The Cradle is Empty. A postcard from what's left of Earth.
u/dvornikk — 21 hours ago
▲ 13 r/NoSodiumStarfield
[Starfield Roleplay] Space Trucker Diary | Pt. 4: From Blackjack Bankruptcy to a 300k Contraband Lord
LOG ENTRY: PERSONAL DIARY (DAY 13) Author: Rock Dalton, retro-freighter pilot / rookie bounty hunterCurrent Level: 5 Location: Aggie’s, Akila City Status: Drunk by sunrise, counting pennies, making a deal with another drunk.
Akila City. The locals love to call this dusty dump the "sanctuary of freedom." Ha... If you ask me, the main secret behind the Freestar Collective’s grand "freedom" is that it’s completely legal to be blackout drunk 24/7, and nobody will say a goddamn word to you. Walk out into the streets at any hour of the day, and you’ll literally trip over some "proud and independent" Freestar citizen trying their absolute best to focus their glazed eyes on their own boot.
Pilots, engineers, and other spacefaring specs look for contracts in the local dives. The closer you get to the spaceport, the more expensive their rates get. That’s exactly why today I dragged my miserable ass down to Aggie’s in The Stretch. Surprisingly, the place was packed.
You know the difference between a professional astronaut and a port whore working near the landing pads? The whore doesn’t pretend she’s saving the galaxy when she asks for your money upfront. I spent the entire day scouring every wretched hive of this town looking for a co-pilot. Those bloated, entitled pricks in pristine spacesuits were demanding a 30,000 credit advance just to fly a couple of basic runs with me, plus no less than 10k a week after that! Thirty grand! For that kind of money, I’m ready to become their personal navigator and flip the cockpit toggles with my own teeth. I offered a flat 10k to a lady with a Class-B piloting license and an astrodynamics degree. She just shrugged, smirked, and walked away.
Realizing my next haul would be another solo nightmare, I sat down at the counter, fully intending to drink myself into oblivion.
"Ten thousand credits?" a voice rasped right next to my ear. It sounded like someone was mixing gravel in a blender. "Partner, for ten grand, a professional pilot in this town won't even bother to scratch his own ass. You brought a water pistol to a firefight, Dalton."
I turned my head. The guy knew my name, and apparently, he knew about my rusty bucket sitting at the spaceport too.
"Times are tough, the economy is deep in the shitter, and your ship's fuel tank is smaller than my bladder after three pints of local ale," he growled.
Meet Ezekiel.
If you looked up the phrase "financial disaster" in the GalBank mainframe, his hologram would pop up as the main definition. The guy looked like he’d been kicked out of the Crimson Fleet for looking too damn suspicious. Scars carved across his face, a battered hat pulled low over his eyes, and a running tab at Aggie’s hitting somewhere around 800 credits a debt for which Aggie was already preparing to break his kneecaps.
Dalton, I’m a terrible pilot," Ezekiel muttered, leaning in. "But just like you, I desperately need cash. And I’ve got a plan. The kind of plan that either gives you reactor-sized Class-C balls, or gets you zipped up in a plastic body bag. Ever heard of Porrima III? The Red Mile?
I knew the name. Anyone flying the black knows it. A charming, psychopathic resort where corporate fat cats from Ryujin wager millions on whether some desperate bastard can run through a crater full of ravenous alien monsters, hit a goddamn red button, and make it back alive. Pure, unadulterated suicide.
The place where lunatics race monsters for pocket change? I scoffed. Spare me the garbage. I’m a trucker, not alien monster bait.
Forget the runners, that’s a circus show for the poor," Ezekiel dismissed, his rapid-fire speech picking up momentum. "I’m talking about what’s hidden behind Mei Devine’s locked doors. The high-roller tables. The minimum bet for blackjack back there starts at twenty fucking thousand credits a hand. Millions flow through that room, Rock. Executives lose entire cargo fleets in a single evening without even blinking. One lucky streak, and you double your net worth faster than a year of backbreaking labor in a mining shaft. I’ve got an old buddy working the floor there who owes me his life. It’s time to collect. He can get us to the table and give us a couple of nods on how the cards are falling. We roll in, skim about 200k, and warp out.
