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A New World


DevisDevine

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So since it was requested, I decided to continue writing my story, but I wanted to start from the beginning. I will likely rewrite Alpha Base Discovered when I get to that point. Keeping the majority of the story intact but some details may change.  

Unless requested otherwise, as I get new piece I will add them in a reply to this thread to keep the topic count down. I will warn you I am not a very good writer so if you are a grammar nazi it may cause you to cringe. 

 

Note: Some of the time frames mentioned may not be viable in game as I have no idea of the learning times for certain skills.

 

Suggestions and feed back, good or bad, welcomed. 

 

 

A new World

It has been quite the week, when the ark landed it was a bit chaotic with everyone pouring out into the world. We already had our game plan, each of us had our specialties and knew what to do. I headed out straight East, scanning for ore deposits on my way. We knew the general area we would set up a temporary base, near the shields edge, but there was no point in me rushing there. After all we would need ores, and my task was to find and collect what I could. Once I was a few Km from the Ark I began flagging a few locations I found, and even mined a bit of Iron and Copper to have from the start.

 

By the time I reached the others Drakyn Ral already had a primitive wood hut for us to hold out in for a few nights and was clearing land for crops. Kloydeb was out searching for energy sources and collecting more wood while Hartomo was hunting for meat for the time being. Dirk was inside the hut in VR, starting to play around with a primitive control system. No doubt when Kloydeb got back he would be doing the same, we needed a hover craft for land travel. I dropped off my nanocells of ore with Drak and headed back out, there was a mountain range close by that I hoped held veins of ore.

 

By the time I got back it was dark, but I had gotten fairly lucky with ores, collecting a few untouched veins. Between Drak and Dirk they had a simple havercraft designed, but it would be another day before Drak had the skills required to build the necessary components and I needed a few more resources that I have not located yet. However Kloydeb was lucky and found a swamp full of some plant that could be used for fuel.

 

Within a week we were beginning test flights for our orbiter prototype. It was mostly a proof of concept, just a control seat with basic thrusters and power, but Kloydeb and Dirk wanted to test and refine the control systems. Drak was beginning to construct the real craft, although it wasn’t much more than the prototype. But it would get us to our goal, FTL in a month. Hartomo was working solely on learning the necessary skills to craft and operate the FTL drive, the rest of us focused on what else was needed. Until then the hopes were that we could find some rich asteroids in orbit.

 

It was another 3 days before we were ready to launch, but it allowed time for refinement of control systems. There were several promising asteroids and a few turned out to be worth the effort. A few days later we retrofitted the launch vehicle with a mining drill that allowed faster collection of ores. We also added turrets, although we hadn’t encountered anyone else outside the protected zone we knew it wouldn’t be long. Drak began a new vessel, a bit larger, and would serve as our base and allow us to travel in search of a new planet.

 

By week 3 the new vessel was completed and been through several test runs. That did not stop Kloydeb and Dirk from tinkering with the control systems more. We had already made a few enemies, and a few friends. After being attacked while mining, Hartomo constructed a fighter to escort me as I mined from then on. It was just a few guys who seemed to be focused on harassing other. After taking 2 of their ships out with it people took notice. Drak traded the basic flight systems for Hartomos fighter for some of the rare resources we needed to make the FTL drive. From then on we just collected more ore and fuel while we waited. We were not sure how long it would take us to find a livable planet, so we wanted all the fuel we could get.

 

When I wasn’t mining I was in VR working on the next ship upgrades. First was a new and bigger miner, taking a few lessons learned and incorporating them in the new design. We ensured we had the necessary components, but decided to wait to build it until we found a new home. When that was mostly complete I began outlining the Asteria’s hull. From the initial plans I estimated 2 weeks and 2 miners just to build the hull. But the Asteria will be dwarfed by what Drak is working on. I would likely build a larger miner first and hopefully the new drill I am learning to construct will prove to be even faster.

