Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
More like assimilate, I guess. Grab the ship and surrender the pirates to the lawful authorities.
Faith in Superior Firepower [Planetary Annihilation Multicross SI]
- Thread starter Faith
- Start date
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They
Faith, you have the best sense of humour.
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
Stop reading my gorram notes!
Not familiar with it, but a cursory glance at the TV Tropes page makes me curious. Next time I find myself with some free time I'll check it out. You might see it at some point in the future - depends, I guess.
Iji is a pretty fun game, and the story is awesome as well. The game doesn't take super long to beat, either, so I would recommend you play it if you get the chance.
As far as technology, they have planetary shields, personal and large-scale teleportation, and NANOMACHINES, SON. Some of the stuff in back-story is pretty cool as well - One of the bosses has a personal shield that's virtually indestructible(Only the Phantom Hammer, a planet-busting beam weapon, can harm the boss, and that's only STUNNING the boss so you can hack her nanite systems to turn her shield off), and in-story, she went insane and killed an entire planet one person at a time after getting the upgrade. The shield was an experiment that went horribly wrong, so there's only one of it in existence.
Another boss is one of the best Komato assassins in existence, and is so ridiculously good with their personal teleporter that if the boss explicitly chose not to let you hit him, it would be an unwinnable boss fight. (the assassins have a sort-of arrogance/honor where they ignore the basic flechette shotgun but dodge everything else, because the basic gun is so weak - You literally have to cherry tap the boss to death to kill him)
The Generals of the Komato have power-armor that's... probably on a personal power level that can take on a PA Commander when the General's limiter is turned off. In the backstory, a General can singlehandedly wipe out an entire planetary defense force on the ground. It has a personal teleporter, a planet-cracker Phantom Hammer cannon, and all kinds of other weaponry... with infinite ammo, and it is very, very fast.
Like Planetary/Total Annihilation, the Komato/Tasen weaponry generates their ammunition as-needed, except for Iji, because she's using an extremely outdated model of the weapon she gets.
Oh, and there's an experimental weapon that warps reality to destroy every enemy on the level with a single shot, but drives you insane with repeated use(use it and kill the final boss, and you get stuck in a phantom zone of the first level... where you can't win or escape, and can only die). Some of the story stuff is insanely powerful... and a bit creepy.
Edit: The game is really good at hyping the bosses up, and the bosses definitely live up to it.
Edit 2: Literally from the developer of the game regarding Asha, the legendary Komato Assassin:
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28 - Genisys
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
OH HEY A THING
ONE CONSISTING ALMOST ENTIRELY OF REFERENCES
shuttupandreaditalready
28 - Genisys
The first thing that I noticed was that he was apparently ripping off The Princess Bride.
The second thing I noticed was that 'he' was a human with half his face replaced with cybernetics - he looked more like a Terminator than a pirate.
His voice had a metallic, static-like undertone, too, and it was starting to grate on my nerves.
On the bright side, the paint scheme of his vessel pretty much confirmed I was in the FTL-verse, so that was a good thing.
Realizing I hadn't responded to his hail yet, I did so.
"Why would anyone fear a dumb name like Genisys?" I broadcast. "It's so stupid. Hardly worthy of the title Dread Pirate."
There was silence for a blissful second before the screechy Skrillex voice returned.
"You're stupid!"
Wow. What a comeback.
"Also, I didn't really 'fall' into your trap - I've been here for like, ten minutes. If you'd been any slower, you might have fallen into my trap. Except, you know, mine would have actually been a trap."
A volley of laser shots burst from the wingtips of the pirate vessel, the Rider's hypertech armour absorbing the blasts without issue.
In response, the Rider began to rotate, facing the target and preparing its weapons.
I quickly countermanded that order, instead commanding it to switch to its fabricator.
Vastly less range, and not exactly the fastest or most efficient weapon, but then, it wasn't really a weapon at all.
And it had the advantage of giving me total control over whatever technology was targeted. In this case, the pirate's starship.
Genisys' fighter's engines flared and the ship raced forward, zooming past the Rider and curving in the distance, looping around for another attack run.
I deigned not to give him the chance, the Rider giving chase. Its engines, slow relative to interstellar distance, easily outperformed the engines on the pirate fighter. Within seconds the Rider was almost glued to the fighter's tail, and no amount of evasive flying from the pilot could through the Progenitor tracking program.
The Fabricator spat out clouds of nanobots, the glowing green constructs slipping through Genisys' shield and building up on the ship's hull like a layer of dust. Half a second later they filtered inside the ship, abusing the tiniest of manufacturing flaws to worm their way through the armour and into the interior systems. Power lines were the first things to be taken, the thick insulated cables hardly a barrier.
Through them my nanobots invaded the rest of the ship, accessing the shield generator, the engine bay, the jump drive, weapons systems (two burst lasers and a missile launcher - not terribly impressive), and, finally, the ship's sensors, door controls, and helm.
