My vision for a multiplayer PvE mission type (6000 words, better put the kettle on, hope some will enjoy the read)
My sincere apologies in advance for the length of this post, I enjoy creative writing, I enjoy multiplayer games and I enjoy a challenge. More than all of that, I enjoy Elite, as it is now, whether or not my personal vision for PvE content is ever realised.
If you like a bit of light fan fiction you'll probably enjoy the short (comparatively) narratives that frame the body of this post, a design for a multiplayer encounter. That part of the post (the actual encounter as described in game mechanics) is necessarily long. The narrative is just fluff, so can be skipped if you need to get back to your life.
Deciat Deceit
I landed at Galileo, something was up. System Authority ships were flitting about all over the place, less civilian traffic than usual.
I docked safely and interfaced with the station bulletin board. I had no plans to leave the cockpit of my Assault Ship. Damn I love this ship, I could live in it forever. As the Galnet interface resolved, I saw something I had never seen before. An unusual entry on the mission board; "5 allies with the mercenary navy rank of midshipman and higher are invited to a special briefing". There was a single slot left in the briefing. “So I will be leaving the cockpit today after all”, I thought to myself. “Let's go see what's cookin’”.
I headed down to the briefing, no idea what to expect. As I approached the briefing room, junior staffers were hurriedly traversing the corridors with folders and documents in their hands and under their arms. I turned into the briefing room and couldn't help cracking a smile. It was like a war room scene from a movie. A huge round table, with a system map illuminated on it. I could tell straight away it was Deciat. On the left side of the table, 4 of 7 seats filled, all pilots; the smell of scorched titanium hung in the air. I recognised two of them straight away, the other two I didn't know. One was Danno, a League of Thrigpa merc I'd worked with in the past, good guy, reliable, but what was he doing here? The Deciat connection was becoming more tangible, I wondered if this has something to do with Farseer Inc... The two I didn't recognise were obviously with Danno. The other familiar face was Ana.
As I walked in, she turned. Elite combat veterans aren't known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves, but as she looked at me, steely eyed, obviously trying to hide all emotion, I caught the slightest glint in her eye. Did she let it slip on purpose? Was it a sub-conscious reaction she couldn't control? What matters is that she was pleased to see me. I relaxed immediately, I felt I was in the company of at least a few friends, one great friend; people I knew and who knew me. Ana is looking good, seems like she hasn't aged a day in the 5 years since I last saw her. I gave her a nod and sat down, respectfully leaving a seat unoccupied between us, an ice-breaker would have to wait ‘til later.
On the other side, 3 of the 7 seats were occupied by anonymous looking suits. At the head was Paul McHenry, a 50 year old balding bureaucrat and the Special Operations Logistics officer for Galileo. Up to now he had been a nobody working from an office on the moon, a cushy life, after all, what Special Operations were needed in the seat of the Federation, that weren't handled by the military? He was revelling in his newfound importance, it was plainly obvious.
"The 5 of you? That's what I got?" said McHenry, feigning disappointment to raise his apparent authority. He didn't know us or what we were capable of, it was part of the game to him.
Ana was the first to speak... "Why don't you tell us what in Thargon is going on and we'll tell you if we think we aren't 'capable'?" she stared at him and folded her arms, a look of patent disdain on her face.
McHenry reddened. He wasn't at all used to dealing with people like us, his was a world of politics and boot-licking; others licking his, naturally. He adjusted his suit and stood as tall as he could...
"Yes, well, we have a situation here, this is to be a covert operation, sign these..." he handed out pads displaying the same multi-page legal text, a classic Fed NDA; Do not share any details or aspect of this mission under pain of death, blah blah. I once again wondered if there was any crime left in this galaxy that wasn't punishable by death...
The last of the NDAs was handed back. One of the Thrigpa mercs had signed it 'Felicity Farseer' and was grinning broadly. Could have been a joke, or it could be he was testing McHenry. McHenry spotted it straight away...
"Very funny" he said in a dead pan tone. "Interesting choice under the circumstances.", he deleted the signature and handed the pad back. "Right, now that's out of the way, I have some bad news to share. Almost 24 hours ago, Farseer Inc was attacked by an independent crew, well organised, well-armed and well prepared. They launched a low orbit assault on the station defences, then assaulted the base itself, there were a few casualties, but more importantly, when the dust had cleared, Felicity Farseer stated that project data she had been working on had not only been stolen, but also deleted. The data was totally unrecoverable, scrambled using a method we've not seen before.
"So you want that data back. What was the project all about?" I asked. I didn't know what answer to expect, how much they were willing to share, so when the entirely frank answer came back, my feelings of relaxation made way for growing concern.
"The Thargoids" said McHenry, bluntly. "Farseer Inc has made some progress protecting certain modules from the radiation the Thargoids emit which shuts down ship systems. Specifically, we were about to begin construction of prototype main drives and FSDs that would, it is hoped, be largely unaffected by Thargoid radiation, at least giving our pilots the opportunity to escape, should Thargoid activity turn more innately hostile in the future."
"Wow" said Danno, probably the hairiest commander I've ever met, you know the type, the beard rides all the way up the cheekbones. "Whose screw up was that?” The suits were shifting in their seats uncomfortably. One of them stood up...
"The secrecy of the research was paramount, we felt that increased security would simply draw attention. It's clear we have an intelligence leak. We have not yet uncovered the source". He sat down again.
"Cos reverse psychology never backfired before, right?" Ana was impatient. "So what do you want from us? Retrieve the data, kill the perp? Or something more subtle, cos Ash here doesn't do subtle very well."
I shot her a glance, but I wasn't bothered, I have never tried to be subtle. "Let’s hear it." I agreed.
McHenry continued... "This operation is initially an intelligence gathering exercise, but you are expected also to action any usable intelligence yourselves, provided it leads to the return of the data. Here is the brief, this is an outline, and you are free to adjust strategy on the fly, as long as the goal is accomplished. There is also a bonus objective which will be communicated duly."
Another one of the suits stood up and handed a pad to me and each of the other pilots. "Operation Prometheus", I guess they find it fitting to name an operation where critical data has been stolen after the ancient myth of the demigod who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man, a story that ended well enough for gods and man, not so much for Prometheus. Fitting indeed.
The brief was, well, brief.
It described how the wakes of the attacking ships as they left Deciat had been analysed by Farseer Inc, as well as scans of the vessels and their equipment. It read more like a memo:
…None of the ships were equipped with a fuel scoop or more than a D class FSD and no optional fuel tanks either. This suggests that their final destination is somewhere within 25-30ly. It's possible they could be refuelling and rearming at a station, so we need to move quickly. Their destination from Deciat was Xinca, we think they have allies there, but doubt they would have been foolish enough to allow us to read their final destination from their wakes, so we assume they jumped to another independent or anarchy system, within 10ly at the most of Xinca. This leaves our most likely candidate the system of Djiwal, but this is guesswork at best. We'll need to explore systems around Xinca for clues as to the final destination of the attackers. We strongly suspect that they have set up their base of operations somewhere in this local area of the galaxy, around Deciat…
/PAUSE NARRATIVE
Description of game mechanics for the mission...
