Let me preface this update with an announcement that you should all keep in mind:
It wasn't my fault.
Okay, now we can begin.
Having decided that the Faen can stuff it, we decide instead to try our luck patrolling the Frequency system, just to see what we get.
A bit of vengeance from the De Valtos, that's what we get :D
Standard tactics apply. We advance, firing our Torpedoes and fucking up their Officer Cabins (meh) and starting fire in their ship (yay), and starting Evasive Maneuvers which allow us to evade all the pirate's shots.
Second turn, same as the first. Railguns from us (including a nice hit to the Bridge), and also applying a debuff to accuracy, and more misses from them.
Third turn, we stop advancing, because I suspect we can deal with them without getting into crew combat (always risky), and so we have the full power of our reactor to power up weapons instead of the engine, which means we open fire with both railguns and plasma. We also guide our fire to have better accuracy, and we cook the enemy crew with plasma, which is always good as long as it's not
your crew being cooked.
Well it's also good and funny when it's your crew, but getting the smell out of the seats it's a nightmare.
We cripple both their bridge and their engine, and things are looking extremely well for us to finish them off in just a moment.
Fourth turn (sorry forgot to look at the log), we fire with everything again, but no hits on their engine. We use the Targeting Lock talent, which prevents them from fleeing and debuffs them if we hit them with weapons.
PSA: When you are fighting an enemy that's almost dead, or just any inferior enemy in general, please try to minimize the use of your talents, since then they go on cooldown for three weeks, and you can get in all kinds of hairy situations. I think you know where this is going. Unless you've taken the precaution of having multiple uses of it, which, of course, I haven't.
Fifth and last turn, I use YET ANOTHER talent, this time another bombardment since the first one run out, and we hit them with everything.
And their Bridge goes BOOM.
As always, we don't really have any talent to find the hidden stashes in their ship, so we take what we can, which is not particularly impressive. We haven't really concentrated on trade that much, anyway.
We could actually sell the spice right in this system, since we have a permit, but those prices...
Also, if we did that, we would piss off the Rycharts, since right now they're on a Trade Ban with the Mokowhatever, so better to sell it somewhere else.
Not that it matters that much, we're probably going to end up pissing them off some other way. When I play for clan Alta Mesa they also end up as my first enemies, maybe they're just all around cunts.
Or maybe
I am.
Naah.
We also start looking for new swag for our ship, starting with our utmost priority, an upgrade to the Weapons Locker that will allow us to dive into crew combat more freely.
I've never done the math, but I have the impression that upgrading anything less than two steps is a waste of money, since the price you get when selling the old hardware seems to be incredibly low. Or maybe I haven't really crunched those numbers.
So since we don't have the money for a Level 4 locker, nor a level 3, we just forget about it for now.
We also take a moment to welcome aboard our new recruit,
Hellraiser.
I know
heshe looks very much like the random named soldier we had before, but that's just a hilarious coincidence that I will explain some day.
We decide to move to one of the De Valtos' local systems, because it having both an Orbital Station and a Population planet seems like a good place to sell my booty, and me being an idiot that keeps forgetting we need a Trade Permit
with the specific faction that controls the system to be able to sell any goods other than the basic, while on the way, we run into bad news.
A Rychart ship that, it's faction hating us and them being a Zealot, leaves us no option but to fight them.
But hey, they're flying a bucket, so no problem at all.
If only I hadn't spent most of my combat talents on a wimpy pirate just moments ago, and they were all still in cooldown...
First standard turn, advance and torpedoes. Only, without evasive maneuvers, they have an easier time hitting us, and they do.
We get crippled with aftershocks, take a heavy hit on our Weapons Locker and
a considerable hit on our engines. We apply bombardment cripple to them, and also cause fires on their ship.
Remember when I said that, in the early game, combat is mostly a bad idea because you can get really fucked? Well, this is what happens when I get three or four fights in a row that I fly through with minimal damage, that I start thinking "hey, this isn't so bad. Maybe I'm actually
good at this".
Fat chance.
So instead of immediately trying to flee, I try to outgun a Zealot, who is pretty heavily armed even if in a shit ship, and quite aggressive.
Results to follow.
Second turn (again, forgot the log), I keep advancing because I'm
special like that, firing more torpedoes and using the Treat Wounded talent because my subconscious is probably telling me something and also because
tindrli deserves a chance to shine.
On the plus side, our attacks hit and theirs all miss, so maybe everything's going to be ok?
No it isn't.
