Archive for October, 2005

Well, we’ve got a problem here, haven’t we?

And it was all going so well.

Okay, so I got message that Johan had died in combat, but he wasn’t much use and I barely mourned.

Wait, wait, back to the beginning. Where did we leave it last time?

Ah, yes, I was trying to get to the planet Banana to snap up some cheap luxuries, but the system I had to go through was plagued with Dominators. So when I started tonight I gave up on the idea. And came up with a new one. I bought a high capacity fuel tank and warped into the dangerous system. I flew round for a bit grabbing some of the debris that was scattered around – systems at war are a great source of spare parts – and jumped back out the way I’d come in. Two trips and there wasn’t anything else I could safely get. The big fuel tank was using up a lot of space on my ship, so I sold it and went back to standard one.

Not sure I made a profit in the end, but it felt good to snatch that stuff from the jaws of danger. Went back to my home system to give the ranger boffins some of the Dominator tech I’d grabbed. They were happy with me, which was nice. Went over to the medical station and bought some medical supplies, thinking they’d be cheaper there than anywhere else. But nowhere else in the system would give me a profit on them. About to sell a loss, I was, but then checked the news and saw that a planet in a neighbouring system was desperate for supplies. Result! Quick warp over and some nice profit.

Warped back home, went to the scientific station and bought my first probe. Basically, you can land on an uninhabited planets and send the probe out to search for stuff. I searched one planet and found medical supplies, weapons, a ship’s laser and some other bits. (It was while doing this search that Johan died, somewhere off in space.) Went to the nearest planet and sold everything (took a couple of trips) and asked for a mission. They asked me to deliver some special asteroid stuff to another system within a time limit.

Piece of piss!

I thought.

It’s a shame that the system I have to fly through to get there on time is under Dominator control. Not even being attacked by the Dominators. They’re there. They control the horizontal, the vertical and every other fucking thing in the system.

I warped in without knowing this. I looked for a planet to refuel on, but they were all under Dominator control. “Shit!” I said. Luckily, the remains of some ships were nearby, notably some fuel pods. I can use them to get out, but making my delivery on time is looking to be out of the question.

My first mission and I’m going to let my employer down. This is not good.

(Note: I’m playing the game in a semi-hardcore way. If I die I don’t restart the game from the beginning, I load my last save. But I’m only keeping one save, so if I discover I made a bad decision a while back I have to live with it, not just jump back a couple of saves and do things differently. It makes the game more tense and stops it turning into a constant quick save fest. I recommend it.)