Role Playing Ripped My Flesh

So I have two commanders. There's Conal, the Old Guy, and then there's the New Guy. I started the New Guy out to play through the early game again – which was loads of fun, one of the most fun times, I think – and the advantage of playing the two of them is that they can do vastly different things in very different places. Except that from time to time they cooperate, and they end up doing pretty much the same thing for awhile. That's not as much fun. But now and then you have to take one for the BGS team, right?

Conal has been knocking around for a lot longer, of course, and he's run all kinds of missions for all kinds of factions even though, like New Guy, he's Alliance. He never took a rank mission from the Feds or the Empire because... well. He wouldn't, would he?

But while boosting the influence of a local Fed faction in order to pull influence away from someone else, Conal took a rank mission because it was the fastest way to do that. And when it was done, he had enough rank rep to put him 100% of the way to the next rank. The next day he did the same thing again, and now he has 100% of the rep needed to unlock the rank after that one. He'd been accruing reputation for so long, without ever cashing it in, that now he was getting these promotions without even wanting them. Right?

New Guy thought this was interesting.

This is the part where you're going to take a step backwards, with your hands out, and look for the guys in the white jackets. I don't mind.

New Guy made a bet. He bet that Conal had enough stored reputation that if he just took the rank missions, and did nothing else for the Feds, he had enough rep stored up to make Rear Admiral. Which would be hilarious. And Conal took that bet.

So now whenever Conal comes back to the bubble he pops over to Fed space and looks around for easy rank missions. Every time he's taken one he's still had 100% of the rep to get the next. Today he just became an Ensign, and whenever the next mission drops he'll make Lieutenant. I have no idea if New Guy is right. I don't know how far this will go.

In itself, this is not that interesting. Because what makes a bet interesting is the stakes. And there's really only one thing a commander can bet... only one important thing.

That's right. They bet a mug.

You will have seen the flaw in this plan. Whoever loses the bet, I am going to have to make the Hutton Run again.

It's okay, I guess: I've got books.
 
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So I have two commanders. There's Conal, the Old Guy, and then there's the New Guy. I started the New Guy out to play through the early game again – which was loads of fun, one of the most fun times, I think – and the advantage of playing the two of them is that they can do vastly different things in very different places. Except that from time to time they cooperate, and they end up doing pretty much the same thing for awhile. That's not as much fun. But now and then you have to take one for the BGS team, right?

Conal has been knocking for a lot longer, of course, and he's run all kinds of missions for all kinds of factions even though, like New Guy, he's Alliance. He never took a rank mission from the Feds or the Empire because... well. He wouldn't, would he?

But while boosting the influence of a local Fed faction in order to pull influence away from someone else, Conal took a rank mission because it was the fastest way to do that. And when it was done, he had enough rank rep to put him 100% of the way to the next rank. The next day he did the same thing again, and now had 100% of the rep needed to unlock the rank after that one. He'd been accruing reputation for so long, without ever cashing it in, that now he was getting these promotions without even wanting them. Right?

New Guy thought this was interesting.

This is the part where you're going to take a step backwards, with your hands out, and look for the guys in the white jackets. I don't mind.

New Guy made a bet. He bet that Conal had enough stored reputation that if he just took the rank missions, and did nothing else for the Feds, he had enough rep stored up to make Rear Admiral. Which would be hilarious. And Conal took that bet.

So now whenever Conal comes back to the bubble he pops over to Fed space and looks around for easy rank missions. Every time he's taken one he's still had 100% of the rep to get the next. Today he just became an Ensign, and whenever the next mission drops he'll make Lieutenant. I have no idea if New Guy is right. I don't know how far this will go.

In itself, this is not that interesting. Because what makes a bet interesting is the stakes. And there's really only one thing a commander can bet... only one important thing.

That's right. They bet a mug.

You will have seen the flaw in this plan. Whoever loses the bet, I am going to have to make the Hutton Run again.

It's okay, I guess: I've got books.
Get them to fit supercruise assist and take a nice nap.
 
Do you ever multi-crew on the same ship with yourself ?

Now that's a thing I've never done. I guess it's possible that I could install ED on my creaky old laptop so I could run the game twice, but I hate to think what its performance would be like.
 
I feel like I should know you.

Alliance CMDR involved in the BGS?

You are probably somebody.

I have a backstory about my Fed rank. I had zero Fed rank after 2 and a half years of playing. But that all changed over a few months.

Now pretty much since the earliest days - and I’m talking here like 2014-2015 - the AEDC seniors had been kicking around the idea: “Hey wouldn’t it be cool if we could get an Alliance faction into Sol.”

