[crizza]

Captains Log:
As I watch the GTCv Diomedes fall apart around me I cannot help but smile.
Although being a refitted Kestrel, the old lady performed exceptionell well.
While we were able to deliever our intelligence data, the Federation was all but unprepared to fight a war in our backyard. Repair stations are sweet, but what we realy need were a decent supply depot with missiles, they are the key.
We were able to hurt the enemy flagship.
Our boarding drone managed to kill the missile launcher, while we cloaked everytime they fired missiles.
Focusing our hull and burst laser together with the artemis launcher and beam weapon, we inflicted pain...unfortunatly, our drone wasn't able to inflict more damage.
I hope someone will find the blackbox...there is still hope.
This is the Captain, signing off.


So...whats left to say? The boarding drone did well, but to send it against a single weapon subsystem is bull****, better send it against the shields...once they are gone for good, focus one weapons.
What happens if I bring the engines down?

[TrashMan]

Or....use breach and fire bombs and focus fire on the O2 systems. Let them all die.

Tried that - doesn't work
As soon as all crew members of the flagship are dead there is a pop-up telling you that an AI has taken control of the ship and continues fighting

But AI ships can't repair themselves anymore

[NGTM-1R]

Actually, I've seen rebel AI ships repair themselves.

And from a story standpoint the rebel flagship is supposedly their staff transport so killing all crew ought to be enough, but...

[NGTM-1R]

Log, NGTM1R "Weps", GTD Bastion

The Rebs are honestly pretty bad out here. I've manned a gun in the heavy duels at least dozen times and they weren't much less professional and competent then we were usually, except the AIs, who were normally smart enough to move in packs. None of that here. Relatively easy pickings, though I do worry about our ability to keep repaired if combat remains this heavy.

We also swore in a new crewman in an abbreviated ceremony today, a Mantis. Not good at repairs, their hands don't work so well for human systems, but they can hit keys as well as any of us so they can man a station. And on a ship this small, having a Mantis to help deal with possible boarding parties  is a blessing.

[Alex Heartnet]

The crew of the Bastion finds themselves within Zolton-controlled territory.





Some random Zolton Elder tried to show our heroes something, but unfortunately the Mark I Eyeball can’t penetrate the thick nebula.





Oh, look, an unshielded auto-assault.



Scourage struggles with the shielding system.  Orpheus is forced to leave his engineering duties to help with the repairs.









The first engine upgrade is remarkably cheap, so guess I can grab that.





The Bastion struggles with inaccurate missiles and hull breaches as it takes down another rebel fighter.











I don’t quite understand why people have so much trouble with boarders.  It’s been a while since I’ve actually lost someone to a boarding party.













Scrap recovery arm this early on?  Yes please.



Don’t you just love it when shops sell nice things that you can’t afford?

[0rph3u5]

Crew Log #4
GTD Bastion
Current Location: Zoltan Sector 2

Busy day ... Painkillers from Auto-Doc make me tired.
Made Maintance Tickets for stuff that needs work.

Maintance Ticket #00001
- Fix door control.
- Software bugged. Letting everyone through without ID check.
- Limits effectiveness of spaceing against intruders.

Maintance Ticket #00002
- Upgrade reactor.
- Collector efficency bad.
- Energy output not enough to support Engine upgrade without pulling the plug elsewhere.

[Scourge of Ages]

Scourge's log:

Finally found work! Hanging out at the Space Depot parking bay all day was getting boring and hungry, but a little Fed cruiser came by yesterday and actually hired me!

Crew is very nice, three squishy humans. I've spent much of my life around humans, but when these guys told me their mission, that they'll be taking on the rebel armada and pirates and stuff on their way, I laughed. Looks like I'll be looking after them when hostilities break out. But I look forward to it.

Captain FireSpawn needs me on shields so I started looking around as soon as I could. The system is the same as on the Mantis fighter I served on before... before that, heh... but the interface is very different. It'll take a bit of getting used to.

