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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Topics - Histidine

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151
e.g. -Xmx 1280m (tested with -Xms 512m, 1024m and 1280m)

Crashes just before reaching main menu.
Seems to happen only if I have enough mods (presumably to push the memory usage up); ShaderLib + LazyLib + (SS+ OR Shadowyards OR Scy) seems to suffice.

Win7 Home Premium 32 bit, 4 GB of RAM installed

Sometimes (depending on mod loaded and -Xms) it gives this:
Code
29648 [Thread-5] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.O0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  - org.lwjgl.opengl.OpenGLException: Out of memory (1285)
org.lwjgl.opengl.OpenGLException: Out of memory (1285)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.Util.checkGLError(Util.java:59)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.WindowsContextImplementation.setSwapInterval(WindowsContextImplementation.java:113)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.ContextGL.setSwapInterval(ContextGL.java:232)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.DrawableGL.setSwapInterval(DrawableGL.java:86)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.setSwapInterval(Display.java:1129)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.setVSyncEnabled(Display.java:1142)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.void.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.A.oOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.?00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.O0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Other times:
Code
27933 [Thread-5] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.O0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  - java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
at sun.misc.Unsafe.allocateMemory(Native Method)
at java.nio.DirectByteBuffer.<init>(Unknown Source)
at java.nio.ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(Unknown Source)
at org.lwjgl.BufferUtils.createByteBuffer(BufferUtils.java:60)
at com.fs.graphics.TextureLoader.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.graphics.TextureLoader.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.graphics.TextureLoader.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.graphics.TextureLoader.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.graphics.H.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.void.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.A.oOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.?00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.O0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

I don't suppose there's a way around this?

152
Suggestions / Loans
« on: November 08, 2014, 02:30:03 AM »
Short version:
Allow players to take loans at markets. Useful in an emergency when you need money to get out of an out-of-supplies death spiral, or if you really want to buy a new ship or some trade goods but don't have enough liquidity at the time. Higher level players can have more outstanding debt at once. Repayment can also be done manually at markets with intel screen reminders, or it can make automatic deductions from your credit balance over a period of time.

Oh, and defaulters get bounty hunter fleets sent after them. Have to keep things interesting, you know.

Long version:
Spoiler
Scene: The bridge of a midline cruiser, possibly an Eagle. An immaculately groomed, slightly greying man in an independent starship captain's suit is sitting in the command chair with his legs crossed, looking at the camera.

"So you're a hotshot young starfarer out to stake your claim and fortune in the Sector. Good for ya! But sometimes you have a falling out with Lady Luck, and you end up losing all your hard-earned wealth and stuck on some two-bit station in the back of nowhere with no way to get home."

Stock footage of a Tarsus being blown up by a Harpoon swarm. Cuts to another scene, of a scruffy young man in a spacer suit begging on a street corner. It then returns to the bridge, the man looking solemnly at the camera.

"Believe me, youngling. I've been there before. I know how hard it can be not knowing how you'll be able to get back into space or even see your family ever again, how much you wish there was someone out there who could help you out in your time of need." The man brightens up. "Well, now there is!"

A giant logo appears on the screen, followed by some text and figures. The scene then cuts to a busy, luxuriously decorated bank. Two conventionally attractive women, a bank teller and a customer, are having an apparently cheery conversation.

"With the the Interstellar Credit Union's Starfarer Anytime Anywhere Credit Plan, you'll have easy access to cash when you need it, with interest rates as low as 5.0% per annum! 15 minute registration, no permanent residence or citizenship documents required!"

"I'd just gotten back from a busted op, and with my ship shot full of holes and half my crew in sickbay, I knew I was staring bankruptcy in the eye. But the ICU helped me get back on my feet, and within the week we were out there again, keeping the spacelanes safe in the name of truth and justice. Thanks, ICU!"
-Kwon So-jin, bounty hunter

"That big supply disruption on Volturn in 186 was an unprecedented business opportunity, but I didn't have the working capital to stock my little Cerberus with the goods to sell. But the ICU came through for me, and that was the start of of my road to establishing one of the biggest shipping houses in the Sector."
- Richard Worthington, founder and CEO of Freight"R"Us

"The Interstellar Credit Union," the man jabs a finger at the screen, "we're there for you. Available now at stations and planets Sector-wide. Call 1-800-SECTOR-IOU now for more info! Terms and conditions apply."
[close]

153
Suggestions / Make commodity demand (in units) more visible
« on: November 01, 2014, 07:46:58 PM »
The item tooltip in the Crew/Cargo screen would be a good start. Currently it's not even on the Market Info page; I think the only place it appears is on Intel screen prices.

This will make selling easier on low-volume planets, and solve the regular "why is my metal selling for 1 credit/unit?" complaints.

154
Bug Reports & Support / [0.65a] AI issues with disengaging ships
« on: October 31, 2014, 09:53:11 AM »
1) In 0.62 and before, if one of my ships took too much damage I could give it a Rally Task Force order behind the front line (E: or tell it to Retreat) to get it to safety. In 0.65, ships so ordered seem to like hanging around to engage enemies in weapons range for at least several seconds before running, which tends to get them killed. Did something change with the behaviour here?

