Issue #25
Monday, July 11th, 2005Ruby Legion Trial by Honor
Alliances tend to be like families for the most part. Each alliance has a different personality. Alliance members generally try to fit in with the culture of the alliance, and if they don’t fit in, try their fortunes elsewhere. For the most part alliance members tend to get along, and when severe disagreements between members arise, are generally able to be walked through with a bit of patience.
Such was not the case between Worden Dios and Reno of the Ruby Legion who experienced a situation where a peaceful solution was not able to be determined. However, the two were able to agree on a bit more radical approach to problem management. They agreed to the Ruby Legion Trial by Honor.
Now this was the first time I’d been witness to a Trial by Honor, and whether or not other Trials have been held I wasn’t sure. From what I could tell, the Trial by Honor was basically a honorable fight to the death. Think of a 20 paces kind of gunfight from the Old West. Each fighter was allowed any ship, weapons and/or armor (which in itself makes for an interesting decision), but participants were not allowed to use drugs or bots. To ensure fairness, the contestants were scanned by witnesses representing both parties before the battle. The parties were to attack in 20 round bouts until a winner was ‘declared’ through the destruction of the other party. The trial result was considered final. Continual recourse by the loser would likely result in bad things happening – likely something to the effect of additional fines, building destruction, or maybe even expulsion from the alliance.
The participants arrived in sector XC 3-261 in Ruby Legion space for the Trial. Both participants seemed a bit nervous. Witnesses checked both ships, and finding both ships clean (after a few delays), the countdown began. 5,4,3,2,1,..FIGHT!
Less than sixty seconds later, a winner had been decided. Worden Dios walked away as the victor while Reno found himself in the nearest cloning facility. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience and I appreciate the Ruby Legion for giving the Tribune the opportunity to get a glimpse behind the scenes.
Neutral Haulers Get Organized!
Long have Imperial and Federation pilots been tracked in accordance to their performance on jobs they perform for their respective factions. The better the performance, the more the pilots get paid and the more difficult the jobs become. Additionally, the more they perform for the faction, the higher the pilot is viewed in terms of the faction. [gaining rank]
Neutral job givers however, have been much less organized. Neutral jobs have been taken by pilots with no real rhyme or reason and mostly as a supplement to faction jobs. That all changed here last week as an organization calling themselves the KILA (Killing Independent Lady Aliara….errr, hmmm, that’s not the one, let’s find that name now…err, here it is – Keeping Independents Legitimate Authority) underwent a COLOSSAL effort of tracking down every pilot package transaction across the universe. The result is that pilots now have an official ‘rank’ for neutral or non-faction jobs. Increased rank for non-faction jobs increases the difficulty of the jobs (more/tougher monsters or higher package count) but also increases the pay for those jobs.
Pilots across the universe are happy with the new record keeping and look forward to increasing their KILA rank.
Guardians on the Offensive!!
For those who watch the news, it’s always interesting to see one of the Guardians in there. It always makes you wonder…. Well this week Lordmoore, leader (or was it dictator for life?) of the FHA alliance decided his shiny new Hawk that he’d been toying around in would be MORE than enough to take on one of the Galactic Guardians and challenged the Guardian to a few rounds. Now we’ve seen what a Galactic Guardian can do with just a mining laser in past issues, and there was no telling what Bladefist was packing that day, but Lordmoore felt he had what it takes. Bladefist obliged.
The attack went badly for Lordmoore. Very badly.
Needless to say in just a few rounds (or was it just one round?) Bladefist raided Lordmoore’s ship capturing the 8 tons of fuel he had on board. With a laughing smirk, Bladefist returned the fuel and went on his way.
Better luck next time Lordmoore. ;)
Extinction Agenda onto ORB
Extinction Agenda was reported to be enjoying the hospitality of ORB space earlier last week: killing ships, destroying buildings, and otherwise enjoying their stay. No public announcement from either party really states what the attacks were about, who has grievances, or really any information whatsoever for that matter. Will EA continue their attacks? On ORB or others? Haven’t a clue, and EA hasn’t given any public indications to let us know. I guess all we can do is wait to find out?
Sparring Etiquette
For those who don’t know what sparring is, sparring is a friendly fight between two pilots that has proven to be quite effective in increasing skills. Basically, two pilots will attack each other (or one pilot will allow himself to be attacked) and when one pilot gets to the danger point, returns to the nearest starbase/planet for repairs and then returns for further training. Now while this is great for the pilots, there are certain rules that are common among sparring partners and the community at large. The following is a set of rules that was blatantly ripped from the Imperial Paladins’ rules of sparring. (thanks Wayfarer)
- Turn off your distress beacon! Bogus distress calls confuse the local fighters, annoy the local merchants, and upset the devs.
- Sparring is done in ’bouts’. A ’bout’ is one player (the ‘attacker’) continuing to attack the other (’defender’) until one of the players has no armor or has surrendered. In highly mismatched fights, safety may demand that you only to go down to red armor on the weaker player; this should be specifically arranged beforehand.
- No missile usage. At all.
- …which implies that you should turn off your ‘fire missiles when attacked’ option.
