Tip-off
02 Apr 2018Pavel Mirsky
I'd only tried to explore a Tip-Off once before, and it ended in me exploding. Thus: with my trusty wingman in tow, we searched the rusty planet's valleys for a hint of twisted metal. Deathmagnet spotted the large remnant of a hull first, and we took stock of the situation, wary of hidden skimmers or pirates ready to leap upon some stipped down research ships. Finding none, we deployed SRVs and found a comms log... it was filled with screams and confusion, a sad tale summed up by "They came from behind, BRACE BRACE!!!!" There wasnt more than that, though the Data Bank in the last picture was unable to be interacted with, though it was quite interesting looking, marked "Flight Recorder DO NOT TAMPER" The lights were on and sparks and smoke jetted out intermittently. Though the tipoff mentioned a great store of cargo, the site was bare of loot in any form. Death picked up a wave scanner signal, and about 3.5km away there was a cluster of occupied escape pods, which I ferried into my ship.
At the crest of a boost to get a look at the surrounding area, there was a bright white spot nearby! 500m away a barnacle site was found, though this one was different than the ones I had experienced before... There was green bubbling pustulent ooze around the base, and the spires that I had once thought to contain Meta-Alloys were resistant to our SRV's peashooter. The spires had a distinct fungal/wood type quality that I had never seen before, and strange blue motes of light sometimes danced in the vacuum of the planet...
Overall payout for scan of comms log, scan of Barnacle, and bounty for rescued pods, ~700k.