Kuattro
Augur
Update Index
Chapter One - The End
Chapter Two - The Road to Hell is paved with the Bones of my Crew
Casualties
Reinhardt (Update 2)
ERYFKRAD (Update 2)
Reinhardt the 2nd (Update 2)
MZeta (Update 2)
Dirty deserters who shouldn't get a mention but I'm feeling magnanimous
SmartCheetah (Update 2)
[SIZE=3]Hellraiser[/SIZE] (Update 2)
Dayyālu (Update 2)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter One - The End
Chapter Two - The Road to Hell is paved with the Bones of my Crew
Casualties
Reinhardt (Update 2)
ERYFKRAD (Update 2)
Reinhardt the 2nd (Update 2)
MZeta (Update 2)
Dirty deserters who shouldn't get a mention but I'm feeling magnanimous
SmartCheetah (Update 2)
[SIZE=3]Hellraiser[/SIZE] (Update 2)
Dayyālu (Update 2)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentlemen, confused people and occasional lady, step right up, step right up!
What would you say if I told you you have in front of you the chance to fly where no one has ever flown before?
The chance to acquire countless riches, and discover valuable artifacts worth their weight in gold tenfold?
The chance to get chummy with the elite of the galaxy, the rulers who decide the fates of billions of people with a signature, and talk to them face to face, even get to be known and valued by them?
The chance to be cooked in your post (in your very own comfy chair of course!) by the radiation of some cunt pirate's plasma gun?
The chance, nay, I say the privilege, to be devoured, disemboweled or disintegrated, or all three of them, concurrent or consecutively, by some mysterious Xenos in the most recondite corners of the galaxy?
If your answer was "I want some of that, and make it fast please!", welcome aboard to Captain Kuattro's crew, where we will take care of you, or failing that, we will take care to not end like you did.
We're now open for applications, so don't miss this once in a lifetime chance, special emphasis on once in a lifetime, and I mean that very literally. Sign up now!
First thing first though, you should let me know what you expect of me. Not that it matters a lot, you'll probably end up dead and I'll sell your carcass for experimentation on the next port, but still, I'd like to make you think I care, so I've prepared a small questionnaire for you to fill. Don't forget to input your name, and your desired position in this, most valiant crew (usual legal terms applied, if you don't know them consult your friendly local lawyer. Positions limited to what we start with or hire on the way, will try to accommodate but if you all end up wanting to be swordsmen obviously I'll need other people, not that I expect getting 40schmucksbrave volunteers amongst you, but still. Officer positions limited by what the game gives us as start, in number, 2, 3 or 4 depending on ship size, and in job, we get, in that order, a Doctor, a Quartermaster, an Engineer and a Gunner).
The crew positions we can reasonably get at the beginning are Crew Dog (who wouldn't want to be one?), Mechanic, E-Tech, Gunner, Soldier, Pistoleer, Swordsman, H-Navigator and Pilot. If you want some of the others, you might have to wait a bit to get in my Ship. We don't have the money right now for you Princesses.
You don't know anything about "jobs", "talents" or whatever? Of course you don't you silly thing, that's why I'm the Captain and you're... well, not.
That's why all those infomercials are for! Please be advised, crew members get one single job unless we decide they deserve to be promoted to officers (unlikely, seeing you lot). Officers get up to two additional jobs, so if you want to be an officer in my ship (limited supply, first arrived, first served), please tell me what you would prefer to work as. In case your brain is not capable of wrapping itself around the task of thinking about a decent build, and if that's the case you might very well be prime officer material, at least tell me if you would want to participate in crew (ground) combat, or rather keep morale on the ship, or command your men in space combat, or take care of the injured, or anything to give me an idea of what (little) you are capable of. I need to know whether to put you on the boarding party so as to be ripped to pieces by the enemy crew, or on the bridge so as to be ripped to pieces by the enemy autocannons, or on the medbay so as to be ripped to pieces by a member of the crew affected by space madness. You'll love it, I swear.
Good, with that out of the way, we may now divert our attention to the most important part of this whole endeavor, which is me.
As I said, I like to believe I care for my crew's opinion (key word, believe), and so I'm giving you the opportunity to express said opinion, without any fear of repercussions (lie) and with the assurance that it will be heard and taken into consideration (how do I lie so much? It's like an addiction!).
