To clear up the confusion, "What I'm thinking, since we're planning on jumping anyways, we head out a day farther than we need to reach a jump point, and then go to T6. Even planetary sensors would be hard pressed to see us, remember space is really big, and their sensors are probably calibrated maximally for the standard jump points."

"I also think, once we are out there, we could activate the different transponders, to see if they work."

Ponders for a moment, "Given our sensors, just before we do our thrust/trans tests, let's check our sensors...just to be sure."

OOC:It should be a couple of days before we reach a jump-point, we could abstract that time?
This message was last edited by the player at 18:26, Thu 17 Mar 2016.

"Yeah, that might be a good idea," Jones answered Valeska. "Especially for us, since we are newcomers and outsiders."

"I mean, it doesn't sound like the others have been working together for very long anyway, but most of them seem to have some prior acquaintance."

"They may even have something planned already. We can contact Kaengarr."

"Okay, I think I've got this locker squared away. How you doing on your half?"

"Yeah, I've got it balanced out. Here's an extra vacsuit to go in yours," Valeska responded.
"So what's your background?"

Sitting in the Captain's chair, Darrel says, "Sounds good, and while cruising out to our test point, everyone should acquaint themselves with all the different stations they might have to operate."

"Copy Captain." Sir Walter said as he took the Comms chair and started acquainting himself of the system.

Khea replies on the comms again while she observes the performance of the machines in the engine room.

"No matter how far you fly the clans on Grendal and every ship in the system can still see the ship and calculate its acceleration if they care to look.

Pablo headed down to engineering, pushing the dolly with some tools and emergency hazard suits on it. Walking in, he looked over at Khea, and asked, "You want me to stow this stuff, or do you want to do it, Ms. Khea?" I have another question I'd like to ask you, also, but it can wait a minute."

Khea ponders for a bit but then decides that wearing a vacc suit for the entire time, or at least till the jump, would be highly impractical. Instead she decides to later plan where to stow vacc suits around the ship to quickly have access to them.

"Leave it here, I will deal with it later.
So, what do you need explained?"

Looking around a moment, Pablo put the dolly where it would be as out of the way as possible, and locked it to the deck, though very likely it would be back up in the ship's locker before they launched.

"I am very concerned about that computer hitch in the turrets. Do you think it would be practical to get another computer, one we have confidence in, and set it up to run gunnery, and maybe other critical systems till we have a better idea what is up with this ship?"

"The computer would need access to sensors, energy distribution and several other systems to work properly. And if you install that you can go all the way and replace the old computer completely.
Although a computer expert should be able to set aside a separate distribution on the existing computer which should be unaffected by everything except the deepest computer processes."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 18:52, Sat 19 Mar 2016.

"I'm good with computers, and as far as I can tell, there's an inactive program, which is causing the computer some problems in it's functionality. As I mentioned previously, I have an idea what it is, but, until I have someone of greater ability check it out...I want to hold off making any speculations."

Taps out information for the gunnery program, "When we get somewhere to blow up something, maybe some space rocks, Pablo, you fire it up and we'll track the program."

Reassures the crew, "Look, we've been hyper-paranoid and overly critical of the ship's systems, and perhaps rightfully so, but, the previous crew hasn't had a complaint, and the ship has performed fine. Let's knock out our practical tests, get ready for jump and once we arrive in Outpost, then, based on what we have discovered and our needs to upgrade the ship...make our plans. Agreed? Any questions?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:37, Tue 22 Mar 2016.

"Sir Walter, contact Port Authority for clearance to depart. Once we're good, Sam, let's get sailing."

"Copy Captain." Sir Walter said, making sure that his seat belt was secured before picking up the communicator. "Control, this is Merchant vessel Long Shot, Tango Echo Gulf 85768 requesting clearance for departure to orbit. Flight plan filed at this time." he said, sending the flight plan by computer to the Port Authority control.

