Chapter 6: Earning money and building more settlements.

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You have reached level 30.

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By building his fleet, and earning a continuous flow of funds over the last four days in the real world, Leon had earned a huge sum of money and EXP. He put 2 points in each of INT, WIS, and CHA, and he put the 6 skill points into Broker, getting him General Broker and Specialized Broker. Now, he could sell anything and get better prices. While it wouldn't be as much as a Merchant could get, it was a big bonus. His station was completed yesterday, and he started on the dockyard. He had also bought a blueprint for the assault ship Jojo was flying. So once the dockyard was built, he could start building his fleet properly.

Another server announcement would be sent when Jojo took over as Station Commander, announcing his ownership of a planet. It was like that, you had to complete some steps to get the Game First achievements.

"This time, I will get quite a few of them easily."

Starlight smiled to himself. The company had earned a large chunk of change over the last two runs, around 235m. He took 100m credits for himself as his 'pay' and put the rest in the Company account for company use.

His settlement now had 1200 pioneers, of which there were around 400 pregnant women, so the settlement was on the right track. He needed to grow his empire. While spending his own money would be alright, he wanted to keep 'his' funds away from company funds, so he tasked the other two to continue to haul the wood, while he did another task.

Three in-game days later he was back in Vidu. Starlight went to Ruthgar and asked about better starships.

"Hey, Ruthgar, What ships do you have that are able to jump larger distances, and have more cargo and passenger space?"

Ruthgar stroked his chin, then swiped through several ships in his communicator.

"Star, my boy, I got three that would fit your specifications. Here take a look."

He swiped his hand and three starships appeared in front of Starlight.

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T-9100 Arc Ship

Cargo Hold: 2400 tons

Passengers: 5000 Low-berth, 800 Standard-berth, 100 Luxury-berth

Jump Range: 6-Standards jump, 2-day jump time for full jump range.

Price: 10 Billion Credits

Y-1800 Guarded Great Hauler

Cargo Hold: 1200 tons

Passengers: 800 Low-berth, 400 Standard-berth

Jump Range: 4-Standards jump, 2-day jump time for full jump range.

Price: 130 Million Credits

A-21 Cargo Transport

Cargo Hold: 1800 tons

Passengers: 500 Standard-berth

Jump Range: 2-Standards jump, 1-day jump time for full jump range.

Price: 80 Million Credits

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While the Arc Ship would be amazing to start new colonies with, it was a little out of his price range. He was also familiar with the A-21, as that was the ship he was captaining when he was boarded. It had lots of cargo space for the price but didn't have anything in the ways of defenses, so it was best used when transporting in 'safe' space.

That left the more expensive, but definitely more worthwhile Y-1800. Any starship marked with Guarded means that they got the firepower to handle standard-level enemies. For the first 3 years' worth of real-time, pirates would mostly be of the standard level. The Y-1800 also came with a better Refiner and Extracter than he had installed on the Last Hope.

He bought the Guarded Great Hauler and sent a request for the Last Hope to be stored for a while, storage cost him 5m for a year, which he paid out of his own pocket. Didn't want to bankrupt the company immediately. Next, he went to the Pioneer's Office and requested an A-1 Pioneer Package, with the full 800 low-berth and 400 standard-berth pioneers, and set up for 1000 tons of the A-1 supplies, costing him 80m credits.

After that was in order, Starlight went to the Market and purchased 100 tons of food, 50 tons of repair materials, and 50 tons of medical supplies. The extra food could be used for a bump in the starting Happiness of the new settlement, and it only cost him 300k.

Kono had two colonizable planets in the system, so this would be a good setup for the second settlement. He would need to set up a station on the second planet, but he would only need one defense fleet, which was good since fleets were expensive. Since the second station didn't need a defense fleet Commander, he could assign one of the pioneers to be the station leader, fully claiming the planet. He wanted to have his fleet started first though so that if an 'industrious' player found them from the announcement, he didn't sell the info to a pirate for cash. If pirates did show up, he needed to be able to defend.

'Jojo should arrive in another roughly six weeks. That is two weeks in real-time. I should beat out the first planet claim achievement by at least a year.'

Having gathered all he needed, he departed Vidu and headed to his system. It only took a single day, and half his fuel, to arrive in Kono, and he immediately headed to Kono 3 to set up his settlement.

The planet was scanned for habitability, and then he landed, waking the low-berth passengers would take about a day, so the settlement was started with the standard people. The A-1 pioneers were all minimum level 50, so they had already gained their first Class Talent. This helped get things rolling very quickly.

The second settlement was named Kono Prime since this was going to be the faster-growing settlement. It didn't take long before the assessment of resources had been made. Tortum was in high supply, along with small amounts of Coraka, which was used in some high-end spaceships. For the wood, it was a more standard array and not a luxury like the one on Kono Second, the newly renamed first settlement. Kono Prime wouldn't make massive amounts of money until Starlight gained the services of a skilled starship designer, then he could start making money. Of course, he would only sell civilian starships, keeping any military ships for his own uses.

"I was thinking of getting a second class, should I get the Designer class?"

The Designer class allowed for designing of Starships and Spacestations, and like other crafting-oriented classes, it came with a Talent since it didn't give a bunch of skills. More to think about he guessed.

A day went by and the pioneers had all started work. Starlight took his ship to Kono Second and picked up some of the construction drones and a large supply of common metals, then headed back to Prime and set them to work on a Station.

After settling that, he brought a cargo hold of Kono Dark Wood back to Vidu to sell. It was worth a pretty penny, and the price was rising, since this was the only port you could buy the new shipments at. He ended up with 180m credits from the sales, which he ended up using 100m of on another A-1 Pioneering Package and drones for more Stations in another system. He picked up some food to give a boost to the new settlement, refueled, then jumped to the Luca system.

There were three planets in this system that had his name on them.