I need to decide, first and foremost, the priorities I will assign to different aspects of the expedition: Experience, Ship, Contacts, Attributes and Skills.
Or rather, I could just skip all that crap and go straight to the game by taking one of the presets this very nice questionnaire has already created for the Captain, which are as follow:
The horrible Corsair
The intrepid Nomad
The fearless Tracker
The wimpy (but fat, rich and old) Traveler
Now before you all jump into the Corsair option, know that the game is, let's say, less than nice, to people who go around fighting everything and everyone, or indeed, fighting anything at all. The cautious Star Trader will avoid any combat at the beginning, lest they desire to end up as a notch on someone else's hull. It would be, quite probably, a very short expedition. Albeit maybe a fun one, so who am I to tell you what to do? The Captain, that's who I am.
In any case, as I said, if none of those were to tickle your fancy, there's always the option of you making a custom template. It looks something like this:
If you want to get deep into it (please do, we're now talking about me ending up as a pool of plasma, and unlike yours, I do care about my fate), you could start here and keep going. But in case you were to be lazy bastards (we'll soon whip that out of you, believe me. Excuse me, did I say whip? I meant work on it in a constructive way in order to find common ground and a compromise that leaves everyone satisfied), I'll give you the Cliff's notes.
Experience rules two thing, on the one hand, it marks the level at which the crew (not only myself) will start. As you can see, at priority A, I start at level 6, and at priority E I would start at level 1. It also tells me what my first job will be, amongst the choices the game presents, which are these:
Bounty Hunter, Explorer, Merchant, Military Officer, Pirate, Smuggler, Spy and Zealot.
Please take five frigging minutes to peruse those pages, and the other Jobs pages. Take notice that the starting jobs for a Captain also give them specific traits, some of which are quite nice (like the Military Officer). Take a look also at the talent progression of each job to see which synergize with which, although I wouldn't expect you to quite grasp things like that so go with your gut why don't you. And finally, remember that the Captain is just like any other officer, so we also get two additional jobs to choose as we level up.
Well, not exactly just like any other officer of course. I get nicer quarters and can basically space any of you louts at any given moment just by my whim, but you get what I mean, right? Right?
Anyway.
In, ahem, other lives I've managed quite successfully (I didn't die until level 12) with a MO/Spy/Combat Doctor build. But what do I know.
Next one's the ship. We get a couple choices, from the Scout Cutter (a.k.a. Paper Plane), to the Dragoon Cruiser (a.k.a. Quite a Badass Motherfucker but still not the Badassest Motherfucker out there), going through the Juror Class, the Paladin Cruiser, the Frontier Liner, the Galtak Freighter, the Fidelis Cutter, the Guardian Interceptor and the Cautela Heavylift. Obviously this things cost quite a lot of money, so the lower the ship priority is, the lower the amount we have and the smallest the ship we can afford, and vice versa. I could tell you which level allows for what ship, but I can't really be bothered, just go with your instincts and if it can't be done, I'll adjust accordingly. If we spend less money than our limit, we get 20% back as cash.
Third is the Contacts department. Contacts are, well, our contacts. They are commanders, intel officers, princes, traders, wardens and the rest. They belong to each faction in the game, and they do a multiplicity of things for us, from selling us ranks, trade permits and edicts (to kill and capture their enemies), to allowing us to recruit specialist crew members like diplomats or spies, buying any intel we acquire, giving us access to different market goods and equipment... and a lot of other things, just look at the wiki you bums. You're supposed to be working for me, not the other way around. As with the other ones, the number of Contacts we have at the beginning of the game is dependent on the priority assigned to it (8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 at lowest level). It's a bit important to have some contacts at the beginning, but not necessary to have a lot of them, since we'll acquire quite a number along the way. We also only get access to some of the contacts to choose from, others we have to acquire.
Smuggler, Merchant, Starport Mechanic, Spice Trader, Prince, Ex-Bounty Hunter, Retired Explorer, Fixer, Politician, Weapons Dealer, Military Commander and Intelligence Officer, they are all available at the beginning.
Then we move onto Attributes. Now things start to get sticky.
