Tales from the spacelanes...

[Neelix]

While cruising through the main spacelane of Aniere in G1, a rich agri dictatorship, looking for an opportunity for a little freelance bounty hunting, I noticed two yellow blips on my scanner, so I changed course, heading towards them.

I identified one of them as a Python and an Offender and gave it a good dose of my fore military laser. The other craft fired a couple shots at me and I identified it as a Fugitive Mamba but by then it was too close for me to give it more than a glancing blow with the laser before both ships were behind me. I pulled back on the throttle and initiated a 180 degree turn, but while I was doing that the Mamba had turned on the Python, and I came out of my turn just in time to see the Python explode in front of me. I noticed the Python had dropped an escape pod, but it was right in front of the Mamba and the Mamba was closer, so I immediately took a pot shot at the Mamba to distract it, and then accelerated to scoop the escape pod right from under it's nose! I then engaged the Mamba one on one, and quickly took it out. There wasn't much left of it once my lasers were done with it, so I went back to clean up the cloud of cargo pods and metal fragments the Python had left behind.
The best part was when I pulled in to Aniere station shortly afterwards. 500Cr paid by the insurance company without even deduction for a bribe. I guess the occupant of the pod was some poor trader that the Python had scooped, probably having been the one to destroy the ship in the first place.

- Neelix

[Cody]

Good tale, especially not getting robbed by GalCop - and welcome aboard.

[Diziet Sma]

Good tale, especially not getting robbed by GalCop

Agreed.. on both points..

And nice to see you here, Neelix.. welcome aboard, mate!

[Smivs]

Hi Neelix, good to see you here

[Ranthe]

So I'm down in the south-west quadrant of Chart 2 at Riardi, on the penultimate leg of a multiple contract and passenger run that started around Lerequ and took me through the Citadels of Chaos at Lasoce with (among other things) several hundred kilos of gold and platinum. I was still in a pretty happy mood after taking out a squadron of six rogue Whitetails that tried to ambush me on launch from Lainor (bringing my kill total to 1400), and after my last contract in this sector was fulfilled I was intending was to go galactic at Oneded. It's been a long time in Chart 2 since I followed that rogue Navy Constrictor over from Chart 1 in the old Roj Blake, and I'm getting a hankering for exploring some virgin trading territory and leaving the Ramazan war behind.

I'd just dropped off my passenger at Riardi Station and was planning for the last leg to Oneded (which I've been advised is correctly pronounced "On-Ee-Ded", not "One-Dead" - apparently the locals take exception to the latter), including taking a look at the local contracts market to see if there was any useful bulk trading on the way. There was a 400+ TC contract of furs to Tiises which would have fitted the bill, but my current 371TC alloys contract to Oneded meant that even Atomic Annie's massive cargo bay couldn't have fitted both jobs in. So I kept looking, and shortly after that a gemstone contract to Ansoreat popped up. At a 23LY journey it was outside of where I wanted to go, but then I saw the haulage fee the client was paying for over three tons of gemstones to the edge of the Citadels of Chaos: seventy-five thousand credits.

That's seventy-five thousand credits.

Seventy-five thousand credits.



Y'know, I think I might go galactic from Ansoreat instead. There's no hurry to leave Chart 2 just yet...

[Cody]

Crikey! All that cash for such a short run - sweet!

[spud42]

So, there i was in the backwaters of the middle of chart 1. I check the parcel contracts and wow there is easy few credits to a single hop address. Easy money i say to myself. Bonus i get paid to jump to a new trading opportunity.Set destination, jump, no worries clear and easy run. After waiting my turn to dock i thinks to myself, wheres my payment for the delivery?

So i fuel up and head back to have a go at the last station only to find the contract is still up for grabs! What? Then the penny drops on this poor newb commander....
you have to accept the contract before you go rushing off to deliver it!!!Actually pick up the contract this time and profit only a few credits due to fuel expenses.

Lesson learnt.... till next time anyway....

[Diziet Sma]

Dammit, Spud.. I was laughing so hard my flatmate came in to see what was going on..

[Bangbangduck]

Well I became an offender. I was fired on whilst parked ready for permission to dock. I ignored it. Then a lot of ships started firing so I retaliated......... The fuzz did not take kindly to my defensive posture so when I docked I was branded 'Offender'.

Oh the shame! So upon decamping I was then hounded, by the aforementioned rozzers, out of the system!

So the next station I docked at. Sorry attempted to dock at turned me away and I came under fire once more. A hasty hyperspace jump got me to a station where I could dock, though whilst waiting the local enforcement officers gently lashed my ship with laser fire until I was safely docked.

