Elite (Archimedes) - Going Around in Circles

I've made progress. Both in the legitimate, I've actually done something sense and in the sense that I broke down and modified my money so I had enough for fuel scoops. This means I'll have slightly less trouble than before, since I can now pick up debris, which will likely be some ever so lovely stuff. Probably not, but depending on what that is, I could be making 10 credits of pure profit on each random encounter.

The problem now is that I've gotten a slightly better combat rating last time. Which means that now every pirate in the universe knows that I'm not incompetent in combat, and has given me a wide berth unless they're in a big pack. Which is unfortunate, because I've found a docking computer for 1500. Considering that I just cheated to give myself 525 credits to shave literal hours off my playtime, I'm going to be doing a lot of trading jumps.

Still, there's something I can do to speed things along. I can buy slaves at Lave and then sell them at Disco for a large profit. Call me pretentious, but I don't like doing such things even in video games, but we have to get this done within the century, so, we'll do it. Assuming buying them doesn't count as a crime and...oh, I'm an offender now. Reload...wait, I'm still an offender. But I didn't buy them yet? Did I actually make it that time I picked up some narcotics from a destroyed pirate? Huh. Guess the space police are finally getting around to stopping the opioid epidemic. Took them long enough. If I'm a criminal, I might as well actually earn that criminal record.

It takes about three tries. One try I actually clear out a whole group of pirates. I assumed they were pirates, since it would be strange for me to get credits for taking out police. Unfortunately, during that attempt I had a full cargo of slaves, and on the attempt I succeeded, I had no such luck and actually lost money on the trade. Man, I can't even be a bad guy without losing money. I'm getting the trick down to getting into a space station, but there are still a lot of deaths where I seemingly do everything right, only to die anyway.

The fuel scoops are weird for cargo. Because of the way that ships explode, this means that every time you get a chance to use it on cargo, it's going to be flying away at great speed. And if you thought that you could just ram into cargo to pick it up, you haven't been paying attention to this game. You have to ram it in a certain way. Because if you don't, you crash. Add in how you'll rarely get one enemy ship alone and when you are fighting enemy ships, more seem to keep joining in, this makes it somewhat useless for this purpose.

Of course, in order to use the fuel scoops for their stated purpose, one must head to the star to scoop up the hydrogen needed for the fuel. In order to do this, one must first get past the planet and its rapidly spinning moon. It does a complete revolution of the local planet in about ten seconds. Basically just go along the side of the moon's orbit. Now, it's time to dodge the ten thousand pirates between the planet and the sun. Apparently this strategy is popular with people who can't enter a space station, who knew?

And you want to know why there are so many pirates? Because you're going between a planet within habitable planetary range and a star. This isn't like five minutes between stations, this is a haul. Considering that the amount of credits I need to spend after a jump has never gone above 5 credits and the fuel scoops cost 500, this is not a good investment. I can't make it to a star without dying and I can't get any cargo without smashing it against my ship, I cheated myself the most useless equipment possible.

I find a better trading route between Lave and Reorte. Computers to Reorte, furs back to Lave. This makes it so that I can afford to buy that autodocking system sometime within the century. As I made a successful trip into Lave, I noticed that I have offender status again despite doing nothing that would warrant it. What, are furs illegal in the far future? Is the government run by militant vegetarians? I guess what actually caused it was shooting someone in a group of pirates, but that seems unlikely. In practice, I think this ups the amount of times I die between successful journeys, but otherwise nothing has changed.

At the four hour mark for this session, I break down again and cheat myself the docking computer. Which results in a lot less relief and a lot more emptiness. Now what? This doesn't make it so that I have the easiest time of things, but basically 90% of each trip is just waiting now. Leave, hyperspace, travel for five minutes, possibly using the J key, an encounter is something now, then press C to activate the docking computer, then go see if something else in the house needs done. This is just so boring now.

At this point, I've found myself with nothing new to say and do, so I decide I'm already in a situation where either I quit now or actually get something done when I get the money, so I just give myself a boatload of credits and upgrade my ships weapons. With a few thousand credits to spare, I now have a front facing beam laser and a rear facing pulse laser. I'll still be trading, but now it's time to hunt the pirates.

The beam laser is just an increase in damage. That said, it isn't going to help me against a group of more than four, since I'm not going to be able to take down more than four enemies in time before I take enough damage that I'm dead. There's also an increase in laser temperature, but that's not a problem with short, controlled bursts.

A rear weapon is interesting, but not as effective as you'd think. Because you're still dealing with someone shooting at your butt. The view is reversed, and since it's already tricky to aim in this game, this makes it tricky to aim with. It'll probably help at some point. I could have, but didn't get guns on the sides, simply because it's unlikely that there'll be a situation I can use that. I should be able to handle most situations now.

At which point, every encounter becomes the rare other situation. I try to take a full cargo of furs to Leesti, and I encounter a half a dozen pirates and die. I try to take a full load of furs to Zaonce, I encounter the same. After a few tries, it occurs to me that maybe this isn't because of the destinations, but because my cargo is full. No, it's because I have six grand in the bank now, and that makes me a target. I can't win, apparently.

While being able to buy as many missiles as I want and having better guns is a boon, none of this actually helps me against these odds. Missiles take time to lock-on, meaning you need to be right on the money when it comes to these guys approaching. Better guns reduces the amount of shots you need to kill something, but you still need to successfully hit them with your lasers. Perhaps this is because of my default attack pattern, don't attack if you aren't being shot at. Which makes the fact that I have a bounty all the more frustrating. I'm getting slaughtered out here.

Unfortunately, this is the situation as I leave this week. Stuck in an awkward place where I have the illusion of progress and the actuality of being stuck in a rut. I'll try to make more progress, but I'm probably going to be keeping another game on the side so I have something to talk about next Sunday when I inevitably don't make much progress here. There's only one thing I can do at this point, and that's somehow manage to deal with a horde of pirates.

This Session: 5 hours

Total Time: 8 hours 20 minutes