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Completed Let's Play Alien Legacy.
- Thread starter Cool name
- Start date
in the Playground. I've always wanted to play that game, bit never quite got around to. All the more reason to give it a shot I guess. Do continue...
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
@Crooked Bee: Rolly Polly is very nice and charming indeed. It was the song that made me fall in love with T-ara at first, and with all both them and their fans have been going through since July it was nice to be reminded of it. I am grateful for that. 
@Lightbane: Please accept the offering of technobabble that follows as a sign of good will.
@Mrowak: I am grateful for your seal of approval. I will try not to disappoint you.
@Odrzut: Thank you for reading it.
V. It may need additional pylons.
As soon as the ship we sent to explore the anomalies around Hyomin returns to the Mercator map Romanov comes to us with a new set of coordinates.
It has come to my attention that one of our team members who investigated the TANTALUS science lab on Hermes uncovered the location of the planet's main control tower.
He failed to report through the proper channels, and has just come forward with this information. I shall deal with his lapse of duty, sir, but in the meantime you can send an exploration team to sector F-4 on Hermes to verify the validity of this finding.
Here lies the myth of the disciplined military men. Before proceeding with this new task I decide to keep checking around Hyomin to see if there's anything of importance here. We move to A1.
With this discovery we return the ship to Hyomin and our attention moves to Shin Ji. Vehicle 4, the craft stationed here, is sent to the surface to explore the location Romanov informed us about just now.
And along the way we did also find a few points of scientific interest.
Before long I am also able to finally start the research project on the metal alloy we had previously found. At the same time I turn of the Calypso's laboratories and order a second power plant built there, and continue developing Raina, our youngest colony. Then I order some surplus missions to keep the Calypso well stocked and the colonies sufficiently populated.
We should build space stations, sir, that we can use as 'jump off' points, enabling us to launch exploration missions on nearby planets.
Your advice is welcome, if a bit late.
With little to do for the moment I send the ship currently on Jooyeon to explore Prometheus' surface in search of anomalies. It flies over sectors I7 and I6 yet finds nothing of obvious importance.
I also remember I have yet to probe Hermes even when I have built Shin Ji on its orbit. I send the ship there to take care of this and before long have the probing report on my PDA.
Being already on the topic I will add in Beta Caeli there are two different asteroid belts, Alpha and Beta. The one dubbed Alpha is located between the inner planets and the sun. The one dubbed Beta is located between the inner worlds and the outer ones, gas giants if memory does not betray me. You may remember Romanov had previously given us a set of coordinates to check on Alpha 5, and somewhere down the line, one of those times when there was little to do but wait most probably, I sent a ship with some fuel there to buy a space station around the asteroid. It is now completed, and there I go now.
We give it Hwayoung as a name and send the ship there to probe Alpha 5. The results reach us almost instantly.
As soon as we finish reviewing the report Romanov comes to us.
Sir, we have analyzed some photographs of the Alpha Asteroids that were taken by one of our long-range telescopes on CALYPSO. It's quite possible that there is a man-made structure of some kind on Alpha 2. We should explore there when possible.
I'll get to it. Anything else?
Our telescopes on the CALYPSO have detected an unusual 'splash' of yellow on Alpha Asteroid 8, sir. We will run a spectroscopic test immediately. In the meantime, you may want to send a ship to explore Alpha 8, sir.
One step at a time. Vehicle 6 is currently orbiting Alpha 5, so I order it to descend and check the original set of coordinates I came to find.
I am sure this will prove useful, but for now please go back to the screenshot and check the ship's load. Our research on the Ramikin project was finished around the time the ship reached Alpha 5 and built Hwayoung but either I was not informed or the "Eureka!" got lost among the feedback. In any case when the ship got updated upon landing on the station it had just built.
Hausmann comes to us before we can go check the research report.
The unusual metal discovered by the TANTALUS colonists seems to absorb energy. We will study this effect.
Please do so. Armor impervious to energy weaponry would put my heart to rest.
We check the report.
This will make our budding empire much easier to manage and simplify future exploratory missions. I check to see the new metal alloy has received its own project, which I instantly greenlight.
As you can see in the screenshot we are exhausting the resources of both the geology and chemistry departments, so the next task is to setup our four working labs to try and cover this up. The two labs on the Calypso will be keep offline for now as I still don't feel comfortable with our production and the Calypso is quite dependant on the colonies for ore. After taking care of our research teams and sending more ore to the Calypso I decide to check on my advisors.
I find it very disturbing that we have not heard from Earth since we lost contact during our voyage. I fear the Centaurians have destroyed our homeworld.
Given the length of our trip the earth we knew would be long gone either way.
I don't understand what could have destroyed the TANTALUS and the colonies. It's frustrating that we have found nothing but ruins.
I could cope with never finding out, but I doubt we will be that lucky.
When we have enough resources, we should start up some space sites. Even though they are expensive to maintain, they will act as way stations for our spacecraft. Also, our scientists will be able to perform experiments in their zero-g enviroments.
I believe she's talking about the facilities we build on space stations. Those are bothersome to operate as we need to ferry ore from one of the actual colonies at regular intervals for them to be kept in working condition.
In any case,
Eureka!
I check the new report.
I can do nothing but nod and try not to look too confused. I attend my colonies' development for a little while, then Hausmann once again interrupts me.
Captain, there are a number of meteors and other debris present in the Beta Caeli system. I suggest we look into a defensive system that could protect our colonies from these objects.
My proposal is listed in the Tech Manager. I do encourage you to view it as soon as you are able to.
Once I have finished tending the colonies' current needs I go check this new project.
This is a project I need done as soon as possible. There currently being little else for me to take care of I wait in this interface for the colonial labs to satisfy the projects needs. You may remember I have just tweaked the production a short while ago, and with just a few minutes I can greenlight the project. I also order a new Habitat built aboard the Calypso in the hopes of getting more colonists awake at the appointed times. We are a bit tight on personel.
That done my attention goes to Hwayoung. I load the remaining fuel on the ship there, Vehicle 6, and send it to set up a space station on Alpha 2. Back at the Calypso I load Vehicle 5 with 10 ore, 10 fuel, 20 life support, and 20 robots and send it to probe Hermes. Following this I load Vehicle 7 with the exact same load and send it to probe Ares.
As you know we have space stations built on both planets, Shin Ji and Aron. When a ship reaches a destination that's a colony, a space station, or the Calypso it unloads its cargo. By sending them to probe the planet I am putting them on orbit without allowing them to land on the station, which allows me to establish a colony without having to load the ship again.
By then Vehicle 6 has built SSAlpha 2, to which I give the name Yunho before sending the ship to probe the asteroid. Muscle memory was guilty for such an action, for the asteroid belts need only be probed once. Moving on, I order more ore brought to the Calypso from the colonies and check on my officers.
Many outposts and other remnants of the TANTALUS colonist must exist in this system. You should consider exploring ALL of the planets here thoroughly. The Sub-Warp Radio will point out possible items of interest from the Mercator.
In case you had not yet noticed, Captain, our replacement personnel for senior staff members are relatively green. I would take their advice with a grain of salt.
This refers to the officers that take the bridge stations if you send your staff on missions.
I am studying how to set up defensive perimeters in this system in case our friends the Centaurians have somehow managed to track and pursue us.
After how long it did took The Calypso to reach Beta Caeli I would hope the Centaurians no longer remember a place called Earth existed to begin with.
I move to the ship I left orbiting Alpha 2 and send it down to the surface. As we do not know the coordinates of the structure we came looking for I order a scan, which reveals two points of interest. I decide to begin by checking D1.
Ugh. That's a nasty way to go. We move to A3.
I assume the message refers to the earth like worlds, Gaea and Rhea. Evidence indicating we should get our people out of those two planets keeps piling up but those three colonies are the cornerstone of our operations.
Before leaving the sector we get what energy is to be found there. Back in Yunho I load all the energy onto the ship and give it the mission to build a Space Station on Alpha 8. From there we will be able to check those yellow splashes Romanov had informed us about. While I wait I check on our colonies for resources to send to the mothership. With the pipeline missions taking ore and occasionally energy to Calypso becoming a common sight the atmosphere is getting a little less tense.
Once Vehicle 6 reaches Alpha 8 I give the space station it built the name of YoonJi and order the ship to the surface. There are only 4 sectors on the asteroid, and a single anomaly to check.
Around the site we find more energy and life support resources than we can load, so we take as much as we can before leaving. My attention goes to Vehicle 9, parked on Jooyeon. It is my intention to check Prometheus to follow on the two clues leading there we have recently found but the station's energy reserves have run out and the ship is short on fuel, which forces me to set up a pipeline mission so that the ship refuels on the Calypso and then returns to Jooyeon with 15 energy units on its cargo hold.
Then I move to Shin Ji and send Vehicle 4 to build a space station on Beta 4 after loading what little fuel there's left on the station. The ore and life support I leave there. As a little extra this is a nice little screenshot of the system interface that shows two of our ships, three of our space stations, and the Calypso itself.
By now the ship I had sent to Ares' orbit has found its way there. I give it an exploration mission on the surface and look for places on which to build a colony around the middle of the Mercator maps' length.
I pick I12 to establish our first colony on this planet, which I name JR. I only manage to order the first habitat built before Romanov comes to me with a new lead.
A photographic sweep of Ares has revealed some ruins in sector K-9, sir. You may wish to have a team investigate the place before the blowing sand buries it.
I do not know whether or not is the objective truly timed, and I am unwilling to test it. A team is sent there without delay.
We will have to leave following this vague lead for later as Vehicle 9 has already finished the pipeline mission I gave it and is ready to check Prometheus. We descend on F3 and check for anomalies. The first sector I check is I0, and I wish I were as lucky on the crane machines.
From there I fly to E2, where we can fill our cargo hold of energy resources while looking for the local site.
Interesting. I send the ship to unload the cargo back at Jooyeon, then I send it back to Prometheus' surface. It descends on D2.
Then we move to D3.
From here we fly to A0.
Next we visit B6.
I send the ship back to Jooyeon and jump to Vehicle 8, which is currently parked on Raina. It is sent to search for the crystals we just found out are to be found Rheah.
We plan to investigate the unusual properties of the unusual crystal we found on Rhea, sir. It has unique optical properties, especially its ability to polarize light.
The project is accepted. It takes all of our remaining resources on the field of Electronics. Afterwards I order more pipelines taking ore to the Calypso and robots to the colonies where they are needed. I also send the first group of 30 colonists to JR along some ore and energy to help them get started.
We return to Jooyeon and order a new mission to the surface. The ship descends on L4.
A waste of a good turn. Back at the bridge I check the active missions on the PDA and am reminded of the coordinates we had on Hebe. The ships on the Calypso would currently need 40 turns to reach the site. Trying to look for a simple solution to this problem I am informed a research project has been finished.
If I may be honest I am feeling slightly overwhelmed by the combination of real time, lack of feedback, and the constant increasing of elements that must be kept in mind. Before long I may have to remove the "slightly" part. Before starting to build orbital defense guns on our colonies I remember I had sent a ship to set up a colony on Hermes. I order it to the surface and scan for a viable place, finding but one in reach.
