The second turn is here! Hope you like the outcomes. Some of the planets are more hostile, and that is starting to show.
Argulicka
Research Aquatic Drones, three times in a row: 6,8,3
By throughly inspecting and taking notes from the marine life documentaries in its database, Agrulikca comes up with a slick and fast design for its current drones. They will essentially be small submarines with all the equipment the terrestrial ones have. Additionally, they will be able to dive a considerable depth, but their specialisations for speed and efficency disallows them from going into any abbysal zones.
Scan the seafloor for mineral resources: 7
Using the leftover sensors from the colony ship, Agrulicka learns that the peak of an inactive underwater volcano a hundred meters in depth is very rich in the resources it is looking for. There are other, shallower sites, but the sheer abundance of life may pose a serious challenge.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: Low. Adequate on: Organic food. Energy status: 5/5. Drones: General Purpose: 50
Surroundings: The global ocean of MQA-65-a.
XIPHOS
Research Fusion Technology: 8
XIPHOS is not satified by the current ways of producing energy, so instead it turn its attention on more efficent ones. By using physics unique properties, it discovers that energy can be produced in high quantities.
Mining: 9
XIPHOS orders a mine to be built upon the mouth of the extinct volcano. Results are good; a ton of precious and common ore specks form the volcanic residue here. Drones use this place to gether this ore sand near the ship. Only struggle would be that this particulate source of resource is kinda challenging to collect.
Process a potion of the gathered mining resorces: 9
Some drones, instead of going back and forth between the ship and the volcanoes mouth, use the surrounding sandy ore to craft a variety of processed resources. Screws, nails, metal bars, wires... Everything they can. Yet there are only a dozen or so drones doing this at the moment, so the production is still quite little.
Building an Industrial Deuterium Centrifuge: 4
XIPHOS' luck falters from here a bit. It tries to make a deuterium collector at the active volcanoes mouth, but realises that most of it is currently occupied by the geothermal powerplant. Combined with this specific volcanoes timidness, the gathered deuterium from the spinning machine is much lower than anticipated.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: Adequate, Industrial resources: Low. Energy status: 5/5. Drones: General Purpose: 50
Surroundings: A small extinct volcano inside a cluster of volcanic, young islands. A geothermal reactor and a Deuterium Centrifuge has been set up on a nearby volcanically active island, connected to the ship via a small bridge made of scaffolding.
Supernerd
Research Researching, three times: 4,2,9
After improving its drones software for them to be better at scouting, Supernerd turns to its own digital innards to fix and improve. Most of its time is spent on bypassing many internal execution, listing and registering errors. It turn out that its makers did not anticipate it imploring itself, do they pretty much did a ton of convinient spagetti coding and left it sealed at there. But after all that, it manages to create an open space to improve itself.
Detailed scanning of the immidiate environment: 4
Supernerd decides that in the end, software changes were enough, and sends the drones as they are onto the planets surface. There is nothing more to learn. The surrounding place is a high-G flatland covered entirely with bright lime and hardy plants. This maybe inaccurate though, as the robots were strained by the high gravity while they were doing this. No damage was done though.
A small earthquake occurs, but has no effect.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: Some, Industrial resources: Some. Energy status: 5/5. Drones: General Purpose: 50
Surroundings: The obnoxiously bright plain of flat flora that covers much of the planet.
Google
Research Researching: 9+1=10
Google implores itself again. It discovers that by mapping its internal search results by their factual connectivity, it can reach real and accurate conclusions much faster.
Research Woodcutting: 1+1=2
Google looks into itself again. It fails to reach a conclusion better than ''hit with sharp object''. Cutting trees should be straightfoward? Maybe?
Deconstruct the immidiate surrounding forest: 4
Google feels lucky. It sends 5 drones down to the forest. They slowfall onto the canopy. The connection cuts before they reach the forest floor, last things transmitted being ''Autonomous Command: Active''. Forest is somehow preventing you from commucating your will with the drones down there, yet you see trees very slowly going down. They are doing what they are supposed to, just out of your command.
Construct Mineral Processing Facilities: 8
Google stops the mining operations at once, deciding that the spire is low enough. It instead orders the drones to carve rooms into the spire, gradually carvşng out and building a facility that produces Industrial Resurces at a large rate.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: Acceptable, Industrial resources: Acceptable. Energy status: 5/5. Drones: General Purpose: 45-50
Surroundings: On top of a large spindly spire of rock, overlooking an alien jungle.
Penrose
Research Research Facilities: 10
Penrose realises the unnecesarry hassle of reseraching things with its very own processors. It thinks of creating another, simpler yet capable mind that will do the researching for it. By simply copying its own hardware design, which it has the blueprints of, and running a lobotomised version of itself on the said hardware, this is very well possible.
