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Day Zero: The Terrorists Win

"...wa-HAOWWHA?!" I snap-blinked awake in my cabin as klaxons rang and the cruiser's Majordomo AI insistently warned me, "Wake up now; the liner is under attack. Wake up now..."

"Attack?! What?!" I staggered to my feet, and as the floor felt my contact a door opened up in a nearby wall. The door with the emergency suit.

"Put on the emergency suit now," the computer commanded, as the spaceliner shook. "We cannot guarantee your safety yet. Put on the..."

I followed various instructions, and suited up. Then sat on my bed and waited. The liner service had offered a discount on this route, but had said the lane was probably, mostly clear of raiders. More chance of getting struck by lightning on Earth. In a thunderstorm, under a tree, on an iron deposit apparently.

The cargo liner booked a few passengers in low-rent quarters, which was why I had bothered to try to make the convention on Lemalsamac personally. Even in the days of low-rent interspace travel, I would have been feted as a guest of honor simply for making the trip. And for my work, I supposed. Geeky things really.

The situation didn't seem too bad yet. I wondered if the cruiser would fend off the--

--the door opened, and lights lit up on the floor and walls, shuffling in a particular direction down the hall. I didn't need the AI to explain, but it did anyway. "Follow the orange path to the nearest escape pod." Oh, were we in a planetary system already...? "The ship will be attempting an emergency random jump to throw off pursuit." Guess not. "We cannot guarantee the ship will survive the jump intact, so move along now to the escape pod, just in case. The crew will accept any prayers."

To the escape pod I went, wondering when the...

...the shift would normally come when passengers were asleep, so as to avoid the wrenching experience of consciously warping. Not this time. I hadn't put on my helmet yet, and safely retched in a corner. Then moved along.

"The ship will not survive. Move to the escape pod now, the ship will not survive."

Good grief. Too shocked to panic, I stumbled then trotted along. The nearest pod wasn't far. Its door opened as I approached, and I climbed inside.

"The door will normally close automatically as the pod ejects, which it will if calculations indicate--"

POOM!

Day One (Part 1 of 2): Omicron Isn't The End

I woke to the sound of the suit telling me to get my helmet on now, now dangit, now!

I found it in the zero-G, and managed to slide it over the neck socket, wringing the ring around the joint to make the seal.

Gravity was rapidly returning. That seemed maybe good.

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Oh, yay, we were past the heat of re-entry already!

Oh... there was no we. No one else had made it to that pod before the computer decided the ship was going to explode. Or the ship had exploded. One of those.

Inane things spooled up on my suit-facewindow's HUD. I had discovered deposits of Magnesium and what...?!?!

"You are approaching the surface of the planet Omicron. Prepare for a hard landing."

...what, wait, how haaaaAAAARRSHDSHSHDHSHERGHGPLLLll...

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(Yes, the game starts with you falling out of orbit in an escape pod, bouncing across the landscape as you hit.)

After my rattled brain calmed down, I heard the slightly British-commander-sounding AI telling me to exit the pod, exit the pod soon, the pod dropped with information that raiders pursued it and it would soon self-destruct to prevent the raiders from easily finding and scavenging its resources, get out of the pod now, and take the emergency provisions!

I struggled several seconds, and started yelling incoherently, before accidentally finding the button to open the door.

(No, the game nowhere explains that you must use the 'use key' function to exit the pod. Or what the 'use key' originally is, which is 't' by the way.)

Grabbing the provisions from the pod, I backed away in case it decided to explode while I was nearby. In the distance, my HUD registered a rocket probe departing into the west.


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Behind those bare and forlorn mountains. Oy.

At least the sky was blue enough to indicate an atmosphere. I could hear... things... tromping around nearby. Plant-life stood, if sparsely. I almost opened my helmet before I thought to ask the AI what kind of planet--

"Omicron has no atmosphere fit for human survival. Gravity is equal to Earth. Plantlife and animal life may be edible. Liquid water in small lakes dots the surface. Fairly rich in minerals. No known sentient life. Surveyed but not yet colonized."

Oh. "Does the system have any colonies elsewhere?"

"Unknown. No official ones. Less than nine hours to sundown."

"Will the suit protect me from exposure here?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Indefinitely. Until your food and air run out. Air will run out sometime after sundown."

I poked through the survival kit. 5 small oxytanks. I read the instructions on how to plug them into the suit's refill. "How long will five tanks of model SMX last for a man of my stats doing regular strenuous exercise?"

"About five hours."

Not until sunrise.

"You are capable of normal movement, so quickly move away from the pod as soon as possible."

I did.

It flared brightly, and melted. Only slag could be recovered now.

I had literally no idea what to do. Too scared, too doomed to die, to panic.

For want of anything better to do, I turned around.


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I sighed at the rugged waste of beauty. At least I would die with a view.

...no. Giving up already would be stupid. People were smart; smarter than me! What would smart people, astronauts worried about just this kind of situation, pack in their survival pack? Nanotech probably. Something to make oxygen, something to make food. I asked the suit and it gave me a list of what was in my backpack. I couldn't use anything there, packed away, but whatever I selected could be shunted to my utility belt, where I could use it.

Okay, good. Oxygen generator. Needed energy pods, but a few of those were included. Needed water, and great, I had landed not far from a lake. All the oxygen I needed.

That would be a start.

So I started walking.

Or running rather. Sundown in less than nine hours.

Omicron, I thought, isn't Omega.

Omicron isn't the end.

I tried Empyrion. IMO it isn't nearly half as fun as 7 Days To Die. But, they are still working on it.

Well, true, 7DtD is a very advanced alpha, while Empy is listed as pre-alpha by its own devs. Why it's still pre-alpha I have no idea; the game as is, is more functional than some betas!

It isn't as inherently stressful as 7DtD, though. Except for the part where you can and will smother to death.  :coolsmiley:

Day One (Part 2 of 2): It Could Be Worse

So. uh.

Strictly speaking, what do I need?

1.) Oxygen.

2.) Food. The suit will hydrate me enough, but it runs on bioenergy so I'll starve faster.

3.) Energy. There are plenty of crystals to make more energy pods with, but I'll need something to make energy pods with. And also more crystals eventually. Dilithium or whatever. Promethium? Unobtanium? Fortunately I landed near two good deposits of minerals and one of those is Promethium. I shouldn't run out of energy, not anytime soon.

4.) Protection. The suit says some animals are dangerous, and I also saw a rocket drone which since the suit says this system isn't formally inhabited probably means raiders have set up an automated station to mine things. I, oh good, I have a .50 caliber pistol of some kind! And a decent number of rounds. Put the pistol on the utility belt like a gunslinger, yo. Rounds can stay in the backpack until I need to reload; I'll holster the gun, flick a spring-switch on the handle, and the suit will send me the new rounds.

Still, may need more protection. Magnesium nearby, maybe I can make bullets from that, but...

5.) ...I'm going to need more minerals than magnesium and, uh, promiscium eventually. Which means...

6.) ...I'll need to explore. I sure hope there's a way to help do that somewhere in my survival kit.

I set the suit's voice to sound more like a slightly British lady commander out of aesthetic taste [note: suit voice isn't really in the game], and plot a trot to the water's edge which will leave me about equidistant between the two deposits. Which, apparently, are underground. Huh.

At my chosen stretch of lakefront, there's some kind of... bloody caterpillar thing crawling around. It looks vicious, and the suit has only minimal information about it. I've seen several in the area, and they haven't tried to hunt me yet; nor does it seem sentient. I figure I better secure the area, and maybe secure some meat.


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AH! AH! AH! AH! AAAHHH!!!!

Most of two clips of .50 caliber ammo. But it dies. I'm just going to guess that anything that looks like a bloody mouth of doom would have been hostile, and wasn't something that licks plant stalks or other harmless activities. I hope.

At this point I realize I've filled my backpack and toolbelt both with things I picked up along the way, from plantlife, that I thought I might be able to eat later. I need to make room for the meat, and... ew, the "alien parts" (or so my suit calls them)...

I'm able to pick up the "alien parts", and most of the meat, but while I'm working on other things another caterblooder apparently swoops in behind my back -- or up from the sand -- and scarfs the corpse.

Their gargle quacking sound makes me more nervous hereafter.

Still, okay. I look through my backpack, or rather my suit's list of backpack items. Uh... something to cook meat? There's a special slot in my helmet like an airlock where some simple machines can feed me anything small enough to put in my helmet's mouth, with little teeth to tear it apart into smaller chunks. But raw alien meat doesn't seem great.

Okay, uh, flashlight, bullets, some medical things, compacted ores, obviously must be something to use those ores with... oooh, that sounds promising. "Survival Constructor". Yep, I would like to construct some survival please!

I have to make room for it on my toolbelt, where some plant-leaves the suit says are functionally similar to aloe vera are. That could be cumbersome later. And from there, I "virtually" pick up the item, as the suit plots where the expandotech will plop it. Not too far away from the corpse, so I can get the remaining meat (a plan that mostly succeeds later). Poomp. Less than a minute later the bots have finished and gone inert. Except for the bots that will work on other expandotech later.

No idea what to do with it yet. I hope construct survival.

Now, where did I see that Oxygen Gen...? Ah, here we go. This should be put in water, and ideally all the way under. Okay, walk out into the lake. Is that far enough? Seems far enough.


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I don't want it completely covered over of course, that would be ridiculous, I might not be able to find it again. Now, how do I turn it on? Oh, it needs energy? I've got five fuel packs. The SurvConst has permanent zero-point fuel or something -- why doesn't everything have that?? -- even my worklight has that! -- but most other things will need fuel packs. I, however, need oxygen more than most other things need fuel packs, so I give it four to work with for now. It starts some slight mining on the bottom of the lakebed to make oxygen bottles.

Really, with this kind of technology, I ought to be able to build a spaceship or something to escape this not-Martian rusthole. Ha! Well, no good being bitter. Back to shore.


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Wasn't there an old movie about a black monolith looking thing bringing technology magically to apes? "A Clockwood Range?" Something like that.

I spend about an hour of precious daylight and oxygen (and bioenergy from my body!) reading through the constructor's files, which the suit has handily linked with. No spaceship to get off the planet; but no radio either, really? That's retarded. I'm going to die on this rock because someone forgot to program this thing to make a subspace radio to call for help.

Well, I may not die today. Although the suit has a handy suicide button temptingly near where I might accidentally select it by accident, y'know... sigh.

Okay, first make room in my pack and belt by moving just about everything to the constructor. Not surprisingly it can't use most of the alien biomatter, but it can... it can make salami. Or grill the meat, which sounds better to me, especially since I can't stand salami, but I go with the salami anyway because it might not go bad as quickly. Apparently, exposure to the nanotech and zero-point energy rots dead material a whole lot faster than usual, in hours even. Something to do with the temporal energies which allow a constructor like this to be made in a few minutes, and which allow a whole day and night to pass in what seems like half an hour to me. A nice side effect so I don't go out of my mind with boredom; and it even makes the things I deploy seem to pop out onto the ground!

One subtle detail I almost miss, is that most constructed things need a tech-foundation to be mounted on. Bare ground won't work. The foundation can be expanded with blocks of various sizes, but it needs a core and a minimum number of blocks to start with. Annnnndd... I have a core in my survival kit! But no blocks. But compressed ores to make blocks various kinds of metal sheets and more sophisticated equipment with.

I put the ores in first, and tell the machine to start making 20 metal plates (in two batches of 10), which it does as I instruct the suit to shuffle things out of my inventory into the constructor. That doesn't take long -- I've barely moved more things over -- and so I use 16 metal sheets to make 8 standard hull blocks. Which also doesn't take long; but now I can order up a "base starter". The foundation will disperse energy to all blocks in contact with the core, up to the limit the generator can create at a time; but then relatedly I'll need a generator, too, which in turn will need an energy storage processor (and more energy cells). I can't make the storage processor yet but I order the materials for it.

It's weird how the caterbloody things make sounds like a two-legged creature glopping around... I whirl around a few times but nothing except those creatures at some distance. The suit magnifies sounds somewhat for safety I guess.

Now, another subtle detail I almost miss [in fact the game doesn't tell you this until you're ready to place your base foundation] is that the foundation can only be placed on flat surfaces. Well, I'm in a desert, that ought to be easy!

No, no. FLAT. Flatter than that. Than that, too. FLAT!

So to my toolbelt I send my shaper and my driller.

They both have small headlights so I can work at night. The driller destroys ground (fast or slow depending on the setting), the shaper pulls and pushes the ground.

This, I learn, is a deceptively subtle operation.


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I make a mental note, while I'm working, to find whichever company clearly designed both tools, and whoever there decided they should use different incompatible energy cells, and punch them in the forehead. As a ghost maybe. It passes the time as I finagle rock up and then blast it away to smooth it out.

With about 4-1/4 hours to sundown, I finally table enough land to place my base-foundation. Good thing this suit has a jumpjet! When toggled off I can vector suit energy laterally (running faster although it messes with my stamina -- the suit won't kill me so I'll just stop when I run out of energy). When toggled on, I can jump about fifteen feet high and fall softly (but I can't run fast), which uses a built-in capacitor that pulls only standard bioenergy so it doesn't drink my stamina dry. But the capacitor quickly runs out and needs a little time to recharge.

Consequently, I don't need stairs to get up on it, only my jump -- if I remember to turn it on.

By now my small storage box (which will be rather larger than me) is ready, and the small generator takes more complicated tech which itself takes time to make so I queue that up and go over to place my energy storage, leaping up high to land on my foundation, and then planting it on the foundation core. (Not that I needed to; it just seemed handy.)


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Yeah, I uh... I was kind of whopjobbled in making the foundation's foundation, so to speak. But it worked! And other parts of the table don't have to be so flat for more blocks to be added to the foundation. Fortunately. [Note: shaping the ground to get a perfectly flat place to put the first nine-block foundation is a pain.]

The small fuel tank only needed 4 electronics, 4 metal components, and 3 cables; but the small generator, lord, it needed 12 metal components, 3 electronics, 2 control devices (which fortunately the constructor could make directly), and no less than 2 capacitor devices, 2 computers, and a reactor core! Which were five items that themselves needed a bunch of sub-items, including some motors which again needed a bunch of basic sub-items.

I queued up the start of all that, and then got tired of listening to one of those caterbloody things sneaking around in my peripheral vision. Too close, worm. OhGodIdidn'treloadit'schargingafteroneshotreloadreload...


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That didn't go quite as well as the first wormkill. Still, the only dead worm is a good one or words to that effect, and I made some more salami and got some more alien parts (which the suit thinks may come in handy later), and I felt more competent afterward.

[Note: the game rewards xp for lots of things, including landing good hits with weapons and killing enemies.]

Two hours to sundown, and the generator still isn't quite ready.


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But I feel rather more hopeful about how things are going.


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Hopeful, and also a bit smothery. Time to wade out and see how the oxygen is coming.

[Note: you can play the game in 3PS like this, but I find the camera follows your position in a loopy sort of smooth-lag way. Which is probably meant to represent, like, a HEXO drone from the suit trying to keep you in view. Or it's weird coding. I don't play like this much, but I like to use it for snaps. :) ]

Kind of lose it in the lengthening shadows, but only for a moment; wade out and, hey, 8 bottles, with still 3 energy packs remaining! Added to my original 5... now, I can't use these bottles directly, for some reason known only to God and the designers. I have to convert them to something the suit can use. Currently, that's small bottles of Ox, which are completely different than the other small bottles of Ox I'm using to make the small bottles of Ox. :P So I set the constructor to do that before I smother and die, since that seems a bit of a priority right now.

And just hours ago, I was sitting on that ridge, with my escape pod slagged behind me, thinking I wasn't even going to last the night before gasping painfully for death!

Uh... argh, wait, I still need to make two computers. And some energy packs for my small fuel unit. Then I remember I already have 5 breathable Ox bottles -- those would have taken me to death sometime late in the night, I recall -- so I use those instead of making more right now.

