Elite / Frontier Frontier: First Encounters - or: how I learned to stop worrying and shove the Mouse

[gunbladelad]

Hmmm, arriving in-system and just hurling everything towards the nearest starport? Sounds just a little bit...exploit-y to me

Interesting to know about, but something I’ll be avoiding for my playthrough, as per my plays of the previous two games.

It is a little "exploit-y" - but could also be regarded as dumping in deep space and getting paid for it.

I actually kind of do that when using military drives. As soon as I jump into a system, I dump the radioactives then head for my destination - the reasoning being that with the hyperspace jumpcloud being a large radioactive cloud, it should hide the radiation signature of my "misplaced engine waste" for a good week or so while I make myself scarce. Spacedock never seems to ask what happened to the waste materials either - but if they ask, "I dumped it in the solar corona, officer. No, that's not my DNA on those cargo containers - that's my evil clones. I was taking a month off hauling that week enjoying the sights of the Five Furries, er, furies statue..."

 

[Arioch]

It is a little "exploit-y" - but could also be regarded as dumping in deep space and getting paid for it.

I actually kind of do that when using military drives. As soon as I jump into a system, I dump the radioactives then head for my destination - the reasoning being that with the hyperspace jumpcloud being a large radioactive cloud, it should hide the radiation signature of my "misplaced engine waste" for a good week or so while I make myself scarce. Spacedock never seems to ask what happened to the waste materials either - but if they ask, "I dumped it in the solar corona, officer. No, that's not my DNA on those cargo containers - that's my evil clones. I was taking a month off hauling that week enjoying the sights of the Five Furries, er, furies statue..."

Dumping radioactives isn’t an exploit - it’s the only ethically environmentally green way of disposal! After a few years, I’m sure they’d drop into the local star or something thus providing a useful extra bit of sunlight. Or smash into the nearest planet - but it’d probably be uninhabited anyway, so I don’t see why the authorities get so uppity and slap the occasional “illegal dumping” charge on me

 

[gunbladelad]

Cargo smashing into planets might result in a bit of a crater...

...hmm... I wonder if I'd ever be able to finish off an enemy ship at 1% hull by throwing some radioactives at them...?

 

[Arioch]

Cargo smashing into planets might result in a bit of a crater...

...hmm... I wonder if I'd ever be able to finish off an enemy ship at 1% hull by throwing some radioactives at them...?

Thinking back on my attempts at getting a mine to impact an NPC in FE2...good luck with that!

 

[Arioch]

After a few months faffing around in the vicinity of Mairgre (it’s fairly remote with not many populated systems around it) it was time to go in and extract the Federal “stranded hitchhiker” from the Imperial’s Inquiry Assistance facility.

CLEARANCE DENIED? It’s only a two-pad starport and it looks like an Imp Explorer is hogging one of the pads there - sometimes NPCs can be sat there for days which would be a mission-ending problem. I rough-landed on the outskirts of the city and kicked in the StarDreamer...

...thankfully, around 9 hours later the other pad hog launched and I was able to quickly hop over onto Pad 1. The Federal not-spy apparently jumped onboard without any ado whatsoever - it was only by checking my cargo screen that I could see my passenger cabin was now occupied:

An uneventful trip to the nearest Federal system (Wafaphi, haha what a name) then ensued, and upon landing I was greeted with a successful mission message:

Yay, 2000 credits and an instant promotion of one Federal rank, according to online sources - hmmm, I’ve got my credits but no rank increase Looks like I’m staying a non-com for the time being

Edit: in other retro gaming news:

Spoiler

Today I finally achieved my first purely military conquest playthrough of Lords of Midnight. I’ve been playing every year since 2012 with the iOS version, starting on the Winter Solstice and taking one turn per day - so effectively playing “real-time” I’ve had a few successes using Morkin to destroy The One Ring Ice Crown but have never succeeded with marching my armies into war. It was close, with only a few hundred Utterly Tired soldiers left, but:

 

[gunbladelad]

The payment was made through a series of blinds, but the Federal Military cannot formally recognise your assistance as it may endanger your usefulness in future missions...

 

[Arioch]

The payment was made through a series of blinds, but the Federal Military cannot formally recognise your assistance as it may endanger your usefulness in future missions...

I reckon my promotion paperwork has been lost en route - a “deliver some important documents” mission has been failed by a Fed Navy grunt!
———
Today was my first FFE run into Riedquat - seeing as I’ve a few months to kill before the next Story missions kick off, and I was in the vicinity anyway, I popped over to the Old Worlds for a bit of bounty hunting...

