Alien salvage and mother ships
Somewhere out on the sea a light appears. A silver craft comes down, lowers a search beam, and the water starts to glow and heave. It is lifting something out of the deep. This is a world event, not a cutscene: you could be fishing, fighting or hauling cargo when somebody shouts "ALIENS AT SEA" in chat.
The one-minute rule
- Notice the craft (a message tells you when one is within a mile and a half).
- Slow down and stay near (inside about 900 m).
- Click a craft before it leaves, about a minute after it arrives.
- Watch the object rise.
- It is registered in your Discovery Log: you get Adventure XP and the entry. If you do not click it you get nothing but the memory.
The four species
| Species | Who they are | Their word |
|---|---|---|
| The Tall Ones | Tall, pale, ancient-looking. Their vessels are enormous and nearly silent. They know more about Earth than they should. | You think you are the first. |
| The Collectors | Small and mechanical. Their ships scan the seabed constantly. They never attack: they retrieve. | Cataloguing. |
| The Observers | Small dark ships, fast, almost impossible to track. They appear near important discoveries, and sometimes they simply watch. | ... |
| The Warren | Aggressive, military technology. They are looking for the same things the Gods want hidden. | Stand clear of the object. |
Each species lifts different things, and a catch counts per species: seeing the Tall Ones take a tank, then the Collectors, the Observers and the Warren, are four different log entries. Smaller craft take 20 kinds of object: vehicles, aircraft, ships, trains, cranes, cannons, satellites and signal towers. They are not always useful. Sometimes they are hilarious.
| Object | Group | Rarity weight |
|---|---|---|
| A Car | Modern vehicles | 10 |
| A Tank | Modern vehicles | 5 |
| A Motorcycle | Modern vehicles | 8 |
| A Bus | Modern vehicles | 6 |
| A Truck | Modern vehicles | 7 |
| A Fighter Aircraft | Aircraft | 4 |
| A Passenger Aircraft | Aircraft | 3 |
| A Helicopter | Aircraft | 4 |
| A Cargo Plane | Aircraft | 3 |
| A Submarine | Naval | 3 |
| A Destroyer | Naval | 2 |
| A Steam Train | Industrial | 5 |
| A Crane | Industrial | 4 |
| A Generator | Industrial | 5 |
| An Industrial Engine | Industrial | 4 |
| A Shipping Container | Industrial | 8 |
| A Cannon | Military | 6 |
| A Satellite | Space and signals | 3 |
| A Radar Station | Space and signals | 3 |
| A Communication Tower | Space and signals | 3 |
Mother ships
Extremely rare: four small craft appear and spread into a formation, the sea glows and something huge descends to join them. What they raise, and how many different recoveries there are, is not written down anywhere. Witness one and it goes in your Discovery Log; the captain who sees them all earns the rarest achievement in the game.
Demo
Staff can stage them with /sky salvage[:species[:object]] and /sky mother[:species[:event]].