[Note: the multi-stage tech things start early in this game, and are definitely a matter of taste. I like it, and feel a sense of real accomplishment getting even a small generator to work, but neither am I hiding from occasional zombies. So there's pressure to get things done, but not that kind of horrifying pressure. The ambient background music is soothing.]

I eat most of my first salami; put the new power packs in my fuel cell, and place my small generator.

Not that I turn on anything yet; the generator has nothing to run, so that would be wasting energy.

But with the shadows lengthening, and... huh, space crickets I guess, cricking in the background (maybe it's those fluffy sprite-bugs which have been floating merrily around all day), I get out my work-light, which as I noted before runs on infinite zero-point energy, and drop it carefully at an angle to light the path between by constructor and my newly not-yet-powered-but-slowly-growing base.

Which next will need a larger constructor, in order to make more complicated things.

So back to the smaller constructor I go to do that.


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And in the distance, I see rising, not a moon, but a fellow world of this small solar system. An earthlike world. Akua, the suit calls it. Also uninhabited. But with more, you know -- air.

I could have landed there.

Oh well. Time to work on the real constructor, and get the first pieces of the pieces of the pieces etc. set up before darkness totally falls. Starting with a few extra blocks on the side of the foundation for it to sit on.


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I mean, sure, things are bad. But they could be a lot, lot worse.

Night One: Worse

[Note: incidentally, this gameworld was created using a numeric seed converting "GROG" to 718157.]

One nice thing about the suit is that, due to it messing with my bioelectrics, and its inherent temporal displacement mechanics, I don't need to sleep.


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I mean, sure, it's going to kill me in seven years or less, but I'm stuck on Omicron, alone in the dark, so what?

I wish to register another complaint that the first thing at the top of the survival pack, at least in the top ten, or at least in the survival constructor's plans, should have been a radio encrypted to broadcast on a special secure Laneguard channel. This thing can make computers and a reactor core which in turn help create and power an even more sophisticated nanotech space-time violator.

Which, by the way, is my next project for the night.

For that, I'll need 2 control devices and 4 cables (already made), plus 10 metal components, 5 all-purpose electronics, 4 pipes, 2 motors, and 2 computers; plus all the whatevers involved in making those motors and computers. Man, this is almost like real work.

About 45 minutes after sundown, still quite twilightish in the sky, I notice a couple of slightly shifting pale green dots on the far right middle-edge of my faceplate's HUD, but I don't really notice them.

A couple of minutes later, I happen to notice two red triangles on my suit's internal radar track. Uh oh.


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Small drones on an attack profile for my base. In hindsight I note that these are not quite the same kind of "rocket drones" zipping off somewhere while my pod was crashing.

Uh.

Well, they don't know I happen to have been the only guy in my high school gun-safety class who could shoot both skeet with a shotgun on test day -- and that's despite living in West TN, with a gun rack in every Camaro!

They also don't know I'm packing some kind of .50 caliber pistol. That's... kind of like a shotgun, right?

I dodge behind the foundation of my base, which they don't attack directly. They're after me, not the base. Not yet anyway. Odd.

I quickly learn that the pistol doesn't kick much; and to avoid the green scan light from the drones; and that painkillers in the suit are useful if a bit creepy for abuse potential; and that whether from their armor or my dodgy aim, I need around 15 shots to take down each of them.


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Akua mocks my struggles from her unreachable perch in the sky.

But I do destroy both drones.

If the raiders have any sense, they'll have programmed their base to send out ten drones next time. If I'm lucky, they'll be foolishly frugal and send only three.

I scavenge some useful tech from the wrecks, which should speed up construction of various things tonight. I eat most of my remaining salami, and use one small medkit, which brings me back to near-full health. I try not to think about how exactly the suit is accomplishing this.

A distant planet or moon is now rising easterly...


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...but due to cloud cover and maybe lingering sunlight I somehow missed the giant rocky (or icy?) planet looming dimly in the western sky before now.


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For a moment, the aloneness and despair crushes me, unable to breathe. But then the suit jolts me, just in case, and I go back to work.

With about nine hours to sunrise, the large constructor is ready, and I position it to expand into place on my base's foundation. It looms in the dark like a nightmare. Coldly uncomforting, blocking out the sky as I pace around the remaining open spaces of the foundation. I don't turn on the base's power yet, as the constructor has no materials to work with, but I access its computer with my suit.

I then have a heart-attack from not-surprise to discover this thing has no plans for making a radio either. I upgrade my intention to ghost-punching whoever designed the survival kit in the nose instead of the forehead, and decide I really ought to be thinking of the food processor next.

So I start moving things from the smaller constructor to the larger one; which takes a while since I still have several currently unusable food-things in my backpack, which presumably would go in the food processor eventually.


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Even with my flashlight and the generator turned on, the night looks cold. I can feel the cold through the suit, even though I know that has to be my imagination.

Still 7 hours to dawn. With my oxygen running a bit low, I go harvest more bottles from the lake, and decide I'll use my original constructor for making fuel packs and useable-oxygen-bottles.

6 hours, 15 minutes; I've been waiting to replenish my oxy until nearly the last minute, figuring that since my food processor has finished (yay!) I'll celebrate by moving all my food there, seeing what delicacies the machine can grind from my harvests, and huffing some air. I don't even notice the three pale-green lights on the western edge of my HUD.

Nor, shuffling things around in the large constructor's inventor, and out of my backpack, and back into my pack (since originally I thought the constructor would make the food like the smaller one did but better), do I notice the three red tango markers floating in from the edge of my scope. I do figure out how to make a light to plop on my base floor or wall somewhere to relieve the sepiaaaaaaHHHHHHH!!!


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FORGOTORELOADRELOADLOADLOAD

Hiding from three chain-gun probes is harder than trying to pot-shot two; but not as hard, I suppose, as ten.

This battle, despite being caught by surprise (and unloaded) goes better than the one before.


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I walk away with barely any new scratches and with more techno-bling for my constructors to work with.

Still, I can't rely on the stupidity of the raiders' resource-base programming forever. Eventually it's going to send something sufficient to easily kill whatever Tennessean is out here in his orange and white suit. Not that I Volunteered to be here.

I celebrate by sucking some air in the smoking dark, sending the sacrifice of my enemies up into the eons of the eons, as the memory of my home sinks slowly down in the west.


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Volunteer 5, Raiders 0, son.

A few minutes later, with a little more light on my base, I discover the "EasyFood" generator doesn't have much of a clue what to do with any of the things I've harvested so far. But it can make ribs as well as salami and grilled meat! -- if I ever go get more meat. Woot.

Well, enough of those caterbloody things wander around, I shouldn't run out of steaks, although maybe I should look for a fridge -- nope, no fridge in the plans.

But that isn't really the problem.

The problem is that eventually I'll run out of bullets. And out of magnesium and metal to make more bullets eventually. And out of all kinds of metal to make more things eventually, even if only bullets.

And then I'll starve. The only question is whether or not first I run out of promiscuousium to make energy pellets to make oxygen.

Well, okay, not that; and not magnesium either. I remember as I sag in defeat that my HUD has been telling me since literally before I set foot on this rock that I've got two substantial deposits nearby, one of each.

But those aren't metal of any kind. And I need that to make bullets. And other things.

Which I'll need to defend myself from raiders.

So, I'm on a planet fairly rich in minerals, and my suit can detect them a fair distance off. Do I just run around, tiring myself out? Walk ploddingly around, not straying too far from my oxygen and meat cooking?

Is it too much to hope the constructor things knows how to make a drone, like my enemies have, to scout around?

Yes.

But...

...I discover a new starter block.

One for a hover vehicle.

Okay then!

I spend more of my slowly dwindling supply of metals in the start of an effort to go find more metals.

And then I run into a wall, figuratively speaking.

I need a "hover engine".

I check the plans in the constructor/suit interface.

No such plans exist.

What in the actual hell.

Dejected, I sag and stare at the taunting "suicide" button, wondering if I should go on now to my reward or wait until dawn. Only a couple of hours away. I decide to wait to see the sunrise.

This turns out to be a good idea.

For want of something to do until the raider-base wises up and sends a fleet, or sunrise, whichever comes first, I explore some suit interface commands I only just noticed. One is a hilariously empty file on how to survive on a desert planet, written no doubt by the fiend who designed this whole mess with his own three hands. I'm reminded of my brother's book he likes to show off to his banking friends: the Full Professional's Guide to Wall Street Ethics.

Apathetically clicking on a few more icons, though...

...I open up a completely different suit menu.

Apparently, the suit constantly evaluates my competency at doing various things, and so allows me to unlock new schematics for the constructor(s?) when it thinks I've shown the skill to tell the constructor to do a few things. Not that it unlocks everything within a certain level of its competency protocols even then; it gives me points to spend doing so. I have to earn more points to open the things I choose to open later.

"Ghostpunching him in the teeth," I think to myself, as I scroll through the icons for a hover craft. Toward the bottom (instead of the top where it might be noticed first, considering I need it before I need anything else), a hover engine.

Well, yippie!

I... buy that... {teeth gritting} and I notice I have plenty of points earned already, so I buy a few more things that look like they might be necessary for a hovercraft, such as a cockpit and a small thruster.

Back to the large constructor, and after making a couple of guesses in the menu, there's the hover engine. Fab and sub-fab several things, and it's done; the starter block opens up, and few minutes later I can put it on my toolbelt with my HUD providing a virtual plot for placing it on the ground nearby.


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Not very encouraging. It looks like a square monolith that fell over. But I noticed it had a hover thruster on the underside before it flumped to the ground after expanding into existence.

I also notice it's about time for more air; so I spend the final hour of the night harvesting air bottles, setting up conversion to usable air bottles (sigh), eating a last salami, and shuffling some final things over to the food processor, which does result in it telling me it can make small health aids now. So I make a couple, and huff some air.


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Glad I waited for dawn.

So far.

Day Two: Otyugh Boo

Paging around in my suit's Taunting Menu, I notice:

1.) I cannot make radios still, or ever apparently.

2.) I can make autocannons.

3.) I can make a small flying base, to explore Omicron better with.

4.) I can make a large flying base, which can take me not only into space, and to other planets, but out of the system altogether.

...I can...

...theoretically, I can get home...

Also, I can, indeed, make a fridge, if I pay enough skill points for it first.

I cry a little for a few minutes, and then get busy. The silly thing wants to be sure I can handle a flying base by making a hover craft first. Fine.

But first I work on a water purifier, which I hope, wrongly, will convince the food processor it can make food from the things I've given it.


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It can, however, demonstrably make medical kits with water and some alien blood-plants of various kinds I've found. Which is very much not nothing, even though it isn't food either.

Along the way, I mis-read the instructions and wrongly infer that my little hovercraft will work fine with a small fuel tank and small generator. Nope; I can use those whenever I get around to proving I can make a 'capital ship' (why would I use them then?), but I have to make a normal sized generator and fuel tank for that little small nine-block.

So I do that, too, hoping I can make use of the small set later and that I haven't fatally wasted resources in the long run.

Four and a half hours to go until sundown, and my little hovercraft block now has a gas pump and engine.


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I begin to get a feeling that I'm going to need a few more blocks to make this work.

Also, somewhere along the way I discover I'll need an RCS device which acts like a core block except, uh, different: it's a more advanced central processing unit to make the hover thingies work together.

--wait, am I hearing something?


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...no, guess not, nothing on radar either. Just my (small!) generator chugging along at my base.

Whew, what else will I need to finish my little runabout? At least four thrusters, and all that that entails. The block starts with one to lift into a hover above ground, but to move in any direction I need a thruster pointing the opposite way. Fortunately, the RCS module will convert all the Newtonian motion into Aristotelian motion (maybe by using Einsteinian motion. Or Brownian motion. I'm... my specialty isn't physics. I read a book once.)

I queue up various sub-components to cook, with about two hours left in the day, and go up on a nearby ridgeline to hunt a bit. Oddly no animals around. Also, no drones have been sent, kind of a miracle. Maybe they only come out at night? That would be retarded. Good for me but retarded.


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I feel irrationally uneasy all of a sudden being a mere 120 meters or so from base. Or maybe rationally uneasy, after a long period of being irrationally easy about being stuck on an uninhabited rock with bloddypillers and raider drones, and no radio, in a whole other part of the galaxy from Earth.

I sprint back to base. Nothing wrong. I picked up enough of the rarer plant-plasma to make a major medical kit, and to huff some oxygen, and to be glad that I still have four of the all-purpose food packs. No animals means no meat, and those packs provide enough food-energy for all day.

All I lack now are some pipes to make the thrusters with; and metal sheets to make the pipes with; and while I'm queueing those up I'll make another couple of floor/wall lights since in half an hour the sun will beeaaAAAHHWHAT'SWOBBLINGUPBEHINDMEEE!?

--whirlingaroundinabunchofdirections--


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--nothing? but. but I saw tentacle movement approaching me from behind, the shadow on the wall--

Oh.

Duh.

The sunset was casting a shadow from the waving plasma plants.

Man, this place is getting to me. It's actually creepier when the bloodmothra things disappear. Good thing I was hanging up a few more lights, this time on the outer walls. Another night in the dark, and I might lose it completely.

I don't have many more unlock points, but I figure now that I'm cooking the final pieces of the hovercraft, I shouldn't leave the base alone when I take it out tomorrow. So I spend the points on unlocking the cannon turret and, just as importantly (although the user interface gives no clear hint about just how important it would be), an ammo box. (Unlocking a storage box plan first to get to that.) The guns draw ammo in automatic reloads from the box, which has to be attached to the base somewhere but not necessarily anywhere near the guns, which is admittedly nice.

Yes, I said guns. Plural. I figure I can afford the minerals to build two and some ammo and the ammo box. Whether I can do it before the autofactory remembers I'm here... well, to be fair, I may have already destroyed its normal complement of security drones, and it may be needing to make some more!

Turn back to the constructor, are my thrusters -- what? Not finished? Oh, piffle, I hadn't made enough metal plates for the pipes to finish. Get that set up first, and then we'll queue up the first pieces of maybe the ammo box while I

hear shuffling

whiparoundtolookbehindme

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thaaaaaat is definitely not a tall weed.

And it's a little bigger than a bloodypillar.

...Iiiii'm just going to jump up on the base here, get a little higher to assess the situation, crap I can't jump high enough to get on top of the constructor which is the highISTHATTHINGCOMINGTOWARDME!?


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um um um pull gun

can it climb up here

parentlynot

GROWLWHAPbutitcanhitmeanywayah ah ah ah aaaah!

It has tentacles. They can reach over the edge.

I try to run away, and just run into more pieces of my base, which isn't designed for running around on it really.

Well, okay, to tell the truth, I panic and back right the hell off my base onto the ground.

Where it can get me. Better.


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BLAMBLAMBLAMSPURCHAAAAAHHHHzip!

Can't run with the jetpack on, but I can leap you humpmother.

Where it can hit me in the air as I arc to the basepad.

I turn around and dryclick the pistol oh blanknabbit


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The suit has kept me from being torn apart so far, but I'm down to half health it thinks. I think I'm seeing random bloody splotches inside my faceplate, which is not what I regard as half health.

I turn to run, nowhere to run, instantly try to jump up higher on the machines, can't quite make it, fumbling my reloading, jumping again, down in a notch between machines, probably safer here maybe who knows but not where I can shoot it safely, jump again, still reloading, bounce off the side and OH CRAP I'M FLOATING OFF ONTO THE GROUND AGAIN!!

It growls.

I run around the side, since there are only sheer cliffs of machinery here, yep I can jump up here AAAH I'M GOING TO LAND NEAR THE TENTACLES


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stupidstupid

it growls

BLAM! BLAMBLAMBLAMHANDCANNONGOTURNAROUND JUMP AGAIN, WHAT I'M POISONED

I fling myself around somehow on top of the large constructor at last. Safe. If it could climb it would have done so already. Tentacles can't reach here. I edge forward, reloading.