As you might have imagined (this is planet RPGCodex, isn't it? My nav system may be busted but I still know what I'm doing. Mostly), Attributes tell us what the Captain is and how they behave in a number of situations. Each one of them affects different things (which you can look up in the useful link I've given you, I'll be giving you a general overview though because I know too many letters and numbers tend to confuse you) and, and this is extremely important they don't grow through the game, what we choose is what we get, and also, contrary to skills, of which I'll speak in a second, the only number that matters is the one of the person doing the action, usually, the captain. A check for Stealth+Charisma will only use the Captain's Charisma, if they don't have any they're fucked.
As for points, we get 52 at priority A, 38 at B, 30 at C, 28 at D and 15 at E.
As you see, we get a minimum of 8 guaranteed (thanks!) and we can only go as high as 30 (we can start with higher than 30 attributes through traits, though).
What do they do?
Strength is used in some, physical challenges, is a secondary measure of HP (Fortitude is the main one there), and is usefull for firing LMG, HMG, Shotguns and things like that.
Quickness is for initiative and defence in crew combat, spying and exploration, also for sneaky challenges and firing pistols.
Fortitude is HP, basically.
Charisma is forgetting it onsome challenges were you need to pretend to be someone else, increasing rewards, and thing like that.
Wisdom is for being an owl. And for morale (yours), initiative, some diplomatic challenges and also increasing some rewards.
Finally, Resilience is basically morale (again, yours), Death Save throws (so you don't die) and some intimidation challenges.
Basically, if the captain is supposed to fight on crew combat, they should have a bit of Fortitude and Resilience and either Strength or Quickness for the weapons of choice.
And we finally get to Skills.
I'm not going to go over them because I'm a busy Captain and you have the wiki link. Suffice it to say that, once more, if the Captain is supposed to fight on CQC, Combat Skills are important, especially things like Evasion. Also, contrary to Attributes, Skills grow every time you level up a Job (three skills for each Job), so those numbers are going to go up. You can see which Skills each Job increases at their respective wiki page, so you can, if you so please, plan a build with a nice synergy. Or we can throw points all over the place and hope for the best. The best is usually death by something nasty, in case you hadn't gotten the message yet.
In order to keep this reasonably simple and so I can balance each of your options (expecting there to be more than one, have I told you of my chronic optimism?), maybe just choose a general order of priorities (again, A,B,C,D and E from most important to least important) and a general distribution of skills and attributes ("prioritize combat, and strength, I want rifles" or "forget combat, go for negotiate"), and don't get into specific numbers. Or as I've said, do what you want, but don't be surprised if it ends up being different.
Well, we seem to be reaching the end of the questionnaire. Hope your brains haven't dripped out your noses yet! There'll be plenty of time for that later.
All that remains to be done is to choose the map we start on, the Faction we are supposedly loyal to, the difficulty and the gender and looks of our captain.
Okay, I lied again. You're not choosing the map, I am. It's the default one, because sod it.
Regarding Factions, here they are:
It's mostly down to the Zone Bonuses, although they're not that important, so choose what you please. I normally go with Alta Mesa because it's a Spanish name and we start in the Chenoa system (please don't ask, and if you're a Spaniard, you know why we don't want them asking).
Choosing difficulty was, again, a bold faced lie.
As if there was any doubt.
And finally, the most important part of this process, the decision that will mark our future, and will be judged by everyone who ends up learning of our tales. The one, single decision that will tell us whether or not our expedition will be a success, the Captain's gender.
Sadly this game is made by Gamergate bigots who adhere to the outdated, hate filled notion that there are only two genders instead of two billions, so we have to choose between male and female.
Or rather, I choose, female, because .
I also chose the face, because I know better than you.
That's it, mostly. Oh yes, you also need to decide whether or not we're going to follow the first storyline missions. We'll do the initial ones because they're lucrative and low risk, but the more you follow them, the more fucked you are, until you get completely fucked and probably killed by superior enemies (unless you kinda sorta cheat, but we would never, would we?). Otherwise we go straight for the sandbox. We don't need to decide just yet, but we should start thinking about it.
My job here is done, I'll leave you to it men. I know what you get up to when I'm not looking, and I assure you Iwill be taking names for when I need some sacrifices to get away from a dicey situationwon't hold it against you in any possible way.