It sounded beautiful. Too beautiful.
And how does that help us right now?" I asked, tapping my empty glass. "To even sit at a table like that, you need to buy in. I’ve got roughly 35k left after paying off my asteroid mining haul, but my ship is falling apart
And that's where I come in," Ezekiel said, patting the heavy Laredo piece on his hip. "Not as a pilot, but as a man who knows how to handle a double-barrel shotgun. I heard you’ve been pulling tracking contracts for extra cash. Let’s grab a couple of high-paying bounties right here on Akila, bag the targets, and head straight for Porrima next week. What do you have to lose, Dalton? You won’t find anyone else with your pathetic budget. I’ll join your crew for free. I can't fly, but you can show me which buttons to hold while you're out fixing the hull.
I don't know if the man was just that damn convincing, or if Aggie's whiskey was hitting harder than usual today... but I shook his hand.
Mei Devine’s casino doesn’t know it yet, but the two most desperate bastards in the Cheyenne system are coming to clean them out. Debts are going to be paid. With interest.
P.S. My immersive, dynamic dialogue with Ezekiel was made possible thanks to the AISS - AI Settled Systems mod. It completely changes how you interact with NPCs, making conversations feel incredibly alive and unscripted. As for the high-stakes gambling plan on Porrima III, I’ll be running the Red Mile Blackjack Table mod to actually play those 20k+ hands
u/dvornikk — 2 days ago
▲ 16 r/NoSodiumStarfield
[Starfield Roleplay] Space Trucker Diary | Pt. 3: From Blackjack Bankruptcy to a 300k Contraband Lord
LOG ENTRY: PERSONAL DIARY (DAY 12) Author: Rock Dalton, retro-freighter pilot / rookie bounty hunter Current Level: 5 Location: Laredo Firearms, Akila City Status: Exhausted after a 45-hour mining shift, smelling like asteroid dust, heading straight to Aggie’s.
Laredo Firearms, motherfucker.
If you ask some slick, neon-glowing pricks from New Atlantis, they’ll turn their noses up at Laredo guns. They’ll tell you it’s last century's garbage, too clumsy, too heavy, absolutely zero high-tech. "Who needs wood grips and heavy steel when you can have a polymer laser peashooter?" Idiots.
I understand this aesthetic perfectly. To me, a Laredo gun is exactly like an old-school, heavy-duty cargo hauler. They look rough, they feel blocky, but they carry decades of manufacturing experience, perfect parts fitting, and they will never, ever fail you when you're knee-deep in shit. When your ship's electronics fry in deep space and everything goes dark, good old reliable mechanics are the only thing that will save your miserable life.
"A laser will give up on you the second a capacitor leaks, Dalton. But old-school lead? Lead always finds a way." That’s what Sean, my co-pilot, used to say. God, he loved his Laredo piece. He kept that hand-cannon in such pristine condition you could practically use the barrel as a shaving mirror. I'm pretty sure he inherited it from his grandfather, because no matter how greasy our engine room got, the Laredo signature engraved on that wooden grip was always spotless. Clean as a temple.
The night I lost my freighter, when those corporate Ecliptic mercenaries came not just for my ship, but for my fucking life, Sean didn't hesitate. He pulled his Laredo and fired first. The helmet of the merc standing across from him didn't just crack it shattered like cheap glass under a battering ram.
Sean died with a grin on his face and that heavy steel locked tight in his hand. He was a good man. A damn fine pilot. And I'm still here, breathing the dusty air of Akila, because he chose to shoot first.
When you're desperately bleeding credits, you don't get to be picky; you take whatever filthy job the galaxy throws at you. My rusted bucket of a ship has such a pitifully small fuel tank holding a measly 50 units of Helium that I can’t even make a grav-jump to the nearest star system. And don't even get me started on what a decent upgrade costs in this broken economy.
So, I scraped together every loose cent I had, bought a cheap, beaten-up industrial cutter to my ship, and dragged myself into orbit to laser-mine local asteroids (Starvival mod mechanic here). Forty-five hours. That’s how long my shift lasted in total darkness, manually cutting and hauling rock until my teeth rattled.
