Posted November 01, 2016
DAY 2
Whew, that was a close call! Command ordered me off to Nathan's Voyage, and since I'd never informed them that I'd already been there (nor that I'd upgraded my ship to be just a wee bit faster than what they'd given me), I figured I could take as much as a day to show up before anyone would be wondering where I was, particularly with my journey leading via Omicron Lyrae again, and well, my sense of direction just isn't all that good and it's really easy to get turned around in there!
So I ordered Freddy to start doing some sector trading in Omicron Lyrae, and off I went, back in the direction of Tharka's Sun to see what wonders the universe holds beyond that. On my way there, I fought off some pirates at PTNI Headquarters, and 'lo and behold, one of them ditched their Elite rather than dying a heroic death! Much more useful than all those M5s which Command kept inflicting on me. Erm... I hope. It's significantly slower than my Sabre, doesn't have any stronger shields, and can barely carry more cargo. Oh well, I outfitted it anyway, and sent it off to help protect Freddy, figuring I'll find a better use for it later on. (Also, I felt rather proud that in the heat of battle I actually noticed the pirate ditching. The first time that ever happened to me, back during my first day, I didn't, and wastefully blew up a perfectly good ship...)
(Curious encounter while out there: A strange round spaceship with some kind of hull or shielding which made it impervious to having its cargo scanned. Don't entirely know what to make of it.)
Anyway, onward I went, to the sectors beyond Tharka's Sun. I think it was around Thuruk's Beard that I decided I could really use some more firepower. I took My First Rapier off the rather boring guard-duty it was on, upgraded it to its max speed, and sent it off to Saturn to buy me some additional plasma cannons. (I sure love having the credits for impulse buys like that! Later on I also decided to just get a bunch of satellites to see what those are good for...) Somehow it made its way to me far more swiftly than I'd expected (via sectors with strange names like Eighteen Billion and New Income, which I'll have to investigate at my earliest convenience!), and so by the time I was flying around Family Zein, I was blasting ships out of the sky with four blazing cannons. (I also sent My First Rapier back home to buy some more Cannons for itself and my other Rapiers.)
Those cannons sure came in handy when I found myself face to face with a Kha'ak Corvette on an - admittedly, this time they were right! - "Very Hard" patrol mission at Spaceweed Drift. *gulp* Luckily, I have an even better weapon than my cannons, and that is my boundless cunning. I lured the Corvette toward a couple of big Haulers, and while it was busy semi-ineffectively lancing out at them (I think it only managed to destroy one or two), I ran circles around it and - slowly, so slowly! - drained its shields with my cannons. Those Kha'ak obviously aren't too smart, as they never figured it out, and so in just a short bit, I actually could start doing some real damage, until it blew into a million tiny pieces in a very satisfactory explosion. Got a biiiig bonus for that, too, which is always nice on a well-paying mission.
The universe has apparently decreed a minimum number of spaceships for me to take possession of each day, and since the hours were ticking on with me being firmly out of reach of Command, it had no choice but to in short order have three less skilled pilots ditch their M3s (!) for me to take hold off; first a Paranid Persues Vanguard at Teladi Gain, and then both attacking ships on the very same protection mission at Home Of Opportunity, a Nova Raider, and a Falcon with its shields still intact! Niiiice! I'm building up quite a fleet, here! The Falcon's just too slow for my taste, but the other two I'll take a serious look at once I've properly outfitted them. Which, I'm learning, is easier said than done, out there in the middle of nowhere. Getting them some shields was easy, but weapons seem to be in extremely short supply.
Luckily I didn't have the time to get upset about this, as the day was nearing its end very swiftly. My navigation computer claimed to know a shortcut to Nathan's Voyage, so I raced against the clock, onward to Ghinn's Escape (where, I'll admit, I did linger just a wee bit to scan a few asteroids), Thyn's Abyss, and... erm, EEEP! The stupid thing led me straight into Xenon space! Youch, that Xenon J looked scaaaaaary! Good thing a trade convoy of big haulers with navigation computers as stupid as mine had wandered into the sector right before me, so I made a run for it while they were being demolished, and safely exited in the familiar territory of Black Hole Sun, with minutes to spare before the day came to an end.
Turns out, though, I needn't have worried. My contact got himself arrested hours earlier. Probably dodged quite a bullet there; if I'd been in early, they might've arrested me, too! Now I'm off on some other fool's errand to contact yet someone else and clear up this mess. Or, well, that's what my new contact wants me to do. But meanwhile I just got offered a sweet 100k per asteroid, for a total of over 1 million credits if I scan 10 of them over four sectors! Apparently this guy has never met any of the surveyors which sell you whole sectors worth of asteroid data for 50k. I didn't become the Wholesaler I am by letting such deals lie by the wayside. (Yeah, sure, sure, Freddy had something to do with it, too - but who had the smarts to bankroll Freddy, eh?!) The 5.6M credits I have to my name now might seem like a lot, but I have an urge to get into the asteroid mining business, and I suspect I'll have quite some capital expenses to get that properly underway.
I'm sure the Argon won't torture my original contact too much if I take just a couple of hours extra en route...