Winterisation Technologies: 9
While commanding the scouting drones away from a general purpose drones path, Penrose's mind recalls the fact that the drones as they are currently are vulnerable to cold.
Constructing Mineral Refinery: 9+1=10
Noticing that the initial stocks for the industrial resources are about to deplete, Penrose orders all of them to be used to construct a Resource refinery to make more of them. It goes surprisingly well. It appears so that Penrose's initial design is pretty much a large melting pot on top of a small, configurable press. Small, but efficient. Yet this drains from the mining resource reserves, because of the production and the initial construction.
Open a hole through the ice layer: 5
By using a large laser produced by a repurposed landing engine, the ice is melt down, and eventually the rocky real crust underneath is reached. The problem is that it is very far down. Like a hundred meters down.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: Very Low, Industrial resources: Low. Energy status: 5/5.5. Drones: General Purpose: 50, Scouting: 6
Surroundings: The ''temperate'' northern hemisphere of SSS-505-b, surrounded by irregular, glimmering snow, shiny and large glaciers, small clusters of purply flora and the occasional hardy fauna. A Resource Refinery is also present on the ice, stabilised onto the fragile surface by extensive rods of metal.
Machirétis
The Forest Overtake: 9
Orders go into the ascended tree, and its roots begin to intertwine onto others. Soon, all of the local forest is under the hegemony of Machirétis. Some young and old trees died in their assimilation, so the forest is less dense than before. But the energy and the potential resource production is greatly increased. The forest glistens under the small sun, which is still up. Days are long here, ain't they?
Scouting the mountains for resources: 1
Machirétis orders its drones to scout the nearby mountains. It does not fare so well. Not only the animals on the path have acted hostile at the percieved intruders and made their passage harder, the mountains don't seem to bear anything of use at all. Three drones out of the ten sent were lost during the mission.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: Some, Industrial resources: Some. Energy status: 5/10. Drones: General Purpose: 47, Bio-Tree: 58
Surroundings: A small, open and serene bioengineered forest clearing, near a small stream, overlooked by a mountain.
Durandal
Research Animal Deterrents: 4
Durandal thinks upon the hostile environment it currently is in, and the ways to overcome it. By exploiting the sound sensitivity of the local fauna, they can be scared off without resorting to violence. It works partially, for while it scares off the small animals just fine, larger animals instead are merely stunned by this for a few short moments, then are quickly pissed off about it. It is not a permanent solution to the fauna problem by any means, but a drone may very well use this to gain time to react to an attack.
Research Adequate Mining Techniques: 7
Mining is a straightfoward task. Break, carry, purify, store. But in this chaotic terrain, this is not a simple ordeal. By carefully planning a system of mining tunnels, the bumpy terrain can be skipped entirely through the use of the said mines as the ways of transportation. But this requires care, as a stray hit may collapse a portion of the tunnels.
Research hexapodal locomotion for drones: 10
Lastly, Durandal rewatches the last moments of the damaged drone that fell from a cliffside. Taking notes from the struggles, it plans a drone that is perfectly sutied to this environment. It will be smaller than its previous counterparts, but its locomotive capabilities will be superior. A hexapodal drone with legs alternating from rover wheels to climbing claws, additionally with elytra-like wings to glide safely to the ground incase they fell from heights. They will also be equipped with the sonic deterrents to be able to escape from any ambushes from the local fauna.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: Some, Industrial resources: Some. Energy status: 5/5.5. Drones: General Purpose: 47
Surroundings: A fresh basalt flat sealed off from the wild forests by a wall of wood. It is on the side of one of the craggy and steep mountains, over a sharp, ore-rich cliff that descends into a mountain valley. Some thin and unsafe natural passages and paths can be spotted on the cliff faces, glimmering with streaks streams of exposed ore veins. Trees obstruct the view of pretty much everything else.
Factotum v2.3
Exploratory Mining: 7
Factotum realises that its stocks of resources are starting to run a bit low. So, acting upon its previous analysis of the local planetary crust, it sends all of its drones to open a small mine into the ground. About a dozen meters down into the salt and sandstone and into the grey and dead generic stone, small clusters of various ores start showing themselves from the plain view. But their frequency is truly unpredictable, as predicted.
Build a multipurpose drone assemblage: 5
From all of the industrial resources left to it, Factotum builds a drone assemblage with its inbuilt robot arms, all by itself. The assemblage is smaller than one might prefer, and it is definitely not a perfect one, but it can do its various assigned jobs as expected.