I finally walked back into Laredo Firearms looking like a walking corpse, hauling 250 kilos of iron and roughly 300 kilos of raw aluminum. Reah Lemay was thrilled. She handed over 27,000 clean credits and told me she’s expecting another batch of 500 next week.
27k. Yeah, baby.
But it came with a reality check. I didn’t just remember Sean today for the hell of it. Doing 45-hour shifts alone in the black will either kill me or turn me into a full-blown Amp addict just to keep my eyes open. The new gun will have to wait. Right now, what I desperately need is a co-pilot. I need a crew.
During these past few weeks, I’ve practically ploughed through this entire city. To survive, you don't get to be proud you take whatever crumbs fall from the table. I ran errands for Davis Wilson, the local security chief, and got dragged right into the middle of his chaotic feud with that crazy scientist lady, Keoni, who kept planting her homemade sensors all over the alien walls. That whole mess eventually escalated into a shootout, blood, and more of the same old shit. I’ve been a courier, a cargo runner, and a low-tier bounty hunter.
Despite all the sweat and lead, I still haven't made enough for a decent ship upgrade. But that thought about a co-pilot? It’s stuck in my head like a parasite. I literally smell like this city now dust, sweat, and cheap synthetic stims. But it pays off in one way: people around here are finally starting to recognize me. They know Dalton as that stubborn bastard who’s always running around, looking for any job to make a credit.
Finding a decent co-pilot turned out to be a whole different kind of hell. I started doing the rounds at the local joints, but let’s be real good spacefarers don't work for peanuts. My hiring budget was capped at around 10,000 credits max, but every single professional pilot I talked to was demanding 20k to 30k upfront. (For this aspect of the playthrough, I'm using Various Crew + Elite Crew Reskilled) With my negotiation skills still being absolute trash, trying to talk them down was like talking to a brick wall. Way too fucking expensive. I spent hours arguing, pleading, and drinking across half of Akila, but found absolutely nobody within my price range.
I even ended up wasting time shooting the shit with some random mercenary outside a venue, but it went nowhere. Just more empty talk. Akila is a big city, but it feels incredibly small when your pockets aren't deep enough.
Almost completely hopeless and thoroughly pissed off, I decided to just screw it all. I wasn't going to fix my crew problem today. So, I turned around and headed straight to my favorite dive, ready to meet the morning exactly how I usually do getting absolutely wasted at Aggie's.
Tomorrow, I’ll figure out how to climb out of this ditch. Tonight, the whiskey is the only thing that makes sense.
u/dvornikk — 4 days ago
▲ 73 r/NoSodiumStarfield
Red Planet: Dust, Rust, and the Birth of the UC
There is something hauntingly beautiful about the endless red wastes of Mars. Long before New Atlantis or Akila City, this rusted desert was humanity's first real step into the Starfield. Standing here among the jagged peaks and swirling dust, you can almost hear the echoes of the early miners who built Cydonia. It’s harsh, it’s industrial, and it’s the bedrock of United Colonies history.
u/dvornikk — 5 days ago
Red Planet: [Screenshots Inside]
There is something hauntingly beautiful about the endless red wastes of Mars. Long before New Atlantis or Akila City, this rusted desert was humanity's first real step into the Starfield. Standing here among the jagged peaks and swirling dust, you can almost hear the echoes of the early miners who built Cydonia. It’s harsh, it’s industrial, and it’s the bedrock of United Colonies history.
u/dvornikk — 4 days ago
▲ 14 r/NoSodiumStarfield
Starfield Photodiaries: Vol. 2
The sole purpose of my life became one thing - to break through to the stars.(с)
u/dvornikk — 6 days ago
[Starfield Roleplay] Space Trucker Diary | Pt. 2: From Blackjack Bankruptcy to a 300k Contraband Lord
LOG ENTRY: PERSONAL DIARY (DAY 7) Author: Rock Dalton, grounded space trucker / low-tier bounty hunter Current Level: 2 Location: The Stretch, Akila City Status: Drunk by sunrise, counting pennies, surviving.
