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The first zone passed through contains a large hostile warehouse, a HoL DLC building, owned by SS with massive defences so should be avoided for now. The next zone is an intersection which Yisha instructs a lane change at. Here there are 4 stations to place trade agents on. For each of the stations dock at a platform on the station, smalltalk a vendor or the station manager and then "ask for trade offer updates". The commercial/trading platform usually has the most vendors. While on platforms it is a good idea to loot any objects found as they can provide materials needed for crafting gifts as well as assets which can be used for additional funds. Remember to keep an eye out for things you will need later that were mentioned earlier.
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It is now time to finish placing trade offer update agents around Albion. Go around zone-by-zone, sector-by-sector placing an agent on every friendly (not the SS Warehouse) station. The zone map shows the outlines of not yet visited stations and lists them as unidentified objects.
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The Albion Skunk is also ready to start boarding operations, a process that yields expensive capital ship assets for free that would otherwise cost multiple million credits or cannot be purchased. Start by finding a capital ship crew from various friendly stations. After finding a desired boarding target, the Jump Drive should first be destroyed to prevent escape by jumping. All surface elements should be destroyed such as drone bay, radar dish, non-drive bank forcefield generators and turrets. The M/AM Drive and protective forcefield generators should only be destroyed once the boarding target is in a suitably quite place, such as >80km away from stations with no nearby NPCs, and is best done from either inside the ship gravity field or with guided missiles towards the biggest engine component. If the target refuses to withdraw from heavy NPC fire it may be considered un-boardable and should be destroyed for loot and reputation instead. By hitching a ride in a fleeing target's gravity field it is not only easy to keep up with it while boosting but also to force it to continue boosting by constantly firing at it. Using the Albion Skunk to destroy the capital shield generators and damage the hull sufficiently for safe boarding of tougher ship types can require a considerable amount of time without assistance. Once Boarding Resistance is ~10 below your boarding strength then it is safe to start the boarding operation. The only intervention required will be to suppress hull repairs from the victim's Engineer and destroy the occasional surface element that is rebuilt. If a Trojan Drone is carried there is a good chance for at least 1 hacking challenge to appear, which will be solved by successfully passing a single hacking node. After the boarding operation succeeds land on the new asset, remote call in the capital ship crew hired earlier and recall the Marine Officer. The Engineer will soon have the asset fully repaired and ready for use. Later in the campaign there will be a compulsory boarding operation under controlled conditions which will be made slightly easier by boarding experience gained now.
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- 3 boarded trade ships
- 80,000,000 Cr (note: amount may be reduced later)
- The following wares stored across one or more of the trade ships...
- 5,596 Energy Cells (minimum 1,463)
- 2,455 (???) Reinforced 1,156 Reinforced Metal Plating (minimum 0) (need to subtract amount player is given later...)
- 521 Fusion Reactors (minimum 140)
- 674 Bio-Optic Wiring (minimum 270)
- 58 Forcefield Projectors (minimum 0)
- 135 HIT/MA Turrets (minimum 0)
- 54 Plasma/MA Turrets (minimum 0)
- 8 recommended V-Launcher Turrets (minimum 0)
- Total value 48,090,006 Cr (minimum ???)
- 2 bulk mining capable ships with at least 16 Surface Miner Mk1 units
- Highly skilled Metallurgist Specialist aboard Albion Skunk
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At this point major changes to the universe occur. After jumping through the gate PMC is set to -20 reputation and will engage all the <player>'s non-trade assets (not subject to normal reputation rules). The DeVries Jump Gate is now operational opening up the entire system for exploration. PMC will also "impound" up to 4(???) of to 5 of the <player>'s capital ships randomly, which will be recovered at a later time. DLC system Jump Gates should also become operational at this point. Due to the nature of DLC systems they also allow early access to Omicron Lyrae (TTO) and Malestrom (HoL).
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Head to Albion/Lookout Alpha/Auspicious Excavation and perform a hack challenge on Albion Energy Array I, II and III using the Trojan ROV. Yisha will then say that she thinks she has an idea where they are now. As hacking will not be required again until much later in the plot it might be a good idea to sell the Trojan ROV to simplify boarding operations. Yoolis is aboard a Construction Vessel AL in Dwarfish Tinderbox. It may be possible to find without performing the hack. After getting clearance to land on the Construction Vessel AL talk to Uliroos Tugloras Yoolis IV who reassures the <player> that the missing assets still exist and that PMC has been rounding up HoA sympathisers and placed them on a prison ship Taranis, "a converted freighter". After the conversation return to space where Ren Otani suggests stealing the prison ship rather than just busting the prisoners out, Yisha agrees strongly. This means a boarding operation which should be second nature to the <player> by now, if not a Marine Officer and some marines will need to be purchased.
