Week 5: Alioth in Wonderland- A learning curve from Harmless to Slightly less Harmless
28 Jan 2021Trickyhicky
Well having well and truly arrived at 78 Ursae Majoris the Gateway to Epsilon Ursae Majoris better known by its Common name Alioth (Arabic word Alyat for Fat Tail Of Sheep). You definitely know you are here. As in the words of Gandalf, the White “You Shall Not Pass” until you have a permit granted by the Alliance. There are several ways to do this, Bribery, but that costs too much and I have never been into greasing someone else’s palm if I have to do the hard work, running errands, and trading tosh between Rominger Dock and Townsend Hub.
I have chosen the last two. Running errands requires you to pick rush around the surrounding Star systems carrying data, or if you feel brave enough killing opposing faction members, but not individually but by the tens. Nah, been bitten once or twice going up against NPC targets who are so-called easy meat and turn out to have hard bastard friends lurking just beyond your Scanner Range out of sight. These then tumble in and ravage your arse like some gay male gigolo who hasn’t had it for years. I know I know, yellow, scaredy-cat and all the others but till I have sufficient funds to buy a ship outfitted for the bump and grind of combat, running away is the better part of valour.
So down the rabbit hole I went like Alice in Wonderland. I did consider doing a round of finding the needle in the haystack and go looking for some kit carelessly left lying about on a planet by some twat and was especially important to the cause and couldn’t be replaced. But by the time “Grand Designs” had finished and a mug of coffee for the next hour session had been made, the impatient knobs in the Alliance who think up these tasks said and I quote “Your time to accept this has passed and the mission is no longer available”.
My thoughts were “Well Feck it then, couldn’t have been that important that it couldn’t wait for an hour whilst Kevin McCloud leads us all on the usual merry dance of “Will they be able to build it on a budget of a multi-millionaire, or will the planners stimey the builder with “that Bog Seat doesn’t fit the area?”
So having finally having settled on the drudgery of hauling low-value tat for low-value returns I have noticed that my standing in the eyes of the Alliance is rising steadily. So much so that cutting around in my DBE (Diamondback Explorer). Do you see that learning this new lingo? With a load-carrying capacity of pound shop bag for a minute. I have now purchased the ED:Horizon (See Another one) equivalent of a High top Ford Transit Van a Type-6 Transporter.
I haven’t Part Ex’d the DBE, just left it on the drive of someone's land whilst I truck around like a self-employed Amazon Delivery driver. No disrespect to all Amazon drivers you do amazing work, I just couldn’t face it myself, but for this permit where needs must. Sorry guys and girls of the Amazon kind that sounds even more terrible than first thought. Respect .
I am halfway to getting my Alioth Permit, so with the Transit, sorry I mean Type-6 I should get it done before “Death in Paradise” murder is committed.
So what have I learnt this week?
Lesson 1 /Well, when you get shot to shit (See last weeks episode) you come back but this time without my auto docking. This caused a made the bum hole Happeny, Half Crown I’ll tell you. “Crusoe book us a docking slot there a darling. And when you’ve done that take us in nice and slow” 20 seconds later you crash into the side of a big feck off space station and accumulate a 400cr fine for damages caused, only then do I then realise that the lightweights who sold me the doppelganger Black Rat V forgot to fit the docking computer. So I had to fumble my way into aforesaid space station adding another 800 cr to my fines.
As a result, I found out also that you can’t buy the Automated Docking Computer just anywhere in fact nowhere for about 300 lightyears. So I had to learn fast how to dock Black Rat V. This turned out to be a bit of a Brucie-bonus. Because it is easier and quicker, in most cases to dock yourself. As another bonus point if you go fast enough through the dock over the speed limit (As an ex Traffic Officer I can’t believe I just said that) you don’t get Scanned. Soooo could a bit of smuggling be the next thing. Uhmmm maybe.
Now onto Lesson 2 of last week episode Lesson 2: Learn how to fight my Explorer.
At 23:11 hrs on the 26th Jan Max Llewellan (NPC). Tried to dick me, sorry interdict me and I managed to escape. Big deal you might say but having had the bastard chase me when I wasn’t looking. I went looking for him and found him hovering around again in the A Belt Cluster of asteroid belt of Tiethay. This is where the See U Next Tuesday found me having just had a poke around scanning asteroids as part of an ad-hoc training Session. The above-mentioned scroate pinged me and thought he could nick my cargo which at the time was 16 t of Cobalt.
So having escaped the interdiction, a quick handbrake turn and fell on him like a ton of shits, sorry bricks. Him and his Cobra MkIV, okay, me and about four Old Bill in their souped-up what evers. The Important thing was I got the final kill shot which earned me 18,380 cr. and a 7% rise in my combat status, (12%). The thrill I got was akin to when you got a good arrest when a plod. It was just like Alice in Wonderland again Alice fighting the Queen of Hearts playing card soldiers.
Probing planets is quite a good earner and reading the systems from EDSM (Elite Dangerous Star Maps) see another acronym. Like being back in the job. All hail EDSM. This site gives you all the details you need to know, well with 400 billion star systems I’d hardly call that, wait, hang on, 400 billion, fuck me on marmalade on toast, that is certainly not it cheating that's fucking genius. So again all hail the EDSM Team. I’d love to be a Patreon but I just can’t afford it at the moment. But thanks again, guys.
Right, that’s enough bollocks for the week best get back to the Universe and get this Alioth Permit under my belt.
The lesson for the week. Well, that getting the hang of the camera thing is still hanging over my head so we’ll make that the only lesson, Eh. Hence the reason there isn’t any photographs of my antics.
Thanks again to @Zetr0 on Inara. Without his input the other week I’d still be fumbling around
This is Trickyhicky in Black Rat V signing off. 07
#EDSM #Elitedangerous #Elitedangerousstarmap @EDSM_NET