure you can work at that. They pay pretty well for some of their missions."
"Yeah, the more dangerous ones."
"You wanna live for ever?"
"I won't even dignify that with a response."
"Okay, okay. What about inter-system package delivery?"
"The pay is crap on those! Fifty credits to take a recipe book to some backwater hole?"
"Only because they don't trust you yet. It gets better as you get a reputation."
"Let me guess, they get more dangerous, too."
"You really are a coward, aren't you?"
"Duh."
Redspear sighed. "Well, I suppose you could install a HyperCargo system..."
"HyperCargo? I thought only big ships like the Anaconda could carry that."
HyperCargo was your typical science gone mad. Cargo compression utilized a witchspace bubble to effectively carry along extra cargo with you in another dimension while taking up no space at all. Except for the HyperCargo generator itself, which is huge.
"They recently learned how to utilize your own hyperspace engines to form the bubble," said Redspear. "Puts a tiny drain on your energy banks when in use. I just got the system on offer here as an upgrade."
"Sounds good. Let's get one fitted on the Bad MF... er... when the new one arrives."
Redspear shook his head. "Yeah, but... look, it's still meant for big ships. The size of the bubble is limited by the cargo area it occupies. You'd only get an extra five tons out of it."
"Sounds good."
"And there's a small risk of losing the bubble and your cargo."
I used my hands as scales. "Risk of losing cargo... risk of getting shot to pieces by pirates, mercenaries or pissed off mailmen by dealing in risky missions." The cargo hand easily won out.
"The system costs twelve thousand credits."
"Then I have just about enough."
"Do you have any idea how long it will take for you to make that money back? Even if you were selling computers at a fifty percent profit, you'd only be pulling in, say, three hundred credits per run. And that's under ideal market conditions. That's forty trips, minimum. You're more likely looking at fifty or sixty. And that's just to get back to where you were."
I shrugged. "I think of it as a long term investment. Besides, it should up the resale value of the Hobby when it comes time to trade her in."
"Providing it doesn't get shot to pieces first."
"Do you want my money or not?"
Redspear finished his beer and set the bottle down. "Oh, I'll take your money. Gladly. I'm just making sure you don't come to me later with buyer's remorse."
I tried my level headed best to be rational, but I still came out sounding like a kid. "Ahhhhh, you never said you had Shield Boosters coming in."
"You never asked."
"Come on, take my HyperCargo kit back."
"What part of 'no refunds' did you miss on that particular piece of equipment? I warned you when you installed it, you can't just un-install it and put it back in its box. It's part of your engine now."
"But the boosters will make my shields twice as strong--front and back! That's twice the not-dying capability."
"Well then, you'd better start saving up, right? It costs close to the same as the HyperCargo system... What did I say about how long it would take to recoup that money?
I sighed...
"See you in fifty borrrrrring milk run trips, buddy. Maybe when you get those boosters, you might grow a spine."
"Ha-Ha! Shield boosters! Double the shield output! I am invincible!"
"You sure about that, sport? You might want to take the simulator for a spin a few times, just to make sure you don't get cocky in your next fight."
One simulator run later.
"Ha-Ha! Barely a scratch! I am invincible!"
"That was against one easy ship with no rear laser, bub. Let me set the parameters for something you're more likely to encounter. I'll still go easy on you. Say two ships, one big one small? Up the AI a bit."
One simulator run later.
"Ha-Ha! Never touched the hull! I am invincible!"
"Not bad, but you know as well as I do that counts as a low-end encounter. Let's pretend you're in real trouble. I'll reset the machine with a fight you'd normally run away from."
One simulator run later.
"Okay, so can you make sure my fuel-injectors are clean and working... and it is possible to get a second set installed in case the first get damaged? Maybe a third? Is there any way to boost them to run away faster?"
I'd managed to earn the trust of the RRS enough that they would let me handle a mission more complicated than delivering valentines day cards planetside. A black box recovery. Standard stuff, nothing I hadn't handled before 4004.
The new shields proved their worth time and time again, however, as I ran into a disproportional number of bushwackers and skaliwags on the spacelanes. Normally I'd run, but having enough fuel for a quick getaway, I decided to take a chance. With luck if I took down enough of these bozos word would get out not to mess with me.
Eventually I found the black box, lost within an asteroid field. Some docile space jellyfish floated in the rocks and debris, and I had to pick up the black box quick before one accidentally ingested it.
I crossed my fingers for a moment, hoping the Chronicle really were making up stuff when they printed about that luxury liner being eaten by one...
But it was the long trip back that things started getting odd. People were waiting for me, right by the witchpoints, and opened fire. I fought or fled on several occasions, but according to my scanner their records were always clean. Whoever these bozos were, they weren't pirates.
However, the real kicker came just two jumps away from the RRS station, when, of all things an entire Carrier attacked me!
The first words I hear over my Comm channel are "Drop the black box and eject, buddy. I'll find somewhere nice to sell you. After I trash your ship, of course."
