FTL: the Last Flight of the Good Ship Dapper Pawn

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 7

Part 1: In Rebel Sector, Enemy Boards You

So here we are, in Rebel territory. With our urgent message that the rebels are coming? I have doubts about this mission.

Anyway, enemy 1 is a weedy 2- shield drone guarding a space station. We reach out a claw and it disappears.

More importantly, it generates lots of scrap, and our next stop is a store.

Of course we pay for hull repairs, but also we check out the drone selection and yes. You beauty, a hull repair drone. We buy that without a second thought.

Next up, an actual rebel. They try and board, and also spin up their FTL to try and run off and tell their friends.

The boarders are dealt with by fisticuffs rather than asphyxiation, and a swift breach missile to the helm stops any silly ideas about leaving.

The next rebel has a missile launcher and a flak gun. This used to worry us.

This one manages to chip off two hull before blowing up. Good effort!

Then we run into another rebel. Seriously, this is clearly a popular uprising. Are you sure we’re the good guys here? Anyway, boarders, missile weapon, flak gun.

They also manage to do two hull damage before their involuntary donation of scrap.

Feeling reasonably relaxed, we encounter yet another yellow ship, who somehow manage to board in the microsecond after we jumped in.

More interestingly, they teleport in two groups at opposite ends of the ship, which is tactically novel. We go for asphyxiation this time.

We also put a breach missile into their clone bay because we feel vindictive. We win without further damage, and spend our scrap pile on upgrading the weapons system.

We now have two guns that aren’t the flak cannon. Geigerm looks happier with a second button to press.

In a break from rebels with grudges and teleporters, we run into some miners asking for help.

On the basis that if your solution is a missile, all problems look like targets, we offer to help.

They decline. It’s health and safety gone mad, I tell you. Fine, we hand over some missiles and they do a tiny upgrade to our power.

This is actual cost-neutral but we still have a faint sense of being conned.

Well, this has all been rather boringly anti-climatic hasn’t it.

Fine, let’s go sightseeing then. Bound to be something interesting in an enemy shipyard. What can possibly go wrong?

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 7

Part 2: Behold The Power Of This Half-Built And Semi-Operational Battlestation

Well, that is interesting.

Right hand turret is a triple missile launcher. In my excitement I forget to put up a defence drone, again. Yes, yes.

Of course they send over a boarding party. We end up losing the camera room and Tamsk and Mirefox are a bit bruised, but nothing too dramatic.

The combination of the charge and breach lasers are effective at taking down the shields just before the flak cannon fires, so we can do a lot of damage every 20 seconds.

By the end of the battle we’ve taken 5 damage, which is not bad considering, and we enjoy the view of the big ship breaking up.

We grab some of the scrap floating around…

… and send home a ship. [OOC: I think this unlocks one of the Federation ships, possibly even this one. Also I was so engaged in this fight I forgot to screenshot the more exciting bits. Natural storyteller, not so much.]

We are 24-carat badasses. cracks knuckles Let’s go and bring a bit of law and justice to the rest of the sector.

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 7

Part 3: This Is Not Hypnotherapy

The rest of the sector is remarkably free of rebel ships. Maybe they’re all hiding after flagship 2 went boom.

We visit a store and buy an automatic reloader augment. If this also applies to the flak cannon, it’ll fire every 18 seconds which is a nice tempo.

We attack a drone harassing a civilian ship, and win despite its cloaking device.

We have a volunteer crewmember, @Mysterio under his nom d‘espace of Lana. As everyone else is not dead, the ship is full and we decline with regrets.

The rebels send another drone at us. It’s not well-armed but has a mind controller.

Under its influence, Tamsk starts punching OhBollox, OhBollox decides not to take any of this crap, and they keep each other occupied until we destroy the drone.

We roll over the next two enemies, a drone…

… and a pirate…

…without much trouble. After this we have 328 scrap and decide it’s time to buff up the ship. We upgrade the drone control, engines, oxygen, transporter, helm, camera and doors, and install more power.

We are as ready as we’ll ever be. It’s time to deliver the message.

[Mysterio]

@SpiceTheCat

We have a volunteer crewmember, @Mysterio under his nom d‘espace of Lana. As everyone else is not dead, the ship is full and we decline with regrets.

At least I’m eventually picked on the playground!

[Snotty128]

That’s a healthy looking ship to be heading into the last stand with.

Those hull repairs drones are a real life saver. I’ve never actually remembered to use one in combat, but they do just as well at healing you afterwards

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 7

Interlude: meet the crew

Snotty, helmsman from the start. Now a 2* pilot, and surprisingly close to earning a star for punching.

HustlerTwo, shields guy. Had a fairly quiet journey but done his fair share of repairs.

geigerm took over the gunnery controls and earned his stars despite being at the sharp end.

OhBollox, bouncer, enforcer, boarder and general terror from the start. Will be busy when we reach the flagship.

js619, ship’s engineer. Between him and Snotty we have 45% evasion, which will be essential for our survival. You can see from his repair bar how often the engine room has been hit.

Tamsk. One-rock hand-to-hand combat guy and firefighter. Also reserve shields guy if anything happens to Hustler.

Mirefox Hired for his repair skills but surprisingly punchy for an Engi,

shadowfax Hired for his electricity. Surprisingly punchy for a Zoltan.

[Hustlertwo]

So we meet them just in time for them to die?

