Bay 12 Games Forum

Finish the pirates! Scan the field for any disabled fighters or anything we can salvage at all, even if its just some frames we can work with. Yay launch my fighter! Also for the fighter I was thinking just the gun would be forward mounted. The ship is too light for the turret, due to physics the ship would be spun, taking away the rotation speed of the gun. Therefore I figure it would be better at returning fire quickly if not in a turret.

The problem with fighters is that when they're destroyed their fuel tends to blow taking out the fighter.
You can find recoverable parts here and there but there isn't anything close to a complete fighter or fighter frame.
Deciding that they're silence means refuseal you open fire on the fleeing pirates.
Five fighters disappear in bright flashes of light as the combined fire from the railguns and point defense turrets rip into them.
Almost instantly the handful of fighters and shuttles that remain all change direction and fly off in as many different directions as they can.

The fighter drone has detected hostiles: 2 fighter wings and three shuttles moving in to attack the merchant.

Have the crew on the cargo ship begin searching the cargo for computers and electronics, have half work on ship repairs and the other half begin linking any kind of mainframe for the AIs together.

They find a lot terminals, consoles user interface devices and a few mainframe computers and netwroking devices.
Clearing space in one of the cargo holds they set up the mainframe and the networking devices so they can add more computers to the netwrok.
With the advanced electronic components to replace important parts of the systems they make short work of repairing ship's secondary systems.

Note - Well we did just shoot 300 credits, I think that isn't too bad for missile cost. I thought the Interceptors were close to Anti-Missile-Missiles, or fighter chasers, swarmers. They should cost no more then 25 though, up to you GM... We also need to have the rails of the gun inspected at some point. Also I find your posting style great, I don't see many holes left in the threads. If anyone has a question just ask it. Most of us following can answer.

That's exactly what they are and yes while I think I'll increase the price going higher than 25 for them would be ridiculous.
They're supposed to be expendable.
The price for them is now 20 credits.
Also while considering prices and laying down the rules for the remote drone I realised it could chew through it's ammo in about ten seconds.
So I'm retroactively changing it so Gatling Round: 1 credit per 10 rounds.

Fire whatever missiles or weapons will hit fastest at the nearest ships. I assume that's either the Interceptors or the Ravenhawks. Actually, fire the railguns, too, if they're in range.

They're still a good distance away and the Interceptors are medium range missiles, they'll have trouble reaching the targets till they get a bit closer.
The Ravenhawks on the other hand have no such trouble.
You launch three of them and are rewarded with three explosions.
Three enemy down.
They passing into effective range of the interceptors and you launch a volley of eight of them.
Scoring eight hits.
"That's not a...Fall back! We don't have the weaponry to deal with it! How the hell did that fool get himself a destroyer,"
Before even entering into range of scrapshot the enemy breaks off and begins fleeing back the way they came. (Scrapshot is shorter range than coherent scrap)

Man a turret, put my shooting equipment on, and get ready for ambushes.

The merchant vessel is slow and the Firestar flies at it's pace.
It's captain chats idlely across the comns.
He talks about alot of things during the boring journey but his obsession with Ameliliadar (it's an old spacer legend, a place few believe even exists) shines bright and clear.
He convinced he'll one day find it, if he keeps trying.
His rambling is interupted by your crew on the shuttle announcing their arrival back at the cargo ship.
They're getting to work on fixing the ship secondry systems.
Contacts appear bearing down on your position from the edge of sensor range.
It looks like 30+ smaller craft.

Ask the smuggler if there is stealth tech available, say enough to cloak our cargo ship, either him or in the Braben Hall system.

There's nothing that can "cloak" a ship like in the old shows but there are options.
The best way to hide a ship is to reduce the heat it gives off, hide the electrical signiture.
That kind of things can make a ship difficult to pickup on sensors.
The smuggler shares many low tech tricks he knows that can help with this but there are also things you can buy (ilegal of course).
There are "quiet" engines which are specialy designed engines that give off way less heat than they should, heat storage systems that can store heat for a while rather than radiate it into space, dampening measures to hinder detection of active onboard electronics, modifications to the exhaust ports to make the it seem like a different class of ship.
There are many ways to disguse your ship and make it harder to detect but if you want a true hidden vessel the only way that'd be possible would be to give it a feron coating.
Feron is wonderful stuff almost completely blocks thermal emissions but the cost of manufacturing it is ungodly expensive so naturaly it's also fairly rare.
The CoIW keeps a tight hold on the feron they produce, using what little they have to make fighters.

As for supplies, no fuel. No need for it. We won't be stopping at the cargo ship. I think it can stay hiding in the asteroid field and some crew working on it, they have the shuttle to go to Tabien if need be. Planned ahead they have food.
- 6 Interceptors (90 Credits)
- 3 Ravenhawk (195 Credits)
- 30 Advanced Fabrication (90 Credits)
- 100 Gatling Rounds (100 Credits)

You buy some last minute supplies.

First, have the sub-par boarding shuttle cut up and made lightweight for very high maneuverability, then mount the Gatling turret on it. I am thinking, lightning fast with a forward mounted gun (Cyclon fighter). Use the advanced fabrication/electronic parts and get it done fast, have all extra crew prep it. It should be remote controlled, see if the AI can make a quick remote script for it.

