Outcast Quest [Updated 10/10/18 - Turn 14]

[dragoongfa]

Hmmm...

From what we know about Alien susceptibility to Hyperspace sickness (see Umiak), could it be that they suffer from some short of Jump madness?

If so the question is between swatting them and letting them blow off steam until their ship disables itself from overheating.

Which does the less damage to our ship and crew?

[X] Maintain holding pattern

If they are mad they will blow their ship up before talking with us and we don't want to be anywhere close if that's the case. If they aren't and they are scared shitless for some reason then they will stop firing before their ship overheats to destructive levels.

[Suederwind]

So, we just lost 4% of our fuel and gained nothing.
Will evading them again use up as much fuel? If yes, please anyone, don't repeat that misstake again.

Anyway, my vote is again:
[X] Swat Them!

Why? If we let them continue shooting on us, their ship might explode and we get nothing in return. They don't want to talk as well.

[Razor One]

You won't lose another 4% fuel if you continue to evade. Most of that was to kill your momentum, swing around, and reverse course. You're now keeping pace and at their leisurely two meters per second acceleration that's got a negligible fuel cost for you.

You did gain some more information on them in that they don't seem very interested in talking. Whether it's because they're incredibly xenophobic, afraid for their lives, hungry for your blood or asocial to the point of violence is still up in the air though. It could be that the colour scheme on your ship offends them.

[Suederwind]

You did gain some more information on them in that they don't seem very interested in talking. Whether it's because they're incredibly xenophobic, afraid for their lives, hungry for your blood or asocial to the point of violence is still up in the air though. It could be that the colour scheme on your ship offends them.

You know, that would have been mine exact same lines as a GM...

[alpha]

[X] Holding pattern... for another hour. Then swat them with low power lasers.

[joestej]

The fact that they haven't stopped shooting even though it's obvious they can't hurt us is interesting. Either they're a bit nuts, have a radically way of thinking than what we'd expect, or something about us is making them incredibly desperate. Maybe they think prime numbers are swear words or something...

Either way, why bother closing for a shot when we can just do nothing and wait for them to fry? Then we can swoop in when they're helpless, knock off their guns at point-blank range, and board at our leisure. Minimal risk.

That said, I do have a question:

Assuming the enemy ship DOES critically overheat, what will likely happen? Will their guns melt/shutdown, or can they keep shooting until they actually kill themselves?

Obviously any answer Razor gives would be a guess based off how our ship works and what we can see of their vessel, but it will still be good to know if they're likely in danger of blowing themselves up in their frantic attempts to kill us off. If they're going to kill themselves anyway, I vote swat. If not, leave it alone.

[Razor One]

If their ship does work like yours and if they keep firing, their laser systems are likely to fry first, followed by their other systems. Chemically propelled kinetic weapons are a lot simpler, and ought to be able to keep firing until they hit combustion temperature, at which point it will explode catastrophically, or until the gunner (assuming it's manned by a carbon based life form) faints or dies of the heat. They might run out of ammo, though you don't know how much they have.

Whether they'll shut their systems down or keep firing until they melt is unknown to you at this time. They might do something completely unexpected, though given their backwards technology in comparison to yours...

[Siber]

[x]swat them

Maybe they'll talk once they're crippled, and if not then it's got better odds this way of getting useful salvage off them than if they fire until their ammo storage cooks off.

[joestej]

If their ship does work like yours and if they keep firing, their laser systems are likely to fry first, followed by their other systems. Chemically propelled kinetic weapons are a lot simpler, and ought to be able to keep firing until they hit combustion temperature, at which point it will explode catastrophically, or until the gunner (assuming it's manned by a carbon based life form) faints or dies of the heat. They might run out of ammo, though you don't know how much they have.

Whether they'll shut their systems down or keep firing until they melt is unknown to you at this time. They might do something completely unexpected, though given their backwards technology in comparison to yours...

Eh, I was afraid you were going to say something like that.

We gave the aliens a fair shot. Since they've continued firing even when they're this outgunned, odds are good if we let this go on they're either gonna blow themselves up by accident or on purpose. Can't let that happen.

[x]Swat Them

Let's see what happens when they know we've got teeth too...

