The Diary of a Space Scoundrel: Welcome to Hell
11 Sep 2018Seth Bradwell
I arrived at the Gnosis after over an hour of endless jumping. One huge oversight I made was to not find out how far out the Gnosis actually was from civilised space, was I to do so I would have engineered my FSD for extended jump range, although to be fair the Ellen Ripley only has slightly less jump range than the Hauler I kitted out for long distance exploration some years ago, before Engineers came along and made life so much easier. On approach I immediately encountered a pitched battle, and within seconds I was down to one-third shield (Lei Chung was thankfully proven wrong, those enhanced shields and boosters did prove their worth out here). I hastily made it to my landing pad and into the hanger, and got a briefing from the Canonn representative on duty. The poor man looked utterly bedraggled, it was blatantly obvious that he had not much sleep these past few days."The aim is quite simple. Take down as many of those bugs as you can, and don't hit any human ships - not even by accident. The AI controlling the Gnosis' bounty system does not differentiate between friendly fire and a malicious attack, and the personnel on the defence turrets will not know either until it's too late. Should you be fortunate enough to eject and survive, the criminal processing takes place way out somewhere in the California sector, over 1,000 light years from here. One commander has already spent two hours jumping back to here when a stray missile of his struck one of our pilots. Do you understand?"
"I understand." I replied unconvincingly.
"In addition, avoid being too close to the Thargoids when they are about to explode, they release a cloud of caustic material which will slowly eat away at your hull. I sure hope you got plenty of hull reinforcement." continued the Canonn representative.
"I certainly did, and made sure it was engineered to the max."
"Very good. By the way, whilst fines have now been suspended in the no-fire zone, you will still be asked by the flight control computer to stow your weapons. Feel free to ignore it, of course."
"It was pretty stupid to have not thought about the possibility of Thargoid engagements in the no-fire zone to begin with, if you ask me." I said, bitterly.
"Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Be assured that we at Canonn are trying to make up for these mistakes, and are doing out best to get ourselves out of this terrible situation. I hope you can understand. Any questions?"
"Thank you, I do understand." I lied. "I have no questions at present, but will not hesitate to ask if I need to". I did have plenty of questions, but I knew that this hapless administrator was not going to provide me with any useful answers. I strode off back to the hanger, with a lot on my mind. What kind of a madhouse have I just entered? Everyone seems to be making it up as they go along, decisions being made on an ad-hoc basis, the people in charge running about like headless chickens. I make my way back into the cockpit, tempted to either help myself to the Lavian brandy or even some of the Dweller's onionhead, but decided that if I had to resort to being drunk/stoned out of my mind this early on, I had no business being here. So I start up the launch sequence, and get ready to take on my first Thargoid.
The firefight was still as intense as when I first docked, so I set the targeting computer to select the nearest hostile ship. Thankfully all the Thargoids are of the smaller Scout class, the deities only know how dire the situation would be if the larger ships turned up. I aligned my multicannon's sights with the aiming reticle and opened fire. My initial salvo took off 5% of its hull before it moved out of the way of the guns. A few minutes later with the help of some fellow pilots, and I had splatted my first bug. 10,000 Cr Combat Bond:, a notice popped up on my info panel. Not that much as rewards go, and I can probably see myself spending more in ammo reloads and repairs before I am finished, but this kill was more satisfying than taking down an Elite target in an Anaconda. I move the Ellen Ripley to the next target, unleashing the might of her AX multicannons onto the Thargoid vessel. My shields are doing okay considering the hits I am taking, but know that sooner or later they will fall, and my hull reinforcements will be put to the test. I get up close, and line up the Thargoid for a missile, fire it, and it explodes with no damage, with a flash of laser light from the Gnosis. The fools, I thought, they haven't disabled the anti-missile systems, which are assuming that we are all pirates or terrorists, not defenders. Unperturbed, I continue to pick away with the multicannons, until I get up real close and launch another missile, and this time there is no stopping it from reaching its target, and about a fifth of the hull is torn off in one single blow. I finish it off with another multicannon burst, then move on to my next target. I then find myself surrounded by Thargoids, and get caustic missile warnings appearing on my info screen, and true enough, my hull strength starts to gradually drop. Additional pilots start to join the fray, allowing me to focus on one target at time. I get up close and launch a missile to dispatch my fourth Thargoid of the evening, and realise I am way too close, and am too late in boosting away before I am enveloped in a caustic cloud. The hull readings start to drop faster, but amazingly enough I am still at 80% hull strength, even though I lost my shields halfway through an encounter. I spot an Imperial Clipper in the distance getting pasted by a Thargoid, and boost towards its location to lend a hand. On my way I get a notice that I have finally left the Gnosis' no-fire zone, so I patiently wait for a moment when he is unable to dodge my attack, and fire a missile to drop his hull to below half strength. The Thargoid ship suddenly gets enveloped in a green swarm, and its hull strength starts to increase. I learnt from holovids how they can repair themselves, and it is soon back at full hull strength and lobbing caustic missiles my way, and a blast from its energy weapon soon drops my shields again. I take evasive manoeuvres, and start picking the Thargoid off with my multicannons, getting it down to 30% hull strength. The green healing swarm starts to appear again, but this time the bug is not so lucky, as it is pummeled by cannon blasts from the Clipper and two missles launched in quick succession, and the bug is well and truly splatted.
