Out of Fuel? - Explorer Rescue Service, The Fuel Rats
- Thread starter Surly_Badger
- Start date
You should drop into the IRC room and take advice from there. Don't sign in until someone is in the system (or in the neighbouring one)
Good luck!
May the fuel transfer be with you! O7
May the fuel transfer be with you! O7
I just want to tell you both, good luck. We're all counting on you!
Surely he can't be serious.
I just want to tell you both, good luck. We're all counting on you!
Rescue complete:
CMDR Smysha managed to get himself stuck in a month-long exploration trip to Sgr A*. Only being mere 7000Ly away from populated space I immediately responded to the call, arriving in just under 4 hours (racing along a fellow rat for the first 4000Ly or so). Upon arrival I initially assumed an instancing issue to be the cause of not being able to see CMDR Smysha while he could see me at the same time. False alarm, my sensors were simply turned off (duh).
After refuelling tips were exchanged on safely returning to the Lembava CG without getting blown up and then we had tea and crumpets. The End.
I was listening to this during the past 2 hours.
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Flyooe Hypue US-E A66-4
CMDR Smysha managed to get himself stuck in a month-long exploration trip to Sgr A*. Only being mere 7000Ly away from populated space I immediately responded to the call, arriving in just under 4 hours (racing along a fellow rat for the first 4000Ly or so). Upon arrival I initially assumed an instancing issue to be the cause of not being able to see CMDR Smysha while he could see me at the same time. False alarm, my sensors were simply turned off (duh).
After refuelling tips were exchanged on safely returning to the Lembava CG without getting blown up and then we had tea and crumpets. The End.
I was listening to this during the past 2 hours.
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Flyooe Hypue US-E A66-4
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Muffindrake: Huzzah! Well done mate! I hope you have a discovery scanner on board?
Another successful rescue:
An unfortunate Anaconda CMDR was stranded in Kui Hsien after using too much fuel evading a nasty pirate. As there are only outposts in Kui Hsien, he was unable to dock and refuel. (Where is that 30km hose when you need it?)
He waited there for some time hoping that his friends were able to hear his distress call, but then a passing CMDR informed him of the Fuel Rats.
No more than 20 minutes after contacting us he was on his merry way with full fuel-tanks, and with a hand-written order for a fuel scoop at the nearest station.
Another successful rescue:
An unfortunate Anaconda CMDR was stranded in Kui Hsien after using too much fuel evading a nasty pirate. As there are only outposts in Kui Hsien, he was unable to dock and refuel. (Where is that 30km hose when you need it?)
He waited there for some time hoping that his friends were able to hear his distress call, but then a passing CMDR informed him of the Fuel Rats.
No more than 20 minutes after contacting us he was on his merry way with full fuel-tanks, and with a hand-written order for a fuel scoop at the nearest station.
Oh man, that brickwall. Worth every KLY. I also saw the "Fine Ring Nebula" from inside out, which was nice. and some twin stars, which were nice.
BTW : we discovered "en route" that you can actually look for a system with three or more words in it. you just mash the "arrow" twenty or forty times.
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Agreed on all accounts. While we "knew this was going to happen someday" nobody expects the spanish inquisition until they kick in your front door. In forming the Fuel Rats I've been light on establishing rules and doctrine because I think our behaviors ought to evolve - which is exactly what they are doing. Trying to put a lot of thought into things in advance results in a lot of top-heavy unnecessary rules; I think we should continue to optimize our procedures and focus on doing what we do: saving lives from the deep black. And, if I may blow our horn: we've been doing a great job and we've made a real difference. One of the CMDRs that was rescued was sitting on a weep-copiously-large amount of exploration data, etc. We are doing a good thing and we are doing it well and cheerfully and I salute you all.
The problem with the channel was known and I had been planning to switch it over during the week; the events with the meltdown simply pushed my schedule forward unexpectedly. In fact, CMDR Orange_Sheets had already done the set-up of registering the #RatChat and gaining administrative access, etc. That's stuff I didn't know enough to do when I did the initial prototype of the site. I was just concerned with getting things working so we could see if #RatChat was useful. And it was, so version 2.0 was already in the works.
Having a DISPATCH is also working well. The nature of online chat (whether voice or text) is that it's always possible to talk over someone because we lack the visual cue of seeing someone's body language or mouth start to open. As a general rule, I'd like to ask rats in #RatChat to let DISPATCH ask the questions and coordinate as soon as the RATSIGNAL goes up. I am not saying "be quiet" just .... uh... "be helpful" and that means assuming DISPATCH knows what they are doing. I was listening in when CMDR Anuranium was DISPATCH and was fielding a call and his professionalism and clarity was a joy to behold. The time to get unprofessional is when we shake down... uh, negotiate.. our service fee after we've rescued our target.
