Is it already that time again? - Booze Cruise #3
09 May 2021Netchild
Yes, it was already this time again. The public holiday at the rooftop, but this time the Pilots Trade Network (PTN) went big.66 registered carrier loads (some went more than once to load wine to offer it at the rooftop, some carriers didn't register but opened their market for all) with a total of 1.26 mega-tonnes of wine (... well, at least). So we had about 352 billion Credits in Wine to handout. To put this in perspective, this means you can buy 70 carriers with the profit.
With this amount of carriers (and others which went there on their own), we also had to have traffic management in place, to make sure everyone (not limited to our squadron) had the possibility to enter and leave the system at any time, and that our large fleet was able to unload in an orderly manner. I have to say, our main traffic manager did an excellent job (and as I also took part in the shift work there, I know what I'm talking about). At no time we had a traffic jam, and at no time any non-PTN carrier had issues to enter or to leave the system. The standing ovations at the end of the Booze Cruise for him were clearly a sign for his excuisite work.
With that large amount of work, we surely needed help to deliver all what we had on-board to Rackham's Peak. As such our Admiral made a galactic wide announcement, and we got a lot of help. We had taxi carriers going up and down between the bubble (with more Wine supply off course) and the rooftop for the people which helped unloading the Wine, and our own Tritium supply -- the P.T.N. Tritty Bar -- in case of need for refueling.
Such a big event is also not free of hickups. Some carriers had to repair mid-way, and we were sending emergency-response down to them, to pick-up the passengers to not delay the unloading. In such troublesome times like they are right now in the galaxy, surely a sign that the people at the base do not agree to the politics the big superpowers are doing and hold together to support each other.
We counted 130 registered pilots (and an unknown amount of pilots which we missed to count) which helped this time. Some of them even joined our squadrons (to bad the Pilots Federation hasn't managed yet to fix the vendor-imposed restrictions between the 3 major hardware-platforms of the squadron-management-system). In the end we had 276 (PC-manufacturer), 58 (XB-manufacturer) and 13 (PS-manufacturer) members, which helped our squadron to get at the first trading place with 317 bil, 47 bil and 14 bil trade-points. The trading-season just started, and we landed a big head-start in front of the others. In fact, we took 2nd place last season and we have now nearly as much as we had when the last season ended.
It was a great 48h event. We made many multi-billionairs. Some pilots came up with not much, and 24h later they bought a carrier back in the bubble, loaded Wine, and came back to the rooftop. So far we counted 12 people which got their carrier.
With all the logistics going on, I didn't unload a lot myself (just a little bit above the break-even point), but seeing how the big event we organized played out well in the end gave a lot of satisfaction. I gave the crew of the sister ship P.T.N. Dark Sun (which did the trip up two times) some days off which they want to spend up at Rackham's Peak, and the crew of the main carrier P.T.N. Ras Tschubai will get some days off next week-end.
Even as I didn't unloaded a lot myself, I was looking out for the "dancing ships" I've seen last time. None of them this time. But at the end I've seen a lot of ships around Rackham's Peak fully stopped in free space around the Outpost. Maybe our delivery was that big, that they weren't simply drunk and danced with the ship, but passed out completely this time... and no demand for medicines up there. Incredible... no idea how they manage to handle that big amount of alcohol without medicines afterwards.
And we were again not able to satisfy their demand. There can only be one conclusion, next Booze Cruise needs to be bigger.