The Great Discount Hunt

Cover
Adventure summary:
"A new ship is like a new life!"

You remember the words of the guy who sold you your first Sidey as if it was yesterday. Today, you feel the same sense of excitement as back then because you made the decision to buy a shiny new vessel!

What's the worst that could happen?

The recap

Ship:

Exploration

Vaisseau

Permit:

Sol

Permis

Difficulty: Competent

Duration

1h30min

Max distance

454 LY

The Great Discount Hunt

You land at the Peters Terminal in the Bedaho system, the home system of Saud Kruger. While you don't necessarily want to buy a passenger liner, you figured that there are probably plenty of ship salespeople here and you can strike the perfect deal. They typically hang out in the Inter Astra booth upstairs across from the bar, so you head there immediately.


To your surprise, you find it completely empty! All station services are usually open 24/7 and there is no 'be right back' sign anywhere, so you wait. After circling around for a few minutes and switching through the ship models in the holo-display, your patience dwindles and you decide to flush down your disappointment over at the bar.


You tactically choose the table next to the entrance which has a direct view of the Inter Astra entrance. However, your view gets obstructed anyway quickly as someone takes the seat across the table without even asking if it's already taken. With a big grin on their face they start talking: 'Hi, I'm with Inter Astra! I saw you waiting over there. Today is kind of a slow day, so I'm killing time here at the bar. Sorry that I didn't approach you earlier but I was talking to another customer.', they begin the conversation. For a moment you find it weird that they wear a standard CMDR outfit instead of the typical salesperson suit but it doesn't matter. What's important is that you finally found someone with ships for sale!

Before you can respond anything, they continue: 'Let me make it up to you for letting you wait. Do you know about our new 'Educational Discount Program'? You see, many pilots -- especially the new ones -- are so eager to fly their ships that they don't do any research of what it takes to get the most out of their purchase. Some don't even know the Engineers. That's why we created the EDP which consists of a few questions related to the Engineers and their bases. To make things more interesting, we give our customers a 5% discount per correctly answered question. There are five questions in total, which means we are talking about a whopping 25% discount! That's even more than the Elite snobs over in ShinDez offer! What do you say? Are you in for a little adventure?'



Gobsmacked by this fantastic and unexpected offer, you are only able to nod with excitement. The salesperson pulls out a datapad with significant signs of use and a sticker on the backside which says 'Property of ...' The rest is unreadable. 'Here are your EDP questions. Enter all answers correctly and come back here. The discount will be applied automatically to your next purchase! Please excuse me now. My shift's over.', they say hastily, dismiss themselves with a brief o7 and disappear in a hangar elevator.


As you power on the datapad, it immediately displays the first question:
 

The Sarge


The Sarge is a reclusive and enigmatic ex-Federal Navy specialist who is also very knowledgeable in the field of limpet controllers. His name and details about his background are unknown. Recently, a ship with a well-known investigative journalist on board crashed after colliding with an experimental hatch breaker limpet shortly after leaving the landing pad. Although there were no survivors in this tragic accident, the Sarge refuses to remove the wreck for some reason.


EDP question #1: What's the ship type of the wreck next to the Sarge's base?


Enter your answer here to proceed to the next question (full in-game name):

Password:

Once you've completed this step, move on to the next. 

Bris Decker


Colonel Bris Decker is a retired Officer of the Federal Navy where he was a member of an elite recon squadron. While his engineering expertise is mostly related to frame shift drive technology, he uses his ground recon experience to train Federal Navy members in his four training greenhouses, which have a striking similarity to the parks often found around Imperial palaces and embassies. Bris always stresses that this is just pure coincidence.


EDP question #2: How many trees were planted in the four greenhouses?


Enter your answer here to proceed to the next question (don't count bushes):

Password:

Once you've completed this step, move on to the next. 

A Mystery


While it's crucial to understand the background of each Engineer, it's equally important to know their specializations. 
Once a dedicated miner, this Engineer learned the hard way that the only thing between you and the rocks in the asteroid field is your ship's armor, especially when you fall asleep on the throttle after endless hours of laser mining. 

EDP question #3: What's the name of the leading expert for armor reinforcements in the bubble?


Enter your answer here to proceed to the next question (hint: her base is in the screenshot):

Password:

Once you've completed this step, move on to the next. 

Tod McQuinn


Most people have read that Tod 'The Blaster' McQuinn earned his nickname because he 'blasted' through an entire CQC arena season. While this is technically true, it leaves out the fact that Tod was the only participant and that he won the season by default without receiving any price money. That's also the reason why he pivoted to bounty hunting, where he now collects the ships of pirates who surrendered and puts them on display as trophies.


EDP question #4: What's the total value of all parked ships and SLFs in Tod's base?


Enter your answer here to proceed to the next question (don't use thousands separators, use Inara's prices):

Password:

Once you've completed this step, move on to the next. 

Felicity Farseer


Felicity is probably the most well-known Engineer in the galaxy. Deciat, the system where her base is located, is therefore one of the most visited systems and attracts a lot of pilots. Not all of them make it to her base alive though, as the Meta-Alloys which she requires as entrance fee, are a a valuable target for pirates.

However, those who arrive at her base for the first time are typically deeply impressed by the giant beacon made entirely out of Meta-Alloys!


EDP question #5: How tall is Felicity Farseer's lighthouse beacon in km?


Enter your answer here to proceed to the next question (use one digit after the decimal point, don't round):

Password:
Once you've completed this step, move on to the next. 

Done!


Finally, all five answered entered into the datapad! You think to yourself that these were probably the most pointless questions imaginable. How is anybody supposed to learn something useful from this? Anyway, the last thing to do is to return to Peters Terminal in Bedaho and to get that sweet discount!


Return to the Inter Astra booth and check for another sales representative.


Once you've completed this step, move on to the next. 

The circle closes



Once you arrive, you quickly notice that there is still no salesperson anywhere around. Maybe they are again at the bar, so you head over, take a seat directly at the counter and start playing with the datapad. As soon as the barkeeper notices it, he starts to laugh: 'Is this thing still going around? Let me guess, you were promised a fat discount and the only thing you need to do is to answer a few questions? I can't believe that everyone is falling for this little prank, hahaha!'


Only now you realize that you were tricked by a random CMDR. There is no 'Educational Discount Program' and there is most certainly no discount.

Annoyed and embarrassed, you want to throw the datapad into the trash, but then you realize that you still had fun solving this little puzzle and you decide to 'invite' someone else to do the same. You put on a smile and introduce yourself with 'Hi, I'm with Inter Astra!' to get the attention of the next clueless victim. After you found a new owner for the cursed datapad, you quickly get out of the station before your shenanigans are uncovered! :)

You can automatically finish this adventure by logging in to the site with your Frontier account.


You can also share your snapshots on discord in the channel #trophées !

Podium

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CMDR …

14/03/1337

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CMDR …

14/03/1337

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14/03/1337



And…

The following CMDRs have also completed this adventure: