FTL: Limited Information (Federation Victory!)

[callforjudgement]

Jump 64, 65

Causeway (n)

. A featureless stretch of space punctuated by beacons, used to allow quick passage past large areas of space in which there are no interesting objects.

We've had enough of the Slugs, and we head out of their territory, in the hope of finding safer passage to Federation-controlled areas. There's a Rebel ship there, waiting; possibly for us, possibly just waiting in general. It seems to have adaptability to a wide range of possible situations: its weapons feature a weak laser, a weak missile, and a weak beam drone, and it has a wide array of defences: anti-missile drones, anti-drone drones, and shields to block lasers and beams.

However, there's something to be said for specialisation. Even without our bodged-together shields upgrade and the reassuring blue barrier it placed around our ship, it couldn't get through our shields without help from its missiles, and we have a drone circling round us defending us from those. We shoot every one of its missiles out of the nebula, and out of ammo, it's a sitting duck.

At this point, we discover a new and unexpected defence: the thing can fly really quickly. It, perhaps stupidly, isn't trying to run, rather it's weaving around to try to prevent our EMP shots connecting. We're going to win this battle eventually, but it might take a while.

[callforjudgement]

I just spend over 90 minutes trying to wear down the enemy ship with our standard strategy. AFAICT, we'd need an amazingly good string of random numbers to pull off the crew kill; they had 4 crew and a level 2 medbay, and a tendency to send three people to the shield room and heal it up to full. As far as I can tell, following PvtUrist's instructions would eventually, several hours later, lead to the enemy crew being destroyed as a consequence of fire dealing the last point of damage to the medbay, one hull point at a time; I'm not sure if a crew kill is possible in a reasonable length of time with the (non-ammo-consuming) weapons we have, but if so it'd need an entirely different strategy. So eventually I just got fed up and shortcutted it with our beams; sorry about that. I took a savestate mid-battle; it might be interesting to try it again after the game finishes.

Hours later, the enemy ship finally explodes; it seems that the repeated fires and firefighting aboard it finally weakened the metal forming it to the extent that it couldn't cope with the air pressure inside. We pick up ⚙️45 and some fuel.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 66

Metabroken (n)

. The name for when an autoship's auto-repair circuitry for fixing broken systems is itself broken. A ship in this state tends to be doomed unless it can get to a friendly repair station quickly.

At the next beacon, a Rebel autoship is waiting; they must be scouting this sector for some reason. Its drones are really scary, and it takes all that our shields have to hold off the repeated pounding from multiple combat drones; they can't deal with the enemy laser as well.

I overrode our strategy just to be able to survive this battle and continue the run.

However, we manage to take out its repair systems, then its weapons, and its drone controllers, and its shields. It's not long after that that we can blow it up. It was quite a valuable haul; not only did we get fuel and ⚙️39, we also found a weapon that fits our ship.

[Enter]

Metabroken

The game is talking to us

we have a broken meta

we need to fix it

[callforjudgement]

Jump 67, 68, 69, 70

Timelocked (n)

. The state arising after a ship jumps into hyperspace without aiming near a beacon. With no beacon to pull the ship back, and no time flowing in hyperspace, the ship is effectively deleted from the timeline and ceases to exist. Occasionally timelocked ships are found, completely intact from thousands of years ago, after a beacon is constructed in a new area; as such, intentionally timelocking yourself is sometimes used by the crazy or hopeless in the hope that they'll one day be rescued, and that the state of the galaxy by then will be more receptive to them. As you have no idea how friendly the rescuers will be, though, it's a fool's strategy.

Our ship's been on the verge of falling apart for a huge distance now, and all we can do is try to find a repair station. All the evidence so far is that there's nothing here in this sector except for a few patrolling Rebels; it must have been uninhabited because there's nowhere to inhabit. We see a third Rebel ship on the way, but as it has a Hermes Missile, we have no hope to fight it; all we can do is try to get to a safe jumping distance from the beacon and hope that it doesn't spot us (and, fortunately, it doesn't; the nebula must have broken its sensors).

We aren't the only struggling ship in the area, though. As we're desperately jumping around the emptiness in the hope of finding somewhere to fix our ship, we come across a Rock warship with a problem of their own: the nebula has damaged their FTL circuitry, and they can't pick up the signals from beacons. They've been impulsing around for weeks, unable to jump for fear of timelocking themselves.

Despite their situation, they're entirely unwilling to negotiate with Enter, but PvtUrist helps reassure them that trustworthy people do exist (carefully leaving out any mention of whether or not Enter is one of them). As it happens, there's an Engi merchant station nearby; we can pick that information up on the beacon broadcasts even though they can't. So we give them directions and both jump there together. They pay us well for rescuing them, giving us a variety of equipment; most of it isn't usable by our ship, but there are merchants here, and they're willing to exchange it for ⚙️60 worth of goods and services.

(As usual, I'll post price lists in people's PTs.)

[the worst]

There are some great purchases here. I'll report back.

[Varsoon]

Got almost the whole shit repaired, but it cost me all my scrap.

[callforjudgement]

PvtUrist has requested replacement.

Is there anyone reading this thread who wants to play? Ideally you'd have some knowledge of FTL, because the way the weapon system works (where PvtUrist is) takes too long to explain to someone who doesn't know it already.

[callforjudgement]

Iconeum replaces PvtUrist.

Sorry about the delay, everyone: you can go back to your regular shopping now if you wish.

[Iconeum]

Hello I'm Iconeum and I like to blow stuff up

[the worst]

hiconeboom

[Iconeum]

So I reconfigured our weapon-layout because we were having some trouble bypassing shields and stuff.

No need for power upgrade on my part, yet.
I hope Varsoon can pull off the power requirements for our arty, however.

Currently I have 32 left, after upgrading and buying all available ammo.

[the worst]

Alrighty. I have 72.75. There's also an anti drone drone and a system repair drone here -- lmk if you guys are keen on either. Everything else is pretty standard. (shields, oxygen, medbay, etc.).

[callforjudgement]

Let me know when you're ready to move on.

[the worst]

I wouldn't mind waiting for Harpoon and Entrée to check in if that's ok

[Varsoon]

I can buy generator upgrades for ⛯30 a pop.
Otherwise, ⛯20 for fuel would be nice.

[Enter]

I sent all my munny to varsoon

[the worst]

Ah we're all alive. yay

any thoughts on my drone situation? or want me to funnel cake back to vars?

[Enter]

I want drones
or weapons
we always give all the money to vars
but alas it is not my decision to make as it is no longer my money

[Iconeum]

Weapons are configured, and there is no more ammo to buy here. I have some money left, but if it's not needed elsewhere I'll save it for upgrades later.
Power is a bottleneck right now.

Maybe invest in repair drone, that could actually save money over time?

[the worst]

Throw me $$$ pls

[the worst]

85 for hull repair drone 35 for anti-drone drone

[Iconeum]

I can buy generator upgrades for ⛯30 a pop.
Otherwise, ⛯20 for fuel would be nice.

Generator upgrade would be nice, we are looking at an increased power usage for weapons and that's only going to go up.
Fuel is nice to have too, i suppose

[Enter]

we don't need fuel

[Varsoon]

We can make like 1/3 or 1/2 a sector if we don't get more fuel.