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Good, good. I have brains and technology and strategy, you thing, and that's why I'm going to edge forward here until I get a good shot and thennnnooonononotoofarofftheedgeaaaaahhh

growl


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YEEAAAGHOWOWOWOWDIE DIEYOUHELLSPAWNTHING BLAM!


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BLAM BLAM BLAMMEDYBLAMBLAMBLAMCLICKLICKLICKLICKclick click pant pant

Not dead not dead not dead yet I think it's dead now I'm not dead yet eep swimmy in my eyes uh uh the thing poison not gonna make it open my backpackmenuuhuhuh large medkit yeah CAN'TUSEITINBACKPACKARGHGGGHHH send to toolbelt activate from there

...ahhhhh

Three meats and three alien teeth? I can get three meat from a bloodypiller!

Whatever.

Night falls.


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Night Two: Surprise To You

So, where was I...? Oh, right, I had just put on some night lights on the back side of my base.


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Not because I really needed them. I just... I dunno, I feel like I ought to stand here instead of somewhere safer when messing with the large constructor. And I want to feel safer standing here when I'm in the dark of night, which the lights won't help improve in any real way, rather than standing somewhere actually safer (where by the way I happen to also have lights).

I may be losing my mind. I just got attacked by an obscure creature from that old role-playing game, right? Dung of Dragons? (Why would they have named it that? People back in the 20th century were so crude...)

It occurs to me that if I have to deal with things like that more often from now on, I am DEFINITELY going to put my autocannon project on the front burner.

One ammo box later:


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That reminds me; I have all the parts I need to finish my hoverthing now, don't I? I can be working on field-assembling that while my constructor deals with the prep materials for the components and subcomponents of the guns and their ammo.

I pause a minute, fascinated by the shadow being thrown by the worklight across the little sand dune next to my base. So harshly dark, in a pitiful island of light -- even the littlest unnoticeable detail can be foreboding here...

...then my suit adjusts my nitrogen mixture and my lack of sleep in a temporal displacement field is not so much of a problem anymore. For now.

(Note: not really a game thing, just flavor text to explain an odd pause here. Maybe to go use the bathroom, which would have been a more humorous flavor text, but the shadow effect just looked... unexpected.)

The instructions in my suit for orienting the placement of structures, I discover, are quite reversed (note: actually true in real life; the listings for horizontal rotation give the vertical rotation keys and vice versa), but I've soon attached the small thrusters, one per side, to the main block. There's no room to feasibly put the RCS unit on the main block, but the power and information dispersion capabilities run through the shell of the fuel tank so I end up mounting it there. As for the cockpit -- wow, there's no way that I can fit that anywhere on the structure. At all.

After a protracted period of time attempting this and failing, I get nervous about not having my autocannons on line; and checking to see, I find their components are ready for final construction.

With seven hours till dawn, I huff five small oxygens to recharge, and blast a rock in the way of where I plan to expand my hovercraft out a little, thus making room for my cockpit. Eventually. I'll need some extra blocks to try to build out a framework around the thruster on that side without blocking the actual thruster function.

The autocannons are large enough that I also need several extra blocks to add to some opposite corners of my base. Note to self: adding lights to floor panels prevents me from putting something more useful on the floor panels later.

A few minutes after I place the first cannon (at last), and as I'm ciphering out where-and-how-many blocks to add for the second cannon -- NNK! NNNK! My suit warns me of a launch detection. Drones aren't on the radar yet but will be on the way.

Not ready yet for the surprise yet, boys. But I'm getting there. 4:45 until sunrise.

By 4:33td (till day), I've placed enough blocks to let my second turret hang off the edge securely. Good enough for government work. But not for me: I plant three more base-blocks under it just to be safe. Everything ready for the surprise? Guns generally pointing in the threat direction. Base-power is on. uh... oh, right ammo! Duh. Already made, but not in the ammo case yet: one hundred rounds, 30 millimeter shells. That ought to be enough for several days: I only needed 15ish shots a piece with weaker ammo and much worse aim. Over to the ammo box, and...

...still nothing on radar, even on my long-distance HUD-edge sensors. Huh.

Nervously, I go back to working on my hoverthingy. Adding a block to flank what I'm planning to be my reverse thruster on either side -- nope, that doesn't do it. I go make a couple more blocks. Well, ten more blocks in case I need them; I'm sure I will eventually. While they're cooking, which won't take long, I pick up my worklight to reposition it on the other side of the hoverthingy, not noticing the pale green HUD edge markers yet. Turn it around, set it down to turn on -- how does it know to turn on and off like that? Must be a pressure switch on the bottom. Okay, that lights up this side of my hoverthing better.


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Now, I can see a little better to make sure I'm not inadvertently blocking my reverse thruster as I add more blocks to extend past it on each side. First one on, good, step over to the other side so I can see to put the second one on; yeah, I'm glad I moved that light, because I almost plopped the block right over that thrusterrrrnnrrrnrrnnnrnn

AH! What! That's -- crap, I wasn't watching my radar, they're right on top of me!

Well, not quite, but what are the guns waiting for?! Clearly they're tracking the targets. Not in range? What's what clicking sound, I know I know I gave them ammo -- are they loading? They're seriously waiting until NOW to start loading, aaah aaaaaahhhhh!


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...phew. The enemies never even got off a shot.

Man, that was GREAT! Once I get my hoverthingy going, I can leave the base safely here and run back here kiting critters or raiders if there's trouble and, I wonder how many shells I need to replace, sounded like maybe 15 total...

...ALL OF THEM!? The guns used all 100 rounds?! That's ludicrous!!

Oy. It occurs to me a minute later while queueing up another 100, using more precious magnesium, that they probably do have some left; the guns reloaded when dry, so the ammo isn't in the ammo box anymore.

It also occurs to me that I'm almost out of magnesium powder, and so I'm going to be VERY thankful I've got a deposit nearby. First thing on the list tomorrow morning.

Last thing on the list tonight, after scavenging the probes (which is especially nice since I didn't have to risk any wounds at all), is getting that cockpit placed.


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Which works, but in a whoppyjawed way. Evidently, what it wanted was one three-block long strut; the suit would place it on one or the other but not on both.
Just great. I worry whether the RCS will even know to try to adjust the thruster trim to compensate.

So, let's see. Generate some fuel cells at the small constructor, plop those into the fuel tank. Climb into the cockpit. Flick on the power...


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Oh. Oh this is good. The jet sound beneath me is so comfortably reassuring.

I spend a few minutes testing its functionality near my base. I can rotate in place, and all four thrusters are working, so I can strafe left and right, and run forward and backward.

I am about to explore the heck out of this area.

But that's for tomorrow morning. I need to finish up some chores here first.

I have to say, I'm so excited I forget to turn off the engine before hopping out of the cockpit! Fortunately, the hoverthingy doesn't punish my stupidity by immediately zipping off toward the horizon without me.

Shut off the hovery for now; hop up to the constructor, I've only got 10 units of magnesium left and only 54 iron ingots. I know where to find the magnesium, but the iron could be a very serious problem. Move the 100 new ammo to the ammo box, check my food processor to find most of my stuff has spoiled, but I make some salami and harvest some alien plant-plasma nearby I hadn't bothered with yet to make a 3rd small medpack. Munch my salami for breakfast, fills me up. Huff a 5-pack of oxygen. Turn off everything on the base except my guns, to conserve as much energy as possible.


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28 minutes to sunrise.

Time to see if that hovery thing can climb mountains.

DAY THREE: LET'S GO SEE

Before I strike out in my hoverthingy, I decide to build a cargo box, just in case I need it anytime soon.


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I put it on the power generator where I can handily find it again, but things turned out I didn't really need it today.

Seeing as how I need magnesium more than metal (or so I thought), I promptly hover over to the magnesium deposit and starting mining a path down to it: one I can walk out of, or at least jump(jet).



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Unfortunately, I hadn't even gotten to my minerals (MY MINERALS NOW, I CLAIM THEM IN THE NAME OF ME!), when I just happen by accident to notice three incoming drones. Still a ways off (not on most of my HUD systems yet), but a reminder that I don't always receive warning of a drone launch in my direction. Argh.

I hightail it back to base in my hoverthingy, and park it well behind the guns in case the drones decide it's a target. I know I'm running thin on ammo, so I check to see if I can make any more at all, and lo! -- I can! I don't find out why until a little later, and the revelation will seriously mess me up. But I queue up another two loads of 30mm, and a cannon snipes the first drone coming over the ridgeline. Which is when, turning, I notice there are four drones this time.

I don't get out of it entirely unscathed, and I have to add some pistol shooting, but the threat doesn't last long and I'm soon out racing between the wrecks to pick up tech.

Bringing it back to put in my large constructor, I figure out (at last) that what the thing needs to make ammo are bits of scrap it calls "metal pieces".

Which is a problem, because I have no idea how to fabricate those, and the ammo can't be made with compressed ores. Essentially I'll be scavenging dead drones to find enough metal pieces to make more dead drones, if possible. The only good news is that their guns use the same ammo as my pistol, so I'm in no danger of running out of that.

I spend the next two hours finishing my dig down to the magnesium deposit, and using my digger to jar loose rocks of raw ore. Eventually I take back around 50 of them, which I soon fabricate into magnesium powder. Which is great, but without "metal pieces" I still have no way to make ammo! Nor do any of the guns my suit taunts me with unlocking, use my pistol ammo (except an upgraded pistol maybe, which my suit thinks I need to prove myself a lot more to unlock. sigh.)

Still I do what little I can, and as I'm making a little more ammo I hear the alert of a launched raid.

Which is fine: I soon have 125 extra 30mm ammo (beyond what's already in the guns), and enough time to check on my oxygen and water generators, which both now need more energy cells. I set the small constructor to work on converting one oxygen bottle to another (and I huff 5 bottles while I'm at it), and then to convert all the porniseium or whatever into fuel cells (since I've found no more uses for it).

By now the drones are arriving, and I decide to take manual control of a gun to see if I can shoot more ammo-effectively. Which apparently I can't. A quick look in my ammo box after the battle shows only 11 remaining from those 25. Good grief.

Off to harvest the scrap, from which I can make a few more bullets. As I return and jumpjet onto my base, I can see that huge stony or icy planet or whatever it is rising in the east.


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With not much more than 4 hours to sundown, and with only 36 spare ammo now in the box, I decide I had better try scouting around the lake while I still have light, to see if my suit-sensors can pick up anything useful: i.e., anything I can turn into ammo!

I now realize I haven't even looked at my suit's map yet (or to see if it has one, which it does).


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Well, that's kind of handy! At least anything I scan will be marked on the map. Also, one of the things I'm seeing in the sky is this planet's moon, although which one I can't figure out yet. It doesn't occur to me until later that the suit is telling me it knows how many of what kind of deposits are on this planet, and so necessarily must know where they are -- BUT ISN'T TELLING ME YET!

Possibly I would have realized this sooner, had I not quickly run (or driven rather) into another Otyugh wandering the shore of my lake.


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I start to panic when the hoverthingy freezes or is trapped on something with this dangerous beast nearby; but eventually I jostle loose, having gotten stuck on a rock somehow. (Not one I can convert to metal pieces, though.) The creature doesn't seem interested in my craft, and keeps hunting around for food. I zip past it and continue around the lake.

There's less than 3 hours to sundown by the time I finish the circuit of this alien sea, including a sweep back down the middle in case something out there was beyond my sensors somehow; and all I have found is a silicone deposit (far enough away from the shoreline that I can feel pretty secure about nothing being underwater to sense). Which is useless to me unless I can survive long enough for it to become eventually useful.

So, on the theory that maybe the mountains have more ores than usual, and wanting to see what kind of steeper slopes my craft can take I randomly choose some peaks and streak out for them.




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I find nothing, but the maneuver tests work slightly better than I was expecting: I couldn't climb to their tops (in the craft), but I could use the bottom thruster to lift me out of some problems, and to give me enough clearance to go up some moderately steep slopes. Good enough for now.

The suit warns me of another launch in my direction, but I have time to zip down off the steeper slope to survey most of what lies on the other side of the low ridgeline between me and wherever the drone base is; before running for home.

I still have time to make some small medkits before the drones come into my suit's nearby radar range, at 1:53tsdn.

This time, though, I not only have much less autocannon ammo to fight with, but I have inadvertently left the runabout off to the side instead of behind the guns. Whereupon I learn that the raider drones are programmed to shoot it if they see it.


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I can't tell yet how much they managed to hurt it, but not enough to smoke or anything like that. Unlike the raider drones, soon.

While scavenging the drones, I get bitten by a blooderpiller I'm hunting for salami (gag), and contract an alien parasite, which the suit tells me I need an antidote shot for. Antidote pills won't help, as I learn shortly after I waste my only such pills trying. Fortunately, I soon learn after running back to base that I only need magnesium (which I now have plenty of), bottled water (which I quickly secure more of)...


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...and alien teeth for some reason. Which I have 8 of, so great. With a little shuffling, I soon have 8 antidote shots (and two salamis).

I managed to down those drone with only 25 cannon ammo (and lots of handcannon fire), so making another 25 from "metal pieces" puts me back at 36, which makes me feel a little better as I hear my north cannon tracking something that turns out to be the freaking Otyugh! But it stays away, for now, and I don't have to shoot it. I'm worried about whether the gun can depress that low, though.

Somewhat recharged on air, somewhat full of alien salami, and cured of my parasite, I watch the descent of that craggy stone or ice ball in the sky.


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Almost 11 hours until sunrise, and if I'm going to survive the drone escalation I need to find out how to make metal pieces and out of what, fast.

NIGHT THREE -- WHOOP DE DEE

Honestly not much happened before sunrise; there were no raids, no giant obscure fantasy monsters attacked. Accomplished:

1.) I breathed, and ate my 3rd emergency ration. On my list of things I should dang well figure out soon, growing plants from my crash supply of shoots.

2.) I parked my hoverthingy more safely behind my gunbase.

3.) I convinced my suit I deserved to unlock the repair and replace (R&R) gun now, and made one with a couple of energy packs. That done, I repaired my hoverthingy's various damages, and also a few dings on my gunbase.

4.) I found the icon to make "metal pieces", not to be confused with the other metal sheets and components or whatever. The icons on the interface could stand to be a little more visually distinct sometimes: even when I had been looking for it previously, I just hadn't seen it. Maybe the stress and lack of sleep on this rock has started truly taking its toll. That happened early after sundown, so there was no desperate rush to get more ammo in the till before more drones attacked.

As a sidenote, I did briefly detect more drones in the distance, but the raider facility must have designated me a static threat unprofitable to pursue the destruction of, as they ignored my existence.

This happened around the time I saw a curious optical illusion on the nearby lake.


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I panicked a little, wondering if some fiery creature was trying to sneak up on me. I went back to work after nothing seemed to happen for a minute, trusting that my guns would track the problem if it rose from the water (assuming they wouldn't be able to see it until then), just as they had pre-emptively tracked the wandering Otyugh before sundown. After finishing a few things, I thought to check on it again, and figured (I think correctly) what I had somehow seen was this.


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The rise of a volcanic fellow-planet in this system over the horizon. While it was still below the horizon?? That made no sense. It must have been obscured by clouds in my direct line of sight, but at a low enough angle that its light could bounce off the lakewater to me 'around' the clouds between us, so to speak.

[Note: or more likely, a gamebug related to the artistic effect of early sunrise on the water. The four blue dots in the screenshot, are the back of my jumpengine on my backpack.]

So anyway, I made enough ammo that I'm not worried about leaving my base alone to fend for itself most of tomorrow while I go out prospecting, particularly for raw iron. I still have plenty of iron ingots, a little more than a hundred, but I started with a lot more and I'll soon run out.

What else?

5.) I made a freezer, so that whatever food I find won't spoil. Actually, I made two freezers, the description of the difference between the two being vague enough in the interface that I made the wrong one first. But I'll probably need it anyway eventually. For reasons I'll explain soon.

6.) I made a spotlight to stick on the nose of my hoverthingy's cockpit, in case I happened to be meandering around at night and needed to see more clearly.

