7 Days to Fry (...FLY! I MEAN FLY!!): an Empyrion AAR [COMPLETE]

[JasonPratt]

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!

[JasonPratt]

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.



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...

 

(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.




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.




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.

[bbmike]

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

[JasonPratt]

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. 

[JasonPratt]

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.




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.




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.




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.




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.)




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...




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.




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




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.





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.




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

[JasonPratt]

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.




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.




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.




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...




...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.




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.




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!!!




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.




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.




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.




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.




Glad I waited for dawn.

So far.

[JasonPratt]

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.




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.




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?




...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.




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--




--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



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!?




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.




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




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




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.




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




YEEAAAGHOWOWOWOWDIE DIEYOUHELLSPAWNTHING BLAM!




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.

[JasonPratt]

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.




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:




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.




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!








...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.




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...




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.




28 minutes to sunrise.

Time to see if that hovery thing can climb mountains.

[JasonPratt]

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.




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).





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.




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).




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.




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.






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.




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)...




...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.




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.

[JasonPratt]

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.




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.







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.




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.

[JasonPratt]

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.




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.




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!




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.




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):


...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.

   




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.




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.




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.


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.

[JasonPratt]

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




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.




...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.




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.




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.




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.




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




...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.




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.




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.





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...




...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:




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.




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...




...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.




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.




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!




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...




...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 --




-- 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.




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...




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.




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)...




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

Still alive.

[FarAway Sooner]

Very entertaining stuff, man!  Keep it coming!!

[JasonPratt]

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)

[JasonPratt]

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.




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--




--CCRAAPPOTYUGHSCANCLIMMMMBBBLAMBLAMBLAMMEDYBLAMBLAMCLICKCLICKCLICK!




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--




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

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




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 --







--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.






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...




...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.




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

And home so much farther.