Greed Goeth Before the Fall
16 Mar 2017ED_Recluse
Lots of adventures but few diaries lately......so have been dinking around in my Type 6 doing BOOM transport missions around my "home base" in Ngolibardu. Many nice missions worth a cool million credits for one short jump. I picked up a couple of "BLACK BOX SALVAGE" missions too, hence using my Type 6 rather than a more capable ASP, since it already has Collector Limpets while the ASP has Cargo and Passenger space. The first one went smoothly. In and out with no opposition. The second one, worth 670,000 credits has been a pain in my err.. ASTEROID.
Quick jump to Liu Baja system, but the target planet is ~67,000 light seconds out. I found the mission target, collected one black box and immediately got jumped by 2 pirates. Got out OK but down to 69% hull. Not wanting to make the 67,000 light seconds trip again, I cruised around and around AND AROUND till I got another target signal. Dropped in, and got jumped before I could collect anything. Went back to repair, did a bunch more missions before going back to this one. Dropped in. Collected Box #2. Collected Box #3, Pirates dropped in... JUST ONE MORE. Box #4 in the hold...Mission Complete..but by then I was under fire and forgot to close my Cargo Scoop to Frame Shift out. That delay cost me my ship and the cargo AND the 850,000 in Imperial Bounties I was saving just in case another Bounty Hunting CG comes up in Empire territory. Luckily the insurance on a type 6 is minimal. Should have gotten out with 3/4, then come back to grab the last one!!
I am going to fit my Vulture or FAS with a Cargo Rack and Limpet controller so I can kick those pirate's butts and collect my Black boxes in peace!!!! Usually the cops show up pretty quickly too, so all I have to do is put up a fight and stay alive until they kill or chase the pirates away. Hopefully they will arrive in the same small ships as before (Viper and Adder, I think). Bad news for a Type 6 but a tasty treat for a real combat ship.
Good news is I made back all the lost assets with a few quick BOOM missions but it's personal, now!!!