When Things Don't Go As Planned
31 Oct 2023Krionic2020
I've spent the last few days hunting pirates and taking part in combat zones. I guess it's paying off; I'm 4% closer to Elite in combat. That's progress towards one goal. Today I made some progress towards the other goal, namely being able to buy the Imperial Cutter. I just got promoted to Count! What a pain it's been; I refuse to deal in slaves, and for some reason I couldn't find any missions that weren't for squadrons in two systems, despite making it clear that I'm playing Solo!The mission that got me the rank? Bring 18 units of non-lethal weapons. Where did I have to go? 80 light years... with a ship that's decked out to fight local battles and only had 16 cargo slots and a 20 LY range. Well, shit, I'm not trying to spend all night. Called in my fleet carrier, the Soteria, and decided to park her somewhere easy to fuel her up. 4 jumps later, I'm swapping my Krait Mk II for the Federal Corvette. After restocking on Tritium, it was just 2 jumps to buy the weapons so I could jump 3 times to turn them in. I'm sure that's what I was doing. I even made sure the item I bought had the indicator that it was my mission item.
You guessed it... it wasn't. I found out when I tried to turn it in. What did I get, you ask? Why, something called bioreducing lichen. Now, how the heck did that get confused with non-lethal weapons; I'm pretty sure the stuff's not meant be be on your skin, it eats asteroids and leaves the minerals you want to mine for crying out loud. Stuff's hazardous like you wouldn't believe... far from non-lethal. I'm sure they could've weaponized the stuff, but they wouldn't take it, no matter how much I tried to talk them into it. So, I had to sell it at a loss of a little over 4,000 credits and fly my grumpy but back the 80 light years or so for the right weapons. Well, at least they made me a Count for that delivery.
There are only two more ranks between here and Duke, when I finally get to put the Empire behind me. Maybe I'll see how many new species I can find out in the unknown when I've met my goals. Just me and a scanner, the Soteria in tow. If I keep this pace up, it'll be 9 weeks until I have Elite in Combat, so it won't be until after the new year. Maybe I can pick up the pace?