OK, so realtalk, it was only a little over 4 mil to begin with. I had mostly A rated iCourier, iClipper, and iEagle except for using bi weave shields and some B modules due to availibility on station, plus doing a little module tetris.
I went ratting and sensor hit exploring a little in the Courier, demoralized by my bug where my kill counter was frozen on an active mission, that got me up to 6 mil. I decided to try taking a spec ops job and make some civvies pay for my bad luck, but then it happened... The kill counter moved! After I finished destroying my rep a little I went back and grabbed the clipper, knowing full well that if I died twice I wouldn't be able to replace it anymore.
It was around this time I discovered I can get shipped off to prison instead of just pay fines when I have a bounty. 5 jumps home and I finally finish getting in the clipper.
The engines on the Maelstrom Rider roared to life and I was in space. I'd just taken on assassination missions that happened to be the same pirate faction on my 84 kill mission. I hadn't done these since the olden days where it seemed every pirate lord flew an anaconda. I jumped into Dimsti, scanned the nav beacon, and a Cobra was on me in seconds. How nice of him to show up! I got the KWS on him, got a bounty for him. And went home to deliver. That covered upgrading from pulse to burst lasers and swapping out some excess cargo space for hull reinforcements.plus some repairs because I was paper thin at the time. I took two more.... 1.2 million and 2.4 million. Time to make the grownup pay.
I jumped in and didn't even make it to the nav beacon before I was interdicted. What I encountered was a ship I hadn't seen before this far into Empire; it was bristling with guns and looked like a star destroyer without the shield generators. It was two things: a fed Corvette, and one of my mission targets.
Actually, it was a third thing: rude. The first two plasma bolts slammed my shields while it was scanning me. I went full pips to engines and system and boosted as fast as I could, as it had me at a disadvantage from the start. It must have gone flank speed as well, as by the time authorities appeared, they were too far out to catch up without me turning right into his field of fire. I decided I might have to fail this one. I escaped with 87 percent hull and decided to head for Dimsti 10 and work up a little cash in the rings before I went home.
LittleTuk the pirate had other plans. I had to evade his disruption twice before he seemed to give up. I got lucky and everything spawning in the RES I chose was worth at least 100k, so I made some bounty cash and prepared to wake....
... When my second target dropped into the belt close enough to mass lock me. It was a python and I was already out of chaff. I ran like a child and went home to lick my wounds and cash in.
I now had enough to replace my clipper another time, so I waked on and started this time at the dimsti 10 rings killing some minor pirates. Both enemies were a no-show but I ticked the counter up to 30 of my 84 targets. I had taken one more bounty for less money, assuming those missions would fail, and that one was waiting in the rings when I waked out.
I pulled him down (An AspX) , but he did two strange things. First, he hit me with a hatch limpet, dumping a portion of my limpet into space. Then, he rammed me like a football player. His engines were full throttle as were mine, guns blasting as the impacts worked our shields down. His went first because they were already weaker and I boosted as he tried to reverse, slamming him into the asteroid behind him and taking out the last of his hull. I was at 95 percent and just got everything back online and waked out to see if I could find a local station with a large pad (there isn't one in Dimsti, BTW).
On scope, there was the Python, and it was headed right toward me. I dove into a nearby sensor ping, as my shields had just come back online when I waked, and 5 seconds later, he wakes in. We trade blows a bit, me breaking his attempts to joust by using the unique way the Clipper flies and FA Off, but that leads us to a circle of death where we are both constantly facing each other. He breaks it and rolls, firing a turreted beam laser and fires a shield cell and I realize I was about to lose shields, so I turtle up and wake out once I could get distance.
Then I saw it. A Checkpoint for Dimsti's civil war. A war in which the pirates I was hunting are the enemy of the state. I don't know what these are for other than role play and ambience in war zones. There are tons of things in this game I want to try and I'm sure this is part of one of them. Today, though, it would be a trap. I went for it, avoiding interdiction once but the python was back on me fast. The moment I got in drop distance I waked into the checkpoint.