2) If a ship is withdrawing as in the above, it will turn around and fly forward towards its destination - instead of keeping its front pointed towards the enemy and moving backwards as it should. Especially egregious with front-shielded ships.

I tested this several times with a Lasher (stock Standard variant and a custom variant with railguns) against a sim Hammerhead (and once against a Venture), but other combinations should also work.

155
Suggestions / Reduce relationship penalties for trading with enemies
« on: October 31, 2014, 04:33:17 AM »
Relationship penalties with factions for trading with their enemies in general appear to be too harsh.

I just dropped off 20-25 units of food at Ragnar Complex during a shortage + trade disruption, which gave me +1 with the Hegemony... and -8 with Tri-Tachyon. That's a pretty lopsided ratio.

156
Suggestions / Defect hullmods and ship non-permadeath
« on: October 24, 2014, 06:33:15 AM »
(for past discussion, refer to this thread)

Now, we all know losing a ship in Starsector isn't fun. To replace it you have to go to a store, find a new ship, mount new weapons and everything for it, and give it a new name to boot. And then there's the sentimental value of your first ever frigate that just got blown up in some meaningless encounter with pirates in the back of nowhere. The Reconstruction perk helps with this, but ultimately you're still at the mercy of the RNG. This is why I try to avoid using frigates and often even destroyers if I can help it at all.

With 0.65a I got an idea: what if disabled friendly ships were always salvaged at the end of a won battle, but had one or more of the defect hullmods applied to represent significant damage that can't be field-repaired? And then a station with an autofactory could remove the hullmod for you (hypothetically it could also do the same with the reject shop (D) ships).
You'd still have your ship, but there'd be a penalty for getting it blown up - temporarily reduced combat power and the costs of the restoration work. This would also create a strategic decision if you lose a round of combat: do you cut your losses and retreat, or try to save your ships and risk a complete fleet wipe? Skill perks could give a chance to avoid the defect, or allow field repairs, or so forth.

Possible addition: an already-broken ship that gets disabled in battle can be irretrievably wrecked as a result.

157
General Discussion / 0.65a Missile Balance
« on: October 23, 2014, 05:51:15 AM »
Random thoughts from brief play (~8h in campaign, tried The Last Hurrah again twice).

Small missile weapons
These seem to be pretty good in general. Harpoon has a tendency to miss frigates on the first pass, but otherwise it's fine; I like that it actually has a decent chance of surviving to hit its target now.

Sabot SRM
Hitting shields harder is nice, but ultimately the AI will still drop its shields at exactly the right moment (and with the lower per-shot damage and wide spread, this is worse than it was before). And the old problem of the enemy's shield being way more renewable than your missiles still applies. Not sure what to do about this one.

Reaper-class Torpedo
Evil. Dodging these things is pretty much no longer an option; better hope the other guy is a bad shot or you have quick shield reflexes! Dagger bombers are also quite effective now; in fact I'd say they nearly obsolete Piranhas but for the machine gun and its "NO YOU ARE NOT SHIELDING OFF MY BOMBS" effect. I like.

Atropos-class Torpedo
Still less effective than Reaper (lower per-shot damage, easier to shoot down) while costing the same OP (for the single version) to 3x as much (for the rack). No thanks.

Harpoon MRM Pod
Totally awesome, especially when you have three or four of them and launch them all at a single target. Anything smaller than a Dominator that can't use block at least half of them with its shield and doesn't have a ridiculous amount of PD is going to die, period. Balanced by only being able to do this three times without Expanded Missile Racks, but that's already a pretty lopsided kill ratio.

Related: I'm thinking Eagle and Falcon need a buff now. They kind of did before, but now they just can't compete with Dominator and its triple Typhoon Reaper or its Harpoon three-pod flush.

Pilum LRM
These still feel rather unimpressive despite their recent buffs. The launcher takes way too long to reload, the missiles are highly susceptible to PD and easy to shield against, and it just doesn't have the killer punch of the Harpoon pod. It does have a lot of ammo, but with missiles that aren't Annihilator, you want a powerful alpha strike that can get through PD, not repeated pinpricks over several minutes. We have ballistic and energy weapons for those. The only things I put Pilums on are carriers, and even then I suspect I'd get better results by taking the risk of giving them a Harpoon/Annihilator pod instead.

Hurricane MIRV
Didn't get a buff in 0.65a at all. Is very sad.

For all its range, off-bore firing capability and PD resistance, it just doesn't do enough damage to compete with the Typhoon Reaper Launcher (or, for that matter, a similar cost in Harpoon pods). Especially not when you can count on half the submunitions missing the target. I'd either buff their tracking and lifespan significantly, or just make the first stage missile discharge more of them (you can never have too many missiles).


Opinions?

158
1) It rounds to integers, when it should show at least one decimal point.

