((No, the kitchen is still standing. I don't think anyone actually died.
So you know what guys, I think we should take a lesson from this. When your job is to explore an extremely dangerous and unknown planetoid, and your base sustain some damage, don't waste several months fixing the base into perfect shape. Make it livable, leave a couple people to continue repair it, and then continue exploring. Also, I blame Pyrodesu for everything. ("Blame" doesn't mean "mad at".) ))
To Denzel: "Base hasn't been responding to any of my messages for the last few turns. Too busy dealing with their own problems. I can hear a lot of screaming, and I can gather that they're in trouble, and that the inside of the base is invaded, but that's about it. But what that basically means, is that until they finally deal with it, we're kind of on our own. I will continue pestering them of course.
Anyway, considering that Piecewise keeping saying that the mission will end very soon, I'm thinking that we might just abandon the food supplies, since we won't really need them. And in addition, my out of character knowledge says that the base kitchen survived anyway. So what do you think, should we spread out and see what happens when the storm intersects with different anomalies, or keep exploring the areas North of us?"
Does this mean all of the samples stored in the base have vanished? If so, could we get a list of what vanished, and what we still have? Just so we don't run into disagreements later.
What about the third drone I have sent South-East to map out the rest of the Storm?
Move to the Crystal Field where we have stored food.
Along the way, sample the Dry Lake Bed ground.
Sample the crystals in the Crystal Field.
Sample the atmosphere in the Crystal Field.
Find the hole where we extracted a sample of the Crystal Fluid. (Bishop found the thinnest patch of the ground, and used a pole to break through it. Inside we saw the Crystal Fluid, and sampled it.)
Sample the fluid out of it. In necessary, use the pole to break through it again. (Should be easier doing it again, right?) If necessary, use exaggerated movements mode. If failed, have Zephyris try it. If failed again, move on.
Label all of these. (Object, Location. Example: Atmosphere, Crystal Field.)
Then load myself (and my pet) with food in addition to all these samples, and head back to base with Denzel.
(I know it's a lot of sampling actions, but since we're doing many-hours treks in a single turn, the time it should take compared to walking is miniscule.)
Well, We'll load you with food and send ya home, but all those samples are already at the base and you're not gonna get anything for extras...so yeah.
Run to base. See which parts survived. See if I can follow the creature through the hole.
It looks like the kitchen, barracks and lab survived. As per following the creature through the hole...well...you can't see it in the hole. You ca see lots of tunnels down there; things moving around in the dark, but you can't see it. Or the bottom of the hole.
On radio"Crap. What do we do now?"
form up nearest team member.
You wander over to Flint.
go grab one of the dead worms and drag it into the vault, cut it into pieces if necessary.
Butcher said worm with machete then store and label each organ as well as skin, tissue and bone samples.
See if i can find a reaaly small dead worm with a skull around the same size as my head, if found extract and wear it, otherwise just steal its teeth.
((Anyone feel like dropping lukas down that hole so he can chestburst that bastard and we can get our base back/live inside it?
Also your arguments are invalid, this is obviously toasters fault.))
You store away a worm body in the vault and then, after a good deal of searching, find a worm that seems the right size. You hack it up and attach it's bones to your suit, skull enclosing your helmet and a chestplate made of it's ribcage. You look positively
kurganesque.
((No, the kitchen is still standing. I don't think anyone actually died.
So you know what guys, I think we should take a lesson from this. When your job is to explore an extremely dangerous and unknown planetoid, and your base sustain some damage, don't waste several months fixing the base into perfect shape. Make it livable, leave a couple people to continue repair it, and then continue exploring. Also, I blame Pyrodesu for everything. ("Blame" doesn't mean "mad at".) ))
To Denzel: "Base hasn't been responding to any of my messages for the last few turns. Too busy dealing with their own problems. I can hear a lot of screaming, and I can gather that they're in trouble, and that the inside of the base is invaded, but that's about it. But what that basically means, is that until they finally deal with it, we're kind of on our own. I will continue pestering them of course.
Anyway, considering that Piecewise keeping saying that the mission will end very soon, I'm thinking that we might just abandon the food supplies, since we won't really need them. And in addition, my out of character knowledge says that the base kitchen survived anyway. So what do you think, should we spread out and see what happens when the storm intersects with different anomalies, or keep exploring the areas North of us?"
Does this mean all of the samples stored in the base have vanished? If so, could we get a list of what vanished, and what we still have? Just so we don't run into disagreements later.
In reply: "Piecewise? Out-of-character knowledge? What? Are you more insane than the planet? I'm taking the supplies anyway."
Think about where a good place to keep the supplies would be- in the meantime, carry them back to the base hex with us.
