Elite Trader OXZ

Esteemed Commander,
The Galactic Guild of Elite Traders (G.E.T.) has studiously considered your application and is pleased to inform you of your admittance to our Order. We maintain Guild Houses in all systems of the Eight Charts, and you can be assured of a hearty welcome wherever your voyages now take you.
May the GETTING exceed the Taking! - Refrain from killing and assume our gentle mantle, and reward will be equally forthcoming.
Yours most Truly,
Grand Master Exoloön of Inera.

Brother GETter,

The storied intergalactic Elite ranking is attainable for ship Captains of every disposition, peaceful or warlike. Eschew the space-lane on Station approach and watch your Grade soar as you dock with our Markets, trade skillfully, and doggedly ply the celestial Milk Run.

Note well that the ascending Grades of G.E.T. do not countenance the recondite practices of many of today's free traders. We are traditionalists. Contracts are frowned upon, as is opportunistic scooping and the sale of mined minerals and the dealing in precious stones and metals. Our Assessors will not credit you for such sales. We'll meet you on the Market floor or nowhere else. As one of our crasser pooker-playing Brothers once coined: if it ain't paid, the score's not made. We're about buying and selling.

You may note with an ironic smile that G.E.T. cares little whether Galcop deems your bought goods illegal... We have small truck with that legislative body - but our situation is one of mutual tolerance. With us, your record is always clean, and all trades legitimate in our eyes.

As it forever has been, Market Observer and Market Inquirer by Brother Spara, adjuncts to your calling, are almost de rigueur. Do not exit a space-dock without them!

Trade well! One day we'll meet for a toast in the Halls of Inera with the Exalted.

Your friend and mentor,

Dor Reval of Xexedi, Supreme, Serendipitous & Serene Space Grocer.

Confessions of a Guild Quisling

Contratius Phlebor of the Gerete systems, notorious and much-sought bounty hunter, once of elevated Grade in the Guild but now its bane, has let it be known that to the highest Grades is entrusted a secret of Galactic import. Phlebor implies that it may take the form of an object or tool, with a source of infinite energy.

To this secret, he has stated, is owed the G.E.T.'s power, wealth, technical prowess, and present ascendancy throughout the Eight Charts. Phlebor has spoken gnomically of a 'Ninth Arch', upon which he refuses to elaborate.

"What is nearly certain is that the Guild traces a lineage back through myth to the Templar Order of the fabled Terra. It is recorded in their scriptoria," he hints, "that Templars once held sway on that near-forgotten planet, over its rulers and would-be hegemonites, in similar fashion to G.E.T. over Galcop and the Lawless Worlds. It is, they say, both Trust and Continuum."

Contratius is widely ridiculed (by those who dare, including the Guild itself) for these and further claims...

The now ageing whistleblower of scarred and burned visage offered quite freely to this reporter that 'the Brothers' pay homage to a forgotten deity whose prime directive was: Do not kill.

"Terra again," he comments, "A philosophy I came to find I couldn't quite square myself with. The money was nice, though. And their miraculous ship upgrades, some of which my old Asp still has. Got away with a few of those still in place, though most 'bad Brothers' are stripped of everything. The true Brothers really won't kill, you know - won't press the trigger for that final burst. Some are galactic Elite rated too..."

Persisting respect for his erstwhile masters written in his remaining eye, Contratius cut short our chat with the words: "I'd never betray them full-out. And they leave me alone."

No Guild representative could be reached, or located, for comment. They seem to have no PR.

Seeking expertise, I found confirmation of one of Phlebor's claims. Hild Fenwith of Xexe University:

"Mythohistorians would not deny that such proto-chivalric Orders, blooming out of monasticism in ancient epochs, owning their own fleets, fortresses, and preceptories, did indeed count trading and banking among their keys to power, holding money and their arcane treasures over the heads of kings and Pontifs like edged weapons."

Identically so with the G.E.T. today, Phlebor contends.

Mild-mannered keepers of lost secrets, with an edge hard as military lasers. And they're everywhere, my sometimes reticent source told me. Is the Galaxy the better for the Guild?

You tell me.

--Tea Mereso, Xexedi Enquirer.

On the Lane with a Master Traveller

and Tea Mereso, Xexedi Enquirer

Fens Buber's Cobra hold is seldom empty.