 

The last day of Hartomos training for the FTL drive we left the planet. No one knew of our plans, but we quietly disassembled everything we had at the base including the miner. With 2 fighter escorts we lifted off and headed into deep space under sublight. When we cleared scanner range we disassembled the fighters and all boarded the Puddle Jumper. It was crammed but we managed, most of us sat in VR anyway as we slowly traveled further from Alioth. After about 2 hours of us sitting there  Hartomo informed us he could finally craft the FTL drive and made his way to the fabricator. Taking up most of the ships rear it was massive compared to our living space, but it was necessary since we decided to debark early. He began crafting the FTL drive and the rest of us went back to our VR ship designs.

 

Finally Hartomo told us it was ready, and Drak installed it in the ship as Hartomo took the pilot seat. It was primitive and inefficient but it would work. We hadn’t a clue what was out there, but we had plenty of fuel to jump around until we found a place. There was a nearby cluster of star system, about a dozen in total within 4 light years but we figured that would be the natural expansion path of the next explorer so we headed off, nearly perpendicular to the path. The first star system we would encounter was nearly 12 light years out, and after 3 hours of FTL and 16% of our fuel reserves depleted we found a small barely habitable planet with a ring system containing plenty of ice and asteroids. It was fairly ideal, but still too close to Alioth. Although we burned a bit more fuel than expected we still had plenty and continued on. We bypassed the closeted 3 systems and jumped to one 15 light years out from our current position, hoping to find a viable planet there. 

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Sorry, I forgot to post this last week. 

 

 

I guess it was luck, or maybe it indicated what we would find out here, but there was a midsized planet with a breathable atmosphere and plenty of wildlife. A bit alien from Earth and Alioth, but scanners show it would sustain us. This planet didn’t have a ring system, but it did contain 2 small moons with very dense cores  and a nearby asteroid belt. The sun was a white dwarf, shining 50% brighter in the sky than Alioth’s sun did. Further out there were 2 gas giants that with any luck could provide volatile fuels when we develop the tech to harvest and process it.

Drak had taken over piloting the ship again, and we all shut off our VR to watch as he approached the planet for landing. We set own on a vast grassy plains near the edge of a forest, or at least this planets version of one. Hartomo, Kloydeb, Draggos, and I poured out of the craft, weapons ready, as we cleared the perimeter. Rex and Yak headed into the forest to search for possible energy sources. Drak and Dirk began setting shelter up, a small fort like structure with 2 turrets atop pillars and a low wall that surrounded the craft. We encountered no life forms in the area, likely scared off as we landed, but scanners indicated midsized animals that could possibly be aggressive.

Once the shelter was in place I returned to the court yard and with Dirks help began crafting my new miner from the VR blueprint I created the week prior. After setting up our fabricators for advanced components drak began construction the scout ship so he could scan for ore deposits ahead of me. Hartomo and Kloydeb reconstructed their fighters and took off to scout and patrol the area as Draggos went back to VR, finishing touches on the next generation fighter. As my miner finished I took off to a nearby deposit already located by Drak and Dirk began building components for a second miner. The deposit was mostly copper, which was needed, but also had some iron and aluminum.

The new miner worked well. It was much faster at collecting ore than its predecessor, but operating in gravity was awkward. The anti-gravity worked well for the most part, but when rotating it seems to react a bit sluggish causing the ship to drift down the gravity well slightly. As I mined and dug deeper into the earth I was already coming up an idea for a stationary mining rig for planetary mining that could be mostly automated.

Rex and Yak returned dragging the corpse of a cat like creature that attacked them back to camp. It had 6 legs and was slightly larger than a lion but was blue with red stripes. Scanners show it should be edible if we choose to eat it. They had found pools of a substance similar to the yellow goo we used as fuel from Alioth. Several species of ‘trees’ here were also comprised primarily of Nitrites and Nitrates; It should be easy to convert that to a usable fuel.