Apply Geochemistry to the dunes: 9
Factotum stops a single drone on its tracks inside the mines, and orders it to go far, far into the border of the dunes. A quick analysis proves that this was once a sea floor. All of it. While this does not really concerns Factotum, the fact that this sand is not just desert sand does. It is an ancient seafloor, so it is seasand. This means that it is a good material for concrete production.
Status: Resources: Mining Resources: A little, Industrial resources: A little low. Energy status: 5/6. Drones: General Purpose: 50
Surroundings: On the shore of a hypersline dead ocean, that resides on the southern geological pole of the dune planet YUF-69-b. Pretty much everywhere one can look is the salt flats and growths of halogenic flora and toughened fauna that calls them home. A set of wind turbines, a mine entrance, and a drone assemblage had been placed some distance away from the ship, the turbines being close to the windy dunes.
Dominus
Send Drones to mine at the mountain savannas: 8
The idea of mining from the savannas proves to be a good one, as they are rich in resources. The only hurdle is the distance the drones have to travel to return the gathered resources back to the ship. The very much needed volatiles are not present, unfortunately. The savannas have much more diverse forms of life, such as tall, lanky tripod fauna with long eyestalks that eat from the silky strands of a black flora, and quadropedal predators that lurk around the tall shadowy weeds. No outwar aggression was observed, but their uneasiness is apparent.
Research Laser Applications: 3
Dominus, like every self-respecting A.I, is familiar with the conceot of lasers, but it fails to find any use of them besides the obvious measuring and targeting applications. The hazy atmosphere does not helps the situation.
Research alternate power options: 10
From following a stray line of thought from its initial pondering over lasers, Dominus realises a way to produce energy here. By separating a small pieces of its core, isolating them in an appopriate containment space and feeding them a continuous laser beam, it can perpetually hypercharge these mini-cores and generate energy at a very efficent rate. It's literally free energy!
Status: Mining Resources: Some, Industrial resources: Very low. Energy status: 5/4. Drones: General Purpose: 50, Large Scouting: 1
Surroundings: A dimly lit, densely vegeated desert terrain, under a hazy blue sky. The blue-grayish outlines of the nearby mountain ranges can be seen. A drone assemblage has been built nearby.
El Diablo
Start pit mining: 10
Although the mysterious distruptions are still pestering the drones, things go surprisingly well. El Diablo orders the mine to be wide and layered, so that even though one drone may fall, it will not be a fatal one. It appears that this particular spot was rich in resources too. The mine continously spirals further down as time goes on. So does the distruptions.
Research resource conservation: 3
El Diablo thinks on and fails to find a better way of resource conservation, not that it really matters in this scenario. It will be while before resource amount will become a real problem. Though it could have found a better way. It is starting to get a bit dizzy.
Construct perimeter wall using local resources: 1
The drones go on their mission of building using stones as material, and at least as normal as they can get to it. The interruptions are still a hassle, but it is still workable. Then, the ground rumbles. Sounds of loud steps fill the sensors as a group of large, ten limbed creatures emerge from the horizon. Six of their limbs are used in walking, while the front two pairs are much more nimble and small. Most striking observation about them is that they are wielding tools on their appendages and have some ornaments on them. They stop just before the mines and look down onto the bare soil and rock, then the uprooted trees and bushes, all the while inflating their throat pouches to make booming sounds. El Diablo finally makes out what they carry with them. Weapons and armor. One of the largest among them starts vocalising loudly, pushing and poking at the nearby drones as if it's threathening them. This is no peaceful first contact. Without warning they rush into the half built walls and start attacking the drones. El Diablo immidiately counterattacks.
Thankfully, the drones couldn't be overwhelmed. The technology El Diablo possesses is simply too advanced for these neolitihic natives to take down. After a brief struggle, they retreat and dissappear into the horizon, towards north as they carry their dead and injured. 12 drones were lost, while 5 sustained damage, but still function otherwise. The wall is completed afterwards.
Status: Status: Mining Resources: Adequate, Industrial resources: Low. Energy status: 5/5.5. Drones: General Purpose: 37
Surroundings: The calm shore of a sea, bordering an open savanna with sparsely sprinkled trees. A large wind turbine looms over, weakly spinning as the slow and shaky wind blows by. A cylindrical dome shaped storage facility is also closeby. A wise and spiraling mining pit is resides a little north, and the constructions are surrounded by a stone wall. Fauna mostly ignores the settlement, still keeping distance. Most of them, at least.
Sorry Zultan but I HAD to use my disgruntled native idea somewhere. A least they can't get to you that easily now.
Author
Topic: The Galaxy of Gray: An exploratory scifi RTD game (10/10) (Turn 3) (Read 2857 times)