I've got some ships for us, Admiral AntiSqueaker. I've got some ways I think that we'll be able to use them too.
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So, for #4, the stealing the whole ship bit, I recommend that we use a Crucible. It's big enough to house a boarding party and has a large garage in the back for housing lots of Dragonflies or other things we might need. If we capture a ship and we damage anything on that ship, the Crucible can repair it. If we have an extra engine aboard, then we can repair that too, which will make our escape faster, rather than just limping away. If it's not worth repairing, then we can use the Crucible to strip the weapons off of the ship easily so we can loot those too. The Crucible can hold a Hornet in its garage, so when there's no ship back there it can hold a Hornet's worth of stolen cargo. If any of the fighters get hurt or need to be rearmed, then the Crucible can do that too. Since Cutlasses have tractor beams, then they can help move cargo to the Crucible. Since it opens up like a giant bucket, then it's easy to just throw stuff in quickly, like the Caterpillar, and scram. Just my thought.
I've got us a Reclaimer for #2 as well.
I think that we can also use the Polaris to carry loot in the hangar, but it's going to be much more costly than a Crucible. Though... the Polaris does have those nice guns and torpedoes and it's basically the big bad Aurora... so maybe it's more fitting for TEST to use. If we need a bigger flagship, then I've got an IDRIS-P. Lots of people are thinking about how they can use an IDRIS for battle and I'm just thinking about how much loot I can stuff in the thing with an empty hangar. The IDRIS-P is supposed to be faster than the M because it doesn't have the railgun but it also has increased storage space because of that. The STS weapons are missing, though I plan on getting some of those put back on at some point. ASA weapons are good enough for escorts anyways.
Large capital ships and the Crucible would probably make a good ship to hide in some asteroids in a system. Instead of trying to make it back all the way to the jump point (which people might think that you are going after you make a grab), it might be best to go to another place and get some repairs, off load the cargo to regain your nimbleness, and then just make a break for the jump point after things have cooled down a bit. We'll have to see if it's better to bust through with a larger fleet that is ready to break through a blockade or if it's better to just filter out one by one.
The benefit of the IDRIS is that it's a mobile base of operations, even without the railgun. Since the Sabre fits in there, I'm guessing that the Cutlass might too, even after the rework. It's going to be tight on the sides but the roof is tall enough. I think that the IDRIS can make repairs to fighters while inside. If it can't, then I'll have that little repair Argo and we can just fly it out to the Cutlass. The cutlass can throw it's cargo into the IDRIS with its tractor beams and go. With an IDRIS just sitting somewhere hidden in a system, it's not using fuel. So the only major cost will be NPCs, though if we have a skeleton crew running it and we have a good flow of Testie pirates running in and out as needed, then maybe having less of a crew on board may not be a bad thing since we'll have more people that we can add to it nearby. NPCs probably won't bother it but nosy players might. We just need to make sure that no one gets followed back.
Let me know if you can think of anything else. I might turn that Herald into a Starfarer Gemini, but I might have to wait till the summer. I have an Aquila to Gemini CCU, I just don't have the money for a Herald to Aquila CCU, ha.
Let us know what resources you need and maybe we can pirate those supplies as well. Turning stolen cargo into new product is a good way to filter and clean items.
