Death, the wreck and home

What death costs

One thing: what was in the hold. Everything else survives - the fitting stays on the new hull, credits, rank and experience are untouched, the hull and shield come back full. Death is an expense with one line on it, not a punishment. The footer of the death screen says it on every death, because it is true on every death: HULL LOSS 3 · THE FITTING IS ON THE NEW HULL.

A hull lost is counted, and a house keeps its own roll of the dead.

The spill

The whole hold - ore, elements, spare guns - comes apart where the ship did, scattered within a few dozen metres, so one pass through it collects most of it. Three facts about it, and the screen says all three:

• It holds ten minutes. Mining litter dies in 75 seconds; a wreck’s spill gets its own, longer clock, because you have to fly back from home to reach it.
• It is nobody’s. There is no claim on it and it waits for nobody: the first ship through takes it - you, whoever killed you, or the Fallow, who come to a wreck in a sector.
• Issued gear stays issued. A salvaged starter cannon flies, and no counter will buy it.

Value is not deleted from the world; it moves. That is why killing somebody is worth doing, and why flying back is worth doing.

The screen

The write-down has three layers. The facts: where you came apart, how far off which station (or in open space), the stacks that spilled, and The spill holds 10 minutes and goes to whoever reaches it first. With an empty hold - every new pilot’s first death - it says Nothing was aboard. There is nothing out there to go back for, and offers no errand.

The ledger, when the server has an engagement on record: damage dealt, damage taken (split shield and hull), seconds, how long the trigger was down and how long it was on target. Then who took the most off you - the chief is whoever did the most damage, not whoever fired last - and one finding: Most of your fire never reached. Close the range.

The register: what the colony that raised you calls the loss. Entered. / Counted. / Booked., and a sentence in that voice.

Two buttons. Enter takes the fresh hull at home. R - only when something spilled - marks that zone as the errand, so the errand strip on the HUD points at it from the moment you wake.

Home

You wake at your colony’s home, in open space facing the shipyard, whatever zone you died in - the belt is common ground and a pilot who loses a ship in somebody else’s territory wakes in their own. If the wreck is far, the way back is a jump or several, and a jump costs hops from the tank; a station’s quay fills it. A warp you were winding up when you died is lost, and the charge with it.

Salvage

Fly into somebody else’s spill, or cargo thrown with K, and it is drawn into your hold like ore. Scooping a wreck’s cargo shows one line in your own colony’s voice: Recovery of registered goods. If they were yours, file. If not, file faster. - or the Kindred’s rite, or the Concern’s cargo at a discount.

Being killed by a pilot pays them 60 XP and counts for the war; if you were Wanted in their Compact’s space it also pays them a bounty and halves your debt there. Being killed by a drone pays nobody anything. Either way the spill is the whole of the cost. Combat.