The Adamastar’s sister ship has been found, Archeron Delaine is moving to take over more systems by building more stations, Alpha Phase 3 launches with an extremely controversial mechanic, Exploration is horribly broken, the Federation is still under fire for building SkyNet, and we discuss the Dredger Class, the most intimidating Generation ship ever seen. All this and no more in this big Space Tea 9: What in the Wide World of Schwartz?
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So lets dive right in. Where was Space Tea last week? Well, I hit a point in Elite where I got extremely frustrated and needed a break. I spent 3 RL days going up to the Void Hearts, over to the Green Black Hole, and back to Sol, scanning every system. I scanned 100s of systems, I mapped dozens of first planets, earth likes, water worlds, terraformable, planets with life on them. I came back and turned in everything, all excited about the payout and the rank up to Elite from Pathfinder 48%.
I got 50 million credits, and 26% towards Elite rank. For all that. Total BS. Exploration is a total joke. You want us to go explore, then you pay us jack squat? Yet I can go into Combat and take out 2 targets and get upwards of 20 mil per. I can mine Panite for an hour and get 30 mil or more. I go explore for 3 days and get this? What a disgusting joke. Seriously. This needs a major, major rebalance. No wonder nothings explored, there’s no incentive for it anymore! I was so angry, I took a week off the game. Even now I struggle to log in. It killed my momentum to play the game, and my will to play anymore. But I’m a writer, so I have to find things to cover. That being said, lets scoot to the next topic, since we’re talking about broken. Alpha Phase 3’s controversial mechanic.
So Alpha Phase 3 launched, in my opinion too early but I’m not a developer so really know nothing about how this works. But it launched with a very controversial mechanic. When taking geological samples, a “mini game” of sorts engages. I watched several streamers including brand new Twitch Partner Psykit , who greatly deserves that checkmark, get frustrated, with one streamer (I won’t name as I don’t have their permission to say it) outright saying it was bull and returning back to regular Elite shortly after. From what I’ve seen, on this minigame, you have to line up two circles and the patterns on said circles. Then the circle grows smaller, and you match again. It speeds up, and you need to match it a third time. I personally have not played Alpha much at all, since my FPS tanks in there, and I’m capable of Cyberpunk at over 50 FPS on ultra. But from what I saw, I can safely say unless this is patched, I won’t be doing this on foot any time soon. The old way was fine, it catered to all players. Psykit brought up a very good point, “This will not work well with veteran players who might have mobility issues.” (Not an exact quote but pretty much what was said). Hopefully FDev sees the flaw in this, and fixes it soon.
Speaking of fixing, seems the Adamastar’s sister ship, the Hesperus, seems won’t be repaired anytime soon. After the Adamastar was awoken, and Commanders far and wide hunted her down, eventually finding her, also found a surprise. Something we didn’t expect. A Dredger Class Generation Battleship. That’s what I’m calling it. Officially she’s a Dredger Class Generation ship, but she is armed to the teeth, something not seen on any Generation ships that I can recall at least. Of interest is the seeming vacuum on her bow as well. It’s said that it pulls in natural materials and manufactured objects, grinding them down to create fuel for the obsolete engines. They hold tens of thousands of clan members, each with their own unique colony. These ships sometimes raid inhabited unarmed settlements and outposts as well. The moment you jump in, she sends a warning stating that not only is she armed, but they have stripped the Hesperus of all her useful material and datastores, leaving nothing. They even state not to attempt to salvage it, as it’s the property of The Scriveners Clan.
Below is the Dredger Class, and an up close of her teeth, as well as the Hesperus
Photo credit to THE Joshua Macer on twitter, thanks for the use of your photos!
So what happened to the Hesperus before she got to this point? From what we’ve figured out from decrypted logs, she was heading towards the Perseus Dark Region KC-V c2-2 when she was attached by sleeper agents from Pharmasapien, a rival company to the sister ships creator Azimuth. They then massacred the entire crew, except a few that hid in the depths of the megaship. It’s believed that they somehow escaped inside an exploration craft inside the ship, with Private Velasco from the security team staying behind. He then gassed the ship, killing everyone including himself, except one person who was outside at the time in an EVA soon. He was presumed to die sometime later due to lack of air and no means of escaping the ship. She then floated unmanned for two centuries, when on April 8, 3307, an undeployed comms beacon aboard the Adamastar mysteriously activated, giving off an encrypted signal from far away. Keep in mind by this time the Adamastar had moved from Musca Dark Region PJ-P b6-1 to the Chukchan system. We were told once turning in the logs to Hind Mine station that we would be contacted when the “Next phase is ready.” Wonder what that means?
On the topic of next phase, the Pirate King, Archon Delaine, is moving to build some more stations it seems. This is of particular interest, as since he walked into the Galactic Summit and demanded that he be made a sovereign group recognized as an official power faction, we haven’t heard much from him. But suddenly, he’s popped up again out of nowhere. The syndicate known as the Kumo Crew has partnered with Kavanagh Spaceframes LTD, and independent contract company, to build fully operation Orbis Stations. He claims that they are in the interest of trade, and had this to say:
“As sovereign ruler of the Kumo nation, it’s my responsibility to increase prosperity for the systems under my protection. My new starports will extend our reach and boost trading of all kinds… legitimate and otherwise.”
“I have also placed bounties on the heads of anyone who dares to interfere with my plans. The one thing we never trade in is mercy.”
Delaine is using the Razor Whips to organize the campaign and will be paying pilots to help deliver ceramic composites, semiconductors, polymers and water purifiers to Gabriel Enterprise in the Harma system. We’ve been told the number of starports he will build is going to depends on how many materials are provided. So far they’re looking at:
Pegasi sector PN-T C3-14, near the Harma system
HIP 18390, near the California Nebula
HIP 10792, near the Sothis system
HIP 62154, in the Coalsack Nebula
Eol Prou PC-K c9-91, in the Colonia region
Quite the range of station distance if you ask me. Quite curious too, he’s placing them in some very strategic locations.
On the topic of strategic, it seems the dream team of Hudson and Archer have continued their big brother, with some agreeing with it, and some not. Only the Federal Times and Vox Galactica spoke out against it, while the Tau Ceti Journal and Federal Times both quotes sources for it. Either way, apparently the dream team of Hudcher (You know how you combines two celebrity’s names? Well, I named them.) obviously never saw Terminator. SkyNet, anyone? I still think Rochester is connected to this, somehow.
Well that was a full packed Space Tea 9. Next week there likely will not be a Space Tea 10, instead we will feature Space Blend 3 with Psykit. I think it’s 3 at least. Either way, we’ll have the interview! I have a couple people lined up for the future interviews, but if you’re interested, drop me a DM on twitter!
My social media links are as follows:
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cmdr_riley
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/cmdr_RileyThomas
Glimesh: http://www.glimesh.tv/Riley_Thomas
Discord: Riley#8854
My discord server that I share with Dauntless Damsel and Thaco:
https://discord.io/SpaceTea
o7 Commanders, fly safe!