Best idea, you think, might be to gather up the remaining supplies and then scatter them around in smaller caches. It's more of a hassle, but at least it means that the loss of one cache doesn't mean the death of everyone.
((Guys, who the hell cares anyway what triggered it? It could be anything, no point pointing fingers. If anyone, I (or Miyamoto, whatever) is the one to 'blame'. I decided to keep so many manpower at the base for repairs, I decided Vich could continue exploring, I decided to send out Simus' team when I did. That said, I still stand behind my (and Simus') actions and decisions, they seemed like the most logical option at the time. Remember, if the other mission hadn't gone the way it did we would've had much more time to explore and stuff. Fixing garage walls is something that is beneficial in the long run, but indeed rather superfluous if it gets eaten some turns later. You're in the HMRC, shit happens one way or another. Deal with it.
Mind you, I'm perfectly fine discussing the way we acted, what caused what and why, but I still get the feeling some people are taking this personally. That might be due to the inherent problem of text communication though (no facial expressions to read).
I do agree with Tear that now it's probably just waiting a little bit for the Sword to come pick us up. So with a little luck anyone who dies now will still be revivable on-ship. And Tear, while you do bring up an interesting point of us giving too much attention to the base and its repairs, next time you might want to voice these concerns before or while it is happening. Hindsight 20/20 and all that. And please, I ask you to never go OOC in IC like that again. That was horrible. The immersion, don't break it.))
... Everyone return to the base hex. No arguments. We need to regroup.
"I concur, this whole thing has gone far beyond FUBAR right now. All exploration is put on hold until further notice. First priority is to ensure we'll survive the remainder of our time here, then see what we can salvage in terms of samples. Worst comes to worst we regather some of them."
Brief Vich's team on what happened. Think about how long we've been here and when Steve is going to pick us up. If all seems quiet, go to where Morul is hiding and check if i could safely give him my helmet there.
Worse case scenario we eat inside Gilgamesh.
((First one to get crumbs on my consoles is a dead man ))
You head over to Morul while mentally tallying days. You're not sure how long you've been here; but it seems close to time for you to get picked up. You figure that, if you find a good bit of shelter, the team should be able to survive.
You pass your helmet in to morul, who swaps it for his glass jar helmet. Not an easy task, requiring a good deal of quick passing through barely opened doors and switching while in semi-vacuum. He manages it though.
Wait a second, now there's a storm headed our way? Did I miss more than I thought?
Also, Miyamoto, I'm going to go and collect the samples, as well as anything worthwhile, out of the lab myself. I can fly, I can get there and back faster, and I can carry more of a load.
Flying, collect the samples from the vault and anything from the lab that might be of use, and bring it back here. Multiple trips are no issue.
You take everything out of the vault and move it out onto the unsheltered rock plains.
"I'm gonna need a bigger gun...."
Examine self for any obvious damage, then don the makeshift helmet, and carefully head towards a habitable area with a radio. Keep an eye out for any extra ammo.
Be glad someone gave you a helmet before you did that. Read toaster's reply. That helmet is good for maybe a minute before you'd just die of any number of things.
You see no ammo around here, but at least the suit is now habitable with this helmet. All the rooms in the base are now in vacuum though, with no climate controls. So thats not great.
Bishop was silent for awhile as he looked at the hole from above and slowly lowered himself down to land. He was silent for a few minutes before down tuning the signal on his radio back to normal and broadcasting:
"How the fuck am I going to fix that?!"
Land, put my radio back to normal and check out what's salvageable and still working in the base. Quietly mourn our situation.
Not a whole lot, to be honest. The lab, barracks and kitchen are still intact but none of them have power or life support, so they're just big metal boxes filled with stuff.
Anton watches the destruction of the base with a mix of awe and sudden profound sadness. As the creature disappears into the chasm where the base used to stand, he waves his hand once slowly, as if bidding the obliterated building farewell.
"Well... fuck. It was nice knowing you, ALVIN."
Thinking the immediate danger passed, Anton starts speaking into the radio.
"Damn. We should start regrouping and taking stock of what we have left so that we can survive till pickup. It seems the Barracks and the Lab are at least mostly intact. We should... hey, is anyone listening? Hello? Radio silence isn't helping us now, people. Or... wait a second."
Suddenly realizing that it's his own radio that could be malfunctioning, Anton uses the suit's computer to analyze what's wrong, and how to best resolve the problem and restore communication.
He also drives to and picks up his discarded datapad, it being one of the few remaining containers of research data in the team.
I assumed you through that datapad in the garage or near it. So it's chomped.
[aux:3+1]
You fix your radio, at the very least.