2) It fails to multiply per-fighter deployment costs by the number of fighters in the wing.

159
...even though the tooltip says they do.

I noticed this when I was buying some Hand Weapons from the Hegemony base on Jangala when I realized I picked up too many... and I couldn't put them back. >_<

160
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« on: September 30, 2014, 07:08:55 PM »
Hi, and welcome to the thread for my second Starsector fanfic!

This is a loose sequel to A Battle's Lesson, but you don't actually need to read it to follow this story. This will be a more serious work - no feghoot in this one!

Feedback, pointing out mistakes, etc. welcome! (in particular, I'd like to know if anyone finds it disconcerting that the narrative sometimes refer to characters by their surname and sometimes by their given name)

Boilerplate legal disclaimer
Spoiler
Starsector is the property of Fractal Softworks; its content is reproduced here under fair use laws. All other rights are reserved to the author.
[close]

Content warning
Spoiler
Swearing, graphic depictions of violence, narrative references to sexual assault
[close]

Bonus: Missions (for Starsector 0.7.2)
Spoiler

Awesome (old) flag of the Persean League by David, found in Starsector/graphics/factions

The Marenos Crisis - Missions
a.k.a. "Gameplay and Story Segregation: A Case Study"
Download

Four missions based on the events of this fanfic, plus one about the prequel A Battle's Lesson. See if you can do better than the original characters did.

It is strongly recommended that you read this fic before playing any of its four missions!
If you really want to know how far you have to read before playing, the chapters are:
Spoiler
Politics the Womb: prequel (but you can actually play it without having read that story at all)
First Encounter: Ch. 2
Enemy Mine: Ch. 5
Counterinvasion: Ch. 15
Last Resort: Ch. 18
[close]

Thanks go to Tartiflette for the wormhole "planet" (taken from Scy under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license) and Dark.Revenant whose arcade mission provided a handy guide for understanding ship spawning functionality!
[close]

Bonus: recommended music (spoilers!)
Spoiler
Chapter 2
Chapter 5
Chapter 9
Chapter 15
Chapter 18
Epilogue
[close]

Bonus content: Character renders (test)
Spoiler
Adela Sybitz


Artemis Archer


(Their hairstyles aren't what exactly I had in mind, but they're close enough)

Assembled and rendered with DAZ 3D, modified images with GIMP
[close]

And now, without further ado, I present:

The Marenos Crisis
PDF format
ODT format
EPUB format by Scuttlebutt (out of date, not recommended)
Part 1 (prologue, chapters 1-11) - Google Docs
Part 2 (chapters 12-18, epilogue) - Google Docs

Blurb
Spoiler
Over two centuries before, the region of space now known to its inhabitants only as the Sector was cut off from the all-encompassing Domain of Man. Thrown back on their own meager resources, the people here have been fighting an uphill struggle with tooth and claw to retain their way of life, or what’s left of it. The great star nations and megacorporations of the Sector vie for supremacy, whether through feat of arms or economic dominance, while pocket-vest empires rise and fall in the depths of independent space. Free planets look constantly over their shoulders, wary of the depredations of pirates and avaricious neighbors, and for many of the common people, the mere fact of survival is a daily miracle.

When the Marenos Subsector is beset by a sudden surge in pirate activity, one of its system governments beseeches the Persean League for aid. Preoccupied with its immediate interests, the League spares but a single cruiser under a newly promoted captain, to do what little it can to stem the tide. But there’s more to these “pirates” than meets the eye, and the threat may well be beyond the ability of one ship to handle.

But no-one told Captain Artemis Archer of the Persean League Navy that. She finds an unlikely ally in the pirate Adela Sybitz, and together they’ll unravel the conspiracy and stop the looming disaster… or die trying.
[close]

Prologue
Spoiler



ISS Armed & Reckless
Lasher-class
Rondel variant


PLS Valiant
Eagle-class
Guardian variant

The hulk of the Tarsus drifted in the darkness two light-hours from the F3 glow of Algre, lying cold, dead and alone. Though the footsteps and other noises of the impromptu recovery team faintly echoed through the sterile grey decks and bulkheads, there was no longer any air to carry them to the ears of others. The raiders had seen to that, just before they departed.

Despite all she’d seen in her career, it was all Adela Sybitz could do not to shudder as she surveyed the bodies littered about her. Three of them were arranged in an arc around the depressurized cargo hold, their corpses caked with desiccated blood where the mag-bolts had taken savage bites out of their internal organs. They were among the lucky ones, the ones who’d died resisting the boarding attempt. The ones who hadn’t… no, best not to dwell on that.

She walked over to a nearby bulkhead, the slender dark-haired man with the gauss rifle following her quietly. A girl - no more than sixteen - was lying in the corner, a slightly younger boy propped up against the partition nearby, their bodies covered in brown-red splotches and essentially nothing else. Kneeling down, she tilted his chin up, examining his blood-splattered face. His dead eyes looked up, as if gazing at her own teak-colored features, and she soon found herself looking away.

