I had one of the best nights of gaming in my life last night, as a Fuel Rat. Let me explain...
I joined the Fuel Rats a few days ago. The Fuel Rats are a voluntary group of players in Elite Dangerous that drop everything in game and fly to the rescue of pilots that find themselves out of fuel in the deep black of space. Those pilots have two choices, Call someone to bring them fuel or die. The Fuel Rats will bring anyone fuel, free of charge.
I signed in to the Fuel Rats IRC and made myself available, essentially putting myself on call. If the call comes then I drop everything and fly to the aid of a stranded pilot. I got the call after an hour or so of trading, A pilot was stranded in the ICZ HH-U B3-2 system and in need of fuel. I entered the system in to my navigation panel. I'm almost 200 light years from the client. Not an extreme distance but it would be 12 hyperjumps in my meagre hauler ship (I call her The Bobcat). I inform dispatch that I'm 12 jumps from the client, thinking someone else would surely be closer. As it turns out I was the only commander available for Xbox universe rescues at that time and am given the go-ahead. I start on my journey to the client while dispatch walks him through the process he must take for us to connect. I receive a friend request from the client, not long after a request from him to join his wing. Once in his wing he can broadcast his position to me.
I arrive in the system and establish voice communications with CMDR GKRISIS, the client. We both get connection errors and upon signing back in we are unable to wing up again. We try everything we can think of but without that wing beacon there is no way for me to reliably find him. He has a great idea of meeting at the furthest planet in the system, being near enough to it that he wont use too much reserve fuel getting there. There is a problem with this idea though. My ship is outfitted for fuel rescue only, I have no discovery scanner so I only know where the main star of the system is. Being an explorer, he has a scanner, scanning the galaxy and trading what information he finds for credits. Being an unexplored system, I have no knowledge of any other celestial bodies here. Once CMDR KGRISIS sells that information, Anyone can know what is here. With the star being the only point of reference we both have, He decides to take a chance and fly to it. His fuel reserves are empty so he's essentially running on fumes at this point. If he looses too much fuel travelling all his systems will shut down, including life support, giving him mere minutes to survive. After taking the few minutes to supercruise his way to the star we try again. To our frustration, still nothing. He tells me to forget about it and will just self destruct and re-buy his ship. I refused to give up, Telling him I'll try one last thing before calling for extra help. I gave my system a hard reboot. Unplugging it from power completely and re logging in to the server. It worked! We made contact, winged up and he activated his wing beacon. I dropped in on his position prepared to refuel him. He was so close to the star, much closer than I was comfortable with. My ship isn't equipped to take this kind of heat. I won't take any damage until I jump back into supercruise again though so there was no point worrying about that yet. As soon as I was in range, I lock on to his ship, an Eagle, and program the first limpet for transfer "programming limpet" the computer informs me. The limpet launches and attaches to his ship. ! tonne of fuel succesfully transfered. He no longer has to worry about losing life support. Due to the connection issues we lost voice communications. I get on my keyboard and ask how big his tank is. the reply, "4 tonnes". I launch 3 more limpets and he's full. He thanks me and asks if there's a way to transfer credits as repayment. I tell him not to worry about it, just pass the info on the Fuel rats along. I end with "fly safe CMDR" and he jumps to the nearest system with a dock, for repairs.
Getting ready to return home satisfied with a job well done on my first call, I get another call for help. This time the stranded pilot was only 2 jumps away in the Hoandcar system. I notify dispatch and get on my way.
The first thing I have to do is refuel, I just transfered all my fuel to CMDR GKRISIS. No problem, I have a fuel scoop fitted so I can just scoop fuel from the star I'm nest to. I launch into supercruise to begin scooping. Crap! warning singnals start going off, "caution, temperatures critical" beep beep beep, "taking heat damage". I knew I was too close to the star for my ship to handle. I angle away from the star, "module damaged" I check the info panel and see that my cargo hatch is destroyed and immediatly see the white pips on my radar telling me there is cargo floating loose in space. My remaining fuel limpets have been ejected from my ship and are heading for the star. not long after my power distributor goes out on me. Finally I get to a safe distance from the star and start cooling down.
I inform dispatch on my troubles and my need to dock for repairs and to restock my limpets. I make for the nearest outpost, after 10 minutes of travel I dock and repair. No the problem is restocking my limpets. This dock doesn't have any available. I plot for the next station, a bigger one this time and get moving there. As I get closer I see the station is orbiting a massive gas giant. This planet has such a large gravity well that I have to slow to a crawl approaching the station. after another 20 minutes of travel I finally dock and am able to restock. I inform dispatch and replot my course for the Hoandcar system. Jump, realign, jump. I'm in the system. CMDR DevilishCrowe and I go through the procedure to meet up. Friend request received, wing request received, wing beacon spotted, drop from supercruise. It all worked perfectly. I target the ship and launch the first limpet drone. Fuel transfer complete. I launch the remaining 3 and the client is good to go. I apologize for the delay and wish him a good day. He thanks me and prepares to jump to a port to refuel completely, 4 tonnes being small potatoes for his massive ship. Before he completes his charge to jump I message him with the customary farwell from a fuel rat.
"fly safe CMDR"
he vanishes into hyperspace. another job well done. I sit quietly for a few moment and contemplate everything that just happened. Time to do the paper work and take a break.
