S.O.S.

[HateSolstice]

So, I was thinking that this game was sort of missing something as far as random encounters go. Sure, we have pirates, military ships, smugglers, aliens, etc. But what about distress calls?

One scenario could easily be a ship that is having some sort of trouble, albeit exhaustion of water-fuel and food stuffs, overheated core reactors, excessive ice build-up on the sails, dead thrusters, etc. Stopping to check it out could be profitable in multiple ways, depending on your class and faction.

Another option could be that the distress beacon is a decoy. Some sort of trouble could arise, and now you're in deep ether and possibly low on supplies yourself.

[Damaso]

That'd be perfect! It'd be exciting to go out to "rescue" a crew that was holding onto life's last thread, drinking their own urine - sterilizing feces just for sustenance, only to BLAST EM OUT OF THE ...erm...space...WITH A TORP!

[slayernz]

Yeah, but everyone knows you never actually GO to those SOS distress beacons that are way out in the middle of nowhere. I mean think of any movie where a team went in assistance of a garbled distress signal on a remote location:
Alien
Aliens
Event Horizon
Doom (that pitiful excuse of a movie)
Sunshine
...

In every instance i can think of, you either wake up with something eating you, bursting out of your chest, chasing you, infecting you, mutating you, or wearing you as a hat.

A crew responding to a weird distress signal is the same as an archeological team that is about to open that thing that has been sealed for thousands of years. You know, the one that is surrounded by pictographs denoting plagues and the end of world. We've have enough end-of-world stuff for this weekend

[HateSolstice]

XD Fair enough. Still, you'd think at least once that S.O.S. call wasn't some snarky face-wearing Hannibal Lector.

[slayernz]

I guess in old Star Wars, there was the "Help me Obi Wan" message. But that was sent by the good guys and not some unknown unseen team. Still, it has to count as a potential "Yes, going to an SOS was a good thing". Except of course poor Luke discovered it was his sister that he was rescuing, which made the Nerf Herder the only candidate - unless Leia liked Wookies that is ...

[darkmonk]

Happened in Star Trek numerous times; various captains were saved by young Shilliam Watner, hatless though he was. And in the end all were grateful.

Besides, maybe one time you'd show up to a mysterious S.O.S. signal of a ship carrying all of the female refugees from the doomed world of Sarlon V, where the jungle world's massive amounts of humidity kept the local populace from ever discovering modest clothing.
Great success.

[sebastian]

Lets not forget the distress call that eventually led to Khan and the eventual destruction of enterprise-a


"from hells heart i spit at thee..." or was it "from hells heart I show you theee fantastic hats!"

I was thknking about distress calls, it could be fun. Selling some hapless out of .luck crew some W-F at a jacked up rate, or towing them to the neared Javat Rango dealership...

[oldalchemist]

Maybe give an option to send out your own distress call...

Rescue missions could also be given as contracts.

[slayernz]

Yeah we talked about that Old Alchy - isn't that the old Pirate bait beacon?

"To all pirates out there, help me, I've got a broken down merchant ship run by a crew of nubile virgins, carrying 60 units of records (Hat Fancier Black edition). Please rescue us as soon as you can as our life support system is malfunctioning and it is getting too hot to wear clothes ..."

[phantum]

I thought SOS calls were only for pirates that were too cheap to spend money on fuel...

Seriously, it would make a change from the usual notifications of space sickness. An encounter you can choose to respond to, it may be a hoax (pirate/alien), or else give them some kind of help in the form of water/fuel, metals, crew ... or just get a contract for transporting crew to the nearest planet (or maybe their home faction). In return you would get RP with that faction, maybe the slim chance of a reward ...

Mainly this would be a reputation thing though. "sure he nuked our home planet last year, but he did bring our goldfish home alive when the crew were going to drink it... so lets forgive and forget"

[oldalchemist]

Yeah, but if you don't have a pirate hunting permit, and you get caught by a warship who deviated course to save you...expect an invoice for the time spent 'rescuing' you.

[slayernz]

What if you blow up the warship that came to 'rescue' you? I mean to say, what the authorities don't know won't cost me right?

[phantum]

With your new radio jammer upgrade no one need ever know what you do again... especially if you are an explorer and the crew never see a second spice hall.

[oldalchemist]

Oh, man phantum! Space Radio Jammer!
How cool would that be for a pirate or a bounty hunter?

Also, you don't need to be an Explorer to leave a chunk of crew in a cave somewhere, often, folks who are terrible at exploring have almost a second sense about how to push 23 scurvy dogs into a magma rift. Oops!

Failing that, I'm pretty sure that the erotic space jugglers mindwipe everyone they capture.