No War Today...and Other Good News
22 Jan 2020Scubadog
Things got very tense for a few days back in the Bubble. The Silverbacks came oh, so close to war with TEAC, but some last minute diplomacy cooled things down. We are not happy TEAC is in our system. But we will tolerate it for now.In the midst of this I decided to spend a little time...well, a lot of time, actually...working on my combat skills at the compromised nav beacon around Tenjin. After four hours I finally ate up the final 3% to achieve Deadly Combat rating:
I surely would like to reach Combat Elite, but if getting to Deadly ranking was a grind, I imagine it would be mind-numbing trying to get all the way to Elite now. We'll see. I'm actually starting to get itchy to get out into the black for a long while.
Speaking of which, I've been doing a bit of work fine-tuning my ships, getting some new paint jobs and mods there in Bisley Landing. What they lack in shipyard and modules they make up for in style points. I just completed some modifications to the Dolphin I acquired as a pleasure yacht. I really do like the look of this baby:
While she is primarily a recreational craft, I have outfitted her with the necessary exploration gear, so she's actually ideal for short-range exploration excursions--say, to nearby nebulas.
After failing to reach my jump range goal on the recently purchased Imperial Cutter, I converted it to a luxury passenger ship. It's definitely a role it's much better suited to. But I still wanted a more stylish ship as an alternate for deep exploration. After a lot of meetings with ship techs and tours I settled on an Orca. As currently configured, I have a 63ly jump range on it, which is still less than my Anaconda but if comfort and style are a deciding factor in any of my future trips, the trade off is worth it.
Oh, and then there's this...I spent a day in my tricked out Sidewinder. I know, right? Who does that on purpose? But I have The Ceti Volpe up to a really nice jump range and when I want a ship that can get in and out for black box retrieval missions barely noticed, it's perfect. She carries a beam and multi-cannon, engineered...more to annoy an attacker than actually be effective. But yesterday it was all about finding Encoded and High-Grade signal sources. I have to say, it was actually fun bipping around systems, scanning for those elusive signals and dropping in to scoop up the materials. Pretty successful day, overall. A couple of times some idiot tried to interdict me--to no avail, of course--which was mildly exciting. But a Sidewinder with Enhanced Performance Thrusters is really a fast, agile ship. And I wasn't sweating the insurance if it came down to it. I've read about commanders who've actually gone to places like Sag-A in a Sidewinder and some such. I'd never do it, but there are plenty of great reasons to keep a well-engineered Sidey in your stable. It was a fun day.
Well, now I need to get down to seriously considering an exploration trip. I have some ideas of where I want to go. None of them include the Bubble. More to come.