Brb, cleaning bug guts off my windshield.
23 Feb 2023Ember Lacson
Today was the most productive single day I've had since the Void Opal gold rush. I pulled in almost half a billion in bonds. There were a bunch of other AXI CMDRs above Steiner's Progress in Vogulu, and the bugs just kept coming. With all of us put together, we took down at least half a dozen Cyclopes, at least one Basilisk, and four—that's right, four Hydrae, as well as a few dozen Scouts. I wasn't the only one rocking a modshard build, and one guy even brought his six shard Conda to the party. If you do it right, those can take down a Cyclops with one volley. And while we didn't get any quite that quick, it was usually as simple as taking one heart down, taking down the subsequent shield, then unloading into the hull for two seconds. I kind of resorted to tagging the bug with my beam laser so that I could get participatory credit while the others did the brunt of the damage. I had to head back to the surface port to dock a few times, but over the course of a couple hours, I kept stacking bonds until I had to head back and turn in.When I landed and disembarked, I was struck by the enormous splotches of green goo all over my Azimuth paint job (which I actually feel kind of dirty for using; remind me to get that stripped off and redone). If you're unfamiliar with how Thargoid caustic works, it's a sticky, viscous mess kind of like hagfish slime. Decontamination limpets and landing pad-based neutralizers don't remove it; they just stop it from eating through your hull. There are big patches of bare hull where I had the damage repaired, but I still need to clean this thing off more or less by hand with a power washer and some hardcore degreaser. I think I'm going to hit the high points, like my canopy and the areas around my hardpoints, then finally get a wash when I switch the paint out.
I'm currently exhausted, so I think when I go back out in a few hours I'll take my Python and grab some refugees instead. Not as lucrative, but it doesn't rely as much on me being alert and engaged. I just have to slip through, land, fill my cabins, grab any escape pods on the way out, and high wake away as soon as I clear mass lock. I've heard rumors of some Thargoid sympathizers and maybe Far God fanatics attacking ships, but I haven't seen it yet. And they wouldn't go after a rescue ship, would they? Especially not one so clearly marked with a red and white paint job, humanitarian decals, and zero hardpoints to speak of. I think I'd better find the nearest wooden object and knock on it for a couple minutes. I may be inviting fate to show me both sides of this conflict.