I totally didn’t forget to set this to publish tomorrow (which is Friday) or anything like that. 😉 Anyways, enjoy having this article a day early.

THESE GATE’S AREN’T WHERE I’D LIKE THEM TO BE

In my cute little Discoverer — the one which I started out with, and did not sell — I undock from the Argon Prime shipyard, having just maxed it’s engine tuning and rudder optimization. I press the right arrow key.

It turns (literally) into a Micheal Bay film as my tiny ship spins really crazy fast. Surely in real life the G’s pulled would end my real life. Good thing this is X.

I let go of the arrow key.

Fun.

I fly towards the equipment dock at full speed. Full speed is pretty fast, although there are ships that can go faster, such as a Kestrel. I fly at full speed through the rings of the station, and then I turn around and do it again, weaving in and out of the architecture of the station.

After about seven more rounds of scaring the bubblewubbins out of station personnel, I become part of the station architecture. Good thing I autosaved.

I travel to Herron’s Nebula to terrorize my own station personnel. And then I try to go explore Teladi space.

The problem I run into, is I haven’t explore Atreus Clouds, and I didn’t know that there wasn’t an East gate there. I fly around for a really long time trying to find it, which of course, I’m not going to do, because it doesn’t exist.

I then go North to Rolk’s Fate, and encounter the same problem. I try using the trade lanes to see if there are any ships going generally East, but of course, they are going generally not East.

I head North again, to Menelaus Frontier. I find a gate there.

Through the gate, there is Teladi stuff. That’s good.

TELADI CAN’T RUN, TELADI CAN’T HIDE!!!!

I decide to keep traveling East, and explore the farther corners of universe. The Teladi stuff looks kind of cool, and I take some time to harass their capital ships by flying really really close to them at high speeds. One scares the bibbynogs out of me as it decides to jump as I’m flying around it. Guess they’ve had enough.

Traveling East again, I find the same ship I was harassing. I could imagine them saying “Oh darn, he found Teladi. Argon going to cost us moneys if he whacks into us. Teladi want him to [whatever bad words Teladi use] off already.”

I harass them some more.

Traveling for a while deeper into the galaxy, Split territory is discovered (an appropriate word considering the ship I’m using). There is a mission at a local station. They want me to scan asteroids.

Okay, I got this.

I scan the asteroids they want me to in the current sector. There is a pirate base hidden in the asteroid field, so I try to avoid it. Then it’s time to go to the next sector.

I go to the next sector, and scan the asteroids there. Racing back to the station, I claim my reward.

There is a Duke’s freighter, which shows red to me. I have some stock invested in them, which I bought at minimum price, but it hasn’t gone anywhere for a really long time. Not moved a point. I leave it alone for now.

I go explore deeper into Split space, and then decide to head back and explore the gates that branched off from the line I had taken.

I HARASS SOME PIRATES WHILE I’M AT IT

Back in the sector where the scanning mission happened, there are two pirates, and another Duke’s freighter. I autosave at the station.

Undocking, my feeble little Discoverer starts firing its feeble little guns at the pirates. I’m doing a very small amount of damage, but they aren’t really firing back.

One of the pirates breaks off from his buddy. My guns are still shooting at him, as my tiny ship weaves around his, with side boosters enabling it to orbit the pirate fighter.

The other pirate is curious. And so, apparently, are his lasers.

I think you can figure out what happened there.

I was actually doing pretty good dodging him, but just a few lasers brought my hull down, which slowed me, and made it so I couldn’t dodge the lasers.

Reload autosave.

I DO IT AGAIN

I bug them again. Same thing happens. Short chapter.

I GO FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO ANNOY

Next, I try the Duke’s freighter. I’m definitely not going to make their stock go any lower by destroying their assets, even if I could destroy their assets.

I circle around him, trying to stay out of the radius covered by his rear cannon. He takes a little bit of damage after maybe three minutes. Man, this ship does suck. I don’t think I can even put any better guns on it.

He shows off his better guns using my face as center stage, as he swings around so the turret can turn just enough to shoot at me.

LET’S FIND SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE TO DO

Back in Teladi space, I start looking for the Stock Exchange. It doesn’t take me long, thankfully, and I find Siezewell. Luckily, there are some Advance Satellites in my storage bay.

Seizewell actually turns out to be a very profitable exchange, as I learn later on, and as you could learn in my DERP Guide to X3 Stock Trading. Not that I’m hinting that you should read that or anything. 😉

I don’t put much time into studying the local Exchange, and figure that it isn’t very profitable right now. I will learn how to play this Exchange later though.

Back to Argon Prime, I trade stocks, mainly spacefuel. My big goal is to save up for a Heavy Centaur, because then I’ll have the ability to do the plots.

But, for now, it’s time to go map the universe and scout for more Stock Exchanges.

Taking a break from the journal, I wanted to make a point that I don’t believe the Stock Market is “cheating”. It’s just another way of trading, and you still have to generally know WTF you’re doing, because you can lose money. Really, it works a lot like the normal trading, and the only difference is that you have some extra numbers to inform you on the condition of a given commodity. It allows you to easily make larger trades which include larger numbers of credits, and it gives you tools for finding places to put stations. If you don’t want to use it, you absolutely don’t have to.

I haven’t really explored the Paranid territory to the South. I probably should, as it’s really close to the territory I operate in. It’s very close to Ore Belt and my own silicon mine, which are more reasons to explore what is on the other side of the shiny round blue things. (Gates)

MY AUTOPILOT DOESN’T GO WHERE I’D LIKE IT TO GO

As far as my journey into Paranid space goes, I find Paranid Prime, and the adjacent sectors. Trying to dock at a station in PP with 10X SETA activated, my Discoverer decides to discover the collision physics of the station, totally ignoring the docking clams and instead flying straight into one of the very cool looking cornucopia things sticking out of the top of the station. The less cool Game Over screen docks with my monitor. This situation sounds familiar.

This is exactly why I didn’t do this journal as a Dead is Dead. Some of the friendly EgoSoft forum members had discussed this on a thread I posted regarding what the rules for a Terran DiD should be. Deaths should not count if it includes my autopilot running into things like it so fondly does.

Back to exploring, I reload an autosave, and try docking at the same station again just for good measure. I watch it very closely this time, though, and nothing goes wrong.

Then my ship undocks and heads South, ready to find more Exchanges. I still can’t use the Paranid Exchanges, as even though I’ve built up some rep from them trading at my stations, they still don’t like me enough to let me trade.

Into the unknown I go.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed my journal. It would mean a lot to me if you commented below and dropped a “like”. It would mean even more if you followed my blog or subscribed via email. As always, Google me next week to see me ram into things and fly around looking for other things, while being chased by annoying things.

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