Topic: The Firestar (Read 87466 times)

Jerick · « **Reply #270 on:** January 05, 2012, 04:28:22 pm »

Quote from: Urist McDwarfFortress on January 05, 2012, 03:53:03 pm

Quote from: SHAD0Wdump on January 04, 2012, 08:24:42 pm
Am I the only one who thinks it ominous that someone bought the driller nuke?
Annoying, more than ominous :p

Do we have anyone who knows how to fly a fighter? I imagine its quite different from flying our old shuttle or the Firestar. If we have anyone with the skill to fly it, having that Knell Fighter might come in very handy.

Flying fighters is indeed very different to flying shuttles and capaital ships and you don't have anyone who's done it before.
It is some thing you could learn by doing though,
Landing and takeoff on most fighters can be done on automatic which means it's fairly safe to let someone with no idea how to control take it out and get a feel for it.
But flying a fighter effectively in combat takes skill and practise and some of the more expirenced pilots you'll encounter will tear apart any inexpirenced or inept pilots you send out.

Jerick · « **Reply #271 on:** January 06, 2012, 04:02:01 pm »

Bump for actions.

Urist McDwarfFortress · « **Reply #272 on:** January 06, 2012, 05:18:15 pm »

Head back to the cargo ship and make sure they are ok.

Jerick · « **Reply #273 on:** January 06, 2012, 07:44:42 pm »

Uncomortable with leaving some of your crew alone on a derilict out in space you decide to leave the two criticaly wounded crewmembers in the capable hands of the Tabien station medical team and head back out to check on them.
During the several hours it takes to get back the crew gathers in the new rec infront of the widescreen, basking in it's glory they agree that it was a worthwhile purchase.

You arrive to find the cargo ship now has working lifesupport.
The crew you left there have been busily restoring the ships systems to working order.
Saddly they report that they're locked out of all but the most basic computer functions and haven't made any progress on the engine.

Spoiler: Nav computer (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Firestar status (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Cargo Vessel (click to show/hide)

Armok · « **Reply #274 on:** January 07, 2012, 10:34:17 am »

> I survey the cargo vessels computing hardware, with an eye towards getting to software out onto a virtual machine on the firestar fro easier examination, and/or simply replacing the stuff that's causing trouble with a blank slate.

Jerick · « **Reply #275 on:** January 07, 2012, 11:13:06 am »

The problem is more a lack of admin acess then some programs them causing trouble.
But in your investigation of the system you find what looks to be a purpose built worm that periodicly causes the ship to transmit a similar encrypted signal to the one the drones sent.
Aside from that there are some heavily corupted proccesses running that you can't identify.
You also notice that the data storage handling is very inefficent and loses a lot of space.
An attempt to program a virtual machine doen't pan out very well.
Your modular operating system is elegant because of it's simplicity but a virtual machine is vastly more complex.
It quickly becomes a far larger task then you intialy imagined and is temporaily dropped due to time constriants.

Cracking the ship's security codes is only a matter of time as you can get at the computer hardware, but it will be much easier (and quicker) to wipe it all and install a new operating system.

Armok · « **Reply #276 on:** January 07, 2012, 04:41:22 pm »

> take out hard drives, put in ones with another operating system installed on them

Jerick · « **Reply #277 on:** January 07, 2012, 07:31:24 pm »

It's a pretty easy task but due to the nature of the ships architecture deceptively time consuming.
In order to prevent the ship having a single point of failure it's processors and storage media are distrubted throughout the ship.
Replacing them means wandering around the entire ship opening acess panels and pulling out the old storage media.
To make things even more awkward in order to prevent existing programs contaminating and copying onto the fresh storage media as you replace it you've had to completely shut down the ships computer systems.
No computers means once again no life support so your doing this in a clunky EVA suit.
The new drives arn't preloaded with an operating system because then it would actualy matter what order you put them in and you decided to save yourself the headache and install it after you're finished.
Once you've installed the new operating system the lifesupport system should come back online with needing to be turned on.
Opening yet another access panel you're surprised to find no storage media there, instead a metal case has been jamed in instead.

Armok · « **Reply #278 on:** January 07, 2012, 08:16:43 pm »

> quarantine

Jerick · « **Reply #279 on:** January 07, 2012, 08:39:39 pm »

You decide to be cautious and put it in a hermeticly sealed crate for the time being.
Continuing your work you find several other packages and cases stashed behind access panels.
They get added to the quarantine crate as you march on through the ship's corridors.
When at last you've installed all the blank drives and after the relatively simple installation of a new operating system the lights flick back on, the lifesupport kicks back into action and the new computer system boots up.

Spoiler: Nav computer (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Firestar status (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Cargo Vessel (click to show/hide)

Armok · « **Reply #280 on:** January 07, 2012, 08:43:33 pm »

((I assume those crates are also Faraday cages, to block any wireless signals?))

> Make sure the new system works, slave it to the Firestar, add software module to coordinate multiple ships.

Jerick · « **Reply #281 on:** January 07, 2012, 09:28:27 pm »

Quote from: Armok on January 07, 2012, 08:43:33 pm

((I assume those crates are also Faraday cages, to block any wireless signals?))

> Make sure the new system works, slave it to the Firestar, add software module to coordinate multiple ships.

Yup
Tests of the new system shows it to work, most of the time.
There are still a great many gilches and bugs in the system, some you manage to pin down and fix others manage to elude you.
Setting up the cargo ship's computer so it can be remote controled from the Firestar is simple, making sure it's secure is much harder.
After a fair amount of ardus work you create a secure system that you're reasonably happy with.
Controling the cargo vessel from the Firestar presents another problem; it increases the length of time between a command being issued and the required systems activating.
You begin work on the fleet command module but after the effort you put into getting the ship working and creating a secure system to slave the cargo vessel to the Firestar you're tapped out and the amount of stuff you need to do suddenly seems overwhelming.
You've difficulty even designing how it will work.

Armok · « **Reply #282 on:** January 08, 2012, 07:40:08 am »

> take a nap

Urist McDwarfFortress · « **Reply #283 on:** January 10, 2012, 03:16:15 pm »

This sounds like just the sort of job an AI would be very good at. Maybe we should hire one?

10ebbor10 · « **Reply #284 on:** January 10, 2012, 03:20:01 pm »

Also, since we're waiting in the scrap yard send out the scout drone to look for more interesting stuff.
Second, carefully analyse all comm data recorded in the scrapyard, look for traces for communication by the cargo ship and the kamikaze shuttle.

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Author Topic: The Firestar (Read 87466 times)

Jerick

Re: The Firestar

Jerick

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Urist McDwarfFortress

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Jerick

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Armok

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Jerick

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Armok

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Jerick

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Armok

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Jerick

Re: The Firestar

Armok

Re: The Firestar

Jerick

Re: The Firestar

Armok

Re: The Firestar

Urist McDwarfFortress

Re: The Firestar

10ebbor10

Re: The Firestar