CH 002

I had finally automated the production of the level 2 Science packs and now I need to find oil. My suit's built-in scanner could find an oil deposit but it needed to close. I made a bunch of oil rigs and pipes. I stocked my inventory with a good amount of grenades and ammunition for my, hopefully short, trek. With the research queue lined up, I finally headed out. After walking for a few hours, I encountered my first opponent. A small mouse-like creature hissed in my direction. I looked at it and saw that I was standing over a hole. I simply walked away till I reached what I could only call a swamp. I was not willing to swim and hinder my movement so I simply went around it. By the time I had traveled around the Swamp, it was already night.

I could keep on walking through the night but my instincts told me that this was a horrible idea. My suit was sealed but I do not want to risk becoming a chew toy for a nocturnal predator. With that in mind, I climbed over a smooth rock with my axe and lay there uncomfortably. Sleep did come eventually but I kept jumping up the slightest noise. After a night of terrible sleep, I began my journey again. This time the environment was grassland with luscious pink and cyan grass. It looked so amazing that the fact a large goat-sized cockroach/xenomorph was charging at me was doing nothing to the beauty of the landscape.

I aimed my assault rifle and fired my gun at a moving object for the first time. I hit the bug dead center and it did nothing to the momentum. It took another 4 shots to the face to kill that creature. Before I could celebrate my first kill, the ground shook for a bit and a worm-like creature dragged the body into the ground. It honestly scared me. I kept my eyes glued to the mini screen for any sensor readings. They were many. The worm numbered in hundreds but their behavior was that of a scavenger. They did not attack live prey.

It took me another two days of travel to reach Rocky Plain. Just over the horizon, there was a majestic volcano and by the looks of it, it was dead. My sensor was reading a good amount of oil present in the substrate. I began to set up another factory. It began with material production and Assemblers and Defences. The last thing I put down was the Oil Jacks. After connecting them to a series of Tanks, I hooked a single pipe to an Oil Refinery. The Refine Gas, Heavy Oils, and Light Oils I hooked up to a separate system of tanks. Thanks to the Volcanic rock, metal refining was boosted by a huge margin, and due to that, I had set up the walls in a square of almost a kilometer in length. I stopped the production in my First base and only had It produce the required Ammunitions for the Defences. I set up the labs and Science Pack production Lines in this base. By the time I had begun a steady production of the Science Packs, the Chemical Plants had put out the first Batch of Plastics. It was a roll of thin plastic sheet that could be used in infinite ways. I used this plastic to make a better circuit board for the better machinery. Soo, the Chemical plants were putting out a constant supply of Acids, Sulphur, and more. Using my new resources, I began the production of Capacitors for energy storage and Began the production line for Solar Panels.

In about a week, my solar farm was running splendidly and meeting all the energy needs of my factory. I had set up the Solar farm in a location where it only needed to be defended from one side. The Other side was a cliff face which I had reinforced with some concrete. I had set up Turrets on all sides but the Main approach was the most heavily defended.

By the time my solar farm was up, the Labs had deduced the best material and configuration for the Laser defense. The First laser turret had been made and I set it up on the Solar farm. I marked a decent 2 meter-tall, boulder as a target and the laser melted a hole in that bad boy in a matter of seconds. I looked at power consumption and saw the huge spike in Energy drain. That 4 seconds of activation had drained about 5 percent of the total energy capacity.

'Need more power, need more production. Man, I really hope that there is a Uranium Deposit nearby.' I thought to myself and went back to work.

I had set up enough solar farms and Capacitor fields to quadruple my energy reserves. It took me about another week of Setting up and running cables. In order to connect the new energy production to the old network. All in all, it took about a month to set this up. This setup should be enough for me for a long long time. While setting up the Farms and Cabling, I was constantly thing about a new ways to improve my radar. X-ray mapping, sonar mapping, seismic sensing, Infrared, and all the different ways I could think of. I incorporated all of them into a single improved Radar unit. At least on paper, I fed this blueprint into the lab and watched it begin its optimization process. After a week of feeding it science packs, a new blueprint was ready. Radar MK2, was the name of this new machine. They can be set in a grid life manner to boost their capabilities.

