Parental Advisory: Vector Thrust Session 5 "Walkabout" Alex Goodwin 01 Jul 2020 16:42 UTC

Herr Sweep dug up this little tidbit re: a ship jumping:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/612927701258469378/724581075158040576/jump.gif

This session was a fair bit of a grind - scan, jump, scan some more,
refuel, jump out, mosh, rinse, grow hair, repeat.

After the crew spent nearly a week chasing down tastier critters than
murderbird to fill the Paradise's larder with, it was time for Operation
Galvanise (Push The Button).

Preliminary sensor operations in low orbit of Paradise Landing confirmed
that yes, the sensor problems had been resolved.

Jumping out to Alpha Crucis 0639 was routine, as was gathering more
sensor data with the new-and-improved sensor suite.  Badass-Moustache
got lucky and rumbled the mainworld some detail - place was great, but
lacked some atmosphere.

En route to the "mainworld", they had found yet another water world
(hydro 9 - not sure about the halibut).

Rosa put them down on a fairly calm patch of ocean with the Objective
Interim Moustache Support System handling the fine detail.  About
halfway through, a piddling little storm (low-end hypercane) blew up out
of seemingly nowhere.  El Capitane tried to command the storm to bugger
off - to no effect other than player lulz.

Rosa didn't quite make the piloting roll, and, like a red rock getting
chucked into the Yellow Sea, Jim got very wet.

"Don't let it take anything with it" - El Capitane
"Anything that _does_ fit out the airlock is _vital_." - El Capitane

"Here we are - in the 22nd century, the British seaman is still standing
in the rain hauling a lump of canvas.  The progress of half a bloody
millennium!" - Eddles
"The old ways are the best" - Wombat, to much lulz

Jim hauled the pipage in and worried about drying out the airlock he had
been using later.

El Capitane channeled Foul Ole Ron, and in a case of "BUGGRIT,
MILLENNIUM HAND AND SHRIMP" ordered Rosa to skim the hypercane, on the
grounds the winds were _less_ hazardous than inside a gas giant.

"I'm willing to take that risk with your lives.  Remember swirly bit
bad, and go." - El Capitane

Rosa's luck held true, and she didn't quite make either the
skim-hypercane or the recovery-from-stuffing-up-the-skim roll.

"Congratulations, Rosa, you've caused the horizon to have an epileptic
fit." - Me

After managing to regain control - the ship had been spat out the eye of
the storm at a great rate of vertical knots - Rosa puts down on another,
calmer, patch of ocean to finish refuelling.

Drake decided to jump blind to Alpha Crucis 0540 - I imposed
disadvantage on his astroguessing roll.  Drake and Rosa just barely made
their rolls to get Das Boot into jump, while Nikki took (her margin of
success) up to 11.

Captain spent jump finishing Persuade 0.  Nikki finished up Science
(Physics) 1.

The Paradise emerged from jump in Alpha Crucis 0540 near an outsystem
ice giant.

"Just remember, skimming, not plowing." - El Capitane
"We are doing _stupid_" - Herr Sweep

To universal surprise, Rosa not only decided to skim the deeps, but
managed to drop in successfully. A mere hour sufficed to top fuel tanks up.

The exit was a little less smooth - something about 5 points of hull damage.

"Again?" - Nikki

El Capitane ordered a near-blind jump to Alpha Crucis 0339 and Das Boot
ended up in the far outsystem.  The two weeks it took to reach the
nearest ice giant were put to good use with a full system scan.

En route, Rosa picked up Pilot (spacecraft) 2.  I gave her one study
period towards Pilot 3 from accumulated experience.

"In deep space, comet find YOU!" - El Capitane

Cloudtop skimming finished without notable incident (the coffee maker
backing up did not count), and Badass-Moustache got on with casing Alpha
Crucis 0139 from long range.

To much surprise, 3 days later, they had a full system map, including
rogue bodies (rock out with the boxcars out).  It certainly confused the
blazes out of Herr Sweep.

In best not-quite-AMCW style, Das Boot proceeded to 0139's mainworld. 
Another soggy rockball, ocean refuelling was (once they got around to
the day side) without incident.

Casing Alpha Crucis 0137 from long range took a week, only managing to
identify stellar bodies and a single giant planet.  Onwards to Solomani
Rim 3136...

Badass-Moustache started the remote scanning of Solomani Rim 3035 on
emergence, keeping going during the 2 days on approach to aforementioned
planet until some clown put a bloody great big ball of gas between him
and his target system.

Rosa skimmed the shallows this time, topping up in 4 hours.  Her first
attempt at exiting didn't go quite so well but she managed to avoid
further damage.  Second time was the charm.

Badass-Moustache hadn't quite finished his remote scanning when the
Paradise reached the 100D limit.  He needed a further two days to
produce a reasonable map, locating stars, giant planets, rocky planets,
and planetoid belts (including a roughly-Terra-like planet). 

Jump outbound to the possible Terra-like planet had Nikki yet again
taking her margin of success up to 11.

A closer shufti moved things even closer to Terra - ~60% ocean coverage,
11,200 km diameter, standard atmosphere.

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