Day 4
The scouting mission is thus far proceeding without incident. The two closest planets to the ship are reached first by two probes, and scanned in some detail, as follows:
> Planet 1 - Class.3124 - Large planet, within habitable zone - Very cold - Massive, world-spanning water oceans - Very dense cloud cover - High probability of extreme ice storms - Massive polar icecaps - Only small islands for landmass
> Planet 2 - Class.1311 - Small planet, within habitable zone - Moderately hot - High levels of deadly surface and air radiation detected - No water aside from very thin polar icecaps - Flat, arid steppes broken by deep canyons and some hills
A full line of various maintenance and reconnaissance drones are created within the ship's onboard factory, which, at least, seems to be functioning at optimal capacity. In addition, designs for a landing probe capable of safely entering atmospheres and exploring planetary surfaces are re-tuned based on the initial data returned from the first scouting craft.
The first few maintenance drones to leave the ship immediately scan the hull surface, and do indeed detect some minor damage from impacts with tiny space-borne rocks; mostly dents and broken visual cameras on the hull. Accessing of hull camera footage shows the ship entering the system through one of the wide-open holes through the gigantic asteroid wall, sustaining minor hits from cast-off fragments. The damage is soon repaired at only a mild cost in resources.
A reconnaissance drone with sensitive sensor equipment is created alongside this production line, and sent to investigate the closest of the three gas giants in orbit. Routine scans reveal nothing particularly out of the ordinary, either from the giant itself, or the surrounding moons.
A new batch of 15 standard drones joins the half-dozen others in-system, though a few break off to venture out towards the surrounding asteroid wall. Strangely enough, while the portion of the dome parallel to the orbital ring still moves under pull of the star's gravity, the remaining asteroids move... differently. They manage to remain coherent enough to maintain the wall formation even while the spiral portion spins, but concentrated scanning reveals that many of its members change course mid-flight to avoid collision. This matches no known natural phenomenon recorded in ship databanks. But just what is at work here remains to be seen.
While the construction line works, a more thorough scanning of shipboard inventory is run, this time for comparison against resource consumption for construction purposes. Resources yet remain for the construction of roughly 150 more drones, spanning 5-10 meters in length apiece with the current designs. Larger craft will require more resources.
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Topic: Terraformer: The Promised Land (SG) (Read 1548 times)