Galnet archive

Eranin vs Federation Skirmishes Intensify

Commanders are getting heavily involved in the growing conflict between Eranin and the Federation over Eranin's 30th Anniversary of Independence.

Almost as many missions were flown in support of each side in the past 24 hours as in the whole of the weekend since Eranin's 30th anniversary. It is a similar story with Faulcon deLacy's continued incredible 50%-off deal continuing to take significant hauling capacity out of the systems and replacing it with the highly combat capable Cobra.

Supporters of the beleaguered Eranin government are running illicit Eranian and Wyrd celebratory liquor to Federal starports - Commander Kudlmudl's Sidewinder is the highest non-anonymous Commander with 17 liquor runs totalling 82 canisters. [LG] Khan has been putting his capacious Lakon Type 9 to good use in Eranin's service with 3,671 canisters of liquor illicitly shipped over the course of 12 trade runs.

There is also a healthy black market weapons trade in support of the Federation.

Commander Neon Raven is currently 'most wanted' at Azeban City (Eranin, Independent), and Commander BlueFalcon is 'most wanted' at Chango Dock (i Bootis, Federal). Each have over 450 kills to their name.

GalNet data feeds indicate that some Commanders are taking advantage of the growing confusion to indulge in indiscriminate slaughter - Commanders Germaniac and Pheyes are both wanted for significant numbers of kills in the i Bootis system, but are also towards the top of the table of most bounties collected in the same system.

Commander ZaphodBeeble has emerged as the public face of 'Freeport Tax and Protection Services'. Freeport is in the anarchic LP 98-132 system, and ZaphodBeeble and friends are operating what at first glance appears to be a straightforward protection racket.

Normally we would simply expect nature to take its course with such behavior, however with current levels of paranoia sweeping the systems we have to wonder whether there is some wider strategy at play. Will the erstwhile extortionists / enterprising entrepreneurs ultimately turn out to be yet another machination in the power play that is unfolding before our eyes?

Faulcon deLacy Slashes Cobra Prices by 50%, Offers 100% Trade-In Value in Unprecedented Move

It turns out that big deal that the Faulcon deLacy board was rumoured to be working on is a spectacular one. In a surprise move, prices of their Cobra Mk III craft have been slashed by 50% to 86,052 credits. FdL is also offering 100% of the trade-in value of your current ship when you switch to a Cobra Mk III.

It is a staggering move, that on the face of it makes no commercial sense - why would a company with a market leadership position give away all that profit? Have the FdL board gone soft in the head? Rest assured we are on the case and won't rest until we get to the bottom of the story on this one.

The net result, however, is a significant militarization of the ships out there - around two thirds of all trade-ins to the Cobra have been from trading ships like the Lakons and the ZP Hauler. That's an awful lot more combat capability flying round the galaxy.

Ship Sales Service Report

After last week's stunning news of a free Eagle for all, Core Dynamics falls back to a more usual 13.6% market share.

Faulcon deLacy remains top of the pile and tightens its grip on the market even further with a 1.6% overall market share rise to 41.6%. We have been digging hard over the past week following the rumours of the FdL board doing a big deal. Although we haven't yet got the full story it appears that something huge is about to happen with the Cobra. Could this be linked to the 30 year anniversary tension between Eranin and the Federation?

Zorgon Peterson once again accounts for a solid 26% share this week.

Lakon sales remain static this week, and the company will hope today's news of the release of the Asp Explorer on 30 September will help stimulate interest in their range.