*** UNKNOWN ENCOUNTER REPORT ***
Unknown vessel exactly fitting description of other reports encountered twice earlier today in vicinity of Aries Dark Region-Pleiades Sector boundary, by Cmdr William Diffin commanding independent light cruiser
Pourquoi pas? Ship loadout included Corrosion-Resistant Cargo Rack containing 2t Unknown Artefacts, Manifest Scanner and Frame Shift Wake Scanner.
First encounter was on 3303.I.15 at 1532.52UTC, when the
Pourquoi pas? was hyperdicted en route from Aries Dark Region GW-W d1-40 to Aries Dark Region GW-W d1-42, by Unknown vessel following established reported pattern of disabling target ship's systems whilst apparently carrying out scans, although of course no 'SHIP SCAN DETECTED' alert was observed due to ship's systems being temporarily disabled.
Bottom view of Unknown vessel, note pink filamentation, apparently some sort of exhaust product:
Side view of Unknown vessel, exhaust is better seen in this view, note how the background is distorted behind the exhaust, probably indicating the presence of hot gases:
Top view of Unknown vessel:
Top view of Unknown vessel, prior to scan, note the more open configuration of the vessel than in the previous image; prior to the scan the vessel is seen to unwind and open up considerably:
Unknown vessel during scan, note whip-like luminous yellow filamentation:
Unknown vessel side view whilst leaving at speed, note the different rear fin vertical configuration to the previous side view, and the slightly helical structures in this more detailed view of the luminous pink exhaust filamentation:
Upon regaining control of my ship the Unknown vessel left the scene following the pattern reported in other similar encounters. Attempted to attract her attention by jettisoning 2t of Unknown Artefacts, but she entirely ignored the gesture and frame-shifted out of the scene as per the usual reported pattern. Frame Shift Scanning the wake yielded 'UNKNOWN WAKE DATA' data component and revealed an 'UNIDENTIFIABLE WAKE':
Attempting to engage the FSD in order to pursue the Unknown vessel yielded a 'FRAME SHIFT CANCELLED: MALFUNCTIONING' error message. Plainly Frame Shift Wake Scanners are useless for following the Unknown vessel into hyperspace:
Second encounter with identical Unknown vessel occurred less than 20 minutes later at 1548.32UTC, when the
Pourquoi pas? was again hyperdicted en route from Pleiades Sector HR-W d1-33 to Pleiades Sector XB-O b6-3. (This time I was only carrying one Unknown Artefact, having ejected both the UAs I had been carrying during the previous encounter, one of them had died before I could retrieve it and became merely an Unknown Fragment.) The second encounter followed an identical pattern to the first. However this time, after being scanned and upon regaining control of my ship, instead of jettisoning my UAs I attempted to scan the Unknown vessel in return using a Class A Manifest Scanner. The basic scan was successful, and yielded an 'UNKNOWN SHIP SIGNATURE' data component:
But whilst the Manifest scan completed successfully, the Unknown ship frame-shifted from the scene before I was able to analyse the Inventory tab on my ship's Navigation panel. The ship literally entered hyperspace as I tapped the <Page Down> key four times to get to the Inventory tab. Having recorded video of the entire encounter, I was able to pull out an image of the Sub-Targets panel which was up in the fraction of a second between my third tap of the <Page Down> key and the Unknown ship entering hyperspace. If I had tapped <Page Up> twice instead of <Page Down> four times, I would certainly have captured something of the Unknown ship's inventory as well if it was available:
Interestingly, the Unknown ship appears to be armed with only a single weapon, classed by my ship's computer as a Pulse Laser. Personally I suspect that whatever weapon this 'Pulse Laser' represents may be far more devastating than that.
Unusually the ship also has all of
four Drive units, quite unlike any standard known ship up to the light cruiser class.
The Power Plant and FSD were obviously present in the Unknown ship without needing a scan to reveal them,
but the presence of Life Support clearly indicates that the Unknown ship must certainly be manned by an organic crew, and is not an automated drone.
The Unknown ship also has a Power Distribution unit and is shielded.
The final item on the panel is un-named. My ship's computer has not even designated it something like: 'Unknown Component'. It is simply blank. The scroll bar at the right of the panel apparently indicates perhaps another three or four components to the Unknown vessel below the un-named component. What these might be is as yet a complete mystery.
Finally, it may be noteworthy that every single visible component on the Unknown ship is powered up. Unless the invisible components that have yet to be scrolled down to are powered down, it would appear that the Unknown ship's power plant is powerful enough to preclude any requirement for power management.
*** END OF REPORT ***
As I do not myself expect to be so soon presented with another opportunity to gather further scan data from an Unknown vessel, if it pleases Commanders to follow my recommendations, I suggest that any Commanders being hyperdicted by Unknowns should attempt to obtain a Manifest scan of the vessel, with screenshots of the full list of Unknown ship Sub-Targets, and/or an Inventory of the Unknown's cargo. Speaking from experience there is not much time to do either between regaining ship power after the Unknown's scan and the Unknown entering hyperspace, so it is best to only attempt one or the other. You must scan, <F1> Navigation Panel, <Page Up> once to Inventory and scroll down, or twice to Sub-Targets and scroll down. You probably will not have time to do both, nor to take screenshots. So use video capture to be sure to record all the information. Some external views would also be helpful for ship size comparison. Good luck Commanders o7