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My first adventure


Reshawn
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This was my first experience when I started trying to really play rather than experiment with everything. It happened on Battlecruiser Millennium Gold and was my first real venture in ROAM.

After launching my command craft I decided that it would be best to get some mining opperations started so I launched my Shuttles and had them deploy the mining drones. Once they are back I put my AE into SC-1 allong with all my spare parts and start trading.

Here comes my first problem. I quickly discovered that I could not turn off launch control from my shuttle craft. I assumed this would not be a big deal, because perhaps there would not be any intruders while I was away. And in any case, I had all 40 of my marines (my CC was a Firestorm) on search duty so surely they could handle any problems right?

Wrong. After about an hour of trading I notice something odd. All of my support craft are launched... and even more strangely, they are regestering as hostile. o.O A quick look at perscan shows that indeed my ship has intruders. One of which happened to be located on deck one. Apparently all of my marines decided he was the biggest threat because that was where every last one of them were as well. Meanwhile the OTHER people intruding on my ship had slipped into my support craft and stollen them all.

Not a big deal, I decided, I would just continue my trading and once finished I could buy NEW support craft. So I quickly hop into my CC, blow up my stolen craft, then get back to work trading after a breif stop at the Galatcom HQ to buy some more radine and plutonium (I hadn't yet upgraded any systems so I burned through them quickly).

And off I was again, trading to my hearts content. I am not exactly sure how long I spent at this. Nor exactly how much money I eventually ended up with other than I am absoutely sure that I had well in excess of 200M creds once finished. Come to think of it, I have no clue why on earth I figured I would ever need that much money to start with.

So starts the buying of stuff. First on the list replacing those lost support craft and buying upgrades. Then I got to go retrieve my mining drones... though I ended up deciding that this would be a good time to get some of the lower AI marines some experience. They get the tap.

Obviously they crashed and died. All of them (I think the AI I had selected was something like 8 or so). No problem, I had plenty of funds so I buy 4 more support craft and new marines. This time I send down my pilots to collect the drones and manage to retrieve all of them. I then spend the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get all of those minerals I just mined out of the drones, and upon discovering how spend a lot of time selling all my minerals, buying max missiles/fuel/spare parts and so forth. After which I am left with a mere 200M in funds so I also buy 10 OTS-Bugnor's which I promptly launch at the earth to destroy 10 Insurgant bases (though I for some reason left the starbase intact).

And I am off, a ship loaded with supplies and ready to explore... except for first I check perscan and find myself frowning at the AI level of my crew. I remember that list of things your command staff are able to do with higher AI levels, and also determine that general crew members with higher AI will do a better job as well. So I head to mars, which I had learned had a higher mineral concentration during my trading binge, and redeploy my mining drones on the surface while my CC sits safely under the nice friendly Starstation.

I also decide that my pilots will increase AI more quickly if I have them out flying missions and discover that I can launch fighters with just a pilot, no copilot needed. So I launch my 8 fighters and set them to escort eachother with the leader escorting the starstation.

It is here that I notice that I am using Plutonium and Radine just by sitting put, which makes me unhappy because I am not doing much of anything. Fortunately I have a solution! I will stop using Plutonium if I lower my shields, and Radine use can be mitigated by shutting off my engine. Yeay for saving money!

At this point I start to study for my classes, every so often checking to make sure my fighters don't need to land. When they do I have them land, recharge them, and then relaunch. Then I go back to studying confident that any hostile which enters the system with the intent of killing me will be destroyed by the starstation long before he gets in range of me.

At this point I start hearing my tacops officer telling me there is something out there about once every other minute, and look up to see the static that means a ship is cloaked in the system. Not a big deal I think and go back to studying. I continue to hear my tacops officer tell me something is out there, so annoyed that she is interrupting my study session I send her to the medbay.

Relieved that the annoying lady is no longer barking at me I get back to my studying while every so often checking on what is going on expecting the cloaked ship to show itself eventually so I can sick my fighters on him. It is at this point that my CC suddently takes a LOT of dammage.

Hull integerety promptly dropped to 25%, and my reactor was shut down by my cheif engineer who apparently had managed to get enough AI to do that task but not auto assign repairs.

To my surprise, however, I am not blown out of the water and the dammage my ship is taking suddenly stops. I start trying to assess the situation, only to find out I am unable to due to the fact that ALL my computers are blown up, not to mention the fact that having my reactor shut down makes it so they would not work anyway.

Good news: I am very close to that star base. Actually the range is something like 0.01 KM, so I can dock.

Bad news: I cannot select the station to dock with it because I had not put it on priority list, and am unable to get to any system which would allow me to select it.

Good news: I remembered that if I turn my reactor back on I should at the very least be able to do something to allow me to select the starstation, thus docking and getting repairs started.

Bad news: I failed to remember the reason my reactor was off-line. Mainly, the cheif engineer taking it off line in order to prevent any further... problems.

I switch back on my reactor. My Cheif Engineer quickly switches it off again. I growl at him, and turn it back on, he turns it off. I turn it on again, and my ship promptly explodes.

So it was that in order to save a little money on Radine and Plutonium, despite the fact that I had AMPLE funds, I ended up losing an infinately more expensive Firestorm super carrier.

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Sounds SO much like my first attempt at a ROAM scenario

I actually had no problems when parked beside a friendly starbase (and no enemy bases in immediate proximity). That is, I first experience the same as you did, but that was because I parked on a slope, and my craft was kind of sliding around doing damage to itself

At the end I decided to let all my crew get to level 100 AI by entering TACTICAL computer system and wait. This freezes the 3D world, and even if this feels like cheating, then I went for this approach in the end.

I discovered that I could mostly prevent intruders from stealing my support craft by putting marines in them.

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You guys must never have come across the trick of launching a shuttle, shutting down launch control, then having your commander EVA from the bridge, jet over to the shuttle, then board her as the pilot. Then when you get back, you have to reverse the sequence to get aboard your CC.

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I figured that one out later actually. However, I will point out that it clearly states that was my 1st experience in ROAM and as such I hadn't figured out many tricks quite yet.

I have learned others, including keeping marines in my SC because it is useful both to grab cargo pods on short notice and to kill intruders that tend to make their way there.

Also, on the one or two occasions where I had so many people boarding my ship that it was getting difficult fighting them all off I learned the trick of turning off life support and watching them die in perscan (after evacing crew to shuttles/fighters first of course).

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Ah, you are correct. My apologies. I think by reading "1st experience" and being a recent post, I assumed (you know what that means) that you were still looking for ways around that. I like the one about life support. Never tried that, but then I haven't been able to play much lately (3 kids 3 and under! ) plus I got Freelancer recently and am having fun mindlessly shooting at things.

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One thing I sort of wish I had the ability to do was use the transporter to shoot people out into space when they try to board my ship. Maybe even do it in such a way that they get hurled at enemy ships.

Unfortunately this is not Star Trek so the power of technobable does not work quite as well.

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