Tales from the spacelanes...

[SandJ]

That doesn't matter, you are still a hero. You can assemble flat-pack furniture!

Unfortunately not as I managed to break the flimsy fitting and had to "supplement the design" with my own screws.... now the doors don't shut properly but at least I can play Oolite in a less cluttered room!

You didn't resort to smashing it and burning it, or having a blazing row with the wife, or the neighbours complaining about you still hammering at 3 a.m., or being taken to casualty to have your fingers sewed back on, or glue the unit to your new carpet, or rip your new leather sofa, or cause a flood, so, yes, definitely a success.

[Diziet Sma]

That doesn't matter, you are still a hero. You can assemble flat-pack furniture!

Unfortunately not as I managed to break the flimsy fitting and had to "supplement the design" with my own screws.... now the doors don't shut properly but at least I can play Oolite in a less cluttered room!

You didn't resort to smashing it and burning it, or having a blazing row with the wife, or the neighbours complaining about you still hammering at 3 a.m., or being taken to casualty to have your fingers sewed back on, or glue the unit to your new carpet, or rip your new leather sofa, or cause a flood, so, yes, definitely a success.

Speaking as someone who assembles/repairs complex flat-pack furniture (without instructions) for a living (and my doors are always perfectly squared-up and work properly ), all I can say is...



I totally agree about needing a few beers by the time you're done, however..

(and I'll say nothing about the four-door hutch that gave me a 3 hour battle last Thursday, having to adapt some incorrect hinges to substitute for the ones the manufacturer neglected to supply, and which I'd run out of spares for )

[SandJ]

Speaking as someone who assembles/repairs complex flat-pack furniture (without instructions) for a living (and my doors are always perfectly squared-up and work properly ), all I can say is...

But you down there in Oz don't get yours from Ikea UK.

On Terry Wogan's radio Breakfast Show, Ikea's furniture was a regular topic of discussion. It ceased being amusing when a particular couple wrote in with their experience. They had bought a load of flat-pack furniture and then found they had to relocate from the UK to Germany for his work. So they ended up taking the furniture still flat-packed. On arrival in Germany they had trouble constructing it and so took it into a German Ikea for a replacement. The German Ikea staff apologised and said "We cannot replace, or give refunds, for UK Ikea products. Here on the continent we do not stock the rubbish we sell to you over there."

[Diziet Sma]

I daresay Ikea Aust sell the same crap as in the UK.. I wish I had a dollar for every time a customer told me, "we're buying this from you guys to replace an item we bought from Ikea 6 months ago, and which has now fallen apart".

[SandJ]

I wish I had a dollar for every time a customer told me, "we're buying this from you guys ..."

So who gets the dollars?

[xzanfr]

To be fair to the furniture, the ikea stuff was pretty good - it seemed of reasonable quality and the instructions were fairly easy to follow (Why can't all these companies do a weeks work experience with lego to learn how to write instructions properly!)
The trouble was with the wardrobe from homebase / argos - the fittings were feeble and it was too big to move around inside my tiny flat without calamity - me and the mrs had to build it face down, dismantle it then rebuild in situ - not helped by the walls of said flat being up to 5 degrees out of square.

If I had the money, I'd have paid for you to fly in and build it Diziet Sma!
(however if I wasn't so tight fisted I'd have bought a decent bit of furniture in the first place )

<apologies for derailing yet another thread>

[Smivs]

<apologies for derailing yet another thread>

<chuckles>

[Tricky]

The other day whilst hawking some Wooden Furniture ([wiki]New Cargoes[/wiki]) to the Inera system when I thought, this would be a lot easier if a branch of Ookea popped up in a Con-store nearby.

[Fatleaf]

As I go about my usual business of bounty hunting and clearing up the scum of the Ooniverse (and currently becoming said scum myself by taking up cold blooded murder as an Assassin in the seventh octant) I rarely jump out during a fight and so never really see pirates follow me through my wormhole to another system.

But on this occasion I was doing a very lucrative delivery contract with a profit of 100,000 Credits for a delivery of Platinum. I was sun-skimming all the which in total was going to be about 30 jumps for the quickest (in time) route. I jumped into Enususge from Essoat and a couple of ships, one Boa a Sidewinder and an Asp also jumped in and immediately engaged a Cobra III that was dealing with another hostile (didn't get an ID on that one. It looked so much like another pilot jumped out as he was getting mugged and the muggers followed him through his wormhole. I thought it was very cool. I of course came to the aid of the poor beleaguered Cobra III.
First of all I engaged the Boa (as it was the closest) with half of my front laser, then came to a dead stop and swivelled round and gave him a sustained broadside from my port laser, we exchanged fire untill he only realised too late that my port laser was firing from cold and shortly before it was red lined he tried to turn and run on injectors, his ship exploded before the turn was made!
Now all the action was to my aft (which was getting shot up by the sidewinder) and my rear laser was soon red, over heating as the sidewinder tried also not to become a statistic.
The Cobra III had dealt with the original ship that he was engaging and was firing what seemed like a beam laser at the Asp that was injecting all over the place like it's ass was on fire. I decided to hang back and watch the show while my lasers cooled and my S9's shields recharged. I saw the Cobra II start to throw sparks and the Asp was soon eating a purple laser. He turned to display his annoyance upon me by lobbing a hardhead my way (Seems he didn't mind the odds when it was four to one!). So I hit the ECM which had no effect so I hit the injectors and got 20km away firing my aft laser hoping to hit it and killed the injectors. I turned to my starboard and red lined that laser in vain. I hit the ECM for a second time and smiled as the Asps 350 credit missile went 'pop'! I re-engaged the Asp which had got the Cobra III sparking again. It seemed he was out of missiles and like an amateur he had run out of fuel for the injectors. He soon was sparking and attempting to flee. I had about 2/3rds of a tank left so I could catch up and slowly one deliberate shot at a time enjoyed taking his rather expensive bit of kit apart. I could only imagine the screen of the Asp as one piece of equipment after another was damaged. Then one laser shot more and my ELITE rating was increased by one more. I collected a piece of his hull as a trophy (that would get me about 40 credits somewhere) and scooped the spoils of war afterwards including an escape pod from the Boa. The Cobra III showed his appreciation for saving his bacon by leaving it all for me. He had thanked me a few times and so I flew along side him waved my wings then turned for the star...

