Bounty Hunters Log 001 (Elite: Dangerous) (Image Rich)

[Neptune]

Log: 001
Pilots: CMDR Neptune Mako'demeri (Me) and CMDR Wolfie Mako'demeri (@Temaelrin)
Date: 02-12-3303
Time of Log start: 06:04:00

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

System of Operation: Paesia
Galactic Coordinates: 107.59375 / -15.0625 / 130.4375
Controlling Faction: Paesia Corporation
Government: Corporate
Current State: Expansion
Allegiance: Independent
Current Population: 4,566,689
Security: Medium

System Intel: Paesia (169.76 ly from the Solar System) is chosen for our bounty operations because it's a reasonably well defended system. Paesia 2, the Class III gas giant in the system has rich planetary rings with pristine reserves of metallic rings which is rich in palladium, gold, and other rare metals. This makes it a prime choice for miners looking to make a quick buck, with some honest work. But; unfortunately it also makes it a prime target for thieves, pirates and other low-life scum that want to take other people's hard earned work. The Resource Extraction Sites with High Traffic are the primary targets, and interdictions from pirates are quite common. 

Mission: To help and assist Paesia System Authorities in the apprehension (Read: Destruction) of all wanted felons in the Resource Extraction Site, remember TIE: 

• Target: Scan all ships and leave those that are "Clean" alone. They're most likely miners trying to work in peace, do not proceed further, scan another target. Also: Leave System Authorities alone. If "Wanted" proceed to next step. 
  • Look specifically for ships that are scanning other ships, and aggressive/violent ships.
• Identify: Scan them with a Kill-Warrant Scanner, because you want to see all their bounties with all factions, not just local. This can include Alliance, Empire or Federation main factions. Once complete assess how many there are in a wing, and if it's a big ship target the power plants.
  • If system authority is already attacking a wanted felon and you don't have time to identify; assist them.
• Engage: Once the K-Warrant scan is complete engage the target(s). 
  • For large targets: Not only should you target the power plants, but when the system authorities are involved - let them take their shields down, and then go in for direct to hull combat. 

System Factions

Spoiler

 

Paesia Corporation
Government: Corporate
Allegiance: Independent
Influence: 62.6%
Current State: Expansion
Relationship: Friendly

Co-Op of Assiones
Government: Cooperative
Allegiance: Independent
Influence: 10:3%
Current State: None
Relationship: Cordial

Gold Vision Inc
Government: Corporate
Allegiance: Federation
Influence: 8.6%
Current State: Boom
Relationship: Friendly

Paesia Future
Government: Democracy
Allegiance: Federation
Influence: 6.4%
Current State: Civil War
Relationship: Allied

Paesia Partners
Government: Corporate
Allegiance: Independent
Influence: 4.9%
Current State: Civil War
Relationship: Neutral

United Paesia First
Government: Dictatorship
Allegiance: 4.7%
Current State: Famine
Relationship: Neutral

Paesia Blue Clan (Pirates)
Government: Anarchy
Allegiance: Independent
Influence: 2.5%
Current State: Boom
Relationship: Unfriendly

 

Base of Operations

Station: Ramon City
Faction: Paesia Corporation
Location: In orbit of Paesia III
Government: Corporate
Allegiance: Independent
Influence: 62.6%
Current State: Expansion

Detailed Information.

Spoiler

Facilities

• Docking
• Contacts
• Exploration
• Commodities
• Refuel
• Repair
• Restock
• Outfitting
• Shipyard
• Crew Lounge
• Auto-Dock
• Tuning
• Power Contact
• Search and Rescue
• Missions

Disabled Facilities

• Black Market

Trade Data

Economy: Industrial
Imports: 

• Natural Fabrics
• Aluminium
• Polymers

Exports:

• Food Cartridges
• Power Generators
• Geological Equipment

Prohibited Trade Items:

• Combat Stabilisers
• Narcotics
• Tobacco
• Battle Weapons
• Imperial Slaves
• Slaves
• Toxic Waste

Wing Members

CMDR Neptune Mako'demeri

Ship Specs:

Spoiler

 

Ship type: Vulture
Ship Name: ORDR TALARIN
Ship ID: NEPPY
Integrity: 560.0
Top Speed: 214m/s
Boost Speed: 347m/s
Total Mass: 392.1/395.5/840.0 T
Total Power: Max 15.60MW
Power (Retracted): 10.84MW
Power (Deployed): 14.04MW
Jump Min/Current/Max: 14.64/14.77/14.98LY
Insurance Cost: 864,447 CR

Equipment:

