FTL: A Hillbillies in Space adventure

Started by Silent Disapproval Robot, September 25, 2012, 07:37:13 PM

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Silent Disapproval Robot



It is a dark time for the Federation.   Upset with new regulations banning miniskirts and leather boots in favour of silver lamé unitards on female Federation officers, the citizens of the Outer Rim planets have revolted.  The Federation fleet is all but destroyed in an epic battle around the rings of Monostat 7.  In an act of desperation, the commander of the Federation fleet orders the captain and crew of a fleet services sewage hauler* to return to the Federation home-worlds and inform Fleet Command of the approaching Rebel armada.

*The federation takes environmental stewardship very seriously.  The Vacuum of Space Protection Agency has prohibited the dumping of raw sewage out of airlocks since the tragic incident of 2386 when the bridge viewing port of UFP Intrepid collided with a 2-pound loaf traveling relativistically at 0.98C


Meet the crew of The Honey Wagon!

Captain Clem!

Weapons Officer Inbred Jed!

Chief Engineer Merle!


(Sadly, Receptionist/Shield Operator/Square Dance Caller Enda Mae was let go in February due to budget cutbacks.)





A quick look of the scanners shows two stores located within a single jump, but ship funds are low since Merle splurged on a chrome trailer hitch complete with dangling testicle attachment.  In light of this, Capt. Clem reckons he should split the difference and head for an uncharted system in hopes of some sweet loot.




Jumping to the new system reveals a Rebel ship.  They start babbling something or other about how capital gains taxes should be taxed the same as income tax.  Jed immediately opens fire.




The yellow pinkos wave the white flag and offer up a goodly amount of missiles. 





I'm tempted but I'm hoping to get more scrap that I can use to hire a shield operator at one of the stores after the battle is over.   Jed fires again...



Damn!  Should've taken the bribe.  Oh well.



The Honey Wagon jumps to the first store.  Space Jesus be praised, loitering in the parking lot of the Space Depot is an Engi immigrant worker named Mullet!  It's like Space Jesus heard my prayers...




And then slapped me in the face.  Mullet wants 5 more scrap than I can afford.  Space Jesus is a cruel and capricious god....

We settle for some long range scanners  for 30 scrap and jump to the next store but there's nothing of note for sale there.

The rebel fleet is closing in and the long range scanners reveal another victi....errrr....ship so we plot a course for that system.






MetalDog

I have no idea what game I am looking at, but if SDR is gonna write it, I'm going to read it.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Staggerwing

FTL: Faster than Light

It's been described as a 'Roguelike in Space'. There have been some good youtube vids of the gameplay posted.
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

TheCommandTent

"No wants, no needs, we weren't meant for that, none of us.  Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."

Silent Disapproval Robot

#4
Jumping into the new sector reveals one of them new-fangled robot flyin' machines.  Clem figures it's probably got a good road map and orders Jed to open fire.



We take some hull damage and use up far too many of our missiles to bring the critter down.  (Jed's cut off from the engine room hooch supply until his accuracy improves.)


A quick look at the map shows that:  a) the rebel fleet is approaching   and  b) a distress call from the next system (probably city folk).  We jump to the distress call.




Yup, it's city folk and their big city diseases.  Figuring the crew is probably immune to most things by now due to the nature of their usual cargo, Clem orders Jed and Merle to beam over and see what's what.  Sadly, Merle starts showing symptoms, saying he'll eat only cruelty free tofu and babbling about zero emissions weapons systems in his delirium.  We're forced to abandon him.







(Seriously, I think I might be screwed.  I haven't even made it out of the first sector and I'm already down a crew member and I haven't found any good stores nor taken much in the way of scrap from my encounters.  I decide to make a bee-line for the sector exit in hopes that the next sector will give me better luck.  I spend what little scrap I've got on ship upgrades, adding more reserve power.)



Clem sends Jed back to the weapons station and plots a course for the next system.  Sure enough, the Rebels are already there and another fight ensues.  An obviously despondent Jed has been back into the hooch against orders because he can't hit the broadside of a barn.   We trade fire with the rebel for a while before we take a serious hit to the med-labs.  FIRE IN MED-LAB, Y'ALL!!! Yells Clem, before realizing that there's nobody available to put it out what with Jed busy drunkenly slobbering over the weapons console.