Turn 3 and I finally stop advancing because as I said, there's something at the back of my brain going "uh..." and trying to get my attention. But again, my attacks all hit, even applying a crippling debuff, and theirs miss. They even start trying to get away from me, so it can't really be
that bad.
Turn four and here comes the pain.
I start by hitting them with my lance array and causing another crippling debuff, which is always nice to see. And then they respond by hitting me with both their plasma weapons and causing radiation wash to damage my crew every turn, and they also debuff me by locking onto my ship.
Oops.
I actually damage their engine quite a bit, but they damage my Bridge and my Pilot Assist, so this is looking like it's going to be one expensive fight.
Turn five, more of the same. I hit them, but they hit back, hard. We cripple their Bridge, but unless we manage to finish them off fast, this is going to cost us a lot of money. I mean a lot more than it's already going to cost us.
Well guess what, it took us turns six, seven, eight, nine and ten of exchanging fire with them, including ANOTHER application of radiation wash to my crew, until we saw this:
Well, it was a bit long, but in the end we got out mostly unscathed.
Oh, yes.
Mostly unscathed, I said.
Oh, yes, there's that too.
Most of us got out
mostly unscathed, the others...
The others will have a space funeral with full honours in a paper bag, and a nice memorial in the latrine's wall.
We will now hold a line of silence for our fallen heroes who will be remembered.
...
There.
Hey at least we got 26,5K credits out of the salvage. The repairs are going to cost us double that probably.
We
limpcorageously fly to our destination, and once we get there, a mechanic, and e-tech and a crew dog decide they've had enough of this shit and desert the ship.
But none of you did, you proudly stand next to your captain
Except the ones of you who are in bed in the med bay. But you are standing with me in spirit, and it counts.
We also get the (minor) bad news that, as I said before, without trade permits for the De Valtos, we're not selling them shit.
And then we get the other bad news, that repairing the damage that we suffered because of my
stupidityyour valiant effort, is going to cost us almost 10k. Hey, it could have been worse, we even get a profit out of the blood of your comrades.
We also managed to reduce our rep with the Rycharts to -38, so basically, now they're systems are closed down for us, and if some of their Officers, Zealots or Bounty Hunters manages to capture us, we will be executed immediately. Rejoice.
We hire some random dudes, to cover the random dudes we've lost, including:
Random dud(ette) one.
And random dude two.
After healing our wounds and recovering our morale in the Spice Hall, we move to Sousa, a system of the Monkalamari or whatever their name is, to see if we can finally free ourselves from the shitty cargo.
We decide to patrol a bit first, to see if we find anything nice. We only find out that the RNG generator is a bastard. That, and a Javat pirate.
No option to retreat.
What's that, you are hoping I've learned my lesson and will decide to flee the combat at the first opportunity instead of trying to dish it out with an enemy that is not as defenceless as a Smuggler or a Trader or something like that.
You sweet summer children. I have all my combat talents back, so of course we're going in guns blazing!
Reinhardt, you might want to be careful though.
So, first turn (once more, no log), we advance and hit them with torpedoes and starting a fire on their ship. Only they hit us back with torpedoes too, managing to debuff us with bombardment and crippling us TWICE with aftershocks.
Second turn, my spidey senses are tingling already so I stop advancing and use Treat Wounded right off the bat. They hit us, causing fire in our ship and
SEVERELY crippling our Bridge, and we hit them and scratch them a bit.
To sum up, he has hit us twice (one missile first turn, one second turn) and we're almost out of the fight.
It's not my fault.
Third turn, we get rid of the crippling effect with Failsafe Protocols, and manage to land a grand total of zero hits with our weapons. They on the other hand, manage another one and keep damaging our components.
It's not my fault.
Also, it might be time to get out of there.
BUT, since I like to try, I stay there for another turn, again, missing all my shots, while the enemy pirate lands all of them definitely crippling our ship pretty hard.
Now it's time to get out of here.
Turn five, I retreat to range 5 from the range 4 I'd stupidly advanced in the first turn, and prepare for retreat as I miss my shots and he still lands all of them.
We manage to retreat next turn, but not before he manages to hit us with another salvo.
So let's see the results of
myyour little mistake, shall we?
Oh boy.
Woops.
Reinhardt (the 2nd), we hardly knew ye. What can I say?
I can say that I warned you!
Also, I might have mentioned, but it's not my fault.
As soon as we land, we get three deserters, but again, no one important.
21k on repairs :'(
Also the dead people, of course. Of course!
But 21k...
Replacements!
Third's the charm? Maybe.
Between combat and downtime for repairs, we've spent a fuck ton of time doing basically nothing and, therefore, not getting any money.
