Discovery Gaming Community

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---Welcome To Hacker Net:... Authorisation: Delta 4-4-Alpha-2
ID: Crime Boss Sylpheed of the Liberty Rogues
Authorisation: User Only.

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Greetings Commander.

I'll dispense with formalities and cut to the chase, I know how you ex-navy tyypes despise needless antics.

The Liberty Rogues find oursleves missing a little something when it comes to ships. Specifically in the bomber department. Whilst the Barghest is a great ship from a piracy perspective, it also presents a large target from every perspective. We would like to acquire the permissions necessary to utilise a handful of your much lighter Broadsword bomber platform. In return we can offer you additional funds to produce these advanced technologies and also access to the Barghest, which makes for a very effective anti battleship bomber owing to it's increased firepower over most other bombers.

Now we're willing to pay a premium on these ships say 100% more than they normally cost but your initial negotiations suggested a price increase of some 2500% over it's normal cost, which is plainly ridiculous. We may be pirates and lower than most, but we still ain't stupid an know the value of a credit.

Sylpheed out.

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This is Aethelu speaking, and I'll be blunt.

You find yourselves missing something different from the bomber-sized gunboat that is the Barghest. Funny, considering I always thought you were of the "more guns, more power, less problems" sort. Well, there are reasons for the price being as high as it is, and I'll gladly outline them to you.

First thing, Broadsword bombers are not just expensive to manufacture and maintain, they are also highly sensitive pieces of kit which have barely entered mass production, and are scheduled to replace most of our Falcata bombers, and those of the Lane Hackers aswell. You are basically asking me to have my own men fly around with hunks of metal that tend to fall apart if you don't spend eight hours a day gently caressing them, instead of using our own gear.

Second thing is that you don't understand the role of the Broadsword or our bombers in general. The broadsword is a high-speed bomber created solely for one purpose: Destruction. Pretty much the thing most bombers are created for, but ours aren't made to sit ten years in space waiting for a lone freelance trader to pass by, nor are they something you use as a universal solution everywhere. They're the scalpel of the current bomber world, despite of the name. And maybe I should remind you that bombers are generally used against large targets, or in your case, transports for the most part, and they should not be used without sufficent backup. If you can't keep your Barghests, which, as you put so nicely, make for very effective anti-battleship bombers, apparently even better ones than ours, safe, then I'll gladly invite your squadron leaders over to Monterrey so they learn some basic tactics.

Now, if you still are so hellbent on acquiring a few of our Broadswords, then there's other reasons for the high price aswell. Not only would we have to push the current production levels higher so we can keep on re-equipping our forces, which itself costs resources and thus money, but we would also have to customize your bombers so you don't get a nice bunch of our technology which we'd like to stay in our hands only, and then we would have to train your maintenance crews and your pilots on how to fly the things and keep them flying. That, like the other things, costs time, resources, and thus money aswell.

So I suggest you either go with our generous offer, or you look for an alternative. The recent addition of the CTE-19000 "Roc" Civilian Bomber to the free market might be more the thing you are looking for, as they are cheap, widely available, easy to maintain, and as proven by recent Xeno attacks around New York and Colorado, very effective in the right hands.nMy regards, and have a nice day.

Supreme Commander Aethelu signing out

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