It is NOT required to have a wing of 5 people, you may choose to solo this mission if you wish, though it is expected to be near impossible, if not totally impossible to solo, at least under the current implementation of the game. As weapons inevitably get more powerful, ships get more powerful and humans get more skilled, there may come a time in the future when this content is solo-able by an average player, but until then, figure on needing AT LEAST three players of a decent pve combat skill level.
Right, so at this point, 2 to 5 players in game have formed a wing and gone to Galileo station. When the wing leader has read the brief, he accepts the mission and a pop up appears on wingmen consoles to accept the mission or not. If all players accept, the mission begins in earnest.
Part 1. Intelligence gathering
It's up to the players how they approach part 1, they have been told something happened in Deciat, that the perps fled to Xinca and from there, who knows, but it can't be more than a few LY away, based on fuel carried, and it's unlikely to be a Fed system (durrr), which narrows it down considerably. You can split up resources how you want, but it is assumed that 1 player will be tasked with heading to Deciat to investigate there. One to three players will go to Xinca (because you're going to have to systematically land at each station and installation to look for clues), and one player can go look in Djiwal (it's the obvious first choice, it was mentioned in the briefing, it's independent, close to Xinca, etc.)
PDK (Players Don't Know) the perps are not in Djiwal, BUT, a thorough search of Djiwal will reveal an extra clue, not needed to complete the mission, but will be part of the bonus objective (more on that in a minute). Alternatively the fifth player could tag along in Xinca or Deciat, as the bonus objective is not mission critical and whoever went to Deciat will be facing combat, for sure. In all of these areas, there will be related wings of perps, who will try to interdict only players who have accepted this mission, on the premise that there is an intelligence leak and they now know that you are looking for clues. The comms will be "We know who you are and what you're doing here. This will serve as a lesson to those who would come in your stead. Any last requests?". This will make it tricky to divide the wing to the different tasks, particularly if you want the bonus objective. If you don't care about the bonus objective, you could send two to Deciat and three to Xinca, where both small wings should be able to defend themselves. Basically, you've got three destinations requiring minimum 2 players in each (ideally 3 in Xinca) and only 5 pilots, so someone is going to have to go through some hardship if you want the bonus. You could always send a really fast ship to avoid combat, but where's the fun in that?
In Deciat, Felicity Farseer will have some information for players, but only if you've unlocked her. If nobody on the wing has unlocked her yet, you'll have to now (send someone to Darnielle's Progress), or abandon the mission. Anyway, she will provide a detail that will send you to another surface installation in the Deciat system to speak with a colleague of hers who is a wake specialist and has been able to deduce the whole jump route they plotted based on the wake that was left in Deciat. He will present three possibilities for a final destination system.
In Xinca, players will begin systematically landing at every installation in the system, looking for mission related entries on the job board. The entry that is important will only be visible to players on this mission, and will be subtly different from a normal mission message. Three different stations in Xinca will have such a message, and all will require payment for the info. Once players have found all three ‘clues’, they'll end up with three locations from a fairly trusted source (Farseer’s colleague) but no certainty which is right, and three locations from untrusted sources. Each of the untrusted messages from Xinca will also reveal details about the enemy, such as the leader's name, his gang, his defences, etc. Comparing this info with that gained from Farseer's friend in Deciat will allow the players to divine where the next clue is (only one system will be common to all 4 pieces of information, but all will contain some useful intelligence).
In Djiwal (bonus objective), player(s) will find a similar 'special mission' on one of the bulletin boards, in which, for a fee, the player will be told about a conversation overheard in a bar about how the gang planned to protect themselves once they had the data in-hand. The plan is to hide an advance force that could either intercept attackers in-system, or drop in behind the attackers, outflanking them during the battle at the hideout, but the source doesn’t know where that is, only the method by which they plan to defend it. If you do not now go and take out that force, they will indeed join in the boss fight at a very inappropriate moment.
Part 2. Reach the boss.
If you have the bonus information about the enemy 'advance force', you will have the option to either go and take out this fleet at its location (you’ll have the system name from the first clues, and which body they are assembling at (i.e. third rock from the sun) from the Djiwal source), thereby accomplishing the bonus objective, then move on to the main objective.
Once the information is gained though, the bonus objective is turned ON, and you must either deal with them, or the consequences of not doing so, which is the ‘hard mode’ of the encounter. If you just want normal mode, no bonus, do not send any players to Djiwal. In more simple terms, it works like this, three possible scenarios...
1) Normal mode, nobody went to Djiwal, nobody got the extra clue, the 'extra fleet' is never spawned and the final encounter at the hideout remains unchanged, no ships come from behind, just a straight fight (but still a good fight). No bonus objective.
2) Normal mode plus bonus, this is the simple version of the bonus objective. Players got the extra clue, and went to take out the advance force at their rallying point, then carry on to the objective. Bonus achieved by destruction of advance force, easy boss fight cos no adds.
3) Hard mode. Bonus objective was picked up, but players do NOT go and take out the advance force, they go straight to the final objective and start the fight. 5 minutes after the encounter starts, the hidden force will join the battle. The goal will be to burst down as many ships as you can before the extra ships join the fight. This will be proper hard. Hence hard mode with bonus (assuming you win).
Right. So, the clues have revealed that the perps are a new anarchic gang called the Cloud Niners (or whatever you want), it turns out they were formed by a Federal ex-intelligence officer called Berk Hunstead. This is the source of the leak. He still had backdoor access to some of the Fed systems due to shoddy segregation of duties procedures, this also explains how his wings of combat monkeys knew who we were and where we were.
Anyway, he was a real James Bond, a career operative, womaniser and Elite combat pilot, until one day, after an unfortunate incident with the Imperial Ambassador's daughter, he got busted down to convoy duty temporarily. While on convoy duty, his ship was sabotaged prior to leaving on escort duty for a convoy carrying 200t of Palladium. When the convoy was interdicted, his weapons fused and he was unable to defend his cargo. Instead of die needlessly, he left the convoy to its fate. For leaving the battle, he was stripped of rank in a public act of scapegoating, then they sent the assassins. He killed the assassins and went into hiding, this is the first we've heard of him since those events a year ago.
So, let's assume normal mode for this shall we, for the sake of simplicity?
Players find out the location of the hideout, it’s an old dilapidated Coriolis station that has suddenly appeared in some independent system near Xinca, don't worry Fdev, no need to update the system maps, it won't be there for long!!
Players supercruise in system to the 10,000ls distant station, giving the chance for a couple of npc wings to interdict and comm "You'll never reach the baws, I'm gonna make sure of it!". It will be wise for the whole wing to stop at a regular station in the system before starting the encounter, as that is where they will rebuy if they are killed during the boss battle, giving them a small hope of being able to rebuy and rejoin the battle before it's over. The location for the encounter will be carefully selected to give a reasonable distance from rebuy for this reason (not too easy to rejoin the fight, but not too hard either, a death should cost significant dps loss).
