An EV Story

The screen flashes the words and a pre-recorded voice yells. "Captain, we've got six boogies commin' hot from sector 2."

You look at your radar and toggle the lead blip. You pause to consider as you say out loud to yourself, "Computer ETA, says two minutes, but I know that's wrong."

You've been playing Escape Velocity 3 (hey someone posted it and I got to thinking what an awesome story one could make out of it) - and have worked hard for the past two weeks in choosing a planet for your team and building up defenses. You begin to wonder if you spent too much on sector defense, rather than outfitting your own ship, as you realize your scanners are picking up six dreadnoughts that are faster, more manueaverable, and have more guns than you.

You hit "1" and immediatly call up a list of pre-programmed communication macros, and hit "1" again for the macro message to be displayed on the com windows of all allied players, "This is the A.P.S. Orion Star to all Aeon ships: Aeon HQ is under attack. Need all available assistance." You grimace as you realize it's only 3pm MST, and most of your friends are still in school. Still you toggle a quick window to see who's online, and see that you and two others are the only ones logged in. The rest of the Aeon fleet is in autopilot orbit of your home base - and everyone knows a ship on autopilot can't beat a skilled human player. Still, you, your friends, and the computer autopilots of eight warships outnumber the incomming dreadnoughts, but you fear for the worst anyway and begin dumping credits into the Galactic Bank transfer terminal at your base.

The klaxons sound. You already know those dreadnoughts have you in their sights and are locked on. You hurridly decide it would be best to fight it out in space, rather than await fate's decision on the planet. You hear the computer chime as your character is "transported" to your ship in orbit.

Already the orbiting station is lobbing missles at the attackers, and mines start going off early. You zoom out and see a weakening in the formation of dreadnoughts as two blips begin to fade indicating they are damaged. There is no need to toggle for ID of the ships - you know they're pirates from the Ryders of Death team. You get grazed by a torpedo. You zoom back in and hastily position your ship behind the planet's defense station and the attackers so you can fire long range torpedos behind the relative safety of a huge metal defense.

Three, then four, five, and six torpedos hit the station. Two more mines go off, sending one of the dreadnoughts reeling. You only hear the sound of an escape pod ejecting, but it is a good sound that makes you smile. By now, the invasion of five ships reaches your front doorstep as you play cat and mouse with the enemy so intent on seeing you dead. You do the dance and manage to run one of them into a mine, taking out their shields and some armor, while losing half your shields to laser fire.

What seems like forever, the computer finally warms up the ships in orbit and you see eight warships gracefully maneauver and launch their fighters and begin firing their torpedos. The dreadnoughts turn their attention away from you and begin taking out the launched fighters one by one.

Two, three, four, five, six, and soon after you hear the death cry of the ninth computer fighter pilot over the intercom. Two autopilot warships have broken off on pre-programmed instructions and begin retreating out of the sector. A third one violently pursues multiple targets, heading straight in the middle of the fray, then you realize that another one of your friends has logged on and is using the ship. You also hear the sounds of ships warping in and zoom out to ID your three fellow Aeon friends who have responded to your call for help from other sectors.

Laser fire reeks the starry background, as a second dreadnought begins to crack and burn, and soon a side of it is blown off. You see a fog of mist from the dreadnought as you grin at the captain's demise. Apparently he gambled without an auto-eject, or his ship's computer was damaged in the fighting. The drifting hulk just tumbles endlessly and because everyone is too busy to capture it, it breaks a part after three minutes.

One of the Aeon warships tumbles out of your sight, it too is adrift, but not as damaged as the dreadnought that passed by it a moment ago. The Aeon warship will remain salvageable because it is not severly damaged.

A third and fourth enemy dreadnought take the brunt of a combined attack of five warships (four on autopilot and executing pre-programmed evassive maneuavers and attacks), and three merchant vessels - including your own. The brief flash of a fallen shielding system wets your appetite to go in for the kill as the ship begins to retreat - but it's too late, it is has flown to close and gets clobbered by five torpedos at close range, blowing up before the pilot has time to hit the eject, and before you can claim the kill. There goes another million credit dreadnought.

However, the dreadnought's death was not in vain - it laid two cloaked mines in the middle of your group, and you realize the tactical mistake of your group as they both explode, sending three heavily damaged warships and one merchant vessel careening into oblivion. The warships drift, but you know they are only disabled for a moment. You ship's klaxon sounds, indicating your shields are gone to, and you see burn marks on your vessel. The other merchant vessel doesn't fair well, though. It flashes and a pod is ejected just as the ship disintegrates in a ball of pretty fire. The pod vanishes into the planet - it's pre-programmed destination.