I paid the fine got a 'Clean' registration and off I went again much relieved to have my status returned.

On to the next system........ This is where I find my nicely setup xboxdrv driven controller has a slight bug. Missile fire is 'A' to activate targeting. Then Left trigger AND right trigger to fire said missile. For some reason I now only have to target the missiles and left trigger launches

'Oh bugger', says I 'It's [the missile] heading for that moray hospital type ship!'
'My status!'

Sure enough the captain on the moray panics and puts out an SOS!

You have never seen a missile pursued like it. I don't know what range it was but I couldn't see the rogue projectile but I still managed to take it down in time. As I passed the panicked ship I tried to convey my apologies. It seems 'giving the finger/tenticle/pseupodia/fins' is infact a universally recognised greeting rhough I think he was being a bit harsh myself.

Currently docked and having the mechanic checkout my fire control sytems!

BBD.........Still clean.........Though the underwear may not be!

PS. I already know I could have used my ECM system..........Well having read this I have just realised this

PPS. On the hunt for the Constrictor. I've spent an hour system hopping looking for a Galactic Hyperdrive. I was beginning to think they were as rare as hens teeth.......... Oh hell! I'm already fitted with one. When and where I cannot remember!

[mossfoot]

From the Captain's Log of the Mossfoot Marauder:


19/

So I bought an ECM for my ship and the shopowner seemed to have me pegged as green a mile off.

"You know how to use that, son?" says the man, Raxus, I think.

"Sure. You press the buttons and missiles go bye-bye."

Raxus groaned. "Look, I got a sim here for pilots so they can test out their equipment before they hit space. What you flying? Adder? Cobra? Moray?"

"Cobra Mark One."

"Yeah, I figured. Come here."

In ten minutes I was flying a combat run against some Geckos, and in eleven I was dead.

"What happened?" They didn't hit me that hard. He'd even taken my armor upgrade into account.

"You spammed the ECM. Didn't you notice your energy bar drain?"

"So?"

"So? With no energy your ship is so much floating tinfoil and you're a frozen dinner."

"But what about my armor rating?"

"Pointless without energy to reinforce it."

"But... but each time I used the ECM it drained--"

"About a quarter on a standard MKI, yeah, I know. That's why you need to get more power in your heap. Before it really is a heap."

Huh. Learn something every day. Just glad it happened before my next pirate encounter, because I have to head through some lawless territory to reach the Xexedi Sector...

[Diziet Sma]

On to the next system........ This is where I find my nicely setup xboxdrv driven controller has a slight bug. Missile fire is 'A' to activate targeting. Then Left trigger AND right trigger to fire said missile. For some reason I now only have to target the missiles and left trigger launches

'Oh bugger', says I 'It's [the missile] heading for that moray hospital type ship!'

And that would be why most of us prefer to use 'r' (activate ID recognition) rather than 'a' (missile target seek) when simply trying to identify ships on the scanner. Yes, NPCs can tell if you've put a lock on them (just as when a NPC ship puts a lock on you, it triggers Condition Red).. and some of them will interpret your missile-lock as a hostile act, and may even choose to follow the old adage "Do unto others, before they do unto you.."

[Bangbangduck]

It's galling to say the least! Still not sure whats happening but I'm still randomly loosing the odd missile. Might need to use the 'XK_M key' marker in my config instead of KEY_M......... Or set it back to keyboard if it wont fix.

On another note.......... I may be going mad. I have an old leather office chair..... It would lend itself to being part of a simpit....... I am already looking at hacking a standard keyboard to make key groups as per planes/fighters...... I have a second older PC with a reasonable GPU and a 15" monitor. I can expand to 3 later. Joystick to of course

BBD "wibble, wibble, wibble"

[Smivs]

I am already looking at hacking a standard keyboard to make key groups as per planes/fighters......

Yeah, I started doing that about 18 months ago - 'I'll make mysel a nice control panel' I thought. Still making it, though. I keep getting distracted

[spud42]

I am already looking at hacking a standard keyboard to make key groups as per planes/fighters......

Yeah, I started doing that about 18 months ago - 'I'll make mysel a nice control panel' I thought. Still making it, though. I keep getting distracted

That thought has crossed my mind as well....... i even have a couple of arcade "joysticks" 4 micro switch types.... could be hooked to the 4 arrow keys.....mmmmmm

Bugger this game is taking over my life!! The funny thing is that between wings3d, photoshop, reading 500 wiki pages about the JS commands for plists and now thoughts of a cockpit console.. well i realised that its been almost a week since i actually played the game as a game instead of test flying the model im trying to get working..lol

[Smivs]

<chuckles>