Day Four
This has been a day of making significant progress in some areas, and very little in others.

I start by going back to work for the Strong Arms and soon capture a Nova Raider while defending a station. This is shortly afterwards joined by an Enhanced Jaguar as I reach rank four with the corporation. However, I then run into a missile gathering mission which causes my progress to grind to a halt, with the Firestorm Torpedoes proving particularly difficult to locate. Delegating the task of gathering the missiles to one of my ships, I take the opportunity to resume exploration.

I continue to capture ships, with a Falcon and Buzzard Vanguard soon added to my fleet, and a second hand Discoverer for 3,200 Cr proves irresistible. I agree to return a lost Mercury as I am still trying to build up relations with the Paranid. After getting distracted by a firefight I reach and claim the ship, only to realise that at its current pathetic speed it cannot get back in time, so I fully repair it with my repair laser, doubling its speed – still not enough, so I send it to a dock and maximise the engine tuning. As this is also not enough I abort the mission and figure I might as well keep the ship if I cannot return it. Shortly afterwards I capture a Demeter Super Freighter from Dukes Dangerous Goods Transporters (DDGT), and while I am examining my new prize Paranid police swoop on the Mercury and destroy it.

Combat missions grow more dangerous with corvettes joining my enemies, and I kill my first M6 defending a station. Fortunately it seemed more interested in the station than me, but then I go after my largest bounty yet – 3,042,335 Cr for taking out Ho t'Sht in a Centaur, and he is only focussed on me. After picking off his escorts I strafe him repeatedly and eventually emerge triumphant.

Having got a taste of speed with the Enhanced Jaguar I start to think about using a fast scout ship for getting around, but the Jaguar is out as it cannot use a jump drive – however the Kestrel is even faster and can use jump drives, and the pirate version is faster still. I recall seeing a Kestrel in Void of Opportunity, and send my Jaguar there to use in the hunt, but after running some simulations I conclude that will not end well. Next I check Bluish Snout as there was a Kestrel there before, but no sign of it this time so I head to the pirate den of Maelstrom. Here, and in the preceding sector of Merchant's Haven I have considerable luck with capturing ships – a Buzzard, two Hermes DDGTs, a Nova Raider (one of two ships that bailed in the same fight, but the other had disappeared when I finished patching up my ship – most annoying), a Demeter Super Freighter XL DDGT (at 0% health, I had to give it my jump drive to get it out of the system in less than an hour and repairs were over a million credits), an Elite, and a Kea. This particularly pleased me as Keas are native to New Zealand and I have an affection for that country for some reason, perhaps because Kyle Brennan, the Terran X-Shuttle test pilot was a Kiwi – or maybe some other reason? A pity the Kea is too slow to consider using.

Despite my luck I still have no Kestrel and I decide to move on and keep exploring, managing to add another Demeter Super Freighter DDGT to the fleet in the process. I start to use my Fujin Sentinel as a fast, jump-capable personal ship, although it lacks any real firepower. While visiting a Pirate Base I add System Override Software to my ship to make claiming future prizes easier, but since it is expensive (and illegal) I only install it on one ship, and when I need it it is inevitably installed in the ship I am not using.

Eventually my missile collecting is done and I can accept and complete the mission. I then alternate working for the Strong Arms with more exploration. Mindful of my illegal software I visit the Pirate Duke, and despite my actions his station is happy to sell me a Software Signature Scrambler (even more expensive than the SOS was). I also accept an offer for a second hand Caiman Tanker at 69,500 Cr, but turn down the next offer to sell me a freighter as none of my new acquisitions are earning their keep yet. A mission gains me a Falcon Vanguard, but what I found exploring an unknown sector far outweighs that – a Kha'ak Corvette, well equipped with guns but lacking shields, which will have to be remedied before I try it out.

Renewing my efforts to capture a Pirate Kestrel I try the pirate sector Vestibule of Creation, and spot what I have been seeking. After equipping my fighter to capture rather than kill I make my move, pinging the ship with a light missile to get its attention and then drawing it away from its friends before turning my guns on it. In seconds the Teladi pilot is offering it to me and floating back to the nearest station. I claim my prize and head back to the nearest friendly dock to kit it out and end the day.

Over the course of the day I have advanced from trade rank 15 to 18, and from combat rank 16 to 17. My faction ranks are:
Argon 7
Boron 6
Split 9
Paranid 4
Teladi 9
Goner 3
Terran -1
Strong Arms 4

I have taken on 11 missions and completed 10 of them, visited 47 new sectors and destroyed 109 ships, and my bank account has grown modestly from 8.1 million to 9.3 million credits (less than I expected).

Well, if you need cash, you can always sell some ships that you do not want. Just strip them of equipment and cargo first.

