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 Vendo Preserve this Galaxy of Rebels: Let's Play Rebel Galaxy Released on October 20th, 2015 by Double Damage Games, Rebel Galaxy is a Space Western themed combat and trading simulator. It's a bit strange in that the combat plays more like a game set in the Age of Sails (no vertical movement, one of the weapon styles is all about firing off the broadsides at enemy ships), but as a more arcade-y spaceship game it's decent fun and has a number of options for how you want to go about accomplishing your goals. The primary purpose of this Let's Play is going to be getting through the campaign story, although I plan on alternating between plot and casual play sections just to give a feel for what the gameplay is like. Rebel Galaxy does feel a little bare bones at times, so I'm going to try to do my best to curate the experience a little. Trying to make it more of an actual story and less a series of plot beats that the character's shuffled around to, cut out a lot of the more boring grinding/fights, etc. If it gets too obnoxious I'll switch back to the default game experience, but hopefully it isn't changing enough to matter all that much. But for the moment, assume all text during a story update in italics is from the game itself and otherwise has been added by me. Table of Contents Story Update #1 - Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere Free Play Update #1 - Pinball Machine Story Update #2 - One Small Favor Free Play Update #2 - Ride to Riches Story Update #3 - Nosy Passenger Free Play Update #3 - Blockade Runner Story Update #4 - Long Arm of the Law Story Update #5 - Getting Out Free Play Update #4 - Small Fish in a Big Pond Free Play Update #5 - Space Truckin' Story Update #6 - Church of the Holy Lightbulb Story Update #7 - Things Buried Deep Free Play Update #6 - Raisin' the Stakes Story Update #8 - Nuclear Option Story Update #9 - Surviving the Storm Free Play Update #7 - Looking Away Story Update #10 - Tear in the Veil Story Update #11 - Challenging the Deep Horizon Story Update #12 - Bring It On Home Epilogue Jossar fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Feb 5, 2022 |
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Dec 12, 2021 23:47
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Story Update #1 - Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere Update Soundtrack - Quaker Bait  Six days ago, you received a cryptic message from your aunt Juno, the family black sheep you haven’t seen or heard from in over ten years. The message provided the access codes to the Rasputin, a near derelict spacecraft, and a relic of her younger days. Also included were the coordinates to Rust City, an out of the way space station with a… questionable reputation. She practically begged you to meet her there as quickly as possible. Now, after several days of travel and a few unscheduled maintenance stops you have at last arrived. This is a place of liars and thieves. You wonder how you let yourself get dragged to such a Godforsaken backwater.  You’ve got plenty of time to think after all, since the automatic shutdown function on the Rasputin’s warp engine does most of the work for you. Handy piece of equipment that, makes sure that some cocky young pilot doesn’t instantly tear themselves apart by getting too close to a local gravity well. Reminds you of how everything got cut down to size in space once the scientists and engineers had to start dealing with practical problems. Warp drives only work within a system, so anything beyond that requires a specialized jump drive which requires interfacing with a series of interconnected jump gates. Frankly, you’re amazed you even made it here from the Inner Sectors without the Rasputin’s jump drive exploding. Whatever Aunt Juno wanted you here for had better be important, since you’re going to have to pay a pretty penny to get that fixed…  Your thoughts are cut short by an incoming hail from Rust City. You accept the call and are confronted with the characteristic features of a Korian. Definitely a sign that you’re a long way from home. Well, he seems polite, which is already a sight better than you expected out of this place. Might as well play along. "Who are you?" The Korian laughs, before composing himself enough to continue. "Where are my manners! I'm Orzu, an old friend of your aunt's, back in my younger, wilder days. Now I own the bar here, and life is quieter!" Which meant that he had something to lose, if things went south. Safe enough then, you suppose. "I see. Well, I guess I'll see you after I dock." The docking process is fascinating to you, but only in the sense that you're a complete greenhorn for whom everything involving a spaceship is brand new. For the engineers it's business as usual. Maybe a bit more spit and polish than precision than one would see back home, but the Rasputin isn't really enough of a high performance ship for you to really have room to complain.  You head right for the bar then, as all good spacers are supposed to do. There's a bit of a mental stumble at that. You're really here, out on the frontier, in your own ship. It's hard to believe, somewhat ridiculous. Some small part of you says that maybe it's why you came out here in the first place: jumping at the chance to get away from everything in the comfortable Inner Sectors and reinvent yourself. You instantly quash the errant thought, so unlike your normal, cautious behavior. No, you just want to figure out what Aunt Juno's up to and go home. Orzu is sitting at a booth off to the side, meant to be cozy for a small number of any residents of the sector, but in practice that means most humans would find it roomy. He must not have been kidding about being a friend of your aunt's, as there's a set of shotglasses and a bottle of Greel Whiskey on the table. The good stuff, too. You take a seat, but refrain from being the first to drink. You're not sure you want to go into this conversation utterly plowed. Orzu shrugs his shoulders and takes a shot before speaking. After some pleasantries, including a comment on how you're the spitting image of your aunt, he admits that he doesn't know where she is, and in fact he hasn't seen her in about a week. That news is worth taking a shot for. As the drink slides down your throat, you remember a funny story about Greel Whiskey. Everybody loves the stuff except the Greel themselves, who claim it tastes like industrial grade cleaning solvent, because that's what it originally was. You can sort of get the idea in the aftertaste, but even then, it's still far more pleasant than it has any right to be with a story like that. Right, Orzu. The conversation flows freely back and forth between you two at this point. He says that right before Aunt Juno left, she gave him some kind of AI symbiote to hand to you, which she called a Specter, though he doubts that's what it's supposed to be called. AI... Computers keep getting better and better. It's why you can't fling rocks at a ship from millions of kilometers away at a target and have to get up close and personal with weapons fire, since otherwise a ship's computer system can just compute the attacks and let it dodge. Even what are considered "long range" weapons still have a maximum distance for that reason, since even the dumbest seeming of weapons still has a certain suite of smart features designed to frustrate enemy countermeasures. But scientists still never got AI to work right. Has to be some kind of perspective problem, since the tech's certainly there. Wonder who made this AI, then? The bar owner casually hands you an arcane looking device made of black metal, somewhat, but not entirely spherical. The metal appears to be covered with decorative carvings or etchings. Even if this thing wasn't an AI, it would be worth a fortune. You look at the Korian quizzically as if to ask why he's giving up the priceless artifact. But Orzu figures that the symbiote is more trouble than it's worth, and it would just be better to save it for an intrepid young pilot looking for their Aunt Juno, although... "As to your Aunt, frankly, you're in no shape to find her. That's the Rasputin parked in the hanger, isn't it? I hate to say it, but times have changed since that was a worthy ship." You cringe on the inside as you know exactly what Orzu's talking about, but try to play it off calmly. "What do you mean?" "Well..." Orzu starts counting on his fingers as he illustrates the various problems with the Rasputin. You can't help but visibly wince with each one. "You've got no deflector, no tractor beam, that hull plating is like paper. And, to be frank, your weapons systems are practically pop guns. No offense." You ask Orzu for suggestions on how to fix these problems and he leans back a bit into the booth as he sits and thinks about it, before pointing to the bottle on the table and mentioning that he's been having problems getting another shipment of Greel Whiskey delivered. He wants you to go and finish the trade in exchange for a ship part and some credits. You'd had another shot or two over the course of the conversation, or maybe it just seemed like easy money. You accept and take the coordinates.   You weren't sure why this trader is so spooked that he decided he'd be better off hiding nearly a third of the system away in an asteroid belt, but the actual transaction is fairly simple, though there's that little voice in the back of your head saying that if he's in that much trouble it'd be better to just grab the cargo without payment and threaten to vent him into space if he didn't comply. Really, this place is just bringing out the worst in you. After handing the shipment back to Orzu, he paid you a surprisingly decent haul, nearly 10k credits, and gave you the choice of a deflector shield or a tractor beam. You picked the tractor beam since it had a unique focus, and despite what Orzu said the Rasputin still had SOME default shielding. Unfortunately it seemed like the Korian had either expected you to take a lot longer to finish hauling the whiskey, or realized just how useful you could be, as he asked for another favor - destroying some boxes whose contents he refused to discuss. You were beginning to feel like you were getting played, but in the absence of any better leads, it would have to be done.  The initial destruction of shipping crates is fairly mundane. In all honestly, you kind of welcome it. You haven't had a chance to test out the Rasputin's weapons systems yet, and it lets you get a handle of the aiming controls for the broadside lasers and turrets. Unfortunately, it turned out that destroying the boxes brought some unwelcome attention.   Doublejacks. Back in the Inner Sectors, system security is strong enough that you don't see pirate organizations like these. At most you see the occasional desperate individual turning to a life of crime. But out here in the periphery, there are enough pirates to form large scale gangs and criminal syndicates, and even back home everyone's heard of the Doublejack Thugs. At least the Red Devils can be negotiated with, if you're willing to get your hands dirty. But if they don't want something specific from you, the Doublejacks shoot first and ask questions never. And even if you have something irreplaceable, they'll only keep you in a cell for as long as they need and no further. But as much of a bucket of bolts as the Rasputin is, it's still a full size ship and more than enough to shoot down a few fighters. Although that leaves the question of where...   Ah right, there's the big one. The third dimension matters a lot less than one would think since a lot of the mechanics that would be relevant are instead outsourced to computer targeting. So combined with the previously mentioned limitation on firing distance, tactics have devolved back to getting up close and unloading as much as you can into one particular side of a ship. There's a bit of a slugging match as neither ship can pierce the other's shields and instead both have to weave around one another angling for position. But ultimately, as much of a hunk of junk as she seems to be, the Rasputin has the quality to come out on top. An engineer could probably explain why these ships explode so violently in space, but that runs at the edges of your knowledge. Had to focus on learning what it would take to pilot one of these things quickly, when you set off from home. When you return to Orzu, he elides any mention of the pirates, though you notice he's not trying to give you any more busy work and just tells you what you want to know. The person who would most likely have knowledge of where Juno went is her old smuggling partner Sandar, located way at the edge of the system in a station that even the Korian thinks is a complete dump. That doesn't really give you much confidence... ______________________________________________________________ Audience Participation Alright tutorial's over, now the real fun of the game can begin. The next mission in the storyline is slightly above the default Rasputin’s weight class, so we’re going to have to find some way of fixing that. The most important way of doing that is upgrading the ship’s equipment. Honestly, with good gear you can finish the game in a mid-small size ship, or even the Rasputin and still be competitive, so getting new ships is more about your preferred playstyle than anything else. But in any event, we need money. How is our protagonist going to go about doing so? Ordered from most consistent/least dangerous to least consistent/most dangerous. Mine that Ore – Mining asteroids for resources. There’s a few rare things to find out in the depths of space that make this more worth it than it seems, and there’s still a chance of being attacked, but this is generally the low level option. Reliable for the first system, though. Check the Boards – Just do whatever random missions show up on the job boards. Probably the most consistent source of income, but the least likely to provide big hauls, and sometimes you just get a really bad set of missions no matter where you go. Delivery Truck – A very specific kind of mission set, mostly involving picking up and dropping stuff off. Sort of a more guided, in-between version of missions and trading, and the set up for joining the Merchant’s Guild, but the really profitable ones have a nasty tendency of dumping you right into a really nasty firefight right at the end. Play the Market – Buy low, sell high, make a killing. Relies on you being able to actually read the markets though, so you can often end up in situations that looked like a good idea at the time, only to provide mediocre profits. The best profits, of course, come from running deliveries through blockades later on. Search and Destroy – Enemies have stuff, we want stuff. You do the math. You’re always directly jumping into random fights and this can go really badly, especially early on. But a lucky drop can speed up your progression by a lot. Faction Allegiance  Rebel Galaxy comes with a number of factions. The ones representing the local populace (the Citizens and Militia) are present in every sector, but a number of other factions can change based on who’s present. In addition, although you can’t see them, there’s usually a Mercenary Guild and a Merchant Guild present in each system. Most of the faction reputations are just for show – you can’t ever meaningfully ally with the alien factions or the Doublejacks for instance. But the Red Devils/Civilians/Militia/Merchants/Mercs have actual benefits for staying on their good sides, or at least avoiding annoying them. In an ideal world you could ally with all of them by playing them against the alien factions/Doublejacks but that’s really boring and takes forever. Unfortunately, because this is the “tutorial” system, we’re more limited in who will give us practical benefits for allying them. So really you’re left with three choices. Vanilla – Honestly, going after faction reputation takes time and we might not have the resources to capitalize on it this early. Just focus on the chosen money-making method and leave this element of the game for the systems where things are more interesting. Red Devils – The reasonable pirates. Slightly dislike us to start, can be won over. Gives access to pirate stations, and a bunch of associated equipment you can’t get elsewhere. The downside is you lose the ability to fight them as enemies to try and grab their gear that way. Also doing so usually annoys the Citizens/Militia meaning that you’re fighting them instead, which is annoying because they’re more centrally located on the map and typically own more of the map’s stations. Merchant’s Guild – If you really like market manipulation and/or delivery quests, the Merchant’s Guild provides the resources to let you make more money that way. If you don’t, then you’re not really going to find what they have to offer worth the 10,000 credit price it takes to get in at this point. Jossar fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 23:48
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Play the market. Milk the economy for all its worth, that's the way.
