Thursday Night
I have to admit, a proper night not only makes the game more interesting, thanks to low night-time visibility, but it makes the game beautiful at times. The sight of my asteroid-based shipyard, looking almost like it was decorated with Christmas tree lights, was a sight to behold. Keep in mind this is what it looks like during the day, in the shadows. Sadly, I didn't think to turn off the HUD.
@Old Duck was having better than normal internet that evening, so he risked a visit to my base.
One of the more novel aspects of his ship is a small-grid drill that can be deployed through the utility hatch on the ship's belly. It can also be used for other things, such as dropping or retrieving satellites.
Eventually, we needed to return to our tasks at hand, so he jumped out:
I, meanwhile, launched my refueling rocket, in a bid to return to the surface. As I drifted to my "insertion point," I flipped the ship over to view the asteroid cluster I'm based in. It's about halfway above "Mars"... I think.
As my ship plummeted to the surface, I kept an eye on the ice lake, waiting for the inevitable ugly scar to appear. It didn't. I did notice the shadows of several asteroids moving across the surface of the planet, as the sun moved across the sky behind me.
The parachute worked as expected, and my Dragonfly recovered the rocket, attaching it to its launching arm. I decided to attach two pairs of large hydrogen tanks, since I had extra lift capacity. This allows it to carry 2.5 million liters of H2... or about 1/6th the capacity of a single large grid large tank.
Rocket prepared, I then turned my attention to filling it. It was time to build a mining rig, since mining with the Dragonfly would take forever. Night quickly fell, and as I waited for my on-site assembler to spit out a batch of parts, I saw a sight that caused me to turn off my suit's light, so I could see the phenomenon properly: the starry sky, reflected on the icy surface of the lake around me. The alien planet's "auroras" made it appear even more otherworldly.
Eventually, I got the drill set up. Once it started running, it didn't take long at all for it to fill up all the storage I'd set up. H2 takes a lot of power and time to produce from ice, so after making sure the on-site power supply was sufficient, I logged out for the night.
Friday Morning
I was quite happy to discover that everything had been processed, the tanker was full of fuel... and the main hydrogen tanks were at 11%. I wanted to build some living quarters at the launch pad, so I drove the Ant over to my hidden base, and filled it to capacity with about 40 tons of iron, plus a ton of nickel and 3 tons of silicon.
Night came quickly, though. Sadly, I didn't think to take a screen shot... primarily thanks to my ice mining rig turning out to be a fair bit more finicky than I'd hoped. I'd originally planned to do most of the mining below the surface of the ice. Sadly, I had to enlarge the original hole, thanks to increasing amounts of "clang" as drill head angle increased. Between tending the drill, and working on the "foundations" of my living quarters, dawn came quickly, and I was treated to the sunrise. Again, I feel like the screen shot doesn't to justice to what I saw in the game.
Once the drill had filled all available storage, I shut down the rig, and called it a morning. It was time to face the adventures of real life.
I have to admit, a proper night not only makes the game more interesting, thanks to low night-time visibility, but it makes the game beautiful at times. The sight of my asteroid-based shipyard, looking almost like it was decorated with Christmas tree lights, was a sight to behold. Keep in mind this is what it looks like during the day, in the shadows. Sadly, I didn't think to turn off the HUD.
@Old Duck was having better than normal internet that evening, so he risked a visit to my base.
One of the more novel aspects of his ship is a small-grid drill that can be deployed through the utility hatch on the ship's belly. It can also be used for other things, such as dropping or retrieving satellites.
Eventually, we needed to return to our tasks at hand, so he jumped out:
I, meanwhile, launched my refueling rocket, in a bid to return to the surface. As I drifted to my "insertion point," I flipped the ship over to view the asteroid cluster I'm based in. It's about halfway above "Mars"... I think.
As my ship plummeted to the surface, I kept an eye on the ice lake, waiting for the inevitable ugly scar to appear. It didn't. I did notice the shadows of several asteroids moving across the surface of the planet, as the sun moved across the sky behind me.
The parachute worked as expected, and my Dragonfly recovered the rocket, attaching it to its launching arm. I decided to attach two pairs of large hydrogen tanks, since I had extra lift capacity. This allows it to carry 2.5 million liters of H2... or about 1/6th the capacity of a single large grid large tank.
Rocket prepared, I then turned my attention to filling it. It was time to build a mining rig, since mining with the Dragonfly would take forever. Night quickly fell, and as I waited for my on-site assembler to spit out a batch of parts, I saw a sight that caused me to turn off my suit's light, so I could see the phenomenon properly: the starry sky, reflected on the icy surface of the lake around me. The alien planet's "auroras" made it appear even more otherworldly.
Eventually, I got the drill set up. Once it started running, it didn't take long at all for it to fill up all the storage I'd set up. H2 takes a lot of power and time to produce from ice, so after making sure the on-site power supply was sufficient, I logged out for the night.
Friday Morning
I was quite happy to discover that everything had been processed, the tanker was full of fuel... and the main hydrogen tanks were at 11%. I wanted to build some living quarters at the launch pad, so I drove the Ant over to my hidden base, and filled it to capacity with about 40 tons of iron, plus a ton of nickel and 3 tons of silicon.
Night came quickly, though. Sadly, I didn't think to take a screen shot... primarily thanks to my ice mining rig turning out to be a fair bit more finicky than I'd hoped. I'd originally planned to do most of the mining below the surface of the ice. Sadly, I had to enlarge the original hole, thanks to increasing amounts of "clang" as drill head angle increased. Between tending the drill, and working on the "foundations" of my living quarters, dawn came quickly, and I was treated to the sunrise. Again, I feel like the screen shot doesn't to justice to what I saw in the game.
Once the drill had filled all available storage, I shut down the rig, and called it a morning. It was time to face the adventures of real life.
