[O - F04] Ride the Comet

[Norseman]

Log Entry Begin

user://AdenCorso

 

Water is sometimes tricky.

Shipped in liquid form, it sloshes around and can throw even the most finely-tuned set of compensators into chaos. It takes up more volume than when frozen as well, which means your profits will be marginal. Getting liquid water from a planet's surface also means burning a brick-ton of fuel, which means those marginal profits are now minimal (if you even manage to break even).

This is why most ice-mining takes place in any particular system's asteroid belt. Every ship and every station needs water to function - either for its crew to drink, or separated into its constituent parts of O2 and H, the one for breathing, the other for reaction mass.

walk by Norseman, on Flickr

Given that those same asteroids are often well-patrolled to stem off illegal mining operations by the system's parent Corp explains why I am currently riding a comet headed out-system at more than 40 kilometers per second, more than 3 AUs from Illustria's star.

You see, this far from a sun, any water on a comet has frozen and is no longer billowing out in its telltale plume. Comet tails are formed when rising heat from nearing a star causes ice to evaporate, the resultant ejecta always pointing away from the sun. I should be safe this far out from any surprise geysers under my feet. At least I hope so.

Although...

Flyby by Norseman, on Flickr

Apparently I'm not far enough to avoid every MANTIS patrol...

Luckily it's an older ship, a Lycidae-class corvette. I've flown against them before, in the Milky Way. They were outdated even back then. Now they are positively antiquated. Their sensors rely mostly upon line-of-sight LADAR, but their resolution is poor and my thermal signature is small enough to hopefully pass without notice. With my ship hidden away in cold sleep mode deep in a fissure, all I need to do is tuck myself against this wall and...

hide by Norseman, on Flickr

All clear.

searching by Norseman, on Flickr

I have nothing against MANTIS. I run across them here on the fringe all the time. They run Illustria now, after all. But just because they tolerate my being here as an Octan contractor doesn't mean that I won't come across some loose-cannon, fly-boy captain who would rather shoot than take a bribe. As it lies, every bribe I need to pay cuts into my profits even more, and my profits on this already won't be anything to brag about. The penny-pinching administrators of Port Farhome will see to that...

ice by Norseman, on Flickr

Here we are.

cutting by Norseman, on Flickr

Now all I've got to do is do some clever carving... Don't want to bury myself in ice after all, or my popsicle corpse could be part of the comet's tail the next time it swings back in-system in another four hundred years or so. I'd much rather avoid that.

spoils by Norseman, on Flickr

Alright, two blocks down, only about twenty to go.

This is going to take a while, I think. Luckily, I've nowhere else to go, nowhere else to be.

 

Log Entry End

 

This is my first entry, so I'm still a bit unsure of what tags I should include. Can I get a bit of help? Also, pardon the cat hair. It gets everywhere!

 

Spoiler

comet by Norseman, on Flickr

angle1 by Norseman, on Flickr

angle2 by Norseman, on Flickr

angle3 by Norseman, on Flickr

flying by Norseman, on Flickr

top by Norseman, on Flickr

closeup by Norseman, on Flickr

 

Edited October 31, 2016 by Norseman

[Professor Thaum]

Tag to include : Spaceship, exploration...

Tag, but not mandatory : Octan, Aden Corso, AG

 

Nice first entry

[Henjin_Quilones]

Nice log entry, and build was used well to support the story. 

[LucByard]

That's a nice MANTIS micro ship; well built.

You can add whatever forum tags you like but you should include the location and game tags at the start of the post. For example:

Location: F04 Illustria

Tags: Vehicle, Spaceship.

The game tags available are listed in the rules and FAQ thread. Scroll down to 'building for your corporation' and open the spoiler for more information.

Basically, the game tags activate equipment, technology and jobs bonuses. Octan have the 'ground tactics' tech so if you build a land vehicle, include the 'land vehicle' tag to get the bonus. There may be some tags that apply to your build but you get nothing for them: you are a pilot, not a scientist, a science tag would earn you nothing so there's no need to include it, even if your build has a science theme. You can only get bonuses for tags you include; miss a tag, miss the bonus. I've never seen a penalty mentioned for 'over tagging' (listing tags that don't exist/don't apply) but in the spirit of helping the judges you should try to apply only tags that have an effect.

Right now, an Octan pilot with no equipment can usefully tag as follows:

Airplane (I assume Aeroplane would be accepted) or Submarine: Gets you +3 credits because you're a pilot.

Spaceship: Gets you +3 credits because you're a pilot and +1 Domination point because Octan have Spaceship Mastery tech.

Land vehicle: Gets you +1 Domination point because Octan have 'Ground tactics' tech.

In addition to the above, Vehicle: Gets you +10 resource because Octan have 'Awesomnium Alloy' tech.

Civil WITH Building: Gets you +10 resource because Octan have 'Awesomnium Foundary' tech.

 

I think that's it, I'm sure someone will point out if I've got it wrong.

[Norseman]

Dang it, I'd even built a little rover to transport the ice, but I wasn't satisfied with it so it got the ax. There goes a point. 

[Jody Meyer]

12 hours ago, Norseman said:

Dang it, I'd even built a little rover to transport the ice, but I wasn't satisfied with it so it got the ax. There goes a point. 

Next week...it will still count...

[Andromedas Gates]

The judges awarded you 4 points.