Yeah, combat bonds anywhere in the Akuntsu system. I believe the actual effect is for winning CZs.

Matt

Sounds like fun though!

@D0NK is the heat your missiles. I found them to be surprisingly ‘cooking’ when I had a couple of racks.

Now my loadout of choice for such things is Cytoscramblers, MCs and a single rack of packhounds.

Matt

@squirrelking I think you have actually done it the most efficient way. You only get the level at the tick, so if you have 750 merits now, on Thursday morning you will be good to go.

@molgrips you should get a notification about the next engineer immediately when you get high enough with the current one. I don’t know how the 50 markets business would affect that, probably you would need both.

Matt

@Squirrelking sorry to be the bearer of bad news again, but you need to be level 3 and have pledged for 4 weeks. If you have now pledged for four weeks and have 750 merits (since the last tick), next Thursday, after the Powerplay tick you will be promoted to level 3 and be able to by cytoscramblers.

@molgrips you might not be quite far enough progressed with the Dweller. Not gonna help you but I always take enough modules and mats to get them to level 5 as soon as I unlock (mostly cos I’m not in a rush, which means I have loads of mats).

@D0NK i think that’s a balance thing with the cytos, if you could actually hit things with a range of 3km or whatever, they would be massively OP.

Matt

@Squirrelking sorry about that, I’ll have a word with the crew when I get back! The guns are good though aren’t they :) feedback cascade and everything!

Matt

That would be something to see. Gonna swap my ships so that the Python is in Leesti and the Funship is back for the scrap in Akuntsu.

Either that or I have 2 more days to get the Corvette!

Matt

Only ever seen a T10 in combat zones, I was in my Vulture so it was like beating a stranded whale with a stick. Only started getting Corvettes the other day, they are easier than Condas, as long as you swerve the two big guns.

Never seen a cutter. Every Clipper I’ve ever seen has been a pirate.

Matt

Yeah, I did the Dweller as he’s common knowledge, then Lei Cheung. I have unlocked Broo Tarquin, since you can get an ‘Outsider’ rank (for smokey girl) with the Empire by running Federation missions.

The only one i draw the line at is Etienne Dorn, the freak!

Matt

TBH I haven’t checked yet, we could be pending now if yesterday’s improvements were replicated.

Matt

I reckon I’m about one evening of light NKL work away from the Vette. I saw Plater running his with dual huge plasma, which looked fun. Though the dual huge MC has an obvious appeal as well!

Matt

And it’s still a large ship!

[Edit] Maybe as a miner though!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@D0NK Grrrrr, how can I not buy another Python, that ‘Armed Trader’ is pretty much perfect. I would probably drop it to just over 200t by sticking in some HRPs.

Either that or I need a different multi-miner. I thought Clipper but it doesn’t have enough hardpoints.

Matt

molgrips is correct, you can have two SLFs if at least one is human. Saying that you can only hire ‘Expert’ pilots and they rob you blind. If you want one get a harmless one and rank them up. It takes them no time!

D0NK’s suggestion for the vulture is what i use, perfect for 1-v-1 PVE combat.

Matt

@beagleboy incredible stuff, welcome back. I’m going with son-of-mike, a python is very hard to beat as a trader unless you have a need for 500+ tons. The only reason I don’t have one as an armed trader is that I already have one that I use as a miner/trader.

Pure fighter, in the spirit of recommending what I have, Vulture or Chieftain!

Matt

@Perchypanther pick a side, someone has to win. I am fighting in Leesti (well a haz res in LP 547-149) to get my gun slinging kicks, until we start in Akuntsu.

Matt

War will come soon enough! Either we will match influence with IPP in Akuntsu in a couple of days or we will surge past them and the war will start when we hit 60%.

Current scores are:

IPP 39.7
NKL 36.5
LCE 16.6

I have a beam on the Phantom and plenty lying around for the DBX.

My next ship is an armed trader, I’m getting tired of being forced to dodge the interdictions in my Python miner/trader.

Matt

Good reminder, I might be 4 weeks for the blue haired lass. Could be a busy night, I need to sell some LTDs to pay for my shields, I’m aiming for two of each size.

Matt

@molgrips if you have any dates that would suit you, I would happily take the carrier. You can turn that jump-a-conda into a leap-a-conda.

The best module site also has two planets with brain trees which are great for raws (and codex entries).

Matt

@D0NK in that case I’m hoping I get some more information when I get there. I have no details whatsoever at the minute.

matt

And I actually have a shiny red DBX that would be up for the job! Thanks

Matt

I’ll just say I’m happy to chip into whatever goal we aim for as a group.

My next personal game goal is going to be out to a Guardian site. I have taken on Ram Tah’s mission and I want to get Aliyana a Guardian fighter as a present when she ranks up to Dangerous.

I haven’t decided whether to use the carrier or the Phantom (I haven’t really used it since I added the FSD Booster), but could easily be swayed if a number of people fancy tagging along.

If we think our BGS has troubles, Terra Ex Astro Corp are fighting a player faction in Leesti. Yesterday they dropped hundreds of INF+ in missions, tens of millions of Carto and Bounties and i bet the % barely twitches.