Ask any questions, shower me in praise, discuss anything you deem worthy of discussion, or just express interest in becoming space explorers. If enough of you do, I might actually do this. If not, I might actually do this by myself anyway. Or I might abandon you after this post.
Otherwise the first update will be to show off the Captain and the Crew of Captain Kuattro's (or rather, Kuattra's!) Three-Ring Circus. With plenty of clowns.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. Expect this to be a short expedition. I'm still learning the game, and it has the bad habit of throwing inordinate amounts of shit your way at the most unexpected moment, so we'll probably die a couple of seconds after taking off from the first system. There might be restarts, or I might just give up and come back when I've become better at it and don't make a fool of myself in front of all of you fine gentlemen in such regular basis.
What would you say if I told you you have in front of you the chance to fly where no one has ever flown before?
The chance to acquire countless riches, and discover valuable artifacts worth their weight in gold tenfold?
The chance to get chummy with the elite of the galaxy, the rulers who decide the fates of billions of people with a signature, and talk to them face to face, even get to be known and valued by them?
The chance to be cooked in your post (in your very own comfy chair of course!) by the radiation of some cunt pirate's plasma gun?
The chance, nay, I say the privilege, to be devoured, disemboweled or disintegrated, or all three of them, concurrent or consecutively, by some mysterious Xenos in the most recondite corners of the galaxy?
If your answer was "I want some of that, and make it fast please!", welcome aboard to Captain Kuattro's crew, where we will take care of you, or failing that, we will take care to not end like you did.
We're now open for applications, so don't miss this once in a lifetime chance, special emphasis on once in a lifetime, and I mean that very literally. Sign up now!
First thing first though, you should let me know what you expect of me. Not that it matters a lot, you'll probably end up dead and I'll sell your carcass for experimentation on the next port, but still, I'd like to make you think I care, so I've prepared a small questionnaire for you to fill. Don't forget to input your name, and your desired position in this, most valiant crew (usual legal terms applied, if you don't know them consult your friendly local lawyer. Positions limited to what we start with or hire on the way, will try to accommodate but if you all end up wanting to be swordsmen obviously I'll need other people, not that I expect getting 40
The crew positions we can reasonably get at the beginning are Crew Dog (who wouldn't want to be one?), Mechanic, E-Tech, Gunner, Soldier, Pistoleer, Swordsman, H-Navigator and Pilot. If you want some of the others, you might have to wait a bit to get in my Ship. We don't have the money right now for you Princesses.
You don't know anything about "jobs", "talents" or whatever? Of course you don't you silly thing, that's why I'm the Captain and you're... well, not.
That's why all those infomercials are for! Please be advised, crew members get one single job unless we decide they deserve to be promoted to officers (unlikely, seeing you lot). Officers get up to two additional jobs, so if you want to be an officer in my ship (limited supply, first arrived, first served), please tell me what you would prefer to work as. In case your brain is not capable of wrapping itself around the task of thinking about a decent build, and if that's the case you might very well be prime officer material, at least tell me if you would want to participate in crew (ground) combat, or rather keep morale on the ship, or command your men in space combat, or take care of the injured, or anything to give me an idea of what (little) you are capable of. I need to know whether to put you on the boarding party so as to be ripped to pieces by the enemy crew, or on the bridge so as to be ripped to pieces by the enemy autocannons, or on the medbay so as to be ripped to pieces by a member of the crew affected by space madness. You'll love it, I swear.
Good, with that out of the way, we may now divert our attention to the most important part of this whole endeavor, which is me.
As I said, I like to believe I care for my crew's opinion (key word, believe), and so I'm giving you the opportunity to express said opinion, without any fear of repercussions (lie) and with the assurance that it will be heard and taken into consideration (how do I lie so much? It's like an addiction!).
I need to decide, first and foremost, the priorities I will assign to different aspects of the expedition: Experience, Ship, Contacts, Attributes and Skills.
Or rather, I could just skip all that crap and go straight to the game by taking one of the presets this very nice questionnaire has already created for the Captain, which are as follow:
The horrible Corsair
The intrepid Nomad
The fearless Tracker
The wimpy (but fat, rich and old) Traveler
Now before you all jump into the Corsair option, know that the game is, let's say, less than nice, to people who go around fighting everything and everyone, or indeed, fighting anything at all. The cautious Star Trader will avoid any combat at the beginning, lest they desire to end up as a notch on someone else's hull. It would be, quite probably, a very short expedition. Albeit maybe a fun one, so who am I to tell you what to do? The Captain, that's who I am.