Exhaling sharply, she stood up again, wiping her hands on her skinsuit. “What’d you pull from the logs?” she asked the man behind her.

“Enough to make you sick,” Loz Sequeira muttered. “They hid behind a moon, then jumped the Marigold as she came in through the local hyper point. She surrendered almost immediately, but that didn’t stop them from gutting her with their big guns as they approached. When they found out they’d caused the tanks to rupture and blow out their prize’s engines, well, I guess that’s when they got really mad.”

He looked distastefully at the remains of the crew again. “Good god,” he said, grinding his teeth. “You rob people, fine, you need the credits, fine, but you show some respect. This is just plain barbaric.”

“Swine,” a third person hissed on the comm. That was Valentina Dragunova, now standing up from where she’d been examining the first officer’s body. “It’s pigs like this who give the rest of us pirates a bad name.”

“Welcome to the profession, ladies and gentlemen,”  Sybitz said evenly, even as her mouth worked into a frown. “No accountability beyond that of the gun means that ‘round these parts, every two-bit thug with wet dreams of holding power over others lines up to join up some pirate group or other. And let’s not pretend you or I wouldn’t end up just like them after a year or two surrounded by that kind of pervasive attitude.”

Sequeira looked away glumly, while Dragunova just glared at nothing in particular, jade eyes glittering angrily. Despite herself, Adela felt her lips twitching in amusement.

Before he’d joined her crew, Loz had been a smuggler couriering light, high-value cargo across the Sector. He’d been quite astonished one day to find himself suddenly face-to-face with a pirate Lasher while on a run, and even more so when he found himself flying the damn thing two days later. Not that he had much of a choice, given that in robbing him Sybitz had ruined him financially, and asking (begging, really, although these days Adela only brought that up to rib him in social situations) to be allowed to work for his captors gave him the only chance of evading his last client, his creditors, and starvation (in that order).

Dragunova, on the other hand, had been a career pirate even longer than Sybitz. She’d been awfully reticent about her past when she’d been applying for the open position of weapons officer on the Armed & Reckless, although her rap sheet - she was wanted in at least seven different interstellar polities - was certainly impressive enough. Other than that, the only thing Adela really knew about the red-headed woman was that she liked to shoot things, and that she was really good at it. Which, as it turned out, was just fine with one Captain Adela Sybitz.

“Actually, I’m more concerned about the pirate ships,” Sequeira said after a while. “This tub’s sensors were basically unmaintained to begin with, and whoever did this had some pretty good ECM, so I couldn’t get much from them. The physical evidence on the hull, though...”

“What do you mean?”

He tapped his wristcomp as the women approached him, and the space between them glowed with the volumetric projection of the ISS Marigold. Sybitz’s eyes narrowed as she studied the numerous gaping breaches visible on the schematic, created when someone had repeatedly fired a high-power ship weapon into the Marigold’s defenseless hull, and she wondered what had provoked the pirates into doing something they knew would only cost them.

“The external scans show hits from high-end weapons atypical for pirates,” the ex-smuggler went on, “including several energy weapons. I’m not talking cheap PD lasers, either; there’s a part,” he highlighted a section of hull near the stern, “which shows shearing consistent with a graviton beam. And here, outside the cargo bay, we have…”

“... a direct hit by a heavy blaster,” Valentina put in. “It appears to be what set off the hydrogen.”

“So the pirates are operating late epoch ships,” Sybitz said. “That’s not exactly unheard of.”

“Yes, but the maintenance budget will eat into your profit margins pretty heavily,” Loz pointed out. “You can make up for it by going after higher-value cargos, but we’ve barely seen anything like that in this backwoods subsector, especially given how crowded the competition is getting lately; they ought to be moving to greener pastures by now. For that matter,” he waved an arm at the upturned cargo hold, “pirates with the connections to get ships and weapons like that usually manage to not screw up a simple hijacking like this one.”

“So what are you saying? That they may not be the face-value pirates we’re taking them to be?”

“I don’t know, not yet. But anyone running high-tech ships in this part of the Sector is something to look out for.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I’m going to analyse the comm signal and voiceprint. If we ever happen to talk to them, we’ll be able to identify them. Maybe someone will find some value in that information down the road.”

“If we’re lucky, someone has a nice, big bounty on them,” Dragunova said gruffly. “I need an excuse to shoot something right now.”

“There’ll be time for that, Tina.” Sybitz looked briefly at her two most trusted subordinates and companions, then nodded. “Very well, if there’s nothing else, let’s wrap up here and leave. We need to be finding some prey of our own.”
[close]

Chapter 1
Spoiler
The first thing Commander Ashok Jaitley, League Navy took note of as he entered the brightly lit room was the nanofiber-bodied arrow slicing through the air with a hiss, followed by a sharp thud as the blunt iron practice head buried itself in the old-fashioned wooden target.