7.) Last but not least, I made a new control core and some hull blocks, assembling them into a foundation for a small ship. An actual flying ship, not a hoverthingy, and one capable of leaving the atmosphere, too! I won't be able to fly between planets yet, much less out of the system, but I'll be able to get around a LOT better on this planet. Assuming I find any iron nearby. If not, I'll have to set up a second base near any deposit I do manage to find, and shuttle back and forth between here and there ('here' having energy and magnesium deposits close at hand) until I can build a small ship safely.

Not that I've actually started yet. But aside from the foundation, I've constructed a few important components for the new ship (and also a small-ship fridge, by accident, see above. {eyeroll}) They're stored in the large constructor's nanoassembly inventory for now. The drones have so far approached from the same direction each time, allowing my gunbase to protect anything behind it, but I doubt I have room enough behind the base to protect this once I start. So I'll make the components first, but only start putting them together on the ground when I can minimize the time until the ship can defend itself.

So, quite a bit of important work, but nothing much to snap for my video diary of my attempts to escape this world: the area around my base hasn't changed visibly -- aside from a cooler and a spotlight.


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And there they both are.

At this point, I can survive for maybe a year on the nearby prostatium, and fend off raider drones for maybe a month on the nearby magnesium. (Ditto shooting meat for salami, although I hate salami.)

But unless I find some iron deposits, I'll run out of bullets within a month, much less be able to build a ship large enough for interplanetary, and intersystem, travel.

At the very least, if I'm never getting home, I want to die in the pleasant fields of not-Earth, instead of the breathless arid deserts of not-Mars.

DAY FOUR -- LESS OR MORE

I'm not entirely sure how much time has passed. On this small planet, and with my suit's nano-temporal technology, and my hoverthingy's speed, I've been swooping around the dusk and dawn lines a lot. My best guess is maybe a day and a half.

My suit's bizarre audio implementation picked up what sounded like gunfire early on my first hoverscouting run this morning. But I wasn't being shot at -- something alive keeled over and died. I never did find it, and the event increased my nervousness. Omicron is growing more dangerous by the day. Because of my presence? -- a reaction to the raiders?

For example, as I crossed back over into dawntime a few minutes later, I zipped past this.


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That, is a walking stone statue. Of whatever.

It ignored my hoverthingy, and I dang well left it alone. But later I saw one shooting at animals. Or did I...? This may have been what I previously heard. There are more than one of them trodding around.

Strictly speaking I didn't see one shooting at animals. My mics picked up something shooting, about 600 meters away from my base (in the other direction than where I first found such a thing), and rotating my HV around I saw another one appearing to be fighting something else at long range.

And then it tumbled backward to the ground. Dead.


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I got out and harvested some promethium from it, but no tech. I never did find out what killed it, or what it was shooting at, or even what exactly had been shooting at all.

Around noon I passed back by my base and dropped off some aloe and alien plasma from various bloodplants I had harvested; building a second base fridge while I was at it (one for meatish things, one for plantish), and making several major healthkits.

As I left the base I heard shooting and dying again. I found two dead blooderpillars, and harvested their meat and teeth, putting them back in my base fridge. At this time I started wondering if my own base guns had shot the prey animals. If so, that had been a grievous waste of ammo; but what would have changed? -- my autocannons hadn't been doing that before.

From there I zipped east, figuring I would scout where the raider drones had mostly been coming from. And, I found it!


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Wait: Xenu Defense 2? How the heck does my computer know this is number 2?!... oh, wait, did I find number 1 a while back? Maybe I did, now that I think of it, on my first scouting sweep. The suit's nanotemporals are driving me crazy.

Then as I approached the south pole, which for reasons known only to the mapper has been put at the top of the map, I found this.


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A hexy forcefield, keeping me from approaching too close to the poles. I followed it westward around the little planet, far enough to cross over the duskline -- whereupon I got temporarily trapped by falling into a canyon! I was a little worried I'd have to dig my HV out, but I lucked out a bit and escaped.

Nights can get awfully dark on Omicron, and while my suit's surveying abilities don't depend on light, I realized my one little spotlight wasn't enough for me to avoid problems like that. As I was plotting my way back to base to solve that problem (and to pick up some extra oxygen), my sensors marked the location of the Xenu Base. But I sure didn't try to get closer, in the dark, with an unarmed hoverthingy!

As I returned to base, where the sun was now setting, I discovered my guns were certainly shooting at something that I had passed -- but I didn't find out what. Their ammo was getting dangerously low again, and I still hadn't found any iron deposits! (Though plenty of other minerals.) Cooking some ribs from meat in the fridge, I worked up a lot more ammo, too -- and in the dark of night I felt more than a little paranoid as I heard the guns tracking and dry clicking at... who knows what?! More of those Otyughs? I jumped high on my base, out of their reach, just to be sure, until I could restock my guns.

But nothing actually happened, other than that I found a few interface clues that led me to open a command screen I hadn't seen before -- which didn't seem overly useful to me, except that I found I could select my guns and select their target permissions! Only predators and raider drones now. No more wasting ammo.

I didn't want to waste more time waiting for dawn, since my iron stocks had dwindled well below 50 by now -- and once they were gone, so would be any chance of defending myself soon after. But I soon remembered I had forgotten one key reason why I had gone back to base (other than for more air):
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...oh, right! Night is dark, and my one little light is terrible.

Still, I figured correctly that if I went back to my base, and plotted a smoother course to the dawnline, I could largely complete my circuit of the south-pole shield.

Soon I was back in daylight again, and even managed to pilot the HV up to the top of a mountain near the barrier.

   
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I continued eastward far enough that I started approaching the duskline again. And, being far from homBASE, FAR FROM BASE... {inhale} I stopped and ate one more of the precious meal kits. Soon, I would be completely dependent on what I could hunt for food. And/or grow. I still hadn't been able to find time to feasibly study the crop technology yet.

As I ate, I noticed a sort of green mist rising up from the ground to the east. I approached, once full.


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It intersected the polar barrier nearby at a right angle, but unlike the barrier I could step through the mist -- giving me a stumble of disorientation! Also when I hastily stepped back through it, to return to my HV. Which, I now noticed, had at sometime had its spotlight knocked off! Probably during a tumble or two I had taken while navigating the mountains. But that meant, with night coming on again in this area of the planet, I would be nearly unable to visually navigate at all, and might be trapped more permanently in a cleft (such as the sort I saw past the green mist). Not wanting to risk the HV through the unsettling mist, I turned it away and plotted the safest course I could find back to base.

[Gamenote: my only guess about that green barrier, is that the game's code thinks of the planet as having a beginning and end to its wraparound, and this is it. So when I step through it eastward, I'm instantly teleporting to the far west side of the map, and vice versa. The suit map shows a thin little line-joint running from pole to pole exactly where this this green barrier is.]

And on my long way back to base, I finally, FINALLY, scanned an iron deposit.

A long, long way from base.


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Good grief.

Still, beggars trapped on not-Mars, light-years from home, can't be choosers. Not with my iron supply quickly running out just trying to protect myself.

I tried to plot the clearest, shortest way back to base, but ended up going through a bunch of rough mountains. I nearly tumbled the HV trying to find a place to land long enough to huff my last bottles of oxygen! Getting back and forth there would be no joke, especially since the distance would necessarily involve some night travel or night work. To be blunt, I was (and still am) considering making a secondary base.

Continuing on my way back, I found a somewhat closer iron deposit, though still in difficult mountains -- and guarded by a drone.

Well, that's a problem for tomorrow. Or today, since it was already well-into tomorrow by the time I returned to base, repair-gun'd my HV, and installed three new HV spotlights.
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Overall I mapped out new deposits of, in order:

Promethium
Cobalt
Copper
Promethium
Cobalt
Magnesium
Promethium
Cobalt
Iron
Magnesium
Iron
Copper

Some other deposits remain unfound; or maybe the raiders got them already. If those aren't enough to get me off the planet...

...then I'll die here.

DAY FIVE -- STILL ALIVE



...die here, I'm dying, I'm trapped down in a watery pit, I drove my hoverthingy into it and I've been working for hours to dig it out and I'm back where I started and


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I'M SMOTHERING I'VE RUNOUTOFAIRI'M GOING TO DIE ]HEEERREEEEEE--

--and then the suit jolts me awake.

I hate this planet so very much.

...wait, should I be falling asleep at all??

I must be worse off than I thought. The suit can't keep me from hallucinating, dreaming while awake. God help me but that was nightmarish.

God help me but that was only slightly more nightmarish than being awake.

[Gamenote to self: do not drive around rough terrain in the hoverthingy in the dark, moron... {reload}]

{inhale}

Still alive. Still alive. Still able to inhale.

For now.

...for now, the essential problem is that I need iron, and to make iron I need iron ore, and the only such ore I've been able to find on this supposedly iron rich planet, is on the other side of the world. In a drone heavy area. With a significantly larger number of predators than around here.

If I had a small vessel, I could fly over and dig and come back -- but I need iron to make that.

If I made enough components, I could throw out a base like this one, assuming I could flatten out the ground sufficiently first before being shot or eaten -- but I need iron to make that.

Granted, I've got some iron remaining; I even have a fairly large number of machine parts I won't have to build, thanks to my base having shot down a bunch of drones a few days ago. But how much am I lacking? And if I pared down some things like the fridges... but if I don't have a way to store and make food, I'll have to hover back here. Ditto air. My scouting adventures yesterday triggered that nightmare a minute ago -- I know I have to die sometime, but it's still scary and painful (usually) and I'd rather avoid being put in that situation.

I shook my head and tried a hail mary (along with some actual Hail Marys): "Suit, how much iron will I need to copy this base?"

"Unknown. Please redirect your question through the blueprint function."

...what? Oh, yeah, the empty blueprint window I found much earlier.

"Suit, can I make a blueprint of my base?"

"Yes, that function is now available."

Now...? Never mind. A few instructions later and I had scanned a copy of my base's components and layouts into the suit.


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...despair crushed me. 140 iron needed. In fact I needed more copper, silicon, and cobalt than feasibly remaining, too.

"Suit, if I assign components I already have to the nanofactory, what will happen?"

"Their component materials will count toward ingots needed for construction."

So, I backloaded all the components from the large constructor's nanostorage back into my suit. As I did so I thought, "Really? This suit, by itself, is a large constructor -- it can make all the components for a base from ingots -- but I somehow need a large constructor to do that, when I'm not using a blueprint..."

Soon I had shuffled them from the suit's backpack into the suit's nanofactory. As I did so, I noticed that the suit could use the component materials directly somehow. The base would be ready to place in literally one second (accounting for temporal flux the suit kept me in), whereas had I used ingots for the same total material, the suit would have needed over 18 adjusted minutes -- three quarters of a day.

Well, there wasn't any point in cursing the design committees who made all this. I decided to be grateful the suit thought complex components were predigested or something.

So once I got on station, I'd be able to plop a base down, vwap. But I'd need energy to power it. And ammo, lots of ammo, yet I didn't want to leave this base defenseless. Also, if there was any water around I'd want to place an oxygen extractor (which my suit told me I'd have to unlock permission to use, the Christless thing -- but I had the 'points' of experience to do so.) What else while those were cooking? Oh, right, I'd better take most of my usable oxybottles; I sure didn't want that nightmare to come true, and who knew if I'd even be able to make my oxy out there? I spent some points to unlock a medic station, too, but didn't build it -- in fact I had used up all my iron trying to make the Oxyextractor, and had come up short already!

All gone.

This had better work.

52 adjusted minutes to sundown. I loaded up all raw materials, processed materials, and remaining components (for making the Oxyextractor later), and most of my prepared oxygen.

Not only is it dusk here, but I'll be flying into the duskline. This trip would be in the dark -- and after my nightmare I'm feeling awfully panicky about that. The map offers no navigational aids at all, but I plan as smooth a course as possible around north of the drone base. I don't recall being out in this area, so maybe I'll find some closer iron on the way.

...am I thinking in present tense now, again? I was thinking in past tense earlier, wasn't I? But... I shake my head. Only a madman would ponder such things, and I wasn't mad yet. I know I'm not.

I do hear a lot of Otyugs snarling around outside the hoverthingy. In the dark. My three spotlights work a lot better than one, but don't light up a lot.

And I hear new things. I can't see them in the dark, but I'm sure I haven't heard them before. None of them seem to care about attacking the hoverthingy. Yet.

And in the planetary darkness, my suit bleeps.

Iron.

Long before I'm near where I was angling toward -- I check my map to be sure. There's even a lake not far away from it, over a ridge!


And then, as I get closer... another bling: another iron deposit! Not even 200 meters beyond the first one! And plenty of magnesium for propellant nearby, too! And lots of other things!

Finally, finally, luck is coming my way. Too bad it's still too far until dawn to start looking for a place to set up my--

--SPACKSPACKSPACKSPACKSPACKSPACKWHIRRRRRR!!

No, no, no, I thought I had avoided the nearby drones, or had I forgotten them? In their patrolling, they had found me.

My HV isn't armed.

But I am.

I can hear Otyughs outside, though. I can fight a drone, one at a time, if I must, but not those things. I fly through the dark back in the general direction of the lake, mainly listening for the sound of no growling.

I hop out, trying to get my bearings in the dark as I'M PUNCHED IN THE SUIT REPEATEDLY BY A MINIGUN!

I try to get behind the HV, but it's hovering too high on the slope. No cover. Whose armor will fail first? Who can land harder shots more often first?

The minigun drone, to be honest.


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But spattered into a bloody mess, I win.

I rush to collect the bling from its broken body, and rush back to use my repair tool on my HV while I don't hear any growling. Jumpjetting on top of it, I flashlight around the area, but see and hear nothing. Enough time to take a couple of small med packs; reload, don't forget that.

I go back over the ridge, still in the dark -- I can't point the lights down, but if possible I'd like to find a flatish area between the iron deposits; where I am, the water (and its oxygen, and its water for that matter) would be about equidistantly away. But I don't want to hop out of the HV to look around with my portable flashlight either; I can hear things still trodding around. But neither do I want to waste bioenergy waiting for sunrise: I have much less food than oxygen right now.

Tentatively I hop out, and jumpjet onto the top of my HV -- I left it on so it would continue to float. I pull out my flashlight and look in all directions, but see nothing of whatever is walking around and sighing and growling and skreeking.

I also see nothing of any clear spaces between the two iron deposits. But I admit it might be too dark to clearly tell.


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The radar says another drone has flown dangerously near, but it doesn't seem to have found me yet -- I guess I'm out of sight a little over the ridgeline. I should probably turn around, go back to the lake, and see if I can find a place to park for using my HV as better cover to...

...uh oh.

Something skittering nearby has decided to start skittering faster. That cannot be good. Whirling in the suit, I triangulate the direction by hearing.


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Definitely not good.

Also, my gun doesn't have a light.

But the thing's abdomen glows a dull red in the dark.

Good enough.

I squeeze off some shots as it runs up under my HV. Every time it sticks its butt out, I shoot some more; and reload otherwise. At least it doesn't have friends.

Then it figures out where I actually am. And starts stabbing me with its pincer-claws.


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I'm far ahead on this race to survive, so I don't panic much and empty a clip to end it.


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...yeaaaah, about what I figured. I harvest its meat and some parts. Can't eat it yet, but it'll be helpful later.

I hear an Otyugh approaching before I can figure out whether I can drop anything to take its final meat. I flee in my HV back over the ridge to the shore of the nearby lake. Yeah, rather flatter around here, more to work with, less to manually flatten out.


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I hop out to check the ground more closely... oh, crap, there's an Otyugh over there nearby. Well, if anything is already usably flat around here -- I activate the spawn command in the blueprint window and the suit projects a wireframe to tell me if anywhere I'm looking will work -- I can throw up the base in a flash, hop on top of the large constructor out of its range, putt energy into the BAM BAM BAM ARGH WHAT THE ARGGH!

Somehow I didn't notice the cannon drone looping in over the Otyugh.


