Oolite Bulletins

That's a very good observation Cap'n, after all that's precisely what Remloks do, in The Dark Wheel.

In space, everyone can hear you scream . . .
As long, that is, as you're equipped with a RemLok survival mask.

Oolite cannot display a £ sign. However, there is $, and the Commercial System symbol, which can probably be written as "\07" in OpenStep-format plists, or as &07; in XML ones. (Untested, hence “probably”.)

why not '!' as a beacon symbol?

Why don't escape pods come fitted with locator beacons?
I mean, consider. You are flying off the space lane and come a cropper (you plant your ship into an unnoticed asteroid), you hit the 'coffin with a view' and punch out of your wreck. With your Insurers guaranteed to pay a 'bounty' on your safe return (as opposed to being sold on the 'meat market'),

There must be a catch.

The pods are designed to fly to the nearest station on their own. They do not need a intervention of a scooping ship. If they are scooped the insurance has to pay for save delivery. Probably they are not fitted with a beacon to avoid scooping and the insurance company can keep their credits in their pocket. They trust the very slowly homing of the pod by itself.

Eric Walch wrote:

There must be a catch.

The pods are designed to fly to the nearest station on their own. They do not need a intervention of a scooping ship. If they are scooped the insurance has to pay for save delivery. Probably they are not fitted with a beacon to avoid scooping and the insurance company can keep their credits in their pocket. They trust the very slowly homing of the pod by itself.

And so it comes to these unfortunate cases of pilots having barely survived in their escape pods for years, while the medic-bots have used everything (and I mean everything!) just to keep their brain halfway functioning...

Commander McLane wrote:

And so it comes to these unfortunate cases of pilots having barely survived in their escape pods for years, while the medic-bots have used everything (and I mean everything!) just to keep their brain halfway functioning...

Oh, don't get me started on this one. Still, as my mother may or may not have said, you don't suffer horrifying flashbacks of what's been apparently permanently erased from your memory, so I suppose I can't complain too much...