FTL: Limited Information (Federation Victory!)

[callforjudgement]

You hear a radio message from Enter. Apparently Varsoon was attacking our ship for some reason (although he just stopped), dealing some amount of damage to the ship's engines.

Shortly afterwards, another radio message from Enter informs you that PvtUrist is trying to dismantle our weapons system.

[PvtUrist]

Here's our weaponry situation;

Weapon 1; Burst Laser II, high power requirement, medium charge time (slightly faster than vanilla I think), low system and hull damage, low crew damage, low? fire chance. Sells for ⛯32.

Weapon 2; Emp Ion, high power requirement, medium-fast charge time, deals low system and ion damage, low? chance to stun and medium? chance to start fires. Sells for ⛯35.

Weapon 3; Burst Bomb I. low power requirement, medium-fast charge time, deals low system and ion damage, high? breach chance, low/low-medium crew damage, requires missiles. Sells for ⛯22.

Artilery Beam (independent of weapon system); low power requirement, extremely slow charge time, deals low system and hull damage, pierces all shields (except Zoltan), no manual aim. Is a ship system and cannot be sold.

We can currently only power a weapon and the Artilery at a time.

⛯35 upgrade on weapon system means Burst laser/Ion + Bomb.

~⛯135 upgrade on weapon system means Burst laser + Ion. This setup should be able to reliably get through most enemy defenses.

⛯30 upgrade on artilery increases its power requirement and decreases its charge time.

[Varsoon]

It wasn't me! Someone knocked me out and messed up our shields! I swear!

[PvtUrist]

If someone gets mind controlled while they're in a room with only 1 buffer, go attack them.

If Urist gets MCed while on weapons, I'd appreciate if someone came and slapped me.

[PvtUrist]

If someone gets mind controlled while they're in a room with only 1 buffer, go attack them.

To clarify, if the Slug gets MCed, I'll attack them to stop the Piloting hull damage. Otherwise keep on weapons.

[callforjudgement]

The battle lasts over 20 minutes. At first, we seemed to be winning, with the enemy shields coming down several times. Then they seemed to adapt to our tactics, and we never took the shields down again.

For some reason, though, they start moving erratically, then disable their weapons, and eventually just stop entirely. We cautiously approach, and find complete devastation on board their ship; much of their machinery is burnt out or broken, and the crew has disappeared, although you find smears of what might be their remains.

Regardless of what happened here, though, that's not going to stop us raiding their ship for anything valuable. ⛯40 is a pretty good haul.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 41

Dispersal beacon (n)

. A beacon designed to pull ships into space some distance away, in a random direction; this makes it less likely that ships will run into each other during the pull. These are especially favoured by civilisations with stealth technology, as they can normally choose to hide or fight depending on what else they sense has arrived. The Slugs also use such beacons to aid in defence of their nebulas, as they can feel confident in being able to sense an enemy ship before the enemy ship senses them,

We get pulled into the nebula. So does a Rebel ship, but it's a long distance away, and doesn't seem to realise we're here.

Our sensors aren't working, but we have a set of binoculars available, to check on their ship the old-fashioned way. Based on what we can see, the Rebels have a small beam, some sort of charge laser, and a bomb launcher of some kind. They also have three shield barriers.

Should we chase them? Or should we hide?

[Enter]

This is not an official action

i want to chase cuz i've got balls

howd do y'all feel

[the worst]

I'm down to chase them unless Varsoon feels differently.

[PvtUrist]

If Rebel fleet not right behind, chase

[Varsoon]

Can we even deal with 3 shield enemies? If so, yeah, we got this.
Also hilarious--I think I became a master of combat while being Mind Controlled.

[callforjudgement]

Well, we take them by surprise and manage to catch up to them. Now it's time to see if we can beat them.

Their shields are pretty resistant to our weaponry; PvtUrist takes the approach of aiming EMP blasts at them in order to try to make an opening for our lasers, and we do in fact land a few shots that way. However, most of the work is done by our Artillery Beam, which isn't bothered by enemy shields.

We grab ⛯22 and some fuel from the wreckage of their ship.

[Varsoon]

Doing fine on fuel, but we're getting back into worrying amounts of damage.
We could survive another two fights like that one, but a third would be pushing it.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 42

Hermes Missile (n)

. The second-most frightening weapon in a rather frightening class of weapons, a Hermes Missile charges fast and flies fast, inevitably causing heavy damage and setting the target on fire. Shooting down such a fast weapon is almost impossible; typically, the only defences available are dodging the missiles and breaking the launcher.

Perhaps the Mantis are trying to invade this region? This is the second Mantis warship we've seen today. Its laser can't get through our shields, but it also has a gigantic missile launcher. We probably don't want that thing to hit our ship.

Enter radios a warning about an invading Mantis in the engine room. Given that Varsoon was there, that was probably the wrong place for it to invade.

Unfortunately, the enemy weapons charge faster than ours do, and it's not long before a couple of missiles shoot towards our ship at incredibly high speed. (I would describe it as supersonic, but sound doesn't carry in space.) Everyone gets to see the devastation that a Hermes Missile can wreak first-hand, having it either hit them directly or else hit the room next door. Luckily, Enter manages to dodge the third, and then the enemy missile launcher goes down; our Artillery Beam destroys their navigation controls, leaving them unable to dodge, and so we're able to keep it down with repeated laser blasts.

We pick up ⛯33, and some ammunition. Our Infirmary rather has to work overtime after the battle, but at least nobody died.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 43

Cave construction

. A method of construction via hollowing out an asteroid and building on the inside. If an asteroid of suitable size and composition is used, this avoids the need to create a structurally sound, airtight hull for a ship or building. Cave constructions vary in size from small shuttles to giant starbases.

Not all the Slugs are hostile towards visitors. We arrive at a large Slug base built on the inside of an asteroid; it has its own oxygen supply, and its own shipyard. Enter has a quick chat with the Slugs operating it, and it seems clear from the conversation that they're quite happy to sell us things for an appropriate fee.

(As usual, I'll post price lists in the players' PTs.)

[Varsoon]

We're a bit busted up. Another fight like that last one would probably kill us.
Full repairs would be ⛯56, though.

[Enter]

how good is an engine turbocharger

is it worth it

i can buy it with my own money but do we have power to support greater load?

[the worst]

I've sent my to PvtUrist so he can look at weapon upgrades buuuuut I need to let you all know that there is a drone system (with a defence drone) here for 85

[Varsoon]

Oooooh Drone System + Defense Drone shuts missiles down.
I've had my best luck with actually beating the game when I either got a cloaking system or drone system with defense drones.

[the worst]

Indeedilly when I saw it I was like :00000
PvtUrist the call is ur(i)s(t)

[Enter]

i can send 47 someone's direction if they need so wee can get better other things

i don't think engine is all that big deal

if we're getting upgrades to ssytems we should upgrade power as well tho, right?

[Varsoon]

I have 38 scrap to send to someone.

[PvtUrist]

single weapons upgrade is ⛯45, this'll get the Laser or Ion and the bomb up at the same time.

lvl 2 artilery costs ⛯30, lvl 3 costs another ⛯50 (⛯80 in total).

Am leaning drone system, so giving teh wus ⛯85 (have ⛯8 left). I'll need another ⛯37 to get the weapons upgrade, and we should be saving scraps for 2 more weapon upgrades.

[the worst]

hi hi
I bought it (thank you<3) and unlocked the options to buy a hull repair, anti intruder or beam drone

none of those feel worth atm

I'll sit at 0 for now.

[Varsoon]

I can send PvtUrist the scrap for weapons upgrades, or do we want generator to power the Drone System?