You step into the virtual training room. There are two consoles from which to control the virtual machinery, as well as three open pits with no railing around them. The areas around the pits are painted an alternating orange/yellow, and the pits descend into blackness, you cannot see the bottom. One pit is labeled "Incoming Ore", one is labeled "Smelting", and the last is labeled "Shipping". Off to one side is a powered load lifter painted a cautionary pink. It has the words "TRAINING LIFTER, DO NOT PRESS YELLOW BUTTON" stenciled onto the front in orange letters.
The synthesized female voice speaks.
"Welcome to the UberCorp Virtual Training Chamber (mining). This chamber mirrors the mining environment as closely as possible while maintaining a workplace lethality rating well below industry standard.
I would first like to congratulate you all on entering the Virtual Training Chamber (mining). Of the last twelve crews, only two of them have successfully entered the Virtual Training Chamber (mining), so you have already shown yourselves to be a cut above the rest! Keep it up and you may one day be promoted to full Miner status. What a day that would be! We have not had a full fledged Miner in fourteen years!
Mining is a three phase process and has been greatly simplified by the extensive use of automation, but even these great automated systems require some human interaction due to the AI Rights bill of 2316.
Phase one is
Location and Extraction.
Locating a mineral vein is handled from the Sensor console. Please keep in mind that only one person may use a console at a time! The Sensor console controls many functions, such as life support and configuration/maintenance of the reactor. It also accesses a network of geological survey probe which can be used by a skilled operator to locate new mineral veins for extraction.
Extraction is performed by utilizing the drilling platform, which is controlled by the Teleoperations console. The drilling platform must be carefully maneuvered into place over a new mineral vein, lowered to the surface, and then drilling can begin! The drilling platform will dig down to the target depth and begin bringing up raw ore. This ore will be deposited into the cargo hold.
Phase two is
Smelting and Refinement.
From the cargo hold, the ore is moved via a powered cargo lifter into the smelting bay. The lifter is piloted by a crew member (one of you). The ore is dumped into the grinder for preproccessing, and then the smelting machinery takes over and automatically refines/smelts the ore into usable ingots while blowing the waste material out into space.
Phase three is
Shipping!
Ingots are extruded from the smelter and must be placed upon the cargo delivery pad outside of the habitat area. This is done via the powered cargo lifter. Once you feel a sufficient quantity of ingots is ready, you may use the Sensor console to signal the cargo drone for pickup. It will come to the pad and pick up any ingots, carrying them away to UberCorp materials processing centers. At this point you will be paid for your efforts, depending on the value of the materials. You may use these funds to purchase better equipment for the platform, order items from the UberCorp catalogue, or simply sit on large mounds of money within tall fortress walls made of money. It is your choice.
This concludes your basic one-hour training course in mining. Please feel free to try the virtual machinery consoles. They are almost certainly not lethal."
The consoles light up, now active. There is also a map of the facility which, fortunately, is in a language you recognize.
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Topic: The UberCorp Off-World Mining Division welcomes you to Jupiter! (Read 3709 times)