THE FORMIDINE RIFT MYSTERY (Part 4)

[Zeeman]

Salome appeared in the HIP 19552 where she remained for some time before moving on to HIP 19411. By the time I had realised it really was her and she might be in trouble, got to my Asp and made the transit down, word must have gotten out. In HIP 19411 there where several members of CoR who I knew but also a lot of people I did not know. Know doubt Salome and CoR where thinking the same thing. She started to move and jump, but not so fast we could not follow, which made it seem a lot less like she was running and a lot more like she was leading. Apparently she has said some words, meant for CoR just before I arrived.

She led us to the HIP 21484 system and made for planet 3 where she dived for the surface and went silent.


CMDR Edelgard Von Rhein, CMDR Baroness Galaxy and I, near where the trail when dead.

http://i.imgur.com/th8s1Tr.jpg

So, stupid questions....

- Did she drop into orbital cruise and wake out into glide? (ie - did she leave a wake?).
-Did you guys drop into her wake?
-Did you get the co-ordinates?

If she's dropped out into glide, it means that we have about a 150km radius search area. that's pretty damn small, by the scale of what we've gone through to brute force settlement. Brute forcing a 300km diameter circle on a planet should be knocked over in an hour with enough people.

Z...

 

[Jaiotu]

Trivia regarding HIP 21484, also known as "La Superba".

HIP 21484 is the brightest carbon star visible from Earth. The Carbon in HIP 21484 is unusual in that it is mostly Carbon 13 atoms. Although it is more luminous than the Sun it is much cooler ... one of the coolest known "true stars".

I'm not in-game right now so can't check. Can someone confirm the in-game details regarding HIP 21484? It should be surrounded by a 2.5 light-year shell.

The star is in the constellation of Canes Venatici "The Hunting Dogs" which is also home of the largest known galactic void ... a region of extra-galactic space with an underdensity of other galaxies.

 

[Malcotch]

She led us on a merry chase to HIP 21484 3, there she dived for the planet and we lost her. She was leading us there for something.

It fits the story really well, Salomé on the run being hunted by Imperial forces and bounty hunters, getting help from commanders who believe in her cause. Its great that we're part of the unfolding story, with the search around the Formidine Rift and helping Salomé.

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Could the clue DB-IB f-i(0) T-I319 SUM(10,7,5,3) be related to coordinates on HIP 21484 3?

Slight error in the formula, there is no minus sign between the f and i, so it should be
DB-IB fi(0) T-I319 SUM(10,7,5,3)

I made this error when I first saw the trailer, due to the font they used which was confusing.

 

[Baton]

Yummy, full planetary surface search of HIP 21484 3 , let me start a spreadsheet

As for evaldo10 offer:

"100m to whoever keeps her alive and brings her to me.
That's 50 times the imp bounty."

a. She is not for sale and cannot be delivered
b. She is not a princess
c. 50x 500000cr is 25M not 100M
d. If you can show me the money (ideally the 200M in painite) than I will consider ignoring points a to c in case I come across Salome

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

So, stupid questions....

- Did she drop into orbital cruise and wake out into glide? (ie - did she leave a wake?).
-Did you guys drop into her wake?
-Did you get the co-ordinates?

If she's dropped out into glide, it means that we have about a 150km radius search area. that's pretty damn small, by the scale of what we've gone through to brute force settlement. Brute forcing a 300km diameter circle on a planet should be knocked over in an hour with enough people.

Z...

-Salome low-waked in the orbital cruise zone well above the altitude that you drop into glide.
-I dropped into her low wake. There was no sign of her or anyone else. She then went offline.
-I have approximate co-ordinates, as I forgot to note them down until I had returned to orbital cruise. They might be 2-3 degrees out but the screenshot was not far from them. There was no sign of anything interesting on the surface. I would not place any significance on the co-ordinates of her low-wake, personally, especially as she had not entered glide, but in case I'm wrong I'll keep my mouth shut (I have already passed this information on to the CoR, so perhaps ask there).

