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TL;DR... in space! Star Saga 1: Beyond The Boundary [CYOA/board game/RPG]

Kz3r0

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Crater
 

Azira

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Paragraph 267
You feel utterly jubilant over your success in acquiring proof of an alien ability by actually learning how to do it! This sort of proof will be hard for the academic world to refute. You hope you will be able to find two more such abilities so you can return home and publish your research.​

This very much suggests that there's a correct way to go about learning these abilities, and that it might even not be possible, had we not learnt Phrmm first.. :hmmm:
 

Mrowak

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Project: Eternity
Let's visit Crater.

Good thing our professor won't get brainwashed so easily.

Still, I wonder if it's even possible to "fail" in this game. Well, at the very least it's a tutorial section, so there might be a chance for some spectacular deaths later on.
 

MMXI

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Or are they instead works of passion, motivated by the same violent human spirit that drives others to sculpt roads in the wilderness, paint empires across the canvas of history, write poems from star to star with the quills of fire that drive the ships into the voids beyond the Boundary?
Very poetic. I approve.

Let's head to Crater.
 

Crooked Bee

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Crater it is. Update incoming shortly.

Still, I wonder if it's even possible to "fail" in this game.

Sure. If you visit a hostile planet and engage in a combat encounter without having any weapon or psi ability to assist you, you will lose combat and maybe even die. You guys have been playing it safe so far, and with good reason.

This isn't a Sierra game, however, I'll grant you that. :P
 

Crooked Bee

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And off to Crater we fly.

06starsaga3.png


Medsun-Crater.png


Paragraph 690

Your long-range scanners indicate that the planet Crater is hardly the side of a large asteroid, yet it bears the most enormous chasm you have ever witnessed in all your travels, a colossal smouldering crater which deforms approximately a third of the planet's surface. From space, much of Crater appears to be covered by mines and vast structures whose austerity leads you to suspect they are factories. However, it is difficult to be certain of this from afar. Closing in, you scan the planet's industrial surface for any sign of inhabitants, and find none. You decide to defer any attempts to contact possible Craterians until you do a bit more exploring.

Aiming your x-ray scanner at a group of buildings, you see that the buildings are filled with impressively sophisticated missiles which appear ready to be launched. On panorama, your scanner's screen indicates that every building on the surface either houses defenses or manufactures them. But where are the beings who built all of this?

Suddenly you realize your ship is losing altitude, and you are headed in a completely different direction than you had intended. Your controls are unanimously inoperative. However, you are decelerating at a pace which is too gradual, too controlled to feel as if you are about to crash. In fact, if you had complete control of your ship, you would not be capable of executing as precise a landing as you observe your ship doing on its own. Just now, the thought occurs to you that it might be a good time to radio the Craterians and identify yourself.

The moment you turn on your radio, you are blasted by the voice of spaceport control who, luckily for you, speaks Earth Standard with a slight Leucothian accent. "Who are you and what do you think you're doing, entering our atmosphere and flying around our planet without permission?"

"I am from the Nine Worlds," you reply. "I come in peace."

"Peace? Do you really expect us to believe that? We are bringing you down for interrogation."

"I mean you no harm, honestly. I'm not your enemy."

"Don't try anything funny—we are armed!"

And they're not kidding. Their whole planet is a fortress.

As your ship lands in one of the few barren, undeveloped areas on the planet, your radio picks up a conversation between spaceport control and some authority deep in Crater's interior.

"We have landed the ship on the median ramp of the visitor's minefield. We request permission to detonate V611's in the event of a catastrophe."

"Permission granted for V611 detonation."

Frazzled, you radio spaceport control. "Excuse me... uh, spaceport control... I didn't mean to eavesdrop. Actually, my radio accidentally... did I hear you say I've landed in a minefield?"

"This is routine procedure here. When your hatch opens, exit unarmed. Step onto the gray platform directly beside your ship and ground transport will take you to the holding area for quarantine."

Following four days of quarantine, you are taken to Crater Security for interrogation.

"This won't harm you, although it may sting a bit," a security officer tells you as he draws forth some fluid into a syringe.

"What is that? What are you doing?"