The remaining three dreadnoughts, not wishing to stay any longer and play, fly past your planet and station, dodging fire from the station, and quickly jump into warp. The com channel on the bottom of the screen is lit up with excitement and congrats and cheers, as more and more of your team members login and find their ships either a good distance away from the planet, or heavily damaged. Calls for a counter attack ensue, but you urge your team to make repairs first.

Two of your friends volunteer to go take their cloakable scouts deep into the heart of Ryders of Death self-proclaimed territory, and they quickly warp out of the system without saying goodbye. A warship follows suit, no doubt on a mission of vengence as well. You manage to convice the others to stay and hammer out an attack plan - it's time to teach the Ryders a real lesson in hit and run tactics...

Great! Spelling and grammar needs a little checking, but a great story! I smell a plugin...if only you could play a network EV like that. That's basically the only way it'd work though, with missions and such. No free play, but oh well that'd be tons of fun!

Now if only I had a network...

Heh, just try running that over the internet!

Weepul 884, the one using improper grammar himself in this post, since I'm tired anyway. Blargh.

Someone mentioned it, but I lost the info, does anyone know where the EV3 web board is?

EV Story, Part 2

Transfering control of the A.P.S. Orion Star to the autopilot computer, you transport your character to an adjacent ship - an Endor Class Cresent Warship. The chat window is buzzing with activity as you and your fleet of friends coordinate their formation and final tactics.

It's now 6pm MST, and 22 of 35 members are now online after being notified on such short noticed via email, ICQ, and other mediums, of the upcomming Aeon attack into Ryders of Death territory. You play with your three year old G3 beige running an archaic OS X, and hope your cable connection doesn't get to laggy for the action ahead.

You sit in your chair and nervously go through a checklist of battle prepartion. You dock your ship at the station in orbit of Aeon HQ and order up charged fuel pods for the long battle ahead. Costing 300 credits for five minutes of heavy manuevers, you order the maximum of six pods for your ship, and a solar recharger- just in case. You inventory your weapons, order your mines to be maxed out, and fill up on light torpedos and quantum "specials". Buying a fuel-energy converter, you calculate that you will only be able to use your starburst energy weapon for close-quarters combat for only a few seconds before it drains an entire fuel pod. You take mental note and realize it will cost you half a fuel pod to reach the neighboring Kylan Nebula where Aeon scouting parties have picked up the location of their forward base.

Glad to have your ship maxed out, you depart the station and float a good distance from the station and planet to meet up with the rest of the Aeon fleet.

A lead vessel has already been choosen - a single fighter controled by UECrusader. He's already got his trasporter hot-keyed to transport him aboard his auto-piloted MicroDyne Cruiser as soon as his fighter is blasted to pieces. Being the lead ship, one can only accept the fact they will be fired on by the enemy first - that's why it's usually a good idea to have it be a cheap and highly maneuverable fighter.

15 of your friends are in various other vessels, ranging from small Merchant Traders, to maxed out Corellian Battleships. The tough ships manuever into position first, in the slowy-flying formation, locking their computers to follow the lead ship. A moment later the formation of heavies look perfect, with small holes to allow the weaker ships to fly in, lock up, and take position. Wherever UE flies his little fighter, the entire mass will follow suit, and in perfect formation. You take your Cresent and fit it right behind the fleet, locking into position a good ship and a half away from BD's Jorn Class Frigate. The drifting formation looks like a tactical painting, but at second-glance shows the strength of the formation. You communicate with Ade' and Ankh aboard the Corellian Battleship A.P.S. Death Star. Ankh's pilots the vessel, Nath commands the fighters once they are launched, and Ade' handles the gunnery. Only in EV3 can more than one person be on the same ship...

Soon, UE asks the word and everyone checks in and acknowledges their ready status. It's now 6:10pm MST, and time is ticking...

The lead scouts, right behind the assembled fighters (fighters are great for clearing minefields) cloak; as UECrusader punches in his destination and hits the autopilot, sending his ship and the rest of the fleet into high warp.

Minutes tick in the real-time universe. In five minutes, the fleet will drop out of warp, and the music will play. You inform your team that you will be afk to take a restroom break and get something to eat. Others in the fleet of 15 ships toy with pre-attack ideas, and tactics upon breakup.

You come back, and mid-way on your journey, an SOS sounds on all channels as a lucky Ryder has detected your approach. As team commander, you tell your team not to worry and to reorganize into classes. Fighters with fighters, frigates and small ships together, and heavies with heavies. A lead ship for every group is quickly choosen, and those in the respective classes unlock from UE's fighter and lock into formation with their lead ship, as you arrive, you see ships drifting, with fighters up front, small ships in the middle, and heavies on the sides and behind. The fleet, moving as fast as it's slowest ship, moves about 75% as fast as the scouts in the medium formation. You tell the two cloakable scouts to break off and run on ahead, and lay mines surrounding the enemy base - to prevent their escape.