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Yummy, full planetary surface search of HIP 21484 3 , let me start a spreadsheet

As for evaldo10 offer:

"100m to whoever keeps her alive and brings her to me.
That's 50 times the imp bounty."

a. She is not for sale and cannot be delivered
b. She is not a princess
c. 50x 500000cr is 25M not 100M
d. If you can show me the money (ideally the 200M in painite) than I will consider ignoring points a to c in case I come across Salome

That sounds pretty much like BH talk to me! Suspicion level increased!!

- - - Updated - - -

-Salome low-waked in the orbital cruise zone well above the altitude that you drop into glide.
-I dropped into her low wake. There was no sign of her or anyone else. She then went offline.
-I have approximate co-ordinates, as I forgot to note them down until I had returned to orbital cruise. They might be 2-3 degrees out but the screenshot was not far from them. There was no sign of anything interesting on the surface. I would not place any significance on the co-ordinates of her low-wake, personally, especially as she had not entered glide, but in case I'm wrong I'll keep my mouth shut (I have already passed this information on to the CoR, so perhaps ask there).

I'm only firing on two cylinders this morning (dog woke me at 02:30, caffeine level still below critical ignition point) but:
If she dropped out of SC in the region above glide then she would only have thruster speed to move away/land. As I keep dropping out at too high speed for glide I know full well that it then takes a long time to get to the surface on thrusters, so she should have been on your scanner when you dropped. As she wasn't then she probably logged out of game rather than made it to the surface, hence it may not be worth a planetary search for anything significant.

But then again, it might...(edit: Jaiotu says above that HIP 21484 has a Carbon star, & Drew apparently said in a livestream that aliens prefer high energy stars, so that might be suggestive if Salome was trying to lead people there). Might have a look later when I get in-game (gardening first...), though I left my ship in Meene & don't know the distance. At present engineering my AspX & think I need to downgrade the PP/Distributor upgrades as its running a bit hot- got 5* overcharged & charge enhanced at present, but found the three burst lasers & two MC I'm carrying were fairly poor against a pirate Eagle so may just drop them, or go for a beam instead (wanted a reasonable jump range armed explorer ready to escape the alien invasion)

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Surely if I'm putting my name in Galnet as offering the reward I dont need to show you screenshots to prove I've got the cash? I'd be a laughing stock if I couldnt cough up the cash after going on galnet offering the money now wouldnt I...

I know shes not a used car, and not for sale, I'm trying to buy her, but merely trying to use some of my personal wealth to deter others from collecting the bounty placed on her head. I think that arranging a meeting with me and her is the ultimate proof of life, as it prevents an unscrupulous commander from taking a screenshot showing me her location immediately before blasting her out of the sky, to then go on and claim my reward, before handing in the bounty claim from the empire.

 

[Baton]

That sounds pretty much like BH talk to me! Suspicion level increased!!

C'mon, I'm just being realistic. I really want to see if Cmdr evaldo10 has the money he is offering, I never saw 200M in goods
I saw more in cash during (in)famous CG, when I made over 300M, but that was long time ago....

Anyways slowly heading towards Hop 21484, see if there is anything important on it, and please don't panic, my ship is armed in one mining laser, so I cannot be danger to anyone out there, never understood explorers armed to their teeth's, if some military/pirate/alien ship will attack you, you stand no chance anyway with no armour and proper shields, so what is the point

 

[Assimilator1]

Jorki

Jaiotu mentioned that this carbon star was 1 of the coolest known true stars, that could mean it's a lower energy star, unless more of the energy is converted to light/radiation than heat compared to an average star......

Yea an overcharged 5A PP does sound like overkill, my armed Asp (2x beams, 2 MCs, 5D modded shld, 1 booster) has an overcharged 4A PP & an engine focused 4D PD.

 

[Baton]

Surely if I'm putting my name in Galnet as offering the reward I dont need to show you screenshots to prove I've got the cash? I'd be a laughing stock if I couldnt cough up the cash after going on galnet offering the money now wouldnt I...

