Took the Toad out like I figured and went where the wind took me. Made more money today in the 6 hours of flying than I normally do in a week. Here's what's wierd though - making the money wasn't all that satisfying. Don't really need it - it's just a way to keep score now.
What was satisfying - and strangely fun was wrestling the beast around. And getting it engineered up. Got my FSD up to G4 and put an experimental on it that upped the max fuel per jump from 5 to 8.5 which is a big deal for me as I never ever plot economical routes. Got my thrusters up to G3 with Felicity and that's probably all it'll ever get as I'm not gonna do what's necessary to get to the guy that can do it - an intermediate Engineer in the chain of introductions needs 500 tons mined - sorry - not gonna do it - nope. Gotta respect the guys that do mine and like it but I just ain't one of 'em.
What I really wanted to happen was to get interdicted to see how that would work. Flew into an anarchy system with a full load of Basic Medicines and tooled around for a bit and bang! Interdicted. Normally only takes about 30 to 60 seconds for me to win the interdiction game. In the T9 it took me 2 to 3 minutes and a couple of times it almost got away from me. To the poster who said you gotta be 2 or 3 seconds ahead of the T9 - well you are absolutely right because that's when I started flying it that way.
That was near the end of my day and I still wanted to see if I could use the Toad as a smuggler. Turns out - yeah - I could. Tried two dry runs at the next two stations I was delivering to without issue. Center everything up at around 8Km, set the throttle to 140, turn off FA and float to within 3.5 Km of the slot and get clearance to land. Turn on silent running, turn on FA and drive thru the slot. Slap down the gear to brake the ship a bit, zero the throttle so auto-dock will kick in and - done. Easy as easy can be.
I was in Empire space so I bought me 1 Imperial Slave and 1 Slave (hated doing that but I needed some illicit cargo to try the real thing). Headed home and smuggled in those 2T of slaves with nary a hiccup.
Normally I hang out in Haz Res' in my Python and roam anarchy and low security systems pullin' the wanted out of SC to earn a livin. Fun stuff but I'm here to tell ya - I believe I had a level of fun today that is pretty darn close to the fun I have taking on NPC wing's and blowin' em all away in a Haz Res or pullin a Python or Anaconda out of SC and wipin' 'em with my Asp - hard for me (Usually ends up with me tuckin tail and runnin') - or my Python - easy against another Python - borderline hard against an Anaconda.
Great day. I'm gonna like the Lumbering Toad - I think - still not looking forward to the 1st time I have to fight with it though. Nope. Not lookin forward to that at all.