Sol 52

60517 Ti

I had too much of a good day yesterday it seems. Granted today was pretty good too. It's not much to report, just setting up an assload of drills. But at sunset, right when I was getting ready to head in, there was suddenly an explosion directly in front of me, like a firecracker exploding in my face. Apparently a small meteor, probably about the size of my fist, decided to come screaming straight out of the sky in front of me. I'm fine, thanks for asking, but it threw me off my feet and sent me falling to the ground. When I fell, my helmet bounced off a rock and left a giant pressure fracture in my helmet.

Obviously when you see a crack in your helmet you want to freak out, but freaking out isn't going to help me out here. If nothing else, it was a big solid crack. There's this rule of thumb when it comes to crack in helmets and windows and stuff: solid crack, might come back, web of cracks, twenty seconds max.

This time around I could at least be confident that when I got up and started heading back to the base I wouldn't have it shatter immediately. I still had my exosuit's computer chirping in my ear about pressure breach all the way, but the air loss was slow enough that I could make my way back without suffering a total depressurization.

So I got back to the base and pulled my helmet off, taking stock of it. The crack wasn't too bad, about twenty three centimeters in length right in front of my right eye. If my helmet hadn't been in the way, I might have lost my eye. But let's not worry too much about that right now. Anyways, I went about trying to look through the manuals for anything about how I might go about fixing this thing, and it turns out the resin is multipurpose. It can work into cracks and seal up with near-perfect visibility. Miracles of modern science and all that. Hopefully it'll be ready by tomorrow.

However, I'm out of resin at this point. So I'll have to go around and find a new unit of it. Maybe there was some on the Cirella-IV earlier, or maybe there's some other wreck that I haven't found yet. Heck, maybe I can go into those slot canyons and try to make my through to see if there's something in there.

Sol 53

62005 Ti

The drills are doing just fine so far, I still have plenty of energy left. Today was spent going around that one cave to collect up as much iridium for heaters as I could. There's plenty just sitting around on the ground in there, which makes me wonder exactly how it all managed to get there in the first place if the only real way it gets down to a planet like this is through meteors.

Whatever the case may be, I think I can do some more exploring soon. When the dust cleared up a bit earlier, I saw a much larger shipwreck to the northwest across that sea of dunes that I had seen, which is a great sign for even more resources to be salvaged with more dumpster-diving. I might also go northeast from the aluminum hills, or try going into the maze of slot canyons. So many places to go on this planet, I'm actually almost excited.

Sol 54

64703 Ti

A bunch more heaters are running and the Ti is still going up like a stabbed rat. But it's still not enough. I need more, so I thought about trying to budget my time, but then I figured that I could just prepare for a new excursion and use wind turbines to mark my way. I've decided to head into the dune sea first, I can see the ship that way so that's at least enough to know there's something there without just wandering around.

Today was spent preparing for the trip, getting water bottles together and a few rations of food. I'll set up a new base once I get there, so I only really need enough oxygen to make my way there. If I absolutely have to, I have enough air that if I had to turn back I could make my way there.

Let's see, other concerns...well, there's sand. I see sand blowing off the dunes almost every day, and the fact that I'm constantly making the atmosphere denser certainly isn't doing much to help that. I think it'll be fine. These helmets are better at handling small things like sand, and if they're just being blown around by wind then it shouldn't be too horrible.

Of course, this is just assuming Steve hasn't found some new and horrible way to kill me. So that'll keep me entertained for a while.

Sol 54

67386 Ti

Today was the day I was supposed to head out but wouldn't you know it, another meteor shower. I woke up being thrown out of my bed when one went crashing straight into the base. Thankfully it was strong enough to not be immediately destroyed, but it meant that I had to just deal with the concussive blasts of being hit by meteors every twenty seconds or so. Very much unpleasant.

And as if that wasn't enough, when they finally stopped falling I opened the airlock to find out that the exit was buried by shrapnel and dirt, so a whole day was wasted from just trying to push the rocks and dirt and shit out of the way. I swear to God, it's like this planet knows I'm here and is trying to get me to fail.

By the time the entryway was clear, it was far too late to head out to do anything. So I just set up a few more drill arrays and called it a day. I really shouldn't be too put-out by all of these things going wrong, but it's still frustrating when you're trying to get something done and then all of a sudden the world decides "Nope!".

Another eclipse today. Just a partial eclipse, but Joe moved in front of the sun for a while and the world got a bit dark. Not much else to say beyond that, but the wind seems to pick up a lot whenever it does. Really disturbing when that happens.