Meanwhile, the pirate fighter continued to dodge and weave, the Rider beginning to pull away. The fighter took advantage, performing some kind of loop-de-loop manoeuvre to get behind Rider 06.
In a conventional air-to-air dogfight, with fixed forward-facing weaponry, such a manoeuvre would have been an excellent option.
In space, where any decently-designed ship had guns facing all directions, it just made you a target. A really big target.
Unfortunately, it was a target I was unwilling to fire upon. Not only because I didn't like the idea of killing someone, no matter how 'evil' they may have been - although I had to doubt how well 'dread pirate' Genisys' career was going - but also because I needed the ship undamaged. So I could steal all of its delicious shinies.
The cyborg pirate's face reappeared in my mind's eye. "Haha! I, Dread Pirate Genisys, have got you now! Surrender your cargo for selling and your crew for enslaving, else die! You have no chance of escape! Your victory is inconceivable!"
I responded to his hail, speaking slowly, in a calm and patient tone. "Sorry, Genisys. But you messed with the wrong survey ship."
It was at around that point that the nanobots hacked into the ship's computer, giving me total control over all systems.
The engines shut down, the blast doors sealed, the weapons retracted, the shields disengaged, and every screen on the ship was showing a little green circle.
"My name is Faith. Your shields have been lowered and your ships surrendered. I will add your technological distinctiveness to my own. Your machines will adapt to serve me. Resistance was futile."
Watching through the ship's cameras, I could only frown at the lack of reactions from the pirate crew. There was an Engi - a humanoid mass of nanomachines - currently locked in the engine bay. His nonexpressive green eye almost mirrored my Osiris body's red one, and gave no clues as to his feelings, but from his body language, he seemed barely fazed. He was looking around slowly, as if trying to see if there was any way out, but it was hard to tell with the robotic lifeform.
There was a Zoltan in the shield generator room - the Zoltan, for context, are energy beings capable of providing power to nearby systems - and he looked a little dazed - he had been directly interfaced with the shield generator when it shut down, so that probably had something to do with it.
The remaining two crew members were both human, and stood divided at the two ends of the spectrum. One of the humans, a dark-skinned woman with a bald head, had simply stood from her chair in the weapons room, walked over to the door and started tapping away at the controls. When that didn't work she retrieved a screwdriver from her belt, pried the control panel off, and began poking at the wires beneath.
I sent a small group of nanobots to deal with that - sealing the systems behind a metal sheet and devouring the head of the screwdriver, whilst they were at it. The woman frowned, shrugged, tossed the screwdriver over one shoulder and returned to her seat.
Genisys, on the other hand, was not so calm. He was sat in his pilot's chair, muttering almost incoherently.
"Beaten! Defeated! Outsmarted! And I had them trapped! This is... this is inconceivable!"
"You know, Genisys," I interjected, "maybe you would have done better if you hadn't dressed up like Arnie, spoken like Skrillex, and read from the script of the Princess Bride. Like, at least get some consistency in there."
He jumped back in his chair, seeming almost frightened of his screens. "You... you know my secrets? But how? This is inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
He paused, staring blankly at the display.
"Yeah, I've seen that movie too. Not sure why you would have followed it up with a Terminator reference though. That... doesn't make a lot of sense to me."
"I... I do not understand! Those things are from the ancient historical records of Earth! I spent six years digging them out of the archives! Four more converting them to a usable data format! How do you know of them?"
"Pfft. I was there, when they made them. Not that they knew that, of course. Don't worry, though, Jenny. I'll make sure you have access to the archives whilst you're in jail. Maybe you should brush up on your Star Trek."
He began shaking his head, almost violently. "No, no, no! No one could have been there and be alive today! No living thing, not even the Engi, could live that long!"
"Who said I was a living thing?" I responded smugly.
First things first, disable communications. Already done. Then all manual controls. A few seconds of work for the nanobots. Then steal everything from the database, and add it to my own. Files transferred across in seconds - and I had to remark that the Progenitor computer had no issues reading either the Sanctumverse or FTLverse files, despite the fact that they should have been vastly different in terms of data structure, both compared to each other and to Progenitor files.
Either way, I could read them and the juicy blueprints were all mine in seconds.
And the rest of the ship, I guess. That was cool too. And it had only taken sixty seconds.
ONE CONSISTING ALMOST ENTIRELY OF REFERENCES
shuttupandreaditalready
28 - Genisys
The first thing that I noticed was that he was apparently ripping off The Princess Bride.
The second thing I noticed was that 'he' was a human with half his face replaced with cybernetics - he looked more like a Terminator than a pirate.
His voice had a metallic, static-like undertone, too, and it was starting to grate on my nerves.
On the bright side, the paint scheme of his vessel pretty much confirmed I was in the FTL-verse, so that was a good thing.
Realizing I hadn't responded to his hail yet, I did so.
"Why would anyone fear a dumb name like Genisys?" I broadcast. "It's so stupid. Hardly worthy of the title Dread Pirate."
