From here, I can hear the arc welding

[richterm]

The Sun Dancer is in dock, at the Genesis Station orbiting the moon. Another 20 minutes and the damage done to the troop deployment bay by the sudden intruders will be fixed. FC2, one of my Vagrants, had been crippled in some earlier action. Her freshly cloned pilots are awaiting those repairs and we'll be heading out before the fighter is in perfect shape. Just can't spare the time.

I've sold some minerals that Drone 1 scooped up. Don't tell the Admiral, but myself and a young flight engineer named Wesley took SC1 after I landed the Sun Dancer near one of our moon bases. After buzzing around the moon a bit, we picked up the drone to sample the findings. Not bad, so we redeployed it and allowed the other 3 to continue working uninterrupted.

I've got a promising crew, but they are still so green. We've engaged a few targets, including an Insurgent ship near the Neptune Jump Gate. After selling the minerals from the now active drones, I believe I'll take the ship on another local patrol run. Part of me is eager to do a long patrol towards enemy space...but I don't imagine we would last long. Not yet, anyway.

It's almost time. I'll head down to the fighter bay to check on FC2. Then, bother my now resting crew.

The stars beckon. I hope that I can keep the hull of my ship between them and my crew...

----------------------

Yep, I'm playing BCM after quite a long break. It's running like a champ on a Compaq Evo 610 laptop with 768 MB of RAM and Windows XP Pro.

And man, I feel like such a RUSTY N00B!

[richterm]

Well, I've now officially kept my ship alive for almost 5 hours. I think it's a record.

After leaving the station, I sent all 4 shuttlecraft to retrieve the mining drones from the moon...they were al around 60% full and I needed money.

And money I got. Selling the minerals allowed me to buy out all the Radine at Genesis. I also stocked up on some spare parts and bought an upgraded reactor.

We launched and my crew began the reactor upgrade as I sent the mining drones for another collection. Looking at my maps, I decided to pay Saturn a visit.

With the main reactor at 95%, I plotted the course and hyperspaced to the jump gate. Once at Saturn, I set a course for the planet itself, figuring buzzing the gas giant could be fun.

The alert klaxon went off...it was an Insurgent Interceptor. I launch two fighters, armed 3 missles via FATAL and gave the order to engage.

This little booger managed to beat me up a bit! A Battlecruiser Mark III doesn't dog fight real well and my pilots were screwing around. I was finally able to turn the bogie into a rapidly expanding cloud of gas with a missle shot...but not before he scratched up my ship pretty good.

Surveying the damage, he had taken a few systems down to about 60-70%...the cloning machine, shuttle launch bay, FC 4 launch bay, scratched up the main guns, knocked the primary turret system down to almost 50%. Conclusion: looks like a shield upgrade is in my future.

I jumped back to Earth and docked at Galcom to repair things yet again and also to restock on medpacks, vacpacs and combat kits. Would you believe Galcom had neither medpacks or combat kits?

I launched, pondering this mystery. Setting a course back to Genesis Station, the Intruder Alert went off just as I ordered the crew to jump to hyperspace. Bah! Quickly, I doublechecked and turned off Launch Control. Good thing, as the 3 intruders were scrambling to the shuttlebay. I dispatched some Marines and 2 intruders were blasted into little pieces. The third scrambled madly out and met his untimely demise in Medbay...as I had ordered a few troops there to be treated for their own wounds. Intruders just aren't too bright sometimes...

As of last night, the Sun Dancer was in a nice relaxing orbit around the moon, waiting for the drones to fill up a bit more. I'm pondering a shield upgrade and then possibly a trip into more dangerous waters.

The stars, after all, ever beckon.

------------------------------------------

So at some point, I ended up with -650 experience (!) Smoking the enemy craft at Saturn knocked me back up to -600, but I'm wondering how I lost the XP in the first place.

Probably one of the single biggest wins so far for me is the now rock solid stability of the game. On my older machine with the previous patches (from when I last futzed around over a year ago) I would have long since crashed to desktop a few times. The ONLY crash I've seen EVER with BCM so far this time around was prior to patching for my missing Indeo codecs (thank you, Microsoft and XP Service Pack 1) Anyway, with the game running so well, I'm finally getting to really enjoy Derek's vision.

Although, I will confess that I am playing pretty cautious right now...the longer I have this ship, the less I'm willing to do something stupid to get us all killed. So that's probably helping me to get into it.

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by richterm:

Well, I've now officially kept my ship alive for almost 5 hours. I think it's a record.

---

hehe, and I'm sure repeated saves had a lot to do with it.

quote:

---

Originally posted by richterm:

Although, I will confess that I am playing pretty cautious right now...the longer I have this ship, the less I'm willing to do something stupid to get us all killed. So that's probably helping me to get into it.

---

And thats EXACTLY how the game was designed to be played.

[richterm]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

quote:

---

Originally posted by richterm:

Well, I've now officially kept my ship alive for almost 5 hours. I think it's a record.

---

hehe, and I'm sure repeated saves had a lot to do with it.

---

Never!

Seriously, restoring from a save is the cheap way out. I never do that with a "live ship" (that is, a ship that I'm playing seriously. If I'm testing something stupid just for kicks, then I might restore)

quote:

---

Originally posted by richterm:

Although, I will confess that I am playing pretty cautious right now...the longer I have this ship, the less I'm willing to do something stupid to get us all killed. So that's probably helping me to get into it.

And thats EXACTLY how the game was designed to be played.

---

Cool.

I'm a pretty impatient guy. Doing well in this game will no doubt be a stretch for me.

[richterm]

The Sun Dancer is now in orbit around Pluto...space out there is quiet, although 2 hostile Corsairs decided to pay a visit shortly after we jumped in. I ordered all fighters to launch and then plotted an intercept course. Before the jump engines could recharge fully, the fighters smoked one Corsair and the other enemy scooted out just as Sun Dancer emerged from hyperspace. So it goes.

I was able to upgrade the shields to a Linear Spec IV, courtesy of the lunar mining. I'm considering deploying the drones on Pluto now. Anyway, I bought out the moon's supply of Radine and also bought a good chunk from the research station at Pluto. We've deployed a probe and I've ordered it to Jupiter to keep watch and now I'm planning a foray out of the solar system.

Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll recall the fighters and jump out of the system once they have been prepped.

Hopefully, I'll return to once again to see the stars of home.

----------------------------------------

On a systems note, I popped the resolution up to 1024x768 and set for 32 bit color.

Man, things look sweet. I spent 5 minutes just staring at Genesis station as the ship hung next to it in orbit.