Since combat has showed itself to be a bit of a risky business (surprise!), we will now try some honest work. So we tap into our contact network, and we accept and inoffensive looking mission to escort a scientist to some planet to conduct surveys.
We actually manage to get there without anything horrible happening to any of you on the way, so we drop on the surface to do the science things.
First try, not too shabby. But we need to do two more.
Second try, you all get fucked. But again, it's not my fault.
Third and fourth try, there was some danger but we managed to succeed in the save rolls.
Fifth try, another success. One more and we're out.
Sixth try and done! Maybe we're more proficient at this exploring lark than at shooting things.
On the other hand, each success has reduced our rep with the Alta Mesa clan, so I guess we can add another enemy to our list.
Also, after refueling I discover I don't even have enough money to pay your wages, so we better get back fast.
And we almost made it, but of course:
Fortunately, I've now discovered that I am allergic to combat, at least with enemies that can actually defend themselves, so my order in the first turn is to flee the fucker and we manage it on the second turn with minimal damage, although...
Reinhardt, I need to ask, you do realize that when the enemy is firing at us, you need to find cover in some heavily armoured part of the ship, not stand in front of a window admiring the fireworks, do you?
This is proof though that this game has no sense of humor. The pirate hitting us once in two turns, damaging us slightly and yet managing to splatter him for the third time, now
that would have been comedy, and great LP material.
Shame.
We land, and we manage to complete the mission, so that's 21k on our wallet.
After repairs, wages and spicing though, we are left with a measly 8k, so it's back to missions again.
But first, some level ups.
Captain Kuattra gains a new Job Rank in Diplomat, since she's so good at making everyone see their side,
MediantSamuel gets a new rank in Mechanic, because we really need those extra repairs,
Morkar gains a new rank in pirate, in his slow path to make everyone hate us less when we complete missions and
tindrli gets another rank of doctor on his path to become a combat medic and get killed in crew combat. As if it wasn't just as easy to get killed in space combat.
And speaking of missions:
We accept a couple of them that will take us on a nice tour around the neighboring quadrants, but first, another PSA.
Please, for the love of everything holy, do not accept missions that will put you deep into enemy space (and look closely at against who are the missions directed, because they
will end up being your enemies), since you will need to refuel, and treat your wounded and spice for your crew's morale, and if they don't like you they'll tell you to piss off when you try to do those things. And then bad things will happen. Two jumps away from your base quadrants can be death.
Also, it's not my fault.
Okay, it is, a bit.
Basically, don't do any of the things I'm doing, and you'll be golden.
We actually manage to complete the first stage of one of the missions without much problem. Notice how we are reducing our rep with yet another faction, and how there's no special warning other than a minute red text. The game, sneaky fucker as it is, decides not to warn you when you're being an idiot.
Basically, we're entering the Lion's den, blissfully unaware of looming disaster.
Well, at least
I'm unaware of the disaster. You might have tried to warn me, but who actually cares about your opinion?
A second step completed without further incident, and again, the Steel Song getting more and more pissed with us (they're especially dangerous, since they have "honour" and therefore can't be bribed to leave us alone, another fuck up of mine :D).
I'm feeling confident. Aren't you?
Also,
MediantSamuel gets another rank, this time on Mechanic because it's what gives us a bigger increase in repair.
Another step from a different mission, completed
on the first try. As I said, I am confident we'll pull this off, no problem.
And a
different faction getting pissed, because really, who needs safe ports in a space game? Not me!
On the way to the next step, a Rychart pirate very, very pissed with us (as the Rycharts are). We are still carrying those spices, so no surrender.
Rather, get into combat and retreat as soon as possible, hopefully before
Reinhardt gets blasted.
We escape on the first turn, so no harm done.
Another step for a mission, ANOTHER, DIFFERENT, faction pissed at us. We're actually in a House Thulun quadrant, so pissing them off is not a very smart idea.
But then again, doing the smart thing is what the enemy is expecting, that's why I always decide to do the
opposite of the smart thing.
First problem: We have a heavily wounded crew member, who needs treatment in a proper hospital and not
tindrli's chamber of horrors, but we've pissed House Thulun enough that they refuse to allow us access to their medical facilities.
And that's only the beginning.
Fortunately, we were close enough to our own space that we could do a quick stop to get paid for some of the completed missions, and get treatment.
Also,
tindrli gets even another rank at doctor, for a grand total of 5, which means he is ready to get the Life Saver talent as soon as he gets a talent point.
Now, can any of you spot the problem?