"This is an ancient means of ensuring that you come in peace, as you claim. In fact, it was invented on the planet Earth. It's called 'truth serum'. You will have no recollection of the forthcoming investigation. If the magistrate concludes that you are safe, you will be permitted to continue your visit on our planet. If you are deemed a threat, you will be disposed of."​

Holy shit. Luckily for us, we do indeed come in peace.

When you regain consciousness, you learn that you have been granted permission to remain on Crater, and you are placed in the custody of Olarus, an armed guard. Olarus, like all Craterians, lives underground. Viewing the Nine Worlds Boundary as inadequate protection from alien invasion, Craterians spend their entire lives entrenched deep within the interior of their asteroid-sized world, while the planet's exterior has been transformed into a battleground. As Olarus puts it, "Crater has been fortified to withstand repeated attacks. When the alien invaders destroy the rest of humanity, Crater will be Mankind's last bastion of hope."​

Sounds a lot like Cleve's bunker of the future.

You follow Olarus into a subterranean vehicle which descends several kilometers into the ground, taking you to the vast underground city where the planet's inhabitants live. You hear the constant rumble of heavy machinery everywhere as you travel past brightly lit, crowded sections and across dark, open cavities deep within Crater's interior. By the time you arrive at the terminal, marked "level 147, station E3", Olarus has told you a bit more about the planet. You identify five possible options for further activity:

  • GOEFMI (3 phases) Trade commodities at Crater's commercial exchange port.
  • WOGFEI (7 phases) Investigate Crater's robot drone technology. Olarus says that the experimental robot drones are the only completely safe way to trade with aliens, and are supposed to be very efficient as well.
  • G8EHMA (3 phases) Tour one of Crater's personal weapons factories, and see if there's anything you'd be interested in buying.
  • W8GHEA (4 phases) Visit a Craterian shipyard, in the hope of acquiring something new to improve your ship.
  • COUFOI (3 phases) Attend a seminar at Crater's Institute for Scientific Research.

Per the usual procedure, we hit the market first:

Paragraph 619

Crater's commercial exchange port opens onto the inside surface of the huge, smoldering chasm you noticed from space. Standing on the long, multilevel space dock that extends out into the chasm, you can see the ragged, miles-long cliff stretching upward to Crater's surface. Though the smoky fog in the chasm obscures your view, you can also make out some of the brighter stars in the sky above. Looking across the chasm to the other side, you see some flashing lights denoting protective weaponry, transmission antennae, and other space docks, but cannot distinguish much detail because of the fog and the distance. Looking further down into the chasm, you see some more flashing lights, and then darkness.

The port has a surplus of tools, which they are willing to give you in exchange for culture, food, fuel, iron, or medicine. They will offer you:

  • 2 Tools for 1 Culture
  • 2 Tools for 1 Food
  • 1 Tools for 1 Fuel
  • 1 Tools for 1 Iron
  • 1 Tools for 1 Medicine

If you decide to make any of these trades, the Craterian atmospheric traffic control system will automatically transport your ship to the port's space dock, where Craterian port workers will perform the loading and unloading for you.

You may select this option again.​

There is, however, no point in trading until we know the cost of weapons around here, so to the weapon market we go:

Paragraph 353

The salesman implores you to defend yourself better, "Buy at least something, my friend. The final war is on its way—don't let it catch you with your holster empty."

The weapons the factory can sell you and their current prices are as follows:

  • Stunner—1 Culture, 1 Munitions
  • Hypnotic gas sprayer—1 Food, 1 Crystals
  • Molecular disrupter—1 Iron, 1 Medicine, 1 Radioactives, 1 Fuel

You may select this option again.​

Next, we visit the shipyard:

Paragraph 137

Olarus takes you to the shipyard, a crowded industrial area that occupies all of levels 87 through 94. Most of these levels are off-limits to visitors, and some of them require special gear to move around, so you are restricted to a small portion of level 91.

Even this small fraction of Crater's ship assembly and repair operation is quite impressive, however. Huge, fully automated machines work on ship subsystems ranging from drives to environment support to computers, and of course, weaponry. The shipyard representative tells you that they build more than fifty full-size interstellar lifeships a year, most of which are exported to other ghostworlds such as Wellmet and Supa. In addition, they build hundreds of atmospheric cargo freighters and machine ships, used for industry both on Crater and on the other human worlds outside the Boundary. Finally, they build top secret patrol vessels and battle cruisers used by the military to bolster Crater's defenses.

