Space Traders Flight Training Manual Part 1

INTRODUCTORY DATA

Welcome aboard this Cobra Mk III trading and combat craft. The ship has been supplied to you by Faulcon deLacy Spaceways, by arrangement with the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds whose Space and Interstellar Pilot’s Exams you have just successfully completed. The small flight manual supplied with the craft is designed to familiarize you with all aspects of space flight, combat and trading, and we hope that it will be of use to you.

You begin your career, your ship equipped with a single forward-firing pulse laser, 3 homing missiles, 7 light years of fuel, and the sum of 100 Credits (CR), ready to embark from a space station in orbit around the planet Lave.

The Cobra Mk III is the best of the medium-range, medium capacity fighter- traders, and is an ideal ship for new traders intent on building their fortunes, or new combateers who will constantly need to finance the cost of both armaments and non-combative equipment.

The ship is highly maneuverable, has a good C-holding factor during hyperspace transit, can hold sufficient Quirium H-fuel for a 7-light-year single jump and has full Auto Trading Systems Link for use at space stations. Further, it is protected by Dual Zieman Energy Deflection Shields, powered by 4 energy banks, and has a powerful, rapid-fire pulse laser mounted on the forward hull segment. Flight controls and elegant and simple, and ThruSpace GravDistort communications systems. Its life support functions are varied and flexible to ensure maximum comfort during trading or hunting operations.

Pilot licences are issued only at the planet Lave, and it is likely, therefore, that you are now docked at a Coriolis station in orbit around that particular world. Lave is a rich, agricultural dictatorship, but is a reasonably safe world at which to begin your endeavors. GalCop and the Lave Authorities allow practice docking and departure runs to all their space stations here, and you would be advised to take advantage of this facility.

INTERIOR OF A COBRA MK III

The Cobra is essentially a single-pilot trade-ship, but has been designed to support a second person, provided that person is of ordinary human or humanoid dimensions and physiology. The ship itself consists of five main areas:

THE CARGO HOLD fills the bulk of the mid-space area, and the cargo bay doors open downwards. The capacity in an unmodified Cobra is 20 1-tonne canisters. Extra cargo space may be acquired by extending the cargo bay, which does not affect maneuverability. Tonne canisters (TC) attach magnetically to the cargo arms within the bay, and 2 AutoShuttles occupy the central space.

THE BRIDGE has seats for pilot and co-pilot, a MedStim Center, entrance to the escape pod, descent well to living quarters, communications console, special suit locker, RemLock supply case, attachment facilities for AutoDock System and a hand-weapons locker. The main wall is occupied by the scanner screen, astrogation console and main systems monitors.

THE DRIVE SECTOR houses the directional thrusts, the System Space Kruger “lightfast” motors, and the Irrikon Thru-Space drives. Also here are the rear laser housings, the ECM capsule, the Zieman shield generators, and energy banks, and the Witch-Space fuel condensors (Quirium). There are both internal and external access panels. Radiation level is high.

THE LIVING AND HYGIENE SECTION is below the main bridge, and reached through a descending gravity well. Two bunks, food dispensing facilities, waste disposal (including high-tox copper exudate for Aonians), SynPleasure relaxapads, and videos.

THE EQUIPMENT LEVEL runs throughout the ship, and houses all energy banks for lasers, plus the missile rests, with dispatch shafts to the lower hull. The communications center is here, and the escape pod (with a separate entrance from the bridge) life support systems, cryogen tanks (two) and 40 cubic meters of FacsEnvironment for emergency use.
THE STATUS PAGE
The “Present System” refers to the planetary system which your ship is currently in; while the “Hyperspace system” refers to the system onto which the hyperspace is locked.

There are 4 possible “Conditions”: DOCKED means that you are docked in a space station at the Present System; GREEN means that there is no immediate danger; YELLOW indicates enemy ships in the vicinity; Condition RED signals a high-risk on-going death-type combat situation.

“Legal Status” refers to your Galactic Police record. If this is CLEAN you have nothing to worry about, but as an OFFENDER or, still worse, a FUGITIVE you are likely to be attacked by police ships.

The “Rating” is a dispassionate assessment of your performance in combat so far.

Current cash and fuel are also displayed, along with a list of ship fittings.

The status page is always retrievable by pressing F9.
Commander Jameson’s rating is ‘harmless’ which is surprising when you consider the equipment and cash he has managed to amass. In fact as his status suggests this has been achieved with considerable business acumen.

YOUR RATING AS A COMBATEER

To become an elite combateer requires great skill and great patience, because expert trading is essential before the necessary more powerful armaments and equipment available to the Cobra ship can be bought: beam lasers, more missiles, energy bombs, a docking computer, galactic hyperdrive, etc.

As you sail through space between the stars, and as you trade, you will live with your combat rating. You will begin as HARMLESS. If you survive your first skirmish you may be reclassified as MOSTLY HARMLESS. But on the slow climb to a status level that reflects a growing talent for combat you will have to engage many different ships, in many different skirmishes, in the System Space of many different worlds. You will be classified as POOR, then AVERAGE, then ABOVE AVERAGE, then COMPETENT. Then you will become DANGEROUS, then DEADLY. An at last, a few will become ELITE.

Your kills are photographed and transmitted by TS ComDirect to the nearest GalCop Federal Law Center. Your rating as a combateer will increase in direct proportion.

Fly your Cobra craft wisely and carefully. Remember: other pilots may be attempting to increase their own combat rating by attacking either innocent traders, or police Vipers (the ships of the GalCop Police Force). If you resort to such tactics (or if your adopt the fast-credit routine and trade in illegal goods) then your combat rating may rise, but your legal status: CLEAN -> OFFENDER -> FUGITIVE, will make you Public Enemy Number One with the Federation Crime Monitoring Authority and you will not be left alone.