There was silence for a blissful second before the screechy Skrillex voice returned.
"You're stupid!"
Wow. What a comeback.
"Also, I didn't really 'fall' into your trap - I've been here for like, ten minutes. If you'd been any slower, you might have fallen into my trap. Except, you know, mine would have actually been a trap."
A volley of laser shots burst from the wingtips of the pirate vessel, the Rider's hypertech armour absorbing the blasts without issue.
In response, the Rider began to rotate, facing the target and preparing its weapons.
I quickly countermanded that order, instead commanding it to switch to its fabricator.
Vastly less range, and not exactly the fastest or most efficient weapon, but then, it wasn't really a weapon at all.
And it had the advantage of giving me total control over whatever technology was targeted. In this case, the pirate's starship.
Genisys' fighter's engines flared and the ship raced forward, zooming past the Rider and curving in the distance, looping around for another attack run.
I deigned not to give him the chance, the Rider giving chase. Its engines, slow relative to interstellar distance, easily outperformed the engines on the pirate fighter. Within seconds the Rider was almost glued to the fighter's tail, and no amount of evasive flying from the pilot could through the Progenitor tracking program.
The Fabricator spat out clouds of nanobots, the glowing green constructs slipping through Genisys' shield and building up on the ship's hull like a layer of dust. Half a second later they filtered inside the ship, abusing the tiniest of manufacturing flaws to worm their way through the armour and into the interior systems. Power lines were the first things to be taken, the thick insulated cables hardly a barrier.
Through them my nanobots invaded the rest of the ship, accessing the shield generator, the engine bay, the jump drive, weapons systems (two burst lasers and a missile launcher - not terribly impressive), and, finally, the ship's sensors, door controls, and helm.
Meanwhile, the pirate fighter continued to dodge and weave, the Rider beginning to pull away. The fighter took advantage, performing some kind of loop-de-loop manoeuvre to get behind Rider 06.
In a conventional air-to-air dogfight, with fixed forward-facing weaponry, such a manoeuvre would have been an excellent option.
In space, where any decently-designed ship had guns facing all directions, it just made you a target. A really big target.
Unfortunately, it was a target I was unwilling to fire upon. Not only because I didn't like the idea of killing someone, no matter how 'evil' they may have been - although I had to doubt how well 'dread pirate' Genisys' career was going - but also because I needed the ship undamaged. So I could steal all of its delicious shinies.
The cyborg pirate's face reappeared in my mind's eye. "Haha! I, Dread Pirate Genisys, have got you now! Surrender your cargo for selling and your crew for enslaving, else die! You have no chance of escape! Your victory is inconceivable!"
I responded to his hail, speaking slowly, in a calm and patient tone. "Sorry, Genisys. But you messed with the wrong survey ship."
It was at around that point that the nanobots hacked into the ship's computer, giving me total control over all systems.
The engines shut down, the blast doors sealed, the weapons retracted, the shields disengaged, and every screen on the ship was showing a little green circle.
"My name is Faith. Your shields have been lowered and your ships surrendered. I will add your technological distinctiveness to my own. Your machines will adapt to serve me. Resistance was futile."
Watching through the ship's cameras, I could only frown at the lack of reactions from the pirate crew. There was an Engi - a humanoid mass of nanomachines - currently locked in the engine bay. His nonexpressive green eye almost mirrored my Osiris body's red one, and gave no clues as to his feelings, but from his body language, he seemed barely fazed. He was looking around slowly, as if trying to see if there was any way out, but it was hard to tell with the robotic lifeform.
There was a Zoltan in the shield generator room - the Zoltan, for context, are energy beings capable of providing power to nearby systems - and he looked a little dazed - he had been directly interfaced with the shield generator when it shut down, so that probably had something to do with it.
The remaining two crew members were both human, and stood divided at the two ends of the spectrum. One of the humans, a dark-skinned woman with a bald head, had simply stood from her chair in the weapons room, walked over to the door and started tapping away at the controls. When that didn't work she retrieved a screwdriver from her belt, pried the control panel off, and began poking at the wires beneath.
I sent a small group of nanobots to deal with that - sealing the systems behind a metal sheet and devouring the head of the screwdriver, whilst they were at it. The woman frowned, shrugged, tossed the screwdriver over one shoulder and returned to her seat.
Genisys, on the other hand, was not so calm. He was sat in his pilot's chair, muttering almost incoherently.
"Beaten! Defeated! Outsmarted! And I had them trapped! This is... this is inconceivable!"
"You know, Genisys," I interjected, "maybe you would have done better if you hadn't dressed up like Arnie, spoken like Skrillex, and read from the script of the Princess Bride. Like, at least get some consistency in there."
He jumped back in his chair, seeming almost frightened of his screens. "You... you know my secrets? But how? This is inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
He paused, staring blankly at the display.
"Yeah, I've seen that movie too. Not sure why you would have followed it up with a Terminator reference though. That... doesn't make a lot of sense to me."
