Unless you play yourselves, you probably won’t quite get this, but bear with me anyway.

I had a thought for fun in X3. Now I’m pretty new to the game so I don’t have uber ships, although I have improved on the starting setup. I flew my corvette Boudicca into Elenor’s Fortune and docked up to get a quick save. Next, I asked my four fighters Dovakin (Nova Vanguard Class Heavy Fighter), Oops It Wasn’t Me (Buster Class Interceptor), Waiting to Happen (Buster Class) and I Wasn’t Even There (Buzzard Class Interceptor) to join me. They were in turn, automatically joined by their scout wings, two Discoverer Class each called Lilith, Maya, Gaige, Tina, Moxxie, Ellie, Patricia and Angel as they are set to auto defend their wing commanders.

Next, with the wing in an x formation round me, I flew into Split Fire, a known pirate hangout, and went looking for trouble. I told the WCs to protect me but otherwise stay out of trouble, and set my weapons to … well kill… I activated 6 BHEPTs (Beta Class High Energy Plasma Throwers) and Hurricane missiles. Then I proceeded to attach a pirate convoy.

Now compared to my fighters, or even the pirates, a corvette is a slow ship. Before I’d even opened fire, one of the pirate Busters, a teladi threatened me and attacked.

It was at this point the world went white… and blue, and red… as my twelve support ships ALL opened fire at the same time on my attacker. When the pirates responded, the wing did. Reinforcements arrived, and I switched to Ion Disruptors on my primary bank, to try to capture. It was fast.

In the end, Maya suffered 5% hull damage, which was about cr6,000 to repair. (The missiles I fired cost more than that) and I captured a Harrier. It needs repairs and re-equipping, but please welcome Helena to my scout wing. (You may have noticed a Borderlands theme).

I sent the wing home and was set on by 3 Falcons. I’m not stupid, I switched back to BHEPTs. (My turrets use Beta Plasma Accelerator Cannon, the rear one set to missile defence). I didn’t capture any, but I earned a few police bounty credits and a bit of reputation.

This game might be a fun replacement to Eve Online after all.

Next time, look out for me turning this into short fiction, rather than a description of a play session.

Have fun now, ye hear.