The Instant my new radar was plopped down, cold sweat began to run down my back. Except for the rocky terrain that I had chosen for my new factory, all the loose earth was infested with worms. Some were 50 meters in length and 2 meters thick at the widest. Tunnels were being dug out to the rocky terrain. Thankfully, the tunnel stopped when touched a hard rock. I began to run some pipes to an opening for these tunnels and began to fill them with gas. After, waiting for the tunnel to be saturated with gas, I detonated a small explosive. This caused the gas to be ignited in a very explosive fashion. The ground shook and the tunnel opening had these bright plumes of flame sprouting a random interval. Moments after the flames died, I heard a screech. I sounded like nails on a blackboard but worse.

Bang!!!!!

My turrets began to fire while in Sniper mode. The east side of my Factory was lit by gunfire. I looked at the Display and saw that there were hundreds of creatures rushing for my base. The Lasers defenses got active and in a fraction of a second, the creature began to explode. The laser did not have to melt through the creature, I just superheated the fluids inside the creature's body and the Creature would explode on its own. Only the ones, with the larger carapace, made it to the turret's rapid-fire range. They stood under the Laser defense and the Turret fired for a second before their Bodies overheated and exploded. Some of the Creature fired an acidic spit, but I never made it to any of my walls as it evaporated midair. I too was taking potshots at distant creatures. The battle while intense only latest about 3 minutes as the swarm of creatures was gunned down. My laser turrets set fire to the bodies of creatures and I did the maintenance on the turrets.

I needed more defenses in case more of these things came here. What was frightening about these creatures was their cunning. They did not rush out until they were discovered. They dug tunnels to stay out of sight and tried to use tactics too complex for any base organism. This meant that they can think, and they want to kill me. I was reminded of that cheesy action movie, Star Shiptroopers. I hope that I was not in that universe.

With my Lubrication needs met, I began working towards Construction and Logistic Drone. Batteries and Mini solar panels to increase the flight time. My first drone took flight in a matter of days after the battle. It was fitted with a Camera, and radiation sensors, to look for Some radioactive deposits. The rest of the Construction drones were used for Maintenance. Some were used for construction but I didn't want to sit idle and did most of the construction by myself. I received a ping, from my drone in a matter of weeks. It was about 17 kilometers from my location. The readings were good, the deposit was good enough for my needs for now. I order the drone to set out in search of more deposits and other unique resources.

I began to look into smaller robotics and started the research towards the personal robo-port. My power armor allowed for a better inventory and still had enough space for a robot port, solar panels, and batteries. The production of the Train and Cargo Compartment was not an issue but the actual laying of the train tracks was. 17 kilometers of back and forth for supplies was simply inefficient and horribly tedious. I made an off-road vehicle and strapped huge EM capacitors for a large amount of inventory space. Now, I need to drive slowly to the destination and let my construction robot do all the work.

Despite using Construction robots, I took about 2 weeks of the slow movement. It was worth it. By the time I reached the deposit, the landscape had changed from a nice grassland to a dying vegetation-filled hellscape. It looked like a meteor landed here and that was what caused the unearthing of the Radioactive deposit. I looked at the Radiation meter and I smiled as it rose with every step. I began setting up the Acid tanks and excavators. I first began the transport set and then moved on to the Mining Set up. I set up the Excavators and turned them on only after setting them up to the best of my ability. I boarded the train and sped away as the radiation level spiked above my suit's parameters. The next part was to set up the enrichment plant and the last part would be to set up the nuclear plant. The Enrichment plants of the Cetifuges were set up 4 Kilometers away on the opposite side of the volcano. I felt silly because, once the energy defenses were researched, these distances would mean nothing.

The Centrifuges were this huge machine that process the Radioactive ore into a much pure state. The Products were then sorted into active material and passive material. Bother these would be used to make a nuclear fuel cell which would be inserted into a Nuclear plant to produce heat to make steam for the turbines. Thankfully, water was just 2 kilometers away from the plant and simple pipes and pumps would get the job done. The next thing on the agenda was the nuclear plant. It was the easiest to make and I made 4 of them plopping them side by side for maximum efficiency. It took about 4 weeks for me to make all this. I was finally back at my base and started the research for the energy defenses. It was a huge dip into the Science Pack Storage, but At least I had the energy defense. Unlike most technologies, the energy defenses start small, and only after a shit ton of research can they be expanded to cover the base. At least that was what I was reading in the Research logs. In the Game, the Energy defense was only a personal small-scale item. In this reality, it was a bit different. What I had on myself was the most basic energy field according to the computer. The later versions of the energy field could in theory have vast effects and different properties.