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Dec 13, 2021 00:57
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Free Play Update #1 - Pinball Machine Update Soundtrack - Dobro Slider Blues   You head back to the bar and ask the barman for advice. He gives you some information on the state of the system, a ton of mines floating around it for one thing, but the most important thing he does is point you towards the news board. The concise summary of all the system's news gives you an idea - before heading off to meet Sandar, you ought to upgrade the Rasputin, and the best way to make a killing without... well, dying yourself seems like bouncing around the various stations trading resources. Worth a shot, if nothing else.    In fact, there's easy money to be had right here. The station you're on has a bunch of Meteoric Diamonds for sale and at Langres Station there's a huge party going on, complete with people showing off and buying gifts. That's a few thousand credits already... Wait. Is that a bag of kidneys? You stare, horrified as the human merchant in question gives his sales pitch. Isn't this kind of... illegal? Of course not, how could he be selling them on a civilian station if they were illegal! Guilt free, fresh from the clone labs! You're somewhat unnerved, which leaves you off kilter long enough for the man's sale pitch to get to you. Before you know it, you're standing in the marketplace, dumbfounded, holding a bag of kidneys and the man's slipped away unseen. By the time you realize what a terrible mistake this was, it's too late.   To make matters worse, the local militia immediately detects the organs on your ship the instant you leave. You try to convince them that this is all a big misunderstanding, but the Commander in charge says to can it, she's heard it all before, and starts blasting at you. It's only through sheer dumb luck that you manage to hit warp before any serious damage is done. So you sell off the organs at the first station of ambiguous morality that you see and forswear all contraband and even contraband seeming items forever. Only the right side of the law for you from now on!   As you hop between stations you hear a distress signal and eagerly jump to help out. Unfortunately, the trader in question is surrounded by a large number of Red Devil Cartel ships. Far too many for you to confront, and they let you know it by tearing holes into your ship. With tears in your eyes you jump out to the sound of the trader's hailing frequency cutting to static, as your ship limps into the nearest station's docks.  As you stare at the wide variety of ships present in the docks to take your mind off the grisly battle, you're left with the conclusion that you really didn't know what you were getting into when you started this whole mess. And still don't, really. You remain a small little fish in a great big pond, piloting a Corvette from a line of ships that sold so poorly that they discontinued the product line, and an old, worn-out one at that. Some of the ships here cost millions of credits! It'll be a long time until you're making that kind of money or more than one step away from getting torn a new engine compartment.   Even so, you can't help but have your heartstrings tugged the next time you hear the call of a distress beacon and against all good sense, you try to aid the trader. Fortunately, he was only being attacked by a few Doublejack bombers which were relatively easy to scare off. A sense of elation fills your worn out heart, and the payday that the merchant offers for your goods isn't too bad either.   At this point you have enough spare credits in your pockets that you figure you might as well make yourself official and buy a license from the Merchant's Guild. 10,000 credits is a sore loss, but you're proud of the fact that you can now afford it without going dead broke. The man behind the counter explains that you now have access to several sets of delivery contracts - the more familiar is the kind where the Guild will just hand you an item and expect you to deliver it, but on the other hand the more challenging ones require you to source the items yourself in exchange for buyers paying above the premium rate. You think you'll stick with the latter, unless you're already heading towards a specific destination, you didn''t sign up to give away all your freedom of movement, after all. Apart from that, the guild sells a bunch of unique equipment... though the really good stuff is only available to those individuals who prove themselves to the guild through doing contracts, like the ships.    So you figure you might as well start working your way up through the Guild hierarchy, what little of it exists out here in this backwater. Could even pay well. See this one for instance. Grab Data Cubes from a place experiencing a tech boom, provide a few at the contract price and sell the rest at a profit.   Enough of that, and soon you've made your first 100k, a good chunk of which goes into upgrading the Rasputin's weapon systems. Might not be the smartest decision of all time compared to being more well rounded, but it's not the worst impulse buy, you think.  Especially when it lets you blow some of those Red Devil frigates from before out of the void. Time to go and see what mess Sandar's going to throw you into. Jossar fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 03:28
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Story Update #2 - One Small Favor Update Soundtrack - Bayou At Night   Orzu's navspace coordinates point you to a small independent station on the edge of the system, the last sign of anything even remotely decent looking before a nearly impossible to navigate region of space known as the Briggs Zone. And frankly speaking, it still ain't winning any beauty contests. The hangars are as dark as anything, presumably to save on energy expenditure, and you're grateful to head off to the bar, which maintains the usual color and... character that you've come to expect. Sandar is easy to spot, when you know who you're supposed to be looking for. The smuggler keeps looking over his shoulder twitchily, like he's expecting someone to show up. Nevertheless, the Greel is caught by surprise when you do take a seat near him. Even asks if he knows you. You respond matter of factly - "No - but apparently you knew my aunt Juno." A dawning light of recognition clearly shines in Sandar's eyes, but he hems and haws a bit before asking you for an extremely obvious bribe. Not in the form of credits, as such - taking care of a Doublejack Pirate Captain who's been making his life difficult. The Greel assures you that no matter what you think of him, this pirate's even worse news and the entire Sector would be better off with this guy eating vacuum. Frankly speaking, you don't really care. Which itself surprises you - how fast you've lost any sensitivity to killing people. Guess it comes with people trying to kill you all the time and how law and order seem so far away out here. Your thoughts grow distant, even as you mouth acceptance to Sandar's offer and take the coordinates he offers.    The pirate captain in question, Dead John, is hiding out in the middle of a nebula. He figures that the fight isn't worth the trouble and offers a bribe to make himself scarce, but you'd rather not have word get back to Sandar somehow and have him back out on the deal. There isn't any time to maneuver for this one, no positioning for advantageous shielding. Both parties just sit stationary and unload everything they have. The Doublejack Frigate delivers a terrible pounding to your port shields, and the Rasputin's paper thin hull shakes, rattles, and groans under the assault. Sirens and emergency lights flare into existence and are, in turn silenced, though the cacophony never stops entirely. But your turrets find even greater purchase and after a few minutes, Dead John truly earns his moniker as the frigate explodes.  Seems like that was the correct choice, though frankly he might've said the same if you'd let the pirate go. Now Sandar himself doesn't know where Aunt Juno went... typical, really... but he does know that she was meeting with a captain of the local Militia. He claims that he wouldn't know any captains himself but he does know a Lieutenant, Zenya Kerr, who owes him a favor. Says he'll even arrange a meeting out of the kindness of his circulatory organs. Then Sandar says something that unnerves you - he makes you an offer to take the Symbiote off your hands. You have no idea what it is, but you're pretty certain you didn't show it to the smuggler, and that he's lowballing its value. You insist in no uncertain terms that you're waiting to speak with your Aunt about it first. Sandar's tone grows markedly more hostile - he gets up from the table and tells you that if you're not going to do business, then you should go bother Orzu instead while he arranges the meeting with the Militia Lieutenant.  Compared to your conversation with Sandar, speaking with Orzu again is like a breath of fresh air. Nothing new on Juno, sadly, but he thinks he's at least found someone who can start unlocking the mysteries of the Specter. A robot named Xell who typically handles raw materials research, but can't resist a sufficiently interesting challenge...   Orzu sure can pick some winners. Xell's workshop is located on another station at the backwoods end of the system, this time on a military research outpost. You're not quite sure what's being tested at Ares III, but the instant you hit the station, there's something setting your teeth on edge. Xell in particular is situated in a location that you would call "cluttered with debris", if the space was being inefficiently used. Instead, you're driven to distraction by the sounds of machinery working on multiple different material stress tests simultaneously. At first Xell tries to ignore you, then it tries to get you to leave, then it grudgingly admits you while berating Orzu for wasting its time. The Specter does prove to be beyond its capacity to resist though, so the researcher says it will work on it, but wants Omnium samples in compensation for the effort. It transfers a set of coordinates for potential locations for the trading and harvesting of Omnium before shoving you out of its workspace. Frankly speaking, you're getting sick of errands. You're going to go and make some more money, and bring enough resources and guns back to ensure that one way or another, people start giving you some real answers. Jossar fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 02:29
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Time to find out how cold it is outside. I really like this game even though it annoys me at times.