Pablo, having abandoned his mad plan for a new computer after hearing Khea's thoughts, headed up to the second turret, leaving Turret One for Kaengarr, and warmed up the systems, though he didn't actually target anything. No need to make anyone in starport security nervous or even curious about their very interesting new ride. "Turret Two, good to go."

"Good to go, as we get to our test point, check the targeting system and set up a firing solution...."

"Aye, Captain." Pablo grinned, as he settled back into the very familiar gunner's seat. He'd been quite paranoid about the ship, and a bit concerned about the divided command structure, but now that they were taking off, all that was behind. The decisions had been made, and if problems arose, the team had a lot of very smart, and very skilled people to deal with them. Life was good.

["Merchant ship Long Shot, this is Control. Flight plan received. You are cleared for lift-off on your command. You have a 3-minute lift-off window."]


There's no roar of rockets as the ship lifts off because it has gravitic engines. The thrust is a gradual increase so there also isn't any sense of acceleration, no G-forces pushing you back into your chair. Also, the ship lifts off horizontally, and only changes orientation once it has elevation and speed.

In the pilot's seat, Sam sees that the console displays the gravity 'well' that the ship's engines produce, which looks somewhat like the magnetic lines that a magnetic field represents. It's neat, but it's clearly for the novices. Sam is more concerned with the actual data readouts, which show everything green.

Once she saw the ship in action, she had a better idea of where the limits and red-lines were. She's taking the ship out on dual thrust dialed back to 1.5 Gees each. She can't help smiling as the image shows a single engine producing 3-Gees. Presumably, that's the image that external sensor will also see.

The readouts, on the other hand, display both engines running at 100% efficiency, but at half-power.


Despite the typical belief that ships can be detected anywhere in the system, nobody has active sensors with that kind of range. Detecting a ship relies on passive sensors--whatever energy a ship is emitting has to reach your sensors and register on them. The two types of energy normally detected in that manner are gravity (a ship under gravity drive) and neutrinos (jump entry and exit).

The other type of energy that can be detected is radio waves because they are broadcast in a 360-degree arc on all axes. However, they also attenuate the fastest, and require triangulation to get a good fix.

Thus, if the ship, on its way to its jump point (the flight plan), makes a few course changes and then overshoots the jump point before going to 6-Gees, its only going to be detectable by another ship in the area. If there is one there, unless it's running dark, you'd be able to detect it.


So the ship heads first to orbit, monitoring the other traffic in system, then makes for the calculated jump point. Instead of jumping then, it continues on in an erratic course, as Sam slowly begins increasing the acceleration. On the present course, there is no obvious destination--no planets in that direction, no satellites, not even any asteroids.

When it's finally safe by Sam's standards, she changes the course for the asteroid belt and accelerates to full 6-Gees. She does find out that there is a limit, though. At full 6, it'll start to redline after 12 hours. The readouts tell her that. Dropping back to about 5.9 seems to be unlimited duration.


Once in the asteroid belt, off the beaten path, Pablo and Vonon can try the guns. The slight delay turns out to be a result of the fire control program not being attuned to the gunner. The Fire program, coupled with the bio-interface system, essentially means that you can roll twice--once for the program, and once for the gunner... and take the best result.


Anything else you want to do while you're out in the middle of nowhere?

Drummed into her during her early career in both the Imperial Scout and the Imperial Navy, Sharik was dressed in her tailored vacc suit.  Given that it wasn't really more bulky than normal clothing, she wore it as such.  Though the helmet might be off for the moment, it and her gloves were never far away, tucked into a custom cubby on the navigator's console itself.

The fact that she wore a body pressure sleeve underneath her suit was just pure conceit.  Or paranoia.

Still, with her personal electronics network interfaced into the computer, the diminutive astrogator was wired (wirelessly) into her console reading internal and external datastreams even as she double-checked the route and jump parameters.  The ship's diagnostics were also continuing to run and be monitored.  She wanted to know if the ship under normal operating conditions display any different behavior.

