No more energy issues! I found a uranium source not far from the landing site.
As described in our briefing documents this system appears to be rich of resources. So far I had only found iron deposits above ground. Today I started another low altitude recon flight of the area and scanned below the planet surface using the ore detector. I was about to give up and return back when the scanner reported several deposits: magnesium, silicium - and uranium!
Relying on the solar panels alone the recharging process took several hours to gather just enough energy for a short flight of about 15-20 minutes. Doing a complete survey of the surroundings would have taken days if not weeks - this discovery should speed up the process considerably.
With a cargo hold full of rocks and uranium ore, however, the small ship became quite unstable. I damaged three out of six forward thrusters when steering the ship back out of the drilling hole (which went about 40 meters below ground).
Luckily the ship design is sufficient for returning back in case of small damages like this one. Not bad for something made out of damaged parts and a bit of scrap metal!
After repairs the ship is good to go again. I should do something about the thrusters though which seem slightly underpowered with the added weight of all the cargo.
But first things first. Processing the uranium ore in the lander refinery takes a lot of time and for recharging the ship batteries I also need a nuclear reactor connected to the landing platform.
Without the required silver for assembling new reactor components I had only one option. The existing lander ship reactor had to be dismantled for transferring it to the lander platform. It took me the rest of the day to do that but now it's finally up and running again and there is plenty of energy for the ship batteries now.
As the lander is now only running on batteries and 2 solar panels, I will also have to move refining and production to the landing platform.
I will need a lot more facilities on the ground.
I need to build a base.
I'm a computer gamer.
I like sandbox games.
Sandbox games often don't have much of a storyline. But you can always invent your own.
This is the story of an engineer and his journey.
This is my story of playing Space Engineers.
It is a diary and it is a game walkthrough. But most of all it is meant to be fun.
I hope you will like it.
Previous journal entries:
Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5