Sure enough, less than a minute later, I had the python behind me and firing. I engaged it and was able to sweep in behind it, get its shields to 25 percent, but it did an RCS roll and hit me hard with a thermal weapon to make me stop firing lasers. At this point, the calvary arrived, and suddenly the python turned to face the new aggressors. This let me shield up and take out his power plant (which didn't kill or stop him? ?) but it was when the engines went and he spiraled uselessly that his end came.
I was energized. I waked put and sure enough, here comes LittleTuk, my nemesis from an hour prior. I dropped right into the checkpoint again and flew between the nav buoys.
He didn't just wake in. He waked in so close to starboard I could have seen in the window if you could do that in ED. In seconds the endless black was lit up with lasers as the entire checkpoint engaged their new target, and I barely avoided two plasma cannons in the face. I got the scan and fired vertical thrusters, targeting his rather powerful shield generator. It took the full 2 minutes it took to kill the python just to drop these barriers. Still, as it fought to swat the Eagles swarming around it, it continued to try to face me. I dumped every last bit of chaff throwing off his weapons to keep my shields up, but his hull was finally going down and his shield generator was offline.
Just as he was about to die, I had a hunch I should deploy limpets like that other mark did. I dropped two collectors and fired a hatchbreaker.
So much Palladium. Not only did I get 400k or so for the bounty that was on my target, but the palladium was a nice bonus of about 20 units. Every expense in this endeavor was covered by it, roughly. It was even kind enough to drift out of range of the checkpoint cordon so nobody scanned me.
Those last two kills happened in half an hour and I made about 7.5 mil. Grownup money indeed. After completion, I took my iEagle back to Dimsti to see about the bounties I couldn't turn in at Hansen Station (home) and made a other 2.6 mil. At the end of three hours or so, between mission rewards and bounties and the expenses incurred, I came out from 4.01 mil to 16.9 mil with a couple of upgrades to modules on the Courier and Clipper.
I saw another assassination against targets in that faction that was flagged for teams, but worth 7 million or so by itself and a big rep boost. I figure this must mean an Anaconda with escorts or something. Clearly, I have to try the same tactic here, too. I could live with 8 mil in bounties and pay in half an hour on a regular basis.
Just a little success story and some positivity to take a break from the usual forum angst!
I went ratting and sensor hit exploring a little in the Courier, demoralized by my bug where my kill counter was frozen on an active mission, that got me up to 6 mil. I decided to try taking a spec ops job and make some civvies pay for my bad luck, but then it happened... The kill counter moved! After I finished destroying my rep a little I went back and grabbed the clipper, knowing full well that if I died twice I wouldn't be able to replace it anymore.
It was around this time I discovered I can get shipped off to prison instead of just pay fines when I have a bounty. 5 jumps home and I finally finish getting in the clipper.
The engines on the Maelstrom Rider roared to life and I was in space. I'd just taken on assassination missions that happened to be the same pirate faction on my 84 kill mission. I hadn't done these since the olden days where it seemed every pirate lord flew an anaconda. I jumped into Dimsti, scanned the nav beacon, and a Cobra was on me in seconds. How nice of him to show up! I got the KWS on him, got a bounty for him. And went home to deliver. That covered upgrading from pulse to burst lasers and swapping out some excess cargo space for hull reinforcements.plus some repairs because I was paper thin at the time. I took two more.... 1.2 million and 2.4 million. Time to make the grownup pay.
I jumped in and didn't even make it to the nav beacon before I was interdicted. What I encountered was a ship I hadn't seen before this far into Empire; it was bristling with guns and looked like a star destroyer without the shield generators. It was two things: a fed Corvette, and one of my mission targets.
Actually, it was a third thing: rude. The first two plasma bolts slammed my shields while it was scanning me. I went full pips to engines and system and boosted as fast as I could, as it had me at a disadvantage from the start. It must have gone flank speed as well, as by the time authorities appeared, they were too far out to catch up without me turning right into his field of fire. I decided I might have to fail this one. I escaped with 87 percent hull and decided to head for Dimsti 10 and work up a little cash in the rings before I went home.
LittleTuk the pirate had other plans. I had to evade his disruption twice before he seemed to give up. I got lucky and everything spawning in the RES I chose was worth at least 100k, so I made some bounty cash and prepared to wake....