"I... I do not understand! Those things are from the ancient historical records of Earth! I spent six years digging them out of the archives! Four more converting them to a usable data format! How do you know of them?"
"Pfft. I was there, when they made them. Not that they knew that, of course. Don't worry, though, Jenny. I'll make sure you have access to the archives whilst you're in jail. Maybe you should brush up on your Star Trek."
He began shaking his head, almost violently. "No, no, no! No one could have been there and be alive today! No living thing, not even the Engi, could live that long!"
"Who said I was a living thing?" I responded smugly.
First things first, disable communications. Already done. Then all manual controls. A few seconds of work for the nanobots. Then steal everything from the database, and add it to my own. Files transferred across in seconds - and I had to remark that the Progenitor computer had no issues reading either the Sanctumverse or FTLverse files, despite the fact that they should have been vastly different in terms of data structure, both compared to each other and to Progenitor files.
Either way, I could read them and the juicy blueprints were all mine in seconds.
And the rest of the ship, I guess. That was cool too. And it had only taken sixty seconds.
Last edited:
This is the single most impressive feat engineered by a Progenitor species ever...
Nice chapter, it's always good to see a Von Neumann machine with stronger morals than me. It gives me hope for the future when the machine overlords inevitably take control of the world.
Rossum
Not a Cyberman
- Location
- Earth
Other things to loot:
Cloning Bay - Save a person's mind in storage (or something) and clone them if they die. Probably not a 'true' way to bring back the dead, but better than nothing and could no doubt be modified for other purposes or used to make things like the Vita-Chambers from Bioshock. Also: Potentially clone extinct species from DNA samples or vat-grow chickens, fruits, vegetables, or other tasty things to turn into food (thus avoiding the 'bland future nutrient-paste food' that often crops up in sci-fi settings).
Reconstructive Teleport - Basically heals a person to full health while teleporting them. If there's someone injured, no matter how severe, you can just teleport them onto your ship while instantly healing all their wounds. Combine this with the regular med bay and cloning facility for maximum healing power.
Teleport Bombs - Need I say more? They already have the Healing Burst thing that dispenses medical nanobots onto enemy ships. You could have it dispense assimilation nanobots to snag ships at vast distance while bypassing their shields. Also: Teleport oxygen canisters, fire extinguishers, repair drones, medicine, fruit baskets, or whatever other supplies you might possibly need to send to people.
And of course: In-game you can abduct enemy crew by mind controlling them and then using your teleporter to beam them onto your ship. Granted, you can't really contain them for some reason since your own crew considers them 'friendly' and your temporary ally will probably walk to the nearest unmanned console to crew your ship before snapping out of their brainwashing. But it's still a good way to deal with the crew on the flagship if you have time to properly thin out their ranks.
Cloning Bay - Save a person's mind in storage (or something) and clone them if they die. Probably not a 'true' way to bring back the dead, but better than nothing and could no doubt be modified for other purposes or used to make things like the Vita-Chambers from Bioshock. Also: Potentially clone extinct species from DNA samples or vat-grow chickens, fruits, vegetables, or other tasty things to turn into food (thus avoiding the 'bland future nutrient-paste food' that often crops up in sci-fi settings).
Reconstructive Teleport - Basically heals a person to full health while teleporting them. If there's someone injured, no matter how severe, you can just teleport them onto your ship while instantly healing all their wounds. Combine this with the regular med bay and cloning facility for maximum healing power.
Teleport Bombs - Need I say more? They already have the Healing Burst thing that dispenses medical nanobots onto enemy ships. You could have it dispense assimilation nanobots to snag ships at vast distance while bypassing their shields. Also: Teleport oxygen canisters, fire extinguishers, repair drones, medicine, fruit baskets, or whatever other supplies you might possibly need to send to people.
And of course: In-game you can abduct enemy crew by mind controlling them and then using your teleporter to beam them onto your ship. Granted, you can't really contain them for some reason since your own crew considers them 'friendly' and your temporary ally will probably walk to the nearest unmanned console to crew your ship before snapping out of their brainwashing. But it's still a good way to deal with the crew on the flagship if you have time to properly thin out their ranks.
Okay, I have no idea who this Genisys guy actually is, or what setting he's from... but I'm beginning to think he's funny. I mean, I'm loving that Faith is not only out-teching him with Proginator Bullshit, but is also out REFERENCING him with her knowledge of the INTERNETS. It's glorious.
I wanna see what the alien warmachine with a heart and a sense of humor is going to be like interacting with this pirate crew some more.
I wanna see what the alien warmachine with a heart and a sense of humor is going to be like interacting with this pirate crew some more.
- Location
- Somewhere on the flat earth
This was really good. Thabks for the laughs.
- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They
More than this, Faith could make a proper organic avatar for herself with access to rapid growth (I presume the cloning bay comes with this? I mean what's the point if it doesn't?). Also opens possibilities for creating vat-grown monsters to add to her army...
