The bulletin board offers 2 hauls, yielding 94k Credits, to 26 Draconis, Bouch Beacon. Lucky deal. Arriving there, it is again a chore, having to travel 20.000 ls out. Good that I immediately launched; one mission has a very close timer of 12 minutes. Oh, and on this occasion I note that I again forgot to pay off a fine from my unsucessful batch of missions last time. The fine is 7000 Credits, the black market value at Bosch Settlement was 5000 Credits. So, cheating the employer does no longer pay off, as it did in beta2.
Wow, at Bouch Beacon, I am able do disengage with a target lock at 500 km/s. This makes supercruise travel much faster, all in all! Onwards to H Draconis and then LP 61-157, two high population industrial systems, in seach of more good equipment, and maybe a good deal on the side. Both commodities and bulletin board here at Bouch Beacon offer only low-margin profits.
Crash on exit. Bad memories from last beta emerge, where I could play fine until they started patching... Hm, something more severe, I do not get to log in, failed to authenificate with connecting server (or something). During the enforced breack, to my great joy I discover that Slopey´s Best Price Calculator is back!
In Brislington Station, I can upgrade to a D3 powerplant, yielding 1000 more power. That´s it. I try to type data into Slopey´s sheet, but I do not understand it; there are no entries for demand and selecting the stuff is tedious. It should be pre-structured as ingame.
Bingo! On a hunch, before jumping to LP 61-157, I stop at the second large station here, Janjetov Memorial. They have an intermediate scanner for 500k and an advanced scanner for 1,5mio Credits. I buy the latter. There is also a detailed surface scanner; but where to put it? I would not want to drop the fuel scoop, no? So, I sacrifice a 16-ton cargo rack. Those are easy to get back, and right now I am not into commodity trading and I never seem to fill all my cargo with mission hauls, anyways. Wonderful, I think I am ready to go! Hmm, wait, somehow I do not have a refinery. Must have forgotten to buy it, even though I wanted to. So in goes an H3 refinery with 3 bins (damn, the other one was 6 bins!), out goes another 16 ton cargo rack. I have now only 64 tons cargo capacity, a little above a full-freight Cobra, but all the shiny multi-talent stuff is in.
What now? Looking for a bigger refinery and then out there, in search of richer mine fields, I would say. Some Paladium asteroids would bring in a nice profit...
The bulletin board has about 40k worth of hauls to 26 Draconis. Waait, forgot to check the shipyards! What do my tired eyes see? An Empireal Clipper! 22 mio Credits. Good to know. And an Asp is offered here, too. Launch to 26 Draconis. Damn, I forgot Bouch Beacon is is 20.000 ls out... should not have taken the run. Ah, no matter, this gives me time to think about next steps.
Bad news: Mission timer ran out from two missions, but thankfully the big one is still there.
Good news: I remember to scan the system, I discover 23 stellar objects, and I can sell them for 3200 Credits.
Next goal: Scan all 23 objects and see how much it makes. This is to test my upcoming big exploration, if it is worth doing surface scans, or, as in beta2, only system-wide scans. Interesting; the sun is already scanable from 10.000 ls out. Planets around 15 ls, moons around 7 ls. While flying around, I get interdicted. The new animation is amazing. The first interdiction is a greedy Eagle, but I can escape before my shield goes down, thanks to the faster recharge of the frameshift drive. The second is a security vessel, which promptly scans and fines me. Yeah, once more I had forgotten to dispose of the cargo from the failed haulage missions.
- looks like being locked up in an planetarium
It takes a while, and in between I take a break from playing. When I come back in the evening, there is already a patch 3.02 out and ready. My gosh. Patching berserk rage, it is!
- this planet distracts me from the monotone surface scanning and I drop into the ring for some more mining; however, it is as tedious as before, with only little yield
After some time, I have scanned all remaining 22 objects and head back to H Draconis. I overlooked one, but it is 13.000 ls out and I do not want to make the travel for just one measly object.
Arriving at the H Draconis, I am almost immediately interdicted. This time I notice that there is an escape vector. A little blue target indicator which looks similar to the one you get when trying to get away from a planet after you came too close, only that I am still in supercruise, as I realize after a short moment of confusion. It seems my stronger frameshift drive gives me an edge this time and I don´t get immediately kicked out of supercruise. But the escape vector is dancing around and difficult to align to, and all the blueish sparkling from the interdiction is around, too. There are also some indicators on my hud, probably showing my "escape power" versus the "interdiction power". By following the vector, I can increase my blueish escape power. I should have made a screenshot, but obviously, I was very busy.
I almost manage to follow the rapidly shifting vector, but in the end have to submit to the interdiction. However, there is no enemy ship waiting for me this time. I take this opportunity to quickly get back into supercruise. After docking again in Janjetov Memorial, I log out.
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