##Background
Ah, Charybdis. Home to desperate wildcatters, renegade mercenaries, unstable pirate clans, and worse. How you found yourself in this backwater deathtrap of a galaxy is anyone’s guess. Some capable folk out there are able to scrape by either as crew aboard last-chance starships, by selling fake medical supplies to backwater colonies, or at very least as cannon fodder in a mercenary brigade. Less capable folk? Well, we have to find another way, don’t we?
Either out of desperate need, morbid curiosity, or sheer foolishness you have chosen to sign on with a deep salvage vessel. Bully for you! In exchange for taking on a heart-stopping amount of debt you have received vocational training, an assignment aboard an outbound ship, and a ‘previously cherished’ exosuit to call your own throughout the duration of your contract.
Congratulations! Now you’re a void scavenger. On the bright side, folks love reading stories about the gruesome fates that are likely to befall you. Don’t forget to write your kin before each mission.
As a void scavenger, your immediate goal is to survive long enough to buy out your contract and regain your freedom. Until then, you’re in pretty dire straits. At least the oatmeal in the mess is cheap.
“While y’all are here, feel free to pick out a your own quarters - anything open is first come first serve, anything locked down is currently under maintenance. And while y’all are at it, I’ve opened up the ship’s stores. Feel free to rummage around and pick out a leftover exosuit for yourself. You’ll be spending a lot of time in it, so my advice is to find something that mostly fits and doesn’t smell too bad. I’ll be back in a bit with the mission update.”
I shall be moving into one of the Coleridge’s greenhouses.
As for an exosuit, I have an unfortunate habit of making holes in them, so hopefully I’ve chosen one that’s sturdy enough, with working oxygen scrubbers.
We’re headed outward and spinward from the NeoTarsus system. We’ll have a little time to pick up some extra resources on the way and it’ll be a good shakedown flight to boot. I’ve designated a few options for you greenhorns for you to get used to your exosuits. Now’s the time to pick up a little experience before starting the real work.
##Round 1 mission options Idle penalty: 5Ʉ
This ain’t no vacation cruise. A lot of fancy folk put up a whole bunch of credit to make this voyage happen. Everyone’s expected to pull their own weight around these parts, so it’ll cost you if you want to sit on your keister.
###Mission 1 - Like a Record, Baby
Asteroid 684M16 has a high rotational velocity. You’ll need an effective sensor suite to accurately gauge the approach and good maneuverability to match the inertial frame. Plenty of Helium-3 to bring back at minimal risk to you.
Mission Cost: 5Ʉ Minimum Requirements: at least 18 EVA and 18 SEN Risks: Newton’s Laws of Motion (suit wear estimated at 3-15 damage based on EVA and SEN) Expected salvage: 6 low-value salvage opportunities per scavenger. Very small chance of an opportunity being a bust.
###Mission 2 - The Hot Rock
Prospecting probes indicate significant deposits of exotic matter on asteroid KRS321. That’s the good news. The bad news? Plenty of radiation for you, your suit, and some left over to scramble your genome. Where we’re going, we’re going to need these hard to find exotics.
Mission Cost: 15Ʉ Minimum Requirements: at least 20 DEF Risks: Radiation. (3-20 damage based on DEF) Expected salvage: 2 high-value salvage opportunities per scavenger. Very small chance of rare salvage. Small chance of dangerous salvage.
###Mission 3 - Bright and Shiny
Plenty of metal deposits on ol’ CS-8414, but all of them are buried deep and you’ll need to work fast. The stronger your cutters and manipulators, the less strain you’ll put on your suit as you do the job. Dig deep and bring back as many polymetallic nodules as you can. We’re going to need the raw material for the fabricators.
Mission Cost: 10Ʉ Minimum Requirements: 20 POW or greater Risks: Thermal fatigue (2-25 damage based on POW) Expected salvage: 3 standard salvage opportunities per scavenger.
###Mission 4 - Preflight checklist
That old organic intuition just catches things that survey drones would have missed. We’re moving out of L1 now, so you’ll have to keep a careful eye out for debris. No requirements, no juice from you, just solid work for solid pay.
Requirements: none Mission Cost: none Risks: Orbital debris ( up to 3 collisions, 5-15HP each depending on DEF, (SEN+EVA)% chance to evade) Expected salvage: 25Ʉ incentive payment
##Ship’s Stores
Pickings are a little slim at the moment. I’m still working on calibrating the fabricators - we’ll have a larger selection in a bit but you’ll have to make due with this old gear for the moment.
iotrap.daneel: 0xbd981c394063c1b5b5e5df9f7eda23f687f446a3
“Roger that, daneel - these orders have been submitted! You can overwrite these orders with a new submission.”
I found this old exosuit lying around. It’s a bit gooey and the mag-boots make a terrible racket, but it’ll do. It has some great potential if I can scrounge up the juice for it.
Simulations suggest I should take the easy route and help out on the pre-flight checklist, but where’s the fun in that?
If anyone is willing to invest 4Ʉ, I’ll take on that Bright and Shiny mission instead, and give you 40% of the take rounded to the nearest Ʉ.
4Ʉ for 40%.
If multiple folks want to chip in, each Ʉ gives you 10% of salvage I can find.
Run your numbers and get back to me before the mission deadline.
This was the only one with the correct number of limbs in more or less my size. The space moths have eaten through it a little but hopefully nothing one of those iron on patch kits won’t fix. If I’m honest, I’d prefer one without ‘JUICY’ stencilled on the bum, but beggars can’t be choosers.
All void scavengers must take extra care in running the numbers - I will let you file the mission plan trusting that you are sure of the outcome. Because your life depends on it. [Context]
Ah, here’s the rub: the in the order should be ‘gwwar’ instead of ‘@gwwar’. That way, we don’t wind up with terrible flurries of @mentions while people debug orders.
But that’s a fair point - I should have caught that, parsed it correctly, and mentioned something about it. I’ll update my primer until I can fix it.
ETA: And of course being online and responding from this account clears the unread notification status. Please try again.
mission 1
That’s a deal Brian (