As shuttles go boarding shuttles tend to be pretty maneuverable though not much is going to make this thing faster or better.
Realising this the crew opt to take it apart and use it's parts, most of the adavnced fabrication components and some of the advanced electronics to effictively make a fighter from scratch.

The fighter was built to be unmaned and has no cockpit or any space for crew.
Due to the high quaility materials it's sturcture is actualy pretty durable while still being light.
The engine could be better but it was the best they could do with what they had.
Still due to it's light weight (nothing unnessicary was added) it's a fast little thing.
You have an option with the turret though; do you rip the turret bits out and use it as fixed weapon (much lighter) or do you mount the whole turret (can track targets)?
The AI codes a quick script to control it.

The guys going to the ship I assume won't arrive for awhile, tell em to play board games or something, enjoy their time.

They report that I spy is surprisingly fun in space because it really tests your visual acuity.

Second, on the way have the AI fly the ship, get it used to all systems and tweak our thruster program.

You undock before the merchant and wait while he goes throught the undocking procedure.
His slow lumbering ship leaves the station and the Firestar takes position beside it with Urist at the helm.
You both turn and begin heading towards the system's star which will sevre as your jump point into Galvenn.

Let's hope that this revolution will not contain physical violence.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that if it is to succeed, if we're to get rid of this lot currently in power we'll need to resort to force and violence in the end.

I imagine this video will be taken down when they start implementing ACTA

Currently Anonymous and "hackers", as retarded (as usual) media calls them, stir stink about ACTA in my country. Good luck, you will need it. I have doubts about methods used, but I do not see anyone doing anything else around. Arguments like "DDOS is like peaceful blocking streets, sit-ins etc" are becoming more and more convincing, especially if only alternative is whining on internet forums...

...oh irony.

Well here's something you can do from your chair, post ACTA topics on other forums spread the word; raise awareness about; email your representatives (even though they'll ignore you)
I personaly plan to quit the apathetic attidude that's made this kind of bullshit easy for them (even though they've made it clear they didn't even want us to know about this thing till it was signed and clearly know this isn't in our best intrests)

Put a post on the market for the sale of that assembler drone, I see no need for it at all unless someone disagrees.

Can we use those escape pods? If so try have the crew try and repair them.
Have the repair crawler work on the boarding shuttle along with some crew.
Have all the useless crew men just clean up everything, circuit relays, door seals, anything at all.

Have Urist see if (does the AI identify as he?) can hack the hackers ship or anything at all, don't pry to much. Work slow if need be to avoid detection. Check to see if the hacker is onboard. Ask our client if he wants that hacker dead or captured..

The drone is sold for 600 credits.
Yes the escape pods are standard escape pods and they'll fit the Firestar's berths.
The crew spend a little time patching holes in them and fixing them up before they're again ready for use.
There are an awful lot of small problems to fix and by the time the crew has worked their way through them the shuttle arrives from the cargo ship.

Urist's hacking of the cargo ships computer system is tediously slow as (he/it/she?) cautiously works his way through the ships defenses.
He can't get full access but does get hold of the ships cargo manifiest which is made up of agricultural products and a few crates of brandy.
It looks like this ship is suppling the station with food.
Unfortunatly Ursit can't find the location of the suspect or figure out if he's even aboard.
The client responds saying he'd intended to do the capturing himself once you gave him the culprit's identity but if your offering he'd galdly let you handle it.

Have the crew leave the cargo ship, they will be out of food soon. Have them write up some kind of auto response to any hails, that way we can give the perception the ship is still crewed. Honestly, whether they are on board or not would not change the situation in the event pirates get on board or something..

Oops, I forgot about that. Fuel the drone up.
Buy like 300 in food (That will last us 10 days). We need to factor in food and support costs when we hire on that many crew guys, we can't just fill up the ship..
Have the AI work on our thrusters and maneuvering systems.
Have the crew begin work on repairing that damaged assembler drone. Also what does an assembler drone do?
Can we tell if the hackers ship is closed to being unloaded or anything at all? Maybe computer logs of what hes doing, planned departure time or something?

The crew write an auto hail stating that the ship is still crewed but waiting for retrieval.
Before leaving on the cargo shuttle.

You fuel the drone and buy more food.
The AI has already improved your thrusters and maneuvering controls imensely.
The assembler drone's purpose is the construction of stations.
Give it station prefabs, modules and schematics of what you want it to build and it will busily work away attaching the prefabs together.
In the construction of stations upwards of twenty five of these things would be used.
The crew restore it to working order pretty quickly.
You'll know when the ship is about to undock because the automated traffic control system the station has will simply tell you.
It'll also tell you it's planned exit vector from the station so you and everyone else can keep clear.

I think the AI needs a name. (Assuming AI's have names, and not just some binary identification code)  You may all refer to me as Urist.  It's an ancient name dug up from the annals of long-lost human mythology.  Legend has it that it once came from the greatest game ever devised by human mind...

Also, is it possibly at this proximity to triangulate the exact source of the signal we tracked back here?  Is the signal even still active?

All AIs are born with just a binary ID code but very few don't chose a name to be known as.
A number even identify as a particular gender (though many don't)

The signal hasn't been active since the shuttle blew up, it's only by going through the sensor logs retroactively did you even find it.