Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition (26 page)

Much like piloting the ship, the mining controls use two sticks; but also two pedals on the floor. One stick is to control the drill's position, and allows me to twist the stick in order to pull it forward and backwards. The pedals are used to increase speed or decrease it (brake). That's required because drilling into most things generates a whole hell lot of fiction, and thus heat. Too much, and the drill bit can melt or break.

We don't want that to happen.

Thankfully ice is perfect to train in space mining, being both soft and a natural coolant.

The other stick controls the arms. They are partially automated, so simply use the stick to move them around and target a good chunk and it'll grab, put it in the open hold and then return all by itself. It only takes seconds.

And this time we get lucky, too. The drill starts into the asteroid, and almost instantly it starts to crack. I apply more pressure and speed; watching the RPS (rotation per second) and the heat go up; even as chunks start being spit from it.

Hell yeah!

I grab it, and it’s in the hold. .2 tons of water ice! Hell yeah!

We all whoop at that, and the guys on the station send their congrats only moments later.

Now we are in business!

It only takes thirty minutes or so to fill up the 8 ton capacity of the cargo hold, and I let Luke fly us back to the station.

We are going to store it and return for as much as we can get. We still have a long way to go, and a lot of people are depending on us getting this done.

This is only a start. A good start, but still only a start. There is still far too much to do!

We need more people! More space! More power! More materials!

We need it to survive, and to let the other survives.

There is no time to waste, and I'm all but kicking myself in my mind for being unable to go faster. To do more.

That's the whole weight of an entire race of people on my shoulders. A big burden.

So why am I grinning?

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Fun Fact #9: Asteroid Mining, also called Minor Planetary Body Mining, is thought to be the third most efficient means of resource gathering ever conceived.  The second is full planetary mining, e.i. Dead Space ‘planet cracker’ style.  The first on the list is Solar Mining, ala Star Forge… but more about that later, ‘kay?

It has been two days since we gathered our first successful haul from mining a large icy asteroid. Things have been progressing smoothly on the Station.

First up, the living quarters. We stripped down the unusable tug. We removed its storage hold, engines, power core, fuel tanks along with its mining drill and the tug 'arms'. All that is really left of it is the hull, life support, and a Bub. We even pulled out the scrapped computer and control console on the second floor, and set about expanding its interior space by removing the walls that were part of the storage.

Putting in new flooring by using our stock of metal plates and making sure everything is air tight was fairly easy. With that, we now have enough space for another set of bunk beds on the bottom floor, and three of them on the top.

We actually had to raid some of the single rooms on the station for them.

The only thing from the pilot console we left in the thing was basically the radio. Everything else is run from the small computer terminal we rebuilt on the outside, just to one side of the airlock. The scrapped tug has been turned into a barracks capable of housing a maximum of ten people working on various shifts.

An increase of space by eight beds. It’s a pretty big achievement.

Too bad it’s dwarfed by what we used the systems from the tug for. Heh. It’s a crazy thing, but I'm hoping it'll provide us with something we desperately need.

An efficient way of going back and forth from the station to Drune.

Hahaha. I call it the Hauler.

Okay, so it’s basically a box, with the stripped down engine on the back. It has a rough but ready cockpit, with seating for one, with minimum life support and gravity. And one of the tug's arms mounted in such a way that it’s used as a trailer hitch.

That's right people, I built a freakin' SPACE TRAIN!!!

It isn't able to fly as far or as fast as the Tug is, but it is able to haul a whole lot more. Because we've welded several empty crates together to create large sized containers. Link them together, have the Hauler grab on to the leading container, and it's able to pull them all out into space.

Current hauling capacity is just under 240 tons! That's a huge amount of materials that dwarfs anything else we currently have access too. The downside is that it’s not really an atmospheric craft. If it were going to a regular planet, it wouldn't have the engine power to survive reentry.