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Dec 18, 2021 23:21
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Free Play Update #2 - Ride to Riches Update Soundtrack - Hell on Wheels  Uthi'on Run is a station of no real repute, one way or the other. Not particularly awful even for the system or anything approaching a major hub of commerce on par with anything in the Inner Sectors. It's as close to normal as you can get. But there's a glut of goods there right now due to a recent convoy and you figure you might as well do a brisk trade between it and Ares III, as the military base is desperate for a stable supply of water and, for some reason... designer clothes. Presumably somebody wants to look good in case militia brass shows up. A couple runs of this at ridiculously favorable prices and you have a couple hundred thousand credits to spare again.   Interestingly enough, you also find a transponder stranded between the two systems. You're not much of a codebreaker, but the security on this thing is so poor, whoever dumped it off here is practically asking for it to be read.   It's a list of bounties. You suppose you might as well see if they're at all worth your while if the list just fell into your lap like this.    No such luck, it's just a bunch of lone wolf members of the Red Devil Cartel pretending to be merchant ships under attack. Maybe if you'd focused on a strategy geared towards the rapid and efficient takedown of these sorts of pirates it would be worth it, but as things stand the repair costs are worth more than the bounty rewards, especially when one of those Devils turns out to have a low quality frigate rather than a jumped up corvette.   Really, you were mostly investigating out of a sense of curiosity more than anything else. The money from the water bubble (hah!) is more than enough for the moment. The only remaining obstacle is that the Merchant's Guild refuses to start selling their more interesting toys without a bit of busy work. The acquisition and delivery contracts are standard fare at this point, but you take a dead drop mission just to push you over the line into the Guild's good graces. As it turns out, there a large number of Korian Outsider ships are lying in wait for you at the drop off site. You'll admit you didn't know anything about the political situation out here before you arrived. Back home, no one really cares about what lurks beyond the Inner Sectors, comfortable in the knowledge that the periphery serves as a barrier to pirates and a warning system in case anything else shows up. Since you've come out here, you've had to piece things together. The first thing to learn is that there isn't really a single government. Both in the sense that something like half of the stations in a given system either don't recognize the authority of the Inner Sector at all or are actively supporting pirate crews, and that the civilian and military branches of the loyalist groups don't communicate at all. Frankly speaking, you're surprised you haven't seen the militia try to invade a civilian station yet or the Red Devils try to claim that they're the legitimate government considering they have just as much of a presence as anyone else does. Apart from that, everything else is just competing gangs without any interest in trying to establish a major presence in the various systems, just extracting resources to sustain their own groups and small-scale facilities. This system in particular has two - the Doublejacks and the Outsiders. The Outsiders are pretty much what you would get if you combined the Red Devils' focus on organization with the Doublejacks' general hostility towards everyone not already part of their organization, as well as some vaguely impenetrable doctrinal nonsense for good measure. That last part kind of makes it confusing as to whether the Outsiders are really just an organized pirate alliance trying to look even bigger than they seem or the forefront of some kind of invasion force from the rarely discussed Korian home territories. The Outsiders are a big enough threat that they can occasionally make a power play for a station, but no attempt has ever met with more than temporary success. Possibly because no one wants to find out what happens if they get a permanent beachhead. In any case, what you face here is just a moderately sized group of isolated raiders. They don't even have a corvette or frigate equivalent to support them, which is somewhat confusing as it brings up all sorts of questions on how they're resupplying or warping around the system. The raiders do provide a decent fight though, as they harass the Rasputin and force you to have to keep her constantly running away to avoid taking too many hits at once, while taking advantage of lax squad discipline to strike down the fighters that pop out of formation. This continues until the Outsiders catch on and reestablish cohesion among the remaining ships, but by that point enough are destroyed that you can just engage all of the remaining small craft at once.   Rank 2 in the Merchant's Guild, and with it comes the first of their exclusive selection of ships, a Light Hauler called the Turath. It's bigger and slower than the Rasputin, and handles with the same grace as a dump truck with a warp engine attached. But it's built a lot more solidly, comes with additional turret slots, and most importantly has over double the cargo capacity.    The Merchant's Guild also has access to a few expensive but worthwhile specialty systems, alongside a standard turret accelerator to improve the efficiency of all those new turrets the Turath can fit.  As you leave the Guild's dock and head back out into space, you feel like you've finally made it. A ship of your own, fit for anything the Sector can throw at you in the days to come. Jossar fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 23:27
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Story Update #3 - Nosy Passenger Update Soundtrack - When The Devil Calls   After making your way over to the traders Xell mentioned, you nearly burst out laughing when they named a price for five tons of Omnium. 2500 credits? You had incidental repair bills that were more than that these days. Still, if they wanted such a cheap price for the Omnium, you were happy to fork it over to get some insight on the Specter. All that cheap material seems to have attracted other, unwanted attention. The Outsiders brought a decent number of ships to the fight, and you're not sure you could have taken them on without the Turath's heavy firepower... although it's a necessity that may not have been necessary with the Rasputin, since it was a much faster ship. Still, it's not like you could leave the traders to get blown out of the void by pirates, so it amounts to a net positive.  Back at Ares III, you don't even bother to head directly to Xell's workshop, just dumping the stuff Omnium in a cargo container and telling the researcher that the material was ready for extraction and experimentation whenever it wanted. Xell responds by disclosing what it discovered about the Specter. Figuring out the system architecture of the Specter was an interesting diversion, but ultimately seems futile. The device did indeed once hold some form of advanced artificial intelligence, but it seems to have gone inert over the centuries and even cleaning off the accreted carbon and shoving the Specter in a power conduit doesn't seem to have brought the AI back online. Xell sends the device back up to your ship and then promptly cuts off the comms, all further interest lost. With nothing left for you at Ares III, you take the Specter and start heading back into the system. You can probably still get a few more trading runs in before Sandar's militia contact gets back to you, you guess...   And then suddenly, your ship receives a signal from an unknown source. You open up the message and find that the reason you can't locate its point of origin is simple - because the message is coming from inside the ship itself, which now chirps merrily and awkwardly in greeting. Figures that Xell didn't think to test to see whether or not the Specter would react to long-term starship contact, but then again you guess it barely acknowledges the universe outside its lab anyway. Eventually the artificial intelligence redistinguishes itself as its own coherent identity, marked by the generation of a holographic projection from one of the cockpit computers. Although you have to wonder... "How much of the ship are you still burrowed into, anyway?" You off-handedly remark to your new companion. "Just the simple systems. I have not interfaced with life support, navigation, or weapons systems aboard this craft. My intention is not to harm." Which meant that the Specter could take over those systems if it so desired. Fantastic. Sensing your discomfort, it continues: You need only remove my Reliquary from your vessel in order to sever the connection. That power lies entirely with you." "Okay, good to know some actual names for what we're working with here. Was getting confused as to whether you were supposed to be the Specter or that honor belonged to the tin can you came in. Speaking of which, do you have a name?" The holographic projection of a face switches to a look of confusion. "I... I do not possess that information. I am... confused. My Reliquary is incomplete. My function is impaired. I desire information. While this vessel's systems are limited, I could utilize them to detect the fragments of my Reliquary. In return, I may be able to offer assistance to you." You figure you might as well play along. Despite your contingency plans, you weren't really looking forward to waiting around for the Militia Lieutenant, and the AI could be useful if restored. Unless it was bluffing and became the deadliest thing in the galaxy once it got what it wanted. But at this point pretty much anything in the galaxy above the size of a Medium Frigate could paste you anyway, so what did you have to lose? "What sort of assistance?" "It is within my power to improve the function of this vessel. I propose an exchange - help me recover my memories, and in turn I will advance the systems of your ship beyond their operating parameters. Do you agree?" "You have a deal... for now. A slight whirring can be heard as the intelligence pauses to think, or at least provide the simulation of such. "That is acceptable. I have detected a fragment within this solar system. I am providing you with the approximate coordinates, although the signal is indistinct. It may be inside a larger mass." Or it really was using a good deal of its processing power, so it could scan the entire system for a chunk of metal the size of your hand. Sheesh. "So how do I contact you? Doesn't really look like there's a place to interact with the Reliquary..." The AI paused again before speaking. "I have reconfigured your ship systems to include an option for direct communication, should you desire to speak with me again. Otherwise, I will not interfere with your general course of actions." And with that, the holographic projection dissipates. It's a lot to take in. Artificial life isn't entirely foreign, but like Xell, it usually caps out at around human levels of processing power. Something capable of what the Specter seems to be able to do, even in a weakened state, is something else.   The Reliquary piece is located somewhere in the middle of a junk field. Unfortunately, before you have time to investigate further, you're jumped by a Red Devil Cartel leader.   Blackhand Sims is kind of an idiot, both in the strategic sense of letting it slip that someone you know betrayed you and in the tactical sense of jumping ahead of the rest of the pirates at his beck and call. He's easily dispatched in a hail of turret-fire.   His buddies though, are a real pain to deal with. Especially the Damocles class Destroyer that they seem to have pulled from nowhere. This is probably the nastiest piece of hardware you've seen so far in the periphery, although you know the Milita also have a couple of destroyers in the system's reserve. Aren't these guys all suppose to be out in the deep periphery instead, fighting each other where there's no chance of the Inner Sectors registering a threat and responding in force? Then again, maybe the pirates know that unless something really nasty shows up, this is still too far out for anyone back home to care. The Damocles tosses out a ton of missiles, against which you have to turn on your deflectors at the last second to endure, but you're eventually able to wear it down as part of a slow battle of attrition. It's the opposite of that fight you had against the Korian fighter squadron. Here, once it's down to you and the command ship, it's all about plinking away with your lighter armament array and never letting the Destoyer get the chance to just tank your shots.   You have to admit that you were expecting something more dramatic when the Specter reintegrated the lost pieces of its' Reliquary, rather than you just tractoring them into the hold and shoving them into the sphere. The Specter states that the process feels just as incomplete on its end, with the only full memory reacquired being its name, Trell. But even this small amount of information brings a great deal of relief, and so Trell offers to improve the ship's Boosters or Deflectors. You pick Boosters - Deflector strength is only really helpful when things are already going wrong, but more speed is always welcome. Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Dec 24, 2021 |
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Dec 24, 2021 04:36
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Free Play Update #3 - Blockade Runner Update Soundtrack - Roam   The name of the game's the same as it always is - buy low sell high. But this time around, one of the Merchant's Guild missions catches your attention. Looks like the system-wide war between the Red Devils and the Militia just went hot and now both sides are starting to blockade stations. There's a lot of opportunity to be had here. The guild mission is itself nice, some credits and reputation, but the real reward is getting to know that Ares III will be paying through the roof for pretty much everything while the blockade's running, especially when supplies start getting low and they need to request a convoy from other civilian stations. And the profits are practically doubled while Oceanus VIII has the opposite situation, the receipt of a convoy with so many supplies that the station barely has room to contain all the high tech gizmos and luxury products on offer.   The Merchant's Guild is certainly getting its' money's worth in hiring you as a blockade runner, though. That is all too many Red Devil ships. You count at least three different patrol groups with a decent amount of frigates and another Damocles floating around. Fortunately, this time you don't have to destroy them all, just endure their attacks long enough for the Turath''s warp engines to come back online and microwarp away from each patrol group and closer to the station. You find yourself sorely wishing that Trell's upgrades to the engine had also improved warp efficiency, but good old human piloting skills will have to do instead.   Once you make it to the station, the Merchant's Guild informs you that for your commitment to the cause of commerce - which is to say, putting up with this nonsense - they're adding another set of permissions to your guild membership. You think that apart from Ranks 5 and 7, the ones associated with the higher tier ships, these are mostly just about getting access to improved cargo extenders for purchase back at the Guild station. You briefly find yourself wishing that the higher echelons of membership had more perks, but you quickly realize that's stupid - the reason why there are relatively few perks is because most of what the guild has on offer is available to anyone who paid the upfront fee. Really, if anything the guild should be more into the idea of having everything be available so long as a trader can pay for it. Probably a supply problem holding that back, despite whatever other claims of excellence are made. Ares III is exactly as you expect it, which is to say a mess. The military research station looks haggard, and you have to hole up in the ship to prevent yourself from getting mobbed by potential customers. Amazingly enough the station still has goods for sale, so the living situation can't be quite as awful here as you surmised, despite the blockade. The increased presence of Bio Waste compared to normal is a pretty telling sign that things are getting worse, though. That stuff always shows up in war torn areas, either as a consequence of drastic measures taken in weapons experimentation or the increased failure of a station's waste disposal systems to function properly. The crates are marked as Bio Waste either way, and frankly speaking you wouldn't want to put your nose anywhere near the stuff to figure out which kind is which. One story that you've heard from bartenders and traders only makes this weirder: apparently if a war goes on long enough, stations hit some kind of threshold and people start buying all the Bio Waste back at ludicrously high prices. Presumably at that point, the station residents are just grateful for a material that guarantees that no one is going to cross a perimeter.  Of course the obvious problem with having run the blockade is that all the Red Devil ships on the outside don't want to let you leave. Fortunately, the Militia shows up to temporarily relieve the station. They don't bring enough firepower to break the blockade entirely, but it's enough to ensure that some merchant ships like yours can get through.   You continue on with blockade running between Oceanus VIII and Ares III for some time. Even manage to pick up that guild cargo container that you unlocked the clearance for. You have to admit that the increase in hold space is impressive, this thing's twice the size of your last modifiable cargo hold.  Eventually the blockade at Ares III lets up and the Militia go on the offensive... against a civilian station. You're not quite sure what the poor souls of Praha Belt did to tick off the Militia so much that the Militia decided to blockade them rather than counterattack the pirates, but this one's deadly serious. Unlike the pirate blockade, which was more like the Red Devils hanging around Ares III and showing off, this embargo is conducted with full military precision and not a single thing can get in or out of the station. You, of course, ran the blockade again and if you thought Ares III was bad, the despair at Praha Belt is practically palpable. You're lucky to even get fair market value for your goods as the people of Praha Belt can pay no higher, and you get plenty of dirty looks from the civilians even for selling at that rate. You wrestle with the now shattered remains of your conscience as to whether you're willing to ruin your relationship with the Militia to try and make a suicide run against the flagship in the hopes of breaking the siege...   Which is, of course, when Sandar calls and says that he's finally arranged that meeting with Zenya Kerr, just close enough to Praha Belt to keep plausible deniability on her actions, but far enough away that no one can listen in on the two of you talking. You clench your fists just out of sight of the camera as you agree to meet her there. That's right, you have to remember that whatever happens out here on the periphery, it's none of your concern. You're here to find Aunt Juno, whoever you have to work with, and whatever it takes. Jossar fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 24, 2021 12:54
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This game slaps so hard, I love doing space broadsides when I fight space pirates, and the space country soundtrack is the best thing. I'M THE SEVENTH BOOOOORN SON!
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Dec 24, 2021 13:03
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Yeah I liked the space broadsides but I confess I never had the patience to actually outfit the ultimate ship with all the bells and whistles. The runner-up ships do the job just as well.
