Let's Play FTL: Faster Than Light!

Make the civilians pay, Cyborg.

I'd always take that good an offer this early. 14 fuel often isn't enough and that many missiles is good for the occasional sector where you can sell them.

Civilian sector. Less chance of exploding horribly.

I picked up the iPad version of this to see if I still suck at it. Turns out I still suck at it.

TODAY, IN THE GRIMDARK ADVENTURES OF PARANOIA, HATEFUL ASSHOLE ENGI



I'ma go this way!



Sure, that looks good.



Paranoia wasn't really above taking more than one job at once, provided the pay worked out.



The down payment wasn't stellar, but perhaps the missing ship would provide better scrap, dead or alive.



The last known coordinates were at the scenic side of a nebula the other side of the sector. Wouldn't be a big detour.



Paranoia never understood why pirates tried this tollbooth nonsense. The only ships that would rather pay than fight or escape were unarmed transports, and unarmed transports were rare these days.



Another warning signal, and Paranoia's least favorite: boarders. Anyone not registered in the ship's crew database would trigger alarms just by entering, but again, having no sensors meant Paranoia could only rely on damage readouts to find their location. Thankfully, it didn't need to find them.



The other drone schematic available in the Vortex, as it happens, was an Anti-Personnel Drone. Halfway humanoid, halfway tanklike, they responded to hostile life signals on the ship they're configured to and hunted them down mercilessly. Only the most prepared boarders can properly handle an anti-personnel drone, and this was some pirate dumb enough to try imposing a toll.



The coward quickly left the ship before Paranoia even saw them. So much the better.



Having them die on their own ship limited the blood to clean up. Paranoia hated cleaning blood.



More shields more shields more shields.



The drone control system started engaging its repair systems as the anti-personnel drone parked within. Though painfully slow, the system would repair any powered drones while they remained in the drone control, or even as they passed through. For the repair drones, which couldn't sustain much damage to begin with, that was enough, but drones built for battle required a lot more work to keep intact.



Not surfing as much on account of the quest beacon.



More scouts. Automated ones. They moved very quickly, but they'd never beam crew over, so small mercies.



Thoom.

Weaker impact. That must be a Leto missile. No warnings came up, so it must've missed any essential systems. No need to power on the drones for this, then.



Another thoom. There's the warning lights. The Beam drone outside the ship, thankfully, couldn't do anything on its own but require shields be powered.



Much better. The Rebels could still track the ship, but at least they'd have to work for it.



Paranoia groaned audibly at this. These repair shops were best resolved by finding out what they wanted and then completely ignoring them.



The prices they offered were, naturally, not anywhere near what Paranoia had or was willing to offer. Once they found this out, the ads they sent over eventually stopped.



Argh, we don't have nearly enough scrap to do stuff at that store.



Illegal mining wasn't very common. Most of the laws that existed were in place for good reason, it was very dangerous if you weren't exercising complete caution.



All that meant to Paranoia is that they wouldn't be especially missed. Any law that still existed would just see fragments of ship, picked clean by scavengers.



Besides which, the law in these parts would be the Rebels, and the odds are good they'd probably have done the same.



It had been a while since Paranoia had flown a ship, but the old tricks and knowledge were gradually coming back. So much the better. Without anyone helping the engines run at full capacity, it would need every trick in the book to stay alive.

THOOM. Artemis missile. Quite the punctuation for that statement.



The hull was already starting to show signs of significant damage. The Rebels were more dangerous than expected.



Okay, so we can hit that beacon up there, then the store, then the quest, then the exit. Good. I like this.



How annoying. Hacking satellites were common in Slug space, but only rarely used in Rebel areas. Where they were used, it was usually far more effective. Most slugs would content themselves with a slower death by disabling oxygen, but having shields at low power was a severe threat.



Even with the Vortex's better shielding, the satellite let a few beams get through. Sizzling, crashing, tearing.



Paranoia didn't relish the prospect of trade, but it was a good way to get what it needed.



