Surface Tension
24 Mar 2016ED_Recluse
I figured it was time to expand my ...er...Horizons.....and see what a Planetary landing and a spin in an SRV was like. I retrieved my trusty mothballed Cobra Mk. III from the shipyard in McKee Ring, GD 19, where it had been sitting ever since being replaced for the Bounty Hunting task by the Vulture. I had purchased and outfitted a NEW Cobra for Mining, so I decided that this one would be the surface exploration test Vessel. The buyback was relatively low, so I thought I could risk it.
Replaced one Cargo Rack with a Vehicle hangar and replaced one Multicannon with a Missile Rack for surface bombardment.
Not one to turn down a good payday in the process, I secured two surface missions for the test:
1) Free Data For All - Connect to a Terminal attached to a Turret (V775 Herculis)
2) Open the door - Destroy a generator attached to a Turret (Liu Baja)
These were at 2 different installations.
I did a little research and regretted taking the Data mission as it seems fraught with ambiguity.
Off I went! Managed to land on the planet near the BEACON Outpost for the Data Mission. Deployed the SRV and quickly realized none of the controls were mapped. I went back and forth (LITERALLY!!! UNTIL I GOT THE THROTTLE SORTED OUT) until I could drive, steer, shoot and employ the DataLink Scanner.
Drove to the outpost where I targeted Turret after Turret. They weren't firing at me so I didn't fire at them. I managed to find a Data Link tower near a turret and activated and scanned it. All great fun, but no Mission Complete. So I drove around some more. Found a SECURITY ACCESS Panel and scanned it. It went active and opened up a big Hangar door. THIS MUST BE IT!! I drove into the big building and saw what looked like another large Data tower. I tried to activate and scan it with little success...but I did trip a TRESPASS WARNING. Before I could back out of there, all the Turrets turned RED and started firing at me. There were flyer drones and all sorts of bad things shooting at me! I tried to run for the ship, but mostly ended up bumping into stuff.
Obviously I have a lot to learn about Surface Missions!!
Soon I was out the cost of an SRV, but comfortably aboard the Cobra again. Well that didn't turn out so well! I gave up on the FREE DATA FOR ALL Mission and the 86,000 credit payday and headed for the OPEN THE DOOR mission. As per my research, I just flew in close, targeted Turrets and spammed them with Missiles. Very quickly I had Mission Success AND a 1600 credit bounty. High tailed it for Anderson Station in Liu Baja, worried about the Bounty hanging over me, but managed to land, collect the $110,000 credits for THAT Mission and then jumped back out to GD 219. Liking the Search and Destroy missions better than those frustratingly odd Data missions. "MISSILE THEM FROM ORBIT, IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO BE SURE!"
That was it for the night, but I had also taken a mission to Kill 36 Pirates in EKURU system over a 3 day period, so I am going to retrieve the Vulture for some hunting next. Unfortunately there is no RES in EKURU, so I don't know WHERE I am going to come up with that many Pirates!! I think I will stuff my hold with valuables and wait for Interdiction, though that seems to be a slow process. Maybe it is time to invest in a FSD Interdictor as well.