Analyse all the footage the scout drone acquired whilst in captivity to help us design some jewellery that would be suitable for these "Saakin" to wear. This jewellery will have two key differences: The first is the symbol of our organisation (presumably we have one) to help teach the natives to associate it with us and our future allies. The second is a tiny embedded sensor, that we can hopefully use to snoop on the natives.
Once a developer drone has churned out a small amount, a scout drone should carry it back to the tribe and deposit it a respectful distance from the entrance, before backing off and letting the tribals claim the jewellery. Once the scout has confirmed this, it should return.
Both our developer drones should build a Drone Hub to expand our network, and we should requisition a pair of Flying Scout Drones to patrol the area beyond our perimeter sensors. Between them, the perimeter and the patrolling Ground Scout, we should hopefully be able to start building a catalogue of local flora/fauna.
Once the developer drones are done with the Hub, we need to set up a source of food. A mixture of Hydroponics, Aquaponics and Meat Cultures should give out colonists plenty of variety. Whether the mothership is in possession of a seed crop, or whether we are expected to source our plants and animals for this is unknown.
The two miners should continue to acquire minerals, along with their escort. The final two security drones should continue responding to perimeter breaches for the time being.
Finally, we should consider the possibility of turret defenses (essentially an immobile security drone), we could place them in the habitation watch towers so our colonists don't have to take guard duty, and we could place them within the perimeter so our security drones don't have to keep running all over the place.
In addition, perhaps it is worth building a refinery at the mineral site. That way the miners can spend the majority of their time mining and only occasionally return with a smaller quantity of usable minerals, compared to the higher volume of low-value ore.
Foundation Stage; Days 3-5The footage captured of the local "Saakin" is analysed in depth for anything regarding the jewelry the creatures wore, said jewelry proves to be predominantly very simple, bracelets and necklaces for the most part, and that is what the developer drone gets to work constructing. Fine detail is not necessarily the strong suit of the developer drones, and there are some small imperfections across the items, but they should likely be good enough. As a final touch the emblem of the emblem of Far-Tread Robotics, a simple 2D image of a a reaching robotic arm towards a planet, is carved into the Jewelry. Far-Tread Robotics was just one of several corporations the Astral Genesis Initiative outsourced too for the colonization program, but their logo is the only one clearly visible on all of the Drones, the "Saakin: would definitely have seen it. Also installed are tiny cameras and speakers, these extremely small devices are disguised in the few "gems" crafted among the jewelry, and rigged to run off the body heat of whatever is holding/wearing it, these should provide a degree of surveillance of the creatures, however they have a limited range, if the items end up being sent 40km away from the command post or any of the drones the you will lose contact with them.
Once this is completed the scout drone which had just been freed from the natives is sent back to carry these gifts to the tribe, however scout drones don't have very many tools for carrying objects, the most it has being a pair of very small retractable arms meant for gathering samples, so the amount it can bring with it is very limited. Fortunately it does not repeat the mistake from last time and no traps are entered, it also manages to deliberately be seen as it approaches, and near the cave a very large number of local hunters rush out to point their spears at the drone as it nears the cave. Neither it or you have any idea what a "respectable" distance would be for these creatures, or in general, manners weren't really a part of either of your programming, but you assume that they probably don't want the drone to come any closer an so it deposits the jewels about twenty metres away from the cave and then silently retreats.
When the locals work up the courage to take a look they seem confused by the gift, not immediately destroying it but they do break out into another small argument, with one of them picking up one of the jewels and pointing at the Far-tread Robotics logo (hey, they noticed!). Eventually it seems they settle for just storing them in a bag, perhaps for trade, but none of them seem currently very interested in wearing them, unfortunate, but at least they still get a little bit of recording, and from those recordings it seems the tribe is packing up to move.
Meanwhile the Developer drones (once they're done making the jewelry) get to work on expanding the drone network, drone hubs look a lot like the Command post, small rectangular objects stuck into the sand, thought hey are less than a third of the height of the command post, that work takes most of the day and night but eventually the finish and the new hubs are hooked up to your network. immediately afterwords another drone requisition is dispatched to Mothership, and that night two more shooting stars make their way to your growing base. The two new scout drones are substantially smaller than any of the other drones, and they are quickly put to use assisting the patrolling ground drone in cataloging the local biosphere. The work there proceeds fairly well over the next few days, with the Aerial drones capturing a great deal from far above, and the ground scout engaging in the more detailed observations.
This is definitely however still a desert, and so biodiversity is not particularly large with most local creatures being on the smaller sides, as well as a sizable number being airborne, the biggest animals appear to be the predatory snake-worms, and their presumably preferred prey, large six legged herbivores that seem to fill and ecological niche similar to Camels, and slightly smaller but well armored giant bug creatures, also herbivorous, though the amour doesn't seem to help much with the snake-worms. These scouts also manage to make some observations of the locals interaction with the biosphere, it would appear the six legged creatures can be domesticated, as the locals often use them as pack animals and even sometimes ride them. On a more concerning note is the ease with which a snake-worm ambushes and kills a local, a potential danger for the colonists.
Over the next few days meanwhile, the rest of the drones get on with their long term goals. With a newly expanded construction list the Developer drones get to work, establishing the start of a new food supply through construction of Hydroponics and Aquaponics, based off the river running through the perimeter, there is nothing yet being grown in them but the infrastructure for these farms is completed by day 4, with this done one of the drones gets to work on making some gun turrets for the habitation compound, while the other makes its way north to start construction on a refinery.
Meanwhile the southern scout continues its observations, but notes nothing of interest, it has not been detected but it continues to be unable to make new discoveries about the locals.