Eventually we arrive at the hideout. The boss comms: "Hello boys and girls, I've been expecting you! Come to join the party? I'm afraid entry is chargeable, it'll cost you...your life! Go get 'em boys, first one with a confirmed kill gets a free night with Charlotte the Harlot!"
At the start of the encounter there is a fleet of enemy ships outside the mailslot, in formation, expecting us.
Part 3 - Encounter at the mailslot and boss battle
The ships are standard NPC ships with pilots of varying skill, but no Elites (there will be a lot more of them than us). The station is heavily armed with special weapons. Actually, there's nothing special about them, they are just Huge Beam lasers which have been hugely overcharged to achieve 6km range with damage dropoff at 5km, so there’s no getting into significant firing range of the enemy ships without disabling the defences first.
There is one of these beams turreted on each of the front and rear corners of the station, they have almost total coverage of space around the station, except the mailslot and the equivalent position of the mailslot on the backside of the station (the only real blind spot).
The first issue facing the players is how to pull the enemy group without aggroing the station. This is a special task for one or maybe two players depending on skill and firepower. One of the bulletin board messages in Xinca reveals that the station's defences can be taken out by a player approaching from the rear under silent running. The player approaches the rear of the station and sits in the blind spot. Once there, they don't need to worry about stealth anymore, they are outside the aggro range of the main body of enemies and the station lasers can't 'see' them. Using great flying and shooting skill, this player will be able to target and hit subsytems of the station called 'Weapons Relay'. There will be 6 arranged around the area of the blind spot. The player will have an appropriately nerve-rackingly short period of time to destroy them all from the point that the first is destroyed. If they fail to destroy all 6 in the given time, they will aggro the enemy ships at the mailslot and have an even more nerve racking time trying to do it again before the enemy fleet gets around the station to the back (if this is likely, send two players to accomplish this). As soon as all 6 relays are down, the station defences are down (for exactly 10 minutes, wing leader should start a timer, this is important as it is the enrage mechanic for the boss fight) and the rest of the wing can then engage the enemy fleet. The tanks (probably two very durable ships) go and pull the NPCs, the dps stand back and pick targets and the stealth ship which took out the station defences also rejoins and does whatever dps they can.
At this point, the NPCs will play with their totally default AI battle behaviour, they'll just focus on killing their current target as quick as poss, so the overwhelming odds should be fairly easy to game, once the right ships have aggroed the right NPC ships, this will not be a difficult encounter particularly for a well coordinated group, but players will need to stay frosty and protect each other's backs. When all the enemy ships are destroyed, the encounter enters the next stage. The boss fight. The boss comes out in his modified Anaconda/Corvette/Clipper, whatever, and says something like "I wondered if I'd have to do this myself, you're a lot better than I expected, but you aren't ready for what I'm packin'!"
Again dps ships should back off out of range and joust and snipe, while the two tanks engage. During this encounter, the boss has weak-ish weapons due to the power required for his shield, which is, unfortunately, insane (about 100k, as it is getting a wireless power tether from the station reactor). The boss also has a special ability called overcharge, it takes 20 seconds to charge and 20 seconds to cooldown. So the first overcharge takes place 20 seconds into the boss fight, the second at 1 minute and the third at 1:40. Overcharge emits an energy burst from the boss ship, which has a push effect, sending you spinning off course and taking shields down to 1% always, no more, no less. UNLESS you have NO shields at the time, in which case it will take 35% off your hull (smaller ships need to be ready for this and be out of range of boss weapons when overcharge goes off, as well as careful to avoid any other player ships that are also spinning out of control with very low shields). Overcharge has a 4km range, and CAN be 'line of sighted' as well, so will be easy to outrange if people have the DPS comfort and awareness to do so. So basically, if you have 'some' shields, you don't really need to stop DPS when overcharge goes off, but if you have none, you're going to have a problem). Don't stand in the fire kids!
Group composition can be anything you want, but the stock setup will be two tanks, two dps and a stealth for the blind spot. Tanks need to be hull tanky for this encounter due to overcharge, and there will be many options how you handle the mechanic. For example, you might have the tanks LoS the overcharge as well, IF you have the DPS, because the time taken to get back in position, etc, may cause too much dps loss, or have one tank eat the overcharge then go under the station to regen some shield, while the other tank hull tanks, taking it in turns to ensure that at least one tank has some shield when overcharge goes off.
You will have as long as it takes between the boss coming out and the station defences coming back online to defeat the boss, collect the stolen data packet his 'corpse' will leave and blow up the station.
Blowing up the station will consist of as many players as the group feels are needed, to get inside the mailslot, into the station, fly to the power plant and dps it down before defences come back up. Once the power plant reaches zero (it will have quite some HP), the group has 20 seconds to all get out through the mailslot before the station blows up (imagine that if 4 players brought their Anacondas lol).
The power plant can be damaged at any time during the encounter, but cannot be fully destroyed until the boss is dead, so it may be a viable tactic for a very high dps group to send the stealth ship into the station during the battle to get started on the power plant.
Hard mode plays out the same, except the aforementioned extra wing of ships jumping in after 3 minutes of battle (ouch), and a shorter enrage timer. Obviously timers and all that may need adjustment, this is just an example of the KIND of encounter I'd like to see coming up occasionally.
Enrage is obviously when the station defences come online, and just in case that isn't enough to kill all players, the boss, if still alive, will start overcharging once every 5 seconds with 1000% increased range.
/RESUME NARRATION - This is how the battle played out...
Once we located the Cloud Niners base, we dropped in, the intelligence gained was invaluable, we knew that we could take out the station's defences with a stealth ship from the rear. I decided to take care of that myself so I’d stopped at Garay to pick up my DBX. After the others dropped in at the front of the station, I cruised around and dropped in at the back. Silent running, engines off, FA off, drift baby, drift, right into that blind spot...there! Right, there!
Time to target the relays, where are they... I lined up the railguns and a wave of panic overtook me. They wouldn't converge! The target was too small. I knew I should have brought something with gimbals. Damn, I'll need twice as many shots. Oh well, let's get to it. Fffizzz, ffizz, ffizz, 5 shots the first one was down. Ship is getting warm, I'll have to drop a heatsink soon. I popped the second relay, 90% heat, I've only got two heatsinks and I'd prefer to keep them for battle. Use one now or wait…? How'm I for time... Wait for it...70% heat, 60%, ok, next...where's the fourth...got it! There's the fifth. 80% heat 25 seconds to go, gotta risk it and save those heatsinks. ffizz, 104% heat, one more shot...ffizz 115% <Warning, taking heat damage> yeh, I know, I KNOW!! Last one's down! Time to signal the attack. "Ana, we are go, GO!"
The Thrigpa guys had turned up in a pair of Vultures and a Python. Not really the best for what we're facing, lots of smaller ships. We'd have to make it work. Ana was in her gunship which was prepped for hull tanking, I wish I could have brought my Assault Ship, would have made all the difference, but we needed Ana to tank and I didn't trust Danno's boys to get the relays done in time. It'll be alright, Ana and the python can keep the main body of the enemy busy while the rest of us lay down some hurt.