A minute later you recieve word the task is done, but that the two scouts are under attack by a surprise counter-force of Ryder Allies. You can only ponder their fate as you see your navigation bar indicate you have just arrived in the Nebula. Sensor readings become next-useless as the fleet comes out of warp and cruises quickly into enemy territory. The starry background flickers in gery and black haze as you realize you have entered the nebula.

The fleet still in formation, you order the fighters to be launched from the battleships, and for the forward computer escort fighters (led by UE) to fly ahead of the fleet, spreading out as much as possible in an effort to find a mine.

You ship's klaxon sounds as you see torpedos streaking toward your group. With the Nebula hindering sensors,the torpedos lazily miss the formation. Sensing the fleet is getting close, you hear the first death cry of an unfortunate computer pilot, and decide to send in the medium ships (which you are a part of and leading). You unlock your formation from UE's fighter as it explodes on impact of a mine, and order your small group to deploy their mines. The base shows up on the fuzzy sensor display, and several large blips are seen. You toggle IDs and count 13 vessels, and about 50 fighters (too many to count). You order the rear and side heavies to go in with guns blazing, and you see several of the Aeon fighters meet untimely deaths at long-range turret fire from what appears to be an enemy space station.

You take your team and fly in and over the station with turrets blazing, and leaving a trail of mines. One of the Aeon Merchant Trader ship got to close to his target and it explodes his mine on his port bow. The ship crackles and drifts, and a whiter haze begins to envelop the ship. An three escape pods eject as the sounds of internal explosions cascade into a ball of fiery light and flaming debris.

A Merchant Trader only had 15 crew members. There was only one human player aboard. You find out that Phil was on that ship, and you remember him talking about him hiring crew members at Lenthe Prime. "The best in the galaxy." He says. With a full complement of 15 crew members, he was able to purchase an escape pod for every 5 crew members.

Hiring that extra crew and escape pods certainly paid off as not all is fortunate for two of the three that ejected. Well-aimed laser shots from players at the station tear two of the escape pods apart before the third jumps into pre-programmed warp. You realize a moment later that Phil's pod was the lucky one that got away...

The mines are a success. You formation fly your group of 6 small vessels past the planet, and take out a few waiting computer operated fighters. Two lumbering warships break off into pursuit, but get stopped dead in their tracks as mines go off around them.

Meanwhile, your heavies, lead by Commander Patterson, pummel the medium Ryders of Death ships that meet up to stop the invasion. Laser shots from the planet strike Ankh's battleship, but he merely rubs it off as Ade' rips apart two dreadnoughts with a phaser sweep. Nath comments that he's lost all his fighters and can do no good, and asks to be transported aboard UECrusader's cruiser. A moment later, Nath takes up gunnery on the A.P.S. Crusader II, and get's a lucky shot at a enemy fighter that swoops in too close.

Seconds pass as your break up your fleet into an Free For All, and order all ships to fire at will. Lasers zip, shields collapse, ships burn, pods whoosh, and missles without guidance careen into burning debris, disintegrating them further. Two Aeon ships are down, a third is heavily damaged as it ran into a stray mine, and only a couple Aeon fighters remain controlled by the other Aeon battleship, the A.P.S. Blaze. The enemy fairs much worse. Five burning hulks can be counted drifting, half and quarter-hulks tumble as they disintegrate, and your sensors are only counting three remaining. You order the heavies to attack the station at long range, and order the rest to pursue the three remaining enemies.

You realize two of the remaining ships are on autopilot as you see them retreat deeper into the Nebula, and the third turns around and heads in a different direction. You grin as you pursue the ships to a point of no-escape. Soon all three of them lay drifting. The third vessel with the human pilot has opted not to eject - yet. You instead decide to give this guy a ruffing. You order the rest of the medium and small ships to attack the station and get it to either surrender or be destroyed, while you and two friends stay with the wounded enemy. You toggle the transporter screen, and order your computer crew to board the enemy ship. A two dimensional layout of the enemy ship pops up as you transport aboard along with your friends. Triangles and fire positions trace the screen as light beams lance about. You quickly overwhelm the computer-controlled crew and race to the bridge. You friend jumps into the bridge first and is greeted by a laser shot - dead. You call up menu orders and get your five computer-controlled crew to storm the bridge, taking out one human player and three remaining computer players. A second enemy human player is aboard, possibly the gunner, and communicated that he surrenders without a fight. You close the screen, and as commander of the captured ship, you force him to eject, capturing the pod in a tractor beam - a prisoner of war.