The construction of the colony's first habitat is begun immediately after naming it JongMin. Checking the colony interface I notice the ship I had sent to build a starbase on Beta 4 has accomplished its mission even when I no longer remember sending it there. The starbase receives the name MiYoun before the ship is sent to probe the Beta asteroid belt. Within seconds we have a report waiting for us, yet before reviewing it I order a third factory built on the Calypso.
Originally I had one and built a second one, one to build robots and the other for vehicles. When our small fleet numbered ten vehicles, including the one we salvaged, I did turn off the corresponding factory. Not long ago I noticed we were running low on robots and decided to turn it online again to help with the construction of more robots. Right now there are few ships parked at the Calypso at any given time, and as we do not seem to be short on resources for the time being I plan to build ten more ships.
Moving on, my personal robot decides to share something with me as I prepare to check on my PDA.
The magnetic storm we passed through may have been the remains of a superstring fragment that lost cohesion in the millenia that passed since it was formed. We were lucky not to hit a newly formed superstring, or our ship would have been destroyed.
We order the ship in orbit of Beta 4 to descend and scan for anomalies. A small problem then comes to my attention.
It may be that by mistake I sent it without a cargament of fuel on the cargo hold. Now the ship itself is almost empty and there is no fuel in the station. I send it back to MiYoun and send Vehicle 10 there with a cargo of 30 Energy. As organize this Hausmann comes to us.
While explore some ore asteroids, an exploration team noticed some unusual pits. As near as we can determine, they appear to have been created by exceedingly small but powerful explosions. Our physicists think that miniature black holes created the pits. An interesting line of research to pursue, don't you think?
If you say so, Hausmann.
I check on Hyomin. We lack personel to build the laser gun, so we order a pipeline mission to take ore and energy to the Calypso and bring back a small number of colonists. I set a similar pipeline in Raina than I did on Hyomin, transporting a full cargo of Ore to the Calypso and taking back colonists.
Moving on to Eunjung next I find enough to build the weapon.
Then I check the technology interface and look for the black hole project Hausmann did mention before.
As we are lacking in physics I set a lab on Hyomin and a lab on Eunjung to do such research. Afterwards I move back to the Calypso and turn on one of the laboratories there. As the last topic it did research was Physics and I had not changed it before turning it off the installation resumes it from where it left. It is a single turn away from generating a point.
With the administrative tasks done I send Vehicle 9 to the surface of Prometheus. There are many anomalies around the sector chosen for descent. I decide to check them all, returning to Jooyeon every time we find ore, energy, or life support provisions along the anomaly itself. To save fuel I scan a single time and use the screenshot to navigate, but twice I made a mistake and did end in the wrong sector. It was in one of those that I did find points of scientific interest.
Our fears about an alien presence in Beta Caeli have been confirmed, and we have a clue on where to look for more information about it. We also got several new sets of coordinates to check. I send Vehicle 6, currently on Yoonji, to build a starbase on Alpha 7. The sites on Thetis, Hades, and Hera are currently out of our reach.
I must warn you the next episode will be slow to come. I want to take a couple of sessions to make an inventory of where every ship is, which sectors with known anomalies have I explored thus far, and what leads have we yet to follow as well as decide where I want to take the new colonies I have built and will be building soon. Then I'll continue from the point where I left today with the knowledge needed to make informed choices.
He failed to report through the proper channels, and has just come forward with this information. I shall deal with his lapse of duty, sir, but in the meantime you can send an exploration team to sector F-4 on Hermes to verify the validity of this finding.
Here lies the myth of the disciplined military men. Before proceeding with this new task I decide to keep checking around Hyomin to see if there's anything of importance here. We move to A1.
With this discovery we return the ship to Hyomin and our attention moves to Shin Ji. Vehicle 4, the craft stationed here, is sent to the surface to explore the location Romanov informed us about just now.
And along the way we did also find a few points of scientific interest.
Before long I am also able to finally start the research project on the metal alloy we had previously found. At the same time I turn of the Calypso's laboratories and order a second power plant built there, and continue developing Raina, our youngest colony. Then I order some surplus missions to keep the Calypso well stocked and the colonies sufficiently populated.
Your advice is welcome, if a bit late.
With little to do for the moment I send the ship currently on Jooyeon to explore Prometheus' surface in search of anomalies. It flies over sectors I7 and I6 yet finds nothing of obvious importance.
I also remember I have yet to probe Hermes even when I have built Shin Ji on its orbit. I send the ship there to take care of this and before long have the probing report on my PDA.
Being already on the topic I will add in Beta Caeli there are two different asteroid belts, Alpha and Beta. The one dubbed Alpha is located between the inner planets and the sun. The one dubbed Beta is located between the inner worlds and the outer ones, gas giants if memory does not betray me. You may remember Romanov had previously given us a set of coordinates to check on Alpha 5, and somewhere down the line, one of those times when there was little to do but wait most probably, I sent a ship with some fuel there to buy a space station around the asteroid. It is now completed, and there I go now.
We give it Hwayoung as a name and send the ship there to probe Alpha 5. The results reach us almost instantly.
As soon as we finish reviewing the report Romanov comes to us.
I'll get to it. Anything else?
One step at a time. Vehicle 6 is currently orbiting Alpha 5, so I order it to descend and check the original set of coordinates I came to find.
I am sure this will prove useful, but for now please go back to the screenshot and check the ship's load. Our research on the Ramikin project was finished around the time the ship reached Alpha 5 and built Hwayoung but either I was not informed or the "Eureka!" got lost among the feedback. In any case when the ship got updated upon landing on the station it had just built.
Hausmann comes to us before we can go check the research report.
Please do so. Armor impervious to energy weaponry would put my heart to rest.
We check the report.
This will make our budding empire much easier to manage and simplify future exploratory missions. I check to see the new metal alloy has received its own project, which I instantly greenlight.
As you can see in the screenshot we are exhausting the resources of both the geology and chemistry departments, so the next task is to setup our four working labs to try and cover this up. The two labs on the Calypso will be keep offline for now as I still don't feel comfortable with our production and the Calypso is quite dependant on the colonies for ore. After taking care of our research teams and sending more ore to the Calypso I decide to check on my advisors.
Given the length of our trip the earth we knew would be long gone either way.
I could cope with never finding out, but I doubt we will be that lucky.
I believe she's talking about the facilities we build on space stations. Those are bothersome to operate as we need to ferry ore from one of the actual colonies at regular intervals for them to be kept in working condition.
In any case,
I check the new report.
I can do nothing but nod and try not to look too confused. I attend my colonies' development for a little while, then Hausmann once again interrupts me.
My proposal is listed in the Tech Manager. I do encourage you to view it as soon as you are able to.
Once I have finished tending the colonies' current needs I go check this new project.
This is a project I need done as soon as possible. There currently being little else for me to take care of I wait in this interface for the colonial labs to satisfy the projects needs. You may remember I have just tweaked the production a short while ago, and with just a few minutes I can greenlight the project. I also order a new Habitat built aboard the Calypso in the hopes of getting more colonists awake at the appointed times. We are a bit tight on personel.
That done my attention goes to Hwayoung. I load the remaining fuel on the ship there, Vehicle 6, and send it to set up a space station on Alpha 2. Back at the Calypso I load Vehicle 5 with 10 ore, 10 fuel, 20 life support, and 20 robots and send it to probe Hermes. Following this I load Vehicle 7 with the exact same load and send it to probe Ares.
As you know we have space stations built on both planets, Shin Ji and Aron. When a ship reaches a destination that's a colony, a space station, or the Calypso it unloads its cargo. By sending them to probe the planet I am putting them on orbit without allowing them to land on the station, which allows me to establish a colony without having to load the ship again.
By then Vehicle 6 has built SSAlpha 2, to which I give the name Yunho before sending the ship to probe the asteroid. Muscle memory was guilty for such an action, for the asteroid belts need only be probed once. Moving on, I order more ore brought to the Calypso from the colonies and check on my officers.
This refers to the officers that take the bridge stations if you send your staff on missions.
After how long it did took The Calypso to reach Beta Caeli I would hope the Centaurians no longer remember a place called Earth existed to begin with.
I move to the ship I left orbiting Alpha 2 and send it down to the surface. As we do not know the coordinates of the structure we came looking for I order a scan, which reveals two points of interest. I decide to begin by checking D1.
Ugh. That's a nasty way to go. We move to A3.
I assume the message refers to the earth like worlds, Gaea and Rhea. Evidence indicating we should get our people out of those two planets keeps piling up but those three colonies are the cornerstone of our operations.
Before leaving the sector we get what energy is to be found there. Back in Yunho I load all the energy onto the ship and give it the mission to build a Space Station on Alpha 8. From there we will be able to check those yellow splashes Romanov had informed us about. While I wait I check on our colonies for resources to send to the mothership. With the pipeline missions taking ore and occasionally energy to Calypso becoming a common sight the atmosphere is getting a little less tense.
Once Vehicle 6 reaches Alpha 8 I give the space station it built the name of YoonJi and order the ship to the surface. There are only 4 sectors on the asteroid, and a single anomaly to check.
Around the site we find more energy and life support resources than we can load, so we take as much as we can before leaving. My attention goes to Vehicle 9, parked on Jooyeon. It is my intention to check Prometheus to follow on the two clues leading there we have recently found but the station's energy reserves have run out and the ship is short on fuel, which forces me to set up a pipeline mission so that the ship refuels on the Calypso and then returns to Jooyeon with 15 energy units on its cargo hold.
Then I move to Shin Ji and send Vehicle 4 to build a space station on Beta 4 after loading what little fuel there's left on the station. The ore and life support I leave there. As a little extra this is a nice little screenshot of the system interface that shows two of our ships, three of our space stations, and the Calypso itself.
By now the ship I had sent to Ares' orbit has found its way there. I give it an exploration mission on the surface and look for places on which to build a colony around the middle of the Mercator maps' length.
I pick I12 to establish our first colony on this planet, which I name JR. I only manage to order the first habitat built before Romanov comes to me with a new lead.
I do not know whether or not is the objective truly timed, and I am unwilling to test it. A team is sent there without delay.
We will have to leave following this vague lead for later as Vehicle 9 has already finished the pipeline mission I gave it and is ready to check Prometheus. We descend on F3 and check for anomalies. The first sector I check is I0, and I wish I were as lucky on the crane machines.
From there I fly to E2, where we can fill our cargo hold of energy resources while looking for the local site.
Interesting. I send the ship to unload the cargo back at Jooyeon, then I send it back to Prometheus' surface. It descends on D2.
Then we move to D3.
From here we fly to A0.
Next we visit B6.
I send the ship back to Jooyeon and jump to Vehicle 8, which is currently parked on Raina. It is sent to search for the crystals we just found out are to be found Rheah.
The project is accepted. It takes all of our remaining resources on the field of Electronics. Afterwards I order more pipelines taking ore to the Calypso and robots to the colonies where they are needed. I also send the first group of 30 colonists to JR along some ore and energy to help them get started.
We return to Jooyeon and order a new mission to the surface. The ship descends on L4.
A waste of a good turn. Back at the bridge I check the active missions on the PDA and am reminded of the coordinates we had on Hebe. The ships on the Calypso would currently need 40 turns to reach the site. Trying to look for a simple solution to this problem I am informed a research project has been finished.