Since I had to return home, I am now THREE jumps away from my objective. The smartest thing would have been to discard the mission and forget about it.
As I said, smart is what everyone expects you to be, and I always like to surprise people.
Also, I'm not entirely sure how to actually cancel a mission, and letting the timer run out is kind of a big deal. So here we go.
Deep into enemy space.
Which is going to be even more enemy space once we complete the mission.
Oh yes, we also accept a couple more missions which are on the way because we might as well go all in and piss off
everyone.
We are also retreating from any encounter before even getting into contact. Since we have Signal Jammer talent, our reputation loss for retreating without letting them search our ship is reduced to -1 point, but still, it's accumulating fast.
More money, more hate.
Also more levels, the Captain gets another rank in diplomat, and the Cunning Slip talent, which is a Stealth save, and
Morkar gets rank 3 in pirate.
Up left and center, you can see that the owner of the quadrant, House Thulun, hates us (-15 rep). Next to the systems, the small icons in red are things that not only them, but other factions also, will
not allow us to do in their ports, like repair, use the medical facilities, or trade. We're in very thin ice, and we are actually walking even deeper into the pond.
We have even had to start bribing Thulun officers to let us go unharmed, which is having also an effect on our rep with them.
We keep completing missions because, what else are we going to do? We really need the money, otherwise we're fucked.
And yes, the Zenrin are even another faction, and we're starting to anger them too.
On the plus side, having to rely on indie ports to refuel and all that means that we can sell the loot we've been carrying all along (indies don't care about trade permits).
Hellraiser levels up, and he gets the Backline leader talent, which will buff our crew in land combat if he's in the last slot. So does
Azira, he gets Twitch Surge, a talent that will allow us to change range in ship combat with 100% probability, and sometimes even advance two positions instead of just one.
On an unexplored planet, trying to complete a mission, we run into some goodies.
Hey it's free money!
Or rather, no. As they say, there's no such thing as free money.
Now I'm going to try something. Since narrating crew combat is shit, I'm going to upload it in video format. Tell me if you have any preference, or if you'd rather I didin't, or whatever.
Here it goes.
ERYFKRAD Whew!
We try again.
Okay, that Xeno card looks scary, but I'm not really worried, the probabilities are really low, and any way we need to complete the mission.
Of fucking course.
Fortunately, you are not going to see a video of the four members of the away team getting brutally devoured by Xenos because I pressed that "Escape" button like it was giving away candy and the Xenos only landed a couple of hits.
Just in case you were wondering who they landed
all their hits on.
Yep, that's
Reinhardt all right, on the brink of getting murdered again.
I wasn't even sure of what would happen when I retreated (in other circumstances, like fighting Bounty Hunters, as I explained, "Escaping" has the same effect as surrendering, which in the case of BH means execution if they hate you), I didn't know if this would mean the Xenos boarded our ship and ate us all, so I was relieved to see there was no effect, and we were free to finally finish this thing.
First though, I made a quick trip to the closest planet to treat my injured, and since I had the money, and because I didn't want to get taken by surprise again in Land Combat...
We upgraded our weapons locker, and you are now the proud owners of the (almost) most advanced weaponry and armour in the galaxy. Try not to hurt anyone, those blades are sharp.
On the way back, disaster strikes as we run into a De Valtos pirate. Instead of surrendering and letting them take that Hydrocarbon Crude that is worth shit, I try to flee from combat, which takes me three turns, and results in:
Hey at least
Reinhardt didn't take a hit. Thank God for small mercies.
That's 5k credits between medicines and repairs.
On the plus side, we finally finish this mission. On the minus side, everyone is getting really angry. At us specifically.
Morkar gets a level up, so he gets to level 4 pirate and a new Talent, Furious Prodding, which purges the crew from crippling effects in combat and restores morale,
Dayyālu also gets a level up, and a new talent, Strength of Steel, a buff to parry, HP and morale,
MediantSamuel gets to level 4 Engineer and the Brace for Impact talent, which buffs our shields and armour and protects our crew during space combat and the captain gets another rank (5) at diplomat.
Unfortunately, we run once more into something nasty while in space:
Again, we all escape, but that was close, specially for
Dayyālu .
After a couple missions completed and a couple jumps, we find ourselves in Alta Mesa space.
As you can see, they really hate us. At -30 rep their ports are going to be completely close to us. As it is, we can not treat the injured, increase morale nor repair.
And we are about to complete a mission against them, so that is happening. Which means not even refueling.
We are basically the last place we want to be.