If you think space smells like ozone and stars, you’re an idiot. Space smells like nothing. But Akila City? It smells like ashta dung and cheap whiskey at Aggie’s. My last week in this godforsaken cowboy backwater almost always started the exact same way: 5:00 AM, sitting at a bar counter in The Stretch, alone with a murky glass. Sitting here, you realize one simple thing: all those fairy tales about Freestar "freedom" are just bullshit for tourists. Freedom in the Settled Systems is measured by the volume of your fuel tank. If you don't have a ship, your freedom ends the second a local bartender throws you out onto the wooden sidewalk because you ran out of creds.
To avoid ending up on that damn sidewalk, I had to lower myself to becoming a low-tier hound for the Trackers Alliance at least it gives me some pocket change and a roof over my head. Nobody is going to throw elite contracts at a nobody like me. So all week, like some goddamn scavenger, I’ve been pacing the dusty streets of Akila with a scanner welded to my hand, hunting for fugitives in the crowd. (By the way, for the scanner interface, I'm using NSFNA ULTIMATE).
My targets are just regular choppers and deadbeats, no better off than myself. These poor bastards don't even have the creds to buy a crappy signal jammer or a scrambler for their helmets, so the system lights them up like targets in a shooting gallery. It pays absolute pennies. At this rate, I’ll drink myself into a stroke right here at the bar way before I can ever afford a ship.
Every single takedown is just a filthy, nerve-wracking scuffle in the back alleys of The Stretch. And every single day after it's done, I go right back to drinking. Not because I want to, but because I’m fucking sick to my stomach from what I have to do. I’m a space trucker, for christ's sake! I’m used to calculating jump vectors, hauling multi-ton rigs, and earning an honest living moving tons of aluminum or iron between systems. I’m used to driving the economy forward, not blowing out some loser's brains in the mud for a handful of loose credits.
And today, for fuck's sake, was a prime example. Got a contract for some local woman who just wanted to make a quick buck and started pushing Neon Aurora here on Akila. Stupid move on her part, obviously, but that’s not the point. Found her pretty fast she was working as a mechanic down at the local spaceport. I honestly thought she’d just shit herself like most of the deadbeats I bring in and let me take her to the lockup quietly. But the idiot... why the fuck did she have to reach for her gun? (To be honest, this is where the brutal mechanics of Starvival kicked me right in the teeth. First, speech persuasion is significantly overhauled, jacked up to 8–10 points instead of the pathetic 4 in vanilla. Second, the status debuffs are real my character literally hadn’t showered in a week. Hygiene products cost a fortune, I’m pinching every credit, and without a ship of my own, building a working shower is just a distant dream. On top of that, I'm runningTrackers Alliance - Fight Or Flight, which makes standard criminal scanning a total gamble. At Level 1, trying to diplomatically talk anyone down while smelling like a wild Akila native is virtually impossible. I had to put down almost every single target, which completely explains why Rock went on a massive drinking binge lore-wise).
I put a burst right through her helmet before she even realized what a terrible mistake she was making, and that a few vials of Neon juice weren't worth dying for. Her blood is still on my boots, and I can't shake this disgusting feeling. Pulling triggers wasn't part of the trucker gig. Getting a hull breach in deep space is one thing, but execution-style shooting a mechanic girl at her own workbench for a handful of loose change? It makes me sick to my stomach, worse than any cheap liquor ever could.
But no matter how sick I feel, that was my tenth successful contract this week. Which means Agent No. 1 over at the Trackers HQ has no more excuses to feed me this penny-ante rookie garbage it’s time she gave me a real job. My motivation here is simple: I desperately need this organization backing me up. Becoming an official, high-ranking bounty hunter is my only shot at survival. That Ecliptic contract my ex-boss put on my head hasn't gone anywhere, and those merc bastards are still just waiting for a chance to smoke me in some dark alley.