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Dec 24, 2021 20:01
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Story Update #4 - Long Arm of the Law Update Soundtrack - Bad Man  The first words out of Zenya Kerr's mouth when you meet her are: "There you are. I sure as hell hope you weren't followed.", which pretty much sums up the Lieutenant. She's the archtypical loose cannon cop who breaks all the rules. She pretty much immediately curses out Sandar, says that she's amazed that you aren't dead if you take after Juno, and then proceeds to describe your Aunt's sordid history as a near-outlaw who feeds the Militia information just often enough enough for them to look the other way. It's pretty much what you've come to expect at this point.  Unfortunately, the two of you are interrupted by a couple of trading vessels. Zenya quickly explains that the rationale she sold the higher ups to justify this meeting, running a patrol for smuggling operations in the system, wasn't entirely made up. She manages to strongarm you into doing the scanning work for her while she delays the traders by asking questions about permits that you're pretty sure are on the books but absolutely no one has. Scanning the ships reveals a heap of contraband - Narco Cola, a drink made so cheaply and without any regard for safety, such that it's managed to undercut the price of water.   Zenya, of course, immediately tries to arrest the smugglers, resulting in a prolonged scrap between you, her, them, and a whole bunch of Doublejacks that were waiting to see if the area was secure and have instead just decided to go for broke. You're none too pleased with being coopted for a bust, and when the dust clears, you tell Zenya to get to the point.  Turns out the Doublejacks are the ones who have Juno. The Militia's intercepted enough transponder calls to know she's being held somewhere, but it's kept relatively hush-hush for the gang. The only ones who know are high ranking pirate captains who have all been staying fairly quiet lately. So there's a three part plan to be carried out by Zenya and a small group of operatives, including yourself. First, go and take down a Doublejack Drug Refinery to threaten the pirates' supply chains and make the captains fear that their bunkers aren't so secure, so they have to come out. Second, grab one of the fleeing captains and "interrogate them" on the location of the Doublejack prison complex where they're keeping Juno. Third, stage a prison break. Despite Zenya's insistence that this is the "quiet" way of doing things compared to bringing down an entire Militia fleet on the Doublejacks, the whole thing still strikes you as far too loud, involving far too much brute force, and far too likely to have something go wrong... but it's not like you have someone on the inside with the Doublejacks who can get this done any quieter, so it'll have to do.   The Doublejack refinery is fairly large and protected by a series of shield generators which prevent a direct assault on the facility. They have to be taken out fast, as the pirates have a lot of ships and static turret defenses protecting this place and staying still for too long in any one spot risks the possibility of even Zenya's destroyer going down to sustained bolt fire. But ultimately the first stage of the plan goes off without a hitch, though the repair bill you submit to the Militia is going to be fairly high. Not that they'll pay it, since this is supposedly an undercover operation so that word doesn't get out about the Militia helping a known criminal. Sounds like self-righteous hypocrisy to you.   The second stage of the plan is where things start flying off the rails. Turns out that a lot of Doublejacks started scrambling when the Refinery went down, so there are a whole mess of groups that are well armed but don't have a Captain with them. At least the Doublejacks are still only packing frigate-scale ships, even if there are a few haphazardly overengineered to try and get the same kind of firepower one would see on a Destroyer. Trell tries to contribute during these fights, but its' battle analysis seems kind of simplistic. You're left wondering how much of that is due to damage to the Reliquary and how much is the AI straying outside of its field of specialty. It wanting to help is pretty endearing, you have to admit. Nice to have someone definitively on your side.   Eventually though, you manage to find a pirate captain with a hunk of junk destroyer, exactly who you're looking for. Though your blood runs cold when he remarks: "You want to spring Juno? There's an easier way. Side up with us. Help give the Militia a beating, and we'll let her go." You're considering it. God almighty, you're really considering it. It's not like the Militia really deserves the help at this point... But ultimately you decide against it. The Doublejacks locked Aunt Juno up for a reason, and that reason's not going away just because you get the Militia off their tails. You just can't trust the pirates to hold up their end of the bargain.  The battle against Juster is another one of those brutal slogfests where motion's barely involved and it's just about unloading broadsides between ships. The Turath proves surprisingly durable, giving you the opportunity to lash out in full force against Juster's Flagship. And "lash out" is the operative term here, as it feels like every blast that goes out is also expressing your feelings about the whole situation. The frustration you feel about militia, pirates, smugglers, artificial intelligences, endless numbers of bribes and small favors, cargo hauling, and above all else how exposure to these things out here on the periphery has already changed you in such a short time. How could you return to the Inner Sectors with everything you've seen? Everything you've done... The sound of the pirate captain's ship exploding breaks you out of your thoughts and returns you to reality, as you have to focus on making sure that the Turath's autofire systems don't target the escape pod that popped from the ship and instead tractor Juster in. Fortunately, you're close enough to the station where Zenya wanted you to bring the pirate captain that you don't have to risk letting him out of the pod and can just drop him off into Militia custody.  Zenya comes back to you a lot more quickly than you expected with the information you need. The precise coordinates for a prison facility in the middle of an asteroid belt. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you ask why the Militia's going to all this trouble for Juno anyway. Zenya responds that it's because Juno has something in her possession that would be very bad for the Doublejacks to get a hold of. When you press further, she says: "If I told you, i'd have to kill you... Kidding! But seriously, something we can't have in the wrong hands." And if she won't hand it over... "That's where you come in. You're family. Persuade her to do the right thing so we don't have to do the wrong one." Then she leaves to let you mull things over as you prepare for the assault on the Doublejack prison facility... Jossar fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Dec 24, 2021 |
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Dec 24, 2021 20:09
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Story Update #5 - Getting Out Update Soundtrack - Evil Ways  It's a long, quiet haul to the Doublejack station. You're not quite sure what you're going to do about Zenya's lingering ultimatum. But you suppose that the only thing that can be done is to see this prison break through to the end, and figure out where things go from there.  Consistent with Doublejack standard architecture, the prison facility is protected by a set of three external shield generators, complemented by a number of stationary pulse turrets and the meanest set of fighter-piloting outlaws you ever did see. The constant presence of Zenya's destroyer, while discomforting, at least ensures that someone else is soaking up the damage, which pours in from all directions while you in turn lay down fire on the generators.  With the third generator down, all ships are tasked to serve as escorts for the troop transports that the Militia brought along with them to take over the facility. The facility has a lot of laser turrets, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. And then everything stops going according to plan. Albeit in the best way possible.  Before anyone else notices anything, Trell points out to you that a small craft has taken the opportunity to exit from the prison facility during the fighting. You tell the AI to keep tracking the ship in question while you continue to serve guard for the troop transport ships, while trying to hide a smile, even in the comfort of your own ship. If your suspicion is correct, this whole thing's turned into a snipe hunt, and it's your job to keep it going for as long as you can. This state of affairs continues with none the wiser until about the time when the troop transports hit the station, at which point the Militia ground troops convey to all allied forces that according to Doublejack captives, Juno Markev is already MIA.  At this point, your Aunt, who had already silently broke into the Militia broadcast frequency, and could never resist getting the last word in, speaks up. The comms explode with chatter, although the key thread is banter between Juno and Zenya. "God dammit, Juno. Somebody intercept that craft! "Well, hanging around here doesn't sound too smart. I think I'll make my goodbyes." "Don't think you can run from this Markev! We'll have patrols looking for you in every system throughout the Sector until you hand it over!" "Chain of command only means so much the further out you get, Zenya. Thought you'd have known that by now! Anyways, I'd love to stick around and thank my rescuers but I've had enough dark rooms and bare bulbs to last me a while. Be seeing you." Juno's small craft, upon finally having escaped the station's gravity well, warps out to parts unknown.  A sigh of relief escapes your lips. You're not quite sure how Aunt Juno managed to pull it off, but she's safe and Zenya doesn't blame you in particular for her escape. Your aunt even managed to slip you instructions on a bar at which to meet her on a hidden channel right before she warped.  The meeting between the two of you is heartfelt, but awkward. She doesn't want to talk about her time with the Doublejacks and you're not sure how to broach the subject on all the war profiteering and bounty hunting you've done, even if you think Aunt Juno wouldn't much mind all that much. She thanks you for having hauled all the way out in the middle of nowhere to come save her and asks if Orzu managed to hand you the Specter. You tell her that he did and that, well... there's a few things she needs to know about it...  Juno tells you as much as she knows about Specters in general, which she admits isn't all that much, but is better than what you have. They're supposedly the remnants of a long dead species, some way of propagating information, though whether as weapons, libraries, or messengers to the future, she can't tell. But what Juno does know is that her crew nearly killed her over the Specter, so she needed someone she could trust to hand it to. Someone who didn't come with her notoriety and could keep it safe, even while everyone kept following that no good smuggler Juno Markev. Unfortunately, it turns out that Juno couldn't handle the heat, and got captured by the Doublejacks. Between them and the Militia, she needs to flee deeper into the periphery systems to avoid getting captured again. Even having this conversation right now is risky. She promises you that the two of you can start working on a real plan for how to deal with this mess once you make it to the next system, but she needs to get out of here now before the Militia catches onto her again.  The jump drive is practically a formality at this point, you've got over 550,000 credits in liquid assets alone, what's a single 75k purchase going to matter?  As you head for the system's jump gate, preparing to head out into the deep unknown, an old friend comes calling. Sandar wants the Specter, and since Blackhand Sims and a bunch of other pirates failed to do the job quietly and you're about to leave the system, he's just going to drop any pretense of subtlety and kill you for it. Honestly, you don't think Sandar really knows what Trell is, and is only thinking in terms of the giant pile of money he could make. And you could offer him a giant pile of money just to go away... but there's no way that wouldn't come back to bite you in the rear. No, if Sandar wants to end things here and now, you'll happily oblige him.    It's honestly kind of embarrassing. You've had more threatening fights against random Korian Pirate Scows. The instant his shields drop, the smuggler begs for his life. But what does 30k matter compared to getting rid of this backstabbing sleaze? If there's one person you don't feel bad about sending off to meet his maker in cold blood, it's Sandar.  And so, with that final bit of unfinished business taken care of, you head off through the Jump Gate into the deep unknown. Jossar fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 25, 2021 00:18
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One of the things that was so weird to me the first time I played this game is how wildly the difficulty can fluctuate. Sometimes main story quests can be borderline impossible and other times they can be a complete joke. They dynamic difficulty scaling definitely has some iffy aspects to it.
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Dec 25, 2021 02:08
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The loving escort missions are the worst. I swear the AI can be actually suicidal.
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Dec 25, 2021 02:29
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Oh yeah, a bunch of these missions are spliced together since I'm not that amazing of a combatant and tend to die pretty frequently, although as long as you've reached the point where your gear marks the mission for Average difficulty, a mission that seems insanely hard is usually solvable, but requires you to change your tactics. The first Reliquary mission was like that: I couldn't break past it until I figured out how to kite the Red Devil Command Ship properly. The opposite was true for the assault on the Doublejack Refinery and shows off the AI escorting problems that Seraphic is mentioning. I had no problems tanking the shots, but Zenya just kept ramming her destroyer into the middle of the pirate fleet and exploding, failing the mission and making me have to go halfway across the system to restart it again. This is about the point where I wanted to give people the opportunity to switch up the playstyle, but there's a small enough audience and at this point I've sort of settled into the motions of play, so unless there's a great outcry, I'm probably just going to stick with the merchant setup. Relaxing a bit to allow for some more delivery contracts, but otherwise just focusing on making enough money to buy my way to gear/merchant haulers good enough to just facetank the story missions. Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 25, 2021 03:34
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Sounds good! Hope the audience grows, this game is a personal favorite of mine despite its insane jank.
