Almost have my character up to max level, and this has got to be one of the most fun (And easy) ironman runs. So, in the early game, you're meant to take a few recon contracts, maybe smuggle a few tons of firearms for the right bidder, and take a weaksauce mercenary contract if you're feeling lucky. Then you upgrade your ships, build up a fleet, and gradually become something- after getting your ass kicked and starting from nothing a couple times do to asshole hyperspace raiders.
This run didn't go like that.
I was picking through battle debris, looking to picking up some salvage to sell back on the market in order to finance a survey expedition, when I started finding Templar relics. The Templar are basically the end game faction, with absurdly tough ships, amazing guns, and more special abilities than you can shake a stick at. Being able to grab a little bit of their tech for free would be an extraordinary boon, and so I ended up coming the debris field for anything useful at all.
Which is when I started finding ships. A frigate and a light destroyer later, I thought I was set. With a bit of spit and polish they'd let me punch way above my weight class and massively accelerate my plans to get a real capital ships.
That's when I found the derelict Crusader Heavy Cruiser. It's the kind of ship that, alone, can end your game. It has ridiculous health, armor, and protective systems. I didn't have enough crew in my entire salvage fleet to actually fly the damn thing, but I was able to basically drag it back to an abandoned space station, store it away, and prepare. It would take half a million credits to repair the battle damage, and another quarter of a million to get it actually combat ready. So began the quest to spend a ridiculous amount of money in order to eventually own one of the best ships in the game.
Long story short, after a few good surveys, a couple decent bounties, and three hundred tons of smuggled lobster later, the Crusader was in my fleet. I started crushing bounty contracts, obliterating all who stood before me. It was glorious.
The only near miss was when a bounty contract said the enemy captain piloted an Onslaught (A heavy but slow capital with massive armor reserves and powerful frontal weaponry), which was true and well within my known ability to kill. Just maneuver behind and rip its engines off with sustained fire. What the bounty failed to mention was that the enemy captain's second was piloting a Paragon, and was exactly as skilled as the primary captain. For clarity, the Paragon is the best ship in the vanilla game, and not something I'd ever fought before.
It took a helluva a lot of maneuvering, the sacrifice of a number of crew members and the entirety of my portside armor to tank a plasma cannon barrage, but I prevailed.
After the battle, the the Paragon came available for salvage.
This is a blessed run.
EDIT: Starsector
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Topic: How did you last *own*? (Read 1293023 times)