My first real contract went down in the best traditions of this godforsaken sector. They paired me up with a local veteran named Roach to hunt down Hannibal a dangerous bastard holed up at a derelict ship-breaking space station. And guess what? The son of a bitch played us beautifully and stole our ship right from under our noses. A space trucker with ten years of experience, left stranded inside a floating pile of orbital scrap metal while his target warped away. Hannibal slipped right through our fingers, but the bastard at least left something behind a crappy, ancient little hauler named the "Longarm". That’s the rusty bucket Roach and I used to limp our way back to Akila.
The bottom line? I'm back in the sky. Roach mercifully let me keep the "Longarm". Calling it a "heavy cargo hauler" would be a flat-out lie it’s a tiny, pathetic piece of junk with a microscopic cargo hold and coughing engines. For a guy dreaming of rebuilding "Dalton Transport" with a fleet of Class-C freighters, this tub feels like a cruel joke. But it’s MY ship now.
My ex-boss thought he buried me in Akila's dirt. Well, fuck you. I’m returning to the black, even if it's in this rusty bucket. Time to grind for creds, level up my piloting, and find paths to settle the score.... First step? I need a crew. Someone desperate, someone cheap, and someone who doesn't mind the smell of cheap whiskey and laser burn. Back to Aggie's I go. The galaxy isn't ready for what a pissed-off trucker can do with a rusty bucket and a bounty hunter badge.
u/dvornikk — 7 days ago
▲ 32 r/Starfield
[Starfield Roleplay] Space Trucker Diary | Pt. 1: From Blackjack Bankruptcy to a 300k Contraband Lord
Hey. The core of this playthrough is a long, slow, thoughtful gameplay loop where every single mistake carries a massive price tag.
If you are tired of becoming a faction leader and a god-like Starborn in 20 hours, this is for you. To achieve this brutal level of immersion and slow pace, I built my loadout around these key mods:
XP and Leveling Overhaul (Link) - This makes leveling a genuinely long and painful process. To give you some context: I am currently 27 hours into this playthrough and I am only Level 5. You have to choose your perks with absolute, calculated precision.
Starvival (Link) + Spacefaring Economy (Link) - The ultimate modular survival experience. Everything is scarce, everything is ridiculously expensive, and everything is hard to get. Spaceships cost millions. Repairing your hull after a tough dogfight costs hundreds of thousands. Ships require separately purchased ammo, fuel, and resource management. Even basic speech checks and persuasion are incredibly difficult.
Roleplayers' Alternate Start (Link) - This is how I fixed the lore. By my settings, the main Constellation quest will not even trigger until my character hits Level 35. I started with no Frontier, no spaceship, and no money. Just light clothing and a few vials of Aurora in my pockets.
So, meet Rock Dalton - just a regular fucking guy.
THE BACKSTORY
Rock Dalton knew how to pilot heavy cargo haulers and calculate jumps, but he was terrible at choosing partners. He worked for a massive shipping syndicate until his boss framed him for a missing valuable cargo. The syndicate confiscated Rock’s personal ship as "debt payment" and put an Ecliptic mercenary bounty on his head.
Rock had to flee. His only choice was to board a rusty transport lugger as a passenger and drop off at Akila City - a sanctuary town where nobody asks questions if you are a Freestar citizen. During the orbital scan, the patrol missed a few vials of Aurora that Dalton managed to hide. It was his only starting capital... and a death sentence if the city guard caught him.
He walked past the spaceport onto the wooden sidewalks of Akila. Empty pockets. No ship. Locked on a single planet. But he had a plan.
MY STRICT ROLEPLAY RULES & GOALS:
- The Immediate Goal (Survival): Avoid Akila guards while carrying the hot Aurora, flip it to the Trade Authority, buy a cheap pistol, and get enough credits for food.
- The Mid-term Goal (Get off the rock): Work local planetary jobs. Earn, steal, or get awarded an A-class ship to touch the sky again. Infiltrate the Freestar Rangers strictly to use the badge as a legal shield and customs green light.
- The Crew Management: Rock is a leader, but he started as a nobody. Rule: No companion recruitment until getting a ship with a living quarters module My current crew consists of hireable bar outcasts only.
- The End Game (Dalton Transport): Level up Piloting to Class-C, build a network of automated outposts for Iro, Aluminum, and Tungsten, and create a legal corporation to absolutely crush his former syndicate employers.