Turn off those disco lights! :)

Day Five

Day Four ran a little long, so Day Five was a little shorter than usual.

I finished Day Four with a new ship, the Pirate Kestrel, and immediately switched to it as my main means of transportation. This made getting around much faster, but at the same time meant that I was no longer able to take on every fight I came across. Consequently I have started to accept a much broader range of missions than I had previously. I tried asteroid scanning, which is easy and well suited to my ship but boring; passenger transport, which can be good if I can squeeze them in, otherwise I can call in my Iguana Vanguard to do the job, but passengers will refuse to get on or off unless I am piloting it; and customs scanning, which got me all of 6187 Cr for scanning 13 ships, none of which had illegal goods, after which I refused all further customs missions.

I also gave returning lost ships another go, with next to identical results to the first time – the ship destroyed by the police after taking too long to get back. This made me swear off these missions which lasted until the next offer, to return a Heavy Centaur. I then decided I was OK with failing the odd Return Ship mission and had it jump to a distant shipyard for repairs and refitting. While this is a great addition to my fleet, especially as I had concluded the Kha'ak Corvette was better as an AI ship (ow, my eyes!) it is not the corvette I had been considering buying, so I was very pleased to accept a mission to return a Heavy Dragon, which also failed to make it back. After that I actually succeeded in returning a ship by giving it my jump drove and then racing back to its destination in the Kestrel to retrieve the drive. After obtaining a Heavy Hydra in similar circumstances I decided to look for work in Paranid space in case anyone needed a Hyperion Vanguard retrieved (one can dream). With three stolen ships in my fleet I managed to balance the karma scales by returning a stolen Octopus Sentinel to its rightful owner (one M5 makes up for three M6+, right?)

By this time I had completed exploring all the friendly sectors, there are still some pirate and Xenon sectors I have not visited, along with all of Terran space, but I am in no hurry there. Testing the combat abilities of my Kestrel against a pair of pirates earned me a Buster, and the confidence to take on tougher foes. While tangling with four pirates two bailed, leaving me with a Buzzard and Harrier, and as I repaired them another pack of four pirates showed up and I managed to add a second Buzzard to my haul.

I accepted an offer for a second hand Demeter, only to immediately conclude I would be better off buying a better ship new than fixing up that one, so I was very pleased when shortly afterwards I received a request to purchase a Demeter, earning me well above its true value. A second hand Mamba Raider, on the other hand, I have kept.

I have been taking any mission that pays well and sounds suitable, and have become used to rendezvousing with and switching to a corvette (usually the Heavy Dragon) for combat missions, which almost always involve a hostile corvette anyway (albeit not for long when the Dragon spits fire at them). 3,085,211 Cr for killing Gil Keswen just beats the old record, but I have also made 3,203,054 Cr just for transporting soldiers. I checked in with the Strong Arms, but their next quest is another fetch missiles job that does not fill me with enthusiasm, and the eventual ship rewards on offer are increasingly irrelevant.

My traders have been doing well, with 14 Universe traders at the end of the day, and two more still training. At some point I would like to transfer all of them to Drakes, which have good speed and much better capacity than the Mistrals and assorted other ships they are currently using.

I have also been thinking about putting together a marine strike force, so I can capture larger ships, so towards the end of the day I decide to see if I can find an Ocelot to pirate and use as the marine's transport. After all what good is all this Split rep if I cannot steal one of their ships on occasion? I do find an Ocelot, only to find it is already being attacked by pirates. One pirate soon dies, and I move in to drive off my surviving competitor, eventually capturing his Kea, but when the dust settles there is no sign of the Ocelot, most likely it was now part of said dust, and I decide to bite the bullet and buy one instead.

The corvettes are all fully equipped and ready for action, and the Ocelot is mostly there, but I have not begun recruiting marines yet. I have accepted a mission to go on a treasure hunt, but the need to deal with tough laser towers has prevented me from making any real progress – I have some thoughts about how to deal with them, but it will take time to organise.

Over the course of the day I have advanced from trade rank 18 to 20, while combat rank has remained at 19. My faction ranks are:
Argon 8
Boron 6
Split 10
Paranid 10 (up from 4!)
Teladi 7
Goner 3
Terran -1
Strong Arms 4

I have taken on 39 missions and completed 33 of them, visited 60 new sectors and destroyed 47 ships, and my bank account has expanded from 9.4 million to 33.5 million credits thanks to a focus on high paying missions.

All those credits just from completing missions? Nice work.

It may be a coincidence but my personal best-paying mission was a military passenger transport which gave me around 14 mil. Passenger transport missions in general are very doable if you have a decent TP/M5 equipped with a jumpdrive.