If I may be honest I am feeling slightly overwhelmed by the combination of real time, lack of feedback, and the constant increasing of elements that must be kept in mind. Before long I may have to remove the "slightly" part. Before starting to build orbital defense guns on our colonies I remember I had sent a ship to set up a colony on Hermes. I order it to the surface and scan for a viable place, finding but one in reach.
The construction of the colony's first habitat is begun immediately after naming it JongMin. Checking the colony interface I notice the ship I had sent to build a starbase on Beta 4 has accomplished its mission even when I no longer remember sending it there. The starbase receives the name MiYoun before the ship is sent to probe the Beta asteroid belt. Within seconds we have a report waiting for us, yet before reviewing it I order a third factory built on the Calypso.
Originally I had one and built a second one, one to build robots and the other for vehicles. When our small fleet numbered ten vehicles, including the one we salvaged, I did turn off the corresponding factory. Not long ago I noticed we were running low on robots and decided to turn it online again to help with the construction of more robots. Right now there are few ships parked at the Calypso at any given time, and as we do not seem to be short on resources for the time being I plan to build ten more ships.
Moving on, my personal robot decides to share something with me as I prepare to check on my PDA.
We order the ship in orbit of Beta 4 to descend and scan for anomalies. A small problem then comes to my attention.
It may be that by mistake I sent it without a cargament of fuel on the cargo hold. Now the ship itself is almost empty and there is no fuel in the station. I send it back to MiYoun and send Vehicle 10 there with a cargo of 30 Energy. As organize this Hausmann comes to us.
If you say so, Hausmann.
I check on Hyomin. We lack personel to build the laser gun, so we order a pipeline mission to take ore and energy to the Calypso and bring back a small number of colonists. I set a similar pipeline in Raina than I did on Hyomin, transporting a full cargo of Ore to the Calypso and taking back colonists.
Moving on to Eunjung next I find enough to build the weapon.
Then I check the technology interface and look for the black hole project Hausmann did mention before.
As we are lacking in physics I set a lab on Hyomin and a lab on Eunjung to do such research. Afterwards I move back to the Calypso and turn on one of the laboratories there. As the last topic it did research was Physics and I had not changed it before turning it off the installation resumes it from where it left. It is a single turn away from generating a point.
With the administrative tasks done I send Vehicle 9 to the surface of Prometheus. There are many anomalies around the sector chosen for descent. I decide to check them all, returning to Jooyeon every time we find ore, energy, or life support provisions along the anomaly itself. To save fuel I scan a single time and use the screenshot to navigate, but twice I made a mistake and did end in the wrong sector. It was in one of those that I did find points of scientific interest.
Our fears about an alien presence in Beta Caeli have been confirmed, and we have a clue on where to look for more information about it. We also got several new sets of coordinates to check. I send Vehicle 6, currently on Yoonji, to build a starbase on Alpha 7. The sites on Thetis, Hades, and Hera are currently out of our reach.
I must warn you the next episode will be slow to come. I want to take a couple of sessions to make an inventory of where every ship is, which sectors with known anomalies have I explored thus far, and what leads have we yet to follow as well as decide where I want to take the new colonies I have built and will be building soon. Then I'll continue from the point where I left today with the knowledge needed to make informed choices.
Loving this game. Once you (hopefully) finish the LP, would you consider doing an LP of Reunion as well?
Also - I'd love to see this http://westwardcomic.com/comic.php?special=episodes made into a game.
Awesome. Let's show those aliens who's boss.
Enjoying this LP so far.
The Total Annihilation soundtrack I'm listening to right now probably helps too, fits rather well with the current atmosphere of rising fear and tension of the unknown.
On a spergian side note, I just solved for the travel time myself.
The lore piece at the start would suggest they travelled at an accelerating pace. so...
((1.0004 ⋅ (x^2)) ∕ 2) = (((x + 19)^2) ∕ 2); the multiplier is not 1.04, but 1.0004 as it's .04% faster, not 4%
x was equal to 95009 years. And if my calculations aren't dodgy, that's just for the half-way trip.
The full trip would've taken 190000 years, and these ships would've travelled 36100000000 unnamed space units in that time.
And as the distance of this solar system was defined as 17 parsecs, we can evaluate this distance to be equivalent to 17 * 3.08 × 10^16 meters.
Using some conversion magic, we can surmise that each space unit is equivalent to 14504155 meters.
Now, acceleration speed, we can measure as follows for the Calypso
The only way for this to make any logical sense, is if earth attached extra fuel to the craft which it used to propel itself to its destination for a bit, aka the old-style engines they obsoleted a good while before sending out these vessels. The second vessel happened to have more fuel, or the more efficient engine happened to make up the difference.
One thing is certain, they certainly didn't (de)accelerate over the whole flight's period.
So, using those assumptions, ie they stay at a common speed for most of the journey... We can use the following to ascertain the flight time.
1.0004 * x = x + 19
This works out to 47500, or 95000 for the full journey, and this is probably what the quoted troper in the first update did.
For the Calypso vessel, this gives us final velocities of...
The Total Annihilation soundtrack I'm listening to right now probably helps too, fits rather well with the current atmosphere of rising fear and tension of the unknown.
On a spergian side note, I just solved for the travel time myself.
The lore piece at the start would suggest they travelled at an accelerating pace. so...
((1.0004 ⋅ (x^2)) ∕ 2) = (((x + 19)^2) ∕ 2); the multiplier is not 1.04, but 1.0004 as it's .04% faster, not 4%
x was equal to 95009 years. And if my calculations aren't dodgy, that's just for the half-way trip.
The full trip would've taken 190000 years, and these ships would've travelled 36100000000 unnamed space units in that time.
And as the distance of this solar system was defined as 17 parsecs, we can evaluate this distance to be equivalent to 17 * 3.08 × 10^16 meters.
Using some conversion magic, we can surmise that each space unit is equivalent to 14504155 meters.
Now, acceleration speed, we can measure as follows for the Calypso
- 58016620.498615 m/year^2
- 434.882546471944 m/day^2
- 0.755004420958235 m/hour^2
- 0.000209723450266176 m/minute^2
- 0.0000000582565139628268 m/second^2 (we tend to use multiples of this for measuring acceleration)
The only way for this to make any logical sense, is if earth attached extra fuel to the craft which it used to propel itself to its destination for a bit, aka the old-style engines they obsoleted a good while before sending out these vessels. The second vessel happened to have more fuel, or the more efficient engine happened to make up the difference.
One thing is certain, they certainly didn't (de)accelerate over the whole flight's period.
So, using those assumptions, ie they stay at a common speed for most of the journey... We can use the following to ascertain the flight time.
1.0004 * x = x + 19
This works out to 47500, or 95000 for the full journey, and this is probably what the quoted troper in the first update did.
For the Calypso vessel, this gives us final velocities of...
- 629175678.923336 m/hour ( about half a million km/h )
- 174771.021923149 m/sec (it would take you about 35 minutes to get to the moon at this speed)
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,947
Hell-yeah. I booted the game up myself and played a little - I like what I see: lot's of content, multiple facets of gameplay and loads of technobable I 
so much. The real time annoys the hell out of me, however. It's also one of those game that require a lot of time investment - they don't make those these days. Sadly, I have to put it on my :to play: queue, for now (I want to finish NWN2 SoZ first 
) . 
Well, at least I have a quality LP to follow. Well done Agassi. As usual, I am terrified by the amount of content this LP generates, but it's top-notch stuff, all the way.
so much. The real time annoys the hell out of me, however. It's also one of those game that require a lot of time investment - they don't make those these days. Sadly, I have to put it on my :to play: queue, for now (I want to finish NWN2 SoZ first ) . Well, at least I have a quality LP to follow. Well done Agassi. As usual, I am terrified by the amount of content this LP generates, but it's top-notch stuff, all the way.
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
@ Hirato: Thank you for taking the time to check the calculations and explain how they were done in a manner I can almost understand. That was impressive. The OST you did post is making me want to fight some aliens, too. It is a pretty nice song.
@ Mrowak: I am grateful for your words. If I may add something to your impressions on the game it is far less time consuming than it may seem at first sight, and I would even recomend you to play it in short sessions as the constant ticking of the clock may make you nervous while playing. I usually do the planning while outside the game or while listening music with the game paused.
@ Mrowak: I am grateful for your words. If I may add something to your impressions on the game it is far less time consuming than it may seem at first sight, and I would even recomend you to play it in short sessions as the constant ticking of the clock may make you nervous while playing. I usually do the planning while outside the game or while listening music with the game paused.
VI. Get ready for the mindworms.
The inventory I made had shown one of our three factories on Calypso was still MK.1. My first action of this session is to order it upgraded and then jump to the space station we have just build on Alpha 7, which I rename Jei before sending the starship to the surface. We were following the lead of an outpost on D7.
As expected Hausmann is waiting for us as soon as we see the ship out the sector.
The alloy we found on the Alpha Asteroid is most unusual. I'll have our metallurgists start testing it to determine its physical properties.
Before leaving Alpha 7 I decide to check the asteroid for more anomalies. We find three, and proceed to visit F5 and G5. I am unable to remember if I visited the third one so I may return later to check it.
Is it just me or are the hints growing more and more obscure? I leave to build an anti-meteor gun on Raina but find they are a bit short on ore, and then visit the new colonies of JR and JongMin to find the habitats complete. The ships in both I send to get ore, energy, and colonists from the Calypso. Then I move to the star map and check the Alpha Asteroids from it.
By building space stations in every place we visit we are not just facilitating space travel but also marking where have we been so far. I decide to explore the remaining ones and see what we can find on them, starting by Alpha 1. I send Vehicle 6, currently parked on Jei, there, loaded with the remaining fuel. While it travels I move back to Raina and order an anti-meteor gun built. Just in case I do the same in the Calypso.
This done I go to the research interface to check on things. We have a new research project available.
We also have enough resources to start the project regarding the microscopic black holes, which I do. Returning to JR I order a factory to be built so that we can start our mining operations in the colony. They are short on resources so I send Vehicle 7 to get more ore and energy from the Calypso.
Vehicle 6 has reached Alpha 1. I rename the station IU and send the ship to the surface. There is a single anomaly in the small asteroid.
While the find does not look important at least we did fill our cargo bay with ore while there.
Next in line is Alpha 3. The ship goes to build a space station there loaded with all remaining fuel. The installation receives the name of G.O before the ship descend to the asteroid.
After I send the ship to build a space station on Alpha 4 I move to MiYoun. The fuel I sent has arrived and now I can send Vehicle 4 to explore the Beta 4's surface. I do so, and proceed to explore all the anomalies found.
This is not what I expected to find.
Ugh.
Back in MiYoun I send Vehicle 10, the one that brought the needed fuel to the station, back to the Calypso and then travel to Hyomin to build an anti-meteor gun. This removes one kind of danger from the list of things that can take out one of our main colonies. Sadly our latest finds made meteors the least of my worries.
Our base on Alpha 4 is by now complete. I give it the name Hyuna and send the ship to the surface. A single anomaly is found there.