...after 3 attempts at getting through the pirate gauntlet, I’ve decided to modify my “only save at Stations” maxim - now I’m going to allow myself one mid-transit save, much in the style of the original Operation Flashpoint which allowed one mid-mission save. It’s an interesting choice to make - saving after taking too much damage might end up with me banging my head against a wall for the rest of the trip, but I don’t want to save too early and waste it.

One thing it has shown me though is I’ll need to alter my Cobra Mk3 fit when I start bounty hunting in earnest - more Shield Generators and possibly a few missiles as well (they seem to work much better than in FE2) will be getting slapped in the remaining cargo space.

 

[Nothoria Infama]

Haha. Don't be too gentle with those native 'Harmless Rodents' of Riedquat. Good way to handle contacts with them follows the maxim 'Shoot'm'all'.

Riedquat is my home, btw. I don't get it why I always get to Lave (Lame!) when starting a new commander.

 

[Arioch]

The newsfeeds have been building up the story of renowned explorer Mic Turner, his fancy new ship, and his deep space trip rumoured to involve searching for Thargoids - after a few months of the story it looks like he met an unfortunate “accident”, supposedly an asteroid collision but hinted at to be the actions of the shadowy INRA group. A search & rescue operation by Jo Merion resulted in their detainment by the Imperials - and what should I see in my local BBS just afterwards?

After stumping up the fifty grand () for the info about their chat in a bar, I was told this:

Ah ha! Sounds like my earlier experience with the recon mission will be of benefit. The requiem for Turner was reported to be taking place on 5 Oct at Alioth, so seeing as I was in the Old Worlds I needed to get my skates on. One of my fuelling stops en route was at an Imperial system and I was able to take an Imp Navy mission which fitted me out with a nuke - sorry chaps, but I’ll be putting that to a different use

My Cobra touched down at the New Rossyth shipyard just as October started:

...so a quick StarDream, and time to check out the BBS:

A hefty donation later:

You know what? I think I’ll take you up on that offer!

I didn’t read that in the spoilers! (though I admit I’ve only quick scanned them for dates and places) What a surprise - time to check out my sweet new ride:

Wow! Potted plants and curtains! Oh yeah, and all that other stuff!

Nice!
A final read over the newsfeed before I set off shows me getting namechecked in the Imperial Herald (I’ve been awarded something for a non-specific service to the Empire) and a Universal Scientist entry written by a fan of Asimov’s “Foundation” series:

 

[Zieman]

Did you get to keep the nuke & camera after ship change ?
I don't remember anymore how it went, namely did I obtain them after getting my paws on Argent's Quest or like you, before.
Though the camera may have become permanent piece of equipment when accepting any photographing mission the first time.

 

[Arioch]

Did you get to keep the nuke & camera after ship change ?
I don't remember anymore how it went, namely did I obtain them after getting my paws on Argent's Quest or like you, before.
Though the camera may have become permanent piece of equipment when accepting any photographing mission the first time.

Aye - the camera was left with me after the first time I got one and the Imperial nuke transferred across from my Cobra.

 

[Arioch]

Argent’s Quest is an absolute beast for exploration - just three jumps and I was within spitting distance of sector 32,32 - the Pleiades. Is it because the “wiggly tail” lets it swim through WitchSpace faster, or something?

The only information I have about the target system is the sector number - the Galaxy map only shows the Seven Sisters as possible candidates: Pleione, Electra, Alcyone, Merope, Taygete, Atlas and Maia:

Pleione was the nearest, so that was my first area to search. Upon jumping into the system I was greeted with the military restricted zone warning - so a pretty good indication that I’d got the correct place! It’s a bit like one of those wonderful road signs:

Bringing up the System map I could see perhaps six possible planetary bodies that could have a base on them - moons orbiting the third and fourth gas giants:

What followed was a very FSS-like experience - zooming in and out of each of the worlds until - oh hello - what can I see around 4b?

FC-291 is the satellite I’ve got to nuke, Turner’s Quest is looking a bit worse for wear floating in a debris field:

...and what is the “????” floating around in a lower orbit? Zooming in, there’s another debris field, then:

It’s heavily damaged, but looks very familiar! Non-human signal source detected!

 

[gunbladelad]

Non-human?

You know the drill...

