The Caustic Conundrum
10 Mar 2023Longman.P.J
I needed caustic sinks; I sometimes end up in some very dangerous environments but heavy duty and meta alloy hull reinforcements and decontamination limpets can only do so much to stem the corrosion.Here’s the conundrum... What I need can only be found inside Maelstroms, that’s right, the most caustic environments known to humans. Did I mention they are extremely dangerous too?
The Plan
Build a ship which can:
- outrun scouts and interceptors when the inevitable interdictions and hyperdictions occur
- withstand caustic environments
- run cool enough not to attract interceptors and caustic generators
- carry enough equipment to target, scan and analyse caustic generators (CGs), collect materials and decontaminate the ship
- make it there and back again safely
Run 1
Ship of choice was the Imperial Clipper with Clean, Thermal Spread engines and a Low Emissions, Thermal Spread powerplant. This kept the ship nicely under 20% heat, even when manoeuvring at speed, and the addition of Meta Alloy HRPs was sure to help.
It didn’t... Meta Alloy HRPs couldn’t withstand explosions as well as HD/DP HRPs and so my first attempt resulted in zero Caustic Tissue Samples (CTS), although I was able to grab some Caustic Shards and Corrosive Mechanisms and a rebuy...
Run 2
This one was memorable for many reasons. The trip was fraught with danger, constant interdictions and hyperdictions. Do not forget that each hyperdiction drains fuel from your tank; this didn’t occur to me during the build because my carrier was only 50 ly away from the maelstrom system. Anyway, I managed to get to the maelstrom but got too close to a few CGs, which self-destructed, and so I had to boost out again in order to repair the hull without the ever-present caustic damage to contend with. Also my weapon groups were sub-optimal which didn’t help. What worked best was to have the xeno scanner on the secondary trigger, a hot-key/button bound to target sub-system and research limpet on the primary trigger. That way I was able to target the CG, scan it and deploy a research limpet rather quickly while spamming decontamination limpets. After a few attempts I was finally able to grab 3 samples from 3 different CGs (I was only able to grab one sample from each CG) before making a mad dash to repair and refuel as the caustic clouds were steadily overwhelming my ability to repair and I had underestimated the number of limpets needed (I’d only brought 30). That was my next mistake; I had forgotten to equip a corrosive resistant cargo rack (CRCR) despite having a class 6 in storage so I was now watching 2 things which would send me to the rebuy screen: caustic damage and diminishing fuel. I found a system close by with active stations. The first jump was hyperdicted which wasted more fuel but I had enough mats to perform a basic synth of “jumponium” to reduce the fuel required for a jump (or increase the range of a jump) by 25% which put the target system back into jump range. The next jump was successful but I had made yet another glaring error; it was an outpost and my clipper, despite having medium-ship characteristics, has a huge undercarriage footprint, due to the outriggers, and so requires a large landing pad which outposts don’t possess.... bugger! A friendly S&R ship sent out a few repair limpets but wasn’t able to send fuel so it was back to the map to find another station. I had nothing left in the main tank so a jump to another system was out of the question and the constant caustic damage meant that a Fuel Rat rescue might be too late. That meant there was only one thing left, a planetary base. Fortunately there was one in system 52000 ls away; it was the longest 10 minutes of supercruising in my entire piloting career. Did I have enough fuel? Would caustic damage get me first?
I made it... with a slither of fuel left in the reserve tank.
Phew!!! A quick repair and refuel later and I was heading back to my team-mate’s carrier. Only one hyperdiction this time but there was plenty of fuel in the tank so nothing to worry about. I sold my CTSs to the carrier and then went back to the drawing board for run number 3.
Plan B
I dusted off one of my AX Krait MkIIs and stripped off all weapons. I didn’t need a long-range, thermal vent, turreted beam laser as the Low Emissions, Thermal Spread powerplant from the Clipper was more than sufficient for the job of keeping heat down below 20%. A few HRPs were removed to make way for a C6 CRCR, a xeno multi-limpet controller (the Krait doesn’t have a C7 slot and so the universal limpet controller was out of the question) and a C3B collector limpet controller.
Run 3
Uneventful, thankfully! Only a few interdictions and hyperdictions this time but the Krait coped admirably. The top speed of 531, coupled with a heat sink was a boon and ensured a quick getaway every time without sustaining any damage. A full load of 64 limpets was more than plenty and ensured I had enough to research, repair, decontaminate and collect. Two more CTSs were collected in short order now that I had mastered the technique and so 15 minutes was all it took to get there and back. Job done!