Bay 12 Games Forum

(I'm saying there not being an interstellar internet when such a thing is at all possible is unrealistic)

Breaking the speed of light in a graveity well makes you poof to another position in the universe, your engine ignores thromodynamics, in the course of this game you have gone from to the edge of the system right up to the star in a couple of days with no time dilation or negative effects from the star itself and transmissins can cross the entire system instantly.
While I try to abide by realism because it makes it easier to get straight in my head how everything interacts, that doesn't mean I won't abandon it when it suits and have already done so at several points.
Now if you want a reason why there isn't an interstellar internet then there are several; data couriers are expensive (a busy system would see one every few days) and the noble houses that are the lords of territory in the feudal system of the Collective of Imperial Worlds resist efforts to improve comnications as they feel it'll erode their power.

A very rough political map (well overdue), you are the small yellow dot near in the lower right, the small white dot near the top is the capaital of the CoIW, each segement belongs to a different house.
Many houses resent each other and frequently make it troublesome for data couriers to reach their rivials.
Data couriers belonging to the CoIW can't go through the USL territories at the centre and have to go round dodging interhouse politics as they go.
You'll also probably notice what the international tensions are really about by looking at that.

How about lets get paid? I don't see an increase to our credits in our list. Also are we anywhere we can buy more ammunition? If no just jump back. On our way back have the Firestar crew work on possibly strapping a single box missile launcher to the remote fighter (1 missile hanging, think current jet fighters).

Question to the others - Shall we rip up the knell fighter and make it remote (faster, agile, no loss of life)?

For the cargo ship have it hang around the station, have the crew continue taking a manifest, what exactly is the heavy machinery? Factory machines or loaders and crawlers? See if the crew can sell some of the luxury goods, and or set up an awesome hangout area using them.

You haven't jumped yet since once you jump you can't contact the cargo ship, I was waiting for an agreed upon action for it before having the ship jump.

Deciding to have the cargo ship wait safetly around the station you inquire about the merchant's jump calculations.
They seem to have a problem with them the computer keeps recalculating the jump each time it's nearly finished.
Yours aren't working ethier.
While your working on the problem Juilius Cershin's destroyer arrives on sensors.
In what looks like a malfunction it preforms a sudden and unexpected emergency brake.
For one reason or another it's exterior cargo bay doors were open and crates of all sizes and descriptions fly out when it suddenly declerated.
They fly fast and true towards the star, melting in it's heat as they approch.
"Well crap...any of you guys catch any of those?"
 
It mostly factory machinary but there are two packed loaders in there as well.
The luxury goods fetch a nice price of 3,452 credits even with keeping one crate to decorate a rec room.

(Except you couldn't do that in practice, because between mayor systems couriers would likely depart every few seconds, and as soon as they arrive important data like that would be transferred to outgoing ones to all connected systems, etc. Being able to put a request on a courier and get the requested data back on another one minimum latency is critical for there to even be such a thing as a browsing experience. )

But there isn't an interstellar internet, each star system has it's own little internet which occasionaly gets bits of information from the surround system networks via data couriers.
That was why when you searched (way back near the start of the thread) for information on the parts the Firestar was built out of you couldn't get much because the information wasn't on the Tabien internet.

(The no ftl communications thing dosn't make sense: You could just send lots of small, unmanned probes with harddrives through with regular intervals. Probably fired from some kind of FTL railgun and actually jumping while still inside the barrel so they don't need their own engines. Poorer systems not having such a system makes more sense. )

By transmission I meant a signal sent.
I mentioned data couriers some time ago, these are small probes that are capable of jumping and are pretty much what you describe (except that they have engines).
Some companies maintain regular routes through which data couriers pass, delievering messages and updating databases as they go.
Tabien is rarely visited though.
This has several effects, mostly it means it's possible to outrun changes to the registry (you can outpace your own arrest warrent) or intercept data couriers to stop news spreading.

I assume we already did.

Getting them on or off only takes a few minutes so ethier way they're off now.

I'm not sure what the consensus is with the cargo ship.

That turned out quite well. Have the fighter patched up asap, all free crew not sitting at a station go fix it. Have only around 5-7 men go over. Message the captain "Sorry for that defense gap Sir. We should have seen that trap. You can pressurize those decks again, our men will come aboard momentarily. A few will stay with you and a few will make some rounds to guarantee your free from pirates."

As for the crew of the cargo ship, just be respectful to the military, no grief at all.
Ask the guards nicely if we can take our mainframes to our shuttle and offer them to come along. If no, raise no objections.