Hardpoint One (Large): 3C Beam Laser (Gimballed)
Hardpoint Two (Large): 3C Beam Laser (Gimballed)
Utility Mount One: Point Defence (Turret)
Utility Mount Two: Empty
Utility Mount Three: Empty
Utility Mount Four: Empty
Core Internal One: 1A Military Grade Composite (Bulkheads)
Core Internal Two: 4A Power Plant (Reactor Bay)
Core Internal Three: 5E Thrusters (Thruster Mounting)
Core Internal Four: 4A Frame Shift Drive (FSD Housing)
Core Internal Five: 3E Life Support (Environment Control)
Core Internal Six:  5A Power Distributor (Power Coupling)
Core Internal Seven: 4E Sensors (Sensor Suite)
Core Internal Eight: 3C Fuel Tank [Cap: 8] (Fuel Store) 
Optional Internal One: 5B Shield Generator
Optional Internal Two: 4A Fuel Scoop
Optional Internal Three: 2E Cargo Rack [Cap: 4]
Optional Internal Four: Empty
Optional Internal Five: 1E Standard Docking Computer
Optional Internal Six: Empty Military Compartment
Optional Internal Seven: Planetary Approach Suite

Livery

Paint Job: Black Friday
Front Decal: Combat Competent
Right Decal: Explorer Mostly Aimless
Left Decal: Trade Merchant
Weapon Detailing: Weapon Colour Purple
Engine Detailing: Engine Colour Purple

 

CMDR Wolfie Mako'demeri

Ship Specs:

Spoiler

 

Ship type: Vulture
Ship Name: TEMPORIN'S FIST
Ship ID: ORDER
Integrity: 288.0
Top Speed: 222m/s
Boost Speed: 359m/s
Total Mass: 334.4/333.8/945.0 T
Total Power: Max 15.60MW
Power (Retracted): 11.87MW
Power (Deployed): 15.47MW
Jump Min/Current/Max: 17.35/17.32/17.61LY
Insurance Cost: 831,935 CR

Equipment:

Hardpoint One (Large): 3C Beam Laser (Gimballed)
Hardpoint Two (Large): 3C Beam Laser (Gimballed)
Utility Mount One: Kill Warrant Scanner
Utility Mount Two: Empty
Utility Mount Three: Empty
Utility Mount Four: Point Defence (Turret)
Core Internal One: 1C Lightweight Alloys (Bulkheads)
Core Internal Two: 4A Power Plant (Reactor Bay)
Core Internal Three: 5D Thrusters (Thruster Mounting)
Core Internal Four: 4A Frame Shift Drive (FSD Housing)
Core Internal Five: 3E Life Support (Environment Control)
Core Internal Six:  5A Power Distributor (Power Coupling)
Core Internal Seven: 4E Sensors (Sensor Suite)
Core Internal Eight: 3C Fuel Tank [Cap: 8] (Fuel Store) 
Optional Internal One: 5A Shield Generator
Optional Internal Two: 4A Fuel Scoop
Optional Internal Three: Empty
Optional Internal Four: Empty
Optional Internal Five: 1E Standard Docking Computer
Optional Internal Six: Empty Military Compartment
Optional Internal Seven: Planetary Approach Suite

Livery

Paint Job: Black Friday
Front Decal: Skull 3
Right Decal: Combat Competent
Left Decal: Trade Broker
Weapon Detailing: Weapon Colour Purple
Engine Detailing: Engine Colour Purple

 

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

This is Commander Neptune Mako'demeri, writing down my thoughts for what has happened this day. My partner and I, Wolfie, have had some very close calls today. At some points, I thought it was almost the end of our careers. But I guess that's one of the risks of being a Bounty Hunter; your targets always shoot back and there's always the chance that when they do, you're the one going down, not them. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. 

Wolfie and I have always been, by nature, Night Owls. But then, is there really such a thing in Space? It always seems as if it's nighttime. Todays adventure started in the early hours of the morning. About one, or so? I can't accurately recall. For my next log, Wolfie and I are going to try and keep a more accurate time stamp. It would make it easier to remember exactly what we've been doing. The on-board computer of our ships doesn't keep a log. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. As usual, we woke up in the place that we've come to consider our home. Ramon City, in the system of Paesia. For months, we've wondered about, trying to find a place to settle. And I think this is the place. It's a beautiful system with five beautiful gas giants. My favourite of which being Paesia 2, which is a lovely purple colour. Most of the planets have moons in orbit, and there are three stations in the system. One City station and two Orbital stations. It's cozy, but it's home to us now. Wolfie and I have had a hard time trying to figure out what we wanted to do. We've tried trading, mining, missions... but none of them were particularly profitable. And we want to try and save up our credits as we have our eyes on several ships we want to buy. An Imperial Clipper is the one we want right now. We've already achieved the Naval Rank required to buy it. We just lack the funds. And that's why we decided to turn to Bounty Hunting. This is the second reason why Paesia is good for us. Around Paesia 2, there are pristine reserves of metallic asteroids within its rings. The place is crawling with miners. And the pirates that want to take their hard worked goods. So, Wolfie and I patrol the asteroid belt looking for the opportunists that want to steal from the hard working man. 

So, we do our usual thing. We check our ships over, to make sure that they're in the best possible condition. Do any top-up jobs, check the fuel and do any general maintenance or even check for anything new in the shop to improve our ships. Once we're happy, we do our pre-flight checks and then we leave Ramon City and head to our destination; The rings of Paesia 2. 

