(The Planet Crafter)
(Chapter 3: Heat, Oxygen, and (timid) exploration)

(Day 1, roughly 2030 Local time)
(Terraformation Index: 240)

A quick break on the floor of his habitat module gave Sommen a much-needed physical break and time to inspect the build menu for what he would need next. "For heat, I need to build heater units. So, materials are… Iridium, Iron, Silicon. Good thing I grabbed that unit of Iridium when I was digging in that container. Still need silicon and iron, and since I don't want to be sitting on a heater, I need to build an annex habitat module for my build projects. So, three iron, one silicon, one titanium, and the Iridium."

The run out the door was a fairly succinct one: about twenty minutes out at a left-bound angle from the door, Sommen found the silicon, the titanium, and three iron easily, as well as spotted another crate that had fell in the vicinity and was partially embedded in the ground elsewhere in the caldera. A quick jog back to the habitat and he was in the door before his oxygen was even half-depleted. "So, now, fun times: can I add a module to a habitat from the inside, or do I have to go outside?"

The Planet Crafter looked past the end of his storage area, opposite the screens and fabricator, at the blank wall past his storage containers. A flick of the mode switch on the Build Gun and he took aim at the far wall. The gun immediately indicated a 'locked' module placement, so he triggered the gun and it readily converted the two units of iron and one titanium in his suit inventory to a new habitat module beyond the storage area.

"Nice, I can do exterior home improvement from the inside. 'Tim the Tool-Man Taylor' in space! Ha!" Sommen walked forward into the new module and selected the heater module from the build gun for deployment next. This he set the hologram for the build placement on the front wall of the unit (same wall as the door) and tripped the build command. The iron, silicon, and iridium were extracted from his inventory and assembled in roughly sixty seconds into a working heater module.

"Nice, nice," Sommen said as he walked back toward the Terraformation monitor and looked it over. "So, next thing I need to set up is… Oxygen generation. So, Vegetubes, place a seed inside to generate O2 according to the description. That means each of these will need the tube and one of the flower seeds, such as the Lirma seeds." Sommen reminded himself that he just found one in a container to the 'right' of his door, and there was one in storage in the pod, still… "Hrm, now might be a good time to get the material out of the drop pod and over here in centralized storage. Yeah, let's tackle that before I get started on anything else."

Before Sommen could take a single step toward the door, the Blueprints panel gave off an audible ring, so he reached out and tapped it to wake it up. "Wow, I'm over 300 Terraform? And I've unlocked the Backpack T2? I need that!" He looked at the Crafting Terminal for the materials needed: "My existing backpack, iron, silicon, and titanium. Easy, easy. Time for a run!"

The run outside was a short one, after he turned left from the door, it was only about ten minutes of jogging to stumble across Iron, Silicon and Titanium all within roughly five meters of each other. The Build Gun quickly pulled all three into his inventory and another ten minute jog returned him to the habitat outpost. Inside, he emptied his inventory out, pulled off his existing backpack, and submitted them to the fabricator to be rebuilt into a T2 Backpack, which when equipped on the modular equipment frame was now allotting him an extra 66 percent storage space. Perfect, now I have more than enough storage to clean out the pod and bring everything back, Sommen thought with a crooked smile.

The run from the habitat to the drop pod was short, only about ten minutes, and inside he cleaned out the pod quickly. All the space food, oxygen, and the spare Lirma seed went into storage, though when he tried to set the Build Gun to disassemble the now-empty storage box in the pod, the Build Gun skipped over the deconstruct mode and went right back to the build function. So, barring disassembly, he jogged home and deposited the materials in the two boxes he already had and resolved to set up a deconstruction module for the Build Gun.

"Break time, and I think I'll take a unit of space food as well as a bottle of water. This running around is kinda thirsty work."