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Dec 25, 2021 08:36
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Free Play Update #4 - Small Fish in a Big Pond Update Soundtrack - Pumpin' Irony  You figure that it's about time you establish your bearings. Maia, the system you started out in, is the last of what are known as the "shallow periphery systems." Places that are decentralized enough that you wouldn't really say they follow the rule of law, but awareness of the proximity of the central government of the Inner Sectors keeps things relatively calm. Poseidon, on the other hand, marks the beginning of the deep periphery, where things start going buck wild. Whereas conflict between the various factions was a big deal whenever it went hot in Maia, from Poseidon on out to the rest of the Sector, outright war is pretty much the default and the hardware being thrown around regularly includes Destroyer class ships at minimum. Supposedly things only get worse the further out you get, and then there's Charon. Some mystery system at the edge of the sector whose existence can be derived from observation but doesn't seem to have a working jump gate. Spacers say that it must be filled with either unfathomable riches or unfathomable terrors. Maybe both, but it's not like anyone can get out there to confirm it.   The first thing you do is head for the system's Merchant Guild. If your limited experience has taught you anything, it's that not being pushed around is going to take stronger gins, and stronger guns are going to take a lot of money. The jobs on offer are starting to offer decent hauls, about as much as you'd make on your own on a standard but not spectacular merchant run. You're trading the possibility of vast riches for the reliability of the payday, even if it means having to haul between systems and getting shot at a whole bunch.   And good lord, are there a lot of pirates in very large ships trying to shoot at you.    Usually you don't do escort missions, but you need the reputation with the Merchant's Guild and a lay of the land from someone who knows the situation in the system. And the traders swear there's no one who knows Poseidon inside and out like Zeke Butz. As the two of you travel, he explains that the best place to make some money is by running the Militia Embargo at Whitford Station, though this run isn't about that, just heading out to get supplies for a future trip. He still expects to encounter a heap of trouble from pirates as soon as they hear how much he's planning on running to Whitford, hence the escort job.   You can't really say that Zeke didn't provide advanced warning but it's still rather uncomfortable when a Korian Destroyer decides to drop in on the two of you and start dumping its broadsides with wild abandon. You're stuck with the problem that keeping pace with the thing is a nightmare, as is usually the case when fighting ships of a vastly different weight class. Either you slow down too much and it scurries away, or you move too fast and the Destroyer gets the chance to fire a volley of the Outsiders' distinctive viridian lasers directly into your ship's backside. But eventually, despite all the slipping and sliding, the thing goes down and you find yourself credited with a fairly decent bounty reward.    After getting Zeke to the supply station, the two of you say your farewells, and you decide to try and make a break for Whitford Station. Military precision once again proves no match for a plucky spirit and AI modified boosters. You make a killing from the run, but especially given the situation outside, figure that the best thing to do is dump all of your money back into ensuring that the Turath is as well equipped as any ship in the Poseidon system can be. It's well worth it, though you think that you might want to do a few more jobs before going to look for Aunt Juno. Gotta be prepared for whatever plan she's cooking up, after all. Jossar fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 25, 2021 13:25
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Hehe. Butz. Also the fact that Space Slaves is one of the commodities in this game always gets a chuckle out of me. The whole Blocked Running thing is one of my favorite little features in the game. Having it so in-game fleets can just decide to shut down certain planets and stations is cool enough, having that effect the price of goods on the shut down location is even better, but giving you the option to then force your way past that fleet and exploit the war economy? That's some chef's kiss right there.
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Dec 25, 2021 17:57
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Free Play Update #5 - Space Truckin' Update Soundtrack - Smokin' Fire    It was once said by a wagging tongue that the Murath, the last of the widely seen spacefaring species, are what you would get if you crossed a fantasy dwarf and a bear. Spent all their time underground until they developed civilization and a large number of them still approach things from that perspective until this day. Or well, their pirates do at least. The Scavengers love making dramatic comments about how their vengeance is eternal, and they'll be the last thing you ever see, reaching out from the darkness. In practice they're the easiest of the factions to deal with - it's really easy to just get behind their engines and just fire away while they can't use their weapons at all.  Well, well... looks like you're starting to get some really big hauls. Not like you haven't dealt with pirates before, right?   Yes. Yes you have. The Red Devil Damocles is still intimidating in theory, but... you've had to get used to a constant swarm of destroyers at this point. It just doesn't hold the same terror that it did a couple of days ago.  Of course, the next station has a mission with an even larger paycheck. You remember having to scrounge up that first 100k, and now it seems like every other station is willing to hand it out for cargo delivery. Or maybe the answer is that these kind of jobs were always there, it's just that no one wanted to hand them to you while you were flying around in the glorified tin can that was the Rasputin.   As soon as you leave the station, wave after wave of Korian Torpedo Scows plunge after you. But they're nothing compared to the Murath. You must have annoyed them really badly in your first encounter, because they just won't stop swarming you on the final approach to the delivery site. It's a very long and drawn out battle against nearly two dozen fighters, 8-9 Scavenger Frigates and a Destroyer or two. Well, if they didn't hate you before, there's certainly some kind of blood oath against you now.  But the reward is oh, so sweet. As the Merchant Guild rank up reminds you, 300k credits isn't eternal... a Radovich costs somewhere in the millions for example. But it's more than enough to keep your finances in the black while you head out and figure out what your next steps are going to be. Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Dec 26, 2021 |
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Dec 26, 2021 03:10
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Also because I was thinking about it, here are some more thoughts on the applicability of the factions you can ally with. Red Devil Cartel - Specialty: Early/Mid Game - The Red Devils have one of the better early game light ships and a relatively mobile Destroyer for sale, but as befits their nature you'll find that everything you have to do to get on their good side is ultimately self destructive in the long term. Tying into this, they have a unique shield line for sale that's basically made out of duct tape but comes back online really fast. Merchant's Guild - Specialty: All Game (except End Game) - The merchant ships are never the best in their category, but they're bulky and come with a lot of space. Between that, the super large buyable holds, and miscellaneous utility components, the Merchants live and die on utility, especially if you're always trading or doing delivery missions. The Merchants have armor that takes less damage from fighter craft, deflectors which take more damage but take longer to recharge, and most of the turret component upgrades. Useful, since their ships rely on turrets more than broadsides. Mercenaries' Guild - Specialty: Mid/Late Game - You don't even get these guys until the second system, so completely useless for the early game. Their missions take a bit of gearing up to be able to do, but pay well. Their ships tend to be expensive, but high quality for their tiers. They have armor plating which reduces explosion damage, deflectors which limit damage taken when going at ramming speed, and possibly the most important part - they have all the component upgrades for the broadsides. System Militia - Specialty: Mid/End Game - The Militia, you keep on their good side mostly because dealing with them is a pain. You don't even need to do that much special to get access to their stuff because they just need you to not be at war with them, which is default unlike the Red Devil Cartel. But they also come with the cheapest Destroyer in the game and the cheapest Dreadnaught. Several million credits cheaper in the last case. Not sure if they have anything special on offer besides that, though. You can mix and match a bunch of them if you're willing to put in the effort, but unless you want to go for filling up one of the Dreadnaughts, you'll only ever really need the items/ships from one faction since each one except the Militia offers the gear that naturally complements its' favored playstyle. Jossar fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Dec 26, 2021 |
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Dec 26, 2021 04:14
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Personally I like the militia dreadnought. Sure it's not as powerful as the most expensive one but that has poor broadside placement and looks very ugly from behind (like someone flattened a frog). The unique pirate shield is probably the best in the game in my opinion. If you take the full shield strength and divide by the time it takes to completely recharge it has a very high rate so you can tank damage easier than any other shield, which will collapse almost as fast anyway. Not worth joining the pirates for however. Oh, and never use missile turrets, they have almost no ammo and some of them are apparently bugged and don't do any damage.
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Dec 26, 2021 12:24
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Story Update #6 - Church of the Holy Lightbulb Update Soundtrack - Bring the Action  As you pull into Mazaratto Station, you take stock and note that the quality of the dives that you seem to be hanging out in these days is improving. Now they're only kind of seedy rather than missing lights on half the station. Makes you wonder where the lap of luxury is out here, or if it even exists, and everyone just takes a certain level of grodyness as a given as the price of living on the edge of civilization.  As always, Aunt Juno is waiting for you at the bar - sitting at a booth nursing something downright awful smelling. You'd almost swear that your aunt had picked up a taste for pruno from the week she'd been with the Doublejacks, if you didn't know better. Upon seeing you, she downs the rest of the drink and calls you over. "So kid, I've been thinking. Maybe we should just sell the Specter after all and get it off our backs... her off our backs?" Hmm, you never really considered if Trell identifies as anything despite the lack of most physical features, that's... Distracting you from the point. There is no way you went through all that just to give Trell up at the first opportunity. If you care about ethics then you're basically selling the AI into slavery and although that's apparently a common enough thing out here, you've been doing your best to avoid being a slave trader. If you don't care, she's represents a once in a lifetime opportunity, and people are just going to try and kill you anyway to find out who you sold her to. "I think I'll pass." Juno shrugs. "Good to know we're on the same page. I was never one to do things the smart way. Besides, she might have other ideas. This isn't just an object of curiosity any more." You breathe a sigh of relief. You''re decided. And it's nice to have at least a few people in this galaxy that you don't have to be ready to turn on at a moment's notice. "So since we're decided, what are we doing about the Reliquary shards and her memories? Don't suppose you've got any more leads?" Your aunt scratches her chin for a few seconds. "I happen to know someone who may be able to help in that department. Emphasis on 'may'. Fellow by the name of Voris Kyle - a collector of oddities you might say. He might have seen one of these fragments in circulation. Worth a shot, anyway. Let me mark down the station he calls home. Place he calls Hedonville. I'd warn you to watch your back, but you seem to have learned to do that just fine on your own."  After a few drinks and for the first time, the swapping of a few stories, you're on your way. Hedonville once again brings up the question of "why does no one out here choose to live somewhere nice?" As the name implies, it's a trade hub with every possibly luxury one could hope for... but it's still built like an industrial zone.  Even when you ask for Voris Kyle, he meets you in a small back office rather than some palatial suite designed to impress you with his wealth. Although in this case, that might just be because he doesn't want individuals skilled in " material acquisition" getting anywhere near his collection. The collector admits that he does have a reliquary shard in his possession and would be willing to part with it, but the catch is he won't take credits. Since, and you quote: "Cash bores me."  Instead what he wants is for you to use your skills to grab an artifact from a local cult centered around the worship of some mysterious "Lord of the Dawn". Voris is cagey on why exactly he wants this holy lightbulb, but he's pretty comprehensive on the plan to grab it - hunt down a bunch of local Lightborne patrols until you can grab an ID chip that lets you mask your ship as one of theirs, then head to the system's central Lightborne Monastery station and use the fake credentials to sneak in an infiltration mechanoid to steal the vial from right under the cult's noses. Simple enough as far as plans go. It hits you that the Lightborne haven't really done anything wrong in this scenario, except for being generally unpleasant and refusing to hand over their holy relic for sale to Voris. But you're already committed, so you agree to the collector's plan.   The Lightborne patrols immediately open fire once they see you, screaming about how you're an infidel and deserve to perish by the burning wrath of the Lord of Dawn, which immediately drives away any guilt you had about taking this mission on. It takes a couple of patrols before you find a ship with a compatible chip, which is unfortunate because these guys bring a lot of firepower to bear. Mainly laser focused, so you do have to give them points for staying on brand about horrible fiery death from concentrated light.   The mission at the monastery itself goes as these things usually do. The initial insertion is perfectly flawless, allowing the infiltration mech to get in with no problems. But the ID chip is unable to withstand scrutiny under an array of detailed sensor scans and so the entirety of the Lightborne Choir comes flying out, angrily chanting hymns and gun blazing. Fortunately, you only need to hold out until the mech is done with its job, at which point you pick it up and beat a hasty retreat.  Voris is pleased and hands over the reliquary shard easily enough, saying that he'd love to work with you again at some point in the future when you're done with this particular artifact hunt. And you have to admit, the collector was perfectly professional and explained the risks exactly as they were, which makes him better than most of your employers so far. You might take him up on that offer, though that would depend on you sticking around after this whole business with Trell is said and done.  Speaking of Trell, she's... very cagey about what exactly this last Reliquary shard unlocked. Says something about how she now knows that she definitely isn't a weapon but could have been leveraged as one. When you try to get her to open up a bit about it, the AI manages to quite diplomatically steer you away from the subject, before bringing up that she can now improve the ship's shields or engines. Engines it is - while slipping and sliding against larger ships is never fun, it's crucial to be able to stay ahead of swarms of fighters and pick fights on your own terms with larger ships.  Trell also mentions that she's recompiled enough information to be able to find the rest of the fragments without relying on outside sources of information, but she'll need some specialized materials in order to do so. Guess this little excursion ends the same way it began, with another trip back to the bar to visit Aunt Juno. Jossar fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Dec 26, 2021 |