- Set your surrender threshold to some cautious value, generally 50-75 hull. Against a much stronger opponent that dishes out a lot of damage, you may wish to set your threshold higher- maybe 0-25 armor.
- Always check the ‘raid’ option when attacking, as a safety measure.
- In the event that you do raid the other player, raided goods should be returned immediately or rght after the sparring session.
- Unless otherwise arranged, it is generally proper for the player with the lower skills to do most of the attacking. This is because a player with higher skills will gain little or nothing from the fight, but is incurring repair cost; therefore the player who is getting the most benefit should be the one to expend most of the turns. Another reason is that the weaker player is more likely to surrender, and having the attacker doing the surrendering prevents rep loss.
- Always try to spar underneath a building, preferably one that is owned by one of the combatants (or a friendly player). Damaged ships sitting out in the open are very vulnerable to piracy.
- When being attacked, remember that your health bars do not update automatically. You will need to hit the ‘Nav’ button from time to time to see your up-to-date status.
- PM notifications are slow, and sparring is inherently dangerous. If possible, keep a window open to an appropriate chatroom while you are sparring. This makes things easier for you and your opponent.
- When taunting your opponent, don’t forget to use smileys.
In a nutshell, be nice to your neighbors, be nice to your sparring partner, and set your values appropriately such that you can be nice to the news (or more appropriately, those who watch it). Setting your values too low and spamming the news channel with training ‘attacks’ will not get you in good with the rest of the universe. Spar away!
Trading Federation gets Organized!
Not to be outdone by KILA, the trading organization got organized this week and installed trading computers throughout the galaxy. For those who haven’t seen it yet, this is GOOD stuff! The Tribune staff would like to give thanks to the trading organization for this wonderful organizational tool…even if we DID get a copy that somehow managed to infect my navigational computer to autonavigate to Usube. Fortunately, no harm was done (Tribune staff has a frequent purchase program with the Usube navigational computer shop on Usube) and we were on our way in short order.
Aunty T
Dear Aunty T,
I have an embarrassing problem. It all started when I got my first ship. There I was new to the galaxy, the stars where there for me to see, everything was so bright and new! Now the galaxy is mainly brown and smelly…
It started when a local alliance recruited me, they promised me the Stars, all of it could be mine, all the riches in the Empire if I joined their alliance. And to prove it they even said they’d help me build my first buildings, oh Aunty T - I was so awe struck there they where in there Behemoths and PASC’s it was amazing and they wanted me to be there friend! Well I said yes, and I built my buildings and that’s when they got nasty…
I was given a rota, calculated to the minute, be here then, for the rest of the month… I asked if I could go shoot some maggots, they said if I did that, they’d feed me to the maggots…
I’m young free and attached, I want to have some fun but they said they’d break my claws, Aunty T I don’t know what to do…All I do is shovel **** all day you’ve got to help please…
Stinking of Rashkir
****
Dear Stinky:
Toughen up your carapace and get to work!
What’s the old saying? The only good Ska’ara is a cooked Ska’ara? No, that’s not the one… Oh yea, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is!
Your naivety got you sucked into the situation, now you have to play on other new pilots’ naivety to get yourself out. It’s a typical pyramid scheme. New members like yourself get to haul crap for a few years, then after you’ve proven that you can deal with hard labor, you’ll get upgraded to hauling rocks. After hauling rocks for a few years, and if you can still move, they’ll enslave you and sell you to humans for body parts. I’ve seen it before and it’s not a pretty picture.
The only way to get beyond your pathetic situation is to recruit other unknowing crabs to do the dirty work for you. Get those crabs to recruit other crabs, and soon you’ll have your own little empire. Once you have your own little empire, you’ll be too valuable to sell, and YOU’LL be the one laughing at the crabs shoveling crap.
Hope that helps!
Aunty T
Starbase Missing!
So here I was in my endless quest for rank to get the ship of my dreams, and there were a series of missions to Beta Proxima, The Larch, and Tau Ceti. Now this path from Sol passes through one of the corridor sectors that contained Startopia. So of course, like any efficient mission runner, I picked up any missions to Startopia on the way.
However, I received quite a nasty surprise when I got there. It had disappeared! My first thought was that Imperial saboteurs had entered Fed space again and destroyed it, but there were enough people around to have seen if the starbase had been destroyed. In addition, fragments of the station will still be seen. This was not the case. There was NOTHING left.
My first reaction was “CRAP” as the fellow I told I was going to deliver packages would be rather upset and would penalize my rating for the disappearance of the station (even though I had no control!) Then I began thinking about the likely thousands of individuals on the station. Where did they go?
Local authorities are being quite mum on the subject. However, the Tribune staff has received intel that Space Weasels and Dugs had possibly xumped the station. These rumors have yet to be confirmed.
Citizens of Tiacken:
It has been quite awhile since your spokesperson has felt the need to speak. I hope you have enjoyed your freedom. The Shadow has long since left the system, yet I fear that the lessons learned have not gotten through. Now is not the time to simply bask in your freedom, now is the time to begin planning, strengthening, and hardening. Should another tyrant appear the system, you need to be ready. I fear that such is not the case. Prove me wrong citizens of Tiacken – prove me wrong. Someone is always watching and waiting…