I guess Open is good for something after all!

[DukeIronHand]

In the system of Quince and approaching the planet with 4 Planetary Scan jobs on-board.

Out of Glide I am now in regular flight over the surface, waiting for the installation to resolve on scanner, when I see some surface explosions off to my left. Naturally curious I fly over to see.
Soon I see a surface installation (not my target) and the scanner lights up with Proximity mines.
Huh? I have heard of "bombing" surface targets with mines but didn't know NPC's do it.

Well NPC's don't. Soon a hollow square appears and I realize I am (accidentally) in Open.

Cmdr XXXX (guess I won't use his name though he did nothing "wrong") is Elite and in a DBX and it is he who is bombing.
Okay he has his mission and I have mine so I fly off to find my mission surface target minding my own business but no. It's Open so he just has to attack me apparently and promptly does so.

He hits me with Engineered weapons and my thrusters fail(?) and, already being low, I skip off the planets surface like a flat stone - losing most of my shields - but my engines come back online. I worry a bit as my AspX has D-rated shields (not being made for combat - I don't even carry weapons) but I have A-rated Thrusters and a PD I just fitted. PD fires and I boost away a couple of times just as my shields are about to go and I leave him behind and Low Wake out to try for my target again.

In orbit around the planet I check the mission screen and find, for whatever reason, the 4 Planetary Scan Missions have been completed! And, except for bouncing off the planets surface I never landed.
So see? Open is good for something after all.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Nice story!



I had a similar experience in the old HIP 10716 days.

I'd forgotten I was in Open, and dropped in to bomb the base, and just as I did, another CMDR bombed the base and all my missions completed. Lol

Then, finding that hilarious, I went back for more, in Open. This time I saw no CMDRs around, and went in guns (well, rockets)blazing and promptly vapourised the base, while boosting down at full speed for an epic flyby of the destruction.
But what I didn't check what that an Anaconda was actually hovering nearby, and my splash damage caught him, and he promptly retaliated. Lol
And I was going too fast, and bounced off the base.
Shields down. Cartwheeled through the sky, with an angry Anaconda in tow.
Luckily I was in my Cobra MkIII, so I was gone before he caused any real damage.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Stealthie]

Yep,

Scanning a ship which has already scanned the stuff you need to scan gets you their scans.

Back in the day, that was all part of the whole Fehu "thing".
You could wait outside a station for a ship to arrive back, scan them and then everybody would head back inside to hand in their missions.
Whoever stacked 20 missions first would head off for the next run.
Rinse and repeat.

Course, you'd get the shirkers who'd avoid doing their bit by suiciding instead of flying back with the data but there were usually enough people around willing to participate that we had a nice little routine going.

 

[Amargosa]

Trying to do Quince in Open is a waste of time, because more than 90% of the time when trying to enter Glide Mode on that planet, the game freezes up for 2-3 minutes then just disconnects and throws me back to the log in screen. When I then log back in I get teleported all the way back to outside Millerport. It's infuriating.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Thanks for the info Stealthie - never heard that before.

And, in regard to Quince and Open it seemed to be just fine this morning or perhaps I had a good instance. Or not a lot of a Cmdr's in it as the above was the first hollow square I saw though just before I was attacked I glimpsed someone else.
And my (new) satellite connection, while better then my old, is not top tier speed-wise I am guessing.

 

[Lucian667]

I find Open to be incredibly useful at Quince, its another bulletin board to hop to for mission generation......

 

[Tarman]

Sounds like a great tale for the spacers' bar. Glad it turned out well for you in every way it could. Take a thrillseeking tourist next time for extra pay.

 

[Martian Successor]

If you had weapons and at least 3A normal or prismatic shields you probably could have taken him to be honest. A DBX with mines means he could only have had two other guns at best. By the sound of it at least one of them may have been a laser with Scramble Spectrum or a Powerplay weapon that causes malfunctions.

An Asp X with all frags can make short work of such an opponent with a couple of zoom and boom strafes. Alternatively pack two medium missile launchers and as soon as you down his shields open up with the missiles. 2 to 3 consecutive hits and his weapons will be nullified, then you can destroy his engines and watch him plummet to the surface

 

[DukeIronHand]

If you had weapons and at least 3A normal or prismatic shields you probably could have taken him to be honest. A DBX with mines means he could only have had two other guns at best. By the sound of it at least one of them may have been a laser with Scramble Spectrum or a Powerplay weapon that causes malfunctions.

An Asp X with all frags can make short work of such an opponent with a couple of zoom and boom strafes. Alternatively pack two medium missile launchers and as soon as you down his shields open up with the missiles. 2 to 3 consecutive hits and his weapons will be nullified, then you can destroy his engines and watch him plummet to the surface

Well I have to admit after the "unwarranted" attack it would have been nice to shove some cannons in his face!
But death is quite painless in this game so I'll savor my escape with hide intact and a small repair bill.
And he did complete my missions for me so I guess it's even-steven.

 

[Tarman]

If you had weapons and at least 3A normal or prismatic shields you probably could have taken him to be honest. A DBX with mines means he could only have had two other guns at best. By the sound of it at least one of them may have been a laser with Scramble Spectrum or a Powerplay weapon that causes malfunctions.

An Asp X with all frags can make short work of such an opponent with a couple of zoom and boom strafes. Alternatively pack two medium missile launchers and as soon as you down his shields open up with the missiles. 2 to 3 consecutive hits and his weapons will be nullified, then you can destroy his engines and watch him plummet to the surface

I had a bunch of random weapons lying about when I got my AspX, which ended up becoming quad seekers with twin C2 beams. It's sufficient for eating small annoying stuff and can hold out for a single fight or two against tougher enemies up to a point. For a primarily mission running ship it suits my occasional need to collect a bounty whilst full of cargo. Restock can be pricey if you bleed it out but docking even all shot up and dry is more fun than pressing the rebuy button.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

He hits me with Engineered weapons and my thrusters fail(?) and, already being low, I skip off the planets surface like a flat stone

There's a special effect you can get for mines where it reboots the target's engines on detonation. Super-handy for making getaways in trade ships, which is my experience with them.

I have had a few near-surface PvE fights where my scramble spectrum lasers turned off an NPC's drives and sent them crashing into the surface. I have to admit, it's a lot of fun to see.

 

[DukeIronHand]

There's a special effect you can get for mines where it reboots the target's engines on detonation. Super-handy for making getaways in trade ships, which is my experience with them.

I have had a few near-surface PvE fights where my scramble spectrum lasers turned off an NPC's drives and sent them crashing into the surface. I have to admit, it's a lot of fun to see.

Interesting thanks.
I will admit to doing minor Engineering (Thrusters and FSD's so far) but know nothing of weapon effects.
I am almost positive my shields never completely failed so these effects by-pass shields apparently?

As for the initial attack I will guess it was his laser? It came as a surprise, and started and ended very quickly, but I don't recall seeing mines but he could have "dive bombed" me I suppose. I wasn't going fast just gadding about trying to find my mission target.

 

[Lucian667]

I had a bunch of random weapons lying about when I got my AspX, which ended up becoming quad seekers with twin C2 beams. It's sufficient for eating small annoying stuff and can hold out for a single fight or two against tougher enemies up to a point. For a primarily mission running ship it suits my occasional need to collect a bounty whilst full of cargo. Restock can be pricey if you bleed it out but docking even all shot up and dry is more fun than pressing the rebuy button.

I used to have 4 mine launchers on my Asp-X but honestly I found them to be worse than useless, so I've had the exact same weapon load-out as you for a few months now and its served me very well in some very tight situations.