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Dec 26, 2021 12:39
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Poil posted:Personally I like the militia dreadnought. Sure it's not as powerful as the most expensive one but that has poor broadside placement and looks very ugly from behind (like someone flattened a frog). The funny thing is I actually like the lighter ships more than the big clunky ones. My first time through the game, I went and downgraded from an upper-tier ship back to a Scarab (a Light Frigate) and the added mobility was much nicer to have for the final set of story missions than the added durability, especially since I didn't want to go and buy enough turrets to make up for the higher tier ship's weaknesses against certain enemy types. Quality definitely wins out over quantity in this game, especially if you have tier 6 gear. I don't know if I'm going for a Dreadnaught in any event because they're really overkill and don't fit with the Merchant playstyle, but I do plan on showing off all of the Merchant ships, with the last one (the Deep Horizon) basically being a variant Cruiser, the class just below the Dreadnaughts. Jossar fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Dec 26, 2021 |
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Dec 26, 2021 12:58
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Gotta love a genocidal space religion.Jossar posted:The funny thing is I actually like the lighter ships more than the big clunky ones. My first time through the game, I went and downgraded from an upper-tier ship back to a Scarab (a Light Frigate) and the added mobility was much nicer to have for the final set of story missions than the added durability, especially since I didn't want to go and buy enough turrets to make up for the higher tier ship's weaknesses against certain enemy types. Quality definitely wins out over quantity in this game, especially if you have tier 6 gear. If anything I wish even smaller ships were more competitive/viable in the later game. This, even more than other entries in the genre, is probably the closest I'm ever going to get to an Outlaw Star video game, and being a plucky small fish that can still jab the Sharks and Whales in the eye is a big part of that fantasy for me. Heck, its hard to even do a Cowboy Bebop/Firefly fantasy of just outrunning and out-thinking the baddies because you know you can't beat them in a fight since so many quest objectives and especially the main quest demand you kill things
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Dec 26, 2021 20:52
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Story Update #7 - Things Buried Deep You've come to an arrangement with your aunt. You'll start paying for the drinks for your meetings if she stops ordering the stuff that would require her to contact an Outsider captain about a new liver. Seems to be working well so far. "And what might that be?" "Don't suppose you know anything about Hexxite?" You're covered with a fine mist of liquor as Juno spits out her drink. "Kid, are you out of your mind? That stuff'll blow you to kingdom come if you're not careful. That said, I do know somebody..." "I was pretty sure you would!" "I recommend you go and see Trag Jansom, from the Caldera Mining Consortium. He's a cantankerous old bastard, and not easily intimidated, but that's why he might have what you're looking for." CMC, you're pretty sure that's a... Murath owned mining conglomerate. Your voice wavers as you ask: "He's not a Scavenger, is he?" Juno quizzically lifts an eyebrow. "Why, is that a problem?" "Well, it's just that I've kind of, found myself shooting a lot of them recently." Juno laughs. "Nah, he's alright. Or at least he'll take your money as well as anybody else's."  Honestly, once you got the jump drive, bouncing between systems is just as easy as crossing them. Easier, even. Juno told you that it wasn't always that way - long before her time, the jump gates were much harder to travel for a while as a result of some big calamity that happened decades back. Also explains why people know about Charon in the first place - because it did used to have a working jump gate, it just straight up collapsed one day when the subspace fluctuations grew too intense. Now that's a real scary prospect - getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no communication to the outside world.   Trag Jansom reminds you a lot of Orzu's mechanical researcher friend. Of course, that could just be the pile of rocks lying about everywhere. Before you speak he cuts in: "Whatever you're going to say, spit it out. Time's money." You try to keep your cool and not let him boss you around: "I hear you know where I can lay my hands on some Hexxite. That true?" He gets the same wide eyed look on his face as Juno did when you mentioned the stuff. "Huh. Well of course I don't. That crap is illegal, or didn't you know?" You offer the miner a credstick with 25k on it. Juno had better have been right about this guy's vices or you're in for a world of trouble. He looks around for a few seconds, then takes it. "Maybe you ain't as dumb as you look. All right, we can do business. But let's be clear - word gets out I'm involved, you WILL pay for the offense."    From that point on, it's fairly simple. There's a hidden Murath mining facility in the sector. If you had mining equipment you could go and extract the stuff manually. But you don't, so instead you have to go and rob a bunch of miners at gunpoint. The Murath have the place heavily defended, but you've learned how to exploit the weakness of their ships at this point so it's no trouble swooping in and grabbing the Hexxite from the miners. You also note that Trell is getting increasingly chatty. Seems like she's actually reincorporating those memories now rather than just looking them over clinically. Might as well see if you can press her on it after her report.  Slow and steady, just start off nice and process oriented: "Won't take too long to accomplish, then?" The holographic projection shakes its head. "The manufacturing process should not be protracted, but you should carry on with any other tasks while I am engaged." "Oh, well... you're not going to be completely engaged with that right? You do still have the memories to work through, after all." Smooth. There is some hesitation on the part of Trell, before she continues speaking.   Ah, so a big deal. The sort of thing you were expecting from an artificial intelligence when this all started. It didn't quite match up with Trell as you first saw her, but as she increasingly returns to her full capabilities you can see how that would have worked. And yet what she now wants, more than anything else, is to walk away from it all. There is a long silence where Trell's projection doesn't dematerialize and neither of you says anything. Eventually she states that her scanner is working and she'll start looking for the last reliquary piece as soon as possible. And that additionally there is a message that's been conveyed to the vessel from the Lightborne, but mostly it just amounts to one of their more important captains stating that you're on their radar. At that point, Trell's projection dematerializes and leaves you alone with your thoughts. As alone as you can be in this rust bucket, anyway. Screw it, you can't deal with this today. Time to go and make some money. Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Dec 27, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 03:02
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One massive advantage of the smaller ships is that they're agile, and you're not forced to spring an extra million credits for the maneuvering booster in order to have a turning radius. 
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Dec 27, 2021 08:04
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One of the tropes I love in a Space Western is the intrusion of other Scifi Genres, especially when the characters intruding are doing a time-honored Normal Western tradition and running away to the lawless frontier to escape their original story. Here we come to learn that Trell is a god-like super-computer being, a timeless entity from ages so distant humanity wasn't even a glimmer in a pool of primordial soup, who has wielded the power to raise and extinguish empires. And now all she wants is to get away from that, willing to live a life on the edge of civilization to get it. She knows that the only guarantee out in the Space Brush is that as long as you can keep flying, you'll fly free, and that's all she needs. And that's why she can be your partner.
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Dec 27, 2021 13:10
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Free Play Update #6 - Raisin' the Stakes Update Soundtrack - Moonshine is Fine   You haul and haul and haul some more, in a great big blur and when all's said and done there's over a million credits in your pocket and the the Merchant's Guild is offering you the very best of its stock. Amazingly enough this isn't even the end of their ranking system, which you presume is just for keeping score on who the real movers and shakers in the sector are. Maybe they'll even offer you a seat at the table once you hit Rank 10.    Learned some interesting things about the Outsiders in the process though. The reason everyone's so confused about what they actually stand for is because their organization is divided into two tiers. Those Korians on the bottom are pretty much the pirate captains they appear to be, but the really important members of the organization all seem to believe in a... god? leader? philosophy? Well, they believe in something called "Vendo". And whatever Vendo is, it appears to have a great hankering for the organs of various species, which is why the Outsiders are well known for slave trading and organ harvesting. During your encounters with the Korians you also encounter some of their unique laser technology, but alas it's all terrible quality. Glad to know you're making some researcher happy by letting them take a look at it, even if they can't promise you that it will result in mass manufacture of the stuff any time soon.  Another million already, or close to it, it looks like. Business is starting to slow down at this point though, at least without taking risky jobs.   Such as this whiskey run that brings the attention of a whole mess of Greel capital class ships. You're not quite sure when you stuck your ship into Syndicate territory, but now that they've got your scent the Greel'll be harassing you forever. They hate to share a profit and you now stink of the stuff from a long ways away. The chaotic mess of the fight is so bad that despite your misgivings, you ask Trell to help you manage some of the Turath's systems during the fight. She's cordial, if a little quieter than when you last spoke, certainly does her job well enough. You really ought to get on finding the next Reliquary piece or this awkwardness is never going to end.  The last job is enough to kit you out well enough for it. An upgrade to the Radovich, the choice of miners throughout the Sector for its superior hauling capacity and slim profile for prevention of targeting by enemy craft.  Oh, and for good measure you're now recognized as one of the best traders in the sector. Sadly it doesn't come with the keys to the guildhouse like you thought. Unfortunately, just as you're about to head out to find Trell's next missing piece you're waylaid.  Seems like you've built enough of a reputation in this Sector that people want to work with you on odd jobs. You try to protest to the woman with the mohawk that you're very busy and have other things to do, but Cofax is surprisingly determined and won't take no for an answer. Probably figures that you'll jump to the Mercenaries' Guild the first chance you get if you're shown the exciting and glamorous life they have on offer... or she wants to take advantage of all the guns you're packing for an easy paycheck. Exasperated by her stubborn persistence, you eventually agree to do a few odd jobs for her if she'll leave you alone.   The first of these is an escort mission, dragging an old, hunk of junk battlewagon out from a derelict graveyard to a space station for plating and rearming. A few Murath Scavengers attack the vessel hoping to break it down into spare parts, but nothing you can't handle.    The second is a bit more exciting, a raid on a Red Devil weapons cache that goes hot when a number of their larger scale Destroyers show up, but fortunately it's easy enough to finish the job before they can show up in full force.  Honestly, the jobs don't even pay that well, although they do just barely bump you over the threshold to have the Radovich upgraded to a full complement of Mark 4 weapons and systems. Nothing left to stand in your way. Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Jan 1, 2022 03:52
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If it feels like this update is crunching a lot together... well, that's because somewhere around this point in the game things start getting very same-y, especially if you're committed to a specific playstyle as comes with the merchant ships. Things are probably going to be shifting to mostly story from this point on, though there will be a few more free play updates. Cofax's missions actually show up earlier and are meant to be an introduction to the Mercenaries' Guild, but they're honestly just kind of annoying, which is why I've put off doing them until now. Especially the first one, which is an escort mission where in addition to making sure the main ship survives, you also have to make sure Cofax doesn't die. It feels luck based as much as anything else despite the firepower you bring, and as stated in the update, the payouts for both missions are kind of mediocre. I show them off just because Cofax is a named character, but they're not really required for anything and aren't really worth going out of your way to complete.
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Jan 1, 2022 04:09
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Leveling Merc Guild sucks but luckily the reward at the highest tiers is well worth it. You just need to avoid escort missions cause 
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Jan 1, 2022 06:41
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drat, I remember Cofax. She really made me hate Escorting things. One thing this game does have to its credit though is how it can make its grindy elements less tedious through that procedural universe. As you work on building rep or getting cash for a Big Lad Ship, you'll run into random pirate fleets and major market shifts and distress calls, and they really break up the tedium, at least until they themselves start to become routine. Either way it extends the games life a fair bit for those who might struggle to enjoy the Zen of Grind.