Except, as of this hauler's break of less than an hour, between the unloading of stack upon stack of odorous pods stocked with Laeninian Erebear pelts and a supplement of their prized (at least on Lerelace) Mauve Gentian Cassis.

His (her? their? - for Fens, gender-state is multiply mutable) return load will be pristine hyperdrives. We are for a lightning stop-and-dock at the G.E.T.'s Octahedron, geostationary over Lerelace Prime - whose russet seas and impossible peaks have fast become a conundrum to a little-travelled Xexedian. (What must their sky be like? she wonders, querulous and witch-sick - for, yea, it is your faithful correspondent.)

Perhaps this snub by the Guild Master of the establishment, who after nary a glance my way, followed by warm usherings-in of Master Traveller Fens to an inner sanctum, is to be forgiven. It is coldly apparent rather suddenly that my last piece has not gone unremarked by Brotherhood nabobs. Buber did warn me of the likelihood (with a wink of some eyes) on launch from Xexedi Virgin. "The stance will be that it didn't happen," they snicker delightfully.

Apparently, we are being shown now what the Guild really does: and for a tour-guide one of my own (who by their frequent pulsations might even like to wed me). You're getting this only here, exclusive, with the Enquirer.

Fens Buber emerges, seemingly refreshed, out into dock, across whose cavernous spaces they poceed to skip and float, while three Guild mechanics (technicians) bustle mysteriously about the craft's hull, wielding... what exactly? Fens arrives, touches a limb to one of mine, says, "We fly faster now, just a touch."

"And you're just", I press opportunely, "traders. With nothing up the ceremonial sleeve?"

"Grocers. Buyers and sellers. Travellers in goods. Pick your term."

"OK," I fire back so as not to lose the impetus, "I pick very odd traders with a long - like ancient Terran - pedigree." At which Fens throws some glances at the Lerelacean leopardine attendants (now slinking away), plus several more, disquietingly, at me. "You really met that... arsehole Phlebor?"

We are forced to concede that we did, yes, confer in holopersons with Contratius Phlebor.

"And you know they fobbed you onto me, as being of our kind, to give you the down-and-dirty on his fabrications... his fantasies."

"I thought we met by chance in the bar."

"If you like."

Sent a double wink, I allow that it seems they did, adding, "But wasn't he a much higher Grade than you, Fens? Can you be certain he is fantasizing? Do you not learn more of the Guild's inner workings the further up you go?"

Fens offers me endearing shrugs and we proceed through the Mark Three's drive-packed aisles into cabin-space. "Time to be off. Witch it to Laenin, and then it's home again for pretty old yous," they appease, they try to make light. But your correspondent is not to be sidetracked.

We launch and, something unusual, Fens engages J-drive immediately. Not a masslock siren to be heard nor a Viper in sight - they are left behind with the perplexing vermilion of Lerelace receding on rear viewscreens. I forbear to ask if this is an unconventional exit, well aware that it is. Instead, I say, "Tell us about your first run as a GETter, a Guilder..."

"Glad to, Tea - after witch. Brace and breathe - remember how you forgot to last time?" Tuners-in, I can tell you that was a bodily event your reporter will not soon forget.

We emerge, silent and sober, into Laenin's gravity-well, all my questions and purposes whirling in the purple void our wake makes. What is the Guild doing with these ships?

"Grocer, in the before-time, Grade zero, probationer, acolyte, what you will. Made the run in this Cob unmodified: Lave, Zaonce, Isinor, Qutiri, Aronar, Beusrior, trading on route. Those days were hard, before the Guild's perks kicked in, before milk began squirting from the Xexedi-Laenin-Lerelace teat. The skips we're doing now, Tea. Reaching this cluster for the first time, Qutirians had already fitted a Large Cargo Bay, and we were at 70 tons. Now she's 110 TC, with four Goods Containers instead of missiles. But before any of that, before the Guild took note of us, hot hull every run, you know, shields gone, goods spoiled, locked and harried and menaced at the witchpoint by the likes of..."

"Contratius?" I prompt.

"His ilk. Miscreants - they who take life and living away without a thought. Like these here..." Fens flutters some digitals over five convergent red dots on our scanner. "See, we're targetted, missiles about to fly."

"Do something!" your intrepid journo hears herselves squeak.

"No, listen - " Unruffled, Buber is shoving a comms plug into one of my auriculars. He - for I'm sure it is that for the moment - mimes comically along with the raspy Galspeak synth-voc: "Forty barrels and we let you live, Xexedian pond-scum. Ten pulses and missiles away. Drop 'em!"

"He means our auxiliary containers."

Buber is in paroxysms as I screech. "Just do what the... what are they?"

Species-incompatible, he soothes, patting a flailing limb I seem to have no control over. "Does not bode well slavery-wise, if they scoop us after."

"After...?"

"After they melt us." Fens giggles.

"Dump the cargo," I implore. (But you hear all this, gentle tuner; you are with us... goodbye from your...)

"Time's up frogoids. Eat quirium."

"Ahh, indeed it is, such a shame to leave the panto..." He drops a digit onto a blue button and scanners suddenly empty, are black. He doesn't need to say we are in J-drive again, flitting toward rosy crescent Laenin to offload hardware at hefty profit and take on more pelts and mauve Cassis for Xexedi - for we love the sweet beverage now and I could down a quart myself and sleep the sleep of...

"Nothing locks us you see, this is what the Guild does for me, and I'm happy to pay my dues."

We pass the Laenin loading hour in silence, Buber a little sullen, it seems to us. We depart for home, and matters from there are swift.

"You're Grade Four, a Master Traveller, Fens - you can leave the milk and skim off the cream. Our tuners have watched you do it. Back to Contratius a moment - he was a long way up the ladder you're climbing when he went bad."

Buber's skin-hues begin a rapid cycle, alerting me at last to his inner state.

"I know what you want from me. We all know what you want: Phlebor was a Knight - of the Rosy Star, I believe. 18th Grade - a level most scarcely see themselves reaching. They say he was a paragon, until whatever happened happened to him. I'm authorised to say this: he still knows little. And we're very happy about that. Til we meet again, Sor Mereso."

Nonplussed, we take our leave of Fra Buber with more questions than we started out with.

Relieved but unsatisfied, I'm able to say I've been accepted as unofficial spokesperson for the Guild of Elite Traders. Alive, and speaking to you from the Virgin Torus spacedock, G.E.T. aegis, this is Tea Mereso of the Xexedi Enquirer, at Xexedi, signing off until next time.

Overview

To lay this out in plain Common Galspeak... The accomplished and non-belligerent G.E.T. Brother will witness various astrogational marvels in respect to his, her, or its spacecraft, to wit:

A continual upward evolution in

Elite ranking

Speed
Shield strength
Shield recharge rate
Energy recharge rate
Energy levels

In addition to

A ship forever in good repair
Automatic, free refuelling
Free fast-dock facilities at every station
No mass-lock, except at Main Station (Oolite >1.85) - weapons must be offline before hyperspace countdown, otherwise normal mass-lock pertains.
A permanently 'clean' Galcop record
A clone of their ship, gratis, in every spaceyard, should they wish to reset their augmented speed, energy, and shield strength to nominal. (Oolite >1.88)

Unless the Brother strays - in which case none of the above apply.

Gratifications

Gratitude is due to Spara, Dybal, and another_commander for their encouragement, advice, and - above all - the education of a Javascript neophyte.

Versions

NEW IN VERSION 1.1

Immersive G.E.T. messages at every stage of the voyage.

Successful trading brings useful rewards.

NEW IN VERSION 1.2

Minor cosmetic enhancements.

On Arrival Screen, speed-reward status message is not shown if another OXP resets the ship's maxSpeed (Masslock Compensator is a known culprit).

NEW IN VERSION 1.3

Cosmetic enhancements (contextual comms messages).

Destroying other ships--as opposed to damaging them to aid escape--brings System G.E.T. disapprobation and a bout of penance (no Elite score or rewards).

NEW IN VERSION 1.4

Feature update (see bullets above)

NEW IN VERSION 1.5

G.E.T. Status entry added to the Manifest screen, showing best trade to date, and the system, commodity, and ship in which it was made.
A couple of expedient refinements in the ship-rewards system: shield and energy recharge rate increments have been reduced in the light of a Bulletin Board discussion.
No mass-lock applies only when weapons are offline, and they must be disabled before hyperspace countdown.

NEW IN VERSION 1.6

Refinements and improvements in the Best Trade logic: G.E.T. Status on the Manifest screen now takes into account individual sales of individual commodities and lists these, while aggregating all separate profits made at the same station.

NEW IN VERSION 1.7

Added the obvious to G.E.T. Status: total profit for the current station.
Further improvements to the selling logic: all good trades are acknowledged and complimented (though only one still scores).

NEW IN VERSION 1.8

Free G.E.T. fast-dock facilities are now available at every station via autopilot (C-key). GETters no longer need to install a separate auto-dock OXP or fork out over 1000 credits for Docking Computers.

NEW IN VERSION 1.9

Total profit now applies to the System as a whole: allowing for in-system trading, along with buying and selling at multiple stations in the same system.
Cumulative profit is given alongside compliments on the Market screen.

NEW IN VERSION 1.10

Introduces two G.E.T. entries to the F4 Interfaces screen:

G.E.T. Master Advisory. The System Guild Master offers salutation and advice to trader acolytes.
G.E.T. Max Trade Resetter offers the opportunity to set your Maximum Trade, as displayed on the Manifest screen, to the profit gained in the current system. Useful if the system glitched, or if you switched ships and now prefer a clean start.
E.T. checks for the presence of Market Observer and, if absent, adds a 'Trade (goods): xxx.xx cr' line for each individual sale, after the manner of M.O.

NEW IN VERSION 1.11

G.E.T. strictures in respect to the destruction of other ships have been tightened. Repeated ship-kills result in a permanent black mark, ruling out further speed, shield, and energy enhancements. (It is perfectly acceptable, on the other hand, to damage an aggressor beyond repair and force him to disengage. No Guild penalty results from that form of self-defence.)
Augmented ship specs are reset to nominal after a given number of ship-kills.
For straying Brothers, the Vow of Good Brotherhood makes its appearance on the F4 Interfaces screen: errant commanders are given the opportunity to reform. If accepted, all G.E.T. privileges are restored.

NEW IN VERSION 1.12

G.E.T. accepts a donation, a 'gift', comprising 1% of every member's profitable trade over 100 cr and 10% over 1000 cr. Donations determine the Brother's advancement in Grade and Title inside the Order, as well as being the prime source of G.E.T. wealth, power, and technical prowess.
23 Grades with associated Titles track the advancement of the Brother within the Guild. Grades stretch from 'Grocer' (Grade 0) to 'Elite Grand Master Eternal' (Grade 22). G.E.T. Grades have been liberally adapted from the 33 Degrees of Scottish Rite Freemasonry.
A Brother's ethical standing is also noted on the Manifest screen: 'Good', 'Reformed', 'Errant', 'Bad', along with his donation to the current station, total donations, and Grade with Title.
A full G.E.T. Ship Status Report has been added to the F4 Interfaces screen, showing the technical enhancements applied to the ship's systems since the Brother's induction. Both nominal and current specifications are noted for speed, thrust, shields, energy, and energy recharge rate. (Arrival Reports note only previous and revised specs while omitting thrust for reasons of space.)

Dependencies

Oolite v1.82 or later. No dependencies on other OXPs.

Recommendations

GETTER HUD - the only HUD in the inventory designed by G.E.T. Brothers for G.E.T. Brothers, showing digital speed and cargo hold contents in place of missiles.

FE Ships and FE Ships Player, favouring the Trader/Explorer, bring Oolite's core ships into line with those of Frontier: First Encounters, which expanded cargo-capacities across the board.

Goods Containers, externally mounted 5- or 10-ton cargo cannisters, fitted to any spare missile pylons, will speed your course to riches and larger ships.

Market Inquirer and Market Observer, it goes without saying, along with Torus to Sun Drive, enhance the E.T. experience greatly. Running with weapons offline will be to your advantage.

For all-round good spacegrocership, G.E.T. regards the following basic upgrades as essential:

Advanced Space Compass
Witchdrive Fuel Injector
Military Injector Upgrade
Large Cargo Bay (if available)
and a beam laser: not for its destructive potential, but for the quality of its reticle!

Conflicts

Certain OXPs will conflict or interfere with the rewards-system and special privileges of Elite Trader. Known to be problematic are Masslock Compensator, Auto Refuel, and possibly certain shield or energy enhancers. AutoDock has been made redundant by ET's own fast-dock privilege. The best advice is to experiment.