Another day in our w-space system, another neighbor to groom.
I wasn’t the first one get up this day, as Brad and Liza were already busy decimating one of our Grav sites. However, they hadn’t gotten around to our daily scan routine, so I took on the duty for today. After a light breakfast, I hooked up to my pod and let the amniotic fluid wash over me.
The signatures in our system were quickly confirmed: nothing new, just one of the older Mag sites had evaporated. And of course we had a new connection to a Cl.3 w-space system, which was the real objective.
Once jumped through, a quick lookaround confirmed that this system, too, was occupied. For ‘unknown space’ we sure kept finding lots of dwellers. Also on scan: about fifteen CAs, one Grav site, one Ladar site, and exits to 0-sec and lo-sec respectively. The Ladar site looked promising, filled with C-28 and C-32 gas, and outside d-scan range from the central system. It would be just a matter of waiting for the Sleeper patrol to show up, then the riches would be ours.
Of course it didn’t go as planned: after waiting some time, not only did the Sleeper patrol show up, but so did a number of Core Scan probes as well. A quick jaunt back to the central system showed a Probe on scan, but only briefly: the pilot was apparently moving around and I lost contact as often as I regained it.
Eventually I managed to trace the Probe down to the POS, but just when I arrived to eye the scene, the pilot changed into a Hound, warped off and cloaked.
I knew he hadn’t seen me, but with him around I couldn’t risk calling our non-cloaking gas miners in, so after a few minutes of diddling I gave up for the moment and headed back to our own system. I had a couple of other things to take care off anyway, so I docked back up, not without reminding Brad and Liza to keep an eye on the scanners.
A couple of hours later, I returned to our system, only to be greeted with this message:
Remember the Hound guy?
He warped in to our WH in the Hound with no scanner. I scanned out the cl3 as he asked. He said he would give me the Hound in return. I'm not stupid. I made him eject over the pos and I fleet warped him to the WH by himself. Now I have a shiny new stealth bomber with named and T2 equipment.
-- Brad
I’m so proud!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Are We Having Fun Yet?
So -- Planetary Interaction.
When it was first announced, I resisted. Too much it reminded me of POS Reactions on Steroids - replete with spreadsheets, non-linear optimizations, OCD-fueled min-maxing, and brimming with a plethora of special interest magazines.
Then CONCORD cleared the way, a fleet of heavily-guarded construction ships appeared in our little w-space system to put up customs offices, several of my corp members plonked down their command centers, and started spending all of their time with spreadsheets, non-linear min-maxing, and long discussions whether ‘The New Colonial’ or ‘Planets!’ had the better market advice. But my smugness didn’t last long - it may have been one too many ‘You too could be a God!’ flyers, or one of the many multi-million ISK transfers I made to corp members in exchange for home-made POS fuel; either way, I broke down and started colonies as well.
Everything seemed to be going swell - our w-System wasn't exactly rich, but quite well populated with planets, the processors hummed along merrily; only my spreadsheets caused me worry because they refused to match what my colonies were producing. No worries, probably just a type somewhere - a bit of staring at the numbers, and the mistake would reveal itself.
And revealed it was: at some point I over-calculated the raw material extraction by factor 2.
Oops.
As mistakes go, it was easily corrected, but now all my industrial facilities needed to be rejiggered. I was just putting together a new plan, when suddenly my terminal went dark.
Power Outage? Somebody put us into reinforced? We forgot to refuel the POS? No - the lights were still on, and I hadn’t noticed any explosions either.
I turned, and came face to face with Lance, one of our resident miners, who was holding my terminal’s power connector in his hand.
“Boss”, he drawled, “You have to stop staring at numbers. There’s a whole universe out there, full of adventure!”
“But...”
“You’ve been cooped up here for a month! When was the last time you were in space?”
“Today...”
“And I don’t mean your daily confirmation that our known signatures didn’t move over night. Real space!”
“Well...”
He grinned. “C’mon, you know you want to. Our today’s neighbor has some juicy CAs - so how about you shoot, and I salvage? And afterwards we can pick up some Fullerenes on the way back.”
I glanced at the dark terminal, and then back at Lance. Of course he was right - it had been too long since I did some real flying.
“Damn you, Lance. Last one to the hangar is a short-limbed roe!”
---
Two hours later, our ships docked back at the POS. As we padded barefoot to the living areas, toweling off the last remains of the Pod juice, Lance punched me into the arm.
“Well, Boss, wasn’t that fun?”
Well, let’s see: most of my Harbinger’s equipment was now resting, slightly scorched, in a can in the main hangar; my Harbinger itself was a smoking wreck off an Oruze Node; my Apoc’s structure was held together only just so by its armor, with no repairer on hand; and our Fullerene mining had been cut short when a Cheetah with an unpronounceable name started poking its probes into our business. So, did I have fun?
“Oh yeah!”
When it was first announced, I resisted. Too much it reminded me of POS Reactions on Steroids - replete with spreadsheets, non-linear optimizations, OCD-fueled min-maxing, and brimming with a plethora of special interest magazines.
Then CONCORD cleared the way, a fleet of heavily-guarded construction ships appeared in our little w-space system to put up customs offices, several of my corp members plonked down their command centers, and started spending all of their time with spreadsheets, non-linear min-maxing, and long discussions whether ‘The New Colonial’ or ‘Planets!’ had the better market advice. But my smugness didn’t last long - it may have been one too many ‘You too could be a God!’ flyers, or one of the many multi-million ISK transfers I made to corp members in exchange for home-made POS fuel; either way, I broke down and started colonies as well.
Everything seemed to be going swell - our w-System wasn't exactly rich, but quite well populated with planets, the processors hummed along merrily; only my spreadsheets caused me worry because they refused to match what my colonies were producing. No worries, probably just a type somewhere - a bit of staring at the numbers, and the mistake would reveal itself.
And revealed it was: at some point I over-calculated the raw material extraction by factor 2.
Oops.
As mistakes go, it was easily corrected, but now all my industrial facilities needed to be rejiggered. I was just putting together a new plan, when suddenly my terminal went dark.
Power Outage? Somebody put us into reinforced? We forgot to refuel the POS? No - the lights were still on, and I hadn’t noticed any explosions either.
I turned, and came face to face with Lance, one of our resident miners, who was holding my terminal’s power connector in his hand.
“Boss”, he drawled, “You have to stop staring at numbers. There’s a whole universe out there, full of adventure!”
“But...”
“You’ve been cooped up here for a month! When was the last time you were in space?”
“Today...”
“And I don’t mean your daily confirmation that our known signatures didn’t move over night. Real space!”
“Well...”
He grinned. “C’mon, you know you want to. Our today’s neighbor has some juicy CAs - so how about you shoot, and I salvage? And afterwards we can pick up some Fullerenes on the way back.”
I glanced at the dark terminal, and then back at Lance. Of course he was right - it had been too long since I did some real flying.
“Damn you, Lance. Last one to the hangar is a short-limbed roe!”
---
Two hours later, our ships docked back at the POS. As we padded barefoot to the living areas, toweling off the last remains of the Pod juice, Lance punched me into the arm.
“Well, Boss, wasn’t that fun?”
Well, let’s see: most of my Harbinger’s equipment was now resting, slightly scorched, in a can in the main hangar; my Harbinger itself was a smoking wreck off an Oruze Node; my Apoc’s structure was held together only just so by its armor, with no repairer on hand; and our Fullerene mining had been cut short when a Cheetah with an unpronounceable name started poking its probes into our business. So, did I have fun?
“Oh yeah!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)