In any case, as I said, if none of those were to tickle your fancy, there's always the option of you making a custom template. It looks something like this:
If you want to get deep into it (please do, we're now talking about me ending up as a pool of plasma, and unlike yours, I do care about my fate), you could start here and keep going. But in case you were to be lazy bastards (we'll soon whip that out of you, believe me. Excuse me, did I say whip? I meant work on it in a constructive way in order to find common ground and a compromise that leaves everyone satisfied), I'll give you the Cliff's notes.
Experience rules two thing, on the one hand, it marks the level at which the crew (not only myself) will start. As you can see, at priority A, I start at level 6, and at priority E I would start at level 1. It also tells me what my first job will be, amongst the choices the game presents, which are these:
Bounty Hunter, Explorer, Merchant, Military Officer, Pirate, Smuggler, Spy and Zealot.
Please take five frigging minutes to peruse those pages, and the other Jobs pages. Take notice that the starting jobs for a Captain also give them specific traits, some of which are quite nice (like the Military Officer). Take a look also at the talent progression of each job to see which synergize with which, although I wouldn't expect you to quite grasp things like that so go with your gut why don't you. And finally, remember that the Captain is just like any other officer, so we also get two additional jobs to choose as we level up.
Well, not exactly just like any other officer of course. I get nicer quarters and can basically space any of you louts at any given moment just by my whim, but you get what I mean, right? Right?
Anyway.
In, ahem, other lives I've managed quite successfully (I didn't die until level 12) with a MO/Spy/Combat Doctor build. But what do I know.
Next one's the ship. We get a couple choices, from the Scout Cutter (a.k.a. Paper Plane), to the Dragoon Cruiser (a.k.a. Quite a Badass Motherfucker but still not the Badassest Motherfucker out there), going through the Juror Class, the Paladin Cruiser, the Frontier Liner, the Galtak Freighter, the Fidelis Cutter, the Guardian Interceptor and the Cautela Heavylift. Obviously this things cost quite a lot of money, so the lower the ship priority is, the lower the amount we have and the smallest the ship we can afford, and vice versa. I could tell you which level allows for what ship, but I can't really be bothered, just go with your instincts and if it can't be done, I'll adjust accordingly. If we spend less money than our limit, we get 20% back as cash.
Third is the Contacts department. Contacts are, well, our contacts. They are commanders, intel officers, princes, traders, wardens and the rest. They belong to each faction in the game, and they do a multiplicity of things for us, from selling us ranks, trade permits and edicts (to kill and capture their enemies), to allowing us to recruit specialist crew members like diplomats or spies, buying any intel we acquire, giving us access to different market goods and equipment... and a lot of other things, just look at the wiki you bums. You're supposed to be working for me, not the other way around. As with the other ones, the number of Contacts we have at the beginning of the game is dependent on the priority assigned to it (8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 at lowest level). It's a bit important to have some contacts at the beginning, but not necessary to have a lot of them, since we'll acquire quite a number along the way. We also only get access to some of the contacts to choose from, others we have to acquire.
Smuggler, Merchant, Starport Mechanic, Spice Trader, Prince, Ex-Bounty Hunter, Retired Explorer, Fixer, Politician, Weapons Dealer, Military Commander and Intelligence Officer, they are all available at the beginning.
Then we move onto Attributes. Now things start to get sticky.
As you might have imagined (this is planet RPGCodex, isn't it? My nav system may be busted but I still know what I'm doing. Mostly), Attributes tell us what the Captain is and how they behave in a number of situations. Each one of them affects different things (which you can look up in the useful link I've given you, I'll be giving you a general overview though because I know too many letters and numbers tend to confuse you) and, and this is extremely important they don't grow through the game, what we choose is what we get, and also, contrary to skills, of which I'll speak in a second, the only number that matters is the one of the person doing the action, usually, the captain. A check for Stealth+Charisma will only use the Captain's Charisma, if they don't have any they're fucked.