From now on, I will be publishing Rock’s personal log diaries which he likes to record before going to sleep as I progress through this brutal playthrough.
LOG ENTRY: PERSONAL DIARY (DAY 1) Author: Rock Dalton, grounded space trucker Location: Akila City, Freestar Collective Status: Bankrupt, on the run, alive.
What a hell of a day. If someone told me a week ago that I’d be stranded in this dusty ass town without a single credit, I would’ve laughed in their face. My former corporate boss didn't just steal my ship and frame me for a fake debthe put a hit on me through Ecliptic mercenaries.
Right at Akila's gates, a Trackers Alliance bounty hunter stopped me. She said my "reputation" precedes me and hinted they could use a tough guy like me at their HQ. The irony: my ex-boss wants me dead, and the local bounty hunters want to hire me. But this is a chance to get back into the sky. I don't care if I have to hijack a pirate junker or buy a rusted cargo hauler, I will get back into the cockpit. "Dalton Transport" will rise, mark my fucking words.
But first, I had to deal with the contraband. A few vials of Neon Aurora were literally burning a hole in my underwear. (with Starvival mechanics, you carry contraband physically on your person, and city guards scan you on the fly. If they catch you, it's over.)
The spaceport guards were distracted by some commotion in the city, so I sneaked past them, kept my head down, and made a run straight for the Trade Authority. Luckily, I managed to flip the hot Aurora to a local smuggler. With clean cash finally in my pockets, I immediately bought a basic Eon pistol and some ammo to replace the piece of junk I was holding. Now I was armed.
Right after leaving the Trade Authority, I stumbled straight into a warzone. Some local Shaw Gang punks took hostages at the GalBank. Marshal Blake was trying to negotiate, so I stepped in, hoping to test my luck. No luck. Those guys were absolute psychos, and the talks went straight to hell. We had to solve it with violence. The bank now smells like gunpowder and blood, but the Marshal is officially in my debt. A Freestar Ranger badge will make a perfect legal shield for my future business. And for my other activities...
The plan for tomorrow:
- Head to the Trackers Alliance HQ. It’s time to officially become a bounty hunter.
- Use their contracts to cover up my shady deals, hire a crew of desperate local workers from the bars, and earn enough credits for a proper A-class ship.
Hang in there, Dalton. Space is deep, there’s enough room for everyone, and debts must be paid back with interest.
u/dvornikk — 8 days ago
▲ 50 r/NoSodiumStarfield
[Starfield Roleplay] Space Trucker Diary | Pt. 1: From Blackjack Bankruptcy to a 300k Contraband Lord
Hey. The core of this playthrough is a long, slow, thoughtful gameplay loop where every single mistake carries a massive price tag.
If you are tired of becoming a faction leader and a god-like Starborn in 20 hours, this is for you. To achieve this brutal level of immersion and slow pace, I built my loadout around these key mods:
XP and Leveling Overhaul (Link) - This makes leveling a genuinely long and painful process. To give you some context: I am currently 27 hours into this playthrough and I am only Level 5. You have to choose your perks with absolute, calculated precision.
Starvival (Link) + Spacefaring Economy (Link) - The ultimate modular survival experience. Everything is scarce, everything is ridiculously expensive, and everything is hard to get. Spaceships cost millions. Repairing your hull after a tough dogfight costs hundreds of thousands. Ships require separately purchased ammo, fuel, and resource management. Even basic speech checks and persuasion are incredibly difficult.
Roleplayers' Alternate Start (Link) - This is how I fixed the lore. By my settings, the main Constellation quest will not even trigger until my character hits Level 35. I started with no Frontier, no spaceship, and no money. Just light clothing and a few vials of Aurora in my pockets.
So, meet Rock Dalton - just a regular fucking guy.
THE BACKSTORY
Rock Dalton knew how to pilot heavy cargo haulers and calculate jumps, but he was terrible at choosing partners. He worked for a massive shipping syndicate until his boss framed him for a missing valuable cargo. The syndicate confiscated Rock’s personal ship as "debt payment" and put an Ecliptic mercenary bounty on his head.