There are several ore deposits around the site. I fill our cargo bay before leaving. Once back in Hyuna I send the ship to the last unexplored Alpha asteroid, Alpha 6.
I leave for JongMin. Hausmann comes to me before I can get anything done there. He's feeling chatty.
Captain, we are studying how matter is held together on the sub-atomic level. We need a fully functioning space station with two research labs to carry out or experiments: one lab needs to be doing physics research and the second lab should do mathematics research.
We need these labs in space, for the 'zero-g' enviroment and for the abundance of cosmic rays outside a planetary atmosphere.
Nothing is ever simple. I order our first factory built on JongMin and then it dawns on me that I was clearly mistaken on my belief facilities are built at the highest global level. They are built, instead, at the highest local one, by which I mean I need to upgrade one factory before all other local factories will be built at level 2. This would have been nice to know earlier on my relationship with this game.
The space station on Alpha 6 has been built. I move here and send the ship to the surface, where I find a single anomaly.
I send the ship back to the station and rename the installation Siwon. Then I move to Miyoun and send the ship here to build a space station on Beta 5. The Beta Asteroids are far more removed from one another than the Alpha ones, and the travel time for the mission is of 20 turns. Then I move to JR, where the Factory I had ordered built is already complete. Hausmann comes to us before we can get to work there.
An engineering team hopes to improve our spacecraft so that they can carry larger payloads. They hope to better stabilize the spaceship during its vertical descent when landing. If it works, we will be able to improve the Ramikin Engine.
I must have made a mistake somewhere because the ship I had been using to to take things to and from JR is on the Calypso instead of JR. I take one of the ships on the mothership and send it to the colony with 30 ore and 30 enery so that I can build a power plant in the planet. Then I order the ship on Raina, Vehicle 8, to Nana so that we can reach the places far away the colony without wasting too much fuel. Before I had done the same with the ship on JongMin, Vehicle 5, which is now on Shin Ji and waiting for a mission.
I tell it to descend in Hermes, A0. I find nothing there but a couple of points of scientific interest.
I leave the sector and check my PDA. The coordinates I was meant to check were C0, not A0. I put my best 'Just as planned' face while ordering the ship to the correct sector.
As usual...
The mining colony on Hermes created a screen which could be used to analyze organic materials from a spacecraft in orbit above a planet. We are researching other uses of the screen.
I decide to check on the technology interface.
Things are looking brighter for our military. Our economy, however, is colapsing fast: We are low on robots and the deposits of fuel on the Calypso are starting to look like they will be in the exact same situation before long because of all the ships passing through here and refuelling. To make things worse I decide to order the second laboratory here back online.
This done I check the area around Hyomin for anomalies and send the ship to check the two we find.
Fascinating.
They were just asking for it. I send the ship in Eunjung to explore the area around the colony.
Since a while before we have been finding information leading us to think there was something hostile in the earth-like planets. In the previous update we discovered there was an alien ship in the system back then, and the colonists wanted to stop whatever it was the ship was doing in the asteroids. This new discovery however puts things in a new light: Were the alien ship the hostile presence on the earth-like planets wouldn't the colonists be at as much danger in the mothership as they would have been on the surface? Could it be a second alien presence had been fighting the colonists on the surface?
This is doing wonders to my morale.
This may be it. Were the animals on both earth-like planets attacking the colonists for some reason? It is possible this is related to the mysterious lobe our scientists did discover earlier.
Back in Eunjung I order a third laboratory built, then I send the ship currently in Hyomin to take some ore to the Calypso and come back with robots. Jumping to Nana I order Vehicle 8 to a sector in Rhea's surface near the Focaline Crystal Combine's main areas of operation. There are two anomalies nearby but quest areas are not usually marked in the Mercator.
I explore B12 first.
We find some resources along the message. We move to explore the three sectors we came here to check: C12, C11, and C10. All we find, other than resources, is a point of scientific interest. It seems I forgot to check the second anomaly. I will fix that next time I am in the area.
I manage to order a third laboratory built on Hyomin before Hausmann decides he needs someone to talk with.
Further study of the Bi-Focaline Crystal has led to a particularly interesting phenomenon. The crystal seems to interfere with the quantum mechanics of sub-atomic particles.
If I may ask, what is this suposed to mean?
It would seem to be a fruitful field of research.
Oh.
Okay.
Then I order a third factory built on Raina and A power plant on JR. I also send Vehicle 8, currently on Raina, to the Calypso with a load of 60 energy resources, and am informed a research project has been completed. I move to the technology interface to check the report.
Alright. I order a new power plant built on Hyomin regardless of the danger investing on the Gaea colonies represents. Then I move back to Raina and send the ship there to explore around the colony.
The diary we found at the TANTALUS colony site indicates that they developed a special filter which allowed them to find more natural resource deposits. I think we should follow up on the clues on the diary.
I asume there's a bug with the findings of two different sites getting mixed up.
With the exploration mission over I check on the younger colonies. In JR I made a mistake and ordered a second factory built before upgrading the first one, then I sent the ship there in a pipeline mission taking ore to the Calypso and bringing back robots. In JongMin I upgrade the factory.
By now Vehicle 4 has built a space station on Beta 5. I name it Jiminel and send the ship to the surface but no anomalies are found. Loading all the remaining fuel on the ship I order it to build a space station on Beta 6. Reaching the site will take it 18 turns.
Back at the Calypso I turn off both laboratories as soon as we get the research point they were in the middle of producing. I also order a new power plant and a new habitat built in the mothership as the energy stores are almost empty with the combination of refueling ships, laboratories, and production facilities. I check the new research projects we have and find we are able to start two projects. I do so.
The research taken care of I order the construction of a new factory at Hyomin and of a new power plant on Raina. It seems I have also built a new habitat in the later colony, which is good to know. The ships in Eunjung and JongMin I send to get colonists from the Calypso, the later carrying ore for the mothership. In JR I start upgrading one of the factories.
Grim does the situation look for the Calypso and its colonies. Our discoveries in the earth-like worlds indicate the alien ship was impervious to the weapons of the Tantalus Colonies' fleet and that it is possible the fauna there will turn hostile given enough time. Unsurprisingly our findings in the Beta asteroids suggest the aliens were hostile themselves. Those aliens may be the same ones who originally seeded the system, which may mean they are eons more advanced than our own fleet. We are also short on scientific resources, on robots, and on fuel.
Had our captain the choice she would say...
Wu, set a course for the outermost gas giant. Antonelli, order all the facilities scrapped for parts. I want the colonists back on the Calypso as soon as they finish. Romanov, put the fleet on red alert. Hausmann, I want a report on what nearby systems may be able to support life for tomorrow morning. Put the colonists on stasis as they arrive. We are leaving as soon as we have syphoned enough fuel for the journey.
As I doubt the game will allow such a course of action we will instead move the mothership either to Ares or to one of the Beta asteroids so that our ships can reach all of the inner and outer worlds. The plan is to build several factories in a space station orbiting the gas giant closer to the Beta asteroids and colonize one of its moons so that there is a source of ore near the facilities. This way we can syphon fuel from the planet and keep a single ship constantly ferrying ore from the moons to the space station. If this setup works well enough we can reproduce it on the remaining gas giant.
I will try to set up either Raina or one of the younger colonies to mass produce robots. If the resources being produced in a single colony are not enough to make the process fully automatic I will set up a second colony in the same planet to automatically ferry the resources needed to make it so. The remaining colonies will be set up for research as we are researching projects slower than they are becoming available. Ideally I would like to have a laboratory focused on each scientific discipline, which then I can setup to focus on a different one in a pinch. Once our economy is no longer breaking down I should upgrade them.
Ideally I would want not to need the Calypso to mass produce anything as constantly ferrying resources to the mothership stresses me up. As the life support requeriments the facilities have force the colonies to build more habitats than they need for the current population I should try to get as many colonists as possible planetside and then move them between colonies as needed, decentralizing our operations and easying the load both on the mothership and on myself. The more I manage to make things take care of themselves the better.
Tune in to the next episode to find out whether or not is our captain able to make this plan work.
As expected Hausmann is waiting for us as soon as we see the ship out the sector.
Before leaving Alpha 7 I decide to check the asteroid for more anomalies. We find three, and proceed to visit F5 and G5. I am unable to remember if I visited the third one so I may return later to check it.
Is it just me or are the hints growing more and more obscure? I leave to build an anti-meteor gun on Raina but find they are a bit short on ore, and then visit the new colonies of JR and JongMin to find the habitats complete. The ships in both I send to get ore, energy, and colonists from the Calypso. Then I move to the star map and check the Alpha Asteroids from it.
By building space stations in every place we visit we are not just facilitating space travel but also marking where have we been so far. I decide to explore the remaining ones and see what we can find on them, starting by Alpha 1. I send Vehicle 6, currently parked on Jei, there, loaded with the remaining fuel. While it travels I move back to Raina and order an anti-meteor gun built. Just in case I do the same in the Calypso.
This done I go to the research interface to check on things. We have a new research project available.
We also have enough resources to start the project regarding the microscopic black holes, which I do. Returning to JR I order a factory to be built so that we can start our mining operations in the colony. They are short on resources so I send Vehicle 7 to get more ore and energy from the Calypso.
Vehicle 6 has reached Alpha 1. I rename the station IU and send the ship to the surface. There is a single anomaly in the small asteroid.
While the find does not look important at least we did fill our cargo bay with ore while there.
Next in line is Alpha 3. The ship goes to build a space station there loaded with all remaining fuel. The installation receives the name of G.O before the ship descend to the asteroid.
After I send the ship to build a space station on Alpha 4 I move to MiYoun. The fuel I sent has arrived and now I can send Vehicle 4 to explore the Beta 4's surface. I do so, and proceed to explore all the anomalies found.
This is not what I expected to find.
Ugh.
Back in MiYoun I send Vehicle 10, the one that brought the needed fuel to the station, back to the Calypso and then travel to Hyomin to build an anti-meteor gun. This removes one kind of danger from the list of things that can take out one of our main colonies. Sadly our latest finds made meteors the least of my worries.
Our base on Alpha 4 is by now complete. I give it the name Hyuna and send the ship to the surface. A single anomaly is found there.
There are several ore deposits around the site. I fill our cargo bay before leaving. Once back in Hyuna I send the ship to the last unexplored Alpha asteroid, Alpha 6.
I leave for JongMin. Hausmann comes to me before I can get anything done there. He's feeling chatty.
We need these labs in space, for the 'zero-g' enviroment and for the abundance of cosmic rays outside a planetary atmosphere.
Nothing is ever simple. I order our first factory built on JongMin and then it dawns on me that I was clearly mistaken on my belief facilities are built at the highest global level. They are built, instead, at the highest local one, by which I mean I need to upgrade one factory before all other local factories will be built at level 2. This would have been nice to know earlier on my relationship with this game.
The space station on Alpha 6 has been built. I move here and send the ship to the surface, where I find a single anomaly.
I send the ship back to the station and rename the installation Siwon. Then I move to Miyoun and send the ship here to build a space station on Beta 5. The Beta Asteroids are far more removed from one another than the Alpha ones, and the travel time for the mission is of 20 turns. Then I move to JR, where the Factory I had ordered built is already complete. Hausmann comes to us before we can get to work there.
