CMND LOG 047: Interdiction
30 Jan 2022Switch Killington
Well, it's been another year since I did one of these. Spent it all planetside, again. It's going to be a long one, lots to catch up on.The Vets have taken over quite a slice of black. They've done quite well with their coordinated and planned expansions. Now it seems like they've expanded enough to fill the void we were allowed. Not many systems left to move into without stepping on other groups toes, and they seem to be eager to avoid that. Which is their/our prerogative. I speak like I'm part of it, I'm not, besides the opening moves I've been silently watching them planetside, so it's not a victory I can claim.
I'm eager to do something I can take credit for, so I started working covertly in the one system we were unsure about our place in. Subra, a system with another pair of factions directly supported by Commanders like ourselves, the home system of a faction that apparently model themselves after mythological space warriors from an old vid scroll. Crazy people, in other words. We had a number of settlements in that system, despite not having a large control, so I started working covertly. A small ship would make it easy to slip in and out for boots missions, so I broke out my old Cobra3, Slumpbuster. It was my old smuggling rig, geared to run in stealth and very nimble. I started working out of our data analytics base, they had me stealing data and megaship logs. Fun enough, but the Vets ended up calling a withdrawal from the system, which left me with a zero point zero things to do.
I decided to shoot out to Thargoid space and see how the war is going. Slumpbuster runs in silent running, which makes it perfect for swiping escape pods out from under 'Goid tentacles. Drop in, run silent, fire limpets, boost out. Sometimes they don't even notice me, usually I'm out of their engagement range when they do. So I ran a search and rescue patrol and picked up some people. The only thing next was, where to put them?
I hadn't logged any significant flight time since the fleet carriers became so commonplace, and wow, they had changed the lay of the land. With stations destroyed and repairing, we couldn't get basic services out in deep space, but not anymore. With so many megaships, it was like a shopping mall out there, dozens to choose from. I paged through trying to find some ship to drop these escape pods on, but eventually just gave up. I decided to come back to the bubble and hop in my AX Ship and fly back out.
It was on my way back, that I got hyperdicted. I'm not fresh up on new thargoid tactics or behaviors, so what happened might be the new normal, but I found it peculiar. In the interest of datasharing:
As you can see, I toggle on my silent running prior to being completely shut down. The Goid doesn't scan me, but once I come back online he tries to maintain 530m of distance from me at all times, like we are dancing. As I do larger and larger flight maneuvers, the Goid ends up bumping me a few times. Seemed inadvertent, like he had too much momentum from trying to match my maneuvers. Eventually it got made and I took off.
Two jumps afterward I was hyperdicted again by a wing of 4. They didn't want to dance, just jumped away after. I don't think they scanned me either, I performed the same silent running toggle before I lost power.
If you are reading this, this probably isn't anything new to you. But I like to err on the side of more data, not less.
I'm jumping in my dedicated AX ship and heading back out there. Still haven't found someone to take those escape pods. Hope they don't mind rolling around my cargo hold.