January Community Challenge - The Collector (Star Traders)

[slayernz]

New challenge starting Monday 13 January, finishing Sunday 19 January.

The Collector
Objective - collect at least one flag ship from each faction in the quickest time possible.

On the face of it, this seems a very straight forward challenge, but there are a number of aspects that need to be considered.
1) What is the fastest way to get to rank 17 (needed before Flagship becomes visible)
2) How do I manage RP - because getting to Rank 17 quickly means you're going to be standing on someone's toes
3) How do I fund my challenge? You're going to need lots of cash. This is because the flagships aren't cheap, and buying your way to rank 17 is also not pocket change.

Challenge ends as soon as you have purchased your last flagship.

Two levels/classes of challenge. The Compulsive Collector plays at Crazy difficulty. The Enthusiast Collector plays at Demanding difficulty.


Rules

1. No starting conditions - you can be any faction, any captain class
2. Apart from the starting ship and the 6 flagships, you are only permitted to have ONE other ship. That means at the end of the game, your score should show you have owned a maximum of 8 ships.
3. Once you have acquired your first flagship, you must use that ship from that point on until you acquire your next flagship (then you must use that ship, etc). You cannot fly any other ship other than the flagship you have most recently acquired.
4. No selling ships - you can't trade them in to save money - you have to buy them outright and keep them
5. If you die after level 15, then that's it, game over. Until then, you can restart as often as you like
6. Two levels/classes of challenge. The Compulsive Collector plays at Crazy difficulty. The Enthusiast Collector plays at Demanding difficulty.
   [li]We're all about trust here, but if you are bored, screenshots can be used to show turns played and your ships owned. Flagships also appear in ship logs, so in the very rare case of dispute, you can screenshot the log entries. Disputes have never happened before though
   

Scoring
(10,000 - turns played) + (sum of all military ranks x 10) + (Flagships owned x 1000)
If you die before you acquire flagship #6, then it will be as if you died on turn 10,000. All other scoring remains valid.

So obviously faster you do it, the more you get. There is a bonus for having high military ranks at the end of the challenge too. You're going to have at least have rank 17 with one faction, but will you have it for other factions too?

Example 1.
You manage to secure your last flagship by turn 6743, and the sum of the ranks of all 6 factions is 31
=(10000 - 6743) + (31 x 10) + (6 x 1000)
=3257 + 310 + 6000
=9567

Example 2.
You die after securing 2 flagships, with sum of ranks = 27
=(10,000 - 10,000) + (27 x 10) + (2 x 1000)
= 0 + 270 + 2000
= 2270

Good luck ... and may the Pretzels be ever not overly salted ...

As usual, this thread is for all the action - sign up below, regale us with your successes/failure here. There is a discussion thread for more general conversations about the challenge including requests to tweak the rules if they don't seem right.

The discussion thread is found here:
startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/6335/january-community-challenge-collector-discussion

[contributor]

Nigel Gildenbelt XVII the son of an aristocratic military family of the House Thulun, will be setting out on his own to chart a new course in the world. Rather than suck on the on the silver spoon he was born with, he will make his own fortune and then blow it all on impulsive buys of unnecessary rank and oversized ships. He is definitely a Complusive Collector!

[slayernz]

I'll obviously be in ... Since I have to be nice to Steel Song sometime or rather, I'm going to introduce Glurk the Stoopid, Steel Song pirate. Glurk the Stoopid is son of the late Glom the Groupie, a Steel Song Merchant that lost his life trying to evade the Great Blockade above Xeen Prime.
Glurk didn't inherit much - but as with most enthusiastic but rather dim-witted fellows, he feels that he wants to have the biggest of everything because "big = great" and of course everyone knows "great = success" and "success = not dying above Xeen Prime".

As Stupid as Glurk the Stoopid is, he is still a Compulsive Collector

[boeu]

Ill give it a go with Pondus Cruor. Flying for Rychart. Lead spy for the quadrant. He'll try for the compulsive, fool, may his behind survive for a change. Kleptomania is a bad bad habit

[ntsheep]

I once managed to come close to this before. I got a new phone for Christmas and since I have not been able to transfer my old data this could be a fun way of starting over. I'll give it go.

[Lesleyr]

I'm in. Captain Hornblower will play De Valtos on crazy.

[josephbonkers]

Well now doesnt THIS sound interesting!
New to the boards but I generally play on insane
Gobo the Greenie was small and wimpie
To show he was the best and beat all the rest
Having watched Pokemon in days bygone
To collect them all! Then he would stand tall!
To complete his quest and be the best
A merchants gold, he would need to hold
A slave of Javat, born of a savant
Some say he was crazy, others claim he is just lazy
Flying in his Danti, stolen from his sweet antie
Onward! To ships be bold! Here his story be told...

^-^ I had fun with that, but what the heck rhymes with Javat???
I figure that the star trader would be a good choice, for the 15% discount on ships or the military officer for the 20% discount on promotions, but I settled for the merchant

[slayernz]

6 Intrepid collectors, braving the challenges of the quadrant to collect the finest, most important starships of the faction's military. It's not too late to add your name to the roster ... and see how you fare against other nutcases

[stattis]

I'll give it a go. Military Captain Herc for Cadar Syndicate.

[ntsheep]

here is 3 photos, more to come.

[ntsheep]

more photos

[ntsheep]

Let me know if you need any other screen shots. Good luck to everyone else.

[boeu]

Nice job ntsheep.
I still cant get my first lol

[fallen]

Go team!

[slayernz]

ntsheep fantastic job!!! So quick too - ladies and gentlemen, we have a benchmark!