As for points, we get 52 at priority A, 38 at B, 30 at C, 28 at D and 15 at E.
As you see, we get a minimum of 8 guaranteed (thanks!) and we can only go as high as 30 (we can start with higher than 30 attributes through traits, though).
What do they do?
Strength is used in some, physical challenges, is a secondary measure of HP (Fortitude is the main one there), and is usefull for firing LMG, HMG, Shotguns and things like that.
Quickness is for initiative and defence in crew combat, spying and exploration, also for sneaky challenges and firing pistols.
Fortitude is HP, basically.
Charisma is for
Wisdom is for being an owl. And for morale (yours), initiative, some diplomatic challenges and also increasing some rewards.
Finally, Resilience is basically morale (again, yours), Death Save throws (so you don't die) and some intimidation challenges.
Basically, if the captain is supposed to fight on crew combat, they should have a bit of Fortitude and Resilience and either Strength or Quickness for the weapons of choice.
And we finally get to Skills.
I'm not going to go over them because I'm a busy Captain and you have the wiki link. Suffice it to say that, once more, if the Captain is supposed to fight on CQC, Combat Skills are important, especially things like Evasion. Also, contrary to Attributes, Skills grow every time you level up a Job (three skills for each Job), so those numbers are going to go up. You can see which Skills each Job increases at their respective wiki page, so you can, if you so please, plan a build with a nice synergy. Or we can throw points all over the place and hope for the best. The best is usually death by something nasty, in case you hadn't gotten the message yet.
In order to keep this reasonably simple and so I can balance each of your options (expecting there to be more than one, have I told you of my chronic optimism?), maybe just choose a general order of priorities (again, A,B,C,D and E from most important to least important) and a general distribution of skills and attributes ("prioritize combat, and strength, I want rifles" or "forget combat, go for negotiate"), and don't get into specific numbers. Or as I've said, do what you want, but don't be surprised if it ends up being different.
Well, we seem to be reaching the end of the questionnaire. Hope your brains haven't dripped out your noses yet! There'll be plenty of time for that later.
All that remains to be done is to choose the map we start on, the Faction we are supposedly loyal to, the difficulty and the gender and looks of our captain.
Okay, I lied again. You're not choosing the map, I am. It's the default one, because sod it.
Regarding Factions, here they are:
It's mostly down to the Zone Bonuses, although they're not that important, so choose what you please. I normally go with Alta Mesa because it's a Spanish name and we start in the Chenoa system (please don't ask, and if you're a Spaniard, you know why we don't want them asking).
Choosing difficulty was, again, a bold faced lie.
As if there was any doubt.
And finally, the most important part of this process, the decision that will mark our future, and will be judged by everyone who ends up learning of our tales. The one, single decision that will tell us whether or not our expedition will be a success, the Captain's gender.
Sadly this game is made by Gamergate bigots who adhere to the outdated, hate filled notion that there are only two genders instead of two billions, so we have to choose between male and female.
Or rather, I choose, female, because .
I also chose the face, because I know better than you.
That's it, mostly. Oh yes, you also need to decide whether or not we're going to follow the first storyline missions. We'll do the initial ones because they're lucrative and low risk, but the more you follow them, the more fucked you are, until you get completely fucked and probably killed by superior enemies (unless you kinda sorta cheat, but we would never, would we?). Otherwise we go straight for the sandbox. We don't need to decide just yet, but we should start thinking about it.
My job here is done, I'll leave you to it men. I know what you get up to when I'm not looking, and I assure you I
Ask any questions, shower me in praise, discuss anything you deem worthy of discussion, or just express interest in becoming space explorers. If enough of you do, I might actually do this. If not, I might actually do this by myself anyway. Or I might abandon you after this post.
Otherwise the first update will be to show off the Captain and the Crew of Captain Kuattro's (or rather, Kuattra's!) Three-Ring Circus. With plenty of clowns.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. Expect this to be a short expedition. I'm still learning the game, and it has the bad habit of throwing inordinate amounts of shit your way at the most unexpected moment, so we'll probably die a couple of seconds after taking off from the first system. There might be restarts, or I might just give up and come back when I've become better at it and don't make a fool of myself in front of all of you fine gentlemen in such regular basis.
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