... When my second target dropped into the belt close enough to mass lock me. It was a python and I was already out of chaff. I ran like a child and went home to lick my wounds and cash in.
I now had enough to replace my clipper another time, so I waked on and started this time at the dimsti 10 rings killing some minor pirates. Both enemies were a no-show but I ticked the counter up to 30 of my 84 targets. I had taken one more bounty for less money, assuming those missions would fail, and that one was waiting in the rings when I waked out.
I pulled him down (An AspX) , but he did two strange things. First, he hit me with a hatch limpet, dumping a portion of my limpet into space. Then, he rammed me like a football player. His engines were full throttle as were mine, guns blasting as the impacts worked our shields down. His went first because they were already weaker and I boosted as he tried to reverse, slamming him into the asteroid behind him and taking out the last of his hull. I was at 95 percent and just got everything back online and waked out to see if I could find a local station with a large pad (there isn't one in Dimsti, BTW).
On scope, there was the Python, and it was headed right toward me. I dove into a nearby sensor ping, as my shields had just come back online when I waked, and 5 seconds later, he wakes in. We trade blows a bit, me breaking his attempts to joust by using the unique way the Clipper flies and FA Off, but that leads us to a circle of death where we are both constantly facing each other. He breaks it and rolls, firing a turreted beam laser and fires a shield cell and I realize I was about to lose shields, so I turtle up and wake out once I could get distance.
Then I saw it. A Checkpoint for Dimsti's civil war. A war in which the pirates I was hunting are the enemy of the state. I don't know what these are for other than role play and ambience in war zones. There are tons of things in this game I want to try and I'm sure this is part of one of them. Today, though, it would be a trap. I went for it, avoiding interdiction once but the python was back on me fast. The moment I got in drop distance I waked into the checkpoint.
Sure enough, less than a minute later, I had the python behind me and firing. I engaged it and was able to sweep in behind it, get its shields to 25 percent, but it did an RCS roll and hit me hard with a thermal weapon to make me stop firing lasers. At this point, the calvary arrived, and suddenly the python turned to face the new aggressors. This let me shield up and take out his power plant (which didn't kill or stop him? ?) but it was when the engines went and he spiraled uselessly that his end came.
I was energized. I waked put and sure enough, here comes LittleTuk, my nemesis from an hour prior. I dropped right into the checkpoint again and flew between the nav buoys.
He didn't just wake in. He waked in so close to starboard I could have seen in the window if you could do that in ED. In seconds the endless black was lit up with lasers as the entire checkpoint engaged their new target, and I barely avoided two plasma cannons in the face. I got the scan and fired vertical thrusters, targeting his rather powerful shield generator. It took the full 2 minutes it took to kill the python just to drop these barriers. Still, as it fought to swat the Eagles swarming around it, it continued to try to face me. I dumped every last bit of chaff throwing off his weapons to keep my shields up, but his hull was finally going down and his shield generator was offline.
Just as he was about to die, I had a hunch I should deploy limpets like that other mark did. I dropped two collectors and fired a hatchbreaker.
So much Palladium. Not only did I get 400k or so for the bounty that was on my target, but the palladium was a nice bonus of about 20 units. Every expense in this endeavor was covered by it, roughly. It was even kind enough to drift out of range of the checkpoint cordon so nobody scanned me.
Those last two kills happened in half an hour and I made about 7.5 mil. Grownup money indeed. After completion, I took my iEagle back to Dimsti to see about the bounties I couldn't turn in at Hansen Station (home) and made a other 2.6 mil. At the end of three hours or so, between mission rewards and bounties and the expenses incurred, I came out from 4.01 mil to 16.9 mil with a couple of upgrades to modules on the Courier and Clipper.
I saw another assassination against targets in that faction that was flagged for teams, but worth 7 million or so by itself and a big rep boost. I figure this must mean an Anaconda with escorts or something. Clearly, I have to try the same tactic here, too. I could live with 8 mil in bounties and pay in half an hour on a regular basis.
Just a little success story and some positivity to take a break from the usual forum angst!