You only have time to smile because your klaxons ring out - the enemy is comming with reinforcements. You quickly transport over to your old ship, order the other ship to link up as your escort, with escape pod in tractor, and fly off with your two other friends in other ships and rendezvous at the station.

You arrive and see the effects of a long siege. Burning, and misting, the station looks pitiful. It's shields are down and the remaining enemy player on board refuses to eject and give up control. Sensing a pressing need for time, you order your team to cease fire, lay down any remaining mines as a welcome present for the "guests" that will be arriving, and warp back home. Unknown to you, someone on the A.P.S. Blaze transported to the station when it's shields collapsed, and is fighting computer crew on it. Enemy fleet ETA one minute, you order the rest of your fleet to go home, and everyone departs, leaving a firefight inside. You wait, and wait, and what seems like forever, you finally get the message that the station is now under Aeon control. Quickly you offer to beam aboard your friend and the two of you warp off and out of the sector. You begin to wonder what the point of your friend's capturing the station, only to fall back into the hands of the Ryders when he sends you a note and announces the Ryders will be greeted with a rude surprise.

You hear about it an hour later on the public channels. Out of 30 Ryders of Death ships, 15 survived the recapture of their station (due to mines), and what remained of the station blew up under an autodestruct from the previous owners that the Ryders did not have the time to disable...killing nine Ryder pirates and their crew...

A success for team Aeon...

The universe grows, expands, trading is a way of life, pirates run rampant, and escort work is easy to find. Groups have staked claims, others have staked out groups...and the galaxy is not what it used to be...

On the horizon looms an enemy even more powerful than the Vonians...and everyone will be called to assist...

(Just imagine: 150 players attempting to destroy a Borg cube... Will you sacrifice your life for your friends and for freedom?)

Looks good! I read about 2 sentences, but it sounds good!! It's very funny!!!

I'm glad you liked it.

COOLIES!! that's awesome. I wish EV was like that! I'd love to join some team of those bad boys!

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K@BE

Very impressive, but I think I would like it more in french

Shall I go for a EV story part 3?

Dear Ryan,
Will you post these installments of your story on Beige's EV/O-related story board? We'd love to have them there! Here's the URL:
(url="http://"http://www.gamersx.com/messages/overview.asp?board_id=16841")www.gamersx.com/messages/overview.asp?board_id=16841(/url)

Thanks.
Jude

Definitely need a part 3! I love the story so far!
Mike

Great story. I like how OS X is archaic.

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Wedge Antilles

E-Mail:
wynn4@earthlink.net

AOL Instant Messenger:
Greg Halcyon

Website:
http://GregHalcyon.homestead.com

A few days ago, a friend told me about a game like what you describe here: it is a web-multiplayer space game running every day and night and like what you said, ennemies can attack your bases and you can phone friends or parteners to help you when you are being beaten away. do you know where I can find it (si il y a des francais, c'etait un reportage de Capitale sur la 6)

Yes, there is a web game called Space Merchant. (n'est pas francais) It's got all the features of TradeWars 2002 and a concept similar to EV. Check it out here:
(url="http://"http://merchant.shareplay.com/")http://merchant.shareplay.com/(/url)

It's funny: every time I post this story on the EV/O StoryBoard, it gets deleted or locked out.

Also, why are there no longer links to the EVMP PUBLIC board discussion? Why is it too locked out with a password? Is there something going on with EVMP-related posts that the powers that be want to censor?

Check it out:

My conspiracy post regarding these actions is on this board -
EV/O Flame Board: (url="http://"http://www.gamersx.com/messages/overview.asp?board_id=11037&page;=1&low-expand;")http://www.gamersx.c...ge=1&low-expand(/url)

Check out the censorship and lock-out on there boards:

EV/O Storyboard (url="http://"http://www.gamersx.com/messages/overview.asp?board_id=16841")www.gamersx.com/messages/overview.asp?board_id=16841(/url)

EVMP Public Discussion Board (url="http://"http://www.gamersx.com/messages/overview.asp?board_id=16757&page;=1&std-expand;")http://www.gamersx.c...ge=1&std-expand(/url)

Dear Inigmatus,
I didn't lock you out or delete any of your posts from Beige's story board. I think he was having a bit of trouble with the board which is now cleared up. I, too found that some of the replies to my posts were deleted before I got a chance to read them (I had e-mail notification turned on, but when I chacked they were gone).
I am glad that you took the trouble to repost your story to the story board.
Jude