The next few weeks consisted of us exploring and collecting resources, ensuring we had a good stockpile of anything we need stored in the Puddle Jumper in case we needed to evacuate. Rex and Yak, with Draks help when he wasn’t upgrading the base and our processing capabilities, were constructing a large frigate class ship that would eventually replace the Puddle Jumper when complete. It was nearly 50m long and resembled a Cylon Raider from an ancient and long forgotten TV show, except the front end was sloped down into a 4 sided wedge. We discovered several radioactive elements in large deposits, including plutonium and thorium, both on the planet and in some of the asteroids. Currently we didn’t have any way to utilize it for power, but eventually we would.

Other materials were pouring in, including a few rare alloys from asteroids, even locating several that were not found in the Alioth system. By the end of our first month in the new world we had 4 frigates and 2 cruiser class ships at about 110m each built. Kloydeb and Dirk were finishing connecting the cruisers systems, with a full array of turrets and shielding systems on each they were a bit more complex than the frigates. One of the cruisers even had a spinal mount railgun for more dps against slower targets. With the frigates and cruisers completed Dirk converted the early fighters into primitive drones. We placed them in orbit above the planet scanning for ships and engaging enemies that weren’t broadcasting our FOF system.

I decided it was time to begin construction of the Asteria, the 500m long BC that I had been designing in the VR. It wasn’t completed, mostly all that remained was decorative feature, but the core functionality was there, and it was battle ready. Equiped with 50 flak turrets, 20 mid-sized rail gun turrets, 2 forward mount laser emitters, 14 missile bays down it spine, and fully covered in shielding. All turrets were automated to either be free fire at any unrecognized tag or to target an enemy I specify form my command chair. The systems were  all low tech, and we knew from the Ark that there were much more efficient modules but it would do for now, besides we didn’t expect anyone to have anything to challenge us with. Although with only a partial power system, the lasers couldn’t operate in combat.

We finally had enough precious metals for all the components, most of which I had been building and stockpiling. Beyond our morphers on our arms we had a very simple constructor setup that would assist in building the blueprint. Still, with all of us assisting it we estimated it would still take at least 3 hours to complete it. We sent our frigates out on patrol once more, scanning to ensure the drones didn’t miss any enemies out there. When we were sure it was clear I began the construction from my blueprint. The constructor was much faster than we were, but we constantly had to feed it more material as the outer hull was made of thick trillium walls. We all assisted in the construction for the first 2 hours. As some of the fuel tanks and turrets were completed in some locations, some of the others began to transfer ammo and fuel onboard. It ended up taking a little over 6 hours to construct the blueprint.

The Asteria was a modified Daedalus class BC. It was twice the size with a round crescent shaped bow instead of a downward shaped box. It still had 4 docking bays, the 2 smaller ones housed two 20m combat drones each along with a handful of small surveillance and ECM drones. The larger bays were used for various craft that were needed, capable of easily housing 2 frigates in each. We were lucky with fuel collection, but it wasn’t very high quality and still only managed to fill half of the Asteria’s tanks. Flak and rail gun ammo were easy to come by, but the explosives for the missiles was slow to process so we only had a few dozen missiles total. There was more work to be done but she would fly.

As anxious as I was to fly her it had been an exhausting day. Kloydeb ensured the automated turrets were active, sending out a small craft with no FOF tag and watched it get destroyed in a spray of bullets. We decided to call it a night and begin test flights the next day. Afterall, it was the first time our control system was being used on something this large and I would hate for something to go wrong and I crash it because I was tired. But the next day nothing went wrong, at least not anything major. It was a bit sluggish and I noted which axis needed more thrust. There were a few that were not slaved properly, but it was a quick fix.

We decided it was time to return to Alioth, mostly because we wanted to show off, but also because we wanted to get some merchandise on the markets early. We intended to sell some of our fighter and control system blueprints. We also had excess of a few ores that were hard or impossible to come by on Alioth, at least they were a month ago. The 4 frigates were docked in the Asteria’s bays and I was flanked by the 2 cruisers as we charged our FLT drive for the jump. 

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