Doc, Ratchet, Bones, Ace and Lucy are staying on the ships to guard them. They actually have very little combat abilities, it’s more to keep them out of the way. In Duke’s group, we have Lefty and Jon. Emily has David and Deadeye. We are loaded for bear, each character has a Heavy Side Arm, a U-Suit and a PS-bot. The Ruins are pretty dangerous, which is why I left the non-combat characters behind. Ace doesn’t have a PS-bot, so I would have to take a medic along, which I don’t want to do.
Let’s look at the ships as they stand now. I have shuffled a lot of stuff around with only three parameters. First, each ship’s hopper must be able to serve as a lifeboat, so they need 6 empty CU. They are jammed packed with all kinds of things. I put some useful items in the crew quarters, u-suits and life support units. The Antelope has 34 empty cargo bay slots while Alicorn has 50. Theoretically, I could pack 10 or more items into other spaces on the ship, but I don’t want to do that.
I want to find a lot of items here, primarily skimmers and ship’s boats. They will eat up repair units to get them working but it will be worth it. Skimmers are worth a base of 30. Boats are worth a base price of 600 but have the special problem that they can’t get into orbit themselves and there is no place to sell them here. However, I can do the Russian doll trick and pack them into the cargo bay, one per ship and fly them to orbit and then to the next planet in this system. Theoretically, I have 5 pilots, so I could get 3 into orbit in one trip then pick up 2 more per ship for a total of 7. It’s tricky but doable.
Now, I have this cheat in place. Duke’s team will explore and Emily’s team will haul the stuff back to the ships. Technically it isn’t cheating, but I have a veritable army of helpers.
Day 82: we roll 7 and 9. Seven is a damaged skimmer and nine is a damaged robot, U-Bot. The Engineers get to work. The skimmer needs a repair unit as does the robot. We had 35 RU and are down to 33. Everything we find here is tech level one.
Day 83: we roll 10 and 2. We find a side arm and ship’s boat. The boat is needs 3 hits of repair. The skimmer and U-bot from yesterday are repaired.
Day 84: We find some books in a room (e88) and an intact U-bot. The boat requires one day of repair with 2 engineers working on it. We are down to 30 RU.
Day 85: We find some damaged U-suits which may or may not work if repaired with a repair unit each. We chuck them as they are a waste of time and RU. We also find another room with 30 secs. worth of coins. The boat is repaired.
Day 86: More damaged U-suits, which we throw away. We also find a single RU. We now have 31 RU.
Day 87: We find a pair of damaged skimmers.
Day 88: We find another RU and a side arm. The skimmers from Day 6 are repaired. We now have 30 RU.
Day 89: We find a second boat with 2 hits and another intact U-bot.
Day 90: We get another RU and more damaged suits. The boat is repaired and we are down to 29 RU.
Day 91: We find an intact skimmer before disaster strikes. We get hit by a pulse of radiation and our suits causes a secondary flash which doubles the damage. Duke is down to 2 hits while Lefty and Jonathon are reduced to zero hits. Their PS-bots keep them alive until help arrives.
Here is our haul: 3 U-bots, 2 ships boats, 4 skimmers, a set of books (e88), 30 secs. in coins, and 2 TL-1 side arms. We have 29 RU left. Doc and Bones can keep Lefty and Jon alive, while Duke sits there, slightly charred.
On the display below, I don’t bother to show the u-bots and books. Each cargo bay is holding a 40 CU hopper and two 10 CU skimmers. We are ready for lift-off.
We have 167,925 in cash and we are still wanted on Palatek.
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