I must have made a mistake somewhere because the ship I had been using to to take things to and from JR is on the Calypso instead of JR. I take one of the ships on the mothership and send it to the colony with 30 ore and 30 enery so that I can build a power plant in the planet. Then I order the ship on Raina, Vehicle 8, to Nana so that we can reach the places far away the colony without wasting too much fuel. Before I had done the same with the ship on JongMin, Vehicle 5, which is now on Shin Ji and waiting for a mission.
I tell it to descend in Hermes, A0. I find nothing there but a couple of points of scientific interest.
I leave the sector and check my PDA. The coordinates I was meant to check were C0, not A0. I put my best 'Just as planned' face while ordering the ship to the correct sector.
As usual...
I decide to check on the technology interface.
Things are looking brighter for our military. Our economy, however, is colapsing fast: We are low on robots and the deposits of fuel on the Calypso are starting to look like they will be in the exact same situation before long because of all the ships passing through here and refuelling. To make things worse I decide to order the second laboratory here back online.
This done I check the area around Hyomin for anomalies and send the ship to check the two we find.
Fascinating.
They were just asking for it. I send the ship in Eunjung to explore the area around the colony.
Since a while before we have been finding information leading us to think there was something hostile in the earth-like planets. In the previous update we discovered there was an alien ship in the system back then, and the colonists wanted to stop whatever it was the ship was doing in the asteroids. This new discovery however puts things in a new light: Were the alien ship the hostile presence on the earth-like planets wouldn't the colonists be at as much danger in the mothership as they would have been on the surface? Could it be a second alien presence had been fighting the colonists on the surface?
This is doing wonders to my morale.
This may be it. Were the animals on both earth-like planets attacking the colonists for some reason? It is possible this is related to the mysterious lobe our scientists did discover earlier.
Back in Eunjung I order a third laboratory built, then I send the ship currently in Hyomin to take some ore to the Calypso and come back with robots. Jumping to Nana I order Vehicle 8 to a sector in Rhea's surface near the Focaline Crystal Combine's main areas of operation. There are two anomalies nearby but quest areas are not usually marked in the Mercator.
I explore B12 first.
We find some resources along the message. We move to explore the three sectors we came here to check: C12, C11, and C10. All we find, other than resources, is a point of scientific interest. It seems I forgot to check the second anomaly. I will fix that next time I am in the area.
I manage to order a third laboratory built on Hyomin before Hausmann decides he needs someone to talk with.
If I may ask, what is this suposed to mean?
Oh.
Okay.
Then I order a third factory built on Raina and A power plant on JR. I also send Vehicle 8, currently on Raina, to the Calypso with a load of 60 energy resources, and am informed a research project has been completed. I move to the technology interface to check the report.
Alright. I order a new power plant built on Hyomin regardless of the danger investing on the Gaea colonies represents. Then I move back to Raina and send the ship there to explore around the colony.
I asume there's a bug with the findings of two different sites getting mixed up.
With the exploration mission over I check on the younger colonies. In JR I made a mistake and ordered a second factory built before upgrading the first one, then I sent the ship there in a pipeline mission taking ore to the Calypso and bringing back robots. In JongMin I upgrade the factory.
By now Vehicle 4 has built a space station on Beta 5. I name it Jiminel and send the ship to the surface but no anomalies are found. Loading all the remaining fuel on the ship I order it to build a space station on Beta 6. Reaching the site will take it 18 turns.
Back at the Calypso I turn off both laboratories as soon as we get the research point they were in the middle of producing. I also order a new power plant and a new habitat built in the mothership as the energy stores are almost empty with the combination of refueling ships, laboratories, and production facilities. I check the new research projects we have and find we are able to start two projects. I do so.
The research taken care of I order the construction of a new factory at Hyomin and of a new power plant on Raina. It seems I have also built a new habitat in the later colony, which is good to know. The ships in Eunjung and JongMin I send to get colonists from the Calypso, the later carrying ore for the mothership. In JR I start upgrading one of the factories.
Grim does the situation look for the Calypso and its colonies. Our discoveries in the earth-like worlds indicate the alien ship was impervious to the weapons of the Tantalus Colonies' fleet and that it is possible the fauna there will turn hostile given enough time. Unsurprisingly our findings in the Beta asteroids suggest the aliens were hostile themselves. Those aliens may be the same ones who originally seeded the system, which may mean they are eons more advanced than our own fleet. We are also short on scientific resources, on robots, and on fuel.
Had our captain the choice she would say...
As I doubt the game will allow such a course of action we will instead move the mothership either to Ares or to one of the Beta asteroids so that our ships can reach all of the inner and outer worlds. The plan is to build several factories in a space station orbiting the gas giant closer to the Beta asteroids and colonize one of its moons so that there is a source of ore near the facilities. This way we can syphon fuel from the planet and keep a single ship constantly ferrying ore from the moons to the space station. If this setup works well enough we can reproduce it on the remaining gas giant.
I will try to set up either Raina or one of the younger colonies to mass produce robots. If the resources being produced in a single colony are not enough to make the process fully automatic I will set up a second colony in the same planet to automatically ferry the resources needed to make it so. The remaining colonies will be set up for research as we are researching projects slower than they are becoming available. Ideally I would like to have a laboratory focused on each scientific discipline, which then I can setup to focus on a different one in a pinch. Once our economy is no longer breaking down I should upgrade them.
Ideally I would want not to need the Calypso to mass produce anything as constantly ferrying resources to the mothership stresses me up. As the life support requeriments the facilities have force the colonies to build more habitats than they need for the current population I should try to get as many colonists as possible planetside and then move them between colonies as needed, decentralizing our operations and easying the load both on the mothership and on myself. The more I manage to make things take care of themselves the better.
Tune in to the next episode to find out whether or not is our captain able to make this plan work.
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,207
of 
Cassidy
Arcane
I want to finish NWN2 SoZ first
Don't be ashamed. Despite mediocre, SoZ is a real CRPG, unlike the shit Obsidian spawned after it, which IMO is much worse than SoZ, New Vegas included.
This reminds me of that Master of Orion black hole gun. It was short ranged, but wiped out half of a fleet per turn, which was super powerful against zerg fleets.
The plot thickens and the tension picks up.
In before the slaughter.
(Not that I doubt the LPer's supernatural gaming skills, no ma'am.)
In before the slaughter.
(Not that I doubt the LPer's supernatural gaming skills, no ma'am.)
Sergiu64
Arcane
What an amazing game, sounds like a pita to micromanage everything though.
Bloodshifter
Educated
Too bad the Game does't allow you to get the heck outta Dodge. what goes into Beta Caeli STAYS in Beta Caeli.
Also Noticed how apparently the wildlife became hostile only after the attack of the alien ship? There could be a correlation between its Appearance and the attacks.
Also Noticed how apparently the wildlife became hostile only after the attack of the alien ship? There could be a correlation between its Appearance and the attacks.
Renegen
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2011
- Messages
- 4,062
The planet exploration is both the best and worst part of the game. It offers enough resources to solve any problem you may have but it's terribly repetitive. If everything is running smoothly, you don't feel like using it, but when you have a problem you can just explore like crazy and catch up. It's really great and basically means you never have to restart because of strategy mismanagement but because you fucked up the delicious story.
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
@ Bloodshifter: As you will see during this episode you did hit the nail on the head.
@ Sergiu64: It may be many among you will find it easier than I do. I am affraid I have never been good with interfaces that do not remind me what I was doing where at almost every turn.
@ Lightbane: But they do indeed have something to do with each other. There is something out there. Something ancient and powerful. It did destroy our predecesors. Now it is watching us, and waiting. Why did it do so? What is it waiting for? Will today be the day in which it comes for us? Alien Legacy shows us exactly how the Reapers should have been done. The simplicity and elegance with which it does it right is beautiful to watch.
@ Sergiu64: It may be many among you will find it easier than I do. I am affraid I have never been good with interfaces that do not remind me what I was doing where at almost every turn.
@ Lightbane: But they do indeed have something to do with each other. There is something out there. Something ancient and powerful. It did destroy our predecesors. Now it is watching us, and waiting. Why did it do so? What is it waiting for? Will today be the day in which it comes for us? Alien Legacy shows us exactly how the Reapers should have been done. The simplicity and elegance with which it does it right is beautiful to watch.
VII. Apocalyptic log.
This session begins with me switching off our Vehicle Factory aboard the Calypso. In preparation to moving the mothership to the Beta Asteroids I send people to the younger colonies, thirty colonists to each of them. Then I move to Hyomin as in the Colony interface I did note they had a small Life Support deficit. It is my intention to order the construction of a new habitat but this was not meant to be.
I move from colony to colony ordering the transport of energy and ore to the mothership from the main ones and starting the process to upgrade JongMin's power plant. By now Vehicle 4 has reached Beta 6 and built the space station we had ordered. I name it Hyunseung and send the ship to the surface. Three anomalies receive us.
The first discovery of this chapter does nothing but set the stage for the ones to come.
For a moment I wonder what kind of person was he who did decide to spend what little life he had left preserving the story of the destruction of the Tantalus' colonies for posterity in the form of a comic book, but with this find everything finally falls into place. Yet new questions are established: Why would an alien race leave a warship posing as an asteroid on an otherwise empty system? What is the point of the pylons that control the earth-like planets megafauna?
After returning to Hyunseung the ship is sent to build a space station on Beta 7. Afterwards I order the ship on JongMin, Vehicle 2, to carry an exploratory mission of Hermes' surface around the colony.
I decide to explore the rest of the planet.
Not much of interest. I send Vehicle 8, the ship assigned to Raina, to explore Rhea's surface.
I am affraid I can't help but notice there is a deep idelogical schizm separating the Tantalus and the Calypso. To wit, the settlers of the Tantalus's colonies had built a society of apparently decentralized urban centres and scientific institutions, privately own property, and a free market economy. They did establish natural parks and museums, and maybe invested in other cultural venues.
On the other hand the Calypso colonies are kept under the control of The Captain and her advisors, who oversee every aspect of scientific, social, economic, and cultural development from aboard a giant starship. The Captain decides where will you live. The Captain decides where will you work. The Captain personally establishes all supply lines. The Captain allocates scientific resources and teams. The Captain owns all facilities, resources, and starships. The Captain owns all citizens.
The Captain does know of you needs, citizen. You are in need of a healthy and industrious lifestyle. You are in need of a dutyful mindset and an orderly neighbourhood. You are in need of protection from those subversive elements endangering the stability you have been blessed with. To further ponder such questions is unadvised.
And The Captain is humanity's last hope.
With this does the exploration mission comes to an end. Back in Raina I order the ship to take 60 Ore to the mothership and come back before leaving for JR, where after taking care of some administrative duties I send the ship assigned to the colony to search the surface of Ares for anomalies.
We should keep this in mind. For the time being my plan is to destroy the pylons as soon as they reveal themselves. I should contemplate sending more ships to the terrestrial worlds to try and destroy them in as few passes as I can.
Did we find such a thing already? I will have to check past episodes to see whether we have or not. On a related topic I have recently noticed the game only places some sets of coordinates in the PDA. This did not made me happy.