Log update 1:

Ha ha hssssss! My first battle on this cruise! A laser blast from the enemy Auto-Scout's opening salvo just broke right through the hull and nearly took my head off! I'm fine, obviously, but the blast singed me a bit, and knocked out the shields. I was afraid of this, all the tools here were built for human hands!

The enemy went down pretty easily, and me and Orpheus got the shields back online, but the floor of the room is a bit littered with spanner halves that I may have accidentally clipped in half. Heh.

And then... oh then... After another jump, we were boarded! Humans, heeeee! They didn't think there'd be trouble, did they? Nooooo... Oh, the look on that one's face when I surprised his partner with claws in his gut! Priceless.

[Alex Heartnet]

So we can’t afford nice things, but we manage to have them anyway.







Those two stores were probably the only ones in the sector, so I decide to spend my scrap on better shields.





With our new shields, the Bastion manages to ‘process’ a hostile ship without any threat of taking hull damage.









So, we just stumbled across some valuable intel.





The Bastion moves in to assist a station, but…







I think there’s a lesson here.  Poor communication kills.





Hmm.  Seems like I can jump into and back out of this system just before the rebel fleet arrives…



The pirate’s weapon loadout isn’t capable of penetrating our duel shields.  Use your imagination on how the fight ended.









Scout data on this sector is completely useless to us at this moment, so might as well take apart the auto-scout.



We’re at the node and jump drives are on line.  Engage!

[Patriot]

Man oh man, am i having trouble getting past the 6th sector.

So far i have unlocked both layouts for the Engi Cruiser, and as much as i like the second layout, it is hard as hell.

At one point i was quite confident i would be able to make it further, but i was cut short by a nasty Elite Fighter that had a missile launcher, not enough crew really hurts and the one drone i kept around wasn't going to repair fast enough to save my ship's life

Any tips? I usually go for shields first(both as an upgrade and as something to take out) and then engine(upgrade) or weapons(upgrade or takeout)

[Scourge of Ages]

With the Engi cruiser A, You have to take down the shields system with your Ion blast, so your drone can do the damage. If I have a weapon (or weapon combo) that can take down at least one shield and do hull damage, I try to take out the weapons system first.

For upgrades, do weapons as you need them, then balance shields and engine upgrades (along with other systems) as the threats demand.

[Alex Heartnet]

Keep in mind that the extreme rate of fire on the Engi ion gun is balanced out by its power (or lack thereof).  It tears through shields, but can't keep multiple systems offline simultaneously.  With the Engi Ion, focus fire on ONE (1) system only.

Level 3 Sensors are very helpful if you rely heavily on ion weapons, as you can see exactly what effects they are having.

[FireSpawn]

Captain's Log:

With our recent spate of highly successful engagements with hostile craft and boarding parties, I can't help but think of an ancient ballad that was once seen as a masterpiece of music. What little remains of the peice goes "Smack my ***** up. Smack my ***** up. Pow."

Note to self: Double Scourge's daily rations for the next week, due to exceptional fighting prowess in the face of superior numbers....As soon as I find out what they eat. Are they carnivores, herbivore, omnivore? Do the drink nectar? TO THE ENTOMOLOGY HOLO!

[Scourge of Ages]

Log update 3:
A few more brief battles, and I'm getting the hang of the shields system. This is actually a lot of fun! I got a second shield layer to handle while NGTM-1R had a re-loader installed to help him out. But I'm not jealous, it's just nice to be contributing.

In other news, Captain FireSpawn issued double rations in appreciation of my combat prowess! That, along with the boarders from earlier, mean I'm going to be eating well for a loooooooong time.
Related: I've doubled the locks on the closet in the shield room, just in case.

[esarai]

I do hereby enlist in the Federation Armada, and request a posting of either Weapons, Engineering or Captain.

[Alex Heartnet]

Upgrading sensor systems right before jumping into a nebula is maybe a tad questionable, but we are going to want level 2 sensors regardless.





Ugh, plasma storm.  Don’t think I want to risk my crew on this, as we are not exactly overflowing with an abundance of redshirts.





If that rebel scout thinks it can get through both of our shields with only a basic laser and mini beam, they have another think coming.



Precious power is diverted from life support for the sake of having two shields and a weapon.



Direct hit!  Now that the rebel fighter has been de-fanged, we can bring shields down and life support back up.



Not too keen on that offer, but the salvage we got from destroying it was pretty much the same amount.









Recon data would be nice to have before the rebel fleet arrives.



All these drones must have been made by the same programmer.  This time it was the port exhaust pipe that got hit with a missile.





With a full map of the sector, we can clearly see that there are no shops around anywhere.



A new weapon!



Unlike the Engi Ion Peashooter, this can actually take a system offline for a significant period of time.





I tend to hold off on reactor upgrades because I can just transfer power between systems as needed.  But we are definitely reaching a point where more power is a must.





Our new ion cannon enabled the Bastion to dispatch a moderately shielded auto-scout without too much difficulty.





Who says we can’t have nice things?  Now if only I could find a drone bay…

[TrashMan]

Hm...the Zoltan Elder usualyl gives you some nice stuff. Some special stuff.

Also, I don't recal manually searching the wreckage resulting in crew death. Some hull damage IIRC. Possibly a pirate attack.

[Alex Heartnet]

Hm...the Zoltan Elder usualyl gives you some nice stuff. Some special stuff.

Also, I don't recal manually searching the wreckage resulting in crew death. Some hull damage IIRC. Possibly a pirate attack.

From having BEATEN the game multiple times, I can confirm that both the Zoltan Elder and the Ion Storm Wreckage has a chance of killing a crewmember.  (The death by Zolton Elder is quite an interesting death).  I'm being more cautious with my crewmembers in this playthrough then I would normally be.

I don't think that there are any events that are 100% safe without blue options.  Even the Mantis Escape Pod, normally a source of easy crewmembers, does have the small possibility of killing a crewmember.

[NGTM-1R]

I've never seen the Zoltan Elder kill someone; occasionally cause a fight, but not kill.

[0rph3u5]

Crew Log #5
GTD Bastion
Current Location: Zoltan Sector 2

There ain't no rest for the wicked. Obviously living in the engine room makes everyone think I work here non-stop.

"Upgraded" the shield generator after the Captain asked for it. At first I though they had given us a piece of junk but the system is acutally decent, totally broken but decent. After having replaced most of the wireing nearly half the emiiters are working now, the others have been burned out, some even beyond reapir. I'll have to scratch-build new ones later.

Reactor upgrade is proceeding slowly due to the lack of proper material and because a certain *someone* broke some of my tools. But since we got new energy cells for the weapon capacitators from those Zoltans a few jumps back I was able to devise a plan for powering both the engines and shield to a 100%. I just hope no one noticed that both the Auto-Doc and the Artemis launcher don't recieve energy by default.

Crew Log #6
GTD Bastion
Current Location: Rebel Controlled Sector 3

I hate plasma storms! Having to jam most of the contrrol rods into the reactor makes power distribution a real job. None of the programms is helping either, one even shut down life support to power the shields.

Crew Log #7
GTD Bastion
Current Location: Rebel Controlled Sector 3

We meet with a Engi ship that required fuel and the Captain was so generous as to give them what they needed to get the hell out of here. Transfered over while we were refueling, the stuff they have on their ships is really amazing. Not to mention the Engi themselves.
Maybe I should hire on a ship of the Engi Corps once this mission is over. That is unless no one is getting me killed first.

Looted another drone manufacturing device from a rebel base at the last jump. This looks like it could be a real helper as it could be repairing hull damage on the outsite. Still no control tech to hook it up, we will need to see a merchant in the next Sector about it.

[NGTM-1R]

Log, NGTM1R "Weps", GTD Bastion

Boarding Party, as predicted. Mantis kicked their ass, as predicted. Kind of messy, actually, but not much worse than the time the Rebs tried to board the Marine deck of the Colossus. We have a Heavy Ion mounted but can't power it yet. Actually, I think we're cutting our power needs pretty fine at this point.

Pity we didn't pick up a Zoltan crew member, that would have helped.