Note - I have class 830 to 530 most days and I figure several turns will pass by in that time. Make sure we collect any broken boarding shuttles/fighters. Also I was thinking we should use our abundant crew men to pump out some fabrication parts from scrap during the quiet time of the trip.

"It happens," responds the merchant as he docks with you so your men can cross over "They just put some small holes in the ship is all,"
The fighter drone is badly damaged but not beyond repair.
By the time your crew aboard the merchant have fully sweept the ship for any hostiles the drone has been patched up.
Before continuning with the escourt you make a slight detour to salavage fighter parts and the drifting disabled fighter.

The marines tell you no, they intend to do a thorough check of the ship and everything on it when you get back to the station.

GOD DAMMIT I HATE ACTA

By the way, I'm not Irish.

I am Irish and I bit a chunk out of my hand when I saw that earlier today and am still seething with rage.
Message to Irish Governement;
Ireland's economy is built off of the tech industry you freaking idiots SO STOP DOING STUPID THINGS THAT COULD DAMAGE IT!
Or if you are at least do it for a better damn reason than piracy!

To be fair though the Irish bailout deal means the EU has the Irish governement by the balls and if EU want to make the them do some thing then they in reality don't actualy have much say in the matter.
After going through the pains of English oppression the struggles of freeing ourselves and the troubles of building a freestate from nothing and here we are a few more than sixty years after than the offical recognition of the free independant Ireland, jumping when some one else says jump.

Words cannot no matter how elquently put decribe the kind of all consuming rage I feel right now both for my hatrid of internet censorship and my patritotism.

That was what I noticed first after being attacked by a team of Irish Setters and one very angry cat.

Yeah, I don't even know.  My dreams are getting really weird nowadays.

That's nothing last night I cut apart an aggressive remote controled trolley with a superheated pin.

(Has the destroyer already spotted the cargoship: if so we have a problem) If not, try to hide/jump away.

It's undoubtly got way better sensors so if you see it odds are it could see you for the last while.

Mmhm. Maybe we could tell them we had been working on fixing the ship after we found it? We could say we just found it and only managed to patch it with the help of an AI. Don't say the whole truth, but don't say the whole lie.

Juilius Cershin sends his response "It's a sad testament to my faith in humanity that the moment I told you not to get involved with a ship reported to contain dangerous cargo and let the authorities handle it, I knew you'd beat me to it. You'll be intrested to know that while that client on the station you pointed me to could produce ownership credentials they were an exisite forgery. So if you captured that ship on behalf of that client know that you captured it from it's rightful owners in a manner that wonderfuly underscores my problems with reckless vigilatism. And while it's possible that someone else attacked it for the contract that still doesn't explain what it's doing in the middle of nowhere. If you wouldn't mind transmiting us the ships manifest, I want to see what this dangerous cargo is, if it even exists,"

In that case, FIRE AWAY! RAVENHAWKS ON THE TWO BOARDING SHUTTLES!

Are you sure? They've latched on to the merchant and that could significant damage to the ship your escourting.

Get the MOTHERFUCK to the merchant and defend it!

One problem: momentum.
You where flying flast to catch the fighters so you'll need a minute or two to slow down before you can head back.
Throwing open the forward exhaust vents, Urist tries to slow the ship down so you can head back.

Have the fighter drone flank them, kill its engines and drift towards them. That way it won't appear on sensors. Have it open fire when its in a good position to do most damage.

The drone fighter flies to the side of the path of the oncoming fighters and kills it's engines.
The heat from the engine doesn't effectively dissapate and the onbaord electronics produce heat, so it's still visible.
But without the heat from having the engine on full burn to light up their sensors it manages to get pretty close before being spotted.
Firing it's engine it straffes the entire fighter wing riddling several with holes.
One backs off leaking fuel from it's engine, two take minor damage but seem unphased, one explodes in bright orange fireball and another flies mindlessly forward it's canopy splattered with the blood of it's pilot.
The remaining seven fighters focus their attention on the drone.
It valiently tries to dodge their fire as they try to corner.
In an intese dogfight it downs another enemy but takes several hits.
It's a sturdy drone but it's systems are failing and it's fuel tank has taken a hit.
The merchant's point defense guns take down one shuttle as they race to board while the fighter drone is distracted.

The shuttles have already afixed to the merchant vessel and tring to cut their way in when the Firestar arrives to the scene.

Meanwhile the cargo ship reports a new contact on their sensors...it's a lance destroyer.