What's your narrowest escape ?

[F1Racer]

I was wondering what were peoples narrowest escapes where they cheated death.
Last night I had my closest one yet (short of actually dying) and had two bits of luck that saved me.
So here's my story

I was transporting 20tonnes of rare trades to a far off system so natually I didn't want to get stopped (interdicted) with it along the way.
But I decided to do some exploring along the way so that, as well as a healthy payoff, I could earn extra in Cartographics.

I was three jumps away from my destination on my 2nd run that night. What I was doing was fuel scooping at every opportunity so as to save money on fuel when I got there.
I got to thinking if NPC's would risk interdicting so close to a yellow or red dwarf star while I was scooping.... or.... if you had your back to the star and were as close as you could safely be, are you safe from interdicion while stood still because getting in behind you might be out of the NPC's capability.

Well it seems interdicting while fuel scooping is on the cars as I found out. I didn't see him coming. Can't remember if it was an Eagle or a Cobra MKIII like mine.
Well I was up for the fight but if could get away all the better. But after being flung out into normal space, I must have been so close to the star that the temps were rising and it all got a bit messy as my cockpit was in the 200's already. I really didn't know what to do with this guy firing on me too. What could I do to not heat my ship up and find a way out ? Too hot to jump ? Well I didn't fire back despite being pretty well armed. I had to concentrate on getting out of there. I was in a system with no spaceports and there had been none in the last 6 jumps.

I hit the jump button and just had to wait it out for the jump to hyperspace. Temps were still rising and the ship was still firing. Power to system maybe helps with my shields but I'm pretty sure they did go offline. I vented 3 times which surely saved my life as it dropped the temps each time I was in the critical 300's. Cockpit was sparking, smoking and some small fires.
Then came the sound I did not want to hear as my armour was being torn up..... "Canopy breached". Suddenly it got lot more quiet. Life support had kicked in and I had 5 minutes to live. But was I going to even make it that long ? My shields were trying desperately to replenish and I had 1% armour left. One more shot or a few degrees more and it was over.
It was almost time to jump but could I survive it ? What about when the jump ends and I'm face to face with another superhot star (no not Jeniffer Lawrence).
Then the countdown started, 4,3,2,1...engage... Bye bye you damned pirate. The jump ends, I'm on minimal engines and veer away from the star.... I have under 3 minute of life support...
Temps are in the high 280's and now dropping. Partial HUD display due to the glass on the cockpit being mostly missing.
But here now I finally have my first piece of luck. This jump, which was part of my route, has a space port !! But wait... how far away? 2m40s of life left then I lose my ship, my valuable cargo and my life....

732ls... well, my 2nd piece of luck... it's close. I nail the fastest I can go in the blue zone and just hope. It's eerily quiet, I can hear myself breathe. I'm constantly pitching the ship so I can see where my destination is on the cracked up HUD as I only have a working HUD in the top of the glass and nothing straight ahead.
30s or so to get there and then I get the warning to 'Slow down'. In my eagerness I overshot it. Oh no... quickly pitched around and went for another go. "Safe to disengage"... boom. There was the lovely octahedron starport. Full speed with boost to get there. The clock is ticking down my life...
Permission to dock please !!! ...... "Granted" came the reply. Line up the letterbox, cut engines and come in on fwd thrusters...
Less than 2 mins of life support... Come on girl, don't let me down... Through we go... "Life support reinstated" or words to that effect echo on my ships computer. I made it ! Life support stops at 1m52s. What was all the fuss about, we made it easy, right ?
13,500CR on repairs and we're soon ready to make the last few jumps to get to our destination to make a nice, tidy profit. Which is exactly what happened. But only just.
Next time, I`ll just pay for the fuel.

(I did record (shadowplay) the last few minutes of this event but if I'd had presence of mind I would have save the last 5 mins and then started recording so I could have got everything since the interdiction. Oh well.)

 

[Biscuit]

I had a similar experience recently but didn't make due to landing on an outpost and forgetting there's no oxygen outside. Oops.

Have since made upgraded life support and must. An NPC cracked my canopy but I calmly ignored it as I had 15 mins o2 left and proceeded to melt him.