This was normally the recreation deck for the flag officer and his staff on an Eagle-class cruiser, but there wasn’t one right now, the PLS Valiant having been detached on a solo operation. Under the letter of the Regs, that still didn’t mean the woman here was entitled to appropriate it as she’d just done, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to bring that up just this moment.

He watched in silence as she shook her head slightly, the reddish orange ponytail swaying in the air, before drawing the replica composite bow and firing again. The last arrow had struck the edge of the seven ring; this one landed squarely in the eight. None of the shafts sticking from the increasingly pincushion-y board were further out than that, and two had actually hit the nine, but the much-coveted X ring remained unmarked.

It was only after the third arrow was nocked that she turned to face him, and he stiffened slightly at the glare in her cyan eyes. The bow wasn’t - quite - pointed at him, but it was rather closer then he felt comfortable with when it came to sharp objects flying at a hundred meters per second.

“One pun out of your mouth, Jaitley,” Captain Artemis Archer said in a cold soprano, “and this arrow goes right through your sternum.”

He raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She glared at him for a few more moments, then gave a vaguely apologetic half-shrug and started cleaning up. The arrow went back in the carrying case, along with the three still unfired on the table before her. She walked over to the target, retrieving the ones there as well, before putting the bow in the case and sealing it. “So, what did you wish to see me about?”

“Just wanted to take a few minutes to go over the newest data packet with you before the staff meeting,” he said, assuming a parade rest. “I would’ve commed you first, but you left it in your cabin again.”

“And now I know why I did.” She started to groan, but let it out as a small sigh instead. “I suppose it’s too much to hope it includes a message that we’re finally getting those screening elements?”

Jaitley shook his head. “Sorry, Captain. Tensions with the Hegemony are still at elevated levels, and every ship they can spare is being sent to Hancock. Rear Admiral Slater sends his regrets, but also expresses his confidence that you will achieve results despite your lack of resources.”

“Wonderful.” This time she didn’t even have the energy to sigh. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Uncle Bernard, but I’d rather you’d sent me a destroyer squadron instead.

This whole operation was screwed from the beginning, she thought sourly. As far as she was concerned, it was the brainchild of a bunch of paper-shufflers back home who were presented with a problem and wanted to look like they were Doing Something about it without any concern as to whether the problem actually got solved or not.

The premise was simple enough. The Marenos Subsector, never the most secure region of space at the best of times, had recently seen a sudden, unexplained upswing in pirate attacks by new and existing groups, with all the usual economic and social disruptions that entailed. Worse yet, there were even reports of some of the pirates becoming daring enough to even attack the assets of system governments, and demand tribute from them.

A request for assistance had been put in by Carda, an independent system in the subsector currently applying for associate membership in the Persean League (and by a whole lot of corporations based in the League). So, while some poor overworked agent at NavInt got working on figuring out just why there was so much banditry going on all of a sudden to begin with, the Powers That Be had sent a naval force to show the flag and hopefully kill some pirates in the process. A force consisting of exactly one Eagle-class cruiser, Captain Archer commanding.

“What do they expect us to do, fercripesake?!” she half-snarled, even as she cringed inwardly at sounding so petulant. “If they wanted us to cover more than half a system at once, they should have sent a couple of light flotillas. If they wanted us to actually go after the bad guys on their turf, they should have shaken loose a proper task force, or at least a Conquest. Instead, we’re sitting here in our shiny new cruiser, looking all impressive as we swat down a raiding party here and there, while the rest of the pirates just go pick on whoever is unlucky enough to be somewhere we’re not! Ugh.”

He started to say something, but twelve years of naval service - and eight years of married life - had taught him one vital lesson: sometimes, it’s better to avoid arguing with the other person and simply let them burn themselves out. So he just stood there, still at parade rest, until she stopped looking like she wanted to hit something and took a deep breath.

“Sorry, Ash,” she half-mumbled, looking away. “I shouldn’t be taking my frustrations out on you.”

“That’s what XOs are for, ma’am.” He smiled, and she returned it. “Now, if we’ll head to the briefing room?”



“Alright, everyone, listen up,” Archer said, leaning over the table with her palms flat on the surface. “If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the news, you’ll know that the security situation in the Marenos subsector has only degraded in the month since our arrival.”

“As we know all too well, we’re just one ship. We can’t possibly begin to cover every merchant buzzing about in the subsector, and we can’t just fly straight to Vaas and wipe out the pirates in their nest. That said, our duty to the League and the people of Marenos remains, and we will fulfill it to the best of our ability. We will not allow a single more civilian vessel to be robbed, looted or destroyed than is within our power. Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the chorus came around the room, and she smiled thinly.

“Good. Now since we can’t chase the pirates all over the place, and we can’t go knocking on their front door, we need to get them to come to us.”

Ashok Jaitley tapped his pad, and the holo-display at the centre of the table lit up with a schematic of the Valiant. She was an imposing figure, loaded for bear yet fully displaying the graceful lethality of her breed, and it was hard not to feel a surge of pride at the sight.

