I. A major ecological scandal occurred last week. Multiple inspections have finally shown that special gas used in plasma guns becomes toxic after being ionized. It is mostly harmless, that’s why it took time to localize the problem. The gas forms an extremely toxic substance as a result of reaction with meteoric iron.
The Assembly decided to prohibit usage of this gas, but its less dangerous analogs are still legal. Still, this decision also has some side effects - the new gas doesn’t have such efficiency as the one used before. It behaves differently depending on mechanisms of ionization - either becomes less stable and degrades quickly, or its ability to deal damage to ships’ systems.
II. These days one of companies declared that it had received a special stable isotope of this gas. Whatever the mechanism of ionization is, it doesn’t lose its properties, and under some circumstances shows even better results - more time in stable condition, less heating of boosting circuits. But such type of ionization is available only with laser pumping which is used only in blaster-type systems and, partially, in systems designed according to accumulative principle.
III. A new break-through has been reached at the Imperial Scientific Institute. They managed to create a new flat focusing lens. It is more efficient than the one currently used. After being finished with a special coating, it allows to place a focusing point at a longer distance, or raise accuracy (depending on tuning). The disadvantage is that this lens degrades quickly under the influence of positive ions, that’s why it cannot be used in systems using ion streams.
IV. Jericho didn’t waste any time as well. To calm up the society, Families declared that they don’t fall back with other factions, and have made perhaps even more progress at some directions. They unveiled new railgun projectiles types, piercing ability of which is much higher. Also a lighter version of this projectile has been designed to be used in splinter-type cannons. Its piercing ability is not very high because of its size, but damage dealt to hull coating is impressive.
V. New ionizing technology complies with dense-fed plasma guns. This technology of forming powerful plasma clusters is well-known and remained unchanged through last 400 years. Now plasma clusters became lighter and fly at higher speed than before.
New imperial lens manufacturing technology allowed not only to upgrade stationary focusing lenses, but also replaceable concave lenses. Now they are able to focus the beam farther without energy losses.
Railgun projectiles, designed with the help of new Techs research, became easier to handle. They became more accurate while hitting the targets, showing lesser recoil compared to earlier modifications.
VI. Stars** & **Pilots continues its cooperation with the UMC in rating preparations and overall rating system management. All mercenaries have already duly appreciated all the innovations offered by the agency, but that’s not all yet. New rating systems for corporations are coming for all the pilots to be able to estimate combat efficiency of every single pilot in Precursors Sector Control battles from a new angle. The terms of these systems to be implemented haven’t been unveiled yet, all that is known that this is planned for the near future.
VII. A new generation military-class scanner has come to the market. Unfortunately, it is too heavy and massive, that’s why it can only be installed to large ships, such as dreadnoughts. But it can help to detect strange artifacts, which acquire specific properties after being irradiated with the help of usual reactors - they can temporarily transfigure energy streams to boost the cannons or create a gravity field. Thee artifacts cannot be detected in usual circumstances, but a commanding ship can do this before the battle with the help of the new scanner and send the data to all the allies. It’s up to mercenaries how to use the data.
VIII. Weekly ratings
Week 1: 15.05.4614 - 20.05.4614
First places among the mercenaries in first weekly ratings are given below: top-3 of each weekly rating. Ratings of the 1st week included the data of the pilots who use ships of old models.
Stars** & **Pilots received multiple negative comments from pilots, and immediately decided to mark a threshold - from now on only tier 4 and 5 ships will count to enter the table.
Top-3 maximum killings
- Takamina
- TeddyKiller
- Dwarfus
Top-3 PvE efficiency - Jeveret
- starcore
- DOGE
Тоp-3 PvP efficiency - Shelter
- INMUNE
- Arpacolas
IX. Pilots ratings
Stars** & **Pilots agency has introduced two different ratings of single pilots as its first decision. These two are efficiency rating and rating of special missions. The leader of first of these two ratings is TeddyKiller [HawK], and the leader of the other is - BLADE1964 [R4ge]. Click the spoiler for more.
Тоp-3 PvP efficiency
- TeddyKiller [HawK]
- RaRok [XIII]
- Summit [WPK]
Тоp-3 PvE efficiency - BLADE1964 [R4ge]
- komsomolets
- Bulllet [KPN]
X. Corp ratings
Corp ratings are the same as before. This (and not only this) week’s influence table leader is Nova Corporation [Nova], the most active corporation in Precursors Sector is - Clan Reckoning [RECK], and special missions efficiency rating is led by Rage [R4ge].
Influence top-3
- Nova Corporation [Nova] – 34338
- SIRIUS [sRS] – 25476
- SCORPIONS [sCORP] – 22317
PvP top-3 - Clan Reckoning [RECK]
- Southern Lights [sL]
- Stellar Marines [steel]
PvE top-3 - Rage [R4ge]
- VIP [VIP]
- SCORPIONS [sCORP]
All the ratings and reviews by S** & P. Stars & **Pilots - even your granny will understand these ratings.
XI. After a two-week Jericho oppression the federates have raised their heads and performed an attack, enlarging their territory by a few sectors. But the military experts are skeptical, as this scenario took place many times before. Really - now enthusiasm of the feds have fallen to zero, and their forces started to retreat.
The Imperial-Jericho border is quite stable. Some sectors are taken by both from time to time, but overall situation is unchanged.
Finally the weather becomes better. The clouds are almost gone, meteor showers have stopped. But the mercenaries report strange phosphorescent ships of unknown configuration. they behave very aggressively and attack civilian transports, pirates and military - everyone. All the flights are banned till further investigation.