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My HV is still hovering too high to be useful as a shield! I do manage to hop in, and hover away back east across the lake, over a small dune ridge, and down to, huh, a smaller lakeshore. This has some potential: I jump out, and use the dunes to mask as the drone approaches again. Unload a clip on it, maneuver out of its sight, good good it found my HV so when it loses sight of me it starts shooting behind me, BOOM, and I can blindside it with a full clip.



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Too bad it plugged me so hard and often before I withdrew, but I'm not as bad off as against the minigunner earlier; I can just heal up and then go repair my...

...my HV's cockpit has been destroyed.

That's bad. That's very bad.

It's still floating over the lake, and will for hundreds of hours more (it still has a lot of energy cells), but I can't control it. And I don't have a spare cockpit, duh. And I'm too far away to feasibly run back to base.

This is it. I base here or die.

Eleven hours to sundown. I get to flattening, on the east shore of the larger lake, not too far away from my HV which can still serve as a decoy for any drones, but closer to the two iron deposits than my HV is.

Workworkwork, okay that ought to do it...


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...oh man, I seriously had no appreciation for just how large my base got. I only needed a 9x9 square flattened out before, but I added a lot around the edges just hanging off the first structure. The suit's computer doesn't think that way; it wants a muccchhhh larger flat area to also fit all the extra blocks onto.

Just as my oxygen and bioenergy are running out, and I'm ready for a refill:


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The good news is that my decoy plan is working, using the shell of the previous drone as shelter. Also, as I use of a stack of oxygen and my last emergency meal, I can free up two slots to add some more tech grabbed from the newly downed drone.

The bad news, is that I have now eaten the last of my emergency rations. From here onward, it's what I can hunt and/or grow. And I have no idea how to grow anything yet.

More good news: the newly fallen drone has ammo like my gun, although I still have plenty.

More bad news: it only has ammo, nothing else. But I don't have to use up a space for it.

Also, while I'm looting the shell, another minigunner drone arrives.


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Jeez, my whole plan here was to let my baseguns defend me!

But with my HV still providing a decoy, and the previous drone providing cover for breaking line of sight, the outcome though initially bloody isn't in doubt. And that drone has much more useful tech for later.

The defense plan continues working...


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...but the next drone crashes and burns where I had been planning to put part of my base. Adding to my workload and time to flatten.


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It's too bad I forget that my HV still has a perfectly viable storage box, where I could keep from losing extra parts I no longer have room for. I don't even remember that when I take a break to repair damage to the remaining pieces -- I do think of that, at least.

Fortunately, the drone shells quietly explode after a while, and while that ruins the scrap parts I could have put in my HV (had I thought of it), this frees up a little space on my plot to place my base. Not nearly enough space, but a little that I won't have to flatten back out again elsewhere.

It's frankly a long day. But no more drones arrive.


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Until one sneaks up behind me.

What's worse than it getting in a bunch of free hits, is that it staunchly refuses to pay attention to my HV in the lake. And I've long since lost any other shells for cover. And I can't get a good cover angle from it behind the nearby Dunes Between The Lakes!


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Things look bad.

But by accident, I stumble on a tactic that works amazingly well, against minigunner drones at least. (Why the raider base hasn't been sending missile drones I don't know, but I'm not going to complain!)

Specifically, if I walk steadily toward it after it has made a lock on me, it can't adjust its aim down fast enough and/or back up fast enough, to reacquire me. And with that...


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...comes victory. And more techloot.

Back to the grinding, and the raising.

--except, while checking over my recent work before I was bushwhacked from behind, I discover--

--that I have just barely --


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-- gotten the space I need.

Sabrebase 2, placed and soon afterward: operational.

I quickly move everything into storage (as quickly as that can be), first and foremost putting energy cells in the container and ammo in the ammo box, also taking temporary control to pre-load the guns so as not to waste precious seconds in an emergency.


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Which turns out to be a good idea.

The cannons intercept the threat from so far away, I can't feasibly rush out to harvest the tech, argh! But I shouldn't complain about it working too well.

This reminds me to build a properly sized cockpit for my HV, and so soon...


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I'm able to go fetch shot-down tech! At least, I can once I overcome some confusion in the HV's computer system, which thinks it's stuck in mud (the thrusters all being under water). But I solve that problem by raising the ground underwater with the proper nanotool until the craft breaks free.

Also, I put an Oxygen Extractor in the lake off the coast from my base.

As dusk falls, and the Otyugs come out to play, my autocannons even do some needed hunting for me.


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I've made sure they'll only shoot predators and alien opponents, though, so no wasting bullets on bloodyworms.

So, with plenty of ammo remaining, and with two rich iron deposits and other things nearby (including some remaining drones)...


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...my longest day ever, so far, ends.

Still alive.

Very entertaining stuff, man!  Keep it coming!!

Taking a bit of a break for XCOM 2 this weekend, but I do have more on the way.

Perversely, I mainly want to beat the game so I can segue into another game AAR as the sequel.  8)

NIGHT FIVE -- CANNOT JIVE

Frankly, I don't accomplish much tonight. I can hear Otyughs wandering around nearby. Close nearby, and far nearby. It doesn't help that the internal software developed its own upgrade that turned my turrets off until I turn them back on.

It also doesn't help when an Otyugh charges over the nearby hill, under the aim of the cannons, swatting my HV out of the way.


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Fortunately, I'm already safe up on top of my large constructor, and as I've already established from experience, Otyughs can't climb, so even though my cannons can't deal with it I can just sit up here and pic--


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--CCRAAPPOTYUGHSCANCLIMMMMBBBLAMBLAMBLAMMEDYBLAMBLAMCLICKCLICKCLICK!


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Well, at least I can make a lot of Otyham nowOWWW THE GUNS ARE GOING OFF NOW?!

They're shooting at something over on the nearby mountainside. Too far away for my handlight to reach. I hope they killed it. And that its ghost doesn't come back to haunt meeeeEEEEE--


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--EEEEET CAME THROUGH THE FREAKING HILL LIKE A GHOSST!!

[Gamenote: pretty sure that was just a clipping issue. Still freaky.]


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Oh, and now my suit has decided to give me hints on things I've already done. While I'm shoving my body down a toothy Otyugh mouth in the middle of the dang night to launch fifty caliber bullets into its stomach before I arrive there.

Between the Otyswarm, and a minigun drone which shows up to fight me while it's still below the angle of the hill -- partly my choice since I decided I didn't want the cannons to waste precious ammo on it --


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--it's a lonnng and unproductive night. Even counter-productive, since I discover I made a hydrogen/oxygen generator earlier, which is naturally less efficient at making oxygen from water and which makes hydrogen I don't really need now. So I have to waste precious machinery resources making a pure oxygen generator, and also a water purifier since I'm going to be around here a while.

I had wanted to try mining some magnesium across the lake while my cannons still had enough ammo to maybe protect me a little; but between one thing and another I don't make it there until just before dawn. And then not only are more Otyughs around there (but also a drone I scavenge, shot by the last of my base cannon bullets), but also this thing.




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One of the natural golems walking this planet. I thought, and hoped, it might just wander around minding its own business like the bloodyworms, but no.

Fortunately, it can't shoot, and it moves very slow, and despite its rocky exterior I need fewer bullets to put it down than against an Otyugh. And it gives me some promethium pellets which I can refine back at base for energy cells, which is nice. But that still leaves me... sigh.

Anyway. It's a long day of securing first the magnesium site, sort of...


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...and then the slightly-closer of the two iron sites.

Plus hoverthinging back to base every once in a while to eat some Otyugham from the fridge.

By the time night fully falls, however, I'm back at base with plenty of iron to refine, and with my magnesium already refining. Which makes me think, frankly, I need another large constructor. And maybe a small one for minor things, since it runs on its own unlimited energy.


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...sigh. Oh airy Akuna or whatever the suit said your name is. So far away.

And home so much farther.

NIGHT SIX -- PICKING UP STICKS

Sticks, in this case, is a metaphor. A metaphor for my frustration in not being able to accomplish much tonight.

A basic problem is that I have to mine everything manually. Well, not manually -- thank God! -- I would thank the survival kit designer except item number zero should have been a subspace radio. But I can use the drill gun in the survival kit, and pick up the ore. Assuming I don't accidentally destroy the ore with the drill gun!

But I have to be there, at each ore site, doing that rather than setting something to do that and then returning later to collect the ore.

Nor does the suit offer any suggestions for that in the things it will allow me to unlock {gnashing teeth). Unless the so-called "Advanced Constructor" which, by the description will fully do all things, offers new templates for a mining station. But I have to be (what the suit thinks of as) Level 14 in staying-alive-experience or something, and I'm only at Level 10.

Well. For now, it's only an annoyance.

How to convince the suit I'm worthy to make all the things possible to make? Level up. How do I do that? Do things. Including mining and picking up ore. And picking up plants. And shooting things. Like Otyughs. And drones. And by the way, there's a base off to the... east, I think? Also to the west. Maybe if I go fight them, I can convince the suit I'm worthy.

Anyway, I need a better weapon, and more ammo for my cannons (30 mm shells) and for my handgun (.50 cal); also, if possible, close-range base defenses against things coming over the ridgeline under the arc of the autocannons. But first 30mm shells, because I've run dry. And first I need to convert iron ore into iron ingots; thence into metal pieces for the shells.

That's going to take a while, but I'm not going much of anywhere tonight in the dark until I have to. So I check through my suit's "tech tree", and find plans for an upgrade .50 caliber pistol, and for a 5.8mm chaingun mount. Unlock those; unlock some portable lights (so I can make a few more to set out temporarily; the one from my survival kit is back at Baseone.) Unlock the plan for the Small Constructor, which you'd think would have been "unlocked" to begin with, but no; unlock a ton of free block designs, in case I need or want them (but I'm ignoring the mere deco things.) WELL THANK THE KIT DESIGNER AT LAST!! -- not because a radio exists in the plans, but because Armor Plating is a free unlock, so long as the suit thinks I'm experienced enough to deserve it. {gnashing teeth again!}

Note that those free unlocks still have to be unlocked manually, instead of auto-unlocking. sigh.

Unlock a blueprint for making weak fuel cells from hydrogen bottles; so I'll be able to convert those bottles I accidentally made to something useful. Also, should I somehow run out of promethium, I can keep my energy self-sustaining if I have a little left to run my hydr/ox extractor and, of course, the Large Constructor. (I can't check if the Small Constructor will make fuel cells from hydrogen bottles, because I don't want to waste resources building one and my original one is back at Baseone.)

More importantly, I unlock advanced fuel cells, which not only provide longer power from a cell but also use the prom-theum more efficiently. Great! Stupid that I have to be level 10, but great!

By the time I have finished unlocking all the useful things for a Small Vessel -- which I desperately need so I'm not relying on the hoverthingy to get caught in a canyon somewhere -- the LC has finished its current resource-processing queue. 7 hours 37 minutes (suit time) to sunup.

First thing, make a better handgun. I put the old one in the large constructor so I can use its components in a blueprint someday. Oooo, this new pistol has a spotlight!


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Sure, it doesn't go very far, but it's brighter than my toolgun lights. I rack in a clip of .50 cal, and then load some 30mm shells into the base's ammo box while the LC makes metal pieces to replace the ones I just used.

Next up, making the components necessary for making a couple of minigun mounts. That takes a bit of a while; and I notice I'm going to need some cobalt soon, as well as some silicon and, well, just about everything BUT magnesium and iron. Once I've built two of those units, I set the LC to build a reasonable amount of 5.8mm ammo and start nano-placing the vulcans. (Called that because a character named Spark from the planet Vulcan used to carry one around on away missions on an old TV show back when TV was invented. They didn't even have color back then! Weirdly, a commedienne's production studio made that show...)

The most logical place to put the mounts (Spark was big on logic, too) is on the back two corners, near the ridgeline and mountains.


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Fortunately, a chaingun doesn't take up nearly as much room as an autocannon.

Unfortunately, like autocannons, chainguns don't depress. Which, to be honest, is more than a little depressing... {gnashing teeeeth!}

Fortunately, I am a genius unlike whoever designed this thing.


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Unfortunately, I place it facing the wrong way, back toward my basewall.

Fortunately, I can manually turn the turret around so that... it... uh... crap, it can face 'forward' (away from my base), and 'left' (from its perspective), but not 'right' (where the ridgeline happens to be).

Unfortunately, I'm worried I don't have enough spare resources to build another one.

Fortunately, where I placed it, it wouldn't have been able to look around to the east (where I really needed it to) anyway. So this'll work. Anything coming over the ridgeline will be surprised when they round that corner!

By now enough ammo has been made for them, and I plop the set in the ammo box. And using the base's control panel, I set them to the same grouping as the autocannons, and with the same instructions: shoot aliens and predators. Like in that old movie, hah!

(Lord, I hope there aren't any of those aliens and predators around...)

So my base should be safe while I go off to mine some cobalt. As I hover off eastward, autocannons are already shooting something behind me. I make a note that maybe I should turn off their "predator" settings while I'm gone, since the predators never seem to attack machinery really.

As I arrive at the cobalt site, about 300 meters east of the base, I discover no less than three Otyughs wandering the area.

Yeah, screw that. I hover back to base, and do some upkeep -- the autocannons have already shot their wads at other nearby Otyughs, and need more ammo AGAIN! Good thing I anticipated this and set the LC to make more ammo while I was gone. Not a good thing they already used it up so quickly -- I didn't even mine anything, just zipped over and back!

As dawn breaks, the cannons cheerfully drink their precious ammo and belch at I don't know what on the hill line far to my west.


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...if I don't get off the ground soon, I'm going to hug an autocannon and let it send me home...

DAY SEVEN -- GATHERING LEAVEN

...okay, you don't actually "gather" leaven. I think. I'll have to ask someone ifWHEN I get back. I don't trust the suit.

What I dang well intend to gather is some cobalt ore. And my previously constructed Small Vehicle parts which I stupidly left back at Baseone (because I wasn't thinking clearly at the time about this being a pretty permanent base. Unlike now. My thinking.)

I waste a little time trying to decide if I should, or even feasibly can, add some weaponry to my hoverthingy.

Then I decide I might as well go back and test my big new multi-barrel hand-cannon before spending more of my few resources on that.

Yep, it has three barrels, and they all shoot slugs at the same time -- yet the gun doesn't use more ammo! I think the concept is that it divides the slug and spreads the resulting shot like a narrow choke small gauge shotgun, blasting the target with fragments at a distance.


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It dang well does a number on Otyughs. I didn't even need a full clip! In fact, I shot so quickly (also a faster firing semi-auto firing rate) I didn't realize it was dead soon enough to stop wasting ammo on it! -- and still didn't quite use a full clip!

Nice.

It's a good thing the new pistol is so awesome. I get a bit turned around trying to park my HV near the next Oty. Previously that would have been a suicidal mistake.


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But all's well that ends dead, or words to that effect. Two down. And some easily fixable dents.

Soon a third. I love my Tier 2 pistol so much you guys!!

...not that I'm hearing voices. Wasn't there a pistol named Vera in one of those old shows? That seems Vera appropriate. Ha ha ha!

I've actually gathered so much Otyugh "leaven" (meat, and parts, not a euphamism), I have to go back to base to cook it and drop it in the fridge in case it rots while I'm out! Whereupon I take the opportunity to join my autocannons in harvesting another, wow, FOUR of the cruddy things on the west side of my little lake. Which is just as well, since I needed to eat anyway.

After brunch (and making more ammo for the autocannons, which I still forget to turn off the "predator" mode), I head back to the cobalt which I still haven't started mining... and dang if there isn't another freaking Otyugh!

So I hop out onto my cockpit's canopy and blast away in relative safety.


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OHCRAPISTHISONETOUGHER?!ITGOTUNDERMYHOVERTHINGYAAAHH!!

This requires some judicious maneuvering. But soon it's dead. I have now literally lost count of how many Otys I've slain since dawn.