Rock had to flee. His only choice was to board a rusty transport lugger as a passenger and drop off at Akila City - a sanctuary town where nobody asks questions if you are a Freestar citizen. During the orbital scan, the patrol missed a few vials of Aurora that Dalton managed to hide. It was his only starting capital... and a death sentence if the city guard caught him.
He walked past the spaceport onto the wooden sidewalks of Akila. Empty pockets. No ship. Locked on a single planet. But he had a plan.
MY STRICT ROLEPLAY RULES & GOALS:
- The Immediate Goal (Survival): Avoid Akila guards while carrying the hot Aurora, flip it to the Trade Authority, buy a cheap pistol, and get enough credits for food.
- The Mid-term Goal (Get off the rock): Work local planetary jobs. Earn, steal, or get awarded an A-class ship to touch the sky again. Infiltrate the Freestar Rangers strictly to use the badge as a legal shield and customs green light.
- The Crew Management: Rock is a leader, but he started as a nobody. Rule: No companion recruitment until getting a ship with a living quarters module My current crew consists of hireable bar outcasts only.
- The End Game (Dalton Transport): Level up Piloting to Class-C, build a network of automated outposts for Iro, Aluminum, and Tungsten, and create a legal corporation to absolutely crush his former syndicate employers.
From now on, I will be publishing Rock’s personal log diaries which he likes to record before going to sleep as I progress through this brutal playthrough.
LOG ENTRY: PERSONAL DIARY (DAY 1) Author: Rock Dalton, grounded space trucker Location: Akila City, Freestar Collective Status: Bankrupt, on the run, alive.
What a hell of a day. If someone told me a week ago that I’d be stranded in this dusty ass town without a single credit, I would’ve laughed in their face. My former corporate boss didn't just steal my ship and frame me for a fake debthe put a hit on me through Ecliptic mercenaries.
Right at Akila's gates, a Trackers Alliance bounty hunter stopped me. She said my "reputation" precedes me and hinted they could use a tough guy like me at their HQ. The irony: my ex-boss wants me dead, and the local bounty hunters want to hire me. But this is a chance to get back into the sky. I don't care if I have to hijack a pirate junker or buy a rusted cargo hauler, I will get back into the cockpit. "Dalton Transport" will rise, mark my fucking words.
But first, I had to deal with the contraband. A few vials of Neon Aurora were literally burning a hole in my underwear. (with Starvival mechanics, you carry contraband physically on your person, and city guards scan you on the fly. If they catch you, it's over.)
The spaceport guards were distracted by some commotion in the city, so I sneaked past them, kept my head down, and made a run straight for the Trade Authority. Luckily, I managed to flip the hot Aurora to a local smuggler. With clean cash finally in my pockets, I immediately bought a basic Eon pistol and some ammo to replace the piece of junk I was holding. Now I was armed.
Right after leaving the Trade Authority, I stumbled straight into a warzone. Some local Shaw Gang punks took hostages at the GalBank. Marshal Blake was trying to negotiate, so I stepped in, hoping to test my luck. No luck. Those guys were absolute psychos, and the talks went straight to hell. We had to solve it with violence. The bank now smells like gunpowder and blood, but the Marshal is officially in my debt. A Freestar Ranger badge will make a perfect legal shield for my future business. And for my other activities...
The plan for tomorrow:
- Head to the Trackers Alliance HQ. It’s time to officially become a bounty hunter.
- Use their contracts to cover up my shady deals, hire a crew of desperate local workers from the bars, and earn enough credits for a proper A-class ship.
Hang in there, Dalton. Space is deep, there’s enough room for everyone, and debts must be paid back with interest.
u/dvornikk — 8 days ago
▲ 212 r/NoSodiumStarfield
Starfield Photodiaries: Vol. 1
“...if you can get into orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.” Robert A. Heinlein
u/dvornikk — 24 days ago
▲ 120 r/Starfield
Starfield Photodiaries: Vol. 1
“...if you can get into orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.” Robert A. Heinlein
u/dvornikk — 24 days ago