Whew, that was a close call! Command ordered me off to Nathan's Voyage, and since I'd never informed them that I'd already been there (nor that I'd upgraded my ship to be just a wee bit faster than what they'd given me), I figured I could take as much as a day to show up before anyone would be wondering where I was, particularly with my journey leading via Omicron Lyrae again, and well, my sense of direction just isn't all that good and it's really easy to get turned around in there!
So I ordered Freddy to start doing some sector trading in Omicron Lyrae, and off I went, back in the direction of Tharka's Sun to see what wonders the universe holds beyond that. On my way there, I fought off some pirates at PTNI Headquarters, and 'lo and behold, one of them ditched their Elite rather than dying a heroic death! Much more useful than all those M5s which Command kept inflicting on me. Erm... I hope. It's significantly slower than my Sabre, doesn't have any stronger shields, and can barely carry more cargo. Oh well, I outfitted it anyway, and sent it off to help protect Freddy, figuring I'll find a better use for it later on. (Also, I felt rather proud that in the heat of battle I actually noticed the pirate ditching. The first time that ever happened to me, back during my first day, I didn't, and wastefully blew up a perfectly good ship...)
(Curious encounter while out there: A strange round spaceship with some kind of hull or shielding which made it impervious to having its cargo scanned. Don't entirely know what to make of it.)
Anyway, onward I went, to the sectors beyond Tharka's Sun. I think it was around Thuruk's Beard that I decided I could really use some more firepower. I took My First Rapier off the rather boring guard-duty it was on, upgraded it to its max speed, and sent it off to Saturn to buy me some additional plasma cannons. (I sure love having the credits for impulse buys like that! Later on I also decided to just get a bunch of satellites to see what those are good for...) Somehow it made its way to me far more swiftly than I'd expected (via sectors with strange names like Eighteen Billion and New Income, which I'll have to investigate at my earliest convenience!), and so by the time I was flying around Family Zein, I was blasting ships out of the sky with four blazing cannons. (I also sent My First Rapier back home to buy some more Cannons for itself and my other Rapiers.)
Those cannons sure came in handy when I found myself face to face with a Kha'ak Corvette on an - admittedly, this time they were right! - "Very Hard" patrol mission at Spaceweed Drift. *gulp* Luckily, I have an even better weapon than my cannons, and that is my boundless cunning. I lured the Corvette toward a couple of big Haulers, and while it was busy semi-ineffectively lancing out at them (I think it only managed to destroy one or two), I ran circles around it and - slowly, so slowly! - drained its shields with my cannons. Those Kha'ak obviously aren't too smart, as they never figured it out, and so in just a short bit, I actually could start doing some real damage, until it blew into a million tiny pieces in a very satisfactory explosion. Got a biiiig bonus for that, too, which is always nice on a well-paying mission.
The universe has apparently decreed a minimum number of spaceships for me to take possession of each day, and since the hours were ticking on with me being firmly out of reach of Command, it had no choice but to in short order have three less skilled pilots ditch their M3s (!) for me to take hold off; first a Paranid Persues Vanguard at Teladi Gain, and then both attacking ships on the very same protection mission at Home Of Opportunity, a Nova Raider, and a Falcon with its shields still intact! Niiiice! I'm building up quite a fleet, here! The Falcon's just too slow for my taste, but the other two I'll take a serious look at once I've properly outfitted them. Which, I'm learning, is easier said than done, out there in the middle of nowhere. Getting them some shields was easy, but weapons seem to be in extremely short supply.
Luckily I didn't have the time to get upset about this, as the day was nearing its end very swiftly. My navigation computer claimed to know a shortcut to Nathan's Voyage, so I raced against the clock, onward to Ghinn's Escape (where, I'll admit, I did linger just a wee bit to scan a few asteroids), Thyn's Abyss, and... erm, EEEP! The stupid thing led me straight into Xenon space! Youch, that Xenon J looked scaaaaaary! Good thing a trade convoy of big haulers with navigation computers as stupid as mine had wandered into the sector right before me, so I made a run for it while they were being demolished, and safely exited in the familiar territory of Black Hole Sun, with minutes to spare before the day came to an end.
Turns out, though, I needn't have worried. My contact got himself arrested hours earlier. Probably dodged quite a bullet there; if I'd been in early, they might've arrested me, too! Now I'm off on some other fool's errand to contact yet someone else and clear up this mess. Or, well, that's what my new contact wants me to do. But meanwhile I just got offered a sweet 100k per asteroid, for a total of over 1 million credits if I scan 10 of them over four sectors! Apparently this guy has never met any of the surveyors which sell you whole sectors worth of asteroid data for 50k. I didn't become the Wholesaler I am by letting such deals lie by the wayside. (Yeah, sure, sure, Freddy had something to do with it, too - but who had the smarts to bankroll Freddy, eh?!) The 5.6M credits I have to my name now might seem like a lot, but I have an urge to get into the asteroid mining business, and I suspect I'll have quite some capital expenses to get that properly underway.
I'm sure the Argon won't torture my original contact too much if I take just a couple of hours extra en route...
Attachments:
day2-pilot.png (227 Kb)
day2-property.png (239 Kb)
day2-ufo.jpg (150 Kb)
day2-khaakcorvet.jpg (224 Kb)
day2-claimed.jpg (426 Kb)
Post edited November 01, 2016 by gogtrial34987