29 - Upgrades
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
Reading blueprints, designing ships, and starting a little scavenger hunt. All this and more! Just this, in this chapter!
Semi-related - holidays are on, so hopefully more frequent updates for this story! Maybe! Yaaaay! *confetti*
29 - Upgrades
After a little thinking I realised that Genisys' interruption, annoying as it had been, was also a fairly massive boon.
I mean, yeah, he didn't have anything fancy like the Zoltan Shields or the Teleporter or the Mind Control or even a Medbay, but he basically gave me energy shields and FTL on a silver platter - although he was lacking the other technologies I was after. His stupid fighter didn't even have a proper medbay, apparently. Again, annoying, but I guess it was a little lazy of me to expect to just stumble onto a treasure trove of exotic technologies, most of which came from wildly different factions, within minutes of making first contact.
Anyway, having two new technologies to play with was fun. I looked at the shield generator, first, because I doubted it would be as complex as the FTL drive and no matter how much access I had to Progenitor superscience, I was hardly a master physicist.
The shield generators operated on the principal of creating a bubble of stabilised energy fields around the ship. These served to adequately absorb energy based weapons such as laser blasts and beams, but a strong enough hit could destabilise them, causing the shield to drop in power until it re-stabilised.
They also worked against most projectiles, excepting things like Hacking Drones and Missiles - just looking at the blueprints for the missiles I'd taken from Genisys, it looked like it was mounted with some sort of shield disruptor, allowing it to pass through the shield without damaging it - hence the 'shield piercing'.
Ah, video game logic. Wonderful.
It was also very good to know, because now I knew to equip all of my ships with kinetic weapons like railguns - as long as the projectile had a shield disruptor, they wouldn't be blocked. Unlike lasers, which were somewhat harder to mount disruptor systems on. Another win for projectiles at sufficient velocity.
Almost to balance the key disadvantage, the shield also had one major advantage - where the FTL shields were upgraded from scrap parts and could only hold four 'layers' before overheating, catastrophically failing, or both, my Progenitor super-science ensured neither of those would really be issues, if I built it right. A few quick experiments, based off what little I could gleam from the ship's maintenance manual, gave an estimated twelve layers of shield on a generator the same size as the ones in game - and going bigger would, obviously, give me more shield power.
I was not afraid to go bigger, if the need arose. I don't know for sure what the threshold for energy absorption is, but chances are if I just stack fifty layers on top of each other, nothing is going to get through.
Except maybe missiles. But I'm sure I'll find other ways to get around that.
Like dozens and dozens of point defence lasers. Or really thick armour. Or both. Whatever.
The FTL drive, on the other hand, was, as I'd feared, somewhat more complex. Well, from a design standpoint, it was complex. What it was actually doing was rather simple. First, it created a bubble of self-contained space time, and then the ship's engines basically just stepped up to eleven. The contained micro-reality saved the ships from the usual problems this would cause, like g-forces and crashing into planets. Almost like Halo's slipspace, but less removed from reality and more... out of alignment.
An interesting concept, and one I didn't understand the science behind in any way.
Which, in all fairness, I wasn't going to let stop me. I was mounting the damn thing on everything that could fit it.
Starting with the ship design I was most familiar with - the Bright Foundation freighter that had become the Pioneer and Rider class ships. And, of course, the newest version - the Cavalier. This was to be the combat variant, and I planned to design it bit-by-bit as I scrounged new tech before starting to build them. That way, I figured, I could save myself the pain of constantly revisiting and tearing apart my older designs to fit in new technology.
Which is what I did, to the Pioneer and Rider. Smaller spaces towards the rear ends of the ships were sacrificed to make room for the shield generator and the FTL drive.
The Cavalier design, I'd decided, was going to be the 'go big or go home' of this particular vessel class. To that end, I packed a railgun the full length of the ship - a wide-barrelled, eighty meter long spinal cannon. Perhaps it was slightly overkill for what would effectively be a corvette, and it took up a lot of room on what would have been the lower levels, but it was pretty damn awesome. Capable of launching conventional shells and larger, disk shaped shells, with both types of shells coming with built-in micro-thrusters. Why?
Plus points for style, that's why. And nothing says style like a gun that shoots buzzsaw blades.
Giant buzzsaw blades.
Giant homing buzzsaw blades.
Packed with explosives.
In space, of course. Because everything's cooler in space. Like cowboys.
And, naturally, all of them also came with shield disruptors. No point having awesome exploding buzzsaw guns if they can't hit anything.
The space to either side of the oversized spinal cannon was dedicated to power, shields, and engines, in a roughly even split. The engines, with attached FTL drives, took up the rear third, two shield blocks took up the middle, and the small space between the barrel of the spinal cannon and the lower hull of the ship's nose was packed with generators. That alone gave it a disproportionate amount of firepower, thirty two layers of shields - damned if the FTL shields weren't efficient for their size - and, of course, faster than light capabilities.