Source: https://youtu.be/aCbfMkh940Q

Source: https://youtu.be/HF4YzvUF1Rg

 

[Arioch]

The course was set for Pleione 4b and the StarDreamer engaged - almost immediately what appeared to be an automated distress call was received; looking at the text, it seems the Inter-species Translator equipment is functioning correctly:

First order of business though: get rid of the INRA satellite. This proved to be a bit tricky thanks to a bug - but it wouldn’t be FFE without a bug or two, would it? With the MilSat targeted, launching the nuke (or any missile) caused my ship to suddenly accelerate towards the target, causing the launched missile to be destroyed against my own hull:

Try as I might, I couldn’t avoid my missile - launching from different directions, various speeds, as close as possible to the target - nothing worked. Thus, I had to engage FFE’s guidance system panacea - kick in x4 StarDreamer immediately after launch

With the INRA warning system out of the way, it was time to investigate Turner’s destroyed ship. Close inspection (and a photo for the mission giver) showed the port engine assembly completely destroyed:

...and the tail wasn’t wagging The debris field surrounding the wreck had some Gem Stones and Precious Metals - easy to scoop as they were all stationary relative to me. Also flashing away in the vicinity was the Flight Recorder I’d been sent to recover:

...so with that on board, it was time to investigate the mysterious “????”

What’s that I can see? Absolutely loads of cash in the form of Alien Artefacts? Don’t mind if I do!
A close-up inspection of the alien vessel shows it to resemble the Thargoids encountered in the original game:

...but with one side blown out. From the distress call, it sounds like the INRA mycoid virus was responsible for the ship destruction. Time to return to Alioth and report my findings!

 

[gunbladelad]

Part of me is wondering if you'll get the, er, "Quantum Storage Cargo Hold" with the next likely ship going by your progress...

 

[Arioch]

Part of me is wondering if you'll get the, er, "Quantum Storage Cargo Hold" with the next likely ship going by your progress...

I’ve avoided looking at the Thargoid mission parts 2 & 3 walkthroughs, so hopefully I’ll understand your comment over the course of the next few posts

 

[gunbladelad]

It's actually a reference to a bug with the next storyline ship if you obtain it - quite often the cargo it gives you when you obtain the ship overflows - leaving you with well over a 65,000 cargo capacity (It's not guaranteed, but it happens a good chunk of the time), so my "quantum storage cargo hold" is a reference to that bug.

One thing I will advise you to do is to ditch everything you don't need in the Quest ship when they ask you to go investigate somewhere else - and stock up on fuel - every spare nook and cranny - you'll thank me for it.

 

[Arioch]

After making it about halfway back to Alioth before running out of Military Fuel, I reflected on the wording of the mission giver: “You have enough fuel to make the return journey” - there are two definitions of “return journey” - it can mean both legs of the trip, or just the return part. Guess which one I was lumbered with?

I reverted my save back to New Rossyth dock, reread the mission description, briefly thought “well that’s a ____ing fib!” and stocked up on plenty of extra fuel

My jaunt out to the Pleiades was a bit quicker this time as I knew where everything was and what I needed to do, so before long I was jumping back into Alioth space. I was immediately greeted with:

“Welcome back, Commander. Congratulations on completing your maiden voyage. Please dock at New Rossyth on Argent’s Claim so that we can service the Quest and examine your holds. Thank you.”

I touched down and received the following debrief:

The mission description:
“Take the ‘Argent’s Quest’ and go to the other Thargoid front base. If there is a shuttle there, it may lead you to the Thargoid home systems. If not, there may be other useful information there that could lead us to aliens.”
OK. I’ll take the mission

Oh, you’ve managed to source a nuke this time? Cheers fellas!
Polaris is a fair old distance away, more than the Seven Sisters, so I topped up my hold with Mil Fuel - then ditched the 40t Auto Repair system and added more fuel. Just in case

As it happened, my trip consisted of 7 jumps, 44t of fuel, and took about 5 weeks:

Polaris is a big ‘un My last trip to a supergiant, Betelgeuse in FE2, took over six months of in-game time with plenty of gas giant fuel scooping on the way - so the Quest ship is seriously impressive in that regard!

Looking at the System Map:

...there were quite a few “possibles”, so it was time for pseudo-FSS work in the orrery and tracking down my targets. The MilSat was located around Polaris 3d - I flew there straight away and deployed my nuke (with StarDreamer assisted targeting) - then scanned for anything further.

A “????” could be seen in orbit of Polaris 4a, so that is my destination for next time...

 

[Zieman]

Easy way to get more fuel on board is to get rid of that plasma accelerator in favour of something smaller, 20MW Beam Laser maybe?
Not saying you will need more than you already can have, but not ruling out the possibillity of feeling less stressed if you do have some extra...

 

[Arioch]

Easy way to get more fuel on board is to get rid of that plasma accelerator in favour of something smaller, 20MW Beam Laser maybe?
Not saying you will need more than you already can have, but not ruling out the possibillity of feeling less stressed if you do have some extra...

That’s a very good suggestion - the only thing my plasma accelerator is being used for is reducing my ejected Radioactives into dust (and reducing my framerate to a crawl with all the explosions ) - if I have to redo this part for any reason, I’ll swap it out for the retry