I'm just jealous because I offered 3 mil for information about here, so your offer puts me in bad light

My question is about the painite that was offered at some point (not sure now who actually offered it, it is bit confusing), I would like to see somebody that has that much, is not about credits on anyone account, I know 200M is peanuts... But 10 full cutters of painite, that would very seriously impress me

 

[Assimilator1]

C'mon, I'm just being realistic. I really want to see if Cmdr evaldo10 has the money he is offering, I never saw 200M in goods
I saw more in cash during (in)famous CG, when I made over 300M, but that was long time ago....

Anyways slowly heading towards Hop 21484, see if there is anything important on it, and please don't panic, my ship is armed in one mining laser, so I cannot be danger to anyone out there, never understood explorers armed to their teeth's, if some military/pirate/alien ship will attack you, you stand no chance anyway with no armour and proper shields, so what is the point

It makes perfect sense Baton, the weapons aren't to fight big shipped cmdrs, or similar shipped NPCs for that matter, even an iron as*ed Asp wouldn't stand a chance against them (dumb NPCs excluded ), they're to fight off the smaller to medium ships, & the reasonable shlds & defensive equipment will buy you time to escape from the bigger ships with at least less damage.

 

[Eisen]

I was there, CoR folks interdicted me as if they ruled the system asking for my intentions. Can an independent CMDR not be left alone to chase shadows like the big boys do as well? Tsk

No, unfortunately not. We already know that Salomé is mortal ingame. Meaning: if she dies she is gone. Done with. End of story. Surely you will understand that we don't want that to happen to our leader
You don't have "independent-pilot-meaning-no-harm-to-her" written all over your hull, do you?

 

[Jaiotu]

No, unfortunately not. We already know that Salomé is mortal ingame. Meaning: if she dies she is gone. Done with. End of story. Surely you will understand that we don't want that to happen to our leader
You don't have "independent-pilot-meaning-no-harm-to-her" written all over your hull, do you?

So ... Salomé is playing in Iron Man mode? Hats off to that.

Can't blame CoR for being cautious under those circumstances.

EDIT: I can imagine players from certain groups that would love to have their name written into Premonition as the CMDR who killed Kahina Loren.

 

[Baton]

It makes perfect sense Baton, the weapons aren't to fight big shipped cmdrs, or similar shipped NPCs for that matter, even an iron as*ed Asp wouldn't stand a chance against them (dumb NPCs excluded ), they're to fight off the smaller to medium ships, & the reasonable shlds & defensive equipment will buy you time to escape from the bigger ships with at least less damage.

You see, you saying it yourself, you don't fight anyone in exploration ship, you escape Having lasers onboard will not help you escape in any way I can see, it only makes your fellow explorers nervous when you meet them in space far from the bubble.
I'm elite, I am being attacked by similar size ships with similar rank, and I tell you I never try to fight, because Elite Diamondback Explorer would be very possibly my doom when I fly exploration ship.
So chaff, heatsinks - of course, weapons? no

 

[Assimilator1]

You see, you saying it yourself, you don't fight anyone in exploration ship, you escape Having lasers onboard will not help you escape in any way I can see, it only makes your fellow explorers nervous when you meet them in space far from the bubble.
I'm elite, I am being attacked by similar size ships with similar rank, and I tell you I never try to fight, because Elite Diamondback Explorer would be very possibly my doom when I fly exploration ship.
So chaff, heatsinks - of course, weapons? no

Nope, I didn't say I wouldn't fight anyone, you mis-read me , I said I wouldn't fight the bigger ships.
So far in my Asp explorer I have only fought the odd small/medium sized NPC ship, the only 1 I recall is a Viper who interdicted me, I was easily beating him until both my beams started malfunctioning! (wth is that about??), that was before I had MCs too!

That reminds me, does anyone know if lasers started taking damage from over-heating in an update in recent times?
My lasers seem to regularly malfunction these days, they never used to!