I checked the railgun ammo, 1/3rd gone. No worries, it'll be enough. I had crept up the station and over the top, half my systems shut down, still nobody had seen me. I needed a quick kill to reduce their numbers, so I powered up everything, picked out a Viper on the fringe of the melee and opened up with the railguns from range, took his shields down to 50% with the first hit from 3.5km. Ha! The practice on those relays really got me in the mood! Another hit, 10% shields. Just then, one of the Thrigpa vultures swung round and beamed the living hell out of my target, 60% hull, thanks! I lined up another rail shot but missed. Time to get into the action.
As I charged in I felt like the cavalry cresting the hill as I came over the top of the station, large beam blazing. My chosen viper got the worst of it, he was on 15% hull as we passed, my point blank rail blast split his ship in two. Who’s next? Ana had three Vultures on her gunship, she wasn't in too much trouble, but I felt she could use a hand, so I engaged one of them. He took the bait, saw my DBX as an easy kill, I dragged him away from Ana while popping chaff. Ship was cool as a cucumber now, time to play a little game with this fool. I hit silent running set throttle to zero and turned flight assist off; "follow my trail now if you can...", I made sure I kept maneuvering under his ship, under his line of sight, but heat was starting to be a problem again, time for that first heat sink, it's worth it for this kill. I was waiting for him to throttle up, my heat was still building. All this time my DBX was missing from the battle. Come on, give up!! At last, he set throttle to full and headed back toward the station. "ha, now you're mine, traitor scum", I pulled in 1k behind him, powered, and opened up with the beam, his shields were down before he knew what was happening, he started to turn, a fatal mistake...as soon as he turned to face me I boosted past him, FA off, throttle zero, spun it around and caught him right in my railgun crosshairs. "Git guder, noob!” I mouthed to myself as his explosion decorated my cockpit in tones of red and orange. Only half my railgun ammo left now though and the fight barely half done.
I looked over at the Python, his shields were still up and he was popping sideys and eagles left and right. At least he brought the right loadout, multicannons, good job. Those small ships were just (multi)cannon fodder.
After a few more minutes, we had destroyed all 12 ships. Danno's Vulture was in pretty bad shape, but he wasn't about to leave. "Cover me while I reboot", he only had a few seconds at most. In my mind I was actually thinking "that wasn't so bad!", but something was coming out of the mailslot... an Anaconda. One Anaconda, against us? Is this guy suicidal?
"Hello boys! You know what they say, right? If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself! Any last words? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Ana couldn't resist "Who are you calling a boy, !?" and fired a plasma shot right at his canopy, a very sharp eye might have seen him flinch as it impacted. I smirked. Hunstead commed; "Nice shot sweet cakes, maybe I'll keep YOU as a souvenir when this is over!"
"Bring it." said Danno, as he hit his boosters, most of his ship was working again.
"Here comes contestant number 1, let's see what we've got for them, shall we?" jested Hunstead. Beams and bullets sprayed from the Anaconda, Danno was good but his thrusters were damaged, his ship wasn't as agile as it should be. He still managed to get away from most of the kinetic projectiles. The beams took his weakened shields down, but this was his Vulture's chance to shine, it was made for popping Anacondas. Danno slipped down into the Annie’s blind spot and opened up with his pair of efficient beams. Shades of blue and green rippled across the Anaconda's shields, Danno emptied his entire weapon cap into the shields and boosted under the station, losing LoS with the Anaconda and us. "How'd I do??" he quipped as he did a loop round the station..."Nice one Danno, but I gotta tell you, you didn't do much..." said one of his wingmen. 'What?' I said to myself, how is that possible? I saw how much damage that should have done...then I realised why the anaconda was staying so close to the station, it was augmenting his shields! "Yo, we need to get a move on, in 4 minutes that station’s defences are gonna be back online". I barked over the comm.
"You got a plan?" said Ana.
"Actually I do" I said. "Ram that !"
"I like the way you think", Ana boosted toward the Annie, the gunship looked like a big fat arrow. She struck his ship right on the left side of the nose, sending both ships spinning away, Ana's hull was down to 80%, but a big chunk of the Annie's shield was now gone. "That's a start, let's do this." the Thrigpa mercs began their attack runs, I stayed back and sniped with my rails. Still had a heatsink up my sleeve, but my weapons fire was steady, always a target, no worries for the time being, low on ammo though.
Hunstead piped up again; "I've never been one to comment on women drivers, but that was uncalled for! Never mind, I have a little surprise of my own! Enjoy!"
It was then that we got more than we had bargained for. My ship barely had time to warn me *critical energy build up in target location*, before a sound I'd never heard before reached my ears, like a cross between the honk of a discovery scanner and the boost of a Dolphin (a sound I remember once compared to grinding up sneezing kittens, a reference that made me smile even now), as a shimmering green wave was emitted from the Anaconda. One of the Thrigpa guys blurted "What the hell is tha..." but he didn't get to finish the sentence before the wave arrived and sent us spinning through the void. Everyone's shields had taken a big hit. As soon as I got the ship under control I radioed to the wing, "each time he does that we're gonna lose more time, I've got an idea, Ana, you and the Python keep him busy, you can handle the overcharge, me and the boys are gonna hang around on the corner of the station to LoS the attack, he can't move from the mailbox or lose his power tether. You two, when you hear the energy build up, get out of sight!"
This worked a treat, each time he overcharged, we just ducked behind the station then resumed. It wasn't long before his shields were down and the overcharges stopped. "His tether’s overloaded, he's done! Take out that hull, we're going into the station!" Danno, his wingman and I bolted in through the mailslot to locate the power plant. "40 seconds til station defences are back up, go, go, go!" We unloaded everything we had at that power plant, it was at 10% when I heard the Annie explode outside. "You guys get that data and get out of here, we've got this!"...20s, 19s... 5%, 4%, 3%, 2%..."Nearly there, you guys clear?" "We're clear Ash, got the data! Punch it!" 1%, dead! "Move, move move" I shouted to the others, sparks were flying around all over the inside of the station, Danno's wingman panicked, too much reverse thrust. Danno and I made it to the mailslot and boosted. I couldn't tell where the other Vulture was. BOOM! The station exploded behind us. No other ships on radar. I heard Danno sigh. I was just about to offer my condolences, when...
"Got ya Danno!" the other Vulture had made it, his hull was 10%, almost all his systems were offline, but he would make it back to Garay Terminal just fine. I'm sure he and Danno exchanged some choice words over private comm, all part of the bonding of combat pilots after a near-death encounter. We were all relieved, hell, I was still shaking.
"Meet you back at Galileo?" I commed privately to Ana
"Sure. You owe me at least three thousand drinks by now.”
“Ana, I owe you my life.”
“You can stow that with the biowaste, flyboy. How much did they say they were paying us for this again?”