I return to the bridge and check the technology interface. Being still unable to start new projects I reconfigure the laboratories on Eunjung and Hyomin. I move to Raina and order a new habitat built. The life support requeriments were already so that any new facility would put the colony on a deficit. Then I send the ship there to the mothership with a full load of ore. On Hyomin I order one of the factories dismantled to make room for a different installation. On Eunjung I send the local ship to explore Gaea's surface.
I must confess this is not making me feel any less conflicted about not evacuating everyone from Hyoming, Eunjung, and Raina to colonies on Prometheus and the nearby Asteroids.
The expedition is declared over. I order more energy resources sent from the main colonies to the Calypso and check the installations aboard the ship. As I am doing so I am informed a research project has been finished.
A free upgrade to our mines brings me boundless joy. Then I leave for Hyomin and send the ship here on yet another exploratory mission.
To explore strange new worlds and turn them into nuclear waste dumps instead of using the many uninhabitable asteroids and gas giants for it. Forgive my lack of empathy but our predecesors were asking for it with voices like thunder.
I return to Hyomin and order a new habitat built. I send the ship on another exploratory flight as soon as I am done.
The ship returns to Hyomin. Almost immediately it leaves for the Calypso with a full load of energy resources. Back in the mothership I order the two laboratories back online, one set for mathematics and the other for physics. You may remember we had been given the mission of preparing such a setup on a space station. I wanted to try doing so in the Calypso first to maybe save me the trouble of building facilities in orbit just for this one mission.
Afterwards my attention is diverted to Beta 7. Vehicle 4 has built the starbase we ordered while we were searching the inner worlds for anomalies. To the base I give the name Lee Joon before sending the ship to the surface.
After returning to Lee Joon the ship is sent to build a starbase on Beta 8. I leave for the bridge and check the technology interface. I am now able to greenlight the Bi-Focaline Crystal project. I do so and move to the younger colonies. On JR I order a second habitat built and upgrade the remaining level one factory. In JongMin I order the construction of an Anti-Meteor Gun. Then I move to Raina and order a laboratory built there. I have modified my original plan so that we use the three main colonies for laboratories and the later ones for production.
After a little while I move back to JR and order a second power plant built. Vehicle 4 has built the space station on Beta 8. I give it the name Thunder and send the ship to the surface. There is a single anomaly to check.
I wonder why several references to the H'riak have mentioned they are "dead." Back on Thunder the ship is given the task of building a space station on Beta 1. This will probably be its last mission for a while. The fuel reserves we sent it are about to run out.
Back in Rhea's orbit the Mothership is now ready for its journey. Given the planet's current position the closest Beta asteroid is number eight, reaching which will take 98 turns, or 49 months. No ship will be able to reach the mothership until the journey is over. A small voice in my head tells me it is a terrible idea to base the mothership in an asteroid belt when we know the alien ship is posing as one itself. I ignore its warnings.
To be perfectly honest I am undecided to whether I should see the Beta Asteroids as a permanent location or as nothing but a stage on a longer journey whose true destination would be Zeus, the innermost gas giant. With some micromanagement the main colonies could take care of themselves and their little brothers, and soon we will have a space station on every Beta Asteroid. Building a habitat on each should be simple. I believe they do not even need to be online to serve as a stop for colonists traveling from the outer worlds to the inner colonies.
Yet before deciding what to do I do want to check the situation on the outer planets.
And thus the journey began.
I move from colony to colony ordering the transport of energy and ore to the mothership from the main ones and starting the process to upgrade JongMin's power plant. By now Vehicle 4 has reached Beta 6 and built the space station we had ordered. I name it Hyunseung and send the ship to the surface. Three anomalies receive us.
The first discovery of this chapter does nothing but set the stage for the ones to come.
For a moment I wonder what kind of person was he who did decide to spend what little life he had left preserving the story of the destruction of the Tantalus' colonies for posterity in the form of a comic book, but with this find everything finally falls into place. Yet new questions are established: Why would an alien race leave a warship posing as an asteroid on an otherwise empty system? What is the point of the pylons that control the earth-like planets megafauna?
After returning to Hyunseung the ship is sent to build a space station on Beta 7. Afterwards I order the ship on JongMin, Vehicle 2, to carry an exploratory mission of Hermes' surface around the colony.
I decide to explore the rest of the planet.
Not much of interest. I send Vehicle 8, the ship assigned to Raina, to explore Rhea's surface.
I am affraid I can't help but notice there is a deep idelogical schizm separating the Tantalus and the Calypso. To wit, the settlers of the Tantalus's colonies had built a society of apparently decentralized urban centres and scientific institutions, privately own property, and a free market economy. They did establish natural parks and museums, and maybe invested in other cultural venues.
On the other hand the Calypso colonies are kept under the control of The Captain and her advisors, who oversee every aspect of scientific, social, economic, and cultural development from aboard a giant starship. The Captain decides where will you live. The Captain decides where will you work. The Captain personally establishes all supply lines. The Captain allocates scientific resources and teams. The Captain owns all facilities, resources, and starships. The Captain owns all citizens.
And The Captain is humanity's last hope.
With this does the exploration mission comes to an end. Back in Raina I order the ship to take 60 Ore to the mothership and come back before leaving for JR, where after taking care of some administrative duties I send the ship assigned to the colony to search the surface of Ares for anomalies.
We should keep this in mind. For the time being my plan is to destroy the pylons as soon as they reveal themselves. I should contemplate sending more ships to the terrestrial worlds to try and destroy them in as few passes as I can.
Did we find such a thing already? I will have to check past episodes to see whether we have or not. On a related topic I have recently noticed the game only places some sets of coordinates in the PDA. This did not made me happy.
I return to the bridge and check the technology interface. Being still unable to start new projects I reconfigure the laboratories on Eunjung and Hyomin. I move to Raina and order a new habitat built. The life support requeriments were already so that any new facility would put the colony on a deficit. Then I send the ship there to the mothership with a full load of ore. On Hyomin I order one of the factories dismantled to make room for a different installation. On Eunjung I send the local ship to explore Gaea's surface.
I must confess this is not making me feel any less conflicted about not evacuating everyone from Hyoming, Eunjung, and Raina to colonies on Prometheus and the nearby Asteroids.
The expedition is declared over. I order more energy resources sent from the main colonies to the Calypso and check the installations aboard the ship. As I am doing so I am informed a research project has been finished.
A free upgrade to our mines brings me boundless joy. Then I leave for Hyomin and send the ship here on yet another exploratory mission.
To explore strange new worlds and turn them into nuclear waste dumps instead of using the many uninhabitable asteroids and gas giants for it. Forgive my lack of empathy but our predecesors were asking for it with voices like thunder.
I return to Hyomin and order a new habitat built. I send the ship on another exploratory flight as soon as I am done.
The ship returns to Hyomin. Almost immediately it leaves for the Calypso with a full load of energy resources. Back in the mothership I order the two laboratories back online, one set for mathematics and the other for physics. You may remember we had been given the mission of preparing such a setup on a space station. I wanted to try doing so in the Calypso first to maybe save me the trouble of building facilities in orbit just for this one mission.
Afterwards my attention is diverted to Beta 7. Vehicle 4 has built the starbase we ordered while we were searching the inner worlds for anomalies. To the base I give the name Lee Joon before sending the ship to the surface.
After returning to Lee Joon the ship is sent to build a starbase on Beta 8. I leave for the bridge and check the technology interface. I am now able to greenlight the Bi-Focaline Crystal project. I do so and move to the younger colonies. On JR I order a second habitat built and upgrade the remaining level one factory. In JongMin I order the construction of an Anti-Meteor Gun. Then I move to Raina and order a laboratory built there. I have modified my original plan so that we use the three main colonies for laboratories and the later ones for production.
After a little while I move back to JR and order a second power plant built. Vehicle 4 has built the space station on Beta 8. I give it the name Thunder and send the ship to the surface. There is a single anomaly to check.
I wonder why several references to the H'riak have mentioned they are "dead." Back on Thunder the ship is given the task of building a space station on Beta 1. This will probably be its last mission for a while. The fuel reserves we sent it are about to run out.
Back in Rhea's orbit the Mothership is now ready for its journey. Given the planet's current position the closest Beta asteroid is number eight, reaching which will take 98 turns, or 49 months. No ship will be able to reach the mothership until the journey is over. A small voice in my head tells me it is a terrible idea to base the mothership in an asteroid belt when we know the alien ship is posing as one itself. I ignore its warnings.
To be perfectly honest I am undecided to whether I should see the Beta Asteroids as a permanent location or as nothing but a stage on a longer journey whose true destination would be Zeus, the innermost gas giant. With some micromanagement the main colonies could take care of themselves and their little brothers, and soon we will have a space station on every Beta Asteroid. Building a habitat on each should be simple. I believe they do not even need to be online to serve as a stop for colonists traveling from the outer worlds to the inner colonies.
Yet before deciding what to do I do want to check the situation on the outer planets.
And thus the journey began.
Bloodshifter
Educated
Ha killer animals and plants also a living? Astroid/ship in the belt and. The presence of pylons?
Don't mess with the protoss. 
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,207
Agassi
Reapers are nothing else but a castrated version of Gateway's Assassins, they existed earlier than ME and they're much better (and consistent). However, the cliché of EXTERMINATOR ALIENS is old as fuck, if I recall correctly one of the oldest examples of ancient alien killing machines are the Bersekers, from the novel with the same name (I should read that one again one of these days). Said bersekers were referenced in one uber-obscure SNES game called Cyber Knight (hell, the plot was identical to Mass Erect too)...
Anyways, good update as always. Keep them coming and have your bolter/blaster/sci-fi weapon of your choice ready, alien rape is incoming.
Reapers are nothing else but a castrated version of Gateway's Assassins, they existed earlier than ME and they're much better (and consistent). However, the cliché of EXTERMINATOR ALIENS is old as fuck, if I recall correctly one of the oldest examples of ancient alien killing machines are the Bersekers, from the novel with the same name (I should read that one again one of these days). Said bersekers were referenced in one uber-obscure SNES game called Cyber Knight (hell, the plot was identical to Mass Erect too)...
Anyways, good update as always. Keep them coming and have your bolter/blaster/sci-fi weapon of your choice ready, alien rape is incoming.
Undead aliens! Everybody panic!
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
VIII. It begins.
As this episode begins my first decision is to turn off the laboratories aboard the Calypso as they did not seem to be triggering the quest complete. I leave for Hyomin and order the ship there to take 10 ore, 10 energy, 15 life support, and 15 robots to Jiyeon. A habitat is built as soon as the ship arrives there.
On JongMin I order a second habitat built.
Vehicle 4 has reached Beta 4 and constructed the space station I did want. The installation is given the name "Mir" and the ship is sent to the surface. Two anomalies are found.
I wonder how many things were going on at the same time in Beta Caeli? Every time it seems we have found out what did happen here something new is uncovered.
Vehicle 4 is left parked at Mir. From both Hyomin and Eunjung colonists are sent to Jiyeon along more ore, energy, robots, and life support. The laboratories are ordered built as soon as the ships arrive. I leave them already configured to satisfy the mission requeriments.