“We’ll configure our ECM to disguise us as an overloaded Phaeton-class tanker,” here a translucent render of the fat, ungainly utility vessel was superimposed onto the cruiser’s, “and we’ll tow a decoy drone behind us to make it look like we have a frigate escort.”

The plot then switched to a starmap, a number of planets highlighted with interconnecting lines. “Of the systems this side of Vaas, Algre is the hardest hit with twelve merchies and two patrol ships lost in just two weeks, so that’s where we headed. We’ll flip our transponder and deploy the decoy just before leaving Carda, then hit Yunan, Secile, Masaila and Ibers on our way. Any pirate gets close enough to see we’re not actually a big, slow tanker with a small escort, we’ll run them down and seize them. I want a few of them captured alive if at all possible, but a dead pirate is infinitely better than one that gets away to terrorize the merchants somewhere else. Any questions?”

Archer sat down and looked around at her officers, surreptitiously observing their behavior. All the ship’s top-level people were here, except comms officer Lieutenant Belle Gray, who had the watch, and Surgeon Commander Harvey Lister, down in sickbay treating a crewmember with second-degree steam burns.

Jaitley was calm as always to her right, idly rubbing his bushy mustache as he studied the plot, and if he was in anyway inclined to point out that she had been just a tad hypocritical with that opening speech, he showed no sign of it. Lieutenant Commander Ross Diamond, was also running his fingers through something - in this case, his messy blond hair - but it wasn’t at all clear that he was paying attention to much of anything. Commander Hanna Battuta, Valiant’s headscarved astrogator, just looked back evenly at her, her forearms resting on the table.

To Archer’s left, Marine Major Janusz Koniecpolski (he was really only a captain, but the courtesy promotion removed any potential ambiguity over the title “Captain”) studied his tablet intently, undoubtedly considering a number of potential tactical scenarios. And finally there was the senior engineer, Lieutenant Commander Rollyn Bracket, nervously tugging at her chestnut brown locks.

“You have something on your mind, Rolls?” Artemis asked gently.

“Ahh,” the engineer startled. “Well, um, it’s the augmented engine system, ma’am. I’m worried about pushing her too hard, if… well, we’re going to be chasing pirates who are trying to run from us.”

“What’s wrong with the engine?” Jaitley cut in, eyebrows raised.

“Well, you see,” Bracket fidgeted, “with all the electronic hardware they were putting in at the same time, they couldn’t get the high-power thrusters to quite fit. So they took off a bit of armor, rerouted some of the hydrogen feeds, and removed two of the four coolant pipes. Which means it could go offline much more easily if it takes a bad hit. But it should be fine if we don’t get shot!” she hastily added as more than one person stared at her. “Um, I think it’d be better if I found a way to make it safer, though. If I set up an emergency vent, add a backup flow system, and-”

“Rolls!” Archer waved her arms. “Look, we don’t need to know the details. Just let us know what you’ve done and what it can do when you’ve finished, alright?”

The junior officer flushed, mumbling an “okay,” and Artemis turned back to the rest of her officers. “Any other comments?”

“I’ve been looking at the local equipment,” Koniecpolski said, setting down the tablet, “and it occurs to me that there are some additional items we could procure to improve the platoon’s odds in a boarding operation. Specifically...”
[close]

Chapter 2
Spoiler
“ISS Sous-vide, your ship is now mine!” the angry voice snarled on the audio-only comm. “Surrender or be blown into dust!”

“As threats go, I’ve heard better,” Archer idly commented as the PLS Valiant did its best to look like a helpless tanker fleeing for its life. “How long till unmask?”

“Twenty-four minutes, Captain,” Commander Battuta said from her astrogation console. “Assuming our ECM holds, that is.”

“Of course it’ll hold,” Ross Diamond snapped. “You think I’m gonna let a bunch of two-bit pirates outsmart me?”

“Easy, Ross,” Archer said. “Alright, go to general quarters, then let’s let them chase us for a bit. I want them too irritated to think straight for as long as possible.”

The “Sous-vide” and its imaginary escort continued running on travel drive at 225,000 kilometers an hour, ignoring the barrage of increasingly sulfurous threats. The pursuing fleet was gaining slowly but surely, and she watched the plot with steady eyes as the hostile fleet - two Hounds, a Buffalo Mk.II and an Enforcer - crept closer and closer to the critical 10,000 km range at which they would see through the masquerade.

“Coming up on Waypoint Alpha… now.

The Valiant flipped end-over-end, disengaging her towed decoy drone and her ECM disguise, and bored down on her predators-turned-prey at a quarter again her previous speed.

The effect wasn’t truly instantaneous - relativity saw to that - but it may as well have been. Upon seeing that the pitifully outgunned tanker was in fact a naval warship more powerful than all of them put together, they began braking with a thoroughly amazing haste.

“Travel drive inhibitor active,” Battuta reported.

