Part 3: Cyanide

In which we run a science delivery mission, discover a bonus weapon shop, and board raider ships time and time again.

Having resolved the Koshol-Warhaku dispute and heard weird things about a "light" as well as a great "evil" down below, we can now focus on whatever next mission the Federation has in store for us. First, however, let's make that Science Foundation delivery we picked up last time. As you may remember, we were asked to bring a monitor unit to Ceyjavik.



Ceyjavik is the downmost planet on the Caldorre System map.



It is a research planet which, unlike Caldorre, has no spaceport facilities.


We'll visit the BORKIN Lab later, but for now, let's focus on the delivery mission.



The coordinates we need are x2112 y480.



As soon as we've arrived there, the option to Place equipment appears. We do just that.



That done, the Science Foundation tranfers the promised 700 credits. Easy peasy. Let's now explore around a bit. (Am I the only one thinking of Mako whenever I see the ATV?)



The sun is strong on Ceyjavik; no wonder the planet is barely colonized.



Amidst the surrounding snow, plants are few and far between.



Sure harsh around here.



Nothing but ice, rock and snow.



Truly a horrible place.



We got lucky, however, and the science delivery mission got us landed right near a lone weapon store. No idea why a weapon store would be located here in the wilderness, of all places.



The store is in fact pretty nice, with a wide selection of basic weapons and ammo. Gyro Pike is a moderately powerful contact weapon, dealing 4-16 damage, so we buy one for Beth. Power Axe is a good edged weapon (3-12 damage); we buy two, for Aleph and Gimmel. We also acquire new armour as well as some auto clips.



Back on Caldorre, we're free to pick up a new Science Foundation errand. This time it involves delivering a seismometer to Norjaenn. All science errands are basically the same, so no point in covering them all in the LP.



Meanwhile, a new main plot mission pops up on the Telecom:

FEDERATION RECOMMENDS BOARDING OF RAIDER SHIPS TO INTERROGATE RAIDER CREWS

With this, Sentinel Worlds' probably most tedious and at the same time exciting mission begins. The concept itself is exciting, and it does start off exciting, but ends up tedious and pointless, for reasons I'll soon explain.



The mission itself is best approached in this manner. First, we programme our lasers to only target the engine of enemy ships. Next, we target a raider vessel and shoot our lasers until the enemy's ENG stat reaches 0. After that, the enemy ship becomes motionless and we can press B to board it.



Above is the boarding menu; as you can see, it is no different for a raider ship than it was for Grager's Yacht.



As soon as we've boarded a ship, raiders start coming at us. Our task is to make them surrender so as to interrogate them, and I assure you that ain't an easy task. A raider can only surrender when he's only got a few HP left, and on top of it that seems to only happen randomly. Which means that more often than not we simply kill a raider before he even has the chance to surrender; and given that our to-hit chance is very low, seeing a raider killed becomes frustrating soon.



Still, sometimes a raider does surrender. Thankfully.

Things are further complicated by the fact that, as soon as we exit the air hatch and enter deeper into the ship, the self-destruct mechanism kicks in, giving us only 999 in-game seconds (ca. 2 minutes in real time) to make a couple of raiders surrender and leave before the ship explodes. That also precludes us from exploring raider ships properly, so I guess it'll make sense to try boarding them again later when our to-hit percentages are higher, if only out of curiosity.



Once a raider has surrendered, we can talk to him to attempt an interrogation.



Most raiders smile when raising their hands. I guess that's meant to show just how fearless they are. After that, we can choose between two questions to ask them, "Who are you?" and "Who do you serve?"



Unfortunately, all they do is commit suicide.



Which is the most frustrating thing about this mission: not only do we need to interrogate 20 to 30 raiders to complete it, which takes a lot of time, but it is also completely pointless in the end, as interrogating them brings no result. I understand the point the game is trying to get across with that, but the mission could definitely have been designed better.

BUT! There's a nice exploit-ish tactics available, courtesy of ulmont:




Another point we get from this mission is that the raider ships are probably of alien origin.



Sometimes we manage to get a different line from a raider...




...but, alas, with the same end result.



As far as other details go, "Guns are blazing" is the standard combat message when controlling a ranged character.



We also get Zain to Hack our LASER programme to improve its functionality.




Whenever a hacking is successful, the function in question goes up one level; whenever a hacking fails, it loses one level instead. Our lasers are level 4 now, allowing us to disable and destroy enemy vessels more efficiently.



In the meantime, Beth has reached the rank of Combat Ensign, concentrating in contact weapons for now.



Aleph is Senior Ensign now, Gunnery and Edged weapons being his forte.



Hiroko has made Combat Lt already, since Medics tend to receive a lot of experience by healing other party members.



And Gimmel is lagging behind a bit. Same goes for Zain.



Finally, having witnessed many - too many - raiders take cyanide, we receive a brand new Telecom message:

DISTRESS SIGNAL SENT FROM SHIP ORBITING CEYJAVIK BEACON LOCATED NEAR LAST SIGNAL

Onwards to new adventures we go! High time alredy.

P.S. Also, I guess I should post the weapon list found in the manual so everyone can have an idea of the game's arsenal, which may come in handy when reading the future updates. Here it is: