The Boff History Page
The story of a shipshaper
The story of a shipshaper
When I first discovered the realm of XPilot, I was known as d93-adl, driving the standard issue XPS-tripoint. However, I soon realized that having my email address as an alias is the True Sign of a Newbie. So I decided to change my combat name. Thinking ``anything's better than d93-adl'' I took the name of Boff, temporarily, of course, as I later would have plenty of time to find a more Combat Sounding Name. I guess that didn't happen.
Albeit many top gun xpiloteers stay with the XPS-tripoint throughout their career, driving the standard issue is a common sign of a Newbie. True, some of the fanciest ships are piloted by the worst drivers (this is maybe even more true in Real Life), still, I percieved that in order to play with the Big Boys, I needed a Ship, even more than I needed xpiloting skills. Hence I designed and later constructed the Boffmobile, implementing the SINILA technology.
During the first year of xpiloting, I had no plans to change alias, nor my ship. I was ``happy as can be''. However, I was slowly growing weary of the Boffmobile's habit of getting stuck in inconvenient places and situations. Finally, it so happened that after a ferocious encounter on the battlefields of Puujuna, I found myself outside team 4's unguarded base, with their target short of totally destroyed. One single bullet from my AC19 would do the job! But I had to act fast, because my team base was under heavy attack, and it was maybe a matter of seconds until the base was invaded and our target destroyed. As I steered towards their base my left stabilizer jammed and the Boffmobile was plunged towards the side of the entrance and wedged in the wall. As I worked frantically to get my self of the wall, some wussy backstabber from team 4 took a fish in a barrel shot at me and I exploded in 256 colors. This was it. I needed another ship.
I understood now that the SINILA technology was obsolete, and I had to develop a new, better one. After some extensive research I finally came up with the SICLAS technology. In short time I designed and constructed three apparently totally different ships: Cake, Can and Sigma. However, at a closer glance it became evident that they were constructed using the same technology. A new dawn has begun.
As the new ships were getting assembled, I reflected over whether the name of Boff should be used with the new ships or not. I decided to adopt the aliases of Piece of Cake and The Real thing for Cake and Can. As I suspected that Sigma was going to be head of my fleet I wanted a name that reminded of Boff but wasn't Boff. I asumed the alias Poff for this ship.
After a short period of running-in, the new ships showed a marked improvement in maneuverability and stability, the wedge rate dropped an astounding 95%, and the ball-retrieving ability increased by 35%. Thanks to this, the kill/dead ratio went up by 60%, which, all in all, is a good result. I am now using Sigma v1.1 as my standard fighter.
<d93-adl@nada.kth.se>