“Begin transmission, Belle,” Archer said, leaning forward and activating the pickup. “Pirate ships, this is Captain Artemis Archer, League Navy. By interstellar admiralty law, I am placing you and your crew under arrest. Stand down your vessels and prepare to be boarded. Resistance will be met with lethal and overwhelming force. If you attempt to flee, or your ships are not powered down within sixty seconds of receiving this message, I will destroy each and every one of you. Clear.”

One of the Hound skippers, perhaps quicker of mind or heel than the others, immediately broke off and ran in a different direction, quickly outpacing the angry shots fired at his traitorous back. The remaining three ships fled together, no doubt cursing even more violently than they had been before the mask dropped.

“That’s right, you scumbags,” Diamond hissed at the tactical plot as the blood red icons of the hostile vessels crept inexorably closer. “Run away; the big bad wolf is coming to get you.”

“Don’t get overconfident, Commander,” Archer said, not taking her eyes off her own screen. Something’s very wrong here. This makes no tactical sense. Pirates have never been known for any great loyalty to each other when things go wrong - the Hound that bolted is proof enough of that! - and yet they’re staying in perfect formation. Even supposing the leader is just holding his assets close, this isn’t the optimal course of action. For starters…

“Why aren’t they scattering?” Ashok Jaitley put her thoughts into words. “For that matter, why isn’t the Buffalo shedding missiles to slow us down?”

“I don’t know,” the tac officer admitted. “Panic reaction, perhaps? They’re not thinking straight?”

“Then they should be breaking and running all over,” Archer pointed out. “These guys look like they’re trying to get away, but they’re not doing a bunch of obvious things towards that goal.”

“It’s a trap,” Jaitley said flatly, and the captain nodded. “Ross,” she looked at him, “I want you to be ready for aggressive action on their part.”

“Okay, but I don't...” Diamond started to answer, then suddenly jerked upright in his seat. “Multiple missile launches! Bandits closing fast!”

“Shields up! Activate point defense!” Archer barked. It wouldn’t be quick enough to stop the first launch if they weren’t already up before she gave the order, but it would deal with the second - if they got far enough for that. “Evasive maneuvers!”

To his credit, Lieutenant Commander Ross Diamond had reacted to the sudden emergence of the threat almost fast enough. Almost.

Nine Harpoons and five Sabots came boring in on a collision course. The PD lasers were still tracking when the first MRM came in, but the shield got up just in time, and the microfusion warhead detonated in a brilliant blue flash barely thirty meters from the Valiant’s hull.

The lasers knocked out three more of the Harpoons, but only one of the Sabots. One more of each missile missed outright as the cruiser’s maneuvering jets kicked in, spinning like a ship half her size in a quick evasive maneuver, and only about two-thirds of the penetrators flung by the remaining SRMs actually contacted the shield. But that was enough, and flux capacitors lit up through the ship like a Christmas tree. Only a quick shutdown prevented the impending overload, and one of the Harpoons actually got through, tearing a nasty chunk out of the Eagle’s bow armor.

And that left the Valiant exposed to the Enforcer’s heavy maulers. Antimatter-doped 140mm shells burst violently against the light grey plating, shattering and fusing the advanced composites, and damage warning alarms wailed on the bridge. And then the Hound was there, spewing hundreds of iron flechettes from its heavy needler, slashing through unprotected bulkheads in a cutting hail.

But now it was her turn.

“Hard to port!” Archer snapped, gripping the armrests of her command chair. “Drivers, target Bandit Three, salvo fire! Beams, engage at will!”

The Valiant banked with the last burst of her emergency maneuvering thrusters, catching the Hound in her sights as it tried to target the weak point in her hull. Four hypervelocity drivers fired as one, their charged tungsten rounds cleaving through the frigate’s thin armor like so much paper, and the ship broke in half as one of its fuel tanks burst.

More Harpoons streaked in, but the tracking systems were ready this time, and the PD turrets stopped them well short of their target. The Eagle reversed course, neatly sidestepping an antimatter bolt from the Buffalo, and rewarded the hapless converted freighter for its efforts with a phase beam carving a gash through its entire starboard.

The Valiant took a moment to shed the excess flux, then charged forward, her shield raised. The HVDs spat fire again, and unlike its newer brethren, an Enforcer’s shield was never made to take such kinetic punishment. It hastily gave way, leaving the armor to absorb the hits, and while the old-style destroyer’s plating was sturdy enough to take the worst of it, it wasn’t quite enough to stop the heavy penetrators and high-energy beams completely. Nor did it do anything against the EM disruption that dazzled the ship’s sensors and fire control systems.

They tried to run now, to scatter as they should have, but this eagle was not about to let her prey escape so easily. She bore down on the Enforcer, melting and hammering its starboard flak cannons to slag before repaying the missile salvo that started the battle with a Harpoon volley of her own. Just four missiles, but with no shields and a half-blind half-maimed point defense to stop them, they struck its bow with a burning fury. Stored missiles and high-explosive ammunition detonated, and the front half of the ship erupted in flame, the crippled wreck spinning away into space.