"Rickets is the number one cause of space jockeys not getting laid."
"Oh brother."
We were at the Last Tap, and Red was helping me get out of my funk. I'd ordered my usual: Tea, Earl Grey, Spiked. He ordered his usual, chocolate beer. We each found the other's choices disgusting.
So strange to read about 'me' as a character ...but chocolate beer I hope that stuff tastes better in the future
I think it would take me until "The Reboot" to acquire a taste for that stuff
Good use of humour in these tales mossfoot
I liked this one:
mossfoot wrote:
I downed my tea in one go, almost scalding my throat in the process. "Let's go. This place is dead anyway." I nudged the pilot sitting next to me as I got up and he fell over.
The bartender looked over at the heap on the floor. "Ah, hell. Bob, it's Norm again. Get the defib!"
(...Norm from 'Cheers'?...)
mossfoot wrote:
"...The world I was from, what you'd call an Anarchy world? It was one of those places strip-mined and exploited by the corporates, then left to rot when they were done..."
How did you know?
Keep it up mossfoot, you're on your way to inspiring a 'movement' on the fiction board
Douchebag was my evil mirror image. Just weeks after I died and came back like a drunk Jesus Christ who didn't give a crap about anyone's sins, he'd ambushed me just outside a witchpoint, along with a Sidewinder toady of his.
It was one of the toughest battles of my life, one I thought for sure I was going to live to regret--but not very long. I had an almost stock Adder at the time, which meant I was flying little more than the squashed tissue box it resembled. I'd fled to another system only to have them both follow me through my own hyperspace wake.
In the end I'd killed his toady and tricked Douchebag into draining his own reserves wasting his military laser on me during maneuvers, then getting behind him and pecking his shields till he was dust and frozen vapor.
Or so I thought...
But that taunt about selling me somewhere nice and trashing my ship, only Douchebag would say that.
I didn't have time to think about how he survived, however, as suddenly five beams of death pulsed at me from the carrier. I spun and dove out of the way (well, pretty much every maneuver can be called a dive or climb... it's all relative).
"Drop the box or we drop you! Fighters prepare to launch!"
Like my day couldn't get any worse. This was one of those new skeleton carriers. An I-framed vessel that was basically a large cabin to hold the crews of all the ships it was carrying and massive engines in the back, with a spine connecting the two. Along the spine the ships were mounted on either side. Sometimes on top as well.
These had been in development for a while, but gained huge popularity in light of 4004 and got rushed to market early. The idea was to make convoys easy and efficient. A carrier shows up as only one ship, and might slip by on long range scanners. The carrier itself was well armed as well, with over a half dozen missiles, and lasers both fore and aft. And in the case of a fight, the crews could rush down the spine of the ship and board their ships quickly, launching all at once, rather than one at a time like other carriers with internal launch bays. And due to the engines, these were supposed to have some seriously powerful shields.
Guess what else all these features makes these carriers ideal for?
In this case the vessel held nine Fer-de-lances. Three on either side, and three along the spine. It also carried two support Geckos on the engines and two Adders on the nose. That's a grand total of fourteen ships in one deadly package.
In short, if they had fuel injectors, I was screwed.
I turned and tried to run. "What do you even need the box for, Douchebag?"
"It'll look good on my mantelpiece, right next to your head, Mossfoot."
Ah hell, he knew who I was. I'd hoped the new ship would have thrown him off.
"I've been looking forward to this, buddy," Douchebag said, firing another burst. " My stupid escape pod wouldn't launch and got stuck in the wreckage. You have any idea how long it took RRS to find me? Two whole hours! That's two hours of my life I'll never get back!"
Wow, this guy hadn't changed much. Way to do some soul searching, Douchebag.
"But boy did you teach me a lesson. Never go in alone when you can have a posse with you." Seems like he'd forgotten about his toady too. Such a loyal, thoughtful guy. "So I used my daddy's trust fund to get this baby. And finding out someone wanted to stop you? That was just icing on the cake."
"Blah blah blah, you're boring the hell out of me, Douchebag."
I was almost out of range when I heard him say, "Fighters, launch! Full fuel injection! Take down his shields and engines, but nobody finishes him off but me!"
Well, nice knowing you, life.
"Launch!"
Did I detect a hint of concern in his voice?
"Launch?"
Well, well, well... this was interesting.
"Come on, launch!"
I cut my engines, keeping him right at the edge of my radar range. "Problems with the docking rigs, Douchebag?"
"Shut up! LAUNCH ALREADY!"
Okay, the forward lasers on this carrier were a serious problem. But the thing is, a carrier is about as maneuverable as a planet.
Oh, this is so not your day, Douchebag.
I spun around and engaged, strafing my military laser along the bottom of its hull until it overheated.
"Ha! You think you're hot stuff because you have a BFL? My shields recharge faster than you can hurt them."
It was true. I don't think I did anything to the carrier. But as I flew past I did notice one of the Fer-de-lances now had a nasty carbon score across its hull.
