Time to Replenish My Bank Account
30 Jul 2019Scubadog
I've allowed the old bank account to get as low as I dare. Once it crossed below 200 million I knew it was time to tend to it. As many have learned over the years, it ain't smart to fly ships you can't afford to insure. So, I had the Colonia Dream pad techs bring up my trusty Python, The Ceti Zorro, so I can get back out there and do some profitable mining.
A spot check of the markets, though, reveals that Void Opals and Low Temp Diamonds aren't nearly as valuable in the Colonia region as they are in the core systems. I'm hoping that will change, otherwise my success will be slowed a bit. At the moment, Vopals are running around 700k per unit and LTDs are selling around 640k. The Ceti Zorro only has room for 128 tons, since I felt it necessary to strike a balance between capacity, jump range, speed and defense. Core mining does make it almost a requirement that you keep your ship size to Medium or smaller if you to be agile around all the rock pieces. It's worked for me so far.
Meanwhile, I've been following the waves on the Palin drama. As it turns out, Arque is only 27ly from the home system of The Silverbacks (Arexe), so we are expecting to see increase traffic in our little neck of the Bubble now that Palin finished setting up his new permanent station. I'm remaining in close comms with my fellow Silverbacks in case they need my help. Since we a democratic, more libertarian bunch, when we expand into a system the denizens are usually quite happy to see us. We run off the slavers, dictators, uber-corporate types who tend to run more oppressive regimes, the scum that they are. If anyone is a kindred spirit to the Browncoats, that would be us.
In other news, while I was working on The Ceti Azeria (my exploraconda) to tweak up the jump range a bit, I ran across some commanders out of Carcosa aligned with The Nameless who were running some missions to assassinate some very bad pirates and was offered a chance to wing up with them for a spell. Switching to my Chieftain, The Ceti Rena, I joined them over in the Ogmar system to track down the big bad. Combat is not my forte', mind you. But in a wing I definitely can pull my weight. We made short work of ridding the system of the menace. We bid each other farewell and went our separate ways.
When I returned home to Colonia Dream I returned to work on the Anaconda. I got her above 52ly laden, but I'd like to push her above 60ly. The question for me is, what am I willing to give up? The longer you are out in the black and the farther you go, the more self-sufficient you need to be. If you read my account of the trip home from Beagle Point you know that I became intimately aware of being prepared can save your life in the most extreme circumstances. As a bare minimum, a single AFMU is must...no doubt there. Since there is currently no way--incredibly--to fix a blown canopy, acquiring a full load of materials to replenish your Life Support System is also a must (I'd have never survived the over 18,000ly journey home without this). I could go without the Repair Limpet Controller...but dare I? Finally, I am looking into D-rating a lot more of my modules and engineering those for max performance and lowest mass. Again, I really want to push her past 60ly.
More to come.