Build-A-Base Workshop 13

[QP Evergrande]

...I have too much time on my hands.

I just thought I'd quickly put together what I imagine when I think of a survey shuttle to start this kind of round off. We should have a cargo bay and something like this, and that's it. The more we have to build, the more fun it will be. So of course, this shuttle has pretty much everything we should need to get started.

A few weapons in that security locker, a few medical supplies, a pile of mining equipment, various toolboxes (multiple of each), the mechanics' reverse engineering machines. Those two identical-looking manufacturers are a gas extraction machine in the corner, and the other is a mining manufacturer. And, of course, eight canisters of air, and eight crates which all together should have, I think, 400 sheets of glass and 1200 sheets of metal. The glass probably won't see a lot of use in construction. We're going to need a lot of molitz to produce O2 cannisters. Oh, and I just learned while looking into that thing, there's no way to produce nitrogen gas. Which makes sense. It's essentially useless. Except now it's not. We're going to need a way to make a hell of a lot of it, or our station is going to be extremely flammable. Maybe make it from viscerite? Organic tissue has at least some nitrogen in it.

The cockpit has a printer in it, to print off alerts from CentCom. I figure, we deserve to have a little warning about what's coming each however long. The shuttle can serve as a comm array until we can build one for the station itself. But since the shuttle isn't connected to the station (I'm thinking it should float a short distance from the cargo bay) the shuttle's array won't be usable for contacting QM traders.

The pod bay, in retrospect I should have made the table a single space, with only the weapons, since there's so much equipment available on the shuttle, and put a pod manufacturer in the other space. But the pod bay should definitely start with a mining drill and a linked phaser array for each pod, so we can choose between defense and production as needed.

And speaking of defense, I would love it if each of those green terminals and the cockpit controls would allow us to control one of the nine weapon arrays this shuttle is equipped with. Defending the shuttle should be part of the round. Unlike with the normal arrival and escape shuttles, the nose of this shuttle should not be invincible. And if it takes enough damage, the shuttle explodes, taking with it most of the supplies and equipment we haven't used yet, and possibly damaging the station itself. Otherwise, the shuttle should just leave on its own once the station reaches a certain level of development.

And considering the size and capabilities of this shuttle, it would seem weird if it weren't actually functional. Which is why I added a power generator to the engineering room in the back. It's a plasma furnace... made by taking the thermoelectric generator and sticking the front hatch of the arc smelter on one side of it. Maybe make it an additional possible power source for the station, if it could be scanned and constructed. It's fairly simple. Give it a control panel that lets you set how fast it takes in plasma and oxygen. It burns them together, and uses that to spin a turbine. Then it vents the exhaust gas out of that vent in the back, and heat along with it. This kind of generator is not meant to replace the thermoelectric generator. In fact, it should be very limited in the amount of power it can produce in exchange for taking a long time to burn through its fuel. This is because it should generate a significant amount of heat, so if it isn't run slowly it'll make the shuttle uninhabitable. It should also be prone to exploding like a tank transfer bomb when damaged.