Swifter salvaging ...in space!
2nd September 2008 – 7.43 amHaving bought Flycatcher, my Cormorant destroyer, and fitted it out with tractor beams and salvaging modules I have been able to zoom around clearing up the trail of the dead left by Coiled Snake, my Drake battlecruiser. Since the first couple of flights taken on behalf of Penny Ibramovic's Salvaging Operations I have become skilled in the use of micro-warp drives, or MWDs, and have fitted one to Flycatcher. The extra thrust offered by an MWD is significantly greater than a standard reheat module, and boosts Flycatcher's speed up to close to one thousand metres per second. With some more training I may be able to exceed that.
With a mission completed and plenty of salvage to pick up I brought Coiled Snake back to the station and made the arrangements to switch in to Flycatcher. I could have handed in the completed mission to my agent, as I had bookmarked the locations of wrecks in each pocket of deadspace and could return to them easily enough, but with hours left before the mission's bonus reward would expire I thought it would be more convenient to use the acceleration gates rather than mess around with bookmarks.
Flycatcher was ready, so I ease myself in to the pod and undock, warping to the first wreck I have bookmarked. Except I don't end up at the wreck, but at an acceleration gate. This is queer, but I orientate myself presently and fire up the gate to get to the first deadspace pocket where I find the beginnings of the wreckage to clear up. Locking on to multiple targets I start to tow them in to salvaging range with my tractor beams until I run out of wrecks within range. I point my destroyer at the next nearest hulls and hit the thrust, flicking the MWD in to life. But it sputters and dies, even on subsquent tries.
As I take the equivalent of a casual stroll to the next wrecks to be salvaged I get out my MWD manual, given to everyone who has completed an introductory course along with a certificate with a laser-printed signature. Flicking past 'Congratulations on choosing to fit a Micro Warp Drive I to your ship' to the fault-finding pages I realise my error. Because the mission is unfinished the acceleration gates and thus deadspace pockets are still maintained. Micro warp drives are based on the same technology as warp drives and warp drives cannot function in deadspace, hence the name of 'deadspace'.
Ah well, it is one thing to be given good advice, it's another to learn the hard way why that advice was given. The lessons most likely remembered are those made from our own mistakes, and I now know to hand in the mission before returning to salvage wrecks if I want to use my MWD. I also know to fit a reheat module as a back-up.
4 Responses to “Swifter salvaging ...in space!”
Two things: calling your salvager "Flycatcher" is disorienting because the Tech II Cormorant destroyer is the Flycatcher class. LOL
Second: I find a 10mn Afterburner is more than enough speed boost on my slavaging Thrasher, can can still operate in Deadspace.
Oops, I'd better think of a new name. At least it was clever enough that the manufacturer thought of it too!
I love my Cormorant, but it's only got the electrical horsepower for a 1 MN afterburner. Zapping all the wrecks does take some time, but if there are asteroids in the deadspace I have my alt come chisel them with a mining barge. So at least the time is used as efficiently as possible.
Really nice blog you've got here!
Thanks, Sapphire.
I'm going to have to poke around the market to find out an easy way to boost my Cormorant's capacitor a bit, as running more than two Salvager modules at a time runs the batteries down a bit too quickly.