Another topic: I am planning to do a write-up on "How to Fuel Rat" as a rough guideline. I emphasize that this will not be: rules. It'll be suggestions. The word "policy" scares me, but "inherited wisdom" has a nice ring to it. The write-up will include basic Ratting 101 as well as some suggestions for #RatChat and how the DISPATCH works, etc. When I post it, I encourage anyone with suggestions to either air them here (if they think they are of public concern) or to PM me.
I want to add a few personal notes, if you'll bear with me:
First, I do not handle chaos well. I used to have a chaos-job for 80hr/week for 5 years and I do not like chaos; I tend to just go somewhere else. This game should be fun and being a Fuel Rat should be rewarding for all of us. If it ever becomes unrewarding for any of us (including me) just ... walk away. During the "incident" yesterday several Rats were sounding geniunely angry and upset. Personally, I think that's a mistake and the best way to deal with stressful situtions in a game is to remember it's a game and relax into role-play. In my case (as some of you may have noticed) my first line of defense is to be silly. In case my silliness during the incident bothered anyone, I would like to formally apologize. At the time I didn't have a way to coordinate our response and discuss with the team on #RatChat whether we should role-play the scenario seriously, or try to blow it off. I think it can/should be a topic for open discussion whether or not we want to adopt a different/better doctrine for how to respond to the unexpected.
So, that is an open question for the group: Should our default response to the unexpected be to role-play? Or should we break character and deal with game-play as game-play. Or should we leave it up to individual CMDRs at the time?
Remaining on a personal note, I feel our RatScramble response worked out pretty well, and I am proud of how the Fuel Rats comported themselves with dignity, honor, and humor. I am not so impressed with the pirates' role-play, and subsequent intervention in #RatChat. I am especially not impressed with what appeared to be suspiciously like a denial of service attack launched on my machine during the incident, which caused two extremely stable systems on my network (my game-box and my work desktop) to crash simultaneously. That has never happened before or since and I believe it was most likely someone getting inappropriately personal: hacking is extremely uncool and is the loser's resort. Further, I don't think it's cool to jump into someone else's busy day and begin role-playing an attack on them - especially since "role-play attack" is indistinguishable from "real attack" unless something is said first. If someone from the pirates had courteously joined #RatChat and given us a heads up/challenge, I am confident we'd have met the challenge with our tails held high. Instead, I felt contemptuous of their attitude and decided that belittling them was best, so that is the strategy I adopted. I remain very unimpressed with the pirates' actions and wanted to do what I could to make sure in-game that they are seen as the big poopypants who attacked someone who had shown up in good faith to help them. We deserve better pirates.
Edit: One more personal note - when I am having fun, I tend to be disorganized because I don't have to care.
That's why I keep asking people to PM me stuff. Because if it's in my in-box then I can track it, deal with it, and delete it. If it's in a thread or a chat-log I may not see it. And, frankly, I am not going to let this become "a job." So please, if you see you're missing from the roster or the leaderboard or have a suggestion or asked me a question I didn't answer - PM me. I will never complain "you're PMming me too much"Anyway, that's enough. I'm honored to fly with you guys, keep up the good work.
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Watch out for the Popcorn Nebula!! It's heavily buttered and your triglyceride levels may spike through the roof!!!
(Brilliant, Alec! Primary Rep Tank: DRAINED)
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I must mention that CMDR Muffindrake holds the cake for longest rescue (7000+ly) and (so far as I know) tightest rescue margin (1min:02sec air remaining)
What messed-up thing can we do to Muffindrake next?
I'd say leave it to the individual CMDR. We are -after all- an anarchy.
EDIT : even with Real Life non-withstanding I don't think I could have grabbed that 7+KLY one before him. Now I'm sitting 4KLY away from the bubble with a full tank of fuel, everything powered down except powerplant and life support, pondering my next move.
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It's ultimately a volunteer group and as such, I would suggest that it be left to the CMDR to make that call themselves. Personally speaking, if I'm in a surreal or unexpected situation I'm going to RP the living snot out of it because to me, there is no down side to doing that.
I don't think any general policy for an ambush is feasible. Every rat needs to make his own choice depending on factors that cannot be determined ahead of time including "ship outfit" and "player mindset". Example if the rat is a confident PvPer then he can fight. or if the rat has no guns they can run.
If someone is hoping for Role-play then there needs to be prior-communication. If PvP fleets can co-ordinate with each other to have space battles, then any (non actual rescue) roleplay should be able to be co-ordinated with us.
Roleplay is like being on stage anyway "Acting" surprised is part of that territory.
If someone is hoping for Role-play then there needs to be prior-communication. If PvP fleets can co-ordinate with each other to have space battles, then any (non actual rescue) roleplay should be able to be co-ordinated with us.
Roleplay is like being on stage anyway "Acting" surprised is part of that territory.
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I just want to tell you both, good luck. We're all counting on you!