 

[F1Racer]

So I was lucky 3 times in that the space port I had was the octahedron ones with an internal atmos. So that's what the blue light is on the letterbox entrance. A forcefield. Dunno why I hadn't realised that before and thought it was 'Pimp my spacestation'. Cool

 

[Thoemse]

Only had a single fight ingame yet. So far i only did trading to advance.
To advance from master to squire in empire rank you have to do a combat mission.
So here i go - buy a cobra and invest my last credits into 2 lasers and 2 multicannons.
Never been in combat mind you.

I found my target really quick. To my shock it is an imperial clipper that immediatly starts firing at me.
No problem - lets down this dude i think only to find out that i don't even have my weapon groups set up. Duh!
And away i run.
On my second attempt my guns are grouped - yay - this time i find out that i haven't mapped the right joystick trigger to actaully fire them. Later i found out they were on the button i thought was for secondary weapons. Doh!

On my third attempt i managed to kill the guy but with me being the first time in combat it was closer then i would've liked. He exploded when i was at 60% hull with a nice crack in my windshield. The noise the glass made was pretty damn scary!

That was last night - will be trying more combat today - this time on a smaller target - i hope.

 

[Neilos]

I boosted out of a station and scraped the side of the opening. This is my narrowest escape so far.

 

[Kirmit]

You had me on the edge of my seat reading your epic adventure

Sadly my story is rather less exciting....

Being a poor pilot in debt to the man, I had to sell off my shield generator to make space for more cargo. So there I was, preparing for departure with a cargo hold full of biowaste (exciting I know).

Launched smoothly, eased up the throttles and headed for the exit port. I turned to raise the landing gear, and when I turned back, it was like looking into the face of hell!!

One ship, not sure of the model, but it was larger than my hauler, was being attacked by the orbital attack guns. I deftly side thrusted around them, thinking that's going to be expensive, lined up and hit the thrusters to exit.... only to face another large ship STUCK in the tunnel!!!, a very fast dive down to the right and an emergency deceleration followed.

Luckily I was able to squeeze through a gap to safety and no additional costs

 

[CMDR Carbo]

My narrowest escape was when I got interdicted in SC with my brand new Adder shortly after release by a NPC ship (unfortunately I was too stressed and busy to look a the scanner). Within like 2 seconds the interdiction minigame failed (couldn't even turn my ship) and I was thrown out of SC rotating like crazy. I saw the bottom of a ship, it was huge and had turrets that immediately started to shoot at me.
I was shocked and without a shield so I boosted away, with a rocket flying after me, taking out a large part of my hull integrity. I made a tight turn and headed back to the ship firing with everything I had (both of my base Pulse lasers, lol) but didn't make a dent in his hull. That's when I decided to make a run for it, boosting away and charging my SC. I made evasive maneuvers but my ship was really damaged and it took F O R E V E R to charge up. Then I heard another missile incoming. I was at 12% hull when the countdown to engage SC finally started, somehow most systems still working. I had the feeling the missile was on my tails since forever and would hit me any moment, but then SC started and I cruised away straight to the next station.

 

[mnemon]

I was bounty hunting in an asteroid belt and got bored while searching for targets so I decided to bump into some miners to see how much damage collisions do. Did it a few times and just lost maybe half of my shields until I accidentally flew into an asteroid(was in the shadow of the planet and the asteroid was ~black) which left me with 7% hull and a cracked canopy.

Along came a cobra that was friends with the pirates I had killed earlier and proceeded to shoot me, escaped with 4% hull ...

 

[F1Racer]

I boosted out of a station and scraped the side of the opening. This is my narrowest escape so far.

Tell me about it I misjudged the exit of the letterbox a couple of days ago. Hit the wall and near full throttle and went from a healthy Cobra MKIII to no shields and 22% armour. I turned around and headed quickly back in, so scared of being lasered for hanging around the entrance.
So I just left the station. Re-request a docking, came back it and paid for the repairs.

I do sometimes find it disconcerting that you can be going about your business, preparing to dock. Not messing up and not stopping in the process, yet you still get loitering warnings. I dunno what's going on there.



Some cool stories coming out here

 

[Bando]

Getting to hear the countdown to SC with one percent hull after finally finding Black crow.

