My wish for a better ship from the last post is immediately granted when I head to the ship dealer and buy my first heavy fighter. This doesn’t obviously handle any differently from every other ship which begs the question what the distinction is between heavy and light fighters. It does allow for 6 guns simultaneously which certainly gives me more punch in combat and I’ve soon raised the money to get called back for the next story mission.

Junko (with the aid of the Blood Dragons) has found out that a senior figure is going to defect to Rheinland taking the Proteus Tome with him. We have to fly off to intercept the transport which is currently in dock.

I’m tasked with taking out the weapons platforms around the base which don’t last long at all with my extra gun turrets. It’s the shortest and easiest story mission in some time in fact and we capture the transport and fly off with it to the fabled secret base of the Blood Dragons.

Nothing is ever simple though. Our information was wrong and neither the Senator or Tome were on the ship. While the others try to find out more, I’m left to my own devices once again. I notice that this new base has loads of fancy equipment which I’m one level too low to buy. 3 or 4 mercenary missions later and I’ve advanced enough to get a new shield and some level 6 guns.

In the bar I’m told that we have located the Senator at his fortified base which we are going to attack. I find out via the comms while flying over that Juni considers this a suicide run and given how my first attempt at it went, she may well be right.

The fortified base is a huge arch on an even bigger asteroid. I make it close and I’m tasked with docking with it. I haven’t quite figured out my tactics here though as I have to destroy 4 shield generators first and there are hordes of fighters around. I think I probably ought to thin out the fighters first rather than the suicidal assault I attempted. Suffice to say I get blown up and decided to come back and try this again tomorrow.

While I’m posting, I have to mention the Elite Dangerous Kickstarter that just launched in the last day or two. It’s a curious Kickstarter in that there is nothing in the incentives for any of the tiers that I would actually want except the already sold out £5,000 top level. There is also precious little detail about what the game will be so the whole basis as far as I can tell is are there enough people who liked Elite (and have maybe forgotten about it’s sequels) to raise £1.25 million for a new one. Looking at the total race up the answer could well be a resounding yes.I’ll certainly be putting some money in but not nearly as much as if there was more to go on or even just a level with a boxed version. I am without a doubt a sucker for games in cardboard boxes but at least the lack of that option will stop me spending money I should be saving for Christmas.