"Not enough" I said, as I winked into Witchspace.
My sincere apologies in advance for the length of this post, I enjoy creative writing, I enjoy multiplayer games and I enjoy a challenge. More than all of that, I enjoy Elite, as it is now, whether or not my personal vision for PvE content is ever realised.
If you like a bit of light fan fiction you'll probably enjoy the short (comparatively) narratives that frame the body of this post, a design for a multiplayer encounter. That part of the post (the actual encounter as described in game mechanics) is necessarily long. The narrative is just fluff, so can be skipped if you need to get back to your life.
Deciat Deceit
I landed at Galileo, something was up. System Authority ships were flitting about all over the place, less civilian traffic than usual.
I docked safely and interfaced with the station bulletin board. I had no plans to leave the cockpit of my Assault Ship. Damn I love this ship, I could live in it forever. As the Galnet interface resolved, I saw something I had never seen before. An unusual entry on the mission board; "5 allies with the mercenary navy rank of midshipman and higher are invited to a special briefing". There was a single slot left in the briefing. “So I will be leaving the cockpit today after all”, I thought to myself. “Let's go see what's cookin’”.
I headed down to the briefing, no idea what to expect. As I approached the briefing room, junior staffers were hurriedly traversing the corridors with folders and documents in their hands and under their arms. I turned into the briefing room and couldn't help cracking a smile. It was like a war room scene from a movie. A huge round table, with a system map illuminated on it. I could tell straight away it was Deciat. On the left side of the table, 4 of 7 seats filled, all pilots; the smell of scorched titanium hung in the air. I recognised two of them straight away, the other two I didn't know. One was Danno, a League of Thrigpa merc I'd worked with in the past, good guy, reliable, but what was he doing here? The Deciat connection was becoming more tangible, I wondered if this has something to do with Farseer Inc... The two I didn't recognise were obviously with Danno. The other familiar face was Ana.
As I walked in, she turned. Elite combat veterans aren't known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves, but as she looked at me, steely eyed, obviously trying to hide all emotion, I caught the slightest glint in her eye. Did she let it slip on purpose? Was it a sub-conscious reaction she couldn't control? What matters is that she was pleased to see me. I relaxed immediately, I felt I was in the company of at least a few friends, one great friend; people I knew and who knew me. Ana is looking good, seems like she hasn't aged a day in the 5 years since I last saw her. I gave her a nod and sat down, respectfully leaving a seat unoccupied between us, an ice-breaker would have to wait ‘til later.
On the other side, 3 of the 7 seats were occupied by anonymous looking suits. At the head was Paul McHenry, a 50 year old balding bureaucrat and the Special Operations Logistics officer for Galileo. Up to now he had been a nobody working from an office on the moon, a cushy life, after all, what Special Operations were needed in the seat of the Federation, that weren't handled by the military? He was revelling in his newfound importance, it was plainly obvious.
"The 5 of you? That's what I got?" said McHenry, feigning disappointment to raise his apparent authority. He didn't know us or what we were capable of, it was part of the game to him.
Ana was the first to speak... "Why don't you tell us what in Thargon is going on and we'll tell you if we think we aren't 'capable'?" she stared at him and folded her arms, a look of patent disdain on her face.
McHenry reddened. He wasn't at all used to dealing with people like us, his was a world of politics and boot-licking; others licking his, naturally. He adjusted his suit and stood as tall as he could...
"Yes, well, we have a situation here, this is to be a covert operation, sign these..." he handed out pads displaying the same multi-page legal text, a classic Fed NDA; Do not share any details or aspect of this mission under pain of death, blah blah. I once again wondered if there was any crime left in this galaxy that wasn't punishable by death...
The last of the NDAs was handed back. One of the Thrigpa mercs had signed it 'Felicity Farseer' and was grinning broadly. Could have been a joke, or it could be he was testing McHenry. McHenry spotted it straight away...
"Very funny" he said in a dead pan tone. "Interesting choice under the circumstances.", he deleted the signature and handed the pad back. "Right, now that's out of the way, I have some bad news to share. Almost 24 hours ago, Farseer Inc was attacked by an independent crew, well organised, well-armed and well prepared. They launched a low orbit assault on the station defences, then assaulted the base itself, there were a few casualties, but more importantly, when the dust had cleared, Felicity Farseer stated that project data she had been working on had not only been stolen, but also deleted. The data was totally unrecoverable, scrambled using a method we've not seen before.
"So you want that data back. What was the project all about?" I asked. I didn't know what answer to expect, how much they were willing to share, so when the entirely frank answer came back, my feelings of relaxation made way for growing concern.
"The Thargoids" said McHenry, bluntly. "Farseer Inc has made some progress protecting certain modules from the radiation the Thargoids emit which shuts down ship systems. Specifically, we were about to begin construction of prototype main drives and FSDs that would, it is hoped, be largely unaffected by Thargoid radiation, at least giving our pilots the opportunity to escape, should Thargoid activity turn more innately hostile in the future."
"Wow" said Danno, probably the hairiest commander I've ever met, you know the type, the beard rides all the way up the cheekbones. "Whose screw up was that?” The suits were shifting in their seats uncomfortably. One of them stood up...
"The secrecy of the research was paramount, we felt that increased security would simply draw attention. It's clear we have an intelligence leak. We have not yet uncovered the source". He sat down again.
"Cos reverse psychology never backfired before, right?" Ana was impatient. "So what do you want from us? Retrieve the data, kill the perp? Or something more subtle, cos Ash here doesn't do subtle very well."
I shot her a glance, but I wasn't bothered, I have never tried to be subtle. "Let’s hear it." I agreed.
McHenry continued... "This operation is initially an intelligence gathering exercise, but you are expected also to action any usable intelligence yourselves, provided it leads to the return of the data. Here is the brief, this is an outline, and you are free to adjust strategy on the fly, as long as the goal is accomplished. There is also a bonus objective which will be communicated duly."
Another one of the suits stood up and handed a pad to me and each of the other pilots. "Operation Prometheus", I guess they find it fitting to name an operation where critical data has been stolen after the ancient myth of the demigod who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man, a story that ended well enough for gods and man, not so much for Prometheus. Fitting indeed.
The brief was, well, brief.
It described how the wakes of the attacking ships as they left Deciat had been analysed by Farseer Inc, as well as scans of the vessels and their equipment. It read more like a memo:
…None of the ships were equipped with a fuel scoop or more than a D class FSD and no optional fuel tanks either. This suggests that their final destination is somewhere within 25-30ly. It's possible they could be refuelling and rearming at a station, so we need to move quickly. Their destination from Deciat was Xinca, we think they have allies there, but doubt they would have been foolish enough to allow us to read their final destination from their wakes, so we assume they jumped to another independent or anarchy system, within 10ly at the most of Xinca. This leaves our most likely candidate the system of Djiwal, but this is guesswork at best. We'll need to explore systems around Xinca for clues as to the final destination of the attackers. We strongly suspect that they have set up their base of operations somewhere in this local area of the galaxy, around Deciat…
/PAUSE NARRATIVE
Description of game mechanics for the mission...