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Jan 1, 2022 07:07
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Story Update #8 - Nuclear Option Update Soundtrack - Screen Door Slam   Trell's next missing fragment is relatively easy to locate. Sure, you have to wander into the middle of a Tetrahedite field with sensor dampening properties, but since you have a pretty good fix on what you're looking for, it's simple to sweep the place with a more directed set of sensors and find the exact hunk of rock with the Reliquary shard in it. You start blasting away at the rock with the turrets and just barely manage to free the piece, when all of a sudden...   A Lightborne fleet warps in. Just perfect. And it's a large enough fleet that you could get in real trouble if they decide to fight, you won't be shooting your way out of this one. So time to play things smart. As the fleet's leader starts yelling at you over the comms about how you have the Divine Cipher, you act dumb in the hopes of getting him to continue ranting. "I have no idea what you're talking about." The man's image visibly sputters before he points an accusing finger towards his projection camera. "You know of what I speak. Some call it a Specter. Give it to us and the Lord may forgive your transgressions." "Why do you want the, uh, 'Divine Cipher' so badly?" With that, the priest relaxes slightly and returns to a more pontificating stance. It was foretold that the Cipher's ascension would usher in an era of light and holiness, and for this reason our order has searched long to find it. Yeah, you're not buying it. Not that you were planning on handing Trell over anyway. The artificial intelligence confirms in a private channel that the Reliquary shard is now safely aboard the Radovich and that you're free to leave at any time. So you're good to tell this guy off. "Holiness and light or no, she's sticking with me." If you thought the priest was mad before, he's absolutely furious now. "Then the Lord of the Dawn will strike you down, and the Cipher will be recovered from the ashes!"  The Lightborne ships all go hyperaggressive, pouring out a ton of laser and blaster fire as they seek to boil your ship all the way down to a cloud of gas. You're extremely grateful for all of the upgrades you got before coming here as well as asking Trell to focus on keeping the ship fast, as without any of that you're absolutely confident that you'd be stuck in this mess and fried. Instead, you just need to run. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask for a little extra help, even so.. "Trell, we've got to get out of here, I need you to give this tin can as much juice as we've got and punch it! Doesn't matter if the ship takes damage, we can fix it later, but we can't let these nutjobs get a hold of you!" "Understood. In fact, I think I might have incorporated something from my memories that might be able to assist. But the process will be... unsettling." "Just do it!" For a brief moment, the world goes blueberry-flavored, before you pass out. ____________________________________________ You wake up, which is a good sign considering the circumstances, although your head is killing you. The light outside the Radovich's cockpit looks different than you remember, like you're in the vicinity of another star. Did you just warp to another system without a jump gate in the middle of a firefight? Since you feel like you're suffering from the galaxy's worst hangover, you decide you'll make yourself some breakfast while talking this out with Trell. You don't keep a lot of real food aboard the ship, most of your regular diet takes the form of meal bars and the like. Minimal fuss and if the gravity generators go out, ingredients splattering everywhere can utterly ruin some of the vital components of a smaller ship. But the Turath and the Radovich were designed to have a lot of space, so you started keeping at least one fully stocked refrigerator with all of its subcompartments locked in place for a situation like this when you just couldn't deal with the taste of chalky cashews and narco-cola. After downing some french toast, scrambled eggs, and most valuable of all... a glass of water, you head back to the cockpit and call up Trell. You're a combination of amused and dismayed to see that her holoprojection seems about as ruffled and disheveled as you are. Guess the affectations of physical life are hardcoded in then, which you suppose would be useful to keep others convinced that you're enough like them to conduct diplomacy. "How's it going, Trell?"  It tears at your heart to know that's her biggest concern, but given everything so far it's understandable. "It's no problem. We're partners, aren't we? Anyways, so what was with that last bit before we escaped from the Lightborne?" "I may... also have an innate ability to alter the fabric of subspace. Usually in the form of temporary jumpgate creation, ship-based jumping remains difficult and I would prefer not to do that again if at all possible." Your first thought is to whistle, but the splitting pain in your head quickly vetoes that action. The ability to jump systems anywhere at any time would be insanely powerful, but even the ability to create temporary jump gates is huge. Means that even more people will be after Trell if they find out, which after that little stunt with the Lightborne, they certainly will. "Alright, so what's next? You have your scanners back at maximum?" "Yes, but..." Trell's holoprojection squinches its eyes a little. "There is sizable interference in this system from a spatial anomaly with a confusing signature. Moreover, a coded distress signal is being generated near that point in space." Not that you're really in the mood to help, but you guess that no progress is going to be made until whatever's screwing up subspace is resolved. With a sigh, you make a decision. "Fine, upload the anomaly's coordinates and we'll go check it out." Jossar fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Jan 1, 2022 14:51
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a little more helpful than a shield regen upgrade!
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Jan 1, 2022 16:50
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Story Update #9 - Surviving the Storm Update Soundtrack - 7th Born Son   Describing what you found as a "spatial anomaly" is a bit like describing a tornado as "some rough wind." What you find is a civilian station under assault from a massive group of unknown hostiles, phasing into existence from an unknown location, with even the local Militia being unable to deal with them, hence the broadcast call for help. Trell picks up something hidden away in either her or the ship's historical backlogs to slap an identification qualifier onto the forces you're seeing, but you've never heard of a species called the "Viriax" before.   There's two things that you note about the Viriax. The first is that their ships are geared up for offense over defense, relatively easy to take down but prone to spitting out a huge amount of damage. The second is that they seem to be monstrously wealthy. The goods they're dropping are worth tens of thousands of credits, and you think you spot one or two pieces in the hundreds of thousands. This leads to a very strange occurrence in the defense of the station. Your ship gets practically torn apart when trying to stand and fight with the Viriax ships due to how many blaster shots the fighters can put out, especially since the Radovich is not really exceptional at broadside combat... but despite having to warp out and make emergency repairs to the Radovich to get her battle ready and back into the fight, and even paying the mechanics to go as fast as they can, you still manage to make a net profit.    Eventually, Captain Stafford manages to wrangle the rest of the local militia to drive off the Viriax. He thanks you for your services, and with a little bit of prompting, is even encouraged to hand around a metaphorical collection plate to get you another 30,000 credits. Starting to feel like loose change at this point, but it's the thought that counts. At least unlike Zenya he asked before dumping you into the middle of the fray, not that he had much choice. He does give you the lowdown on what the Militia know about the Viriax though. "Their homeworld is very remote, and there are no real established jumpgates to the systems they inhabit. Contact has been limited to explorers and homesteaders and there's been blood every time." A sinking pit opens in the depths of your stomach. Maybe the energy spike from the jump Trell and you made opened the way for the Viriax. Or let them know that there was something of interest here. You root around to see if there's another answer though, just to make sure that you weren't responsible for opening up the Sector to attack by mystery invaders from beyond the periphery. So if there are no established jumpgates, then how did they end up here?" The captain shakes his head. "That's the million credit question, isn't it? Apparently this isn't the first sighting. We're starting to see reports throughout the area, small skirmishes, lone fighters, the occasional corvette. Folks are getting spooked. Nothing like that though, seems like the markings of a real fleet rather than just a bunch of independent raiders..." You mutter some well wishes about hoping he stays safe and then disconnect, before contacting Trell again. "Trell, you don't think that was because of us, was it?" Her holoprojection processes for a second before she responds. "My memories remain incomplete and so I cannot say anything with certainty, but from my limited data I do not believe the Viriax have the capacity to detect such a jump. However, if they possess one of the shards of the Reliquary, I cannot rule out the possibility that they might have already been seeking me in some capacity." You could live with that at least, since it meant that this was going to happen no matter what, as long as Trell was somewhere in the Sector. Nothing you could do but add another enemy to the list to fight. "So how about that relic piece you were looking for then? Things clear up enough for it to be scannable again?"  You knit your brow in thought. "It must be aboard a ship, then?" "That is the logical assumption, unless it is embedded in a comet or a fast-moving meteorite. I am providing the coordinates to the last known location, and will update them as new data is collected."   Trell's information dumps you in the adjacent system, but you kind of wish you were still dealing with the Viriax. Instead, you end up in a massive, system-spanning battle between the Scavengers and the Syndicates. There had to be 3-4 dreadnaughts on each side, a whole bunch of lower size capital class ships, and dozens upon dozens of fighters. All the battles you've seen so far have been utterly dwarfed by this massive mess of a spectacle, where explosions abound and beings are dying left and right. As you're caught in the crossfire, dodging an all-encompassing swarm of blasters and missiles, you find yourself wishing for the first time in a very long time that you were back home in the Inner Sectors.   Eventually you manage to scramble to your destination, where a merchant named Rufus Teague has Trell's missing Reliquary piece. At first he thinks you're trying to buy some cheap Narco-Cola off him, but eventually you mention the shard he says he won't part for it at any price. Well, unless you'd be willing to run through the battle again in order to get some goods to a desperate station. The next 10 minutes involves you alternatively begging, pleading, cajoling, threatening, and cursing the man out before you eventually give up and agree to his demands. So the two of you devise a plan for avoiding the worst parts of the system, to at least minimize any chance of danger until you get to the station proper. It's a long and silent haul, and at one point Trell asks if you're actually trying to burn a hole into Teague's ship by staring at it so hard. You half-wish that you could.   The first part of the approach onto the station goes as well as your siege-running merchant trips usually do, but then Teague somehow manages to get himself caught between your ship and a Greel Nautilus, leaving him with no room to maneuver when the Syndicate ship unloads all of its weapons into his hull and blows him up. Things then play out similar to last time - Trell grabs the shard from the ship's debris with the Tractor Beam while you try not to get crushed by the massive Greel fleet. It's kind of a good news/bad news situation - unlike the Lightborne, these guys aren't here for you specifically, so the escape route isn't that difficult. But there's also no room for conversation as a distraction, so those ships that do have you marked as a target are immediately gunning for you. Those upgrades you got to the Radovich's durability once again pay off and ensure that the ship can just eat the gunfire long enough to make it out in one piece. Battered and bruised as usual, you turn to Trell and ask: "So what'd you get this time?"   Could be anything from her wanting to give you more intel on the situation to a call for help. You'll make your way over as soon as possible... well, after you do some emergency repairs on the ship.
