Starbound — a hardcore survival adventure, part 2

In my last post we met my character — prophetically named The Doomed One — and did a little bit of underground adventuring, crafting, and core-fragment hunting before at last finding our way to the great space station and civilisation!

I had just met the man who would repair my ship once I completed the first dungeon and found some crystals that he needed, and he gave my snarky AI the coordinates to that dungeon so I could begin my quest.

I didn't go on that quest. Not yet.

I decided to return to my planet and set up a quick little farm so I could have a regular food source, and I needed to find some gold ore to craft into ingots so I could get my last early-game upgrade on my person.

I finally found enough gold, turned it into ingots, and returned to the Man of Science.

And now, as well as double-jump and dash, I can turn myself into a little ball to get into otherwise inaccessible areas. Muahaha!

Now, I need to find Tungsten for my next armour upgrade. Unfortunately there is none on my current planet, and I'm unable to go to any other planets or systems or anything until I repair my ship. 😅

It was time... to brave the Erchius Mining Facility...

Taking a deep breath, I activated the mission, and set forth.

After very slowly killing a couple of flesh-vomiting monsters, I found a survivor who was shocked I was here. Why would I come here? he asks. You're crazy, he declares.

Yes, I am. Crazy! My ship needs to be repaired, dammit!

I found more survivors who warned me that their friends had gone in the direction I'm planning on going and that they had never returned. Beware!

My snarky AI was also warning me, telling me that my death seemed to be approaching. Grandmother Protector interjected and apologised for the AI's behaviour. Damned AI.

The AI was wrong. WRONG.

For, with the power of my dash and double-jump, I was able to dodge, duck, dash, dive and dodge the boss's laser beams as I shot mining lasers into its underbelly. The main danger was the flesh-vomiting monsters it released, but I managed to kill one and ignore the other while running around flailing.

Soon, the monster was destroyed. All was well. I had survived. There was much rejoicing. The workers were rejoicing, I was rejoicing, and now I was able to get my ship repaired!

I raced back to the space station to He Who Would Repair My Ship, and then got waylaid by a little penguin fellow.

Apparently he was in the mech business and after I completed a few training sessions with his mech I was able to install it into my ship for my very own!

Now that my ship had been repaired, I could explore the system I started in.

First things first though, I went exploring the moons of the system with my little mech and fueled up my ship. I still need to find a few things for the little penguin fella to upgrade my mech again to have better weaponry... until then, I'm running away from all dangers. xD

I don't need fuel to explore the system I'm in, only when I jump to another system, but I thought it would be a good idea to have her all fueled up and ready to go!

With that sorted, I needed to find a planet with Tungsten on it.

Pretty much every planet in my system had Tungsten on it. xD Except for the one I started on, of course.

There were two desert planets and another forest planet, and I zoomed to the outer edge of the system towards the forest planet. It had a 'moderate' threat, but so did the others. At least I wouldn't have to worry about sand caving in on me. Or dust storms.

Within mere moments of being on this new planet, I found a structure with a crate on top. Inside the crate was a small handful of what I sought. Tungsten ore. 😁

That was a promising start to this new leg of my journey.

I continued exploring the planet's surface and found a little house. I really liked the look of their cooking pot, so I stole it.

Turns out I really did steal it because the villagers surrounding the house all yelled at me and started chasing me. xD

So I high-tailed it out of there then walled myself off from their feeble attempts to get at me. Muahaha. But no, really. I'm sorry that I made them angry. xD I didn't realise stealing was a thing in this game. Woops.

So, exiled by the people of this planet for stealing their cooking pot, I traversed down into the bowels of the planet and found heaps and heaps of Tungsten Ore, and also some oil! Which I sucked up with my handy tool.

Tungsten and Oil were exactly what I needed. Once I had gathered what I believed to be a sizeable amount, I zoomed back to my Starter Planet Base and checked out the crafting tables.

And I had collected mooore than enough Tungsten! 😁 I made a new, stronger Hunting Bow, and a full set of Scavenger's Armour.

While looking through my crafting tables, I also see that Tungsten is used in a few assorted crafting recipes, like for making wearable lanterns and moth traps so I have a source of silk. I keep note of that for when I decide to set up my proper base.

I was now all geared up and ready to explore. I would really like some new weapons, though. At the moment I'm shooting everything with my hunting bow, but from memory, sometimes you'll come across groups of cultists or bandits or escaped prioners and things and they all have assault rifles. 🤣

I don't think my bow will be much use against them.

My next little mini-goal is to find a nicer planet to call my home. This one is all well and good, but it's too "Earth-like". I like the look of that other forest planet I found, but it's covered in toxic pools and has a lot of venom-spitting animals. Plus, I annoyed the people who already live there, haha!

Hopefully I find something pretty quickly; I really want to set down my planetary base and get everything all set up. Have a proper home to work on before I inevitably perish.

We'll see how it goes!

 

Until next time! 😊

 

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_{All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game: Starbound.}