It was unrealistic for years, but we did have an Alliance faction we supported towards the bottom of Alliance space. It was slowly growing and we developed lore and artwork for them. Then Mangal Oemie got hooked on the BGS and took a particular interest in this faction posting a series of operations designed to push this faction towards Sol.

We knew PMFs were locked out because Hutton Truckers and others had expansions that should have gone into Sol. But Alliance Combine was not recognised by Frontier as a PMF. “Only one faction per group”, they said.We knew an NPC minor faction had expanded into Sol once before, so it was definitely worth a shot. The project ticked along slowly for years, known variously as Project Apollo or mostly CAKE. One day we decided that it was actually viable and the project was green lit and we went all hands on deck.

Now, over the years DNA-Decay has haunted these forums, I have been a consisten flag waver for the Alliance, and I am known for being Alliance Only.
I have negative Empire Rep (another story) and advocate for consequences of allegiance shifting. You shouldn't be able to be a Rear-Admiral King. And I encourage Alliance CMDRs to do more and be more. (There's a couple of seniors now in AEDC who were recruited on the back of some of my posts)
And I know that people check out my INARA page to see what I'm up to. Just like I check out lots of CMDRs pages to figure out what is going on.
So I made up a cover story for having Fed rank - which is that my IRL family wanted to have a look at Sol, becuase I have this ridiculous sim pit taking up the lounge room and I've never shown them the Earth.
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Anyways I took a bunch of rank missions hoping that I would be fighting in a war in Sol within two months.

Our last milestone system hat we had to take before we could attempt an expansion into Sol was Ross 128.


Ross 128 is a savage Federation Prison system that has had in-game lore written for it since the 90's and there was even an Elite Dangerous book that opens in the Mines of Warren Prison. The Ross 128 permit has an even higher Fed Rank requirement than Sol, so I had to bosh quickly to make the last two ranks I needed. The AEDC took Ross 128 and flipped the Prison Mines to Alliance. We also got an expansion out of there which should have gone into Sol, but skipped Sol and went to Luhman 16 (which is further). So we now know that Sol is God-locked from all inbound expansions, not just PMFs.

Taking Ross 128 lead to a long war with Earth Defense Fleet. It raged for months with both groups going all out. Eventually there was a settlement that AEDC would hold the Green Corridor into the south including Ross 128, but we would not expand further south.

We were pretty happy with that as an outcome.

The strategic situation in the South of Alliance Space was changed dramatically since then. Late year the Alliance came under extensive attack by automated accounts - bots. Many AEDC assets were lost, and major damage was done to the Mahon PowerPlay economy. Other groups came under attack as well.

I don't really know how that played out, and I wouldn't be able to tell you if I did. But the botters do seem to have moved on for now.
 
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I feel like I should know you.
Alliance CMDR involved in the BGS?
You are probably somebody.

I'm almost certain that I am somebody, but I doubt I'm the kind of somebody you think I am.

I'm not crazy about the large player groups; the AEDC in particular shredded a plan of mine last year when they poked The Code with a stick and then walked away. So now I'm in a small, invisible group instead. We figure if you're not large then it's better to be quiet.
 
Well I don’t know that you can really fault the AEDC giving The Code a poke.
The Code and the AEDC have a long standing opposition as uh ‘honourable enemies’.

The Code call the Old Worlds Sector “The New Caribbean” and try to set it up as a pirate enclave. We’re generally opposed to that. and before PMFs were injected into the game, I had this idea that we would present David Braben with one of Frontier’s own Old Worlds T-Shirts when the sector had been entirely flipped to Alliance governance. But alas, The Code claimed Orrere.

Were you pushing that mining company? I don’t remember details, but I think I know where you are talking about.
 
Wait til you hit the "Post XXX" ranks. Those stored points dissipate very quickly.

And why would a ship commander be a Post Captain, etc.? I'm ex-Navy and Post/Base bosses were usually Lt. Commanders or Commanders. Yeh, yeh, I know it's a game, but ... And while I'm on the subject, just how many Kings does the Empire need, and why don't the Empire stations welcome me with "Welcome back, your royal highness"? Baron should be the highest player rank available.

Things that make you go Hmmmmm...
 
And why would a ship commander be a Post Captain, etc.? I'm ex-Navy and Post/Base bosses were usually Lt. Commanders or Commanders.

The Patrick O'Brien novels taught me that a in the British-Navy-that-was a Commander was in charge of a vessel that had less than three masts, the minimum number for something called a ship. And my memory's a little hazier here, but I think Post Captains had temporary command of a real ship.

Looking forward to dissipating rep; I hope you're right about that.
 
Post Commander now, still no end in sight. I'd really like to get Conal back out of the bubble , but I'm getting more and more curious about how this will end up. He's just two ranks away, right?
 
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