-x-x-x-

(Terraformation Index: 660)

After the break was done, Sommen did a quick jaunt out behind the Drop Pod to pick up the necessary Silicon and Magnesium for a Deconstruction Chip, as well as another unit of ice that he readily reprocessed to a bottle of water for use later. The bottle he stowed in storage in the habitat, the Deconstruction Chip he added to the modular suit equipment harness, though he realized that he was now out of expansion space for the time being.

Back outside, the Planet Crafter turned right down the front of his habitat and headed up the valley where he found the first container. On the way, Sommen picked up two Magnesium and two Ice units, as they would be needed for the coming setup of the new Vegetube fixtures, and also cleaned out the box of some basic resources, squash seeds, eggplant seeds, and a Lirma seed pod (what he really needed for a second Vegetube). A quick run back to the Habitat and he entered just before a meteor shower started and started rattling the area pretty heavily. So, while that was going on, Sommen took a few moments to offload the food seeds to his storage and prepare to do the new construction. The two Vegetubes he also set up in the new module, opposite the existing heater, and slapped them down. On building the first of the two units, his base power shut off as well as all the other devices within. "Well, that wasn't surprising. At all."

A deep breath ensued before Sommen headed out and turned left to start picking up iron units. Twenty minutes jog out from the habitat, he found four units of Fe around a craggy rock and picked them up, then jogged back to base. Out front of the door, he slapped down four more windmills — they were weak and generated very little power, likely because there was nearly no atmosphere on the planet and would not do much down in a caldera, but they worked as a starting point for power. In quantity, granted, but they worked.

Back inside the facility, the Planet Crafter headed to the third module and looked at the Vegetubes with a smile. "Well, they're running but not doing anything, because…" he tapped the tube to wake up the holoprojection interface, and found that the tube was rigged to accept a flower seed. So, he popped open the storage container nearby and pulled out the two sealed containers with Lirma 'flowering' plants. "Now, how do I open this and plant the plant?" Sommen twisted the top of the vegetube and was able to unlatch the growing chamber, allowing access to the dirt in the growing chamber. It was a little work for him to transplant the flower into the dirt, but easily accomplished and the vegetube was reassembled in moments. Once locked in, the tube began running and hence began producing extra oxygen.

"So, now we're beginning seeding the atmosphere with oxygen — again, if I remember my highschool chemistry right, we need about 400 parts per million of Oxygen. And we're at…" Again, Sommen popped open the holographic interface and checked the numbers being generated. "Zero point fifteen parts per quadrillion of oxygen per second. So, yeah, I'm going to have to run these two tubes for over 30 days to get even a full PPM." (1)

Sommen sat down on the edge of one of his storage containers and grunted, then took off his suit helmet and sighed. "This really is one complete fuck of a job. But, even if the numbers I have to move are god-damned massive, the fact that I am moving the needles means that this shit is far from impossible. Brutal, yes. Lengthy, fuck yeah. Maddening? Easily so," he said to the wall opposite where he was sitting. "Not impossible. And if it is not impossible, I can make this shindig work."

"Time to go looking for more containers," he said in a huff, then stood up and locked down his helmet for EVA.

Outside, Sommen headed left and slightly toward the center of the caldera toward the second box he found. It only took him about 35 minutes to jog up to the container in question, and when he popped the latch it hesitated a moment before it opened up. On the inside, most of the material was common resources, weighted heavily toward iron and silicon, but it did have two units of hermetically sealed drinking water and a unit of space food. So he pulled those and left the common material, since that was not going to help him in the long run.

Once the couple items were in backpack storage, he turned up a nearby hill and ran up it to take a look around the area. To the south (?) end of the caldera he could not see any containers, but farther into the bowl (and somewhat toward the large shipwreck that he figured was to the west) he could barely see another container in the distance. "Is that close enough for me to jog out and back?" Sommen did some mental math and figured it was worth a shot. Worst case, he could use an air canister and fabricate a new one.