Much as I was tempted to continue working on the Cavalier's design, the whole point of it was to leave it unfinished so I could add new devices quickly if need be. With much restraint, I saved and closed the designs, making a mental note to revisit designs for other vehicles as well to include the new devices - probably the best and most desirable items to have picked up so early, honestly. The shield generator and FTL drive were both relatively cheap to construct, required incredibly little power - again, likely because the versions I had copied were designed for use on a ship with a reactor upgraded with scrap parts.
Either way, it was damn useful, and having the FTL drive alone totally removed the key weakness of the Sanctum FTL Gates, so I wouldn't even need most units to be equipped for FTL.
I was probably going to anyway, but I wouldn't need to.
The designs complete, I sent the self-repair order to all of my current Riders. I was glad I'd given them Fabricators, now. Each ship began the process of slowly upgrading itself with nanobots, installing FTL Drives and Shield Generators to complement the existing systems. That process wouldn't take too long - about a minute. No time at all, considering all the waiting I'd been doing recently.
I looked at the starchart data in his ship's databanks, found he and his crew were wanted in seven sectors for piracy, and promptly fired up his ship's engines and FTL drive, ignoring the rather vocal complains from the former pilot - much as I'd wanted to respond to his repeated claims that "he'd be back", I had other things to do.
Seconds later his ship was rocketing off through the void again, headed for the Pressinni Rhi system. Remote control is awesome.
My Rider, however, didn't stick around, instead following Genisys' ship to the nearest inhabited area - a system called Pressinni Rhi. Not like the Gate was urgent anymore. I reassigned one of my new, FTL capable Riders to deal with it.
The place in question was apparently Federation controlled and a major mining sector, although that was all the information I could gleam from either the beacon or Genisys' ship databanks. Apparently I'd managed to find the one beacon in this sector with nothing interesting nearby, which was almost disappointing to think about.
Rider 06 slipped off the network as it engaged its FTL drive, 'reappearing' several dozen light years away just seconds later.
Immediately, the ship's sensors began pinging, marking unknown ships and space stations in range of its sensors. Including one Federation military outpost.
Perfect.
I had a list of things to get - both technology and information - and the perfect place to get it from.
Time for a little scavenger hunt.
Semi-related - holidays are on, so hopefully more frequent updates for this story! Maybe! Yaaaay! *confetti*
29 - Upgrades
After a little thinking I realised that Genisys' interruption, annoying as it had been, was also a fairly massive boon.
I mean, yeah, he didn't have anything fancy like the Zoltan Shields or the Teleporter or the Mind Control or even a Medbay, but he basically gave me energy shields and FTL on a silver platter - although he was lacking the other technologies I was after. His stupid fighter didn't even have a proper medbay, apparently. Again, annoying, but I guess it was a little lazy of me to expect to just stumble onto a treasure trove of exotic technologies, most of which came from wildly different factions, within minutes of making first contact.
Anyway, having two new technologies to play with was fun. I looked at the shield generator, first, because I doubted it would be as complex as the FTL drive and no matter how much access I had to Progenitor superscience, I was hardly a master physicist.
The shield generators operated on the principal of creating a bubble of stabilised energy fields around the ship. These served to adequately absorb energy based weapons such as laser blasts and beams, but a strong enough hit could destabilise them, causing the shield to drop in power until it re-stabilised.
They also worked against most projectiles, excepting things like Hacking Drones and Missiles - just looking at the blueprints for the missiles I'd taken from Genisys, it looked like it was mounted with some sort of shield disruptor, allowing it to pass through the shield without damaging it - hence the 'shield piercing'.
Ah, video game logic. Wonderful.
It was also very good to know, because now I knew to equip all of my ships with kinetic weapons like railguns - as long as the projectile had a shield disruptor, they wouldn't be blocked. Unlike lasers, which were somewhat harder to mount disruptor systems on. Another win for projectiles at sufficient velocity.
Almost to balance the key disadvantage, the shield also had one major advantage - where the FTL shields were upgraded from scrap parts and could only hold four 'layers' before overheating, catastrophically failing, or both, my Progenitor super-science ensured neither of those would really be issues, if I built it right. A few quick experiments, based off what little I could gleam from the ship's maintenance manual, gave an estimated twelve layers of shield on a generator the same size as the ones in game - and going bigger would, obviously, give me more shield power.
I was not afraid to go bigger, if the need arose. I don't know for sure what the threshold for energy absorption is, but chances are if I just stack fifty layers on top of each other, nothing is going to get through.
Except maybe missiles. But I'm sure I'll find other ways to get around that.
Like dozens and dozens of point defence lasers. Or really thick armour. Or both. Whatever.
The FTL drive, on the other hand, was, as I'd feared, somewhat more complex. Well, from a design standpoint, it was complex. What it was actually doing was rather simple. First, it created a bubble of self-contained space time, and then the ship's engines basically just stepped up to eleven. The contained micro-reality saved the ships from the usual problems this would cause, like g-forces and crashing into planets. Almost like Halo's slipspace, but less removed from reality and more... out of alignment.
