FTL: the Last Flight of the Good Ship Dapper Pawn

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 3

Part 2: Flirting With Permadeath

It starts ok. Rebel ship, 1 shield, how hard can it be? This is why we read the threat assessment.

Yes, it says “close to a pulsar”. I see that now.

Only 3 crew? Boarding party time! What can go wrong?

What specifically can go wrong is that the pulsar ion pulse takes out our shields, engines and transporter while leaving the rebel weapons on line.

Things get so bad we recall the boarders to help with the repairs. We win, but are too busy fire-fighting to notice. The ship is on fire but we can’t see where because the camera are down and anyway, the door controls have been zapped. The clone bay is obliterated and Snotty is one very thin health bar sliver away from irrecoverable death. Maybe someone should fix the oxygen.

The cameras come back on line. Could be worse.

We jump away as soon possible and find the universe is trolling us.

Very droll. On the bright side, no-one is dead and we have a pile of cash.

In a foul mood, we blow up a Mantis ship without loss.

Note the stranded boarding party. Oh dear, that door is rather robust.

We add a third shield bubble and steamroll over another rebel, because at this point, seriously f those guys.

We arrive at the exit gate, more than happy to get out of this stupid sector. Decision time again.

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 3: Which Way Now?

Away from the Mantises at last. The choice is north to the hostile Rock sector, or south to the hostile Abandoned sector. Down among the vacuum breathers…

[Hustlertwo]

South! Because…reasons!

Also, gotta love my digital self and his constant high health.

[Tamsk]

North, just because it may improve my chances of coming aboard.

[geigerm]

North—looks like we’re gonna need that closer civilian sector that’s two hops away …

[Snotty128]

Caught between a rock and a cold place. I’d reluctantly go north, even though the rock ships are mean. The lannius with the mind control and vacuum ships can be even worse

[OhBollox]

North!

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 4

Part 1: What Doesn‘t Kill Us, Doesn’t Kill Us

We arrive in the Rock sector to an ominous warning. Considering our hull is at 1/3 integrity, things have potential to go wrong.

We meet our first Rock ship and realise how wrong things have gone.

The ship has a missile launcher, its own flak launcher and a laser. The missiles will go through our shields and the sheer weight of fire from the flak and laser will be able to overwhelm them.

Tactically our options are limited. We can’t get through their shields, and a crew of 3 rockmen rules out a quick boarding response. Basically we have to sit tight and hope we don’t take too much damage before the flak cannon fires,

We take damage. Half the remaining hull is blasted away and the oxygen system knocked out. We are lucky that no major systems are knocked out and there’s no fire.

We are unlucky in that when our flak cannon goes off, it hurts the Rock ship but leaves the weapons system completely intact. It’s starting to look like the last battle of the Dapper Pawn.

Then the jump drive pings for full charge. A missile hits and takes down more hull and the teleporter. We have to get out of here.

A store! Hell yes! Run away now!

Execute a tactical withdrawal on my mark, First Officer, I mean.

At the store we pay for a major hull overhaul and also recruit a rockman. Welcome aboard, Tamsk!

Tamsk immediately gets sent to fix the big hole leaking air into space in the corridor to the gun room. It’s not hazing the newbie, it’s just that he’s got 50% more health and probably won’t need cloning afterwards.

During the battle, Hustler had so much practice with the shields and Snotty dodging missiles and flak that both gain their first star.

We survived, and the crew is bigger and better, but we need more firepower options if we’re going to see the end of this sector.

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 4

Part 2: Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?

We jump into an asteroid field and find another two-shield Rock ship, fortunately with less terrifying weaponry.

The ships play a game of shield suppression amid the flying rocks, our laser vs his ion cannon, which we win without loss.

Geigerm and js619 also earn their first stars in this battle.

We investigate a distress call but it turns to be a mad castaway. Citing crew preservation rules, we decline to get involved and move on.

In the next sector we find a pirate harassing a civilian ship and intervene. The pirate is dealt with summarily.

A battle against a flak cannon involves a lot of dodging, and Snotty and js619 earn their second stars. Quick work by js619 there.

The rescued civilians are grateful. Any patches to the hull gratefully received.

There’s now an interesting decision to make about an upgrade.

We have 83 scrap and can either add a bar to the weapons or upgrade the flak cannon, and also upgrade the power. At 30s warm-up time, the flak cannon would be moving into useful territory, but we’ve also struggled thanks to the lack of other weapons. The missile launcher tilts the decision to upgrading the weapons.

The next system confirms that this was the right decision

Suddenly we have lots of tactical options. The missile launcher takes 22s to charge, ignores shields and does 4 damage with a high chance of breach and a small chance of fire. The charge laser fires 1 shot every 5s or, if you allow it to charge, 4 shots after 20s. Both give us a way to take down 2-shield defences reliably and a chance at getting through three shields. Keeping the burst laser means we have a reserve 2-power weapon that can either keep operating if the weapons system is lightly damaged, or if we need to divert 1 power to another system.

We look for something to test our new toys on.

First we find a drone.

One missile is fired to take down the shields and then the burst laser is used for suppression.

We win without damage. Mwhahah.

We then do the same to a pirate.

Mwhahahah.