What a night.
I joined the Fuel Rats a few days ago. The Fuel Rats are a voluntary group of players in Elite Dangerous that drop everything in game and fly to the rescue of pilots that find themselves out of fuel in the deep black of space. Those pilots have two choices, Call someone to bring them fuel or die. The Fuel Rats will bring anyone fuel, free of charge.
I signed in to the Fuel Rats IRC and made myself available, essentially putting myself on call. If the call comes then I drop everything and fly to the aid of a stranded pilot. I got the call after an hour or so of trading, A pilot was stranded in the ICZ HH-U B3-2 system and in need of fuel. I entered the system in to my navigation panel. I'm almost 200 light years from the client. Not an extreme distance but it would be 12 hyperjumps in my meagre hauler ship (I call her The Bobcat). I inform dispatch that I'm 12 jumps from the client, thinking someone else would surely be closer. As it turns out I was the only commander available for Xbox universe rescues at that time and am given the go-ahead. I start on my journey to the client while dispatch walks him through the process he must take for us to connect. I receive a friend request from the client, not long after a request from him to join his wing. Once in his wing he can broadcast his position to me.
I arrive in the system and establish voice communications with CMDR GKRISIS, the client. We both get connection errors and upon signing back in we are unable to wing up again. We try everything we can think of but without that wing beacon there is no way for me to reliably find him. He has a great idea of meeting at the furthest planet in the system, being near enough to it that he wont use too much reserve fuel getting there. There is a problem with this idea though. My ship is outfitted for fuel rescue only, I have no discovery scanner so I only know where the main star of the system is. Being an explorer, he has a scanner, scanning the galaxy and trading what information he finds for credits. Being an unexplored system, I have no knowledge of any other celestial bodies here. Once CMDR KGRISIS sells that information, Anyone can know what is here. With the star being the only point of reference we both have, He decides to take a chance and fly to it. His fuel reserves are empty so he's essentially running on fumes at this point. If he looses too much fuel travelling all his systems will shut down, including life support, giving him mere minutes to survive. After taking the few minutes to supercruise his way to the star we try again. To our frustration, still nothing. He tells me to forget about it and will just self destruct and re-buy his ship. I refused to give up, Telling him I'll try one last thing before calling for extra help. I gave my system a hard reboot. Unplugging it from power completely and re logging in to the server. It worked! We made contact, winged up and he activated his wing beacon. I dropped in on his position prepared to refuel him. He was so close to the star, much closer than I was comfortable with. My ship isn't equipped to take this kind of heat. I won't take any damage until I jump back into supercruise again though so there was no point worrying about that yet. As soon as I was in range, I lock on to his ship, an Eagle, and program the first limpet for transfer "programming limpet" the computer informs me. The limpet launches and attaches to his ship. ! tonne of fuel succesfully transfered. He no longer has to worry about losing life support. Due to the connection issues we lost voice communications. I get on my keyboard and ask how big his tank is. the reply, "4 tonnes". I launch 3 more limpets and he's full. He thanks me and asks if there's a way to transfer credits as repayment. I tell him not to worry about it, just pass the info on the Fuel rats along. I end with "fly safe CMDR" and he jumps to the nearest system with a dock, for repairs.
Getting ready to return home satisfied with a job well done on my first call, I get another call for help. This time the stranded pilot was only 2 jumps away in the Hoandcar system. I notify dispatch and get on my way.
The first thing I have to do is refuel, I just transfered all my fuel to CMDR GKRISIS. No problem, I have a fuel scoop fitted so I can just scoop fuel from the star I'm nest to. I launch into supercruise to begin scooping. Crap! warning singnals start going off, "caution, temperatures critical" beep beep beep, "taking heat damage". I knew I was too close to the star for my ship to handle. I angle away from the star, "module damaged" I check the info panel and see that my cargo hatch is destroyed and immediatly see the white pips on my radar telling me there is cargo floating loose in space. My remaining fuel limpets have been ejected from my ship and are heading for the star. not long after my power distributor goes out on me. Finally I get to a safe distance from the star and start cooling down.
I inform dispatch on my troubles and my need to dock for repairs and to restock my limpets. I make for the nearest outpost, after 10 minutes of travel I dock and repair. No the problem is restocking my limpets. This dock doesn't have any available. I plot for the next station, a bigger one this time and get moving there. As I get closer I see the station is orbiting a massive gas giant. This planet has such a large gravity well that I have to slow to a crawl approaching the station. after another 20 minutes of travel I finally dock and am able to restock. I inform dispatch and replot my course for the Hoandcar system. Jump, realign, jump. I'm in the system. CMDR DevilishCrowe and I go through the procedure to meet up. Friend request received, wing request received, wing beacon spotted, drop from supercruise. It all worked perfectly. I target the ship and launch the first limpet drone. Fuel transfer complete. I launch the remaining 3 and the client is good to go. I apologize for the delay and wish him a good day. He thanks me and prepares to jump to a port to refuel completely, 4 tonnes being small potatoes for his massive ship. Before he completes his charge to jump I message him with the customary farwell from a fuel rat.
"fly safe CMDR"
he vanishes into hyperspace. another job well done. I sit quietly for a few moment and contemplate everything that just happened. Time to do the paper work and take a break.
What a night.