Thankfully Drune has almost no atmosphere to speak of. All it needs to do is slow down enough to land in Site Prime's hangar.

And it already has. I drove it my damned self to make sure.

I got the Small Ship Piloting Aptitude for my troubles, along with a handful of Aspects usable with it. It was a big boost, and the increase in skill allows me to go further, faster and with less fuel.

The Piloting Aspect deals directly with my ability to fly the ship. Boosted with other linked 'sub-Aspects', I'm more deft at drawing out maneuverability and other engine abilities.

The System Aspect allows me to have a much greater, and much finer control of the ship's systems. Tied with efficiency and boosting sub-Aspects, I can go faster and use less fuel or energy; as well as reducing the power consumption of life support and other ship systems.

Ah, I'll explain that real quick, since I've only given a rough description of how the Aspects work.

The term 'Aspect Web' describes a group of chained together Aspects. It starts with the primary, usually an Action, like Piloting. From there, you link up what I've coined as 'sub-Aspects'. These Aspects aren't actions in and of themselves, and instead provide boosts to the primary. They increase either its ability with boosting Aspects, or reduce its rate of consumption through the use of efficiency Aspects.

Example:

[Primary] Piloting Aspect ← [Sub-Aspects] Flying Aspect ← Control Aspect ← Boost Aspect

From there, you add more groups of linked sub-Aspects. Like so:

[Primary] Piloting Aspect ← [Sub-Aspects] Control Aspect ← Boost Aspect

← [Subs] Hauling Capacity ← Expand Aspect ← Maximize Aspect

Now, each group of sub-Aspects can influence a single thing. In the previous example, Hauling Capacity is tied to the Piloting Aspect, but the Expand and Maximize boosting aspects after it only affect the Hauling Capacity Aspect, and not the Piloting Aspect directly. The same holds true to the Control Aspect and its Boost Aspect. Only the Control Aspect is 'Boosted', which provides a bigger bonus to Control, which is carried over to the Piloting Aspect.

My Web actually looks more like this currently:

[Primary] Piloting Aspect ← [Sub-Aspects] Control Aspect ← Concentration ← Boost Aspect

← [Subs] Hauling Capacity ← Expand Aspect ← Maximize Aspect

← Learning ← Fast

← Understanding ← Grow

← Thinking ← Processing

← Efficiency ← Maximize ← Boost ← Stability

The end result is several different boosts. With my piloting skill I can haul more cargo, while learning the job faster. And finally there's the directly linked Efficiency Aspect and its associated boosts. That reduces the mental stress, and thus the costs on my Psi and Stamina while I fly.

You will also note that a few of those sub-Aspects were used more than once. An Aspect can be used a number of times in a single web equal to their level +1. So a Level 1 Aspect can be used twice. A Level 2 can be used 3 times, and so on.

The System Aspect Web follows the same line as the Primary. It has different bonuses and boosts and efficiency aspects tied to it following different lines in the web. Then both the Piloting and System Aspects are tied to the Small Ship Piloting Aptitude in its two size slots.

As of yet I haven't found a way to connect Primary Aspects together, even though I have tried to do so. Either something or missing or the system keeps it from being so to rule out abuse.

In truth, the Aspect Web could be even more complex. If you have enough levels for your Aspects, you can create Secondary Aspects in the web and then both boost and make them more efficient. I'm not at that point yet, although I have experimented with it.

And so on and so forth. I love this system.

The last thing to keep in mind is that you can reuse the Aspects in other webs. They aren't used up in a single web, and there's no real limit to the number of webs you can create based around the actions you can do. Even if you don't have the Aptitude for them, you can still create the skills, basically.

Anyway!

Andrix was rather surprised when I radioed down that I was on my way, and while it was still a long bout of flying by myself, it was a real joy seeing Andrix's face as I flew the Space Train into the hangar.

Along with its long train of enlarged cargo containers.

Hundreds of tons worth of materials! Hundreds of thousands of e-creds worth of stuff. Including over 50 tons of ice for them to process.