Pushing the proposed route to the 100D limit and the jump point (with the requested detour - which didn't look like a detour - to a reasonably secluded portion of the secluded space), Shar also posted a timer to the same ancillary tactical display overlay on the main bridge displays for everyone else to see.  A copy of the original plan had been streamed to communications console; so that Walter could relay it to the Port Authority, if necessary.

All the while, she hummed softly along to the music in her head.  Well, actually, the music being piped into her earbud from her dataglove via her p-comm.  For her, nothing fit space travel quite like Bach and his complex multi-voiced harmonies.

In reply to Sharik Kaagira (msg # 186):

Vonon had shown up on the bridge for the launch wearing one of the dark body sleeves that Pablo had purchased for the crew, over which he was wearing one of the fluorescent sage-green shipsuits -- with the gold-lettered "Longshot" shoulder patch -- he had bought for the ship's "slops chest".  The only other accessories he wore were his new, black, syntheleather spaceboots, and the black belt that his Blade hung from.

Sitting at the tactical board -- or, more accurately, what he was calling the tactical board -- during the trip off-planet, Vonon did little but watch the sensor feeds, being an extra set of eyes looking out for trouble.

Once at the asteroid belt, though, Vonon started accessing the sensors that would feed data to the ship's weapons -- scanning for a rock to use as their first target. An appropriately ship-sized chunk is soon located.

"Pilot, come around to vector two-seven-one mark three-nine, designated target sent to your nav-comp. Evasive maneuvers, if you please, aggressiveness at your discretion." Vonon orders, "Dorsal turret, and dorsal turret only, track designated target and put together a firing solution for each of your three laser cannons individually. No volley fire. I repeat, no volley fire. Target and discharge each laser individually. Fire when in range and a firing solution ready. Sending you sensor data stream, now."

 
  Since I don't know who is in which turret but I'm online at the moment I'll go ahead and say Kaengarr has taken the dorsal one. Barring any new surprises from the GM...

08:46, Today: Kaengarr Ruzokh rolled 11,11,13 using 2d6+4,2d6+4,2d6+4.
08:49, Today: Kaengarr Ruzokh rolled 10,7,11 using 2d6+3,2d6+3,2d6+5.
 

  Kaengarr took his time and made good use of the ship's fire control software when activating each of the lasers, and the end result was an impressive set of freshly-burned scars across the asteroid's surface.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:59, Fri 25 Mar 2016.

During the journey to the jump point, Sir Walter headed to the Rec room. Seeing exercise equipment, he frowned. "Anyone up for training me in physical fitness? Been behind a desk for to long and the only sunshine I have been getting is from the glare of the monitors." he said

OOC:Start Strength training

Seeing that everything/everyone seemed to be working fine, Count Cromwell takes the time to familiarize himself with the ship again, including checking all the different stations he might end up at in the event of trouble.

He also takes the time to get up to speed concerning Outpost; notable persons, places, corporations, anything of special interest or big news.  He always prided himself on fully researching all aspects of a task, there's nothing worse than a faux-pas when dealing with others. Well, maybe a plasma bolt to the face.

Seeing Walter in the Rec room, "So, what do you think so far?"

Khea monitors the performance of the ship in the engine room. When she notices from the power draw that the weapons are firing she just thinks "Typical males" and hopes that someone remembered to inform the authorities that this is just a test and not life fire.

"Well, there are bound to be some teething pains for us since this will be the first time we have been doing something of our own rather than at the behest of Ms Blue." Sir Walter said. "I have a feeling that it will work out once we get the kinks fixed that the ship has."

Pablo tested the weapons on Turret Two, the ventral turret, after Kaengarr was done, and then headed for his bunk. Once there, he looked through his music collection, till he found his playlist of Vargr operatic fusion jazz, and leaned back, closing his eyes contentedly as the music started playing.