Capturing the Erlking. Did I break the plot?

[Gavrushka]

I captured the Erkling without any form of fight, the ship not turning hostile during boarding. - Thing is, after the 'go away or I kill you' message, followed by the 'okay now you be deaded' one, there was nothing else. Now I've the Erkling, but can't equip it other than two medium turrets with Flak weapons. - The main battery, all the L turrets, and the remainder of the M turrets are empty, and none of the shipyards have equipment that will fit, other than shields of course.

Still, it'll make for a great XL trader, if nothing else...

[chew-ie]

I captured the Erkling without any form of fight, the ship not turning hostile during boarding. - Thing is, after the 'go away or I kill you' message, followed by the 'okay now you be deaded' one, there was nothing else. Now I've the Erkling, but can't equip it other than two medium turrets with Flak weapons. - The main battery, all the L turrets, and the remainder of the M turrets are empty, and none of the shipyards have equipment that will fit, other than shields of course.

Still, it'll make for a great XL trader, if nothing else...

There is no big plot about that ship (sadly ...). What's left now is to search 5 unique blueprints (scattered in datavaults all around the new DLC area), buy a XL equipment dock blueprint, build it - and then you are able to finally equip weapons on the ship. It's worth it though

[Gavrushka]

Ah, thank you.

Opening data vaults. My favourite waste of time...

[Repli]

Ah, thank you.

Opening data vaults. My favourite waste of time...

Opening them is the fun part of it, searching for them is... well, there are a lot threads about searching erlking data vaults/blueprints

[Alan Phipps]

It all makes perfect sense. This is probably how it goes:

VIG 1: Let's make our own dreadnaught out of scrap and recycling and dominate the protection market. Hmm, let's safeguard it from being stolen by issuing warnings if anyone approaches it and send just a few fighters (out of our massed doom fleets available) to investigate if they carry on.

VIG 2: Good idea. Hey, why don't we scatter the plans for its sub-systems in impossible-to-find vaults randomly scattered over the entire cluster of sectors, just one plan per vault. That way it becomes less attractive for hijack until we are ready to fit it out ourselves.

VIG 3: Yeah, and let's make the turrets and hardpoints so bespoke that they can only be fitted out with all the plans and a private shipyard.

VIG 4: Great. NOBODY will steal our dreadnaught now!

VIG 5 (much later): Damn you Gavrushka!

[Gavrushka]

Haha, yes, I take credit for my cunning plan...

And I haven't found a single damned data vault yet, although I was convinced I left a satellite right next to one when searching for the 'stable/unstable' anomaly. I've scouts scanning sectors now, but the Windfall ones are a bit fraught.

Damn, I hate (love) this game.

[jlehtone]

Opening them is the fun part of it, searching for them is... well, there are a lot threads about searching erlking data vaults/blueprints

You youngters. In our time vaults were harder to ping and if you did found one, you never did mark it on the map. Now your fancy maps show what you have seen.

I captured the Erkling without any form of fight, the ship not turning hostile during boarding. - Thing is, after the 'go away or I kill you' message, followed by the 'okay now you be deaded' one, there was nothing else.

That was very disappointing. I had got the "go away" message much earlier, when I simply visited the station nearby. I did "go away" back then and the VIG apparently counted that as "done for good".

For the actual boarding I did approach the ship right after I had "shown force" to some VIG to the effect that they were referring to "Don jlehtone".
I happened to have only heavy torps on my ship -- no gun -- and no way to make Erlking angry. I definitely did want to demolish elements from it and dent the hull too for quicker breach. Had to swap to a better ship. I was there for a fight, but the VIG were not.

[chew-ie]

Opening them is the fun part of it, searching for them is... well, there are a lot threads about searching erlking data vaults/blueprints

You youngters. In our time vaults were harder to ping and if you did found one, you never did mark it on the map. Now your fancy maps show what you have seen.

Indeed, back in the days [when rubber boots were made out of wood*] .. it was a lot more tedious

*german saying

[Gavrushka]

Indeed, back in the days [when rubber boots were made out of wood*] .. it was a lot more tedious

*german saying

Well, it's pretty tedious now, but that might be me misusing these new-fangled devices like long-range scanners. I've done the whole of the sector I found the Irksome Erlking in, and have found no vaults... I started in the outermost reaches, travelling 50 km or so at a time, before doing a 360 scan, but nothing. Worked all the way to the centre, and not a single purple ping to be had...

[Starlight_Corporation]

Indeed, back in the days [when rubber boots were made out of wood*] .. it was a lot more tedious

*german saying

Well, it's pretty tedious now, but that might be me misusing these new-fangled devices like long-range scanners. I've done the whole of the sector I found the Irksome Erlking in, and have found no vaults... I started in the outermost reaches, travelling 50 km or so at a time, before doing a 360 scan, but nothing. Worked all the way to the centre, and not a single purple ping to be had...

They can be in any ToA sector. Mine turned out to be concentrated in just two sectors (the last two I looked....). To help you further, they show up pretty far visually, so you can safely travel 100 km before going on another scan round.

[Gavrushka]

I'd not realised the scanning range was so large, so that helps a great deal. - And I've just found my first data vault and now have the 'L' turret blueprints. If I'd not read your post, I'd have immediately headed to a different sector, so thank you.

[LameFox]

It all makes perfect sense. This is probably how it goes:

VIG 1: Let's make our own dreadnaught out of scrap and recycling and dominate the protection market. Hmm, let's safeguard it from being stolen by issuing warnings if anyone approaches it and send just a few fighters (out of our massed doom fleets available) to investigate if they carry on.

VIG 2: Good idea. Hey, why don't we scatter the plans for its sub-systems in impossible-to-find vaults randomly scattered over the entire cluster of sectors, just one plan per vault. That way it becomes less attractive for hijack until we are ready to fit it out ourselves.

VIG 3: Yeah, and let's make the turrets and hardpoints so bespoke that they can only be fitted out with all the plans and a private shipyard.

VIG 4: Great. NOBODY will steal our dreadnaught now!

VIG 5 (much later): Damn you Gavrushka!

IIRC it was RIP who made it, but VIG confiscated it before it was finished and couldn't figure out how to put turrets on it. So now it sits there, doing ??? until the player comes along and borrows it.

[Alan Phipps]

That seems entirely plausible too, although why they (RIP or VIG) would then hide system plans in the territory of their rival for the ship is beyond me.

Maybe it was supposed to be a joint venture that went sour.

[Starlight_Corporation]

The lore on the Erlking is all over the place, the ship was made by an engineer group on Tidebreak to have a mobile base that could withstand the tide, but they abandoned it before it was finished (the engineer group also vanished after, working on an undisclosed project). Riptide took it over & tried to find ways to make it work to defend themselves as it could survive the tides. But when the gates opened & VIG came into the picture, the VIG confiscated it for 'safekeeping' because they didn't want such dangerous ship in the hands of the Riptide Rakers. VIG tried to find ways to arm it, but to no avail, so it got stored in Keepsafe till someone stole it by Boron suggestion.

Haven't found any lore about the datavaults tho. Might be a Riptide thing, hiding the stuff so VIG couldn't have a fully operational battleship.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Gavrushka: You see how educational that little misunderstanding turned out in the end?

[Gavrushka]

@ Gavrushka: You see how educational that little misunderstanding turned out in the end?

I've come to the conclusion ignorance is my happy place.

But, yes, I feel educated...