On the way toward, he found another container on the backside of a hill he could not see from his prior vantage point, so he resolved to hit it as well and expend an air container for the run home. At the first container, he found again a bunch of common material and one pack of food seeds. So, that picked up and the usual material left in place, Sommen headed toward the recently-seen container to check it out. The Planet Crafter got to the box, found a unit of space food, another pack of food seeds (these were for squash), and a blueprint chip, as well as a dozen pieces of common resources. With the valuable stuff picked up, he left the remainder, cracked open the air capsule he had in reserve, and started jogging toward the base.

Sommen entered the building and offloaded the material picked up from the containers. A break was in order, he figured, and he wanted to investigate the blueprint chip he had found…

-x-x-x-

(Terraformation Index: 950)

The blueprint chip the Planet Crafter found in that one surprise box was interesting, but not hugely useful immediately. Oh, the chip itself uploaded a damn good utility upgrade for the Build Gun — A Mining Speed Upgrade — but he was already in the position of not being able to make use of any further upgrades until he could extend the modular framework on his suit to allow him to carry more upgrades. So, with nothing supremely profitable from his latest escapades, Sommen figured his next move was to prepare for investigation of the shipwreck. "I need to think of a name — I don't know what ship that was that crashed here."

Again, the irony of the situation caused Sommen to sit down on the edge of one of his storage containers and start giggling. "Why am I naming the wreck of a ship? It probably already has a name, I'll find it when I'm in the ship."

Again, Sommen unlatched his helmet and set it down on the container next to him. "So, what do I need to explore the ship? First, I need my basics, two Oxygen capsules, two water bottles, and some food. I'll probably get a resupply while I am there from the ship stocks, so no loss there."

Sommen thought about the logistics of the matter. "Second, I am going to need an intermediate waystation to rest and recoup air pressure on the way to the ship from here. So, that will be one full shelter build. And I will need a shelter at the ship for Oxygen recoup as well as storage of my salvage. So, two full shelter builds."

A major thought occurred to him. "This build gun doesn't have a built-in light, I need to add that to my equipment — and that is not happening right now, out of mod slots." Sommen stood up and woke up the Blueprint Monitor. "Huh, I have an Exoskeleton T2 in the Blueprints to come, after I generate 10 nano-Kelvin of Heat. Does that mean…" The Planet Crafter turned to the fabricator and double-tapped the screen to wake it up, then started scrolling through the inventory. He came across the entry he did not realize he had near the end of the list. "Sonofa — I had access to the Tier 1 Exoskeleton from the word 'go'? Damn, why didn't I inspect the available builds more closely?" Sommen chided himself. "Okay, Titanium, Silicon, Magnesium. Easy enough, time for a run!"

With his helmet back on, Sommen headed out and straight north (?) from his base past the drop pod for the needed resources. He had to jog out past the pod, but was back in less than an hour with the materials. Crafting the exoframe was only a matter of a minute and he had the expansion for the back of his suit ready.

Making use of the expansion wasn't too tricky. It attached to one of the modular connection points on his lower back and provided four more connection points — a net gain of three connection points total. To make use of it, he had to briefly remove the Deconstruction Chip, attach the Exoskeleton, and then reattach the Deconstruction Chip. After he completed the not-quite-a-highwayman's-switch of upgrades, his suit was now showing a grand total of three open slots. "Nice, now I can add some more upgrades, like a flashlight! Would not bode well to try banging around the interior of a ship and I can't see what I am doing."

Back at the crafting terminal, Sommen looked into the flashlight. "One Silicon, two Magnesium." Then he looked into the materials for the Mining Speed Upgrade — 10 percent did not sound like much, but when one was working on multiple mining operations in a row, 10 percent could VERY quickly add up. "Magnesium, Silicon, Aluminum. I haven't seen a whit of Aluminium around here, so that is a bust. And man, I'm getting thirsty!" Sommen popped a hydration capsule and chugged it in a couple gulps.

"And lastly, I guess now is a good time to go for the ship. I'll forage for materials for the stations as I go, three Iron, two Titanium, and a Silicon per station I have to build."

