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[King Zultan]

Oh dang we've been upgraded, look at that fancy vote box.


Also I refuse to change my vote even if no one else cares about my suggestion I still do!

[KittyTac]

(I waited to update for a while because there was discussion going on.)

You decide to upgrade the sensors, only to run into a problem: the sensors are outside of the sealed room. That is not a problem: you program the nanobot dispenser to disassemble part of the wall. As soon as the last micrometer is reached, the sensors detect a slight vibration that then stops. Looks like there was air here that just vented into the void-- but that's not a big deal, since you are a being of silicon and electrons, not flesh and blood. Millions of nanobots got carried away by the current, to be lost forever, but that's not a big deal either.

The remaining nanobots, their endless microscopic hordes replenished, being to work on improving the sensors' sensitivity and resolution by adding a small dish that can swivel.

While the upgrades, which take about two weeks given your current nanobot production and command capacity, are going on, you decide to read the attached technical manual, for ideas. You absorb the complicated formulae and descriptions of exotic phenomena, as well as a few example blueprints... and get the following ideas:
1) Perhaps you might want to improve your nanofabricator, for if something time-critical happens...
2) Your energy will eventually run out given the small size of the blackbox, if there are any sources within the void, you might want to seek them out.
3) Your current and upgraded sensors have limited penetration through the kind of rock this asteroid seems to be composed of. Exploration of anything that may be hidden there will require mining.
4) Your computing power, while large, is not enough to comprehend more currently. Upgrade to access more hints.

Then, the upgrade concludes, using the disassembled wall material.




The dish sweeps across the void. There is the faintest hint of some kind of mostly infrared radiation, a point a massive distance away, but the rest of space is still black as ever, with no detectable radiation.

What now?

Spoiler: Rooms (click to show/hide)

Default room
- Thin steel walls (breached)
- Small AI Core (that is you) with tech info SSD attached
- Tier 1 Nanofabricator
- Tier 2 Sensors
- Hyperconductor Blackbox

[King Zultan]

Lets upgrade that nanobot making thing since we'll probably need more of those to get anything done in a timely manner.

[a1s]

I think our short-to-medium term priority is finding a source of energy. Making a bigger fabricator is somewhat at odds with that idea (as it will consume more energy.) On the other hand it will allow us to make stuff faster so maybe it's more energy efficient. Something to think about.
I'm guessing that thing that makes a faint infra-red signal is not fit to be exploited for solar power?
Then we should mine.

mining drone (1) a1s
better nanofabricator (1) King Zultan

[UristMcRiley]

mining drone (2) a1s, UristMcRiley
better nanofabricator (1) King Zultan

[Superdorf]

Scan the surrounding vacuum. Any drifting hydrogen in this area we could use for combustion/fusion?

[Egan_BW]

Manually dig the area around our Body using nanobots, fanning out so that we can get a scan through the rock. Keep going until it's out of reach for the nanofab or we find something interesting.

[King Zultan]

Don't know why we waited a turn to make the mining drones.

mining drone (3) a1s, UristMcRiley, King Zultan
better nanofabricator (0)
Scanning for hydrogen (1) Superdorf
Manually digging (1) Egan_BW

[crazyabe]

mining drone (4) a1s, UristMcRiley, King Zultan, Crazyabe
better nanofabricator (0)
Scanning for hydrogen (1) Superdorf
Manually digging (1) Egan_BW

[KittyTac]

Updating tomorrow, sorry had a particularly hard test.

[wierd]

What is the giant rock underneath us made of?

Many varieties of rock are rich in hydrogen, which may provide us with an energy source via fusion.

[KittyTac]

You cannibalize a large part of the wall, as well as some rock, to make a mining drone with a small scanner, adhesive treads and small emergency thrusters for if it gets accidentally thrown into space. It is large due to the necessary batteries and motor, and takes a few weeks to make, but it should be much more efficient than nanobot mining. You don't have the resources to spare to manually mine while doing so.


Meanwhile, you scan the surrounding space for hydrogen. If there is any, your scanners are not good enough to find it...

Once the drone is finished, you gently drive it off the roof and watch as it slowly sinks towards the rocky surface of the asteroid. You command it to dig, and very soon (compared to the time needed to build it), it runs into a large chunk of what seems to be ore of some kind, and its drill is unable to penetrate it. What now?



You analyze some of the porous rock that went flying in the almost-zero gravity, and found that it contains a sizable amount of hydrogen, but your nanobots are not enough to determine an exact percentage.

What now?

Spoiler: Rooms (click to show/hide)

Default room
- Thin steel walls (opened)
- Small AI Core (that is you) with tech info SSD attached
- Tier 1 Nanofabricator
- Tier 2 Sensors
- Hyperconductor Blackbox

Outside
- Tier 1 Mining Drone
- Ore vein

[King Zultan]

We need to grab that stuff before it floats off into space, maybe we should build some kind of grabber drone.

[TurboDwarf]

Lets use nanobots to break down the chunk of ore, so we can collect it later.

[a1s]

We might want to look for Helium-3 too, or refine deuterium (Hydrogen-1 is actually pretty useless for fusion.)

We need to grab that stuff before it floats off into space, maybe we should build some kind of grabber drone.

we could quickly make a nano-fiber net to catch excess material exiting from the mine.