We still weren't able to do that up on the station. At least in these large quantities.

I actually still have Luke and Celes out in the field right now, mining some more.

I spent a couple of hours planetside, walking through the shelter site with Andrix again. The first hydroponics tanks are up and running. Silene was kind enough to open one of them for me to take a look.

The smell was almost unbearable, but the blue-green algae growing in thick mats under the water more than made up for it. So far it’s only about 1% of their oxygen needs for the life support; but it is already helping.

The greenhouses were likewise in a fit. The new crops were already coming up, and everyone was really happy with what was being grown.

One of the greenhouses had been converted into a nursery for flowers and trees. Purely for enjoyment. And grasses. The thing is like a large enclosed garden. Some buds are already coming out as well, in all sorts of colors.

There's a definite change in the mood. Most people are smiling readily now, and everyone seems more relaxed.

Getting the Hauler unloaded takes longer, but there are more hands to do the work. I also tell Andrix that we can take a few more people up to the Station.

Once again, it’s a fight to figure out who to take. Techs vs. Miners vs. Manufacturers.

While we could take about another 8, I decide only on six new guys, including another guard. With Luke currently flying, we need someone who can actually use a gun on the station. Just in case.

Too bad the Hauler only has enough space for one in the ship itself. The rest are hauled into space in one of the containers. The containers are reusable, so I take them with me.

Unloaded, they have far less weight and mass, so I'm able to put the pedal to the metal.

We make it back to the Station in only a little over ten hours.

These new people have the same issues as the original crew did, and we all get a bit of a laugh at them. By now, people are bouncing around and working on various projects, getting our own small community on the space station up and going.

Including what looks to be two new Mining Tugs, and a larger ship that I don't recognize.

Yep, I'd sent these guys with a dozen bots to scour the hangar bay in the other direction from where I'd originally found my first Tug. Using the Tug and flying was a whole lot easier than trying to go through the station's corridors.

“What's the new ship? It seems to be in pretty good condition.” I ask to one of the women mechanics who'd come over to do a check on the Hauler and start the repairs and/or optimizations of it.

“Ah, Boss. It seems your hunch was right. There are proper mining ships up here. This is one we've found. Go and check it out while I'll work on this POS.”

She's short and to the point, but that's quite alright with me. I prefer having people who are interested in staying busy and do the work they enjoy. So I make my way over to the new ship.

It’s about twice as large as a regular Tug. Definitely twice as long, and maybe just a bit smaller than that on the width and height. Three stories tall, give or take.

This one lacks any sort of arms, but instead I can see an aperture near the front of the ship. Aaah! A tractor beam! Cool!

Wow, this ship has a whole bunch of new toys.

I check around its exterior and then go through the airlock. It’s hooked up to power already, and inside there are people scrambling around.

“Hey guys. What have we got here?” I ask almost as soon as I step inside.

“Yo Boss. This thing is a beaut! Dual mining lasers, tractor beam, and an 80 ton storage hold. Crew of four, including a full living compartment similar to the tugs. Engines and systems to match. Oh, and a pre-Foundry.”

The one who answers is a guy who's taken a tentative lead in organizing the mechanics and technicians. They tend to not mingle much between themselves, so there’s often friction when they come against each other during work. But this guy has many of the skills for both. So far he's been able to do good work in organizing these mixed nuts.

“Cool. Pre-Foundry? Care to explain?”

“Okay, let me see. Ah. It starts the processing of many of the materials you can mine out of asteroids. It isn't a full system, though. Mostly it's used to remove the rock from the raw ore, like a separator. Except in this case the ores are also slightly cooked, so their purity goes up from the standard intake. It also lessens the work on the primary foundries or smelter units that get them. And since mass is removed during the process, we’re able to get more useful material per run, a very significant amount over time.”

Oooooh! I nod my head. Sounds like a good thing to me!