The Buffalo Mk.II didn’t even merit any missiles. Diamond simply trained his beams on it and burned through the hull until it went up in a bright orange fireball.

A collective sigh went up around the bridge as the Valiant found herself alone in the depths of space again. Archer inhaled sharply, waiting till her fluttering pulse slowed down before she unfastened the restraints on her seat, removed her skinsuit’s helmet and placed it in its harness.

“Damage report,” she said into her comm, trying not to stare at the blood red areas marked on her ship schematic.

“Cargo Bay One is open to space,” the petty officer on the other end stated grimly. “We’ve lost power to the port mainframe, and two of the capacitor banks are a total wipe.” He paused for a moment. “My teams report seven injured, three of them badly, but no-one’s dead, thankfully.”

“Good. I’ll leave you to your work, then. Transmit to my personal if anything serious comes up.”

She cut the connection, then stood up. “Commander Diamond, I’d like a word with you in private,” she said, and the room suddenly took on a distinct chill.

“Um, yes, ma’am,” he said uneasily after only the briefest hesitation, and she turned to her XO. “Ash, you have the watch. Get some S&R on the wreckage.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Jaitley answered crisply, and she walked out, her tactical officer - and more than a few stares - following behind.



He shuffled nervously after her as she entered the briefing room, spinning to face him as soon as the door closed behind them. She was gazing right into his dark brown eyes, and he stood perfectly still, trying to stop the sweat trickling down his neck.

“Commander,” her tone was all the scarier for its complete evenness, “what do you think we did wrong today?”

“Captain,” he started, then swallowed. “I… I suppose we underestimated their skill and discipline, ma’am. We got overconfident, and, well…”

She cocked her head. “What you mean to say, Lieutenant Commander, is that we thought we were smarter than them. We got so dazzled by our own brilliance in suckering them into our trap, it never occurred to us that they might not be similarly overawed by it, or that they might be planning the same thing. And because of that, Valiant now has seven crew casualties and a large gash in her port bow that will cost several hundred credits of taxpayer money to repair. Am I correct?”

“Um,” he mumbled weakly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“To be fair to you,” Archer went on, “it’s not entirely your fault. Neither Jaitley nor I spotted the threat much sooner than you did, and we’re both more experienced than you. And as the captain, responsibility ultimately falls on my shoulders. That said, Commander Diamond,” she contemplated his carefully neutral face, “you’re my tactical officer. I need you to be the one to anticipate the threats to my ship, to neutralize them before they do the same to us. And you can’t do that for me if you don’t take the job seriously.”

She paused for a moment, her light blue irises still boring into his soul. She hadn’t asked him a question, so he decided it would be best for him to say nothing.

“Ross,” she said, her face softening, “you’re good at what you do. But so are lots of people out there, and they have a lot of incentive to stay that way, or get even better. Especially in a place like this. Fall into the trap of taking them lightly just because they don’t have shiny ships or fancy uniforms like we do, and you could get yourself and a lot of people - people who are counting on you - killed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Captain,” he answered, more crisply this time, and she permitted herself a small, brief smile.

“Go down to Engineering and assist Commander Bracket with the repairs. That will be all for today, Commander. Dismissed.”

Diamond saluted smartly, and Archer watched as he turned and left the room, his shoulders drooping with visible relief.
[close]

Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue

161
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / A Battle's Lesson
« on: September 19, 2014, 08:29:09 AM »
Hello, reader! This was/is my first Starsector fanfic; I was writing it some time back, then got tired and shelved it. Recently thought of it again, decided to dust it off and finish it. It's inspired by the mission "The Last Hurrah" and one of Gothars's old forum signatures.

Just to set your expectations: it's 13,600 words, mostly of Stuff Blowing Up. The plot is really just an excuse for... no, I won't spoil it for you. Read it if you want to find out  :P

It's too long to fit into one post, and I didn't want to break it up into two chapters, but you can read it on Google Docs here. Feedback welcome!

162
Bug Reports & Support / Low CR warning on mothball
« on: January 22, 2014, 06:03:08 AM »
After you mothball a ship, you get the "dangerously low CR" (<20%) tutorial warning.

163
Bug Reports & Support / Destroyed ships duplicated in after-action report
« on: September 24, 2013, 02:57:13 AM »
If a ship is disabled, then its wreck destroyed by weapons fire, it gets listed twice in the after-action report (and IIRC is even eligible for the boarding chance).

Screenshot:
Spoiler

There are two identical Hyperions and Medusae, but the enemy fleet only started with one of each.
[close]

164
Bug Reports & Support / Turning the Tables: Enemy retreats inappropriately
« on: September 19, 2013, 10:20:28 PM »
Contrary to the mission briefing, the enemy in Turning the Tables does a full retreat after losing their Condor and either frigate. This makes it next to impossible to get more than about 50% score on the mission.

165
Fighter wings that take combat losses can still get replacements after the battle, even if all your carriers are mothballed.

Haven't tested if this works in-battle as well (mothballed or unready carrier in pursuit scenario).

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