Ramblings of an Argon Nephew (Page 27 of 35)

Written by TTD



Norman returned to his new office in Ore Belt, after a preliminary inspection of his long line of 30 mini New Tech Plexes. The last three were for the SSPs which were stacked above and below each other. One ore Mine had been placed,but not moved yet.

After a brief meeting with his financial staff,he set to work at producing the 28 day report to send back to his Uncle in Argon Prime.It went as follows...


Norman Norman had hoped to make up the deficit before the report was due,so he was not too happy.He sent the report and made his way to the canteen.

Norman received reports from his comms officer that disturbed him.

Yaki Pirates had destroyed a Vulture and a number of satellites of his, albeit in Yaki Space.

That plus the deficit made him decide to take his Advanced Eclipse and Ryu1 to the Prince's and see what's happening, and why.

The Prince was saying that " some of your captains traded insults with a few of our ...erm... less polite captains....It seems there was some mis-understanding that has got out of hand.I am sure that if you apologize to them, then they may see the erm.. .funny side of things. After all they lost nothing,but you lost your ship..."

Norman certainly did not see anything funny,but he wanted Yaki ships.So he was as diplomatic as his mood would let him. While there,he did some build missions for them too...just to keep them happy and earn some needed credits.

One bit of the report I forgot about...

Silicon still required for the Hub .....128,413 wafers

---

For getting a long string of mines in a reasonable straight line,I am using the satellite approach. Place a string of satellites where you want the mines to be. When linked to the mine with tractor beam, head for the first satellite. Place mine and repeat. Collect satellites and reposition as needed.

With a bit of luck,looks like I'll be doing this 90 times in Ore Belt.

Dermot entered Norman's Office.

"You wished to see me?"

" Aye,yes Oi do.We had communique vrom the NNMC ag'in'"
"What have we done wrong this time,Norman?"
"Sit down and calm down,All is well...sort of."said Norman.
"oh?In what way?" "It'd be loik this. Terry wants to go to greener pastures, so we could lose him soon.But Oi know how to keep track of 'im if ever we need his help ag'in. The NNMC have noticed we are sharing our tech with the Plutarch MC and 'as asked if we could do'em a favour an share with one of their fledgling corporations.... Here, read it for yourself." He passed the comms tab to Dermot and continued. "Oi want you te draft a data - burst for this Lysander guy, to show em support and offer Terry for their services. Of course chat wid Terry virst."

To save time later, I am deploying a cck to link each pair of mines as I build them. The hub for each pair is as close as possible to a point half-way between the two mines, and at the same level and in line with the previous hubs. This will enable me to work back towards the final complex hub,connecting two pairs at a time...

45k silicon left to find.
NNMC are kindly supplying, at a cost, a lot of it atm.

Update.
silicon completed
75k Microchips next.

10 mines towed and connected in 5 pairs. only another 80 mines left

Terry, Dermot, Ann and Norman had been discussing the construction progress and the new requirements of Mahi Ma.

Terry suggested : "As the NNMC helped us a lot with the Silicon requirements, we are in effect behind schedule here. Our aim was to have a fully working connected new-tech complex before the silicon requirements were met. Why don't we set each mini-plex running?Our STs and UTs etc.along with the npc ships could co-ordinate supplies as long as each station master organizes the prices in their complexes correctly. Then when we join them all up all we have to do is make sure all the trade settings are correct,before we move on to the next project."

"Erm,What is our next project,bye the way?" asked Ann.

Norman was silent for a moment, thinking things through.Eventually he smiled at Ann, looked at Terry and replied, "Good thinking Terry. Oi'l leave you to double check each installation... As for the next project, it looks loik we'll 'ave te double back on installations and add more Microchip productions."

Some time later Terry reported job done. So far 16 mines had been paired up and all mini-complexes were ready for production. For now,the npcs/UTs/three hub owned ships were supplying Mahi Ma. Two TLs were filling up with chips. 73,418 Microchips to go.

20 mines connected in 10 pairs. 70 to go.No casualties,yet.


Terry Conard considered the offer from Lysander Ryker. He was always told not to burn bridges,so with that in mind he considered Normans wishes and wrote a confirmation Data Burst to the Nividium Research Centre. "Hmm,That should help me as well as me helping them, I hope. All that equipment for Nividium research! "

It has been a long day for me,personally,so I only have time to tow two Mines to position. Hopefully will be back on track tomorrow.

There seems to be a couple of race battles going on in Ore Belt.I think some of my friends want to trade with me here,but local militia don't want them to. ...Nearly a page of wares to collect. One of the SFs have been assigned to collect wares in sector.

Lost two more freighters with station collisions. Seems more will have to be bought and outfitted when this complex is complete.

The complexes were built in a line running south of the Main hub, which will be the docking hub, as far as I could place satellites. It then ran west. Now heading north.

In order to facilitate the turn I have had to elevate the corner complex, so that it will connect to the west-most hub.

As someone said,this is a slow job, but a challenge.

"Well it's like this, Norman",Dermot was saying.
"Imagine a ball in the very centre of large box. The ball represents the centre of the sector. The box represents the chartered sector area. You can place stations or satellites anywhere within the cubed area. Although you can fly beyond the boundary of the cube, you can't place satellites beyond that point."

"Oi understan' what yer say,but not woi" replied Norman.

"Terry could have explained why, but he has another corporation to help now."

"Zo how are the engineers keeping the mini-plexes at a good distance ?"

Ann explained that "They took the first string away as far as they could to the the south,then continued to the west. When they reached the western most point they had a problem."

"oh?What waz zat?"

They then had to go north,but the two corner hubs would not connect. The distance between them were too great. So I suggested starting the north-bound line above the western one. This seems to have worked.

"But there is another problem which only well trained Ryu operators can overcome." Added Dermot.

"This sounds loik Goodnews/Badnews syndrome!! " said Norman "Please continue."

"It's the proximity of new mines to stations, debris and 'roids. Even the West gate is proving a problem at the moment. "

"Is there any really good news? "

"well yes...and um no. The Paranid are trying to trade with us, but the local militia are stopping them. Lord knows why!, but the upshot of that is, they have retaliated by attacking and destroying some of the Argon installations. So naturally the militia brought in the Argon military and anyone else who could assist and the result is that we have a Demeter Super Freighter chasing the spoils.It has already offloaded 6,000 units of energy and has a large cargo of assorted missiles, plus all the goods that were intended for us in the first place! "

"That's good news!.So we won't 've te pay fer it."....

---

....News just in... The super freighter has just sold all the missiles collected, to Plutarch.

75 missiles in all,including 20x Tomahawks,fetching 449,200cr.

Total credits for missiles was 1,124,400cr.

There are still other goods ready to sell.

---

There are two ore 'roids, central to the NE quadrant.They seem to be too close to each other to be moved without exploding. They are 13 and 18 yield roids. They can function as mines if not moved. Engineers connected them into a mini-plex,to avoid total loss.

So at the end of today's play, we have:

30 mines ready to join into mega plex plus 2 mines I could not move,connected as mini-plex, in situ.

66,064 microchips to collect for Mahi Ma

and a Demeter Super Freighter making millions out of "spoils of war" at Ore Belt