"Thanks." The Clipper pilot says over comms. "That was one good fight."
"Glad to be of help." I said back.
"Better get back to base, that hull is starting to look dicey." warned the Clipper pilot.
"Will do - I'm nearly out of ammo here anyway." I replied.
I touch down on the landing pad, and the Gnosis' automated systems automatically lower me into the hanger and into relative safety. In the end, I had 48% hull remaining, which I thought was quite a good achievement, impressed that I proved to be more than a match for whatever the Thargoids threw at me, although I am aware they have much more powerful ships at their disposal, and it is going to take a massive effort to fully repel them. In spite of this feat, I retired to my quarters feeling disturbed about the whole venture. These people were set up, I thought, someone knew this was likely to happen even if everyone on this ship didn't. I also found the reasoning for the failure of the Gnosis' defence systems to differentiate from pilots defending her from Thargoid attack from would-be pirates lacking in merit. I was even lectured by the traffic control AI for careless flying when I crashed into... a Thargoid ship. Also what's the deal with sending "criminal" pilots to the California sector for processing? Even with fully modded A rated FSDs, it would take a commander nearly 30 minutes to get back to the action. I calculated that to get from the detention ship location to the Gnosis would take 62 jumps in the Ellen Ripley, a good hour away. I made a mental note to be careful where I fire those missiles, and watch out for human pilots in my vicinity. But someone wants to ensure the defence of the Gnosis is not successful, and is doing whatever it can to try and make life difficult for those trying to defend her, and when this is all over, I am going to start my own little research project to find out who, or what, is behind all this.
OOC observations in spolier:
- Missiles do work in the no-fire zone, but you have to get real close so they can hit the target before the Gnosis' lasers destroy them. About 200 m will result in a successful hit.
- Even if you were to escape being destroyed after incurring a bounty, there are no Interstellar Factors for at least 1,000 light years for you to remove the bounty.
- Even though you will not get fined, the traffic controller still warns against you using weapons in the no-fire zone.
- Colliding with a Thargoid ship will result in a warning for reckless flying. I have yet to find out if ramming a Thargoid hard enough to cause damage will lead to a "reckless flying causing damage" fine.
- You CAN still get fined for "Reckless Weapons Discharge." This happened when I was engaging a Thargoid near the Gnosis.
- In the game itself I was twice a victim of "swift justice" after clocking up a 100 credit bounty for "assault" aka friendly fire. I am not sure if getting sent to the California Sector for processing as an undesirable was part of Frontier's plan to punish careless pilots with "Nintendo Hard" or another unexpected consequence of not thinking this scenario through. I am finding it pretty annoying and it does take an hour to return with a 25 ly jump range, including scooping fuel, I almost rage-quit after the second time, and to me this is just another piece of evidence thatFrontier does not care about its customers Aegis' sinister plan is to prevent pilots from successfully defending the Gnosis.
- Finally, I winged up with fellow Commanders for the first time ever, and I didn't mess things up and was able to fully contribute to splatting some bugs, which really lifted my mood after my second unwanted trip back from the California sector.
- Even if you were to escape being destroyed after incurring a bounty, there are no Interstellar Factors for at least 1,000 light years for you to remove the bounty.
- Even though you will not get fined, the traffic controller still warns against you using weapons in the no-fire zone.
- Colliding with a Thargoid ship will result in a warning for reckless flying. I have yet to find out if ramming a Thargoid hard enough to cause damage will lead to a "reckless flying causing damage" fine.
- You CAN still get fined for "Reckless Weapons Discharge." This happened when I was engaging a Thargoid near the Gnosis.
- In the game itself I was twice a victim of "swift justice" after clocking up a 100 credit bounty for "assault" aka friendly fire. I am not sure if getting sent to the California Sector for processing as an undesirable was part of Frontier's plan to punish careless pilots with "Nintendo Hard" or another unexpected consequence of not thinking this scenario through. I am finding it pretty annoying and it does take an hour to return with a 25 ly jump range, including scooping fuel, I almost rage-quit after the second time, and to me this is just another piece of evidence that
- Finally, I winged up with fellow Commanders for the first time ever, and I didn't mess things up and was able to fully contribute to splatting some bugs, which really lifted my mood after my second unwanted trip back from the California sector.