Post mining comedown.
06 Jun 2020Junagu
It's been a long haul but I got there in the end and have wrapped up my mining stint. I've enough for the next phase: to launch a fleet carrier. I've got a name all picked out and have spent the last month, whilst not mining, assembling a lot of spare modules - all the limpet controllers, scanners, FSD boosters and a raft of weapons for various hardpoint classes - and also investing in a few new ships, in particular one of each of the Lakon Type-9 and Type-10, for large scale hauling and intense mining respectively. This last detail was instigated after having devoted a couple of valuable days to attending one of the VR demonstrations of the new Brewer Corp Fleet Carrier at the symposium in Diso, where CMDRs got to try out the new ships in real-time. Once I'd ditched my lanyard-ID in a bin outside the conference center I realised I had more work to do; just when I thought I'd finished. Well, no rest for the wicked, seemingly. Fuelling these beasts is going to require much larger vessels than I'd previously outfitted. Just hauling the fuel from Refinery stations was going to be an arduous task even in the biggest truck. Anyhow, that ate up a few hundred million credits and it was back to the LTD fields once more to top up my balance. But now I've enough for a bit over one year's upkeep and plenty of well-kitted out ships of all shapes and sizes, most of them tested too.
After having tied up some loose ends with ships and modules I took the plunge and decided, at long last, to change over the Remlok control software that I'd been using to one of the Alliance Open Source systems, rather than the proprietory Federation suite that gets shunted on you when you get your PF licence. What a difference! None of those annoying pop-up ads and all the bloated crap that was causing a serious drag on my frontal lobes. Sure, it takes a bit to configure, but the long-term benefits are going to be worth it. So, I've been spending a good deal of time in back-to-basics activity: flying around stations with the SYsSec craft, dodging asteroids and so on, so that I can get the whole thing tuned up and my body memory adjusted. It's a way off perfect but I can function for now. Good to return to that every now and then though, and a good marker for a new phase.
I came back to the Bubble only expecting to be here a month or two and it's been closer to six months. Well, all good things come to an end. It's been great to gel with the squadron a bit more and to jump with the team but it's time to set out into the unknown again. Since I'm still subscribed to a few of the channels from Distant Worlds 2 I've been monitoring the increase in comms around the new vessels being released. There are some big plans afoot. A Deep Space Support Array has been put into action; fleet carrier vessels in permanent position in every region of the galaxy. Rather than flying I've spent a lot of time poring over charts, maps, statistics and so on. This needs doing every now and then - intense study of the GalMap with all its maddening complexity and scale and the tedious admin of tidying up bookmarks and names. So many things tagged I can't even remember why - a sure reminder that due diligence on record keeping is a long-term win. And with that I realised there was even more work to do.
So, I've a final tour of some of the engineers to do, to have a last word with them, and a lot of admin. Flight itineraries, graphics and so on. I know it'll be worth it though.
I just hope I can coax some crew to join the journey.