So, time out. I'm running Vortex. As in, the single-crew Engi ship. I would absolutely love to hire a crewmember here, probably a human despite being able to afford a Zoltan. But I like the theme going here, even if it's stupid and cheesy.



So Paranoia's gonna continue to be a jerk and just upgrade his own stuff. Watch this come back to bite me in the ass somewhere in the vicinity of a single jump.



The last known coordinates were one jump away. Which, in turn, meant that the pay, as well as whatever may have caused those coordinates to exist, was there.



Paranoia could've just left them there, but that would mean this entire journey was a waste.



Attacking a Rebel base was not something done lightly, however, and more warning lights flared on.



Before long, the sizzling, crashing, and tearing suddenly and loudly happened about three feet to Paranoia's right. Getting out of the way as quickly as possible, it threw itself aside, shrapnel clouding the area. Thankfully, the beam didn't last long, it must've just been a smaller drone. Wasting no time, Paranoia hurried over to the damaged systems and went right to work.

Engi are composed mostly of nanomachines, which can quickly form into any sort of tool needed for repair jobs. These nanotools were too delicate to be used for combat, but for speedy repairs, there was nothing better. Weld the breach shut, rejoin the damaged wires, hammer the bulkhead's exterior back into shape, done.



There was just too much going on shipwide for Paranoia to handle, though. Even with drones assisting, problems just kept arising...



No onomatopoeia would do the sound of a Comet-class Anti-Ship Battery justice. The entire ship began spinning and the weapon charges depleted all but instantly. Paranoia clung to the walls as the gravitational system struggled to compensate, and the console beeped a notice about the repair drones heading to perform their new duty.



The system was totally destroyed. Paranoia could probably get it up and running given a few hours. The repair drones would be able to do so in a third that time. Both of these were too long for how quickly the Anti-Ship Battery would recalibrate and fire again.



Another hit had Paranoia slamming into the back wall. Multiple warning lights were on, and the sounds of impacts were everywhere. Even now that the weapons could be powered on, there were simply too many systems needing aid to work with.



Seeing their trajectory, Paranoia decided to try venting the ship to catch any fires, and depowering the drones in the oxygen room.



With the power cut, the drones' video feeds went dead and the weapons sprang back online, but far too late for it to matter.



Another hit to the oxygen system. Even despite the recent tune-ups, it wasn't in working condition either, but oxygen loss wouldn't have a chance to kill Paranoia before the entire ship exploded.



Nothing for it. That cargo ship wasn't worth dying over, and Paranoia made to jump away.



By the time the rebels found it, the Vortex would hopefully have a chance to patch up.



Once in the nebula, Paranoia took the time to reactivate the drones. The fire in the oxygen room couldn't do much to them, as they were designed for work in such conditions.



So uh yeah that was a quest. It almost killed us.



What kind of EDGY BACKSTORY writing do you want next: Engi Homeworlds or Pirate Sector?

Next Time: my parents are nanomachines

Send Paranoia back home.

there's no place like home

Man anti-ship batteries are no joke. Send him on home.

It had been a long time since Paranoia had left the homeworlds. Paranoia really didn't want to come back here, but in the Vortex's current state, it really didn't have a choice.



Screw you too game, putting both stores right at the start when we don't have enough scrap to pick our teeth with.



Paranoia had no trouble deciphering the content of the communications, and quickly made out another job needing doing. Hopefully they wouldn't recognize it.



If they did, they didn't show it.



This was worrying news. Some would call the Rebels distrustworthy of alien species. Others would call a spade a spade and say they were human supremacists. It'd be unlikely that the alliance was out of the goodness of their hearts, but the Rebels and Mantis working together, whatever the reason, would be cause for alarm.



Paranoia really didn't like the odds of taking on both the Mantis and Rebels at the same time.



Naturally, the coordinates were at complete opposite ends of the sectors. One at a time, then. At least it would have enough time to track down both.



Nothing for it, Paranoia really needed the repairs at this point. Paranoia flew the Vortex cautiously around the perimeter of the shops, leaving comms open and keeping an eye out the viewports for hostile ships. Eventually, a channel opened, and a heavily-scarred human appeared on the comm screen.