They have some equipment that they would be willing to sell you if you want to improve your ship. They won't give you any of their top secret military technology, of course, but they have a few things that you might find useful. The prices for these things are as follows:

Entanglement mines—1 Food, 1 Fiber
Warp winder—1 Culture, 1 Fluids
Pulse inverter—1 Munitions, 1 Fuel
Boarding Robots—1 Radioactives, 1 Medicine, 1 Iron

You may select this option again.​

And finally, let's have a look at the drone ships produced here:

Paragraph 343

Crater's top roboticists have been working for some time with ship design engineers to construct an interstellar remote-controlled robot ship. The idea is that interstellar robotic cargo vessels would enable Crater to engage in commerce with aliens without having to risk actual contact with them.

Such ships are useful for storing and transporting cargo. They can be used to make trades at any markets you have already visited that allow drones to participate in trade. They are also helpful in trading with other players for both items and cargo. Because of its jump engine, the drone ship only takes one turn to travel to its destination and complete its trade. In the meantime, you are free to continue on your own way with no loss of time for the additional move. The only drawback is the jump engine's lethal effect on any living organisms who are unlucky enough to be aboard. The trick, therefore, is to send only nonliving cargo.

You are very interested in the conditions of trade for such a ship and, after inquiring within, you learn the ships are available for sale.

One 3-cargo bay drone ship may be purchased here for the following:

  • 2 Food + 1 Crystals.

You may select this option again.​

Aw, too bad our Crystals got stolen and we ain't got no Food either. :( A cargo drone would be real helpful for trading. But anyway, it's voting time.

1. There's plenty of things to buy on Crater, but hell, do we buy something? Can we even buy something? Our current cargo is 1 Culture and 3 Fuel, by the way.

Meanwhile, I'll update the OP with the shopping lists for all the planets we've visited: check it out if you want to maybe think up a trading plan for us.

2. Also, do we attend the seminar at Crater's Institute for Scientific Research?

3. And finally, where do we want to go next? (Galaxy map)
 

Erebus

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It's a pity neither the inhabitants of this place nor the natives of Medsun do any space travelling. Much lulz could be had if the two cultures were ever to meet.

It doesn't seem like we can buy anything for the moment. I suggest exchanging 1 Fuel for 1 Tools, nothing more.

Attending a seminar shouldn't be too dangerous, even if the inhabitants of this place are dangerously paranoid.

Once we're done, I suggest going to Bugeye.
 

Kz3r0

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No trading.
No seminar, probably they would think that we are spies if we do that.
Moiran.
 

Azira

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We've already been to Moiran, Kz3r0.. That was the compulsory tutorial world. So unless you've got a plan for what we should trade for there, it seems rather pointless to return to that place for the time being. :M
 

Crooked Bee

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We've been to Moiran, true, but the tutorial railroaded us into leaving it so we still have some actions we can undertake there if you want. You can consult the OP for the list of actions available on Moiran.
 

MMXI

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1) No trading.
2) Go to the seminar.
3) Wellmet as we can trade 3 Munitions for 1 Fuel, and we have 3 Fuel!
 

Azira

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We could buy 2 tools for 1 culture if we wanted to. So far, trading one item for 2 others seem to be a good idea, but I'm not certain I want us to return to Medsun anytime soon.. :M

We should work towards getting the items required for a cargo drone-ship. That sounds highly useful. :salute: But that also means that I might have to go back on what I just said... We can trade tools for crystals on Moiran, so if we trade our 1 culture for 2 tools, we can then trade those 2 tools for 2 crystals, trade one of those crystals for 3 fuel on Para-Para and keep the second crystal. One of those fuel units could then be traded for 3 munitions on Wellmet.
In fact, Wellmet and Para-para show excellent synergy. 1 munitions buys us 2 fuel on Para-para, and 1 fuel buys us 3 munitions on Wellmet. We could alternate between these two places until we have, say 7 or 8 out of our total 10 cargo bays occupied. :smug: We'd want to leave some open for later, to-good-to-miss-out-on trading opportunities.
Too bad we've yet to find a place that trades us food.
Oh, and returning to Wellmet with fuel, we could trade 1 unit for a Laser Reflector.. :smug:
And for munitions and fuel, we can buy some Pulse inverters here on Crater.