An interesting concept, and one I didn't understand the science behind in any way.
Which, in all fairness, I wasn't going to let stop me. I was mounting the damn thing on everything that could fit it.
Starting with the ship design I was most familiar with - the Bright Foundation freighter that had become the Pioneer and Rider class ships. And, of course, the newest version - the Cavalier. This was to be the combat variant, and I planned to design it bit-by-bit as I scrounged new tech before starting to build them. That way, I figured, I could save myself the pain of constantly revisiting and tearing apart my older designs to fit in new technology.
Which is what I did, to the Pioneer and Rider. Smaller spaces towards the rear ends of the ships were sacrificed to make room for the shield generator and the FTL drive.
The Cavalier design, I'd decided, was going to be the 'go big or go home' of this particular vessel class. To that end, I packed a railgun the full length of the ship - a wide-barrelled, eighty meter long spinal cannon. Perhaps it was slightly overkill for what would effectively be a corvette, and it took up a lot of room on what would have been the lower levels, but it was pretty damn awesome. Capable of launching conventional shells and larger, disk shaped shells, with both types of shells coming with built-in micro-thrusters. Why?
Plus points for style, that's why. And nothing says style like a gun that shoots buzzsaw blades.
Giant buzzsaw blades.
Giant homing buzzsaw blades.
Packed with explosives.
In space, of course. Because everything's cooler in space. Like cowboys.
And, naturally, all of them also came with shield disruptors. No point having awesome exploding buzzsaw guns if they can't hit anything.
The space to either side of the oversized spinal cannon was dedicated to power, shields, and engines, in a roughly even split. The engines, with attached FTL drives, took up the rear third, two shield blocks took up the middle, and the small space between the barrel of the spinal cannon and the lower hull of the ship's nose was packed with generators. That alone gave it a disproportionate amount of firepower, thirty two layers of shields - damned if the FTL shields weren't efficient for their size - and, of course, faster than light capabilities.
Much as I was tempted to continue working on the Cavalier's design, the whole point of it was to leave it unfinished so I could add new devices quickly if need be. With much restraint, I saved and closed the designs, making a mental note to revisit designs for other vehicles as well to include the new devices - probably the best and most desirable items to have picked up so early, honestly. The shield generator and FTL drive were both relatively cheap to construct, required incredibly little power - again, likely because the versions I had copied were designed for use on a ship with a reactor upgraded with scrap parts.
Either way, it was damn useful, and having the FTL drive alone totally removed the key weakness of the Sanctum FTL Gates, so I wouldn't even need most units to be equipped for FTL.
I was probably going to anyway, but I wouldn't need to.
The designs complete, I sent the self-repair order to all of my current Riders. I was glad I'd given them Fabricators, now. Each ship began the process of slowly upgrading itself with nanobots, installing FTL Drives and Shield Generators to complement the existing systems. That process wouldn't take too long - about a minute. No time at all, considering all the waiting I'd been doing recently.
I looked at the starchart data in his ship's databanks, found he and his crew were wanted in seven sectors for piracy, and promptly fired up his ship's engines and FTL drive, ignoring the rather vocal complains from the former pilot - much as I'd wanted to respond to his repeated claims that "he'd be back", I had other things to do.
Seconds later his ship was rocketing off through the void again, headed for the Pressinni Rhi system. Remote control is awesome.
My Rider, however, didn't stick around, instead following Genisys' ship to the nearest inhabited area - a system called Pressinni Rhi. Not like the Gate was urgent anymore. I reassigned one of my new, FTL capable Riders to deal with it.
The place in question was apparently Federation controlled and a major mining sector, although that was all the information I could gleam from either the beacon or Genisys' ship databanks. Apparently I'd managed to find the one beacon in this sector with nothing interesting nearby, which was almost disappointing to think about.
Rider 06 slipped off the network as it engaged its FTL drive, 'reappearing' several dozen light years away just seconds later.
Immediately, the ship's sensors began pinging, marking unknown ships and space stations in range of its sensors. Including one Federation military outpost.
Perfect.
I had a list of things to get - both technology and information - and the perfect place to get it from.
Time for a little scavenger hunt.
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- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They
Yes, do it! FTL drives on everything! Even ground units! Go for it! The power of Munchkinery compels you!
Indeed, nothing says 'get your brown pants' quite like an army of robots materializing around your position with slim to no warning.
The game also has the flak guns, tosses a spray of metal shards in to the enemy, also the crystal weapons that can ignore a certain number of layers, so I think it's just something the missiles have in them that lets them punch past the shield.
Rossum
Not a Cyberman
- Location
- Earth
It could be since they are self-propelled. Like, the shields operate by dissipating heat or kinetic energy from the projectile to stop it, but since the missile has it's own engine propelling it forward, it can just fire up its engines while the shield tries to stop it and keeps going through.
