Logbook entry

M.U.D.D. MONTHLY ISSUE #3

I tried to remember something today. A simple thing. A memory just for memory’s sake. I tried to recall, paradoxical as it may seem, the dangerous yet peaceful galaxy. And I almost had it. Almost. But just as my mind fell down this abyss beyond dreams, just as I reached the vast emptiness, the room darkened and the ventilation fans juddered and ground to a halt. Within a handful of heartbeats, every breath became a struggle.

My chest heaved but it was no use. My lungs burned. A film of sweat coated my brow, trickled down to sting the corners of my eyes. A wave of cold panic surged through me. It wasn’t the sudden lack of filtered air that chilled me to the core. It was something worse than that. Much worse.

I was alone... facing Taranis.


While Foxtrot team fought endlessly and plucked space flowers all day long I went ahead and scouted those rogue signals everyone was talking about. I'm no fool, so hyperdictions were to be expected as I did my job as a space gardener. I had a thought that started to pop in my mind but I gave it no thought... I regret that decision now...

That thought became a feeling and... it came back... more and more, day after day of flower plucking around those rogue signals or unidentified interstellar anomalies. Eventually it became unbearable and I had to share it with my fellow CMDRs a few days ago around the time those idiots over at the Kingfisher megaship got obliterated... Well... that's to be expected when you carry thargoid sensors. While everyone is rushing head first in this impending war like frantic soldiers drunk on Benedictine, I fear... A fear which I never felt in all my days of AX hunting.


Oh, how I wish my instincts were wrong, yet what I feared most became reality... We will lose...We will only survive if we live like cockroaches. Mark my words: Scatter far and wide while we AX hunters try to buy you as much time as possible. Scatter, hide, live and rebuild.

I've been hearing a lot of uncertainty from the other Commanders recently. Lots of them are unsure about what's to come. One thing we can all agree on: The Stargoids ARE coming. Whether it be for peace or war, either way makes no difference to me, because I do know a few things for certain: The Pilots Federation pays me well to shoot Thargoids down, so until they stop paying, I'll keep shooting. When peace finally does happen, there will certainly always be someone else willing to pay for death. The thing I'm most certain of though, is that I won't be leaving the bubble for anyone - certainly not for the bugs.


This is my home, so regardless of the outcome approaching us, this is where I'll stay.

The last month has been pretty crazy! With the stargoids moving ever closer and our squadron growing larger, it's no surprise that this has been an interesting month. With the rapidly unscheduled disassembly of the Xeno-Peace megaship (who would have guessed that would happen), tensions between humans and thargoids are growing rapidly, and our squadron is here to help, making sure that murder cabbage is always on the dinner table! We have yet to see what the "Stargoids" look like, and also to see if they can be killed.


And now, some of my own adventures to spice it up! If you want to engineer a combat ship, but often find yourself short of manufactured materials, then you need to go to Hot Jupiter! (Col 285 Sector RF-C b14-7). You can blow things up to your heart's content AND get manufactured materials at the same time! It's two birds with one stone! Just keep in mind that there are a lot of escape pods that fly out of the things, so you can choose to save the passengers or let them die. You can also collect encoded materials simply by wake scanning or flying around a resource extraction site and targeting the ships and scanning them. And you can gain raw materials just by laser mining (a good location for laser platinum mining is [Col 285 Sector KM-V D2-106; planet 5])

A thing that I think commanders should know is the basics of Gank Evasion. Even though the gankers may seem like an unstoppable threat, there are ways to greatly improve your survival. The first step of Gank Evasion is to submit to your attacker's interdiction. If you submit, your FSD cooldown time will be significantly reduced compared to trying to fight and failing the interdiction. What happens next depends on the ship you fly. If you are flying a speed ship that has a boost of over 800m/s, then you can straight-line it away from your attackers. However, beware that there are builds that counter this, such as a Long-Range railgun build, or a Death Star Beam-Laser Anaconda. In this instance, it would be wiser to boost past your attacker and keep doing so until you can plot a route to another system and HIGH wake out of the instance.

If you are flying a medium/small ship, just boost past your attacker and do the stuff above. However, if you are flying a large ship, then the best thing you can do is just to tank the damage done by the attacker while you plot to another system (thus stressing the importance of strong shields and good engineering knowledge). There is one crucial thing that I think all commanders should know and practice more in this scenario, and that is to NEVER boost in a straight line while running from your attacker. This gives them the opportunity to use FSD disruptor missiles, which reboot your Frame Shift Drive. Instead, use your lateral thrusters, move in unpredictable ways, and never be facing perpendicular to your attacker.

If you have neither strong shields or a fast ship, then there is another way to go. Solo play exists for a reason, and there is nothing stopping you from playing in it. It is important to stress that if you log into open play, then you are knowingly or unknowingly agreeing to the fact that you will encounter or interact with other players, whether that be friendly or unfriendly interactions. Even though there are PvP groups dedicated to hunting down players that kill others unprovoked, the most important thing you can do to help them is to learn how to survive by yourself. And if you get blown up, take what just happened, replay it in your head, and think "What could I have done better to survive this encounter?", thus learning from your mistakes and improving over time with trial and error. Gankers have counter-builds to everything, so keep that in mind as you are outfitting and engineering your ships. Survive long enough for the police to get there, and you are considered a good pilot in my books.

On the topic of good engineering knowledge, it is important to know about resistances for hull and shields! The damage types consist of Absolute, Explosive, Thermal, and Kinetic (Plasma Accelerators do 60% of their damage as absolute, for example). Thermal is the most common damage type used by NPCs and players alike, so keep a good thermal resistance on your shields. A good rule of thumb is to put a thermal resistant base upgrade on your shields, then use heavy duty or resistance-augmented shield boosters to follow, allowing you a greater survival chance. For hull, thermal resistance doesn’t matter as much, so use heavy duty and deep plating engineering for your builds. If you want to build “funny hull”, you can make all of your hull reinforcements thermal resistant, and then you can tank station fire for a little bit! Another thing is to know where to use Shield Cell Banks and Guardian Shield Reinforcement Packages. At first, Shield Cell Banks (SCB's for short!) look to be the definitive best option, but sometimes that isn’t the case. Because of the “Feedback-Cascade” modification for railguns (Which reduces the cells replenishment output), you have to plan carefully where and when to use them in order to not get them cancelled. Alternatively, you can use Guardian Shield Reinforcement Packages to significantly up your shield’s overall base health. Using a mix of these two can improve your build strength, but if you are running a build that has limited internal space, then going for all GSRPs for modules doesn’t sound too bad, especially when paired with a bi-weave shield, making for a strong and fast regenerating shield.


I hope these tips help your experience when playing in open, and I would love to hear the things that you have also learned from your time in open play. But that's it from me for now, so see ya next month! o7