It's Been 0 Days Since Our Last Accident

[Ayerc]

Saturday night. I should be out at the bar, but the profits are booming and it won't last forever. I've got my T-9 fitted for maximum profit, 532t...no shields. The extra 32t is pulling 275k an hour and I haven't had an accident in weeks.

Cargo holds fully loaded. Pre-flight check...checked. Cleared for launch. The ol' girl creaks off the pad and floats toward the mail slot.

Time to get to work, throttle to 100%, I've got this. The seat sucks me in as we gain momentum and cross the halo. My eyes adjust from the glare see a cobra headed dead center. <Expletive deleted>! I tilt the left wing down as the cobra panics and thrusters himself into the cage above. He's scraped up, but my girl's a peach without a scratch. I chuckle. Floyd's Shine on You Crazy Diamond starts out of the ship's speakers as the stars come into view.

Cue the approach...

I drop her out of super cruise almost dead center. After so many runs, I can lead this dance blindfolded.

I clear landing with station control and immediately receiving an incoming hail. A buddy of mine sees I'm in range and wants to know what local dive to meet at. While arguing the finer points of avoiding social niceties in times of great economic opportunity, I let my attention slip from the approach.

Proximity Alert, eyes up! Asp dead ahead, apparently unaware he's staring down a flying mountain...a shieldless mountain. <expletive deleted>, full-reverse! I can almost see the credits bleeding into space. I mash buttons and sadly the ship's computer breaks it to me, "Boost." <Expletive deleted>... No time to think, I nose down to the only clear space between Asp and Halo and hope for the best. Squeezing past the blue light, my T-9 scraps her belly on the mail slot and a gleaming white cloud right behind the Asp comes into view...Clipper.

No time to evade. I bounce off her hull and slide down toward the station wall, completely unaware I also killed flight assist in my previous Momentary Lapse of Reason. After a few more bounces, I get her back under control and settled on the landing pad. One hell of a ride. Damage report...hulls at 79%. It could be worse, much worse, but still...time to reset the counter.

Guess I need a drink. Cheers to workplace safety and crazy profits!

 

[saulysw]

A fun account to read. I find accidents always happen just when you are starting to feel that you "have really got this".

The station portal, especially around populated areas such as Leesti, are wild things indeed.

 

[Phoenix Ryder]

been having too many accidents with my ASP....

getting rammed from behind by a NPC Anaconda...
head on with another NPC Anaconda...
rammed a Cobra and killed my self somehow think my shields were too low at the time...

But my Favorite... accidentally rammed an Asteroid after I momentarily lost control of my ASP at full speed due to inertia, I desperately tried to at least lower my speed enough to survive any collision, and then I slammed nose first into the Asteroid....... cockpit smashed, something like 39% of my hull intact everything else was fully functional luckily, tho I had 5 mins of Oxygen... a station was about 3 mins away... only problem, the HUD is gone... so I have to fly blind...

So desperately thinking of something to use as a guide/refference that was still working... then I faceplamed in the panic that I had to use the little Positioning device to line up roughly to the general direction of the station and hit the FSD as soon as I was clear of all the Asteroids... every moment I was fighting back the urge to panic, since that would have lead to mistakes and or time wasted I couldnt afford as I watched the clock count down...

speeding up in superscruise, the clock counted down to like 4 minutes... I was in a real hurry now, I focused on the positional system and made adjustments to line up to the station... then once the glimmering light of the station in deep space came into view, I used that as the guide for the rest of the emergency trip to the base... getting closer and closer, 3 mins still fighting back the urge to panic... I feel I am close enough to exit FSD, as the ship fall out of supercruise, I am still 47kms away.... with something like just over 2 mins on the clock in the back of mind says I can make it if I just keep hitting afterburners, and telling my self thats just not possible.... so I hit the FSD again, 4, 3, 2, 1, Engage !... thats 4 seconds less on the clock......... I cannot afford to overshoot the station and at this distance that is a real possibility without a HUD... all my concentration is now on guessing the distance to time it perfectly to jump out of Supuercruise.... as the station just speeds past the left side of my cockpit I jump out of Supercruise, god I hope I timed it right......... The base is only 8.5KMs or so away... Thank God...

I move closer to the station to request docking permission at 7kms... with about 2 minutes on the clock, I request permission to dock, I just then realized the station could be full with other commanders ships docked at the Outpost... Permission................ Granted... so far Luck is on my side, then I just had an horrific thought, what if the landing lights from the station were on the HUD and not from the Station.... oh crap, and I see no landing lights from this side of the Outpost... Panic creeping in, and something like 1minute 50 seconds I hit full afterburners and use the thrusters to sweep around the station looking for any hope of landing lights, still nothing as I continue to sweep around the station at around 3kms from the Outpost, then just as the tower moves out of the way I see landing lights... what a relief... now all I have to do is not crash into the station... and hope the station has Repair facilities, will have to deal with that later... for now tho, there is something like 1:20minutes left, I move into position quickly to land hovering over the platform, I gently land the ship.... Docking engaged, about 1:10 minutes left........ Thank God, I lean back to sigh a breath of relief.... 1:07, 1:06, 1:05... huh ? oh damnit enter station !!! then oxygen is replenished.......... I use the repair facilities, luckily, otherwise I would have had to make a mad dash within 5 minutes to another station.... repairs were something just over 100K, tho it would have been much worse if I lost the ship...

always hopped I never had to use the Life support again.... the first time I had to make a mad dash to station was with my Cobra quite a while back, that time I had to make jump to another system... was another fun journey

 

[Ayerc]

always hopped I never had to use the Life support again.... the first time I had to make a mad dash to station was with my Cobra quite a while back, that time I had to make jump to another system... was another fun journey

Nicely done, the blown out canopy can be very panic inducing, but you kept it together! My first experience with it was back in beta. Landing was down to the last second, but I was too slow. It was a spectacular end.

 

[Phoenix Ryder]

damn.... so close......

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

That's why I upgrade even life support. Yes, it adds up mass, but 25 minutes time to find somewhere to dock is much more comfortable than 5 minutes.

 

[acg515]

One time I had explored for like 6 hours and I was coming in to dock and sell my info and dump my (illegal) cargo when I was interdicted and some guy was like "GIVE ME YO SHIZZLE"

Then he full on rammed me and I exploded. I jumped out of my seat and screamed as loudly as I could.

This is a fun game.