So, the shields can block energy beams, projectiles, or asteroids just fine because the projectile has a discrete amount of energy sending it forward, and countering that nullifies the attack. All the shields have to do is disrupt the force sending them forward. Missiles however have a fuel reserve (and a payload) that lets them accelerate past the shields. The shields apparently can't handle projectiles that can maneuver or accelerate on their own.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
I like this interpretation.
Decim
On again, off again lurker.
- Location
- St. Louis, MO
I also like this interpretation especially since in game, the missiles have a line on their tooltip, 'Shield Piercing: 5' which implies that shields can in fact stop them, its just that since no one gets more than four levels of shielding, they effectively ignore shielding altogether.
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Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
I'll be honest - I completely forgot about the Flak and Crystal weapons.
Shit.
Hm.
I'll edit the latest chapter. All it really means is that my exploding space buzzsaws need jet boosters too... and is that really such a bad thing?
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
Mechanically speaking, everything in the game has a Shield Piercing value. For most things, that's set to 0, but some things, like missiles, have Shield Pierce values of one or higher. Missiles usually have Shield Piercing Values of 5, which means they will penetrate 5 layers of shields without actually damaging them. Since the maximum amount of shield layers you can have is 4, they penetrate all shields, unless it's a Zoltan super shield.
Beams, however, are different. They will pierce shields (Without depleting them), except every layer of shield they go through will decrease the damage they do by one. If a beam does 3 damage, and there are no shields, it will do three damage to every room it hits. If a beam does 3 damage, and there is one shield layer, it will do 2 damage to every room it hits. If a beam does 3 damage, and there are three shield layers, it will do no damage.
Teleportation can bypass shields. Teleporting your crew onto their ship is a method of boarding, while self-teleporting Bombs are used offensively or defensively. Zoltan Shields stop both, though.
Mind Control and Hacking units can also bypass shields- though the Zoltan Shields stop that, too.
Crystal shards have Shield Piercing that varies from 1 to 5, and if the requisite number of shield layers are present to block, it will just break one.
Flak Weapons shoot debris, not fit even to be used as Scrap. Sheer volume of fire depletes a lot of shield layers simply by shooting more than a few things at a time.
Given that Asteroids and debris shot by flak don't pierce, you'd probably be better off say that missiles and other such things with high Shield Piercing are equipped with shield disrupters, and Zoltan Shields are simply so advanced that they can stop that, helped along by the fact that the Zoltan don't really share that technology around.
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Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
I was going to explain the beam as being more 'focused' than the other weapons - the beam would tear a tiny hole in the shield, allowing it to pass through, but not deal enough damage to the shield overall to destabilise it. The other weapons, on the other hand, make much bigger holes, causing the shield to drop in strength.
Kinda a shoddy explaination, but oh well.
Why wouldn't teleporting bypass shields? Teleporting is the act of going from A to B without any of the crap in between - and in this case, the shields are in that 'crap in between' catagory.
Less bypassing the shields and going... over them through the fourth dimension, I guess?
Ah, mind control, even more nonsensical here than in Sanctum. Hacking drones probably use the same excuse as missiles, as you detailed below.
I didn't realise the shield piercing varied - I'm pretty sure it's 1 for all of them, although I haven't played FTL in a while, especially as the crystals, so I may be wrong. Either way it's not really relevant because the Crystals won't be appearing, but eh.
Again, I'm not entirely sure how I managed to forget these things exist, since they're pretty freaking awesome and I use them whenever I get the chance. The revised version of the chapter should fix that little inconsistency.
Which is what I've chosen to do - I mean, the other explanation (about self-propelled projectiles) also works, but I'd have thought that if that was the case, missiles would be more prevalent than they are. Having an expensive-seeming shield disruptor in the warhead/'missile parts' explains that pretty nicely.
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Faith, given how much of FTL you seem to be missing, is it possible that you've never played the Advanced Edition?
Also, the reason missiles have a shield pierce level of 5 is because no ship in the game has more then 5 layers of regular shields, and even then, you only encounter ships with 5 shield layers in the last sector or two. Not the most elegant way of making shields useless against missiles, but it works.
Also, the reason missiles have a shield pierce level of 5 is because no ship in the game has more then 5 layers of regular shields, and even then, you only encounter ships with 5 shield layers in the last sector or two. Not the most elegant way of making shields useless against missiles, but it works.
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
I've played Advanced Edition (a fair bit, actually) it's just I haven't played in a while and I'm not at my usual computer, so I can't exactly give myself a quick refresher course and my memory is sketchy at best in the first place
Well, I couldn't, but I'm headed home tomorrow so I'll have access to games again
Yes, but meh *waves hand*
I'm sticking with what I've got, because to do otherwise is effort
Besides, as long as I keep it consistent with the internal lore (ie the rest of FiSF and the multiple Commander!Drich shoutouts) and FTL lore it's fine.