MaliA wrote:
lasermink wrote:
Just watch out for players doing pirating around those systems, if you play in open! And never, ever, take off without enough money to pay the buy back for your current ship.
Details, stories and anecdotes requested.
One of the first things I did was going to a system called Sorbago, where, according to the newsfeed, slaves working in the Empire's mines were rebelling. I had decided I wanted to play as a sort of imperial up-and-comer, so I was determined to help quell this rebellion. I had previously sold the free Eagle, but now I bought another one and having earned a bit of money doing exploration on the trip to Sorbago, I was able to get it fitted with decent weaponry and shields.
There were several conflict zones around the Sorbago system, some involving imperial capital ships, but the easiest ones tend to be the so called high intensity zones, where there is a variety of craft duking it out. Picking apart a Cobra or bigger takes a lot of time and ammo with an Eagle, so it was mainly a matter of trying to get to the Eagles and imperial fighters quickly, before they were taken out by NPCs or other players, who at this point all seemed to choose the same side as me, ie. the empire-supported mining company.
I had a couple of good sessions earning some nice bonds (3000 credits per kill) and going back to the station to cash them in. Then, at one point other players had turned up, and a few of them chose to defend the rebels. They all seemed to have very powerfully specced Cobras (backers at or above a certain tier get a Cobra at the beginning of the game). One of them went straight for me, and after a couple of seconds of having my shields torn apart, I turned around, afterburners screaming, just hell bent on getting the fuck out of there. My Eagle was upgraded, as I said, and pretty fast, and I put in some distance very quickly, but the FSD took an agonising time to spin up, and gimballed lasers were tearing at my hull as I frantically spiralled away from the war zone. I finally made it out of there at about 50% hull, and rushed back to the nearest station to repair and cash in my bonds (which you lose if you're blown up).
I wasn't about to go back to the same zone, and decided to have a look at one of the more remote zones involving a capital ship. I entered into the zone where smaller ships were already doing battle. A few moments later, the whole area suddenly seemed to crack apart and an absolutely gigantic and stunning looking ship materialised, warping space around it. Fortunately it was on my side.
However, a couple of enemy Anacondas immediately decided to target me, and just took away my shield in the blink of an eye. Again I was on the run, chunks of space ship all over the place as they picked me apart. My canopy was breached, and I found myself in the cold vacuum of space, making it out of the war zone with a mere 10% hull left. Fortunately I had fitted a good life support system and had 15 minutes of oxygen, which was plenty to make it back to the station, but on the other hand, since I had lost the central part of the canopy, the projected HUD would only show around the edge of my cockpit, which made it a bit trickier to navigate than usual.
It wouldn't have made much difference if I had been blown up, since I hadn't earned any bonds yet at this point. The rebuy cost of an Eagle is very low, although still somewhat more expensive than repairing. It just felt fantastic to make such a narrow escape, pulse hammering while limping into the space station on emergency life support. The broken canopy means all sound is muffled as the oxygen timer ticks down, until you make it inside the space station where there is life saving atmosphere. It really is a special feeling to arrive in this state.
At this point it looked as if I no longer had a chance in the conflict zones while flying an Eagle, so that's when I decided to do a rare goods run as described above, and I bought an Adder, fitted it appropriately and according to my budget, and made off for Lave.