It is NOT required to have a wing of 5 people, you may choose to solo this mission if you wish, though it is expected to be near impossible, if not totally impossible to solo, at least under the current implementation of the game. As weapons inevitably get more powerful, ships get more powerful and humans get more skilled, there may come a time in the future when this content is solo-able by an average player, but until then, figure on needing AT LEAST three players of a decent pve combat skill level.
Right, so at this point, 2 to 5 players in game have formed a wing and gone to Galileo station. When the wing leader has read the brief, he accepts the mission and a pop up appears on wingmen consoles to accept the mission or not. If all players accept, the mission begins in earnest.
Part 1. Intelligence gathering
It's up to the players how they approach part 1, they have been told something happened in Deciat, that the perps fled to Xinca and from there, who knows, but it can't be more than a few LY away, based on fuel carried, and it's unlikely to be a Fed system (durrr), which narrows it down considerably. You can split up resources how you want, but it is assumed that 1 player will be tasked with heading to Deciat to investigate there. One to three players will go to Xinca (because you're going to have to systematically land at each station and installation to look for clues), and one player can go look in Djiwal (it's the obvious first choice, it was mentioned in the briefing, it's independent, close to Xinca, etc.)
PDK (Players Don't Know) the perps are not in Djiwal, BUT, a thorough search of Djiwal will reveal an extra clue, not needed to complete the mission, but will be part of the bonus objective (more on that in a minute). Alternatively the fifth player could tag along in Xinca or Deciat, as the bonus objective is not mission critical and whoever went to Deciat will be facing combat, for sure. In all of these areas, there will be related wings of perps, who will try to interdict only players who have accepted this mission, on the premise that there is an intelligence leak and they now know that you are looking for clues. The comms will be "We know who you are and what you're doing here. This will serve as a lesson to those who would come in your stead. Any last requests?". This will make it tricky to divide the wing to the different tasks, particularly if you want the bonus objective. If you don't care about the bonus objective, you could send two to Deciat and three to Xinca, where both small wings should be able to defend themselves. Basically, you've got three destinations requiring minimum 2 players in each (ideally 3 in Xinca) and only 5 pilots, so someone is going to have to go through some hardship if you want the bonus. You could always send a really fast ship to avoid combat, but where's the fun in that?
In Deciat, Felicity Farseer will have some information for players, but only if you've unlocked her. If nobody on the wing has unlocked her yet, you'll have to now (send someone to Darnielle's Progress), or abandon the mission. Anyway, she will provide a detail that will send you to another surface installation in the Deciat system to speak with a colleague of hers who is a wake specialist and has been able to deduce the whole jump route they plotted based on the wake that was left in Deciat. He will present three possibilities for a final destination system.
In Xinca, players will begin systematically landing at every installation in the system, looking for mission related entries on the job board. The entry that is important will only be visible to players on this mission, and will be subtly different from a normal mission message. Three different stations in Xinca will have such a message, and all will require payment for the info. Once players have found all three ‘clues’, they'll end up with three locations from a fairly trusted source (Farseer’s colleague) but no certainty which is right, and three locations from untrusted sources. Each of the untrusted messages from Xinca will also reveal details about the enemy, such as the leader's name, his gang, his defences, etc. Comparing this info with that gained from Farseer's friend in Deciat will allow the players to divine where the next clue is (only one system will be common to all 4 pieces of information, but all will contain some useful intelligence).
In Djiwal (bonus objective), player(s) will find a similar 'special mission' on one of the bulletin boards, in which, for a fee, the player will be told about a conversation overheard in a bar about how the gang planned to protect themselves once they had the data in-hand. The plan is to hide an advance force that could either intercept attackers in-system, or drop in behind the attackers, outflanking them during the battle at the hideout, but the source doesn’t know where that is, only the method by which they plan to defend it. If you do not now go and take out that force, they will indeed join in the boss fight at a very inappropriate moment.
Part 2. Reach the boss.
If you have the bonus information about the enemy 'advance force', you will have the option to either go and take out this fleet at its location (you’ll have the system name from the first clues, and which body they are assembling at (i.e. third rock from the sun) from the Djiwal source), thereby accomplishing the bonus objective, then move on to the main objective.
Once the information is gained though, the bonus objective is turned ON, and you must either deal with them, or the consequences of not doing so, which is the ‘hard mode’ of the encounter. If you just want normal mode, no bonus, do not send any players to Djiwal. In more simple terms, it works like this, three possible scenarios...
1) Normal mode, nobody went to Djiwal, nobody got the extra clue, the 'extra fleet' is never spawned and the final encounter at the hideout remains unchanged, no ships come from behind, just a straight fight (but still a good fight). No bonus objective.
2) Normal mode plus bonus, this is the simple version of the bonus objective. Players got the extra clue, and went to take out the advance force at their rallying point, then carry on to the objective. Bonus achieved by destruction of advance force, easy boss fight cos no adds.
3) Hard mode. Bonus objective was picked up, but players do NOT go and take out the advance force, they go straight to the final objective and start the fight. 5 minutes after the encounter starts, the hidden force will join the battle. The goal will be to burst down as many ships as you can before the extra ships join the fight. This will be proper hard. Hence hard mode with bonus (assuming you win).
Right. So, the clues have revealed that the perps are a new anarchic gang called the Cloud Niners (or whatever you want), it turns out they were formed by a Federal ex-intelligence officer called Berk Hunstead. This is the source of the leak. He still had backdoor access to some of the Fed systems due to shoddy segregation of duties procedures, this also explains how his wings of combat monkeys knew who we were and where we were.
Anyway, he was a real James Bond, a career operative, womaniser and Elite combat pilot, until one day, after an unfortunate incident with the Imperial Ambassador's daughter, he got busted down to convoy duty temporarily. While on convoy duty, his ship was sabotaged prior to leaving on escort duty for a convoy carrying 200t of Palladium. When the convoy was interdicted, his weapons fused and he was unable to defend his cargo. Instead of die needlessly, he left the convoy to its fate. For leaving the battle, he was stripped of rank in a public act of scapegoating, then they sent the assassins. He killed the assassins and went into hiding, this is the first we've heard of him since those events a year ago.
So, let's assume normal mode for this shall we, for the sake of simplicity?
Players find out the location of the hideout, it’s an old dilapidated Coriolis station that has suddenly appeared in some independent system near Xinca, don't worry Fdev, no need to update the system maps, it won't be there for long!!
Players supercruise in system to the 10,000ls distant station, giving the chance for a couple of npc wings to interdict and comm "You'll never reach the baws, I'm gonna make sure of it!". It will be wise for the whole wing to stop at a regular station in the system before starting the encounter, as that is where they will rebuy if they are killed during the boss battle, giving them a small hope of being able to rebuy and rejoin the battle before it's over. The location for the encounter will be carefully selected to give a reasonable distance from rebuy for this reason (not too easy to rejoin the fight, but not too hard either, a death should cost significant dps loss).