 

[Baton]

Nope, I didn't say I wouldn't fight anyone, you mis-read me , I said I wouldn't fight the bigger ships.
So far in my Asp explorer I have only fought the odd small/medium sized NPC ship

All depends on your combat rank, because you are normally attacked by similar size and rank ships, I agree, that NPC with low rank can be easily destroyed, but deadly or elite usualy packing chaff and shield cell banks this is completely different story Anyways we are going offtopic here, I do not really mind how anyone equips their ships, so I will leave it here. The only thing I can repeat, when I meet someone I don't know in space, I feel much safer if he is not fully armed - it does raise suspicions about his intentions

 

[Saool]

If she dropped out of SC in the region above glide then she would only have thruster speed to move away/land. As I keep dropping out at too high speed for glide I know full well that it then takes a long time to get to the surface on thrusters, so she should have been on your scanner when you dropped. As she wasn't then she probably logged out of game rather than made it to the surface, hence it may not be worth a planetary search for anything significant.)

At this point I am not really sure what to make of it.

Part of me agrees, and thinks this was an arbitrary location. And there is nothing special there to find.

Part of me thinks, why go through the whole Benny Hill thing of leading a dozen or so Commanders through a dozen or so jumps to then stop at that location?

If the intent was to deliver a message to the CoR (which was apparently done, and I can fully understand why that would want to be in open, EG precisely so as not to garner the sorts of criticism and accusations of favouritism we saw some pages back), then why did she not go silent as soon as that message was delivered? When 3rd parties (I guess that includes me, but I would hope my friendship to CoR is a known thing by now, given I have sat, in open, not 200m from Salome before in HR 6421), started arriving, who intentions were unclear, I can understand the idea of get out of there, but then why take so long to go silent? She had ample opportunity in super-cruise, again and again. As I said before, she acted like she wanted people to follow. Sometimes she jumped rapidly, others she would cruise for several thousand light seconds before jumping, almost like she was giving people enough time to catch up.

I guess the missing info is what she said to CoR. That is for them, although to be fair they did say they would post in on there forum. The problem is I can't remember my password on there new forum and there appears to be no way to reset it, which I assume is part of there security as they are not accepting new members till may. No surprises why.

EDIT: I can imagine players from certain groups that would love to have their name written into Premonition as the CMDR who killed Kahina Loren.

But remember Drew is under no obligation to write them, or anyone else into his story. If he chooses to do so, that is up to him. Primeraly he is going to want to write a good story that people enjoy. That probably will not include "Then, out of the black Commander xXxRoXxOrDeStUcToRxXx arrived and blew Solome away mid-sentance before declaring in local "Lol RPf*$s!" and jumping out again.

 

[BluWolve]

I'm not too far away from HIP 21484, just so happened to be at Palins putting some dirty drives on my Clipper - the "Phoenix of the Storm". FNS Perseus is still perched right above his base, bit hairy coming in for landing :/ I dont have a surface scanner or SRV on this ship as its my combat vessel, so im not sure if I will be much use out at HIP 21484 for recon at the moment. However, if there are hostiles in the area I can run escort duty for any exploration vessels that need it I guess.

I am on Xbox though, and I know CMDR Salomé is a PC commander so it is impossible for me to help search for her unfortunately. It may be possible there is something else to find, or nothing, but in that case I would rather have my exploration ship.

Anyway, for now I need a spell. I will camp up here at Palins for the night, definitely sleeping with one eye open with this Farragut and its escorts hanging around!

 

[Eisen]

At this point I am not really sure what to make of it.
(...)
I guess the missing info is what she said to CoR. That is for them, although to be fair they did say they would post in on there forum. The problem is I can't remember my password on there new forum and there appears to be no way to reset it, which I assume is part of there security as they are not accepting new members till may. No surprises why.
(...)
But remember Drew is under no obligation to write them, or anyone else into his story. If he chooses to do so, that is up to him. Primeraly he is going to want to write a good story that people enjoy. That probably will not include "Then, out of the black Commander xXXrOxOrDeStUcToRxXx arrived and blew Solome away mid-sentance before declaring in local "Lol RPf*$s!" and jumping out again.

There was no real message, Salomé chatted with some of our pilots reassuring them that our preparations were appreciated and seemingly very effective. We also think that on one hand she just wanted to show herself and on the other hand point us into a certain direction. So far nothing has been found in the system yet.
Regarding the *bad name redacted by me* who might kill Salome during the event: He'll /She'll surely make it into the book as far as I know. That's why we are so over-careful.