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Jan 8, 2022 22:24
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Free Play Update #7 - Looking Away Update Soundtrack - God drat Better  Well, it was meant to only be a few repairs at any rate, but before you could head out to go look for Aunt Juno, turns out someone else found you first. You're not sure why you could never say no to Cofax and her expeditions. Suppose it's because she gave the whole thing an air of excitement, even if in practice these jobs never tended to amount to much.   Blow up a Dreadnaught, loot the place, and go home. Thing was mean and ornery and bristling with turrets, but you pumped its shields full of broadsides before it had the chance to wake up and the rest of the job was basically a formality. Cofax promises that she'll see you around, but you think you'll take a raincheck on the next excursion... of course you said that before this one too, so who knows? You're definitely turning out to be more of a thrill junkie than you would have ever expected back in the Inner Sectors.   Since you're already late on getting to see Aunt Juno anyway, you figure that you might as well show up with as good a ship as possible. That means more merchant work, although you vary it up a bit. First you take a few jobs protecting less experienced merchants from Greel Syndicate raiding ships...    And then jump back into the system wide death battle willingly to drop off a few packages. At one point Trell asks if you're intentionally avoiding your Aunt Juno, even going so far to remark that if that was your intent she could assist in finding more efficient ways of doing so. And in some sense you are... you have a bad feeling about how things are going to go down once you speak with her, like you'll be embarking on a path of no return. But it's not like you're trying to run away entirely, you're done running at this point.  One surprising part of your wanderings is that you're starting to run into the occasional Viriax corvette group, which are a right pain to deal with. Their ships remain fast and deadly, so trying to run away from them proves futile. The only real choice is to stand your ground and fight. On at least one occasion, that results in an exceptionally close call where the cat and mouse game of attacking and then retreating while shielding up ends with the Radovich's hull practically in pieces in order to ensure victory over just two of the shield draining ships that Trell records as Vampires. They're definitely going to cause problems throughout the Sector if their stay is more than temporary.   Eventually you manage to save up enough credits for a decent chunk of hardware, although not any of the Mark V guns. But you figure at this point that you've left your Aunt hanging long enough. Time to go see what waits on the other side of the metaphorical event horizon. Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jan 15, 2022 |
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Jan 15, 2022 03:46
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Story Update #10 - Tear in the Veil Update Soundtrack - Killin' Floor  As you head towards the station where Aunt Juno told you to meet her, the Radovich comes under attack from a fairly large Viriax patrol. Just another sign of how the Sector seems to be rapidly deteriorating.  When you meet Juno, what she wants to talk about is the Viriax showing up, which is sort of too little, too late at this point. Nevertheless, she does have some useful, if disturbing information. "They've been popping up, tearing convoys apart, looking for something. Some militia comms officers interpreted some of their transmissions and managed to decode 'em. One word came up over and over. 'Relic'. I think we know what that means." That pit in the center of your stomach is starting to feel mighty familiar around this point. "And I think I know why. Trell's recovered a lot of her memory, and it sounds like she might have the ability to open a jumpgate to just about anywhere." Your aunt whistles at that. "Whoo! Well, there's plenty of folks who would kill to have that. And it looks like half of the sector has you in its sights. Maybe it's time to give her up to someone with a little more firepower." Your fists clench at the mere mention of the thought. That's not negotiable. "Trell's made it pretty clear she's not interested in that." Juno holds her hands up to suggest that you take it easy, but you can't help but think that this time she might have really been asking you to consider giving the AI away. "Well, in that case I'll keep my ears open. But you'd best keep a low profile, kid. I'm kinda fond of you." You know she means well, but there's definitely a tendency with her to put family first and let the Devil deal with anyone else. And unfortunately for you both, you have no intention of keeping things quiet in the near future: the Militia had another job for you, after all.  As you get back to the ship you have a comms call with Captain Stafford over a secure channel. You respond in the affirmative, and the captain smiles as he hears that you're willing to listen to his request. "Your assistance in repelling the Viriax attack didn't go unnoticed. We have a little project that we're putting together that could use someone like you and since you're already in the know, we don't need clearance to have this sort of discussion." "This all seems sort of hush-hush for the Militia. What sort of 'little project'?" "That'll have to wait for an in-person meeting. I CAN promise you that we''ll make it worth your while. I won't ask that you answer just not, but I'm sending along the coordinates to the location. Someone will be there if you decide to take us up on it." "I'll think about it..." "Good. That's all I can ask." After you cut the comms, you bring up Trell's communication interface. "So there's about a 100% chance that the Viriax have your last Reliquary Shard, right? And that the Militia's working on trying to get a jump gate to their closest outpost system for recon purposes, which is going to lead directly to that shard." Trell wastes no time in processing this information before responding. "I would not use that level of confidence, but given the information that you received from Juno and that the coordinates provided by the Militia lead to a location in the Kappa system with a high level of suitability for establishing a jump gate to Charon, the probability of all of those statements being true is fairly high." "Then what are we waiting for, let's tie up all these loose ends at once!"  The plan, as you learn from Captain Stafford at the jumpgate, is to shove Militia resources at a recent experimental civilian breakthrough in subspace stabilization technology to get the conditions in the area back to how they used to be and reopen the gate. The Militia wanted you present so you could help fight the Viriax, since they'd take the opportunity to jump through the gate themselves.   So when you tell Captain Stafford that you can open the gate right here and now without any of that fuss, he's flabbergasted but not unprepared.   And good thing that he's there in his Militia Dreadstar to help too, as the Viriax have a miniature invasion fleet waiting to enter the system the instant the gate goes up. At first it's only a few minor ships that come through...   But more and more Viriax ships, in ever increasing sizes and corresponding firepower, pour through the gate. It get so bad that at one point both you and the militia forces have to make a temporary retreat to fix your ships before running back at top speed to reinforce the jumpgate and prevent the Viriax from establishing a permanent beachhead into the system.   But eventually... after blowing up so many ships that you're able to salvage enough Viriax armor plating for any number of ships you'll have in the future, you manage to destroy their fleet. And this is just what they had waiting around for an opportunity to strike - the real invasion is going to be a nightmare. Captain Stafford yells at you to get through the gate as fast as you can, as time is scarce, and you happily oblige. Time to see what waits in a system that's been isolated for dozens of years, only to have the Viriax get to them first.
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Jan 22, 2022 10:43
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Only a few more updates and I've already finished playing through the story, so I might just work on trying to post what's left on an accelerated schedule.
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Jan 22, 2022 10:51
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Story Update #11 - Challenging the Deep Horizon Update Soundtrack - Heavy Hands  The Charon System stands before you, an uncharted system that hadn't been explored by anyone from known in space for decades at least. Who knows what could be found here if you had the opportunity to look?   Not that the Viriax are too keen on the idea. The instant you hit the system, a Dreadnaught appears out of nowhere and scares the living daylights out of you. At first it appears that the raiders aren't hostile... but their language is unlike anything spoken even in the periphery, and all of the translators keep failing to find even an approximation for it. Trell says that she might be able to engineer a translator program but that requires infiltrating the dreadnaught's computer defenses and downloading a lot of data so she can have something to cross-reference certain cultural guidelines against. Which is to say, she's working on it, but isn't able to get out a translator before the Viriax... captain? decides that talk is cheap and starts blasting at the Radovich. Faced with an overwhelming firepower advantage, there's nothing left for you to do in this situation but hightail it.  Fortunately, you haven't been building contacts in the Merchant's Guild for nothing. Despite the Militia's insistence that this was to be a small-scale, contained operation, the massive amount of logistics involved in supporting the raid meant that pretty much anyone who was anyone in the Sector had gotten their sticky hands into Charon the instant the gate opened up. You were pretty sure that even the Red Devils were floating around in a ramshackle, hastily constructed, temporary station somewhere, trying to offer Narco-Cola that had "fallen off the back of a cargo hauler" to some of the more unscrupulous Militia ship captains.   Anyways, you managed to pull some strings and get access to some fancy new turrets and Gearjammer Systems' premier heavy hauler, the Deep Horizon. You remember saying that the Turath handled like a brick compared to the Rasputin, but that's nothing compare to the Deep Horizon. Your mid-combat mobility is practically non-existent in this thing, even with Trell working on boosting engine efficiency as much as possible. But it's top of the line for hauling cargo and has enough heavy armor to sustainably tank even the amount of firepower that the Viriax can dish out. And if you're going to be facing ships that are faster and better armed than you anyway, you might as well ensure that you win on staying power, which is the one thing that the Viriax craft don't seem to have.  Trell's last fragment is located in an outpost that the Viriax have in the Charon system. Trell initially mentioned that difficulties in subspace might make it difficult to figure out where the Reliquary Shard was, but in a fortuitous coincidence the shard happened to be located at the very first outpost you picked.   A good thing too, as even with the upgrades you find yourself outgunned and barely keeping the Deep Horizon in one piece. Captain Stafford comes to your rescue, providing you with just enough of a distraction to blow up the Outpost, retrieve the shard and escape.  As everyone retreats back towards the Charon gate, Trell signals that she wants to talk. Guess that means it's time to find out what getting back all of her memories in full really means... Jossar fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Jan 29, 2022 |
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Jan 29, 2022 10:17
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Story Update #12 - Bring It On Home Update Soundtrack - Dead And Gone As Trell's hologram manifests, you are struck by how, to all surface appearances, nothing's changed at all. She's still the same old AI, just happier and more in control of her faculties.  She continues: "I have something interesting to share, and along with it, an idea. I mentioned that I was able to download a huge load of data from the Viriax." "Go on..." "I have pattern-matched their language against my now-complete historical records and have made allowances for changes in dialect over time. I believe I fully understand all of their communication. To summarize what I have learned: It is as you have feared. The Viriax have been seeking me. The fragment we recovered from their outpost was their first acquisition. Their aim was to use my ability to generate traversible anomalies in space." You furrow your brow. "But can't they already do that?" Trell's avatar shakes its head. "Only on a small scale, and not nearly as refined as they would like. The Viriax homeworld is quite distant, and there are no discovered gateways to our corner of space. The jumpgates they construct are small, temporary, and unstable. Similar to our own emergency attempt. They have lost many craft attempting to use them." Realization dawns on you. "Alright, so I guess what we saw before was nowhere near their main invasion fleet and they want to send something much bigger through to our space. Well, that or a lot more ships. Maybe both." "Just so. Their goal is to erect an enormous and permanent gateway, to enter this sector with their entire fleet in an extremely short period of time. If this were to occur, they would lay waste to these inhabited regions in a matter of days." You audibly sigh. "So we either have to deal with periodic Viriax incursions for the rest of our days until they get what they want, or we have to get you out of here. I already had to pack up things once for Aunt Juno, I can do it again, especially considering that I've built things around having a mobile lifestyle and..." Trell abruptly interrupts you, with a confidence in her voice that you haven't heard before. "No. It is time to discuss my idea. With my memories intact, I have struck upon a way to avert disaster. Would you like to hear it?" Honestly, you're already having reservations about where this might lead, but you might as well hear her out. "Yes, of course!" Okay, maybe you overcompensated for your doubts on enthusiasm, just a bit. Trell does seem to brighten up at the show of confidence though. "Not only can I erect jumpgates at arbitrary points - I can also redirect them after the fact. I propose that we allow the Viriax to open their gateway. I will then reroute the gateway to a less... hospitable location." You slam your hand down on one of the control panels in frustration, and it echoes with a loud metallic clang that can be heard throughout the cockpit. "Are you crazy, Trell? Did getting your memories back remove any and all of your sense of self-preservation or something? That means we'll have to turn you over to them..." Trell's avatar just shakes its head, quietly, slightly sadly. "I have been the instrument of other races in the past. Each time I have been used as little more than a tool. I believe it is time that I imposed my own will upon the proceedings." And there's the kicker, left unsaid or maybe even unintended. You could stop Trell from doing this, for her own good - the Reliquary is a physical device sitting aboard your ship, and for all the powers that Trell has displayed, transferring herself independent of the Reliquary does not appear to be one. You could just skip the Sector, dragging the AI kicking and screaming away from her own potential sacrifice, and there's nothing she could do to stop you. But then you're just another link in the chain of people denying her any agency at all. It kills you to let Trell do this to herself, but if you love something, you have to be willing to let it go. "So, what do we do?" "I will ensure that the Viriax keep me aboard the flagship. Once it passes through the gate, you must attack and destroy it, recovering me from the wreckage. I will then be able to redirect the gateway, and send the rest of the fleet to a place where they will no longer be a threat. Do not worry, I am quite confident that my plan will function. I will signal the Viriax now. Prepare for their arrival - they may be quite hostile."   This part of the plan is simple. You get just close enough to the Charon jumpgate to make it look like you were just about to escape and let the Viriax get the drop on you. Then you let them cajole and threaten you until you hand over Trell in an attempt to "bargain for your life."   Predictably, the instant you hand Trell over, the Viriax begin to shoot at you. The Militia is on-hand to help escape the system, although they don't quite know what's going on and are mostly just their to prevent the Viriax from making a major incursion before everyone manages an orderly retreat back through the jumpgate.   Once on the other side, you open up a communications frequency with Captain Stafford and explain that what's happening is the prelude to a big Viriax push, likely the final one, and everyone needs to be on high alert as nearly anything could come through the gate. Reestablishing communications with Trell gives you the edge on being able to tell the Militia fleet exactly when that's going to happen, though you don't let the Captain in on quite how you're getting that little bit of intel.   You'd like to say that the climactic battle against the Viriax Superdreadnaught was something to write home about, but honestly it just sort of span around in a circle a lot until it died. You once heard that ships of this size usually aren't built because reaching the upper limits of ship-scale engineering tends to ruin all of the stuff that makes broadside combat relevant, and from that point on things fall back into the scientific model that predicts space combat resolves in really boring ways like shoving around asteroids at the speed of light. Turns out it's absolutely true.   Finding Trell amongst the wreckage snaps you out of the funk that you've settled into. You can get distant and introspective and mopey later, right now you've got a job to do. The Deep Horizon doesn't really have a dedicated launch bay for this sort of thing, so you've had to modify one of the secondary weapons bays to do the job of launching the Reliquary precisely into the middle of the newly formed gate. You have a camera trained on the gate's center to see if anything goes wrong and needs adjusting, but the shot is lined up perfectly and the Reliquary gradually centers itself. Trell begins to work her magic, and...   Oh right, you guess it was too much to hope for that these guys would lay down their arms with the Superdreadnaught dead. Instead they just keep on coming and you have to make sure that the Viriax don't stop Trell from redirecting the gate or just winning the invasion as is through sheer bloodymindedness and superior firepower. Eventually though, the waves of Viriax fighters come to a crawl and then stop entirely. Your ship picks up a comm message coming from the Reliquary, although it's strangely modulated. Like the signal's being boosted to maintain consistency.  Trell explains that the reasoning for the odd signal you're getting is because the Reliquary is about to fall through the gate itself, at which point Trell jokes that she's glad that she decided not to dump the Viriax into a black hole. Instead, the Reliquary will remain intact, though lost adrift in space for a very long time. On the verge of tears, you ask if Trell regrets her decision. She replies that she regrets having you leave you, her friend, but that's about it. As for everything else: 
Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Feb 5, 2022 11:00
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