Icarus Project - Mission Log

[ZombieMouse]

Icarus Project

Stardate: September 29.4

Soundtrack: Thomas Bergesen - Cry


Transmission commencing...

Are you picking this up? Good. Beginning data-burst:

=====

At this time we find ourselves struggling for survival on the edge of the galaxy. I hope this message makes it through. Our journey began in the part of the universe known as Brierie. However, our expedition soon ran into difficulties with strange distortions in the space-time-continuum know as LAG. Eventually we decided we had to leave our sector, but a rift in space caused us to travel to another part of the universe know as "Sun-World".


Here on Brierie is our hastily built cargo ship (brown) carrying all our belongings, with Ogrich's mining ship "Sunshine Miner" in tow, ready for our journey. SantaJesus' ship Lil' Red is pictured centre. Travelling through the rift in space-time all our ships were destroyed, leaving us with just a handful of blocks to start anew on Sun-World. Sadly, SantaJesus didn't make it across and all attempts to regain contact have failed. That left Armide, Ogrich, Pzike3 and myself - ZombieMouse - to carry on alone.

Not knowing this strange new place, we head out to the galactic edge to find somewhere quiet, where we could build a shelter undisturbed by others. What we didn't know was this meant crossing into the territory of the Krull Pirates, who have pursued us relentlessly ever since.



The Krull initially took us totally by surprise, forcing us to flee the derelict station we had taken shelter in. We then found ourselves marooned on a red planet, once again with nothing. Starting completely from scratch, we made a small base, and started to fight off Krull ships with rough-and-ready weapons like the one shown above.

It wasn't long before the red planet was covered in craters from repeated Krull attack. Although our small base was buried under a mountain, and we built a rock hanger for our one space fighter (an F-302), we needed a better solution.

Having saved up enough money for a space station block we decided to build a real Home Base. Our fighter distracted the Krull Pirates long enough for a fragile transport to land, load our belongings, and evacuate the planet.



With a few Home Base blocks down we rapidly set to work improving our situation. Swarm missiles were set up on the base roof, and our F-302 (black ship made of salvaged armour) continued to serve while better ships were built. We were joined by RMP who began building the cruiser in the background. Bottom centre is a rebuilt "Sunshine Miner", and above it Armide's first fighter "Daring". Ogrich's warship "Daedalus" is docked on the left.



F-302 (slightly damaged) docked on the station roof. Centre is Armide's fighter "Eclipse". In the background are two other ships under construction. Far left is a disabled Krull Scout.



Here is "Sunshine Miner IV" with a combination of pirate and sun damage. Sunshine Miner is unarmed, relying solely in its jump-drive to escape pirates... sometimes jumping into harms way again. The name of the ship comes from the original miner design being lost with its intoxicated captain in a sun related incident.

Construction of the station and ships has continued over the last couple of months. Further details in a future transmission.

=====

End data-burst.

 

[ZombieMouse]

Stardate: October 13.7

Soundtrack: Relativity - Apotheosis


Commencing data-burst...

=======

We now have our first destroyer in commission. Armide's vessel, IPS Tempest has already been put to good use destroying Pirate bases. The ship was escorted by myself in our third generation fighter - also built by Armide. However, in one attack a "Sluggard" pirate ship landed a missile hit on the engines. I was able to bring it home, but the damage was sufficiently bad to warrant scrapping that ship (as a missile target at Armide's insistence).



Back at the base the shared factory facilities have been improved somewhat, and the ranks bolstered by fellow astronauts lost in space. In the image below, the bottom ship is IPS Pegasus, a carrier constructed by Oktalion (entrance to the hanger is below forward). Top left are two shuttles of the design used on the Ancient ship Destiny*. The brown one is an upgraded version, able to reach the galactic speed limit of 303 (454 with overdrive).



We've learned much about our new Galactic home over the last few months. Not only is the outer rim plagued by the Krull Pirates, but the galactic core is attacked daily by alien invaders from another galaxy, who are in-turn bravely fought off by allies from another Galaxy known as "The Space Marines". To maintain a semi-unity within our galaxy (or at least reduce the risk of galactic war causing LAG irregularities) the "Space Patrol" maintain an arms limitation treaty. The ship classes we refer to are those outlined by the Space Patrol.

Below is Ogrich's new Mining ship.



Space Patrol treaty limitations prohibit ships from having more than 200 weapon outputs - including salvage cannons - so Ogrich's solution was to build a 200-salvage-output miner with a rail rotator to spin it. An adjacent normal rail allows the salvage-cannons to easily unload resources to the main ship. The prototype used a 'wiper' type rail design instead of a rotator, but that was seriously damaged by a pirate attack and had to be partially scrapped. Only the bridge and engine structure was repaired for re-use on this ship.

Pulsing lights indicate the flow of resources from the mining rotor to the storage cannisters:



The mining beams are logic controlled, so the ship is almost AFKable. Here are the results of watching YouTube instead of the pirate ships showing up on radar:



More repairs Ogrich?

Meanwhile, I've been working on a new, bigger factory. This is the logic that monitors all the capsule storage on the base using the sensor blocks:



The factory clock telling the sensors to check the storages every 10 delay blocks. The glass on all the logic is to prevent me accidentally deleting a logic block without noticing by right clicking in build-mode. Ogrich told me how to do the bit in the centre that converts the constant pulsing into a static signal that can be reset by the delay blocks.



A top-down view of the factory showing the capsule storage blocks being monitored:



When a miner docks on the base all the resources are auto-pulled, refined and then transferred to these storage tanks. The lights on the tanks indicate how full or empty they are. As you can see, at the moment we are pretty low on most things. However, at least now it is super easy for all team members to know what needs to be prioritised when mining.



Now we actually need to do a ton of mining...

=====

End Data-burst.