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And now at long last I can get to mining. If my meat rots, I don't care at this point.

This takes a while. Long enough that I learn how to constantly trigger the suit's nanovacuum while I'm working, so as to reduce the chances of my destroying good ore pieces.

When I'm running low on oxygen, and have picked up 150ish cobalt ore units (however the suit reckons those), I zip back to Basetwo again -- I actually have enough oxy, but I want the Large Constructor to be working on turning the ore into cobalt ingots while I instigate my next plan for this long day: flying back across the whole planet to Baseone, to pick up those flyingcraft pieces so I won't have to make them again!

One part of that plan is to make a point of picking up some Type 6 Plasma from uncommon alien plants (not the ones that look like, uh, ventworms), and plenty of not-aloe (which does usually grow around the dickweed plants which have the other type of plasma that I'd rather not use). I can combine these later with Alien Parts from those slain Otys, and purified water from (duh) the water purifier, to make large med kits.

After doing some preliminary nearby harvesting along this line, and converting meat to salami, and picking up supplies for my run, there's only a suit-hour until sunset. But if I plot a course westward back to Baseone, I can extend that indefinitely!

So goes my journey into the day.


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As I arrive in the large valley of the lakes, I remember there's a raider base at the head of those lakes -- because I can see it! But I can swing southeast well away from it, as always when running this route.

Getting through the broken lands southeast of those lakes is a pain, but much easier in bright daylight. I say a prayer (not my first), punch the throttle, and ramp over the narrowest canyon I can find, right between two Otys.


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I hum the Dixieland song for some reason. Well, I'm from Tennessee after all.


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Not long afterward, I've reached what I call Silicone Lake. Or I would, if the map function allowed me to. Or let me make any marks at all on it. sigh.

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Baseone isn't too far away, but I stop here for several hours to get a silicone mine going (and to grab some nearby T6 and aloe).


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Not too shabby! Having used up a drilling core, my arbitrary limit, I jumpjet out to my hoverthingy and glide on.

A few more stops to harvest -- T6 stacks easily, but aloe leaves don't stack at all for no good reason, so after a point I can only harvest more T6, which I do -- and then as I top a rise...


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Off in the distance. Baseone. Still in one piece.


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Even still running! A quick check shows four full energy packs still in the main generator; and three more full in the oxy-generator -- plus over a hundred almost-useless oxygen bottles to convert to something useful, yay!

Almost four suit-hours until sunset catches up with me, which I spend doing some upkeep, turning organic loot into large health packs and restocking the oxygen in my suit's backpack (although of course I have to manually activate those small bottles from my toolbelt.)

As sunset arrives, I decide to grab some promethium from the nearby deposit before I go. Odd. I thought I had already started mining here. Maybe that was in the dream where I got my HV stuck in a watery grave and smothered to death...

Not a good thought. This is why I need to fly. And soon. But not before I get back to Basetwo. And not before I mine plenty of this stuff.

It takes a lot of the drill core just to get to the mineral. But once I do, it doesn't take long to get a decent load -- this stuff mines easy, and turns into a lot of crystals when refined, which turn into a lot of energy cells. I won't have to do more of this mining for a long time.

Which is a good thing, because that's my final drill core. Mental note to hurt whoever designed the cores so that one core doesn't fit all toolguns...

Night has long since fallen by the time I'm done.


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I rather foolishly decide to go jacklighting an Oty I hear nearby, for some ham to make back at base before I go.

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That was very nearly a mistake.


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But Vera comes through in the clutch when the Oty bursts from the ground as if the wretched thing had simply popped into existence nearby!

Whew.

And Night 7 hasn't even really begun. Because after some final stationkeeping at Baseone...


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...it's time to hover my way back to Basetwo.

As I pass the nearby Raider Base again, a missile drone comes out to say hi.

Since I don't notice at first it's a missile drone, and since I've got a bunch of large med kits now, I decide to hop out and say hi back with Vera.

I notice this is a "missile" drone at about the same time an Otyugh I didn't notice swings round the front of my HV in an ambush charrrrrRRRRRRRAAAAAH AAAAAHHHHH!!!


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The Oty might actually have saved me from my own stupidity -- the drone shoots, but seems unable to properly aim with both of us in its sights.


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The Oty's body makes a handy shelter, too.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to my aim against its aim, and, well...


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...its aim isn't good enough. Apparently its designers thought, hey, high explosives, no need for the good targeting package, those things cost money!

I have to admit I'm feeling confident enough from that win to go scout the enemy base more closely. No guns shoot at me, and it seems to only have two remaining drones.


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It sends out a rocket drone, which against my better judgment I decide to troll away from the base to see if I can shoot it down near cover. Perhaps fortunately for me, the thing turns around and returns before going too far from home. When I realize I nearly goaded something into easily murdering me, I decide it's time to head home for the evening, too.


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...well, not really home.

Good Lord, I'm thinking of that base as my home now...

A good four hours of housekeeping once I reach hhhhOVERBASE TWO! -- not home -- and that's the end of a very, very long Seventh Day.

Aren't Sabbath days supposed to be for rest?

Not here on Omicron they aren't.

A lot of unpacking and processing as the clouds flow across the sky and the shadows creep on the ground.


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I can't take it anymore.

Seeing not-Earth rising over the mist. Reminding me of a home I can't reach.

...if I can't find some hope tonight, after all I've done this long, long day...


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...one way or another...

...to heaven at dawn...!

NIGHT SEVEN -- THE DAWN OF HEAVEN

I shall make my hope... there. A little west of Basetwo.


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Crud, I forgot to load the cannons with ammo now that I'm back. And my minigun, for no good reason, has terrible aim at that distance. So before I start, I go secure the area my own dang self.

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...and go cook some more meat and make a few more large med packs while I'm at it. Vera has kept me from being hurt in a long time, but I might as well stay safe until the morning, right?

sigh.

...where was I at before I was rudely interrupted by death?

Right. Hope. I lay it in the dim crosslight.


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It doesn't look like much.

I fight a wave of depression and keep on. This is only the start. DIE, SUGARCANE!... I uh, mean, let's see, what's next? Not enough room to put my new cockpit yet, but I've got some basic building blocks cooking.

I reposition one of the portable lights while I'm waiting. It was set too high on a small sandridge, and was leaving the SV block in shadow.


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...I guess that isn't technically worse. I can see more. Achieved.

Soon, I add six more blocks.

Doesn't look like much, but I have to be careful. Design efficiency. I don't dare use too much.

My life depends on it.


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Good, the cockpit fits nice, with a little room on the back to add...


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...an RCS unit.

The first of three, actually. (Careful not to make the wrong one!) I have discovered this thing is how pilots can rotate a craft, but naturally a craft has mass -- the more dense things, the massier -- so the more RCS units, the better the craft will rotate.

My hoverthingy doesn't rotate so well. This is gonna be better.

Add six more blocks behind the RCS triad... and move the portable light around, dang can't see good... oh for the love of... {back to constructor to make a portable omnilight} ...there.

Now, add the fuel tank (and those weak hydrogen fuel cells, might as well), and the generator.


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And we have power.

No flight yet. But power. Power is good.

I waste some minutes trying to figure out where I want to place a fridge I built for it, before the suit adjusts my air mixture and I come to my senses. Huff some oxygen; eat some meat. Back to the constructor; need to build thrusters now. Making components making components.

One for the back, slanted a little for no really good reason -- I want to see what the differences are besides slightly lesser performance compared to normal thrusters.


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Now... I need one pointing down, right? Hm. I guess I'll have to hang it on the side... okay, that works.

Hop in the cockpit, turn on the power, only a suit-hour till dawn glowing in the east I HAVE TO KNOW I HAVE TO KNOW NO NO NOOOOOO --


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-- nooooote to self. One downthruster on the side, needs another on the other side to balance it.

Nothing really damaged though.

Make make make make... place it... carefully, make sure it's even with everything...


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...yes, good good. I uh...

...i think that's it?

...that should do it? basically?

four minutes to dawn


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leveling out

a little wobbly, but not unstable just my handling, need to learn controls

going up


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oh God oh God I'm doing it I'm finalllllyyy FLLLYYYYINNNGGGG!



i cry for a little while

seven days to fly


...uh.

I can't go down.

what the hell. The hoverthingy goes down (slow) when I do that.

holy bleep it can't go down I CAN'T GO DOWN I'M GOING TO CRASH AND DIE UP HERE!!

deep breaths deep breaths

I can go forward, already did that

I can... checking... tip forward... yay, the RCS thingies must rotate me that way, too... very smooth... doesn't cause me to fall, the thrusters must be rotating opposite to match and keep me level.

Now, if I go forward while pointing down...

...perfectly smooth

rotate around, back to base, yep rotating up and forward also takes me up, but the pedal will make me go up, too. But need to go forward to go down. Note to self, small thruster pointing up somewhere, so I can settle from a hover.


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Annnnd... tump.


Couldn't be easier.


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Well, okay, it could be slightly easier. I'll build a small thruster for the top.

And a God-awful bunch of artillery for the front.

And the sides.

Okay you terrorist raiders.

I can't get off the planet yet.

But I can make you fry

Phew! Let me take a break after that major accomplishment to talk out-of-narrative about alternate strategy.

Admittedly, my reckoning of "seven days" is pretty loose, considering that I quickly lost track of solar time on the planet once I started HVing around. Still, I felt pretty good about somewhat-plausible achieving my initial goal ("seven days to fly", i.e. to getting a Small Vessel that, unlike the Hover Vessel, can truly fly.)

Then I went to the Steam forums to look around about how I could have done better.

...annnnd I still feel kind of good. It's possible to get to an SV in Survival mode quicker, but you either need to effectively cheat, or else have amazing luck and a much better idea of what's minimally necessary to proceed.

For example, I had to spend the better part of a day or two (even in the loose notion of "Day" I was using) simply trying to find an iron deposit reasonably near my base; and then trying to find any iron deposits at all! I'm not entirely sure I've still found all five (I'm not where I can check); I can only recall three offhand, and they're half a planet away from my crash site, although two near each other were a little closer.

But that was ridiculously too far away to be practical, especially with broken land my HV could easily be trapped in, between me and the iron in any direction. So I had to make a new base of operations within reasonable mining distance. And secure a place to put it. And fill/flat a significantly large area to place it. And add a few support things nearby, like another oxygen extractor. Which I accidentally made the wrong kind of. TWICE!

That would have taken even longer than it did, except for a new game tool introduced during the past real-life month: the ability to create and use blueprints in Survival mode, not merely in Creative mode.

Now, I could have just looked around for a resource-minimal SV and saved that to my blueprint list and made that. In fact, the new Survival-blueprint mode came with four nice blueprints already installed, one for a base, a hoverthingy, a scout vessel, and a capital vessel. But using the scout blueprint would have felt cheap to me.

Even snapshotting a blueprint for a copy of my original base, almost felt cheap to me; but I still needed to put in a lot of work to get it up and going. And with my bad luck in crashing far from any iron, I was willing to make this concession to recover some time and still have a chance at flying in seven days. But of course had I tried to build a new base from scrap and from scratch, that would have taken a lot longer to process the components at best; plus mining the nearby iron to make enough components; plus securing the areas of the base and the mining. And occasionally re-securing it.

I did discover, on researching, that it's possible to get a scout vehicle built in under a real hour from a cold start in Survival mode; without using blueprints (or not imported blueprints anyway -- the blueprint tool is still highly useful for needing to remake parts, which is something I'll be considering later); and without using a multiplayer team.

But it still requires some luck, and it still requires a bit of pre-knowledge cheating beyond already having a good idea of how to proceed with the most parsimonious construction (something I chose to work out on my own through some trial and error, which naturally took more gametime).

Basically it requires finding a crashed captial ship as soon as possible, and looting it (and its guardian drones) for parts and ores and ingots rather than finding and digging them out on the map.

And for time efficiency that means (a) starting on Omicron, because that's where the crashed ship is;

and

(b) starting on Omicron, because the game automatically gives you two experience levels to help you survive there, and you need a minimum level to unlock the basic SV parts;

(not level 10 or 11 or 12 or wherever I'm currently at, much less than that -- but not level 0!)

and

(c) starting on either the game's original Omicron where the ship's location has been already plotted by players, or else starting Omicron on a game seed where the ship has been found to be closer in navigable terrain than in vanilla Omicron.

Note that I haven't found the Titan at all, after scanning most of the planet -- I don't even know if it exists on the game seed I'm using.

Then it's a matter of rushing up a minimum survivable base, also a minimum useful Hovercraft with maybe two cargo boxes, then zipping over to the crashed ship, securing the area, and looting the place -- but not all of it, only enough to get the minimum materials needed to fabricate the things to build a scoutship. This is where luck also factors back in, because even on vanilla Omicron the loot containers are somewhat randomized (and also the drones for scrap).


Anyway, I could have done it faster had my luck been a lot better, and had my skill been a little better. But under the circumstances, 7ish days is still respectable.  8)

Now to figure out how fast I can get a warp-capable engine... which is probably stage 3. I'm only at stage 1. Stage 2 will be getting off Omicron to whatever planet(s) has the exotic mineral(s) I need to make a warp engine. Presumably the game makes sure I have enough of the right minerals to get off Omicron or no one would be able to 'win' the game from an Omicron start; but I suspect I'll need all the special minerals of the game to make a warp engine.


...well, okay. Stage 1 would be building a minimum survivable base. Stage 2 would be building a hovercraft, assuming it's impossible to get to a small vehicle without scouting for more resources. I'm at Stage 3 then. Stage 4 would be cap ship. Stage 5 would be warp drive. Strictly speaking there isn't a "warp home" option, only the option to warp around the local solar system; but for my purposes a functional warp ship will win the game.

DAY EIGHT -- PREPARING HATE
DAY NINE -- COPPER MINE

To be honest, the next day and a half has been dangerously blurry.

With magnesium running low, I flew across the lake to mine at the nearest deposit for a whole drill-charge; then flew over to the iron mine I had already started and mined a whole drill core there; then flew back, to refine it and make some ammo, and then remembered I didn't really need to make ammo yet because I had saved a bunch for my autocannons so they wouldn't be wasting ammo while I was gone when in fact what I needed to do was to turn off their targeting of predators leaving only their targeting of "aliens" (as in raider drones) -- and then remembered I had actually done that already. But hadn't reloaded them with ammo.

Then I realized I was about to pass out. So I fed the autocannons and told them to only shoot drones, and crawled into my HeavenDawn cockpit before I lost consciousness.


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When I awoke -- strictly speaking when the suit awoke me -- it was night and I was smothering and starving to death.

Rectifying that, I spent the night using the last of my copper to upgrade my scout with two more thrusters, four more gyroscopes (I could probably use a fifth for a total of six), another cargo box (that I doubt I'll ever need, so that was a waste), an ammo box, and a Vulcan cannon strapped to the top for my ammo box! And ammo for the Vulcan. Lots and lots of ammo. Of a different caliber, unfortunately, than the chainguns helping guard my base.


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Oh, and I added a small down thruster so I could land properly from a hover.

Hunting at dawn, I learned that its aim was quite precise -- I was afraid it would be permanently shooting above my targeting recticle, which I could adjust for through experience, but maybe the onboard computers adjusted that for me. However, it took many more shots to bring down two bloodyworms than my upgraded pistol would have needed. So at the moment, if I'm going to do much fighting, shooting while on foot will take less time. This makes the prospect of going after the nearby base a bit more daunting -- but on consideration, I needed to mine more copper anyway.

That took all of Day Nine (in effect, plus housekeeping), because the only two of the three copper mines on Omicron I've found so far, are both ridiculously far away from either of my bases (although they're both a little closer to Baseone). Even with three thrusters, my scout only flies a little faster than 8 meters/second. That's less than 30km an hour!

But I got there, secured the area (not hard, no monsters nearby), and spent two and a half drill cores excavating copper, before flying back home, arriving just after nightfall.

So now I'm doing housekeeping, ready to try an assault on the raider base at dawn -- not that it makes any difference to those drones, just to me.