As luck would have it, the moment we jumped in, we were surrounded by pirates. This is why we're looking at methods to properly record everything that happens. Because oh boy, things got really exciting. One of the first ships we encountered when we jumped in was a Python and those fuckers are tough! But Wolfie and I aren't weak, either. Our Vultures are fast, and they pack one hell of a punch! Our weapons are perfect for reducing shields down to nothing within moments. We just jump in with our weapons hot and BOW right in the kisser!

Every now and again, we did have to come away from that chaos just so that we could sit still and let ourselves rest. That's the problem with so many pirates; your shields wear down after a while so we need to sit back and let our shields charge back up before we could go charging back into the fight. It also gives us a good chance to log everyone around us such as the miners and System Authority so that we can at least skim past them when scanning for pirates. Luckily, we are allied to the Paesia Corporation, and since they are the ones in charge of System Defence, they all turn up green on our radar.

I think we spent a good couple of hours there, fighting various ships. I can't really give you an accurate list because it was so hectic and I didn't have time to note everything down otherwise I would proudfully tell you each and every ship we blew to smithereens! It didn't seem like we had been out for long, though. But we were back at Ramon City by half three in the morning. We had kicked some major arse and we were ready to hand in our bounties;

Now that's a lot of money! And for only two hours of work! Kaching! Wolfie and I were feeling ecstatic! If things continued like this, then our dream of getting that Imperial Clipper were getting closer! We were feeling very bold at this point, and very confident. We refueled and repaired before heading back out to the rings, intent on making another couple million of credits. By four in the morning we had dropped out and were looking around for targets. And right off the bat, a Python! We moved in, and began our fight!

Things seemed to be going well for us. We managed to get several Pythons, some Asps and Vipers! Okay, I had an incident not long after we jumped in where one of the System Authority Vessels collided with me. I wasn't too happy with that, as that automatically damaged my shields. Bastard! And yes, I screamed and cursed at him. But disaster struck us, when we had only been there for twelve minutes. We had locked onto what we thought would be an easy target. An Asp Explorer, in a wing with two Eagles. We were cocky, thought we could take them on. We were wrong.

We went about things how we usually did. We would fly in close, and Wolfie would initiate the Kill Warrant Scanner so that we could get all of the bounties tied to them. I didn't need to do it, because we were both in the same wing thus I would benefit from his scan. An Asp and two Eagles didn't seem too much trouble, especially after fighting three Python's in a row. Oh boy, were we wrong. We both targeted the Asp, as generally Eagles are weak and can be defeated very easily. Not this time. As we were focused on the Asp, the two Eagles kept attacking us, draining our shields down. The moment they were down, the two little shits then began to fire missiles at us. Now, I don't need to tell you that, when you have no shields, that is bad news. Very bad news! We were helpless against those damn things! We had to score a retreat and head back to Ramon City. Wolfie was a little more worse for wear than I was, but we both had been hit. We had to run with our tail tucked between our legs. Very humiliating, to say the least. But as I said; that's the risk of this job and sometimes things can go from perfectly fine, to absolute chaos at the drop of a hat. We headed back to base to cash in what we had. Still, at least it wasn't too bad for only twenty minutes or so of work... And at least we had our lives...

Once we had caught our breath, and repaired our ships we decided to go out again. This time, to be a little more wary of those damn Eagles. We fell pray to superior tactics. Pure and simple. We weren't going to fall for that again. We returned to the mining rings, intent on doing a much better job than previously. One of the first ships we encountered was a nice Anaconda. Those ships are big, and they are nasty. But they have a definite weak spot. As I mentioned about in our methodology above; you target their Power Plant. On an Anaconda, the best way to approach this is to attack them from underneath. With the powerful weapons we have on our Vultures, this can reduce their power plant to nothing, within moments. Once that has happened, they will either blow up or become completely dead in the water and are completely helpless to your attacks.

We also came across some other Vultures out there. Those aren't actually that common. Certainly rarer than Anaconda's and Python's. I think this day, we only came across two or three Vultures, whereas Anaconda's and Python's were coming out of the woodworks! With System Authority helping us, it certainly did go easier this time;

This time, we were doing a LOT better. We picked our battles a lot more carefully, and we always had the assistance of the System Authority. That's one of the advantages of being in a system that's reasonably defended. It makes Bounty Hunting that much easier. By the time we returned home, we had collected a fair amount in bounties;

That certainly covered the repair costs from earlier. In total we had made roughly five-point-five million credits, even deducting the repair costs. That is a lot of money, for roughly five to six hours work. Bounty Hunting is the most profitable career that we have embarked on and, despite the dangers, we will keep doing it. It not only makes us a lot of money, but it's exciting to get out there and fight other ships. Honestly, the fact that I'm helping hard working miners doesn't even cross my mind. I'm after the money, and I'm after the excitement. And every time, things turn out different. We encounter different ships and it's different every time we venture out there. Despite the close call... I know I will keep doing it. I can't help it; the danger and the excitement is addicting. Well. The money helps as well. Heh.

Until next time, this is Commander Neptune Mako'demeri signing off from Ramon City.

Post collaborated with: @Temaelrin