In a panic, Clem over-rides the safety controls and opens the port-side airlocks, hoping to starve the fire of oxygen.  Unbeknownst to him though, Merle had been hiding his store of whippits under the bed pans and the fire reaches them, igniting the cans and spreading the fire to the shield room.





The blast throws Jed onto the console, accidentally unleashing an Artemis missile which scores a lucky hit on the Rebel engine room, blowing the ship apart.

Clem fires the starboard airlocks open and vents all the air from the middle of the ship.  This succeeds in putting out the fires, but not before we suffer some more hull damage and a loss of a lot of oxygen (and the last of the whippits).






After Jed sobers up, he's sent to Med-Lab to repair the fire damage and then Clem jumps to the next system just one jump away from the sector exit.  A slaver ship is waiting by the jump point and demands Jed as tribute.  Jed opens fire.  The lack of whippits has done marvels for Jed's accuracy and the slaver surrenders after only a single volley.  He offers up a new crew member.  The little feller's foreign and we can't hardly understand him, but he seems to know what he's doing in the engine room, so we take him aboard.






We then head over to the sector exit but decide to upgrade the ship some more before making the leap.  We beef up the engines and Jed, worried about the new guy getting into the hooch, installs some new padlocks on the interior doors.






 




MikeGER

#5
THX for that 'OAR' project  8) (Ongoing Action Report ;-) ) 

i watched some longer YT videos of FTL campaigns and always asked myself: how crisp are these graphics with the retro look especially the small print text and tiny symbols really?
Now your screenies answers the question ...small print and symbols are high-res and its only retro where the art design doesn't kill readability all to much... :)       

Silent Disapproval Robot

#6
Clem pulls up the navi-computer map as The Honey Wagon approaches the jump gate to Sector 2.  He finds that he's got two sub-sectors to choose from.  The first is controlled by a theocratic society of silicon based lifeforms known as the Rock.  (deep and subtle. That's the only way to describe the writing in FTL.)

The second is controlled by the Zoltan, a species of aliens who can control electricity.  While the Zoltan are more amenable to the idea of strangers passing through than the Rock are, Clem reckons it's much easier to smash rocks than electrons, so he opts for the Rock sector.






Clem's feelings towards the Rock are soon proven correct as a Rock vessel cleverly disguised as...well....a rock, scans us and then opens fire.

.


Luckily for us, Rocks prove to be somewhat less agile than Rebel ships and the Rock scout ship is blown apart in just a few volleys.

Some of the rock fragments sure are purdy! and Jed gets busy bundling them into the storage bay while Clem gets his bearings.  (got a fair amount of loot from the scout.)

There's a Rock store only one jump away.  The Honey Wagon's hull has a few more dents in it than usual and the missile bay is mostly empty, so it's time to stock up on Slim Jims and scram missiles.





That heavy laser for sale looks nice, but it's out of my price range.  We fix up the hull damage, grab a few missiles, and head out...





Right into another Rock scout.




Jed zeroes in on the scout ship's shields and weapons systems and knocks them out quickly, but not quickly enough.  They lob a missile at us and score a lucky hit on our weapons control systems.  The damage is enough to knock out power to our laser, so we're forced to expend missiles to finish off the scout ship.

Clem has a look at the system map while Jed and Cremify, the new...guy?.....thing... get to work on repairing the weapons systems.

Things don't look so good.  There's a distress call close by but the entire Rebel fleet is right on our tail.  Man, they got here quick!







Being the heroic types that we are, we head for the distress call, motivated purely by altruism and not at all in hopes of finding some missiles.

YES!!!!! Missiles!   We had to trade some fuel, but we got a few more missiles and a bit of cash for helping free a ship crushed between two asteroids.

Unfortunately, the Rebel fleet is right on us and we have to make a dash for the sector exit.  That means risking a jump into one of two inhospitable systems (signified by the brown circle on the map.  The yellow triangle means there's likely a hostile ship there as well because, why make it easy?)





Clem makes his choice and hits the jump button.....





and naturally it was the wrong one.  Bloody perfect.  I was hoping we'd run into another scout ship and maybe score some loot but instead we get boarded by a bunch of hulking silicon monsters.... 














Keunert

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde

Special K has too much class.
Windigo

Silent Disapproval Robot

#8
Cremity hops on the intercom.  "Excuse me, sir.  I don't wish to alarm you but several large metamorphic mesomorphs have just beamed into the engine room and adjoining corridor.  They are proffering copies of The Watchtower. They seem quite insistent.  Should we perhaps..."

Clem cuts in, "Consarn it, Crem!  I cain't hardly understand a wurd yer sayin'. Stop talkin' like a fairy! Why cain't you talk normal like whut Jed does?   Grab onter sumthin'  I'ma flushing the airlock 'n if'n there's one thing ah knows, it's flushin'!"  Clem cycles the aft airlock hatches.






The Rock go on an absolute tear through the ship.  In a running battle throughout the bowels of The Honey Wagon, they pummel the snot out of Cremity.  Then they pummel the snot out of the engine room, the oxygen tanks, the weapons bay, and even rip down Jed's collection of Keep On Truckin' velvet posters before the lack of oxygen and Jed's 12 gauge take care of them. 




Maybe the Rock sector wasn't such a good idea after all.  I decide to take the most direct route to the exit and get the hell out of dodge.   The ship jumps to the next system and we discover a derelict spacecraft of unknown origin.  Knowing nothing bad has ever happened to an away team that boards derelict spacecraft of unknown origin, Clem orders Jed and Cremity over, but only after disarming them first, because it's important to uphold traditions. 







Weapons or a damaged stasis pod?  Knowing nothing bad ever pops out of damaged stasis pods found on derelict spacecraft of unknown origin, Clem orders it brought over and placed in cold storage, but just close enough to the malfunctioning temperature control unit so it can slowly thaw out as the journey progresses.






Two more jumps get us to the Sector jump point.  We're getting low on fuel and the rebels have already managed to get ahead of us.  Oh well, nothing for it but to plunge into rebel held territory.





Figures, no scrap left in the hold and there's a store one jump away.  The fuel situation is now getting serious.  Clem decides to go to the distress call in hopes of being rewarded with fuel if we can help out.







"Hey Cremity, a bunch of yer fruity friends done broke their Tom-Tom.  Reckon them fruitcakes'll give us sum gas if'n we help 'em?" 

"Oh undoubtedly sir."


"It's yer ass if they don't".







"Them fruitcakes done stabbed us in the back!  Jed, let 'em have it!  Cremity, start polishing my ass-kickin' boots.  Me 'n you got an appointment after this is over, boy!"













besilarius

SDR, with the Hillbilly Honeybucket on intergalactic clean up detail, it brings to mind the TV series Quarck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOLrVHM1kbo
Of course, they were an intergalactic trash collection service, and only marginally inbred, it seems you plagiarised the idea.
Shame, Shame.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

Silent Disapproval Robot

Never heard of it.  And here I thought I was being avant garde.

besilarius

Well, they were almost as funny as your comments.  Keep up the good works.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

Silent Disapproval Robot

Well crap.

I was going to write up the next installment and when I was moving photos around, getting ready to upload stuff to photo-bucket, I went to delete what I thought was a sub-folder.  I don't know how I managed to do what I did, but I managed to delete the entire folder.  I tried using Pandora-Recovery, but only about 1/3rd of the screens were successfully recovered.  (also managed to lose a few game patches.  Oh well.)

Sorry for anyone who was actually following this AAR.

Anyway, the Honey Wagon did manage to make it to the final sector but got absolutely shredded by the Rebel flagship.  The loss of that crew-member in sector one, combined with some bad luck when it came to the amount of scrap found and the types of goodies offered at various stores really meant there was no realistic chance of surviving the encounter with the flagship.  We just couldn't knock their shields down faster than they could recharge and they just shot us to pieces.




Keunert

thank you for doing this, was an enjoyable read in i did manage not to buy it... for now
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde

Special K has too much class.
Windigo