Legions and pulsars don't mix
19th March 2011 – 3.57 pmI can be pretty absent-minded at times. Fin's gone out to empire space to buy something new and shiny, and I'm sitting inside our tower spinning my Legion strategic cruiser around, musing with colleagues over its fit and the special modifications I've made. The effect of the pulsar phenomenon in our home system inevitably crops up, as I point out that the effect on the Tengu's shields has given it an advantage during field tests here, but when I check the numbers I am reminded that the pulsar has negative effects too. And not just any negative effects, but penalties to armour resistances, directly affecting the Legion's survivability.
I thought my copy of EFT was lying to me through its teeth, the effective fitting tool—used to simulate different ship configurations—not working quite so well under virtualisation. It is actually giving me fairly accurate numbers, just for normal systems. Adding the effect of the pulsar modifies the expected strength of the Legion's tank to what I am seeing in the home system. This has two consequences. First, even in a pulsar system the Legion looks quite capable. Second, outside of our system, without the deleterious effects of the pulsar, I could be formidable. As long as the capacitor lasts, though, as the pulsar also helpfully boosts its recharge rate.
Even with this new information I shall continue my skill training to support the Legion further. The skills will not only help the Legion but are generally useful enough to either benefit me directly or to encourage further expansion in to piloting different ships. I can't really bemoan gaining skill points that are marginal anyway, not when I don't currently have cause to fly my Damnation command ship, and I only really use the even more skill-intensive Widow black ops ship to collapse wormholes. And, speaking of Legions, Fin's trip to market is to fit her second one, which seems an extravagant purchase but makes sense to us.
As I am doing little more than almost appreciating the ugliness of my ship, I can let Fin know our current stocks of various modules, either that she requires for her new Legion or are general purpose enough that we could always use spares. She buys modules and spares for those we don't have, or are low on stock, and saves iskies for the few modules we have plenty of, fitting and bringing her ship home. I finally stow the Legion to swap for my Manticore stealth bomber to reconnoitre our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, mostly for Fin's return and partly my curiosity.
When Fin found it the C3 was inactive, although there is an on-line tower in the system. When I jump in to the C3 I see a Zealot heavy assault ship on my directional scanner, getting me so overexcited I accidentally toggle my cloak when moving away from the wormhole. I hope the pilot isn't paying attention for what seems like an age before I can reactivate the cloak, or he won't come out to play. As I find the Zealot sitting passively at the local tower it's quite possible he didn't detect my entrance to the system, but there is now a second pilot somewhere, a Buzzard covert operations boat briefly on d-scan as he launches probes. He may have spotted me too.
There's nothing else happening in this C3 for now, the Zealot motionless and the Buzzard scanning, and I go out to meet Fin. This is just a formality, of course, as it's not like she inadvertently forgot to bookmark the empire side of the exit wormhole and needed guiding home. We both jump back to w-space and cloak, for the new Legion has the covert reconfiguration subsystem, Fin heading homewards and me to keep tabs on the Zealot. But when the scanning probes are recalled by the Buzzard—who sensibly warped off-grid to launch probes and scan—both local pilots disappear, apparently not motivated to do anything else this evening. I suppose that's it for me too, given an empty C3, and I return to our tower and hit the sack.
One Response to “Legions and pulsars don't mix”
On the topic of marginal skill points, a consequence of training for the Damnation means I still grant and get a 10% bonus to shields, armour, agility, and targeting range when in a fleet, because of the leadership skills, which is hardly to be sniffed at.