Eventually we arrive at the hideout. The boss comms: "Hello boys and girls, I've been expecting you! Come to join the party? I'm afraid entry is chargeable, it'll cost you...your life! Go get 'em boys, first one with a confirmed kill gets a free night with Charlotte the Harlot!"
At the start of the encounter there is a fleet of enemy ships outside the mailslot, in formation, expecting us.
Part 3 - Encounter at the mailslot and boss battle
The ships are standard NPC ships with pilots of varying skill, but no Elites (there will be a lot more of them than us). The station is heavily armed with special weapons. Actually, there's nothing special about them, they are just Huge Beam lasers which have been hugely overcharged to achieve 6km range with damage dropoff at 5km, so there’s no getting into significant firing range of the enemy ships without disabling the defences first.
There is one of these beams turreted on each of the front and rear corners of the station, they have almost total coverage of space around the station, except the mailslot and the equivalent position of the mailslot on the backside of the station (the only real blind spot).
The first issue facing the players is how to pull the enemy group without aggroing the station. This is a special task for one or maybe two players depending on skill and firepower. One of the bulletin board messages in Xinca reveals that the station's defences can be taken out by a player approaching from the rear under silent running. The player approaches the rear of the station and sits in the blind spot. Once there, they don't need to worry about stealth anymore, they are outside the aggro range of the main body of enemies and the station lasers can't 'see' them. Using great flying and shooting skill, this player will be able to target and hit subsytems of the station called 'Weapons Relay'. There will be 6 arranged around the area of the blind spot. The player will have an appropriately nerve-rackingly short period of time to destroy them all from the point that the first is destroyed. If they fail to destroy all 6 in the given time, they will aggro the enemy ships at the mailslot and have an even more nerve racking time trying to do it again before the enemy fleet gets around the station to the back (if this is likely, send two players to accomplish this). As soon as all 6 relays are down, the station defences are down (for exactly 10 minutes, wing leader should start a timer, this is important as it is the enrage mechanic for the boss fight) and the rest of the wing can then engage the enemy fleet. The tanks (probably two very durable ships) go and pull the NPCs, the dps stand back and pick targets and the stealth ship which took out the station defences also rejoins and does whatever dps they can.
At this point, the NPCs will play with their totally default AI battle behaviour, they'll just focus on killing their current target as quick as poss, so the overwhelming odds should be fairly easy to game, once the right ships have aggroed the right NPC ships, this will not be a difficult encounter particularly for a well coordinated group, but players will need to stay frosty and protect each other's backs. When all the enemy ships are destroyed, the encounter enters the next stage. The boss fight. The boss comes out in his modified Anaconda/Corvette/Clipper, whatever, and says something like "I wondered if I'd have to do this myself, you're a lot better than I expected, but you aren't ready for what I'm packin'!"
Again dps ships should back off out of range and joust and snipe, while the two tanks engage. During this encounter, the boss has weak-ish weapons due to the power required for his shield, which is, unfortunately, insane (about 100k, as it is getting a wireless power tether from the station reactor). The boss also has a special ability called overcharge, it takes 20 seconds to charge and 20 seconds to cooldown. So the first overcharge takes place 20 seconds into the boss fight, the second at 1 minute and the third at 1:40. Overcharge emits an energy burst from the boss ship, which has a push effect, sending you spinning off course and taking shields down to 1% always, no more, no less. UNLESS you have NO shields at the time, in which case it will take 35% off your hull (smaller ships need to be ready for this and be out of range of boss weapons when overcharge goes off, as well as careful to avoid any other player ships that are also spinning out of control with very low shields). Overcharge has a 4km range, and CAN be 'line of sighted' as well, so will be easy to outrange if people have the DPS comfort and awareness to do so. So basically, if you have 'some' shields, you don't really need to stop DPS when overcharge goes off, but if you have none, you're going to have a problem). Don't stand in the fire kids!
Group composition can be anything you want, but the stock setup will be two tanks, two dps and a stealth for the blind spot. Tanks need to be hull tanky for this encounter due to overcharge, and there will be many options how you handle the mechanic. For example, you might have the tanks LoS the overcharge as well, IF you have the DPS, because the time taken to get back in position, etc, may cause too much dps loss, or have one tank eat the overcharge then go under the station to regen some shield, while the other tank hull tanks, taking it in turns to ensure that at least one tank has some shield when overcharge goes off.
You will have as long as it takes between the boss coming out and the station defences coming back online to defeat the boss, collect the stolen data packet his 'corpse' will leave and blow up the station.
Blowing up the station will consist of as many players as the group feels are needed, to get inside the mailslot, into the station, fly to the power plant and dps it down before defences come back up. Once the power plant reaches zero (it will have quite some HP), the group has 20 seconds to all get out through the mailslot before the station blows up (imagine that if 4 players brought their Anacondas lol).
The power plant can be damaged at any time during the encounter, but cannot be fully destroyed until the boss is dead, so it may be a viable tactic for a very high dps group to send the stealth ship into the station during the battle to get started on the power plant.
Hard mode plays out the same, except the aforementioned extra wing of ships jumping in after 3 minutes of battle (ouch), and a shorter enrage timer. Obviously timers and all that may need adjustment, this is just an example of the KIND of encounter I'd like to see coming up occasionally.
Enrage is obviously when the station defences come online, and just in case that isn't enough to kill all players, the boss, if still alive, will start overcharging once every 5 seconds with 1000% increased range.
/RESUME NARRATION - This is how the battle played out...
Once we located the Cloud Niners base, we dropped in, the intelligence gained was invaluable, we knew that we could take out the station's defences with a stealth ship from the rear. I decided to take care of that myself so I’d stopped at Garay to pick up my DBX. After the others dropped in at the front of the station, I cruised around and dropped in at the back. Silent running, engines off, FA off, drift baby, drift, right into that blind spot...there! Right, there!
Time to target the relays, where are they... I lined up the railguns and a wave of panic overtook me. They wouldn't converge! The target was too small. I knew I should have brought something with gimbals. Damn, I'll need twice as many shots. Oh well, let's get to it. Fffizzz, ffizz, ffizz, 5 shots the first one was down. Ship is getting warm, I'll have to drop a heatsink soon. I popped the second relay, 90% heat, I've only got two heatsinks and I'd prefer to keep them for battle. Use one now or wait…? How'm I for time... Wait for it...70% heat, 60%, ok, next...where's the fourth...got it! There's the fifth. 80% heat 25 seconds to go, gotta risk it and save those heatsinks. ffizz, 104% heat, one more shot...ffizz 115% <Warning, taking heat damage> yeh, I know, I KNOW!! Last one's down! Time to signal the attack. "Ana, we are go, GO!"
The Thrigpa guys had turned up in a pair of Vultures and a Python. Not really the best for what we're facing, lots of smaller ships. We'd have to make it work. Ana was in her gunship which was prepped for hull tanking, I wish I could have brought my Assault Ship, would have made all the difference, but we needed Ana to tank and I didn't trust Danno's boys to get the relays done in time. It'll be alright, Ana and the python can keep the main body of the enemy busy while the rest of us lay down some hurt.