We've almost finished with all our missions, but we now need to make multiple jumps to complete this one and get home.
And quite a lot of factions now hate us so no refueling in their ports.
We're one thing going wrong away from being in deep trouble.
And things
are going to go wrong.
Specifically in my head.
We run into an Indie Spy. They don't even care about us that much, indies don't have rep so they will not execute me or anything if I surrender. I'm not carrying anything, so they will not confiscate anything. Indies don't even have Trade Permits, they probably don't consider anything as illegal goods.
I can surrender, walk away, and get on with my day, with no problem.
So of course, I choose to fight them.
And yes, after a brief fire exchange and a couple of boardings (not featured, you've already seen the kind), I win, almost easily.
And they're even carrying some great loot. That's 10k credits, more if I can sell them at good price.
But on the other hand...
The crew got pretty shaken, bot physically and mentally.
And we have no access to medics.
Nor to spicing.
Because everyone around us hates us, and their ports are closes to us.
We're all going to die
Which is sad because
Reinhardt got a new level, and the Covering Fire talent for Land Combat,
SmartCheetah also leveled up, getting the Supremacy of Fire talent, which will allow us to remove one risk card when we are on Patrol,
Morkar got level 5 Pirate,
tindrli got level 1 Combat Medic (
now you might actually see combat, although you are still our only medic) and the Life Saver talent,
ERYFKRAD gets Skewering Thrust which is a nice combo when he uses his retreating talent and
MZeta gets Sharp Steering so that we can have two uses of it.
We even manage to sell this for a reasonable price in the first Indie port we land on, which I proceed to do immediately, since I suspect we are not long for this world.
You see, I said we were one thing going wrong from disaster, and
three things go wrong, the three tests you can see we failed on the lower right. We went from having no injured nor demoralized crew, to having a lot of them. And as I said, we have no easy access to facilities to remedy that, since we are returning home through multiple jumps in enemy territory.
Lots of injured and low morale crew members mean more tests failed, and that means even more injured and demoralized crew (and as you can see, we are in Thulun territory, who are about to close their ports to us).
Have you ever played Dwarf Fortress? Have you ever experimented a Tantrum Spiral? Well, that's more or less it. A chain reaction of pure shit, getting dumped on top of us.
Of course as soon as we land someone decides to jump ship (lower left).
Et tu,
SmartCheetah?
He actually deserted twice in the way home, but I forgot to put "the 2nd" in your second incarnation name, so we'll decide not to count that one. Your Court Martial is dismissed.
Also,
MediantSamuel gets level 5 engineer.
We also get news that the courts have ruled against the Faen, so if we feel like helping we should go there immediately.
But we are dealing with our own shit right now, so respectfully the Faen can suck my (nonexistent, I'm Kuattra and a female, I swear) dick.
On the way back we keep meeting Pirates, which is a blessing in disguise since, because we're not carrying any cargo, we can surrender to them, no matter how much their faction hates us, and they just go away empty handed. If they were Zealots of Bounty Hunters, then we would be fucked.
Also, at every stop more crew is deserting, and we keep failing tests in space and increasing our list of injuries and low morale crew members.
And we even get the prodigal son back (kind of).
We also lose some along the way.
This is ridiculous though, just because you are all half dead, with morale on the floor and we are 4 jumps away from home, is no reason to abandon your very competent Captain this way. I expected better of you.
Also, it's not my fault.
I get you all back though, one way or another.
By some miracle, we manage to finally jump all the way back home, and get the extraordinary, incredible reward of 15k. All of that for having lost half of my experienced crew and having to replace them with rookies. That was close, very very close.
We don't even have enough money for decent upgrades. Just 25k.
I am the best Captain in the Universe.
And thus I reward myself with a final level up, getting to rank 6 diplomat, and the Warm Invitation talent, which will reduce the price to be introduced to new contacts. And we are going to need a lot of contacts.
So what have we managed? A couple of factions hate our guts (enough that they will execute us if they capture us), we have significantly reduced the overall experience of our crew, thus weakening it, and we haven't really made any money out of it since we spent most of it on repairs, medical bills and refueling.
Oh yes, at least we got to upgrade our weapons locker.
Next update I'm concentrating on trade, because apparently anything other than that only allows me the opportunity to get us into the most horrible deadly traps and to get a very high price on our heads.
Oh, and also, it wasn't my fault.
CASUALTIES:
Reinhardt
ERYFKRAD
Reinhardt the 2nd
MZeta
SNIVELLING COWARDS WHO WENT AWOL:
SmartCheetah
Hellraiser
Dayyālu