I expect the traders added a fair bit, but since that happens in the background it is hard to measure how much they are helping.

It looks like I am failing another return ship mission.

Tut tut! Stealing is bad.... but I guess one can make an exception when the base ship is 29M, add upgrades and equipment to that, if you get/got any. That deal is a STEAL!!! Har har har, I need to go hide.

I have finally got my first station. Now, if I can just convince the Xenon to stop hanging around and make a few minor repairs we should be good to go.

A tiny spoiler: The hub is the main reason a play-through takes an eternity.

But Mahi Ma only asked for "a couple of things" :-D

Now that I have started I can let this run more or less in the background while I do other things, and the sooner I start,the sooner I finish.

Day Six

Day Six got off to a great start when I was asked to retrieve a Deimos frigate, which I found, but somehow never returned to its original owner. While I sorted out equipping that I got on with recruiting my marine force, searching out the best fighters from every barracks, military outpost, and pirate base I knew. I gathered 27 marines, almost all with at least four stars in fighting (I took pity on Brent Marval as the pirate base he was on was being attacked, and he is close to four stars) and sent them to train their other skills, which were uniformly terrible. I am still debating what to call my marines, with current contenders being 'Rock's Shocks', 'the Rock-Hard Men' and 'O'ren's Ogres'. Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

I was persuaded to retry customs scanning when I received two missions at the same time in Nyana's Hideout, which contains two Space Fuel distilleries (indeed, one of my employers was on a distillery). After spotting two space fuel smugglers I earned about 3.2 millon credits between them. Shortly afterwards I spotted a Duke's Dangerous Goods Demeter Super Freighter XL which I managed to capture and used to upgrade my one trader who was not in a freighter. This new ship should allow him to work much better, although a universal upgrade to Drakes is still in my future plans.

Throughout the day I buy a number of second hand ships: a Perseus Vanguard, Vulture Super Freighter, two Demeter Haulers, one after the other, Mamba Sentinal, Jaguar Hauler and a Harrier Hauler (it was only 3,800 Cr, which makes up for it being rubbish). I also failed to return several ships: a Viper (a second Viper was later successfully returned), Chimera, Osprey, and a Centuar. This helped compensate for a rather dismal capture rate today.

Shortly after reaching the Boron rank of King`s Knight, I was contacted by a Boron by the name of Mahi Ma who wanted someone to look for some friends who had gone missing while exploring Xenon sectors. As I was planning to explore them anyway I was happy to accept and set off for enemy territory. After much dodging of Xenon patrols I found myself in a strange hub structure, where his friends' trail went cold. After informing Mahi Ma he insisted on being brought to the hub, (leaving his Enhanced Dolphin for me to claim) which we managed to take over, and has asked for a few things to restore it to working order. I have completed delivering one shipment so far and am working on gathering the second.

I followed up my exploration of the Xenon sectors by visiting the Pirate sectors that I had yet to examine. I believe I have now explored all the non-Terran/plot sectors. In the course of my rummaging around in parts unwelcoming I came across an unusual ship – the AP Gunner, a corvette class ship that can mount a pair of Plasma Pulse Cannons as its front guns. This offered me a much simpler solution to the Laser Tower problem I mentioned last time than the one I had in mind, as the PPC out-ranges the laser towers. After equipping it I took it to meet the Yaki troublemaker, and several well-aimed volleys later he was talking, giving me a cryptic clue to start me on my treasure hunt. By the end of the day I had solved three clues, and have a good idea of where to go for number four.

After I got the Deimos outfitted I tested it out on some pirates and Xenon. I love the way the Phased Shockwave Generators just melt fighters, indeed while using it to clear out a Xenon incursion one pilot was so impressed he offered me his (only slightly damaged) Demeter Super Freighter free of charge, which I was happy to accept (if he says different do not believe him!).

Several assassinations beat my previous top bounty, with 4,150,752 for Pu t'Ztk setting the new record, and the overall record increasing to 7,545,882, still for military transport which has proven very lucrative.

I finished off Day Six the same way I began – failing to return a Deimos to its too-trusting owner.

Over the course of the day I have advanced from trade rank 20 to 23, and from combat rank 19 to 20. My faction ranks are:
Argon 10
Boron 9
Split 10
Paranid 10
Teladi 8
Goner 4
Terran -1
Strong Arms 6 (still plugging away)

I have taken on 45 missions and completed 37 of them, visited 12 new sectors (pilot info claims 13, but I can only count 12 – perhaps it is related to the hub plot?) and destroyed 98 ships. My bank account has grown impressively from 33.5 million to 95.2 million credits (I blame the traders).