We only take damage because at the last moment the pirate teleports a bomb into the engine room, as shown in the image. Js619 is lightly wounded but carries on gamely

Next stop is a shop, and this time it has something useful.

Yes! Drone control with a defence drone. Let’s plug that baby in and…

…ok. Huh, it had not occurred to me that the flak cannon takes up system space. Well fine, no mind control for us. The plus side of a cloning vat is that we can fight any victims of mind control without worrying about killing them off.

We fight a Rock freighter using the charge laser for shield suppression, and that works just as well.

Finally, we arrive at the exit beacon and find a handy workshop who offer to upgrade the door system for cheap.

I’m a fan of thicker doors. We grab this offer without hesitation.

And that’s the end of sector 4. Half way. Did you think we’d get this far?

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 4: Which Way Now?

North takes us to a civilian Engi sector, while south is a hostile Rebel sector. Say hi to the friendly robots or pick more fights with the rebels?

[Hustlertwo]

We’re loaded for bear. Fight the hostiles in the South!

[Tamsk]

North. We have a shiny new drone control, and the Engi are the ideal blokes from whom to acquire bots to operate from it. More options are always good.

[geigerm]

Tamsk’s argument makes sense to me—I say go north.

[Snotty128]

I thought the ship was scuppered in rock space when the missile boats turned up. I’m glad to see the ship and crew survived the experience.

I also vote for north.

[SpiceTheCat]

North it was. In the next two sectors, we make some new friends, meet our first 3-shield enemy, and OhBollox gets to mandible a a bad guy again. Stay tuned.

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 5

All Quiet On The Engi Front

We jump to the Engi sector, hoping for a relatively quiet and lucrative leg of the journey.

We get off to a good start.

Next stop is a store where obviously we sell the trash flinger and recruit a new Engi crewmate. Welcome aboard, @Mirefox! There’s going to be a lot of wrenching needed.

Because we have an intact hull, we encounter a cheap hull repair workshop. Oh well.

A pirate pops up on the screen, with a breach missile launcher. Fine, no problem, we have a defence drone. The defence drone does an almost perfect job.

The exception to perfection blows the crap out of the gunroom, knocking out the weapons system, opening a breach and making geigerm very unhappy. Fortunately the flak cannon does its job. Tamsk is sent into the vacuum to fix things, again. Shield guy Hustler earns his second star.

Next up is another bunch of pirates in a Mantis ship. We’re about to work through plan A, when we realise there’s no need to blow up a perfectly good ship. Tamsk and OhBollox to the transporter room!

We also turn off the flak cannon, having learned that lesson. The boarding party successfully make our requirements clear to the enemy crew and we pick up a nice pile of scrap.

After the next jump, we meet some Engis having trouble with a Mantis.

Hm. On the one hand, crew preservation rules, on the other hand, two good options. We send our Mantis OhBollox on the basis he’s relatively expendable.

Well, could have gone better. The Engi were remarkably generous considering.

At the next system, we are confronted with something rather more intimidating. We’re also in a pulsar system, and remember how well that went before.

As it happens, the ion pulses take down both ships’ shields and we get the better of the exchange, only losing a couple of points of hull. We go with the missile-first-charge-laser-second plan while waiting for the flak cannon, and it works well.

The rest of the sector is without drama. We find a store, repair the hull and take on a Zoltan. Welcome aboard, @Shadowfax! Shadowfax is despatched to the flak cannon room as battery and on-call repair man. We find an abandoned station with nothing in it, and someone who wants to buy drone parts (no).

That’s the end of sector 5, and it’s really time to jump with the rebels right behind us.

[Hustlertwo]

Is jumping…good?

[SpiceTheCat]

Under these circumstances, probably better than staying around.

[Hustlertwo]

Then I vote to jump.

[SpiceTheCat]

Sector 6

Part 1: Oh, Schist

We arrive in the Rock homeworlds, and get the warning that Rockmen are a bunch of rednecks who hate aliens. No offence, Tamsk. Well, fine, the way out is through.

The first system has yet another deranged castaway, and once again, we avoid eye contact and carry on. Next up is a Rock ship.

We use plan B, which is like plan A but hold the missiles, and win without even scratching our paintwork.

Next jump we get some random abuse.

It‘s only because we’re the good guys™ that geigerm doesn‘t provide a lesson in respectful behaviour and social niceties via the charge laser.

Moving on, we encounter another Rock ship orbiting an unstable and flaring sun. Being a basically fireproof race makes you blasé, I guess.

They start by boarding, which is dealt with by OhBollox and Tamsk, our dedicated bouncers. We also institute plan A. However, we forget to launch a defence drone.

Look, I was busy, ok?

As a result of this slight oversight, before winning we take a breach missile to the camera room. Mirefox is still alive and wielding a screwdriver, so that’s ok.

In keeping with the general tone of this sector, we then run into some religious zealots.

The theology is not the issue, rather the flak cannon. I remember to launch a drone, and it does its best, picking off one bit of flak while another 4 fly past. We take damage.

Quite a lot of damage. The camera room gets hit again for the second time running, but this time it also catches fire. Not bored, eh, Mirefox? The engines are also completely knocked out.

This is the low point of the battle. With a few hasty repairs, and a blast from the flak cannon, we win with only a little more damage.

Fortunately next stop is a store, so we patch up again and head out for our next fight with angry pebbles.