I checked the railgun ammo, 1/3rd gone. No worries, it'll be enough. I had crept up the station and over the top, half my systems shut down, still nobody had seen me. I needed a quick kill to reduce their numbers, so I powered up everything, picked out a Viper on the fringe of the melee and opened up with the railguns from range, took his shields down to 50% with the first hit from 3.5km. Ha! The practice on those relays really got me in the mood! Another hit, 10% shields. Just then, one of the Thrigpa vultures swung round and beamed the living hell out of my target, 60% hull, thanks! I lined up another rail shot but missed. Time to get into the action.
As I charged in I felt like the cavalry cresting the hill as I came over the top of the station, large beam blazing. My chosen viper got the worst of it, he was on 15% hull as we passed, my point blank rail blast split his ship in two. Who’s next? Ana had three Vultures on her gunship, she wasn't in too much trouble, but I felt she could use a hand, so I engaged one of them. He took the bait, saw my DBX as an easy kill, I dragged him away from Ana while popping chaff. Ship was cool as a cucumber now, time to play a little game with this fool. I hit silent running set throttle to zero and turned flight assist off; "follow my trail now if you can...", I made sure I kept maneuvering under his ship, under his line of sight, but heat was starting to be a problem again, time for that first heat sink, it's worth it for this kill. I was waiting for him to throttle up, my heat was still building. All this time my DBX was missing from the battle. Come on, give up!! At last, he set throttle to full and headed back toward the station. "ha, now you're mine, traitor scum", I pulled in 1k behind him, powered, and opened up with the beam, his shields were down before he knew what was happening, he started to turn, a fatal mistake...as soon as he turned to face me I boosted past him, FA off, throttle zero, spun it around and caught him right in my railgun crosshairs. "Git guder, noob!” I mouthed to myself as his explosion decorated my cockpit in tones of red and orange. Only half my railgun ammo left now though and the fight barely half done.
I looked over at the Python, his shields were still up and he was popping sideys and eagles left and right. At least he brought the right loadout, multicannons, good job. Those small ships were just (multi)cannon fodder.
After a few more minutes, we had destroyed all 12 ships. Danno's Vulture was in pretty bad shape, but he wasn't about to leave. "Cover me while I reboot", he only had a few seconds at most. In my mind I was actually thinking "that wasn't so bad!", but something was coming out of the mailslot... an Anaconda. One Anaconda, against us? Is this guy suicidal?
"Hello boys! You know what they say, right? If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself! Any last words? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Ana couldn't resist "Who are you calling a boy, !?" and fired a plasma shot right at his canopy, a very sharp eye might have seen him flinch as it impacted. I smirked. Hunstead commed; "Nice shot sweet cakes, maybe I'll keep YOU as a souvenir when this is over!"
"Bring it." said Danno, as he hit his boosters, most of his ship was working again.
"Here comes contestant number 1, let's see what we've got for them, shall we?" jested Hunstead. Beams and bullets sprayed from the Anaconda, Danno was good but his thrusters were damaged, his ship wasn't as agile as it should be. He still managed to get away from most of the kinetic projectiles. The beams took his weakened shields down, but this was his Vulture's chance to shine, it was made for popping Anacondas. Danno slipped down into the Annie’s blind spot and opened up with his pair of efficient beams. Shades of blue and green rippled across the Anaconda's shields, Danno emptied his entire weapon cap into the shields and boosted under the station, losing LoS with the Anaconda and us. "How'd I do??" he quipped as he did a loop round the station..."Nice one Danno, but I gotta tell you, you didn't do much..." said one of his wingmen. 'What?' I said to myself, how is that possible? I saw how much damage that should have done...then I realised why the anaconda was staying so close to the station, it was augmenting his shields! "Yo, we need to get a move on, in 4 minutes that station’s defences are gonna be back online". I barked over the comm.
"You got a plan?" said Ana.
"Actually I do" I said. "Ram that !"
"I like the way you think", Ana boosted toward the Annie, the gunship looked like a big fat arrow. She struck his ship right on the left side of the nose, sending both ships spinning away, Ana's hull was down to 80%, but a big chunk of the Annie's shield was now gone. "That's a start, let's do this." the Thrigpa mercs began their attack runs, I stayed back and sniped with my rails. Still had a heatsink up my sleeve, but my weapons fire was steady, always a target, no worries for the time being, low on ammo though.
Hunstead piped up again; "I've never been one to comment on women drivers, but that was uncalled for! Never mind, I have a little surprise of my own! Enjoy!"
It was then that we got more than we had bargained for. My ship barely had time to warn me *critical energy build up in target location*, before a sound I'd never heard before reached my ears, like a cross between the honk of a discovery scanner and the boost of a Dolphin (a sound I remember once compared to grinding up sneezing kittens, a reference that made me smile even now), as a shimmering green wave was emitted from the Anaconda. One of the Thrigpa guys blurted "What the hell is tha..." but he didn't get to finish the sentence before the wave arrived and sent us spinning through the void. Everyone's shields had taken a big hit. As soon as I got the ship under control I radioed to the wing, "each time he does that we're gonna lose more time, I've got an idea, Ana, you and the Python keep him busy, you can handle the overcharge, me and the boys are gonna hang around on the corner of the station to LoS the attack, he can't move from the mailbox or lose his power tether. You two, when you hear the energy build up, get out of sight!"
This worked a treat, each time he overcharged, we just ducked behind the station then resumed. It wasn't long before his shields were down and the overcharges stopped. "His tether’s overloaded, he's done! Take out that hull, we're going into the station!" Danno, his wingman and I bolted in through the mailslot to locate the power plant. "40 seconds til station defences are back up, go, go, go!" We unloaded everything we had at that power plant, it was at 10% when I heard the Annie explode outside. "You guys get that data and get out of here, we've got this!"...20s, 19s... 5%, 4%, 3%, 2%..."Nearly there, you guys clear?" "We're clear Ash, got the data! Punch it!" 1%, dead! "Move, move move" I shouted to the others, sparks were flying around all over the inside of the station, Danno's wingman panicked, too much reverse thrust. Danno and I made it to the mailslot and boosted. I couldn't tell where the other Vulture was. BOOM! The station exploded behind us. No other ships on radar. I heard Danno sigh. I was just about to offer my condolences, when...
"Got ya Danno!" the other Vulture had made it, his hull was 10%, almost all his systems were offline, but he would make it back to Garay Terminal just fine. I'm sure he and Danno exchanged some choice words over private comm, all part of the bonding of combat pilots after a near-death encounter. We were all relieved, hell, I was still shaking.
"Meet you back at Galileo?" I commed privately to Ana
"Sure. You owe me at least three thousand drinks by now.”
“Ana, I owe you my life.”
“You can stow that with the biowaste, flyboy. How much did they say they were paying us for this again?”
"Not enough" I said, as I winked into Witchspace.
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