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Fly to a different Construction Vessel AL at Albion/Inner World/Distressed Reek and dock at it. Speak to the onboard Engineer Jo Jovi and confirm to begin the operation. As soon as the Construction Vessel AL jumps head back into space to find a neutral and stationary Taranis just waiting to be boarded. The large HoA fleet will keep most hostile ships from engaging the Albion Skunk. As the Taranis has no defence officer it will not retaliate making boarding just a matter of stripping the surface elements. Once the ship is captured the HoA fleet will start to jump out including the newly acquired Taranis which will get the Jumpdrive automatically repaired. Now is a good time to land on the Taranis and transfer a crew onto transfer the capital ship crew obtained earlier onto it while waiting for the fleet to jump. When back in space Commander Borman will then say he has attacked the ship impound area and that he will be in contact. Yisha says to head back towards the Jump Gate to DeVries.
Impound Raid (Medium)
- Fly to: Jump Gate
At the Jump Gate Commander Borman will say the impounded <player> ships are safe and PMC has reved up drone production and suggests expanding HoA operations into DeVries. The missing ships will suddenly appear by the Jump Gate and Yisha will suggest getting gifts for the Canterrans. The <player> will also receive a unique and fully crewed Construction Vessel able to set up an Integrative URV Forge which comes preloaded with 1,299 Reinforced Metal Plate. Now is a good opportunity to move all player assets to DeVries (Glaring Truth is a good temporary location). The capital ship crew on the Construction Vessel may be poor however as it ends up stationary, the <player> only needs to consider replacing the Engineer and Defence Officer.
Bug: all recovered ships will have the Engineer command set to None as opposed to the usual Repair. This leaves the Engineer inoperable (cannot self repair) until reassigned back to the ship.
Rebuilding DeVries (Medium)
- Deliver: 300 units of Food Rations to RoC Solar Energetics
Build: Integrative URV Warf in Glaring Truth
Now is a good time to explore DeVries installing trade agents along the way. Use this time to transfer the construction materials gathered earlier onto the Construction Vessel. When at Darned Hot Air consider looking for a good Manager. The RoC BTO Ship Line I in Darned Hot Air is a good place for hiring employees of all non-specialist professions as candidates are usually found in high numbers on the several large platforms making the "Ask for best job applicant." option of smalltalk stage 3 highly likely to find someone who has near perfect skills.
Order a container compatible trade ship to purchase 300 Food Rations, probably from a station in the same sector as RoC Solar Energetics, and deliver them to RoC Solar Energetics. Next find a build site and order the Construction vessel to "Select station for construction" to start building the only station option it has, the Integrative URV Forge. Confirm Build and set the upgrade levels, if the recommended materials have been brought then all upgrades can be installed. The list of required materials will be shown but all should already be on the Construction Vessel. Which build site is chosen is entirely up to the <player> although the build site near the Jump Beacon has the advantage of a short travel distance for mining ships returning with Crystals. If all the recommended recources were purchased the next stage of station construction can be initiated as soon as the first is completed. After completing the first construction stage the Construction Vessel will receive ? extra units of Reinforced Metal Plating.
While the station is being built Commander Borman will give an update on the situation in Albion and tell about a potential refugee crisis wanting to potentially evacuate them to DeVries. To help build relationships with the people of DeVries a joint mining venture is suggested and Nakano agrees. Ren and Yisha express concern that Borman may be trying to hurry an alliance.
Joint Operation (Medium)
- ???
Fly to: Lava Flow
Patrol: Lava Flow
Fly to: Canteran Freighters
Escort: RoC Mercancias (Bulk)
Destroy: Plasma/MA Turret
Defend: Canteran Freighters - Talk to: Pedro Nakano
There will be some heavy fighting ahead so it is recommended to get the Taranis that was boarded earlier (make sure it is fuelled up) to join the squad of the Albion Skunk. When the Albion Skunk reaches Furnace Chamber, the mining ship jumps in. After some dialog and a mention of the war, the <player> joins the scout party to look ahead. When in Fiendish Moloch a cinematic will play and there will be 7 REI light craft ahead to kill which should be trivial with the number of NPC allies. The convoy will next progress to Lava Flow where 12 REI light craft will be waiting. After killing the ships there will be more dialog and ? more REI light craft will spawn. if the <player> owned Taranis has arrived it will be a slaughter. After a while Nakano will contact the Albion Skunk about unknown ships heading towards the mining convoy. At this point the HoA mining ship will jump out and 3 PMC light craft will spawn and try to attack the Mercancias (Bulk) ships the <player> has to escort. A PMC Light Sul jumps in and Yisha says that the <player> has to distract it. This ship is unable to be boarded and will try to jump away if it takes some damage (so kill the Jump Tunnel Device first). Managing to kill the Light Sul (easy even without the Taranis) will get "Woah! Can't believe we pulled that off!" from Yisha and a cinematic of the ship blowing up.
Before leaving Lava Flow use the Long Range Scanner facing upwards to find a unique lockbox with the Ancient Drone for the Ancient Relic Collection.
Bug: if the mission is done well and all the miners and their escorts survive they can be found idling in Vapour Stream at the end of the highway waiting for REI raiding parties to kill them
Place a trade agent on the station and then head back to Glaring Truth where the first module of the Intergrative URV Forge should be finished and waiting for a Manager.
WIP