[Nugget]

[x]Swat Them

I have a feeling that once they run out of ammo/overheat they'll just turn tail and run, they clearly have no intention to talk. Let's speed things up a bit.

[Logannion]

[x]swat them

[Razor One]

[X] Swat Them

--

You've tried talking to them, you've tried evading them and talking to them, and they just won't give up. They're like a drunk man trying to land a punch, full of sound and fury, except their aim is terrible, and when they land a hit it only ever tickles.

"What's the temperature of the hostile vessel?" you ask.

"Temperature reads 47 degrees celsius and rising rapidly, Ma'am," says O'Malley.

You frown at that. Too much more of this and they'll start frying themselves. You have to act, if only to stop them from harming themselves.

"Bring us about and charge our point defense lasers," you order, "Use the lowest output settings we've got. Their ship is fragile and I'd rather not blow them up completely. Aim for their laser system and kinetic cannon and try to avoid critical systems like engines or life support."

"Yes captain!" says O'Malley and moves to obey.

You wished you didn't have to do this. You wished you could have just sat and talked with these aliens, waiting impatiently while Ensign Izumi built up a lexicon. Instead it seems you'll have to content yourself with being the first human to fire shots at aliens.

The only comfort you derive from this is that you've given them every chance to avoid this and you're still pulling your punches.

The laser systems on board your ship activate without issue. You're pretty sure they'd never even been fired once apart from routine testing and maintenance.

"We have their laser and kinetic subsystems targeted," said O'Malley, "awaiting your order captain."

"Fire!" you order.

The die is cast. Two invisible lances of light cross the distance in less than a second and the results are immediate.

The laser subsystem melts into slag instantly. You're quite positive that it will never again threaten your paintjob.

The strike on the kinetic cannon goes awry however. You hit it quite easily. Too easily. The cannon explodes, followed several secondary explosions along the ships lower hull. The engines sputter and it begins to list as it loses attitude control. Worse, the engines are still firing at their full thrust, sending it into a wide barrel roll.

You look sharply at O'Malley.

"That was our lowest setting," she says, anticipating your question, "They must've kept the ammo racks close to the hull instead of deeper in where it would have been safe. Safer, anyway. At full power we'd have turned their ship into slag in just one shot."

"Odds of survivors?" you ask.

"Hard to say without knowing their layout. It looks like the lower decks were some kind of weapons storage, half of it blew out. If I were a betting woman, I'd say that the crew occupied the upper decks," she speculates.

You content yourself by hoping the aliens weren't living amongst their ammo stores. They had technology so they couldn't be completely stupid... but everything was pointing towards an irrational aggression bordering on stupidity.

"Anything on comms?" you ask.

Ensign Izumi shakes her head even while she's busily trying to raise them.

"Alter course," you say, "maintain our distance for now."

Their ship is no longer capable of firing. The temperature is gradually falling to something a bit more livable and the damage to their attitude control means they can't easily kamikaze you. You're the one that needs to act it seems, and your next move is...

[] Write In.

--

I was originally going to give you some default options but figured I'd give you some freedom of movement here.

Rolled 31 + 15 (O'Malley's Martial) – 5 (Unfamiliar Vessel) = 41 on Swatting.
They didn't get a defensive roll. Their ship just isn't a match for yours. It's like pitting a hoplite against a tank.

[Suederwind]

[X] Go visit the neighbours!

Hail them again and if they don't react, send over a shuttle with some marines to take a closer look, but don't board them, yet. They should tell us more about that ship and if possible about those aboard.
Edit: The reason is that our ship stays away at some distance, weapons still ready to fire again, but otherwise save if that thing explodes.

[joestej]

Darn, I was afraid something like that might happen. Well, we'll have to make the best of it.

The fact that they're spinning out of control will make our next moves a bit trickier. With luck they'll cut their thrusters and correct their roll without us having to do anything, but considering how oddly they've been behaving thus far I'm not holding out hope.

I'm honestly liking Suederwind's suggestion the best so far. Send over a shuttle to examine their vessel up close while we try to reestablish contact and remain in position to provide support. Once we've got a look at their layout and what their situation is we'll know if boarding would be a good idea and where we should start.

