My First Broken Canopy

[J. Walter Weatherman]

I had a similar experience just now. I was doing some delivery work out in LHS 3447 when I decided to stop in at a USS to see if I could grab some goodies to dump into the black market at Lawson Orbital. A quick look around when I left supercruise showed a wanted NPC eagle waiting for me with weapons deployed but shields down. I knew I couldn't hope to outrun him so I threw my startwinder into the fight, trying to keep close underneath him. After a few hits he broke away before turning around for an attack run. I boosted and flew straight at him with my guns blazing hoping to drastically cut the time I was exposed to his fire. The next thing I knew I'd lost all forward momentum and was breathing space. It seems playing chicken with AI is not a sound strategy.
Still, if I could just make it to a station the 6,000CR bounty added to the job I already had should fix me right up. With that thought giving me a warm fuzzy feeling inside I locked onto the nearest station which as luck would have it was Lawson. It was only 1,500ls away. I didn't waste anytime re-entering supercruise.
What felt like an age after I dropped out into real space and tore straight to the station. With only 30 seconds of oxygen left if I hoped to land at all it was going to have to be hard, fast, and filled with prayer.
I requested permission to dock but I didn't hold much hope. The life support system was on it's last legs and the air was getting thin.
3KM out from my landing pad the ships computer advised me to eject but it was too late; I was already suffocating.

 

[insanephoton]

I once lost two canopies in a day. It's one of those freak things. I was out looking for salvage when I came across a pirate in a Python. I thought I had a good chance. Now my ship isn't really set up for combat but she still has some teeth. I wasn't alone. There were a couple of System Authority fighters also in the mix. Maybe I was overconfident, perhaps I was overcome by greed at the size of the bounty or just had thoughts of avenging the loss of my last ship to a Python. (Some felon in a Python rammed it). I started attacking. Things were going well. I'd taken some minor damage and done considerably more to him. My shields hadn't fully recovered but I decided to make another attack run before his shields came back on line. That's when it all went wrong. He turned suddenly and caught me off guard. My throttle had jammed in low speed and I didn't have enough power in the engine to boost out of trouble. My shields failed and my hull was losing integrity fast. The canopy shattered and I feared the worst. Just as I the end was near, my throttle unjammed and I had enough power to boost away. His shields were down again and he'd taken a battering but my Cobra was in a much worse state. I figured now was the time to get out of Dodge. I don't know if he got away or if the fighters got him. I didn't care. It was a tense but uneventful journey back to the station. With everything patched up I headed out again.
.
I'd had a tip about some ship being lost in Volungu with a valuable cargo. So I was back on the salvage trail. I'd found some other lost cargo and was still searching when I came across a group of pirates. Two Eagles and an Asp. First they demanded my cargo, when I didn't respond quick enough for their liking they started shooting. It seemed that the guy in the Asp was the leader so I targeted him. I was doing some damage but his friends were plugging away at me and my shields failed. I boosted out of range to allow my shields to recover and changed tack. Using my Cobra's superior speed I made hit and run attacks on the Eagles. My beam lasers made short work of them but the Asp got a lucky shot in with his frag cannon and shattered my canopy. I had 10 minutes air left. I knew that there was an outpost only a few light seconds away, so I resolve to fight on. It's not easy to fight without a target reticule, so it's lucky I'd got gimballed pulse lasers fitted on the two smaller hard points. I used them like tracer to bring my beam lasers to bear on him. Finally it was over. A 19000 cr bounty was more than enough to pay for my repairs. With great relief I landed and entered the hangar with over a minute of oxygen to spare.