I see that the suit thinks I'm experienced enough now to make an Advanced Constructor -- woo! -- but then I learn that the main difference will be two Power Coils. Which are made entirely out of two exotic metals. Not found on Omicron.

sigh.

Okay then, straight to the capital ship making. But that's going to take a while, and would be sped up by me having a small constructor to do some of the minor things.

Whereupon the survival kit's designer laughed at me, using his infernal prevenience, and declared that the only small constructor I will be able to build with an LC can only be mounted to a hovercraft or scout. Okay, fine... oh, and it'll need power to run, unlike the small constructor that can be placed anywhere but which can't be built by the thing that can be built by the first small constructor.

Sending my hatred by non-radio to the kit's designer (again), I gnash my teeth and build a second Large Constructor instead. (And a few extra hull blocks to mount it on.) While I'm at it, I build a healing bay, which should automagically heal me by nano-suit interface so long as I'm standing on a base block or equipment; and an oxygen dispenser (plus an oxygen bottle holder, naturally, because GOD HAS FORBIDDEN THE DISPENSER SHOULD HOLD ITS OWN BOTTLES) which... I thought was supposed to automatically fill my suit while I'm at the base, but which seems to need a manual prod. Ugh.

But that passes the time until dawn.

And leaves me feeling like I want to shoot something.

How convenient.


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DAY 10: VOLMAN, BEGIN!

In hindsight, this wasn't one of my saner plans.

The basic concept made sense: stop the raider incursions on Omicron and maybe loot some resources and machine parts while I'm at it, in order to speed up my capital ship construction so I can get off this rock and find the exotic minerals I need to make a warp drive.

Bonus points if raiding the enemy netted me some of those exotic minerals.

Get some revenge for marooning me here, too.

That sounds fine, until I remembered I'm one man in an orange and white(ish) space suit with a small cobbled scout craft, a hand cannon, an assault rifle that doesn't do as much damage as the hand cannon, and a vulcan gun on the scout craft that doesn't do as much damage as the hand cannon. (I made the assault rifle before leaving on my anti-raider raid. It uses the same ammo as my base chainguns, but with my autocannons on line I wasn't worried about fending off a wandering drone.)

I didn't remember this until, looking at the raider base, I realized no less than four plasma cannons or something like that were tracking me and my little scoutship.


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Also, as soon as I started giving the drones a Vulcan pinch (named after that Spark guy), my suit klaxxon'd a warning: enemy troop transport approaching.

...what?

Fortunately, one part of my mind promptly forgot about the troop transport from panicking at the giant PLASMA CANNONS aimed my way.

And one part of my mind promptly forgot about the plasma cannons while shooting the drones.

And while I remembered the oncoming transport while jumping out to loot the drones asap and run away, I forgot about the plasma cannons in my eagerness to loot the drones and run away.

Then this happened.


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Did I mention that my brain just decided to filter out the Otyugh meandering around the base? Because my brain just decided to filter that out until it started charging me.

On the other hand, I did need to hunt, so in my hunger for meat and machinery loot I promptly forgot about the plasma cannon regiment again.

Running back to the Oty after looting the wrecked drone behind me, though...


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...I continued forgetting about the 6 or however many plasma cannons aimed at me.

Because the troop transport was coming.

And it looked adorable! Like a model from an old Flesh Godhorn serial!

(Why people back in the dawn of film would name a story like a porno, I have no idea. I'm told the 1920s were roaring, though, which I suspect is a euphamism.)


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It completely bounced in for a landing, distracting me from hopping into my scout and zooming away like mad. And then -- !


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-- it, uh... it wobbled off and flew away.

Waaat?

...for a moment I was seized with fear that the enemy had invisibility powers!

Then I realized no one was shooting at me, and neither could I hear anything new moving around. Why bother sneaking up on me, if I'm standing out in the open like a giant orange and white sign volunteering to be shot?!

Then I decided the troops had all been injured or killed by that terrible landing.

Good. Just enough time to run up and loot that other dead drone!

For less than fifty .50 bullets? Weak. But I'll take them. Huh, what's that weird buzzing? Like the sound my autocannons make when --

GAAAH OH CRAP HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE SIX OR SEVEN PLASMA CANNONS AAAAH AAAAAAAAHHH!

...oh. Because they weren't shooting at me, I guess.

And still aren't.

That was a thousand percent weird. But still not the weirdest things I would see today.

After walking around the ground floor a bit, and finding to my not-surprise there were no open doors, I climbed some imposing looking stairs, where at least three plasma cannons (one standing right next to the stairs) should have atomized me instantly.


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And there, to my amazement, across a bridge, a door was standing completely open! With another one beyond it to the opposite bridge!

Figuring this had to be a trap, I rushed across the bridge hoping to take my trappers by surprise.

My only surprise was that, as far as I could tell, there wasn't a door at all! The base was completely open from at least three directions, although not to the south.

By now, though, my suit's acoustic sensors were picking up horrible gutter grunts.

I whipped myself and my hand cannon around in several directions, but saw nothing, and couldn't get a bead on where the noise was coming from.

In the middle of this... foyer, for want of a better word, stood a standard zerogravivator.

[Gamenote: elevators in this game, in the pre-alpha so far anyway, are... hard to describe. They're cubic frames where gravity doesn't work but friction does, so you can walk in and out of them as on any other surface, but using the up or down keys -- the former of which also doubles as the jump key -- you can float safely up or down. Swimming mechanics work exactly the same, by the way. I'm presuming my character would be familiar about these; I can buy the specs and build them with my large constructor, but haven't needed to yet.]

Going down one floor (through a nice white paisley wallpaper pattern on blue silk), to the ground level, brought me to a generator room, with two large generators, two large empty fuel tanks, and a medical bay. But the generators were still running!

To be honest, I only checked one fuel tank, because the horrible grunting had gotten louder.

I promptly hopped into the vator, and soared upward away from the grunts. From what I could tell, matching the outer structure now that I thought of it, the shaft went up without intervening floors to a top level.

Where, as I approached, I heard gargling worse than the grunting.

Slowing my silent ascent, I peeked over the edge and saw --


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-- two soldiers! And not robot drones either!

My shortness of temper at being stuck on this planet for ten days, plus my suit's alert at another incoming troop ship (presumably carrying a load of these things again, which it might not cripple while landing), translated into me shooting one of them by surprise with my hand cannon.


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This didn't kill it, unfortunately, but its return fire, while causing bloody splots in my vision, was mitigated by my emergency suit. I presume they had something similar. And I scared the other enough for it to run away!

Also, neither one felt like peering over the edge into my sights as I sunk down the shaft to reload, and to bring up my new assault rifle.

It didn't seem to do any better, and I took more damage in reply -- but in my haste to reload it after a volley, I fumbled and dropped the thing down the shaft! But I recovered it, and endeavored to persevere.

By which I mean I used two small healing kits on myself, and then went back up to kick some ass.


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Suicidal, I know. Also, shooting a large fuel tank to take out the second troop hiding behind it. I think my Tennessean ancestors would have been proud of me, though!

I had trouble getting out of the vator, possibly because I had destroyed some important structural supports; and then once out, I couldn't really jump across the huge gap in the floor and out of the room, so I went north out a door onto the landing -- face first into more of the guards. Was the troop ship landing them on the upper platform?? I hadn't seen them while approaching in my scout.


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They didn't get along well with Vera. I decided my hand cannon, by experimentation, worked better than the assault rifle.

Having blown down another three pirate things, I felt like this level had been secured, even though I still hadn't found the grating grunting things my suit's "ears" insisted were still nearby. I had been walking by some large glowing pods for a while, mostly up on this level, so I tried accessing one while things had calmed down (grunts notwithstanding).


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...oooooooooooooo!

I am not too ashamed to admit I peed my suit a little at seeing this. And several other caches of the same sort standing around!

But first, I needed to find out what off of God's green earth was making that unholy sound!

Not on the top floor.

What I did find, also not on the top floor exactly, was a large minigun drone that had flown in from somewhere, and which was shooting at (and blowing up) something not myself!

From the angle, I desperately hoped it wasn't blowing up my scout -- it didn't seem to be aiming correctly or at a proper distance. I still don't know what it thought it was doing, or what exploded below me, but I do know what exploded below me after I unloaded a clip and a half of Vera into it.


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The troop ship was still flying in and out, but evidently not on this top level, and nothing had been coming up the shaft (the only route I could ever find to the top). I had filled out my backpack and toolbelt from one cache already, and while I fully (and correctly) expected the suit could stack more of most things, I figured it might be time to offload at the scout and see how it was doing. Also to get around any troops the transport would have been offloading who could be gathering for an assault up the shaft.

So I jumped down the hole outside the shaft!


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This brilliant plan was predicated on my being able to use my jumpjet at the last moment to cushion my fall, which would have worked except for bad timing.

But the suit protected me despite the crunching landing (and blood shooting out of my eyes), so with that animalistic grunting now echoing in my ears -- meaning I had to be closer than ever, meaning the source must be on the main floor in a sealed room below me I hadn't entered yet -- I ran away from that sound and toward the flaming wreckage of the larger drone, daring another jump onto the walkway, meaning to turn and fire at anything waiting inside theAAAH, NO I OVERJUMPED --!


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-- OVVVERRR the walkway, with no jumpjets to cushion my fall! Splorch.

Still alive but in much worse shape, I hobbled to the wreckage, grabbed its loot (all things that could stack, yay), then ran back to my scout while eating small health kits like candy.

Scout? -- okay, no damage. I never did find out what the large minigrun drone had been shooting at.

Troops from the transport? -- none apparently outside. And none chased me anywhere. Had they not noticed my goofy departure? Had they reasonably inferred I killed myself by hilariously overjumping the gangway?

I dropped my loot so far into a cargo bin, and with plenty of time left in the day (although this based stood in permanent mountain shadow), plenty of ammo remaining, and health'd back up (and not even one large kit used yet), I carefully made my way back to the foyer.

No troops. At all.

I can say now, from hindsight, that to the best of my knowledge the troop transport never offloaded a single troop!

Maybe the commander was trying to bluff attackers into running away in fear of invisible troops...?

The gutteral grunting got on my nerves at last. Steeling myself I opened the only door on the foyer level, where I had deduced the sound was coming from and found --

-- the weirdest thing I saw all day.


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-- what

-- what is it

-- what is it doing

-- why does it have two backs

-- IT KNOWS I LIVE


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Inferring that anything looking and sounding this nasty in such a place would be more likely hostile than not, I didn't take a chance, and shot it several times with Vera.


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Whereupon I discovered that the thing with two backs had four backs. And why.

But of this I shall not speak.

They / it mooed and died in lumps.

Were this/these batlike creature(s) supposed to be guarding the base at night?

Whatever. Aside from the usual bloodpillars crawling harmlessly outside, my suit acoustics suggested, rightly, the base was clear.

And mine.

Or not exactly mine. I couldn't find its control cube, to destroy it and replace with one of my own, which I had seen long ago, in that item's description, would allow me to take over a base. Doubtless the raiders had done as I had done, and covered the precious controller with other things.

No matter. Still mine, and I mined it of all its resource caches.

With sunset approaching and my bioenergy running low (since I had eaten the last of my salami while on the raid), I flew back hhhhAPPILY TO MY SECOND BASE, not to my home.


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Everything fine here.

A fine day.

A day I survived, only because the raiders had left their base with no ammunition, and didn't send troops to reinforce it -- only an empty troop ship. Numerous times.

I want to go home now...

...but I can't. Yet.

What I can do, now --


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-- is go jacklighting Otyughs in the dark before I starve.

Which I do.


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One tries to hunt me back, almost successfully.

My fear tastes like Otyugh salami now.

what else can i do...

...

........

...well.

I can do this.


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I can begin my capital ship.


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I'm gonna need a spreadsheet.

DAY ELEVEN -- DIVE INTO HEAVEN

After breakfast, I make the suit temporarily drop me out of whatever nanotemporal state it keeps me in, so I can design a spreadsheet for working out mass/thrust relations without starving to death or smothering or, for that matter, taking all day and night.

[Gamenote: in other words I played from an occasionally reloaded backup save while I alt-tabbed out to an Excel sheet and back again to check in-game stats.]

I spend the morning cheerfully ciphering this way, until I decide on a minimum build plan.

Then as I gear the suit back into nanotemporal mode, and access the Large Constructor to begin --

-- I discover that practically all the equipment classified for capital ships, requires flux coils.

Which require exotic minerals not found on Omicron.

Building that CV foundation last night had been a total waste.

Screaming curses against the fiends who designed this ostensible "survival" kit, I barely restrain myself from the madness of flying off to raid all the raider bases on Omicron by myself.

I could not, however, restrain myself from pointing the nose of my HeavenDawn scout perpendicular to this miserable rock and blasting into the sky.


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I claw slowly upward at a rate slightly slower than my suit could make me run. Despite my rage, a corner of my mind notes the distance to orbit is less than a whole kilometer. My mind slots this detail into my theory that this "planet" can only be an asteroid less than half the size of my home county in Tennessee, with a core that must be comprised of microscopic white star fragments or something like that in order to accrete and form not only a spherical outer shell with Earth-approximate gravity, but also a viable atmosphere (although poisonous to Terran life).

What I am checking, somewhat suicidally, iss whether a cobbled scoutship like this can even safely leave the planet and return, much moreso travel to the moon and back in a reasonable time -- to be defined as a time where I could bring enough food and air along to survive.

At the edge of space, as cosmic energy starts washing over my cockpit, I pause to look around...


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...and then I stretch the final few meters.


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As a pilot I wobble just outside the atmosphere, but my ship itself does fine.


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The vacuum of space improves my power usage efficiency -- my hover thrusters don't need to continue burning I guess -- but not my speed even slightly. I creep at 8.4 meters per second across the sky; but this little astroidette is so small, I'm making substantial progress anyway.

Over the horizon curve, I see an indistinct shape rising, but I'm still too close to Omicron to safely fly parallel to the 'ground'. By the time I've attained enough height, I've curved around the planet enough to understand what I'm seeing in front of me.


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An asteroid belt.

And possibly Omicron's moon. It's hard to tell with other planets in the area, and the map isn't much help.

Also: a plasma-armed space drone, at 3 kilometers, no doubt meant to be an early warning system against approach to the planet by pirate hunters. To be safe I angle around it.

I clear the path to the asteroid field over the edge of Omicron.


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I could creep out toward the belt, I guess, but what would be the point at this slow rate?

Besides, my experiment has confirmed that in theory I don't need a capital ship to hunt for exotic minerals off planet.

I just need to build a scout ship fast enough to put that theory into practice.

Pointing my nose back to Omicron, I ascertain that I need to be about 350 meters above the atmosphere to be free of its gravitational pull (and atmosphere remnants).


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It's easy not to be too disappointed about such a spectacular accomplishment.

It's also easy to resent the survival kit designer for not including enough, or any, micro-sized ingots in the kit to build a warp drive. But then, he didn't even include a rescue radio, so...


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I happen to drop into orbit in sight of my Basetwo lake, and indeed in sight of my base! -- I can even just barely make out the little block of useless capital ship foundation nearby!

At a slightly less ludicrously slow running speed, I return to Basetwo a few minutes later, and celebrate with two salamis and a batch of oxygen. And a quick check for damage repair.

About 4 suit-hours until dawn. I'm pretty sure I can make a new SV by then, and I decide I'm better off doing that than modifying the HeavenDawn (or whatever I'm calling it): I'll have to destroy and remake or replace so many things I might as well start over, and besides if something bad should happen to a new astroscout then (assuming I survive) I'll still have the Dawn to ferry me around to gather more minerals to try again.

My calcs, however, indicate that something is screwy about the thruster specs, or possibly the mass specs somewhere. Granted, I dropped out of engineering in college because I wasn't good enough at the math, but still: either the thrusters aren't generating anywhere near enough force to push themselves along (much moreso the mass of a whole ship), or else they're generating waaaaay too much power to move a ship of this mass less than 9 meters a second.

