CMDRs,
Apologies for the delayed explanation of how I deciphered this. I had to high-tail it to Panjabell to look for anything unusual. There is nothing apparent there, but I haven't searched exhaustively yet. Please feel free to join in the hunt at Panjabell.
Like many, I tried a number of techniques to no avail until I stumbled upon the right one. The key was indeed the fake traffic logs. Using the incrementing Type-7 numbers to determine order, the other ship types spelled out a 7x7 matrix, namely:
0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Assuming this to be the key, I arranged the numerical ciphertext provided in the Galnet article into a matrix 7 columns by 24 rows. I then multiplied it by the inverse of the key above. The result yielded a reasonable number of unique values, 27 (with 30 being an outlier). To me, this appeared to be the alphabet (single case) plus a space. I started with 1=A, 2=B, etc. I set the remaining values after Z to space. This deciphered to the message I posted, to my surprise.
Good luck recreating my results. I used Excel for all of this. Good luck to us all in tracking down Theta 7 from here, and I'll see you in the black!
o7,
CMDR Therion Cygni