Twice for the Community
02 May 2016TheDarkLord
Thompson Dock, Varati. Anaconda “TDL Agamemnon”.March 3302.
Trade Rank: Broker, 92%.
I had a five day schedule planned. From LHS 20 I traded my way up into a sector at the border of ALD space. Here I looped back and forth for half a day performing controlled relocation of some indentured personnel. Very profitable work, although like all work, quite dull. On day 3, a Community Goal opened, to deliver metals in LHS 3447, which was where I started out on my journey. That seemed like a profitable way forward. I traded my way into the vicinity, then loaded up with Cobalt, jumped into system, and trucked the 110,000Ls over to Worlidge Terminal.
TDL Agamemnon had proven to be a worthy addition to the fleet. Two full loads of metals had pushed me into the top 33% of all commanders freighting materials to the Community Goal in LHS 3447, and had been delivered with good fiscal returns. Some commanders were reporting higher per-unit profits running palladium from further afield, but I was looking at the per-hour profit rate, and running copper & cobalt from one-jump away worked nicely. I held onto my position in the top third as the Goal ended, and picked up a couple of million in addition to the trade profits.
I moved on. 300+ light year multi-hop trading was a fun pastime, and a nice way to see the inhabited parts of the galaxy, but some routes were not profitable at all. Making money from the galactic markets relied upon the trade route featuring high-value metals or Imperial Slaves. I have no problem with Imperial Slave trading, but I was in this for some variety, and hauling the same commodities everywhere didn’t really give me that. However, I was also in this for the money, and Imperial Slaves were very useful on that score.
I had made a couple of changes to Agamemnon’s weapons load. I was being interdicted around one time in every three jumps, mostly by over-optimistic Eagles and Vipers. Because of Agamemnon’s slow turn rate, I was becoming increasingly familiar with switching off the Flight Assist module. My three turreted pulse lasers would then reduce my assailant to wreckage with impunity. Half the time I wasn’t even bothering with the multicannons.
I was still mooching around Federation space when another Community Goal was announced. The task was to sell mined Palladium at Thompson Dock in the Varati system. After my last failure at a mining CG, where I was blown up with four days’ worth of mined Osmium on board, I decided to refit Agamemnon into the so-called “Mineaconda” configuration. I headed up to Varati.
I arrived at Thompson Dock and signed on for the goal. I swapped two medium multicannons for class 2 mining lasers, then carried out the internal refit, dropping the Advanced Discovery Scanner, Fuel Scoop and Cargo Racks, to fit the following modules:
- 4B Refinery (the 4A is three times the price for no practical gain)
- 5A Collector Limpet Controller
- 2x 3A Collector Limpet Controller
- 1A Prospector Limpet Controller
This left me with 320 tonnes of cargo space, and 110m Cr. I had a target: to reach the trade rank of Entrepreneur, and to collect an additional 90m Cr for Agamemnon’s upgrades.
A pristine metallic asteroid ring had been discovered only 30Ly away. I’d picked this up through the offline chatter. Data was scarce though, so if you were not properly equipped, it was hard to find. Fortunately, on the way up to Varati, I’d taken a detour through that system and scanned it before descoping my scanner from Agamemnon’s equipment roster. This was the sort of thing that characterised me as a pilot now. The level of social interaction was way higher than I would have foreseen. Allied pilots shared information across multiple channels. We had more tools, and a vastly improved communications network. Lone wolves – like I had been back in the last century – still existed, many of them successfully, but the way to make real progress was to be in a community.
I dropped into the ring system, and found Ziva there, playing in her new Type-9. As we chatted, I got to work. Agamemnon proved to be a superb mining ship, even without the top-line thruster package. As the collector limpets filled my refinery with Palladium fragments, I knew that Agamemnon was at this moment writing the end-of-service notice for TDL RockWrecker.
An Eagle popped over. Its Wanted pilot cargo scanned me, and immediately deployed hardpoints, before demanding all my cargo. Seemed optimistic given that an Eagle has a maximum hold capacity of 8, and I was carrying over 100 tonnes. Naturally, I volunteered nothing, and the pilot opened fire.
Brave but stupid, I thought. I changed fire groups, bringing the three large turreted pulse lasers online. Set to “Fire at will”, they immolated the Eagle in under a minute, as my collector limpets continued to work. Yes, TDL RockWrecker had been well and truly usurped in the fleet.