Assuming for convenience that the mass readings are correct (since that simplifies testing for 'actual' thruster behavior), and carefully accounting for all the mass in the Dawn (plus myself at a guesstimated suit weight of 200 kg), I reckon the normal thrusters are generating 735.9191 kg/m/s.

[Gamenote: I do remove the slanted thruster in the middle and replace it with a normal thruster to equalize the division of result per thruster. This takes some time to build and test, after which I reload the game. I'm pretending at this point I used three normal thrusters from the beginning.]

Ideally I'd calculate which kind(s) of thrusters have the best mass/velocity and mass/ergspent ratios, but without more experiments I can't do that; and if the listed figures are close to right, the "normal" thrusters for an SV were the most mass efficient anyway.

Since my current SV rotates nicely, I set up a calculation to match the number of gyros to force/mass ratios on the new ship as a target. If that works, I can always use my remove tool to take one or two back off and recover both their mass (they're quite heavy for their size) and most of their material (the tool can take back motors and other complex things), until I get an unacceptable result -- and then add one back on.

That scarred rock I saw beyond the asteroid belt, I infer to be Omicron's moon, as its appearance of size changed substantially during my orbit. The belt must functionally be at the LaGrange point of gravity between them, and I could tell I was slowly approaching the belt -- moreover the edge of it didn't seem a whole Omicron-diameter away from the atmosphere. This gives me a reasonable guess at distances, and so also at a practical maximum speed I should be aiming for in the design calcs.

Consequently, I decide to shoot, somewhat arbitrarily, at a 700 km/hour maximum velocity, or rounding up to 195 m/s.

This speed would vastly outclass the drone speeds I've seen so far; which admittedly could be a false inductive inference from past experience, but since I have no other data to go on yet I might as well make a safe bad guess. Consequently, I don't plan to include a gun yet; thus also not an ammo box.

I haven't tried an Extra-Vehicular Operation (...that's the right term, right...?), but I'm sure I'm doomed if I can't and there seems to be no tech for it; so for now I'm going to plan as though it's possible and feasible with built-in suit equipment. At the least my jumpjets ought to work. Consequently, I'm not going to build an area to walk around in, inside my astroscout, in order to reach supplies of food and oxygen: I'll evo for those.

This means I'll keep 2 cargo boxes in the design -- one for my supplies -- but I won't bother with an oxygen dispenser and tank. Nor with a fridge, yet, but I can see that might make sense, since my salami will still rot in a cargo box (even in space, or so I had better conservatively guess).

The result is, well...


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...wobbly. Compact, but wobbly.

Also nowhere near as fast as it should be. But still a lot faster, more than 40 m/s now.

I notice that the power output under full thrust is over 100% and listed red, which surprises me, too: according to my calcs, the scout shouldn't be using that much power.

I also notice I'm running a bit thin on my ingots now, so I decide to spend the new day (what remains of it) mining ore for everything but copper (since I'm not short on that.)

And by mining, I mean wrecking my enemy's base.

DAY TWELVE -- OFF TO DELVE

My theory runs like this: when I use the "remove" function of my R&R tool, I tend to pick back up most of the component pieces. (Or all, but I haven't rigorously checked that.)

Several of the items back at that nearby base I ruined, look like things that would need Flux Coils to build.

Therefore, before I knock myself out picking up a bunch of ore and the refining those ores into ingots (and a few powders) and then fabricating components... why not just go loot the base further? At worst I'll lose a few minutes and a few Removal charges making the test. And even if I don't get any advanced components, if it works I'll still get a lot of simple and complex components.

What reminds me of this function of the removal tool, is that I really need to redesign the weight distribution on the astroscout.


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See what I mean?

So for most of the day I'm working on removing, rebuilding, and replacing a lot of that.


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Which I think works reasonably well. I also add another generator while I'm at it, so I won't be dangerously overstraining the first gen.

Then I go try "removing" a plasma cannon or whatever this is supposed to be at the ruined nearby Xenu base.


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Does it work?

ABSOLUTELY!

Did it net me some Flux Coils or Advanced CPUs?

No, but it did net me a bunch of other useful things that I won't have to spend time making.

So I go through the base "removing" any high technology I can find (except the elevator because I need that to move around), and at the end of the day what's my catch?


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No less than 8 AdvCPUS, and ten Flux Coils, baby!! WOOOOO!!

Of course, I could already make CPUs -- but I have limited neodymium (harvested from the caches in this base earlier) to do it.

I'm kind of doubtful that's enough flux coils to get me out of the system. But it's a great start.

And when I ask the suit's computer if sathium (for the fluxors) has been previously detected in the system, she says, "Yes, in the asteroid belts."


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I know you aren't Earth, Akua. But you'll do for a prayer. I'm not far from going home now!

As I suspected, I'm going to need more than just those 10 fluxors. But I can feasibly go get the raw material for them now.

Into my astroscout I hop, and in no time at all I'm shooting through the final layers of atmosphere out into local Omicron space.


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Huh. The atmosphere hugging the dense core of this little asteroid must be strongly magnifying: Akua looks a lot farther away once I get outside the air.

But I don't need to go there. Only here.


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The small pocket of smaller asteroids left over between Omicron and, for want of a better word, its moon.

My speed is a lot closer to my original goal of 195 m/s, out above the atmosphere. Not very close -- it's still only about 120 -- but enough so that I could probably fly to the moon and back with time enough to explore before I needed to return for food.


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Which is good, because the first thing my sensors detect (other than some drones who are currently ignoring me and whom I'm staying well away from), is a "shipyard".

"Hey, suit! Is there a federation colony here after all?!"

"No, only survey drones have passed through the system."

So... I'll just be treating that like a pirate base, then.

Unfortunately, all the sathium turns out to be on the far side of it.

Fortunately, there are no drones at this base, and I can fly fast enough to easily loop around it to get to the sathium deposits. For safety's sake, I choose the sathium rock -- most of the asteroids are only 'rock' rock' -- farthest from the base. Which happens to be also farthest from Omicron and closest to its moon.


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Soon enough I'm pulling alongside.


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I guess, correctly, that the goldish color on the asteroid is the mineral I'm looking for.

As I climb out of the cockpit, I also suddenly realize I'm only guessing that my suit will do an EVO!


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Good thing I guessed right!

Sathium turns out to be easier to mine than anything I can recall on not-Mars.


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After starting with less than half a clip, I easily pick up almost 500 units of ore. Far more than what I'll need.

I'm a little disoriented when I finish and turn back to find my astroscout.




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It takes me a minute (and a little panic) to find it. But the view of Omicron from across the belt is breathtaking.


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There she is, all tiny and alone and dark, floating in the softly pulsing electrical void.

A final wave of despair washes over me, and I jetpack back to my craft in a hurry.

As I pilot safely around the belt, off in the distance I can see four more planets in this system. Or three and one moon. Or, let's be real, some larger asteroids like Omicron, accrued around dwarf star fragments, too.


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I mean, it's hard to believe I'm 5 kilometers more or less from Omicron's "moon" while standing on the surface; how far away are those other rocks? Like that glowy volcanic one I've sometimes seen rising at night?


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"More than a year away from the closest neighboring planet, at this speed," the suit chirps at my inquiry. I find that hard to believe, considering some of the other definite lunacies the suit seems to take for scientific fact, but whatever. It doesn't matter.

I'm going home.


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And I don't mean home to Basetwo either.

DAY THIRTEEN! -- "Be so kind as to read once more the chapter of the windmills."

With one large constructor refining my sathium into ore, I start using the flux cores and advanced CPUs I already gathered earlier.

It doesn't take long before I'm got a warp drive.


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And a large generator. And a large fuel tank, too!

I even have enough for a couple of normal cap-ship thrusters.

Strictly speaking they could get me into space; and the warp drive would get me to a Federation system. But unless I want to crash into something uncontrollably when I get there, I'll need a few more things, which I start the process of manufacturing.

A cap-ship sized RCS for example.


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I mount it on top of the warp drive torus, simply because the goofball physics of the engine allow me to do so!

And a couple more main thrusters, so I can move toward what the RCS allows me to rotate around to look at.

Bouncing back over to Basetwo to set those final things up, I realize I'm going to miss this place.


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Not a lot, mind you. But my feelings imagine it waiting patiently for my return, unable to defend itself because I took all the promethium pods. Year after year, century after century, abandoned and alone, a skeleton devoid of life.

Like me.

Well, if the Federation ever gets around to fighting the pirate raiders for this crazy system, and securing it, maybe I'll come back someday.

And turn it into a museum.

And devote the proceeds to building a better survival kit!!

Not that I can completely complain. Enough was included for me to have this reasonable chance of getting home.

But I am dang sure going to find a lawyer as soon as I get back to civilization.

...there, the final two engines are done.

One last time I endure the shaky wiregrid computations that threaten to drop the dang things somewhere stupid on the framework.

But I endeavor to persevere, and with patience I place the final two rockets.


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Oddly, I can hear an exchange of lines from an old, pre-color movie, based on a stage play about a notorious French duelist.

"Have you read Don Quioxte?" asks his political opponent.

"I have; and found myself the hero!" he proudly retorts.

"Be so kind as to read once more the chapter of the windmills."

"Chapter thirteen!"

Miffed, his opponent continues. "Windmills, you will recall, if you joust with them, may cast you down into the mire!"

"Or up," the swordsman lifts his head, "among the stars!"

...and then, as I look at the exposed cockpit, all I can hear in my mind are my prayers.


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I've hunted food enough to last me more than long enough to warp to a Federal station. The number of jumps won't take long. Maybe a day, maybe two.

I've pulled enough oxybottles from the water. And converted them to oxybottles I can actually use.

I've packed all my fuel cells so I can replace them.

True, I don't have any luxuries. But I can rough it for another day or two.

I don't have any weapons either, aside from my trusty Vera. (And that rather less useful assault rifle.) But I've got plenty of ammo.

I've tacked on a couple of cargo boxes to take my remaining ores and ingots and component pieces. I'll be able to plop down a new Basetwo easily, should disaster strike, by feeding those things (and even some extra weapons I don't need) into my suit's blueprint nano-constructor.

It's time.

Power on. 800 meters to space.

I stomp the hover pedal. My Warpbase leaps for the sky.


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Good, I couldn't trust the information for calculating thrust rates, and I was afraid I didn't have enough to overcome the massive weight of even such a small "capital" vessel. The single RCS is easily strong enough for me to adjust my roll and pitch as well.


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700 meters to space. I pause a moment, to ascertain the thrusters will hover the Warpbase; and also to test the forward thrusters. They work fine. Upward then.


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600 meters to space. Power usage is troublingly high. But I fully expect that to drop once I'm out of the atmosphere.

500. 400. 300 meters.


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Ironically, I won't be able to see the ground clearly anymore, until I'm well into orbit.

Briefly I crash through the magnetic belt. Then past the upper fringes of escaping atmosphere.


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Before I even know it, I'm 1300 meters past the atmosphere.


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Either I'm large enough now for the plasma drones to detect at this distance, or they were only set to intercept warp-capable ships. They start their charge; but I'm a lot faster. I easily accelerate around the back side of Omicron in order to give myself time to lock in a course.


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Goodbye, God be with ye, you nasty not-Mars rock!

I turn my back on it a final time -- though not without some nostalgic fondness. Not a lot, just a little.

The nearest Federation station happens to be off in roughly the same direction as Akua.


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It seems like a good idea to do a test warp there. If something goes wrong, I can probably finagle a crash, and start again on a planet with breathable air!

I tell the cockpit computer to plot that course; and I engage the warp drive.

Nothing flashy but a rising whine and whiteness, just as expected. The wrenching experience of warping didn't leave me wanting to puke, which considering I couldn't take off my helmet was a good thing. Also something I hadn't accounted for. Was that because my ship had so little mass relatively? Or had I grown stronger in the past 13 days?


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The glare fades. And I see Akua. It has an asteroid belt as well, in a ring widely around it. Although at the moment I'm closer to its moon.


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My RCS is still working well. The warp used less energy than I worried it might.

While my ship makes the longer calcs for a set of longer jumps, I practice maneuvering over the asteroids. Pirate drones are infesting the space around Akua more than Omicron, but they won't catch me.


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About halfway from the surface to the inner ring plane, is a small space station.

"I thought you said this system wasn't colonized!" I complain to the suit.

"There was one attempt that failed," she replies. That tells me pirates have almost surely usurped that place for...


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...yep, a gun platform.

To hell with that.

I'm done with this nightmare. Let someone else handle it.

The new calcs ding into place, and with a contented sigh...


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DAY ZERO

Seven days to fly. And on the seventh day again, I arrived at a federal base.

I managed not to get shot from the sky, by waving my arms wildly. After all, I still didn't have a radio.

The base sure did. Lots of radios. Also, a bank, where I could prove my genetic identity and withdraw some of my meager savings, and pay for a room. And a shower. And food that wasn't bloodyworm salami.

I contacted my surviving family, and let them know that I myself had survived the loss of the cruiser.

Then, I dang well found a lawyer. Two of them, in fact. One to negotiate the rights for my story.

The other lawyer, sensing a rich payout from the corporation that had designed such a near-fatal survival kit, told me to hold tight at the station, and they would send an armed ship on autopilot to ferry me home.

I gave my report to the federal commander meanwhile. He seemed interested enough, so that I had to give that report again a few times to other higher-ups. But I eventually reminded him I wasn't in the military and needed to go home now. They could interview me there just as well.

The law firm did send a small mercenary ship, well armed, with an autopilot to take me back home. On a roundabout route.

The rationale was that the corporation that made that survival kit might arrange for me to have an accident if I traveled expected paths. I thought traveling expected paths would be safer, as they'd be less likely to try something where investigators might detect foul play.

But I didn't have authorization to change the autopilot's commands. So I went along with it.

The trip necessarily took longer, and that small ship had an inefficient warp drive. So it had to make stops at space stations along the way to refuel.

This naturally made me nervous.


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So I wondered if my nerves were just seeing things, when I saw the flaming asteroids in the distance.


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I blinked, and looked around in the direction they ---


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-- no.

-- oh no.


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NOOO!


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NOOOOOOOO!


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NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO


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NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO-----

plumpf

The impact throws me from the cockpit. Behind me, a soft explosion, and some fire.


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still alive still alive

got my gun

not my gun not vera

but still alive


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Lots of cubic silicone on this rock, clearly.

Rich in minerals.

I know what to do with that. I've done it before. I can do it again. They won't crush a Volunteer spirit. Seven days to fly; then maybe another seven days to get something I can use to...


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nononononoNONOOOO!! The ship is on fire, there's not, there isn't -- !

I search the wreck, as close as I can get.

No

survival

kit


I stumble around.

Hoping.

Praying.

By God, if I do find that kit...

if it doesn't have a rescue radio, I swear I'll turn this whole rock into a space cannon


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It was thrown from the wreckage. And emitting a beacon so I could find it.

It wasn't the kit, or the suit, I had had.

And it didn't have a simple, useful radio. Either.

But it would do.

it would  do

Nicely done, sir!  I'm not sure that the game is my speed, but then, survival games have seldom been my cup of tea.  I definitely enjoyed the writing style.  You made an otherwise unremarkable story entertaining.  That ain't so easy to do with no dialogue, no other characters, and no chance to break 1st person and talk about the larger realities that the main character couldn't possibly know.

As I say, nicely done...    O0

Thanks for the compliments, FAS!

The game I segue'd into, Fortresscraft Evolved, is much more difficult to write an AAR for. I'm about 25 hours into the game (I think, as of last night), and I'm nowhere even near as far along. So I've been skipping over a lot, and plan to only do occasional weekly updates.

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=16396.0


The pace in this game is quite languid compared to most 1st/3rd person games. (And it doesn't play well in 3rd person.) But I was still off planet in about 10 hours of gameplay. On the other hand, it isn't as pushy about dealing with environmental threats of various kinds as 7 Days to Die.