After some micromanagement I start building JR's Anti Meteor Gun. A second laboratory is built on Raina, and then JongMin's second power plant is ordered. Hyomin sends Jiyeon more ore and energy. From the Calypso groups of sixty colonists are sent to Hyomin, JongMin, and JR. After taking care of some undocumented administrative tasks on JR I send the ship there to explore the surface of Ares.
We already recovered what had survived of their research on the artifact.
As we leave this sector Hausmann comes to propose a new research project to us.
Sir, our orbital research teams have come up wth an interesting proposal concerning what thye call 'burning quarks.' Their current plan is listed in the Tech Manager for your approval.
A new surge of technologies reinforces the idea that our Research Labs are paying off. I suggest we upgrade our current labs to allow greater capacities and higher turn around.
This is not going to happen until we are at least able to upgrade our habitats. Our scientific colonies are tight on resources.
We continue checking the anomalies found on Ares.
This one always makes me sad. One should take care never to survive apocalyptic scenarios.
I send the ship back to JR and move to Jiyeon. The 'burning quarks' project was the result of the quest asking us to build orbital laboratories for physics and mathematics. We shut down the installations and evacuate all personel back to Hyomin and Eunjung along all remaining resources. I choose not to dismantle the base in case we receive a similar quest later on.
I check the new project.
I build a third laboratory on Raina, and send 10 robots from JR to Hyomin. New habitats are ordered on both JR and JongMin. Hausmann comes to us.
We are working on new applications for the Quantum Absorber Metal. Some of us believe we can use it to improve the engines in our spacecraft.
You can guess what I do next.
This is the first technology we have found so far for which we did lack one of the requisites. SCIENCE! marches forward. Being already here I finally greenlight the project on the advanced energy filter, for which I have been saving research resources.
35 colonists are sent from JongMin to Raina. Miscelaneous administrative tasks focused on balancing the production and consumption of both Raina and the younger colonies are taken care of before we go back to explore Ares' surface.
The ships now have a name. If "sporeship" refers to ships used for colonization that would explain why the ship remained in a latent state until our predecesors established themselves on the planets they were either terraforming, colonizing, or experimenting on. What it does not explain is why the life on both worlds was engineered to go berserk with the flick of a switch.
It is a good thing we have been building those anti-meteor guns.
Suddenly I do notice something is not right with the ship, namely the cargo space. I send the ship back and decide to check the Technology interface.
The Captain is clearly overworked. She can't even remember starting the project.
I send Vehicle 9, currently parked on Jooyeon, to scan Prometheus' surface for anomalies. Finding out we did not miss any during our previous visits I send the ship to Raina. Then I load Vehicle 12 with fuel and send it to establish a space station on Beta 2. Soon afterwards I send most of the extra ships I have on the inner worlds to Hyomin, Eunjung, or Raina. Having played for nearly a thousand turns I am expecting something to happen anytime now.
A few turns afterward the Calypso reaches Beta 8. Almost immediately I send Vehicle 4, which we had left in Mir, back to the mothership and both Vehicle 13 and Vehicle 14 to establish space stations in Zeus and Hera. Soon I am informed the quark burner project is complete.
This is the technology we did lack to start the project to upgrade the spacecrafts' engines. Yet we still lack resources.
There is little to do while we wait for the ships to reach their destinations and the scientific resources to be produced. I move to Raina and load a ship with 20 ore, 20 energy, and 5 robots. Once in the Mercator and far away from Raina it looks for an inhabitable area.
A new colony is built in E40. It is given the name "Lizzy." With this The Captain's grand plan for Rhea is complete.
I start building a habitat there. Romanov comes to inform me of a new discovery.
One of our astronomers here on CALYPSO reported seeing the reflection of sunlight off a metal surface while observing Rhea through her telescope. Her report indicates that the reflection is coming from sector C-20, or very nearby there. She couldn't tell if the reflection was man-made or naturally occurring.
I send a ship from Raina to check this.
I decide to keep checking Rhea for anomalies in the areas we had yet to flood with trascendental radiation.
I must have forgotten to take a screenshot of the description of this find. Please forgive me.
The Tantalus' colonists went and turned an ununderstood xenoarcheological site into a tourist destination. Let that sink in.
Following the previously found reference to quartz samples from Alpha 3 I send the ship currently on Siwon to G.O. No new anomalies are to be found. Whatever was there we already have it.
Soon afterwards the project on an advanced scanner to detect fuel deposits is finished. I check the report.
Maybe we'll find an use for it.
The ship previously sent to Beta 2 has established the starbase we asked for. I name it "Seungho" and send the ship to the surface. Three anomalies are found.
Where we are going we don't need vacations to rest.
The ship returns to Seungho and is immediately sent to stablish a starbase on Beta 3. I build a third power plant on JR and a second factory on JongMin. In the later colony I have to shut down the Anti-Meteor Gun to be able to do so. I am a betting person. On Lizzy we have built the habitat but we are unable to build the first power plant and the first factory without more robots. The ship there is sent to get 30 from the Calypso.
By now the starbases on Zeus and Hera have been built. I rename them Tiffany and Jessica before sending the ships to probe the planet and moon. By then the ship dispatched to Beta 3 has arrived and built the starbase there, which I call Qri. On the asteroid itself we find no anomalies. With Beta 3 scanned all Beta Asteroids have been explored yet we are no closer to finding the alien ship.
I am thinking about this when Hausmann comes to discuss something.
According to the evidence we've found, the TANTALUS scientists were investigating an alien obelisk they discovered. Unfortunately, we're not sure where or how they found it - nor were we able to retrieve the obelisk ourselves.
In any event, the scientists were attempting to create a machine that could convert raw minerals into organic matter. Their entire research was based upon the obelisk of unknown origin.
At the time all I did thought about this was that it would probably allow us to upgrade our habitats. It wouldn't be until later that the ramifications would be explained to me in a way I could understand.
The reports from Zeus and Hera have already arrived.
The ships return to Tiffany and Jessica. One is sent back to the Calypso. The other is sent to establish a starbase on Hebe, Zeus' other moon. Then I go check the technology interface, and this time the message goes right through. I suspect Hausmann was so frustrated by my lack of reaction he did write the report in such a simple manner just to make sure I would understand what he was trying to get at and share on his exitement.
I remember the reports about how the current state of development of life in Beta Caeli should be impossible according to human understanding of evolution. We took this technology from the Tantalus' colonists who in turn got it from an alien obelisk. Was the life in Beta Caeli created in such a biblical way? I was expecting something closer to genetic manipulation instead of spawned to specification from the red earth.
And now The Captain is about to obtain this power for herself. I could wax poetically about the future world by visions of which she is enthralled but that would be beyond the point. Redundant, too.
The ship sent to Hebe has built the starbase ordered. I give it Sunny for a name and the ship descends to probe the planet.
The ship is sent back to the Calypso. Vehicle 9, currently parked on Raina, is sent to Lizzy loaded with ore, energy, and colonists in preparation for the coming of the robots soon to arrive from the mothership. JR and JongMin keep juggling their limited resources and facilities.
Vehicle 14 is sent from the Calypso to Hera's orbit with a cargo of ore, energy, life support, and robots. Its objective is to establish the first outer colony on the moon's surface. After much micromanagement and many turns we have also acumulated enough resources to start the project dedicated to upgrade our spacecrafts' engines. We do so.
One of the ships on Raina is sent to search for anomalies on Rhea's surface. Only a few remain unchecked.
]
I much prefer The Captain's naming conventions.
It seems there are no more anomalies in the area. I leave for the younger colonies. With the robots received from the Calypso JongMin is finally able to turn back online its Anti-Meteor Gun while keeping all current facilities functioning. I set up one of the local factories to build robots.
Two more turns pass before Vehicle 14 reaches Hera. It finds a single colony spot in the area chosen for descent. It receives Taeyeon as a name. A habitat is built and the ship is sent to explore the surface.
As I leave the sector our personal robot comes to us. It is impossible to deny he has initiative.
Using our own ship's computer as a model, I have reconstructed the fragmented memory core from the crashed DeVries freighter one of our recon-teams located on Hera. Most of the material is incomprehensible. However, I was able to determine the location of an administration facility on Hebe. The coordinates indicated are Sector A-9.
Thank you.
I decide to finish exploring the current area before checking the new coordinates.
Was there a reason why she did not want to attack the pylons or was she just being herself one last time before the end?
I move to JongMin, where the Anti-Meteor Gun is once again turned off so that facilities can be built. In Lizzy the robots have arrived and we can proceed with building the first power plant and the first factory. A new power plant is built on Eunjung. The same is done in Raina after it receives 6 robots from Lizzy.
During one of those times when there was nothing to do but wait I had tried to send a ship to Cronus but it had been out of reach. Presently the planet is just about to get close enough to the mothership for a ship to reach it by using all of its fuel. Once the moment is right I send Vehicle 4 to build a space station there. It takes 40 units of fuel with it.
The habitat in Taeyeon being complete I send 50 colonists there along some energy and life support resources. A new power plant is built in JongMin so that we can reactivate the Anti-Meteor Gun.
I check the Technology Interface and discover we are now able to greenlight the project on the alien synthesizer.
Glee.
There's nothing further away from my intention than to put undue presure on you eggheads, yet I am obligued to explain in this particular case the economic ramifications come second to the personal ones.
What do you-
Citizen.
Please forgive his rudeness, Sir. He meant to ask if its acceptable for our illustrious leader The Captain to enlighten us her servants in the meaning concealed by those words.
To wit, if the generosity I have shown you were not to be soon rewarded by me being awakened by GO taking my breakfast to bed... How should I put it? You there, please lend me a hand with this.
Ugh... Uhm... Let us say you have several projects in need of professional empirical researchers and we would pass the background check with flying colors.
Well done, Citizen.
Well done indeed. I will be looking forward to hearing from you again.
O-Of course.
Soon.
Very much so.
Then I go to Raina and order the building of a new habitat, leaving the colony with the exact same configuration Hyomin has. I also order one of the factories there to start building robots. The same is done in Eunjung. It must also be said that The Calypso's factories having built enough robots I can now send Vehicle 12 to start a colony on Hebe with the same load I did use for Taeyeon. Thus I proceed.
More than a thousand turns have gone by. For a while I have been wondering whether is the aliens' linguistic structure able to separate the concept of being fashionably late and that of being a jerk who should get himself a bloody watch ASAP from one another.
How long will I be able to keep my readership interested in stories of my ships looting ruins and my facilities being built? Should I find a flimsy excuse to add the occassional bit of eye candy ("And here we can see the pilot, who just happen to look like a very famous idol singer from the twentieth first century, saying hello to the camera while in her very flattering reglamentary uniform as she returns from checking anomaly #40786. No, really.") so that at least one or two of my readers will remain when the plot starts picking up?
This and more was The Captain pondering when it did happen.
Romanov timing is a thing of beauty.
Sir, General Liebowitz believes it is imperative that we develop more effective weaponry; as she says, 'God knows what's waiting in the dark.'
She suggest a missile-based system. This weapon can be carried by our ships, but due to size, only one missile per trip. Her proposal is in the Tech Manager for your approval.
This comes as a relief. The latest I had previously obtained this project had been around turn 800. I was starting to panic.