[SpiceTheCat]

Oh tish pshaw. Pessimism. 24-carat badasses, the lot of you. We may not actually die fighting the flagship. Or, this is the crew at their very best on the eve of battle, if it is one-way-ticket-to-Valhalla time. Half a league onwards and all that.

[js619]

We are a rather impressive lot!

[geigerm]

I think I’ve enjoyed this writeup more than actually playing the game.

[Mysterio]

If I were on the ship, I’d be screaming, “We’re all gonna die!” going into the final battle. I’m bad for crew morale.

[Hustlertwo]

Quite looking forward to the conclusion for this narrative. Can’t help but feel like when I play the game myself it will seem mundane by comparison.

[whovian223]

That, and I see how much I suck!

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 8

Prelude: Today. I Shall Let You Live. Tomorrow, Who Knows

The last sector. This is it. The big one.

Of course, we have to deal with admin and a few small ones first. Starting with the admin, we can hand over the message and stop being glorified postmen.

Personally I think we could have rung the doorbell, left it on the doorstep and flown away. But sure, let’s give the message ourselves.

Our message is “the rebels have a really big ship. You should blow it up”? No wonder the rebellion is winning if we he have to tell our military leaders that, explains a lot.

Oh, right, we have to blow up the really big ship. With this extra fuel, awesome. Space Molotov cocktails all round then. Fine, where are these repair shops?

Nowhere terribly useful then. Marvellous. Let’s go on our date with destiny.

Ok, word of warning here, so you’re not shocked, but we accept all surrenders from here on in. There’s nothing much to be gained by fighting to the death and risking a lucky hit.

First rebel who gets to live.

We visit the one accessible junk shop and retrieve a pretty good haul. We’re happy about the missiles and drone parts.

Second rebel. They send in a boarding party, it’s so sweet.

We shoot them a bit and then accept their surrender.

Much to our bafflement, in the epicentre of the war zone we run into some expansionist gardeners with crappy equipment.

Yeah, they call themselves terraformers but that just means a centuries-long project to grow a lot of really nice lawns and herbaceous borders,

We help out and find out that they’re unprincipled gardeners. I had an aunt like that. I can’t believe this but we go into bat on behalf of the slime mould.

We take the bribe and slink away, feeling morally compromised. Not the first time this trip. Maybe they and the mould will get along. Anyway, sod simple organisms, we have a base to defend.

Time for a final upgrade. We max out the reactor and add a bar to the weapons.

A ping appears on the scanner. Incoming.

And there it is. Big, yellow, and horribly beweaponed.

Stations, guys.

[Tamsk]

The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. Or maybe that’s just the whiff of Snotty not having changed his socks since Sector 2.

[Snotty128]

There’s been a couple of instances where I’ve had to change my undies though. This coming battle might be one of them

[js619]

This has inspired me to fire the game up again… and never fear all, I am just as bad at it as I once was. The hair on my head may be less, the belly a bit more, but some things never change.

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 8

Round 1: We Are Just Too Pretty For God To Let Us Die

It does start badly.

A hacking drone makes it past our defence drone and suckers onto the shield room. It will now unplug the shield bubbles one by one, while the flagship shoots at us with its ion guns, huge green laser things, triple missile battery and terrifying beam weapon. We should probably do something about that.

That is plan C, which is plan A with added away party to the enemy missile room.

The missile battery dealt with, we retrieve the redshirts. Thanks to Snotty and js619 and our excellent evade, we’ve only taken 7 damage despite the haxxors messing up our shields.

Back to plan A, in the knowledge our missile supply is effectively bottomless and the flak cannon is knocking chunks off the enemy on an nice even tempo. It works with remarkably little drama.

Ok, the helm and engines get shot up and we lose more hull. I said relatively little drama. Off the flagship runs. We pick up the jetsam and - yes - launch the hull repair drone.

We have a job to finish. Onwards.

[OhBollox]

We shoot them a bit and then accept their surrender.

Oh my Great Mantis God we’ve gone soft. The serrated edges of my forefathers forelegs are blunt with disgust.

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 8

It Can’t Be Reasoned With And It Absolutely Will Not Stop

We catch up with the flagship and see it’s missing a wing. It’s fixed its missile launcher though.

This round it’s going all-in on drones, which include a defence drone. Plan A is going to need a bit of adaptation, as a lone missile will just be picked off. There’s also one surprise as well.

A projectile hurtles across space, dodges our defence drone, and smashes a breach in the camera room. A terminator has come to visit.

We send out the redshirts to go and break the flagship’s missile launcher again, and consider what to do about the boarding drone.

To the possible surprise of the crew, the answer is “nothing”. The thing is, boarding drones are easily distracted. So long as it’s in there smashing up the camera room, it’s doing no real harm. We have two crew in the flak cannon room should it come through the door, which it won’t any time soon because we have paid for solid blast doors.

“Power surge” just means the enemy combat drones get a bit excitable, briefly. With our awesome shields and evasion, we are completely unbothered.

No real damage. In the meantime, synchronising the missile and flak cannon works well.

The flagship’s shields are down. The boarding drone is trying to get through the door to the flak cannon room, bless its little electronic heart.

On the verge of winning this round. You’ll see we’ve switched to the lasers for more rapid fire in the absence of enemy shields.

Horrendous space kablooey. Done. We took 1 point of damage.

A spot of fixing-up and magic green hull spray and we’re good to go. Maybe round 3 will be tougher.