* Stargate Universe.

 

[Jack O'Neill]

really nice work

 

[ZombieMouse]

Stardate: December 3.1

Soundtrack: Thomas Bergesen - Our Destiny


Commencing data-burst...

=======

It might be difficult to make out from this image, but this is a fleet of 40-50 Krull ships that attacked us. We didn't think it was possible to be attacked by that many Krull at once, but apparently it is. Fortunately our defences are substantially improved and they were destroyed without too much difficulty.


Below, one of our two stealth ships - built by Ogrich. The beam weapons are easily able to destroy Krull ships quickly. In the background is Ogrich's cruiser under construction.


Each of the new base turrets (4) contains more firepower than all four of the old base guns combined.


IPS Tempest continues to be slowly upgraded.


We have begun building Stargates to connect our home base with nearby planets and bases.


A runabout, heading to a nearby shop to sell surplus capsules.


We continue to lose mining ships to pirates. This is IPS Valdez just before it was scrapped.


Oktalion's cruiser under construction. He's not happy with the way the design has progressed and is talking of scrapping it.


Our jump-ship, IPS Inconstant. This ship can tow any ship in the fleet and still get a good charge time on its jump-drive. It also has a large cargo capacity, allowing it to serve as a base ship for group mining expeditions.


Finally, our new shipyard is now nearing completion.


Overall, the last month has seen the faction's capability to mount all kinds of operations substantially increase, whether fighting pirates or travelling quickly to the other side of the galaxy to visit other players. Works in progress should hopefully see that trend continue.

=====

End Data-burst.

 

[Reilly Reese]

That is one heck of a retrofitted X-303 there...

 

[ZombieMouse]

Stardate: June 7.9

Soundtrack: Two Steps from Hell - Victory


Commencing data-burst...

=======

It's been a long time since our last transmission owing to all faction members being in stasis to avoid the deadly radiation of an anticipated cataclysmic event. All ships were de-constructed to storage and outlying system claims revoked while we waited in silence on the home base.
-----
OOC: Expected a soft-reset of the server in January with the NPC update, but it never happened (Sun-World admins planned to import home-bases only after the reset).
-----
The event never occurred and so, we have now slowly begun reviving the faction.

Just prior to entering stasis our last missions were to the Space Marine sector, with the aim of acquiring resources. Intelligence shared with us by our allies AEGIS suggested large amounts of shield capacitors could be collected from stations in their sector. We took IPS Inconstant as the base ship for the journey and cargo carrying and IPS Tempest for protection (pictured here in-tow).



The mission was a success in terms of resource gathering, but almost ended in disaster when leaving the Space Marines' system. The only way out of the system is via a giant warp gate, which was defended by a number of large turrets that badly damaged Inconstant.


Not meaning to be vindictive and vengeful, but we decided this would not stand, and that we would teach the Space Marines a lesson. Armide's newest creation was a more lightly armoured version of Tempest: IPS Typhoon. This new ship carries the same weapons, but is more more flexible and cheaper to build as it is primarily made of standard - rather than advanced - armour. We used our shipyard to repair Inconstant and construct three destroyers for the attack. Armide commanded IPS Typhoon, 'Ace' commanded IPS Mistral and I took command of IPS Freyja.


The attack was a resounding success. The Space Marine turrets defending the gate were destroyed, and we proceeded to collect resources from their sector with impunity prior to entering stasis.

---

Moving to the present, we have begun construction of a new deep-space exploration and 'salvage' ship. IPS Queen Anne's Revenge is being built to civilian scantlings, but will have self-defence turrets added to protect it from smaller ships. It will act as a base-ships of sorts for when something a bit more sturdy than than Inconstant is required. Plans include adding a reconnaissance drone, mining drone, shuttle/boarding skiff, escape pods, a large cargo area, demolition equipment and support weapons for halting small vessels for 'inspection'.


The orange lights in the above image denote the ship's maximum dimensions. While little is still known of the mysterious LAG phenomenon, initial research suggests its occurrence in our sector might be reduced by preventing entities overlapping. The plan is to mount all turrets outside the main ships 'collision box'.

The same is true for the space station. All ships larger than scouts must be parked on dockers placed at the very edge of the station's dimensions.


We have joined the Human Systems Federation alliance and so have reconstructed Typhoon as a rapid response ship, should we be required to assist and alliance member. The second destroyer in the background is being worked on by Armide. The machinery space have been cleared out pending an expected breakthrough in power system technology that will require a complete systems redesign.

=====

End Data-burst.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Wonder if I can get one of those sweet Stargate frigates.

 

[ZombieMouse]

Glad you like them Thadius, but for now at least Armide is keeping the blueprint to the faction. We already had an offer from the faction "Space Ratten" to buy the blueprint, but he declined.

The design was originally based on some Stargate fan art, but then he modified it a few stages further...

The attached brown shuttle on his ship is a scale model of the Shuttles from Destiny in Stargate Universe - I made that one. If I can rebuild it after the power update then I might upload that blueprint to StarMadeDock. It reaches the server speed limit, has two jump drives, [token] guns and a radar jammer.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Glad you like them Thadius, but for now at least Armide is keeping the blueprint to the faction. We already had an offer from the faction "Space Ratten" to buy the blueprint, but he declined.

The design was originally based on some Stargate fan art, but then he modified it a few stages further...

The attached brown shuttle on his ship is a scale model of the Shuttles from Destiny in Stargate Universe - I made that one. If I can rebuild it after the power update then I might upload that blueprint to StarMadeDock. It reaches the server speed limit, has two jump drives, [token] guns and a radar jammer.

Yeh I know where it's from.

The original design is the USAF Tempest from the dormant Stargate Redemption Fan Movie

My chief reason for wanting it is for a series i'm planning called Stargate: Survivors