Matt

I don’t need to do the experiment, Terra Ex have provided me with the answer.

Bounties from a system we control (only Kuwembaa in our case) will build influence for us in systems where we have a presence, such as Akuntsu.

It seems to be a powerful tool for building INF.

Matt

Can’t rule it out. Also correlates with me being in HIP 36601, sorry lads, long walk home!

Could be war in a few days!

Matt

That looks to have solved the Akuntsu problem. The latest numbers are:

IPP 40.6 (-5)
NKL 33 (+6.4)
LCE 18.5 (-0.3)

All of the toys have been put back in the pram. Onwards and upwards!

Matt

@squirrelking when you have a carrier, there is no such thing as spare trit. It’s trit which is allocated for travel or trit which is waiting to be allocated for travel!

Fortunately it’s easy to come by. I mined 400t out here in HIP 36601 in a couple of hours. Should get us home!

Matt

This would be a recent problem for me. Previously I used to blow up every day or so, taking any bounties with me. Damn me, getting average!

Matt

@Molgrips

…………………we’ll see!

@V8ninety that’s great information, far more detail than I get for Terra Ex Astro Corp. I guess they have been lucky in picking up lots of new cmdrs and need to spell it out. The key points for me are :

Do NOT hand in bounties for any faction other than The Dark Wheel in our systems.
Do NOT hand in trade goods or cartography data to stations that we do not own.

I definitely did the first at points over the weekend.

In Akuntsu we can trade into tennyson and drop carto there. No profitable trade into the commodity market at Wylie Dock. Source and return missions are OK.

Matt

@D0NK bounty hunting seems to be the most crosslinked part of BGS. Another question that occurs is does the controlling faction also see a benefit, when ‘any’ bounties are cashed on their station?

I think in general, anything which doesn’t result in a bounty is safe (I hate the wetwork jobs too). If the bounties are cashed at an intersteller factor then a bounty hunting mission should be fine as well.

[Edit] Not yet been brave enough for a neutron jump, but it’s on my list. That is the benefit of taking the carrier, unlimited SRVs.

Matt

Aliyana’s ‘off duty’ at the moment, so I’m expecting home made chilli and a cold brew when I get back in from harvesting raw mats. If it was my turn to cook you’d be getting pot noodle!

V8ninety and I reckoned it was about 30 mins per site, quicker than expected.

Matt

@squirrelking that fits with the bounty theory. I have never seen a mission offered in Akuntsu to kill Pirates which would return bounties for IPP.

I am going to try an experiment and drop some bounties hunted in Kuwembaa into TY-W B16-6 and see what the effect is. That should be the same process as dropping LCE bounties into Akuntsu.

If it works we would be able to do the same thing, hunting bounties in Kuwembaa and dropping them in Akuntsu. Shame Kuwembaa is such a terrible place for bounty hunting.

Matt

@crewlie what time do you want? I am at work tomorrow, so early evening?

It could be a long trip without 50Ly jump range.

Matt

Alkuylkano fits the bill, handy material trader as well.

I think the bounty issue is looking to be the likely reason. LCE picked up another couple of points, NKL managed half a point and IPP lost another three.

IPP 45.6
NKL 26.4
LCE 18.8

I might consider putting some of my toys back in the pram.

Matt

@D0NK the information that I have been able to find suggests that there is no influence effect for the faction if you cash in at a factor, but there is a reputational benefit to you.

Perhaps that’s the way to go, complete the mission, collect the rewards, then cash in the bounties somewhere else.

Saharveti is your closest spaceport (medium pad though). Large would be Odinja

Matt

I do wonder if we have created the problem ourselves! I know I have stacked a lot of NKL missions to kill pirates in Li Chotep. I got INF when I cashed in the mission, but the bounties were for Li Chotep Equality. Reading round it seems possible that these bounties could outweigh our +ve influence from the missions.

Let’s try not doing bounty missions where the bounty issuer will be a faction we are fighting against. So no bounties in Akuntsu or Li Chotep. Coribes, Gamahine, HIP should be OK as they don’t have a faction in Akuntsu.

Moon’s Spawn will be in HIP 36601 in 20 minutes, just completing the final jump. See you there later.

Matt

Carto is definitely the controlling faction of the station. If you’re dropping it in Akuntsu, use Tennyson.

I remember reading somewhere that the influence from bounties for a superpower aligned faction, are spread across all of the factions aligned to that superpower. I can’t find it again and it may have been changed at some point.

Matt

All that would be OK if we hadn’t really done much yesterday. IPP lost nearly 2.5 points which is to be expected, but Li Chotep for Equality gained nearly four while we lost ground.

Granted Li Chotep should gain quicker, since they are starting from a lower base, but how did we lose ground? There was at least three cmdrs working for NKL in a system that is lucky to see 5 ships a day.

Matt

Well **** that. Whoever wants Akuntsu that badly can have it. I ran missions pretty much all a day, I handed in bounties and carto, donated, the whole 9 yards.

Net result NKL down 1.1%

It would have been too much work if that had been a small gain, but a loss! I don’t need a second job.

Matt

I had a 33M for 90t of trit yesterday evening, fantastic timing as I had just been out collecting tritium for the trip to the shards!

Matt