I smiled. "Yep. You're probably right. Not much I can do about you, I guess. Guess I'll leave." I waited till my laser had cooled down and then made another pass at the carrier, targeting the ships on it instead. Two Lances puffed into heat and scrap metal.
"Oooh, that had to cost, what, close to a million credits? More, depending on the add-ons."
"Hey, knock that off!"
"Okay, I will. See ya!" After the weapon was cool I said, "Eh, changed my mind. Let's see how much more damage I can do! You know, for kicks."
Five minutes later, I was tallying up the results.
"Let's see, that's 9 Fer-de-lances at, say, half a mill each, so about four and a half million. Plus two Adders at sixty-five thousand. You know, I don't know how much Geckos go for to be honest. Let's just round the whole thing up to five million credits. How's that?"
Douchebag was sobbing on the other end of the comm. My laser had almost cooled down. I was on the carrier's tail and he ineffectively fired at me with a pulse laser.
"So, care to tell me why the black box is so important to you guys?"
"Screw you!"
"You first." I burned the engine pod as much as I could before I overheated again. It probably gave the crew pause, but Douchebag was right, his shields were too strong. I wasted another five minutes trying to convince him to tell me, but it wasn't going to happen. He cut off the radio and focused instead on trying to hit me, which was also never going to happen.
My witchfuel was exhausted, but a carrier is thankfully slightly slower than an Adder, so I spent the next five minutes listening to him sob as I flew out of range, dodging his laser beams of eternal frustration, cursing my name, swearing revenge on me and my family, and generally making me feel pretty damn good about myself.
Only downside? Despite destroying thirteen ships on the carrier's hull and the crew all being registered as offenders, I didn't get a single credit of bounty or a single kill added to my reputation.
But I'll take Douchebag's wailing at an unfair and unjust universe as payment enough for today.
Last edited by mossfoot on Fri Jul 25, 2014 6:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Quite the interesting approach to defeating a renegade carrier, this is", the dragoness said, looking at the young spacer over her mug of coffee. "They are, as you hu-mans say, a white elephant. Large, and nearly impervious, to be avoided if at all possible. Yet... There is one weapon these beassts should fear."
"Yeah?"
"Something the communists came up with, many years ago. Crude, ugly, very brutal, the bane of everything too large and slow to dodge it."
"Go on...?"
"One shot... Massive damage... The nuclear tipped torpedo."
Running Oolite buttery smooth & rock stable w/ tons of eyecandy oxps on:
ASUS Prime X370-A
Ryzen 5 1500X
16GB DDR4 3200MHZ
128GB NVMe M.2 SSD (Boot drive)
1TB Hybrid HDD (For software and games)
EVGA GTX-1070 SC
1080P Samsung large screen monitor
I docked at the RRS station and dropped the black box on the Chief Operations Officer's desk with a clank.
"Why the hell is this so important?"
The COO had no idea what I was talking about.
"I pick this up in an asteroid field at the edge of protected space, and on the way back I'm attacked four times by people with clean records. At one point a whole fleet of ships dropped on me. It was a miracle I wasn't killed on that one."
"What happened?"
"You wouldn't believe me. The guys at GalCop sure didn't, that's why I didn't get credit for... Never mind. Point is, people wanted me dead. More so than usual. And this is the reason why. It ain't made of platinum and rainbows, so I'm guessing it has to do with what's on it."
The COO looked at the cube a moment. "We were simply told it was a naval vessel that was destroyed in that field months ago, before 4004. The chaos of those times is why nobody sought to retrieve the box until now. But that's not uncommon. For insurance purposes black box retrieval are made a time priority, but in this case? The Navy simply wanted to determine what happened to their long range surveillance cutter."
Surveillance cutter? "Wait, this ship was on surveillance duty and destroyed shortly before 4004?"
"It failed to report in a week before. That was around the time the Navy had to pull out of the system due to the Thargoid emergency."
That emergency that the media kept being told about, but precious little was ever shown. The one that kept the Navy out-system for weeks during and after our presumably unimportant little emergency of a quadrant wide rampant pirate raids and instability.
The COO considered the box some more, then searched his computer for the mission file. "I suppose it was a somewhat unusual because of who asked for the retrieval. We don't often have top brass making direct requests to Rescue and Recovery." He showed me his monitor and I read the name.
I'd like to say my gut did a flip or sank or some other metaphor that reflects irony or terror or having "a bad feeling about this," but the truth is, it actually felt kind of inevitable. Like I'd known it would come down to this all along.
The name on the screen was my father's.
"Good work on getting this to us in one piece, Mossfoot. I'll be sure it gets to the Imperial Navy from here."
I straightened up, putting on the best act of professionalism that I could muster. "Actually, sir. Since I got it this far, I'd be honored if I could deliver this to its destination personally."
...but chocolate beer 
I hope that stuff tastes better in the future 
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Alien Systems