The Planet Crafter locked down his helmet once more, exited his base, and looked left to the ship. "Here goes." He started out for the flashlight materials in that direction, and came across them in a hurry — all within ten minutes jogging distance to his base did he find the two Magnesium and one Silicon. Back inside, sixty seconds to craft the chip and another ten seconds to attach it, then he was ready to set out for the ship. "I think I can get away with building one intermediate station, I'll do it that way," Sommen told himself after looking at the terrain closely and doing some mental math on the subject while he drank some Space Food rations to get his energy up. "Here goes!"

Along the way, Sommen had no trouble finding the necessary titanium and iron to build his first shelter, and Silicon he found right at the location of the intermediate station he had planned out. So, with those materials in his backpack, he prepared first the Habitat Module, then added an entry door to it, and stepped inside to his first 'waypoint' station. It was basic, nothing special at all, just a box that generated enough atmosphere that his suit would replenish onboard oxygen and that was it. A quick breather and he looked out the window to take a better look at the hill leading up to the crashed ship. "From a distance that looked imposing but not bad. From closer, it looks like humping up that is going to be a bitch," he grumped to the window he was looking through. "Well, I am going to have to inspect it, no two ways about it. I need the materials. Time to get moving!"

On his way to the base of the hill where the ship crashed, Sommen found two more dropped cargo crates — the first had two units of food and a capsule of water, so he collected those and left the normal resources. The second container held only a Blueprint Chip, so he grabbed that and collected only the Titanium he was missing from that container. The needed Silicon and Iron he had no trouble finding on the ground on the way from the Waypoint to the ship.

The hike up the hill was a bit of a challenge, a couple times he had to do some 'bunny hopping' to get up steeper-than-expected terrain (2) to the eventual resting spot of the ship. By the time he reached the back bay of it, his oxygen was almost depleted, so Sommen set out to and quickly assembled his shelter not far from the cargo bay of the ship he was now staring at the stern (rear) of. The entry point was obvious to him, the cargo bay was open and he could see a crew hatch leaning into the ship, so that was his starting point.

But not immediately. Sommen opened up the door to his satellite station, saw an iron chunk on the ground within spitting distance of it, and pulled it into his inventory by way of the build gun. Inside, he used the iron to create a container and sat down on it for a quick rest break. He would hit the ship fully rested and relaxed, ready to find what he must within it.

Author's Chapter Afterword:

This chapter took longer to prepare than I expected.

This has not been a good week (2nd week August 2023), but I will not comment on reasons. I have had very little computer time over the past six days. On the other hand, the relax time from Planet Crafter is very much needed.

There has been some question as to whether or not this is a sole writing project now. The answer is neg: I have not abandoned my other writing, and in fact I am only about four sections away from having a new chapter of MMC2 completed for writing at this time. This is just a relax project for me, following a game and narrating a story from it. Some times, you just want to run your brain on cruise control, y'know? Not everything has to be massive battles and interdimensional politics, all else being equal…

So far, this game is being played stock — I have one mod installed, but it has not shown up in here yet. I am debating whether or not I should show the mod in action or not, as it does change a game mechanic but IMHO it is significantly in the advantage of the player and not to breaking the game. Honestly, I am of the opinion that this should be a default feature of the game already, but that is my opinion and I will respect Miju Games' position either way.

Nothing else to report. NEXT UP: Sommen dives into the first major wreck in his area, and finds hints of some problems to come…

Review Replies: One review for the first two chapters.

PriddeFallen: No, I have not stopped production on my other projects, but some times you just need to go on autopilot and write out something more relaxing.

The Gripe Sheet:

Takeshi Yamato had a few corrections for me, nothing reported by readers. Thank you to my beta reader for keeping my prose straight!

Footnotes:

(1): At a generation rate of 0.3 Parts Per Quadrillion (PPQ), it would take over 38 ½ actual (not game) days to generate 1 PPM. Which is why there are much more powerful oxygen generators in the game, and mass-production of those methods is a thing.

(2): This is a game mechanic, as some terrain is traversable but requires judicious jumping to scale it in increments.