To someone whose military experience comes mainly from Freespace and Starlancer the idea of a ship carrying a single high-payload proyectile sounds closer to a torpedo boat than it does to a missile ship. Not to mention how scary is the idea of a torpedo so big a ship able to carry one hundred colonists along their belongings and enough provisions to last a journey of several months can take only one.
I check the hostility report before moving on to setting my laboratories to satisfy the project demands and decide which route will Hausmann take to reach his objective.
It has begun.
Let us hope the ships we based on Hyomin, Eunjung, Raina, and Lizzy will be enough to make a difference until we can come up with a better plan.
On JongMin I order a second habitat built.
Vehicle 4 has reached Beta 4 and constructed the space station I did want. The installation is given the name "Mir" and the ship is sent to the surface. Two anomalies are found.
I wonder how many things were going on at the same time in Beta Caeli? Every time it seems we have found out what did happen here something new is uncovered.
Vehicle 4 is left parked at Mir. From both Hyomin and Eunjung colonists are sent to Jiyeon along more ore, energy, robots, and life support. The laboratories are ordered built as soon as the ships arrive. I leave them already configured to satisfy the mission requeriments.
After some micromanagement I start building JR's Anti Meteor Gun. A second laboratory is built on Raina, and then JongMin's second power plant is ordered. Hyomin sends Jiyeon more ore and energy. From the Calypso groups of sixty colonists are sent to Hyomin, JongMin, and JR. After taking care of some undocumented administrative tasks on JR I send the ship there to explore the surface of Ares.
We already recovered what had survived of their research on the artifact.
As we leave this sector Hausmann comes to propose a new research project to us.
A new surge of technologies reinforces the idea that our Research Labs are paying off. I suggest we upgrade our current labs to allow greater capacities and higher turn around.
This is not going to happen until we are at least able to upgrade our habitats. Our scientific colonies are tight on resources.
We continue checking the anomalies found on Ares.
This one always makes me sad. One should take care never to survive apocalyptic scenarios.
I send the ship back to JR and move to Jiyeon. The 'burning quarks' project was the result of the quest asking us to build orbital laboratories for physics and mathematics. We shut down the installations and evacuate all personel back to Hyomin and Eunjung along all remaining resources. I choose not to dismantle the base in case we receive a similar quest later on.
I check the new project.
I build a third laboratory on Raina, and send 10 robots from JR to Hyomin. New habitats are ordered on both JR and JongMin. Hausmann comes to us.
You can guess what I do next.
This is the first technology we have found so far for which we did lack one of the requisites. SCIENCE! marches forward. Being already here I finally greenlight the project on the advanced energy filter, for which I have been saving research resources.
35 colonists are sent from JongMin to Raina. Miscelaneous administrative tasks focused on balancing the production and consumption of both Raina and the younger colonies are taken care of before we go back to explore Ares' surface.
The ships now have a name. If "sporeship" refers to ships used for colonization that would explain why the ship remained in a latent state until our predecesors established themselves on the planets they were either terraforming, colonizing, or experimenting on. What it does not explain is why the life on both worlds was engineered to go berserk with the flick of a switch.
It is a good thing we have been building those anti-meteor guns.
Suddenly I do notice something is not right with the ship, namely the cargo space. I send the ship back and decide to check the Technology interface.
The Captain is clearly overworked. She can't even remember starting the project.
I send Vehicle 9, currently parked on Jooyeon, to scan Prometheus' surface for anomalies. Finding out we did not miss any during our previous visits I send the ship to Raina. Then I load Vehicle 12 with fuel and send it to establish a space station on Beta 2. Soon afterwards I send most of the extra ships I have on the inner worlds to Hyomin, Eunjung, or Raina. Having played for nearly a thousand turns I am expecting something to happen anytime now.
A few turns afterward the Calypso reaches Beta 8. Almost immediately I send Vehicle 4, which we had left in Mir, back to the mothership and both Vehicle 13 and Vehicle 14 to establish space stations in Zeus and Hera. Soon I am informed the quark burner project is complete.
This is the technology we did lack to start the project to upgrade the spacecrafts' engines. Yet we still lack resources.
There is little to do while we wait for the ships to reach their destinations and the scientific resources to be produced. I move to Raina and load a ship with 20 ore, 20 energy, and 5 robots. Once in the Mercator and far away from Raina it looks for an inhabitable area.
A new colony is built in E40. It is given the name "Lizzy." With this The Captain's grand plan for Rhea is complete.
I start building a habitat there. Romanov comes to inform me of a new discovery.
I send a ship from Raina to check this.
I decide to keep checking Rhea for anomalies in the areas we had yet to flood with trascendental radiation.
I must have forgotten to take a screenshot of the description of this find. Please forgive me.
The Tantalus' colonists went and turned an ununderstood xenoarcheological site into a tourist destination. Let that sink in.
Following the previously found reference to quartz samples from Alpha 3 I send the ship currently on Siwon to G.O. No new anomalies are to be found. Whatever was there we already have it.
Soon afterwards the project on an advanced scanner to detect fuel deposits is finished. I check the report.
Maybe we'll find an use for it.
The ship previously sent to Beta 2 has established the starbase we asked for. I name it "Seungho" and send the ship to the surface. Three anomalies are found.
Where we are going we don't need vacations to rest.
The ship returns to Seungho and is immediately sent to stablish a starbase on Beta 3. I build a third power plant on JR and a second factory on JongMin. In the later colony I have to shut down the Anti-Meteor Gun to be able to do so. I am a betting person. On Lizzy we have built the habitat but we are unable to build the first power plant and the first factory without more robots. The ship there is sent to get 30 from the Calypso.
By now the starbases on Zeus and Hera have been built. I rename them Tiffany and Jessica before sending the ships to probe the planet and moon. By then the ship dispatched to Beta 3 has arrived and built the starbase there, which I call Qri. On the asteroid itself we find no anomalies. With Beta 3 scanned all Beta Asteroids have been explored yet we are no closer to finding the alien ship.
I am thinking about this when Hausmann comes to discuss something.
In any event, the scientists were attempting to create a machine that could convert raw minerals into organic matter. Their entire research was based upon the obelisk of unknown origin.
At the time all I did thought about this was that it would probably allow us to upgrade our habitats. It wouldn't be until later that the ramifications would be explained to me in a way I could understand.
The reports from Zeus and Hera have already arrived.
The ships return to Tiffany and Jessica. One is sent back to the Calypso. The other is sent to establish a starbase on Hebe, Zeus' other moon. Then I go check the technology interface, and this time the message goes right through. I suspect Hausmann was so frustrated by my lack of reaction he did write the report in such a simple manner just to make sure I would understand what he was trying to get at and share on his exitement.
I remember the reports about how the current state of development of life in Beta Caeli should be impossible according to human understanding of evolution. We took this technology from the Tantalus' colonists who in turn got it from an alien obelisk. Was the life in Beta Caeli created in such a biblical way? I was expecting something closer to genetic manipulation instead of spawned to specification from the red earth.
And now The Captain is about to obtain this power for herself. I could wax poetically about the future world by visions of which she is enthralled but that would be beyond the point. Redundant, too.
The ship sent to Hebe has built the starbase ordered. I give it Sunny for a name and the ship descends to probe the planet.
The ship is sent back to the Calypso. Vehicle 9, currently parked on Raina, is sent to Lizzy loaded with ore, energy, and colonists in preparation for the coming of the robots soon to arrive from the mothership. JR and JongMin keep juggling their limited resources and facilities.
Vehicle 14 is sent from the Calypso to Hera's orbit with a cargo of ore, energy, life support, and robots. Its objective is to establish the first outer colony on the moon's surface. After much micromanagement and many turns we have also acumulated enough resources to start the project dedicated to upgrade our spacecrafts' engines. We do so.
One of the ships on Raina is sent to search for anomalies on Rhea's surface. Only a few remain unchecked.
I much prefer The Captain's naming conventions.
It seems there are no more anomalies in the area. I leave for the younger colonies. With the robots received from the Calypso JongMin is finally able to turn back online its Anti-Meteor Gun while keeping all current facilities functioning. I set up one of the local factories to build robots.
Two more turns pass before Vehicle 14 reaches Hera. It finds a single colony spot in the area chosen for descent. It receives Taeyeon as a name. A habitat is built and the ship is sent to explore the surface.
As I leave the sector our personal robot comes to us. It is impossible to deny he has initiative.
Thank you.
I decide to finish exploring the current area before checking the new coordinates.
Was there a reason why she did not want to attack the pylons or was she just being herself one last time before the end?
I move to JongMin, where the Anti-Meteor Gun is once again turned off so that facilities can be built. In Lizzy the robots have arrived and we can proceed with building the first power plant and the first factory. A new power plant is built on Eunjung. The same is done in Raina after it receives 6 robots from Lizzy.
During one of those times when there was nothing to do but wait I had tried to send a ship to Cronus but it had been out of reach. Presently the planet is just about to get close enough to the mothership for a ship to reach it by using all of its fuel. Once the moment is right I send Vehicle 4 to build a space station there. It takes 40 units of fuel with it.
The habitat in Taeyeon being complete I send 50 colonists there along some energy and life support resources. A new power plant is built in JongMin so that we can reactivate the Anti-Meteor Gun.
I check the Technology Interface and discover we are now able to greenlight the project on the alien synthesizer.
Glee.
Then I go to Raina and order the building of a new habitat, leaving the colony with the exact same configuration Hyomin has. I also order one of the factories there to start building robots. The same is done in Eunjung. It must also be said that The Calypso's factories having built enough robots I can now send Vehicle 12 to start a colony on Hebe with the same load I did use for Taeyeon. Thus I proceed.
More than a thousand turns have gone by. For a while I have been wondering whether is the aliens' linguistic structure able to separate the concept of being fashionably late and that of being a jerk who should get himself a bloody watch ASAP from one another.
How long will I be able to keep my readership interested in stories of my ships looting ruins and my facilities being built? Should I find a flimsy excuse to add the occassional bit of eye candy ("And here we can see the pilot, who just happen to look like a very famous idol singer from the twentieth first century, saying hello to the camera while in her very flattering reglamentary uniform as she returns from checking anomaly #40786. No, really.") so that at least one or two of my readers will remain when the plot starts picking up?
This and more was The Captain pondering when it did happen.
Romanov timing is a thing of beauty.
She suggest a missile-based system. This weapon can be carried by our ships, but due to size, only one missile per trip. Her proposal is in the Tech Manager for your approval.
This comes as a relief. The latest I had previously obtained this project had been around turn 800. I was starting to panic.
To someone whose military experience comes mainly from Freespace and Starlancer the idea of a ship carrying a single high-payload proyectile sounds closer to a torpedo boat than it does to a missile ship. Not to mention how scary is the idea of a torpedo so big a ship able to carry one hundred colonists along their belongings and enough provisions to last a journey of several months can take only one.
I check the hostility report before moving on to setting my laboratories to satisfy the project demands and decide which route will Hausmann take to reach his objective.
It has begun.
Let us hope the ships we based on Hyomin, Eunjung, Raina, and Lizzy will be enough to make a difference until we can come up with a better plan.
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