Day Seven

I started the day by following on with the Treasure Hunt Quest, and after some more problem solving, and a daring rescue, I was the proud owner of a slightly used Xperimental Shuttle.

I had been using a couple of my TPs to fetch items for missions or to equip capital ships, and had become dissatisfied with their cargo capacity, so I added another one to the fleet, a Boron Angel – not as fast as the Ocelot, but carries almost twice as much cargo and can take XL wares too. This has proved quite useful for gathering items.

After making the next delivery to Mahi Ma I realigned the gates to place the hub between Home of Opportunity and Family Tkr. While neither of these sectors is particularly interesting (although they both have equipment docks, and there is a shipyard in Family Tkr), on either side we have the rich asteroid fields of Mines of Fortune and Tkr's Deprivation, which with some development should support my move into industry. On the subject of that, with 150,000 Teladinium to gather I concluded it was time I brought a TL, and an offer of 12,176,187 Cr. for a station building mission certainly helped ease the financial pain of investing in an Elephant. Several subsequent missions gave me more experience with station building at other people's expense before I would start working for my own benefit.

I turned my attention back to the Strong Arms, and managed to earn first the Advanced Mamba, and then my X-Wing – I mean Enhanced Chimera. With this done I have taken the first mission for all the other corporations, just to get on their books and ensure they do not ask me to assassinate someone in a destroyer before joining later. I will be working on OTAS now as I believe the TC Plots for AP mod locks some of their ships until certain ranks are reached.

I had a go at using CLS to make one of my ships automatically refuel my Kestrel, whose great speed is offset by a rather small cargo bay which making long distance jumping troublesome. While I convinced it to buy the energy crystals, I could not persuade it to refuel me so I left it trading energy cells to nearby factories.

With some station building experience under my belt I set out to create a number of Teladinium Foundry complexes in the sectors that generate the most energy crystals, starting with a four-factory complex in Akeela's Beacon, with plans for two-factory complexes in eight other sectors. I soon realised that the Elephant could only carry one factory at a time, whereas if I upgraded to a larger ship I could carry both factories and the complex hub at once, and thus I brought a Mammoth to use for my own building, while freeing up the Elephant to use for any building missions I come across.

The Elephant's 14-fighter hanger is also useful for moving my fleet around. As I am sure I will want to be converting my current trading fleet to supporting my industry using CLS or CAG, while the traders move over to Drakes I decided to use my idle fighters to recruit a number of CLS pilots. I had read that the best pilots could be hired from Herron's Neblua, and therefore shipped a bunch of fighters over there and outfitted them all with the CLS software, only to find they also need navigation software installed. Most were then ordered back on the Elephant and flown back to Rhonkar's Might (my chosen ship dump) and docked at the equipment dock to buy navigation software, then back on the Elephant (with a few additions) to return to Herron's Neblua and get qualified pilots. I now have 18 Cargo Messengers docked at the station awaiting deployment.

During the day I have failed to return several ships: a Heavy Osprey, Asp, Heavy Centuar, and Nemesis (this one dropped my Paranid rank from 9 to 5). I also returned a stolen Discoverer Vanguard and used a small fraction of the reward money to buy my own. I also made second-hand purchases of: a Caiman Super Freighter, Jaguar Raider, two Caiman Super Freighter XLs, and a cheap Harrier Hauler. My marines are starting to resemble the crack team I want, but have not been deployed yet. They are still after name suggestions too.

At the end of the day I have just finished building my 20 large Teladinium Foundries in nine energy-rich sectors. I am wondering if I have enough left over to buy and equip the 24 Drakes my traders will need.

Over the course of the day I have advanced from trade rank 23 to 24, while combat rank has remained at 20. My faction ranks are:
Argon 10
Boron 10
Split 10
Paranid 5
Teladi 9
Goner 4
Terran -1
Strong Arms 10
OTAS 1

I have taken on 35 missions and completed 29 of them, visited no new sectors and destroyed 72 ships, and my bank account has dropped from 95.2 million to 58.5 million credits, but there is about 90 million in the complexes' accounts for their operating expenses.

A week ago I started a new life as a bankrupt assassin, now I am rich beyond my dreams, and barely have time to squeeze in the odd murder for money so that title does not seem to apply any more. My name is O'ren Rock, and I am a Corporate Overlord.

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This concludes my first week diary. There may be further updates but I prefer playing the game to writing about it so I make no guarantees. Thanks again to WinterSnowfall for the game, I am having a ton of fun.

I just priced up the Drakes. One fully equipped Drake would cost 6,662,000 Cr. so 24 will cost around 160M Cr., assuming I can even find the 120 PBEs to arm them. Most of that money goes on cargo bay extensions at about 3.5M Cr. per ship.