I wonder if he made it to the station...

[Cody]

Good tale, Leafy - that's what immersion can do. I had to leave a comrade-in-arms to his fate this evening - there were just too many Vipers buzzing around him, and I was already damaged from a previous encounter - but I hated doing it.

[xzanfr]

Thats a beautifully written description of your encounter, fatleaf.
It's an amazing feature of this game that we all have a sort of empathy with other pilots and can imagine emotion in them.

[Fatleaf]

A newly graduated commander has just acquired his shiny new wings. just purchased his new Adder and kitted it out for his new life amongst the stars. Leafy's Luxury Liners (Well... you need to sell it, don't you!) as the advertising states. and he has picked up his first passenger, a Etarer Soil travelling to Celabile to arrive within 26 days and 14 hours starting from Zaonce where he collected his ship and fare.
He signed up to the Explorers Club as soon as he got his wings ad is full of hope for the future sets off to explore and meet all the species of the Ooniverse around him. Someone by the name of Captain Hesperus offered him a small pet that he claimed all the Elite commanders had with them, so with ships mascot in hand gets ready to jump for Tionisla to take his fare by the attractions there.

So begins the (Slightly naive) career of Commander Leafy!

[Fatleaf]

Commander Leafy's log:2084013:17:5700


Life in the lanes is more dangerous than I had imagined. My first ever kill was a missile fired from a Cobra III! My first ever firing of my laser was in anger at another Cobra III the system before. He fired two missiles at me so I hit the injectors and bugged out. But the second Cobra III (who fired the missile) was my first ship kill.

I recall my first tentative steps into an Anarchy system poor traders and medical ships were all requesting assistance, I came to the assistance of one such medical ship when I saw that it was two against one so I thought I could do some good without sustaining damage. But before I managed to get within range of my powerful pulse laser the ship exploded, so I altered course and quietly slipped away. There was one time I had about six vessels all hostile! I am so glad I installed injectors before I left Zaonce, they are proving to be the most valuable piece of equipment I have. I would have been dust and ashes on numerous occasions without them. Like two systems ago at Encereso, where a Krait was pursuing me all the way to the station. I parked at its side and fired a few shots that hit their mark and the Krait fired back missing me and hitting the station. Bad idea! Next thing the scanner was quickly filling with purple. So I took advantage of the situation and flew up close to him and waited for the sparks to fly, which with six military lasers pounding his didn’t take too long. I fired also and got the kill shot, 127 credits and one kill richer I docked. the viper pilots didn’t seem too happy with me though, I “stole their kill” they said, all I could do was shrug and head for the bar! Well... at least I had enough credits to pay for fuel and not have to go sunskimming.

My passenger seemed to like that little manoeuvre and he’s the one paying the bills!

[xzanfr]

Today I finally got to the last planet in galaxy 2 - Riardi (explorers oxp is excellent !) and was preparing to go in to dock before my jump to galaxy 3 when I stumbled upon a firefight. A couple of cobra mk3's and a fer de lance had decided to take it out on a poor python - judging by the assortment of cargo hanging around I assume that they had taken out it's escorts and it was fizzing pretty badly.
The potatoes on the hob had a good few minutes left before they were ready so I had a couple of minutes and though I'd jump in and help, taking out the pirates in a fairly non eventful battle.
Whilst picking up the cargo I rescued an escape pod then turned round to grab the rest of the battle debris, only to find that the python was sitting still and showing up with a white dot on my scanner. Presumeably this belonged to the pilot currently sat in my hold (although I like to imagine they're taking advantage of my mini-bar rather than sulking in the pod!) and they had ejected just before I'd destroyed their attacker.

A little pic of the ship (click for larger):


Best of all I got several hundred credits (I think 500) for the pilot which made up for having over boiled potatoes as part of my tea (too much time messing about trying to find the print screen button!)
I hope he had locked it and wasn't too angry about having to get a lift from the station to go and pick it up!

I love seeing stuff like this - it really gives the feeling of a living, breathing ooniverse

[Jack_Sterling]

What-ho chaps,
Things have been a bit quiet for old Jack recently, as I've been doing some planetary sight-seeing here and there.
I'm back in the saddle now though and doing a bit of trading to try to get some military shields for Bulldog One. I've just had a hunch lately that something is going to happen soon and that I'd better be ready for it when it does.
I visited Raale recently, a TL 2 Anarchy, and I must say that was a jolly lively place! The locals weren't at all friendly, and sadly some of them are no longer with us, but their cargo was recycled to good effect.
After Raale, with a load of furs on board, I headed for Rexebe, a nice TL 13 world where I thought I could off-load the furs and pick up some computers at a good price.
As I exited witchspace, my jaw just dropped. Dead ahead was the biggest ship I think I've ever seen. I'd heard about the Liners, but have never seen one before. This was the Aurora Star Liner Conquest, and she was a beauty!
I cruised past her gently and took a few snaps for the album. The best one is this, taken by the external drone-cam which shows her behind Bulldog One.She was already quite a distance away by now, but is still mightily imposing.




My current status is:-
Clean
Competant (231 kills)
28 194 Cr in the bank

Toodle-pip chaps...must fly.