"Hey, you're a Fed all- oh. It's you."

Damn it.

"The hell are you doing here, you worthless pile of nano? And who was dumb enough to give you another ship?"

Paranoia left the comm open, but chose its words carefully. "Ship variable array[crew] present, all elements."

The human scoffed. "Course. They didn't want you murdering anyone else. Or did you already get to killing them off?"

"Terms of ship usage == 1 crew. Drone system allocated to other tasks a-"

"I don't care about the details. All I care about is that you're here before me. D'you know why I'm hiding out here, in your homeworlds, right under the nose of these Rebel assholes? It was to find you. To make you suffer for what you did to Syntax, and Jarai, and the rest of the people that TRUSTED YOU." She half-grinned, half-winced. Hard to tell with those scars, most of which she didn't have last time they met. "It's too bad that all I deal in is information, so I can't really do a thing to hurt you. At least, not directly."

Clunk. That was a new one. Warning lights came on, then blinked off almost instantly. Near as Paranoia could tell, no systems were damaged, but the readouts from the ship database were suddenly a lot weirder.

While Paranoia tried to work the terminal for more info, it kept talking: "I/O error: Data not found for "murder". Related queries: "mutiny quashing", "necessities of ship captainry"."

"Call it whatever you like. I'm getting all your data anyway. If the Rebels really want it, they can buy it off of me later. And if the Federation is hard-up enough for help that they'd hire YOU, they deserve whatever's coming to them."



The comm switched off abruptly, and the sight of an autoship flying nearby got Paranoia's attention.



Thoom. A direct hit from a Leto turned the terminal displaying the database readouts into a pile of scrap. Did she warn the Rebels that the ship had only one crewmember?



Paranoia never really believed in karma, but this was a pretty compelling case for its existence.



The ship dodged far too expertly, too. Perhaps she also passed on that the Vortex lacked proper sensors.



A tremendous shuddering of explosions was almost instantly drowned out as the entire ship suffered a pressure loss, faster than any oxygen system could handle. This was the end, and Paranoia only had enough time before losing consciousness, and soon its life, to think about whether it was sorry.

It didn't come up with an answer in time.



So uh yeah. I dunno if any ship could've survived that mess, even if it was much better than the Vortex. If nothing else, I did learn how valuable the system repair drone suite is.



I've played before, but it was quite a while ago.

Anyway, next up is probably the Fregatidae.

Next Time: Suicide Squad Shenanigans

Talk about short but sweet. Good show.

Funny enough, I played with the Vortex tonight and got all the way to the Flagship's second form. The game was just throwing weapons at me: Ion Blast Mk II, Chain Ion, Vulcan, Breach Missile. Unfortunately, I never found a Defense Drone, which is what I really needed since I was using the Vulcan, so I couldn't beat the Flagship's second form. I got really close though.

The Vulcan is so much damn fun. I had an Automated Re-Loader and a two-star Gunner, so at its fastest speed it would have been going at a shot every .7 seconds. Combined with the Ion Blast Mk II, which with those bonuses would have been firing every 2.8 seconds, pretty much anything goes down eventually.

Actually, given that tech week for the show I'm working is coming up, updates aren't gonna be as frequent. I would still like to do a Fregatidae run, but it won't be a daily thing like this has been.

I FINALLY got around to picking this up since it was cheap on GOG and I'm loving it.

I agree that the final level is bullshit, although it seems like the upgrade that allows you to instantly fire basically serves as a win button because you can simply preempt whatever the other ship's going to do that will cause you the most trouble. Taking out the drone controls of the second phase of the flagship in an instant makes that fight MUCH simpler, since that's all it really wants to do.

Of course, that's a pretty expensive upgrade and you kinda need to spam missiles to really use it effectively, I think - otherwise you just harmlessly spit at the four-deep shields of the later ships.

Is this done? On hiatus?

Going with on hiatus!

I think I'm done here. Basically everything's been showcased thus far, and while a Fregatidae run might show off a little more, I don't really think it'd be anything we haven't already seen.

If someone else wants to run with it, hey, go nuts.