Scott Tortorice
Senior Member
But where to find them? I knew they were in Merope, but which planet? Time to consult Canonn Research Group to learn all I could about "barnacles" and the meta-alloys they spawn! My research didn't take long - best of all, it made for interesting reading! - and soon I understood these alien things better. What is more, I also ascertained a likely location for my harvesting efforts: Merope 5C. I figured if Sirius Corp. came all the way out here to Merope, I should focus my efforts on the planets in this system as there was probably a high likelihood of finding exactly what I wanted. Merope 5C had three reported sites, so that was my target.
First target: Lat: -26.3515 Long: -156.4056
I brought ol' Fitzcarraldo in close to the surface to see what I could see:
I confess that the presence of such a massive warship was comforting as I drove around in my lil' fragile rover.
Notice the shadow cast by the battle cruiser!
The terrain looked too difficult for my SRV to descent on its own, so I motored back to Fitzcarraldo and flew down into the valley. I soon spotted the location that the battlecruiser was guarding.
Spotted it through the bottom left of my canopy
Or, maybe not?
I soon discovered I had a problem. This might be an actual alien barnacle, but there was no meta-alloys to harvest! I blasted away with the SRVs cannon but nothing dropped. Frustrating. I motored around the site, investigating and blasting, but it yielded me zippo for the effort. Eventually, I gave up and left, especially once the battlecruiser lost patience with my prodding and ordered me out of the area. It even deployed a wing of vessels to scare me off!
Time to move on, I guess.
My next target was Lat: 8.3379 Long: -96.1337
But more frustration met me here. I scoured the site from above but found nothing worth investigating, just lots of rugged terrain.
My last hope: Lat: -28.245 Long: -109.5219
I landed nearby and started exploring with my SRV. Using the wave scanner, I detected an odd, distant signal that seemed promising. Frankly, I knew I had hit paydirt when I discovered that shadowy valley that absolutely gave me the creeps!
Well, not quite. Again.
It took some trial and error, but I discovered that there are two types of pods that you can harvest: the more plentiful small pods, and the juicer big pods. It's the big ones I wanted as only they have the precious meta-alloys in them. The rest just yield ordinally mineral concentrations. So, it turned out in this big field there were only TWO meta-alloy pods. I just needed one, so good enough. I took the two and got out of that creepy valley. I was glad to leave its shadow behind me.
Fitzcarraldo was a welcome site as I brought the goods home.
All I knew for sure, is that now I needed to start heading all the way home. According to my calculations, that will involve almost 80 jumps!
Here I go again. Back to living on the Edge.
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