 

[Renegade Roach]

Had my thrusters temporarily disabled in the middle of a warzone while being attacked by an Anaconda and various other ships. Made it out with 1% hull. As close as I'd like to take it

 

[ascendence]

this

 

[TannakaObi]

I picked a fight with a rather hard Anaconda, I managed to escape, but it broke my windshield and I made it into dock with about 10 seconds remaining and about 5% hull. Was Interdicted just before coming out of SC to land. Would have been fine if not for that, but just made it anyway. Was getting a bit panicked for a moment though.

I once ran out of fuel by about a second from the pad, I could have literally, got out and pulled my ship onto the landing bay. Oddly enough after I ran out of fuel my ship actually changed direction and headed away from the pad that I was moving towards.

Edited the wording.

 

[chrisfenly]

Lucky for me, I have 10 minutes life support when my canopy is destroyed. This came in very useful when I decided to invested a nav point and saw an anaconda battling two fed security ships. i'm in a mark 3 and decided it would be fun to help out the fed ships and try to grab myself some bounty in the process. my mark 3 has some upgrades, but not many so it was a pretty close battle. by the time i'd destroyed the wanted anaconda (i'm sure my spelling is off, apologies!) my hull was down to 9% and my canopy had been destroyed with 6 mintues left for me to get to a safe, oxygen provided, location. i looked for the nearest port that did repairs and headed out as quick as my poor ship would take me. it's pretty hard to travel in super cruise, keeping the time between 6 and 8 seconds when you can't see as you don't have the navigation lines, but my moving up and down (so i could see the nav lines out of the top part of my screen) i managed to come out of super cruise (having overshot once) to an outpost. with 2 minutes left i asked permission to land then desparatley searched for the search bad and landed with less than a minute remaining. i quickly entered the port and got myself repaired.

all-in-all, a rather exciting battle and race to safety. my wife claims i don't have a life - if only she knew

 

[ScottGust]

All of my close calls can be summed up in one word... Stations

 

[RealNC]

I was transporting combat stabilizers when I got interdicted by a player. I couldn't evade; I failed the escape vector even before I was even able to figure out in which direction it was. It literally took 2 seconds to fail it. I never had a chance.

I'm in an Adder, rigged for maximum cargo space. The player who interdicted me had a bounty and was in a Cobra. He didn't cargo scan me. It seems he didn't even have a cargo scanner. He said: "Drop your cargo. Now." I replied that "I have nothing!" He started shooting at me. My shields went away, and he ate my armor away easily. He left me on the brink on blowing up. He demanded "drop it, or I'll kill you." I replied "I really have nothing! I'm just trying to get to a dock to take a mission!"

He left and let me go.

There's two morals to this story. (a) lying out of your teeth can be rewarding. (b) if you intend to go pirating, buy a cargo scanner, you dummy

 

[AV2012]

Nothing quite as breathtaking as your smashed canopy adventure, but I did have a very close brush with dead last night. I've become a sort of bounty hunting salvage merchant running hot items that I scoop up at the resource extraction site next to Meaney Dock. This is an Anarchy system, so there is normally no shortage of 2k bounty ships to pick off. I'd gone through about 6 or so kills, scooping up cargo as I went. Then an unassuming looking Hauler rolls up and opens up on me. I'm flying a well armed Adder with a shield cell. If I didn't have this I would be toast. The Hauler seemed to have military grade armour and very powerful beam lasers. I managed to limp away with my tail between my legs on 38% hull. It's certainly full of surprises this game! Moral of the story? Watch out for the wolves in sheep's clothing.

 

[Blake_Dragon]

I boosted out of a station and scraped the side of the opening. This is my narrowest escape so far.

back during gamma i started getting a bit to confident (again) lifted off, retracted the gear and started to boost out the mail slot, only to find this wedged in there i barely managed to squeeze my little hauler out the bottom corner narrowly avoiding this cork.

Spoiler

 

[fergal]

I was being attacked by some authority vehicles at a nav beacon in my sidewinder and I jumped out with 1% hull.

I then exploded form excess heat when I entered supercruise, so a short lived narrow escape.

 

[Sam13lfc]

Made the mistake of submitting to an Imperial Clipper whilst in an Eagle. Got its shields down easily enough, but it's hull was far too tanky for my little lasers...got away by flying as erratically as possible whilst charging my FSD on 2% hull integrity!