The miners meanwhile continues their business, occasionally visited by snake-worms, all of which end up backing off, as well as a variety of smaller creatures. However on the third day the Security drone escort notices a group of locals tailing the drones, they keep their distance and eventually lose interest, and so the drone ignores them. But then the next day the are back again, this time they follow the drones for much longer, but eventually lose interest again, this behavior however continues the next day, and shows no signs of stopping so far, in fact they even seem rather intrigued at the sight of the new construction drone making its way north. The natives have yet to actually approach the drones, but their surveillance might pose a problem in the future. This concern however is very soon made minuscule on the fifth day.
Interruption
A few hours after dawn on the sixth day, the perimeter sensors are tripped on the south side by a large number of creatures. This by now is not unusual, the security drones have done well enough at driving off anything that enters the perimeter that could be a that, and this has included a few herds of the hexapod creatures and the shelled ones, by now you simply send an Aerial drone to confirm if the creature is a threat before the drones are dispatched. However when one of the Aerial scouts goes to investigate this one, it finds something very unfortunate. A small band of natives riding the hexapod herbivorous had entered the perimeter, seven in number and heading straight for the center of the valley, most disconcertingly however was their members, most looked to be desert nomads, but two of them wore very different clothing, not the garb of the local desert nomads, instead they where adorned in much more ornate jewelry, and some rather brightly colored robes over their backs, the garb of the river folk.
This is a completely unacceptable breach of the perimeter, whatever possible policy taken int he future regarding these native, their presence at this moment is an immediate threat, the security drones are dispatched with haste, however they had at the time in some very unfortunate circumstances just scared of a particularly large snake-worm on the north side, and so their response is critically slowed. By the time they reach the natives they had already crested the hill of the river valley and where busy staring down at the large eight metre tall black obelisk of the Command Post, the large, walled off Habitation complex and the new farms. Said vantage point had also provided them with a clear view of the still working developer drones, and a perfect view of the rapidly approaching security drones, one of the river folk even appeared to be taking notes! As the drones got near the locals watched in curiosity and concern, until the drones began to open fire with their non-lethal dispersal weapons, rubber bullets flying from their shoulder cannons and a series of tear gas grenades where lobbed in the locals direction. This was clearly concerning for the locals, but far more concerning to their mounts, one of which quickly started to thrash about in a panic, eventually throwing its rider off its back, one of the desert folk, into the valley. Said rider hit the ground rather violently and rolled for quite a bit, and when they came to a halt halfway down the slope of the valley they didn't move again. The rest of the riders meanwhile took the hint and rapidly scattered, urging their mounts southwards where they quickly outpaced the pursuing drones, running in a near beeline straight for the south.
A single Aerial drone was dispatched, and even now it manages to obverse them quietly from a distance, they are running for the southern cities, by now they are just ten kilometres from the nearest city and have only made short stops to rest their beasts, but they show no signs of stopping for any longer, and the drone even observed one of the river folk in that camp pulling out a map and marking the base on it! At their speed the only units that could intercept them would be the scouts, which are not suited for combat and have no measures in place for non-lethal combat. The security drones meanwhile have managed to secure the rider that was thrown off, said creature is unconscious but alive, though you don't know the extent of their injuries due to a combination of having no medical units around and having absolutely no idea about the biology of these creatures.
A refinery at the mining site is now under construction but the route between the two is not secure and now being actively monitored by some locals, they haven't interfered yet or followed the small convoy to either the mining site or the base but that may change, and they have definitely noted its regularity.
The matter of what to put int he new farms is a bit more tricky. Standard procedure is for the Seeder Stage to terraform the planet before the deployment of the Frontier stage, this is meant to include the introduction of lifeforms compatible with human biology. Because of this you don't have any of the bio samples necessary to start the new farms, however the Biopod containing these is still in orbit with the Mothership, you could request is be deployed so as to provide you access to these Bio-Samples, however that would be loud, the Biopod is significantly larger than the Command Post, there is no real reason for this, but subtly was never a concern with the Astral genesis initiative, by coincidence the Command Post and drone pods are small enough to be a little bit stealthy when deployed at night, but if the Biopod is brought down it will defiantly be noticeable by the locals in the southern river cities, and quite possibly a bit beyond that.
Alternatively you could use the local lifeforms, however you don't currently have any way of discerning how comparable they would be with a human digestive system, a Medical drone could be deployed to investigate, but it still might not find anything suitable for colonists. Add to that the fact that the colonists may make some unreasonable demands about the "taste" of foods and want earth evolved lifeforms to eat anyway, the Biopod will likely eventually have to be brought down, but is now the right time for that?
Of course all of these are secondary compared to the immediate concern of what just happened at the base. These locals seem to be explorers form the south, and they not only observed your base, but also then watched your drones (indirectly) cause the possible death of one of their comrades, and from the look of it at least one of them is a cartographer who has now noted down the base location on, from what you could see, is a fairly accurate map.
You also still have said comrade under the watch of the security drones, but you have no idea if it will survive and even less about what to do with it if it does. A Medical Drone could be called down but even if it survives, you have nowhere to put it and no way to communicate with it.
Command Post (Secure)
Perimeter Sensors (Active)
Basic Habitation Compound (Secure)
-Attached Auto-Turrets (Active)
Drone Hub (2) (Secure)
Basic Farms (Secure) (Inactive)
Network Usage 12/21
3 Units of Security Drones (Active)
3 Units of Scout Drones (Active)
2 Units of Developer Drones (Active)
2 Units of Miner Drones (Active)
2 Units of Aerial Drones (Active)
Wow you guys got some seriously unlucky rolls for the perimeter sensors and the series of events that followed it, I had to at multiple points stop and try to think what actually would be appropriately bad with the dice rolls that where coming up, just wow.
Author
Topic: Colony Command (Read 9115 times)