So, should we do some interstellar trading to get those things? M: And then resume our exploration afterwards, feeling a tad more secure once we've got some personal defenses and some bling (the Pulse inverter) for our ride?

Oh, and when/if we return to Moiran, I'd say we explore these options that we neglected to do on our last visit:
  • VPKBVY (5 phases) Ask about Phase Steel.
  • F9ID7Q (5 phases) Visit the shipyard.
  • V9KDVQ (4 phases) Look for illegal arms and armor.
  • BPYB9Y (3 phases) Visit Dee's Pleasure Palace.
As to the seminar, heck yes. :salute: Science is just right up our alley! And if they get belligerent, we use our secret Mind-Bending ways and make our escape. :hero:

So, my vote is we go trading like outlined above, then we proceed to one of the known planets next, Bugeye as Erebus suggests. :bro:


EDIT: To make my vote readable:
Trade 1 culture for 2 tools.
Attend seminar.
Go to Moiran.
Trade 2 tools for 2 crystals, then
  • VPKBVY (5 phases) Ask about Phase Steel.
  • F9ID7Q (5 phases) Visit the shipyard.
  • V9KDVQ (4 phases) Look for illegal arms and armor.
  • BPYB9Y (3 phases) Visit Dee's Pleasure Palace.
Go to Wellmet.
Trade 1 fuel for 3 munitions.
Trade 1 fuel for Laser reflector.
Return to crater.
Trade 1 fuel and 1 munitions for a Pulse inverter.
Go to Bugeye.

This will leave us with additional info on Moiran and the following equipment: Laser reflector and Pulse inverter, and this cargo: 2 crystals, 2 munitions. This cuts down considerably on our planet hopping, and we can always take advantage of the fuel/munitions synergy between Wellmet and Para-para.
Depending on what the illegal market offers for trade, there might be even more interesting trinkets that we could purchase, so maybe the plan needs to be amended after visiting Moiran.
:salute:
 

Azira

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We've been to Moiran, true, but the tutorial railroaded us into leaving it so we still have some actions we can undertake there if you want. You can consult the OP for the list of actions available on Moiran.
Yeah, I realized that, but I was busy constructing the above post so I didn't change my other post. Doing so now would make your reply stand out as a bit weird, so I stand by my previous mistake. :salute:
 

MMXI

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Let's go to Wellmet and trade a Fuel for three Munitions. And then go to Bugeye. It's the best course of action considering what Bugeye trades...
 

LeStryfe79

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Let's do a combination:

- 1 culture for 2 tools.
- Seminar
- Go to Wellmet
- 1 fuel for 3 munitions
- 1 fuel for Laser Reflecter
- Go to Bugeye

1fuel, 2tools, 3munitions + LR
 

Crooked Bee

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So far, options to buy a Laser Reflector and a Pulse Inverter have come up in the comments. Let me clarify what those are exactly:

Laser Reflector: A protective shield, worn over the chest and torso, which deflects concentrated energy beams. A laser reflector is a useful defense against most energy weapons, such as blasters and ray guns. (Hand-to-Hand Defense Armor.)

Pulse Inverter: A ship defense system that reverses the direction of incoming energy beams. (Ship-to-Ship Defense Special.)​

I should also note that Boarding Robots would be a nice thing to have at some point, even if not necessarily now:

Boarding Robots: Computer-controlled attack robots that can occupy and overwhelm an opposing ship. (Ship-to-Ship Attack Contact.)

BoardingRobots.png

If you want me to clarify something else, do say so.
 

Monty

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Think we need to build up our trading stocks as we're starting to see useful hardware for sale.

So I vote for Azira's strategy. And when we find a source of food buying a drone ship here would be very useful as it would remove the need to return to planets we've already visited.
 

Azira

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I had missed that we already possess 3 units of fuel, so I'm willing to amend my proposed plan a bit. Please see my above post for details.
 

CappenVarra

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So, Azira's plan is more greedy and gets us a Pulse inverter as well as a Laser reflector? Sign me up for that!
 

LeStryfe79

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I had missed that we already possess 3 units of fuel, so I'm willing to amend my proposed plan a bit. Please see my above post for details.

Azira's plan is cool as long as Bee doesn't mind the heinously long update. All of a sudden, I feel naked without that pulse inverter. Thanks buddy! :M
 

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