Still, since we want to save fuel it might be a good idea to load the shuttle up as though we were going to board, even if we aren't going to actually do it yet. That way it doesn't need to come all the way back if we decide to seize the ship. If they don't have any engineers up to the task we'll probably need to include one of our own so the marines will know what to break and what to fix.

So I present:

[X]Plan Go Visit the Neighbors!
-[X] Resume communication attempts.
-[X] Dispatch shuttle of marines (and possibly engineers) to examine the enemy ship.
-[X] Hold off on actually boarding until we know more.

EDIT: Plan scrapped and combined with a different one for compromise.

[dragoongfa]

Hmm...

[X] Plan: Can you help stupid?

-[x] Resume communications (if only to keep the ensign busy).
-[x] Send a shuttle to observe the ship from up close, engineers are a must. A marine escort less so.
--[x] The engineers are to see if there is a way to stop the ship from the outside.
-[x] Prepare the marine assault shuttle (we know where this is going).
--[x] Close the distance with the enemy ship (Just close enough so we can get a detailed scan of it and cover the shuttle).
---[x] If the engineers think that there is a way to stop the ship from the outside without risking life or limb then we do that.
---[x] If not then the marines will get busy.

[joestej]

Hmm...

[X] Plan: Can you help stupid?

-[x] Resume communications (if only to keep the ensign busy).
-[x] Send a shuttle to observe the ship from up close, engineers are a must. A marine escort less so.
--[x] The engineers are to see if there is a way to stop the ship from the outside.
-[x] Prepare the marine assault shuttle (we know where this is going).
--[x] Close the distance with the enemy ship (Just close enough so we can get a detailed scan of it and cover the shuttle).
---[x] If the engineers think that there is a way to stop the ship from the outside without risking life or limb then we do that.
---[x] If not then the marines will get busy.

I see no particular reason we can't wrap both plans into one. Since we don't have that many engineers in the first place sending them and the marines on the same shuttle would save us time and fuel. I doubt there's a way to shut down their ship from the outside, but then again I doubted anyone would be crazy enough to store their volatile ammo on the exterior of their ship either. We've apparently found Bizarre World, so it's worth a shot. New vote:

[X]Plan Compromise:
-[x] Resume communications.
-[x] Send an assault shuttle to observe the ship from up close with both engineers and marines.
--[x] The engineers check if there is a way to stop the ship from the outside.
--[x] Close the distance with the enemy ship (Just close enough so we can get a detailed scan of it and cover the shuttle).
---[x] If the engineers think that there is a way to stop the ship from the outside without risking life or limb then we do that.
---[x] If not then the marines will get busy.
----[X] Abort if there is significant risk to the marines, engineers, or shuttle (like if the enemy ship about to explode)

EDIT to add in the Abort clause.

[Logannion]

[X]Plan Compromise:
-[x] Resume communications.
-[x] Send an assault shuttle to observe the ship from up close with both engineers and marines.
--[x] The engineers check if there is a way to stop the ship from the outside.
--[x] Close the distance with the enemy ship (Just close enough so we can get a detailed scan of it and cover the shuttle).
---[x] If the engineers think that there is a way to stop the ship from the outside without risking life or limb then we do that.
---[x] If not then the marines will get busy.

[dragoongfa]

Although it will get a little cramped on the assault shuttle I can get behind the new plan, although I remembered a crucial detail:

[X]Plan Compromise:
-[x] Resume communications.
-[x] Send an assault shuttle to observe the ship from up close with both engineers and marines.
--[x] The engineers check if there is a way to stop the ship from the outside.
--[x] Close the distance with the enemy ship (Just close enough so we can get a detailed scan of it and cover the shuttle).
---[x] If the engineers think that there is a way to stop the ship from the outside without risking life or limb then we do that.
---[x] If not then the marines will get busy.
----[x] Abort if the alien ship is going to blow.

[joestej]

----[x] Abort if the alien ship is going to blow.

Yes, very important part of the plan. I assumed it'd be pretty implied, but it's good to spell that out just in case. Logannion, do you have any objections to retroactively adding an abort clause to your vote as well?

[alpha]

[X] Plan Compromise

This is why you should actually look at the posts that occur while you're writing a post. It's not as if you'll miss out on anything....