Acrador

Significant Sentient Population

500,000 Boraxian colonists?

Allegiance

None

Hazards

Thick fog impedes visual range and scanning equipment. Targets may still be noticed but attack is visual and the element of surprise offered by the fog results in greater attacking success.

History

The last of the new sectors to be explored, the gate to this sector was first found by the Tibrans in late 2390 but far too busy setting up their new mining colony they couldn't spare the resources to explore it. Instead, the sector was first explored by a Krilgorian HDC scouting party in late 2395.

The first thing the Krilgorians noticed upon arrival was a thick 'fog' that seemed to hang everywhere in the sector promoting them to name the sector "Acrador" after an ancient battle in Krilgorian folklore. Through the misty haze they could see the sector's giant white sun, but as they began their detailed scans, they realized that the fog seemed to be dispersing their scanning signals and making them effectively useless.

Communications and all other shipboard systems seemed to function normally, so they soldiered on doing the best that they could with solely visual scans. Doing so, they managed to pinpoint the locations of at least 3 planets, but when 2 of the group's 5 craft were lost due to an unfortunate collision, the team decided to pull out and headed back to their home base at Mattas Head.

In the short time since then, all other legions have entered the sector in the hope of finding useful planets to mine or colonize and have all discovered the scanner interfering fog of the sector.

This fog makes combat in the sector somewhat difficult because tracking an enemy in combat requires accurate function of the short range scanners. Comms still work, as do the transponder signals of the various Legion's craft, so all pilots are readily aware of the existence of enemy and friendly ships in the sector (unless they are cloaked and their transponder disabled) but when it actually comes to attacking an enemy it can be very tricky. By flying around and triangulating enemy ID signals it is possible to determine a rough location where they should be and head that way. From there, combat reverts to the most primitive form and is entirely visual.

As such, it often takes quite a while to actually find an enemy target and it is often quite by surprise that the target is eventually found, but the fog does provide the attacking pilot with a certain element of surprise. The victim seldom sees the attacker approaching and once under attack it is very difficult to evade being hit when you have no idea where the shots are actually coming from. As a consequence, effectively all damage in the sector is increased.

So far, no Legion has made any serious effort to find habitable planets hiding in the fog, or so they claim. Rumour has it that Boraxians have discovered a useable planet and have set up a satellite colony but no one can confirm it, because no one can find it.