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// Chapter 3: Geocorp 
// Story: Mystic Machinery: Industry is Magic 
// by Conglomerate 
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With Titanite importation squared away, I could now move on to working with Geocorp, their technology would be essential for all my future operations. Provided I could actually fabricate their fabricator of course.

My previous experience with the fabrication of the Venture fabricator made me cautious. At least a Venture one was of similar size to a GSO fabricator, but a Geocorp one, those things were massive, as was typical for most Geocorp blocks, and that was an issue. GSO fabricators just weren’t designed to handle such loads, and neither were Venture fabricators. I had no idea what might happen if I were to try and force another fabrication.

Perhaps I could do some tinkering, if GSO fabricators weren’t designed to fabricate Geocorp blocks, then I’ll just alter the design. Now actually doing that wasn’t as easy as you would think, fabricators themselves were designed to prevent tinkering, their blueprints were hard locked to prevent any modifications during the fabrication process. Mostly, the fact that I managed to fabricate something from Venture attested to that. Still, the main problems arose from the limitations of the fabricator itself, which meant I had to do something so that the fabrication would actually go through.

An interesting conundrum, but one with a possible work around. If I couldn’t alter the design of the fabricator during its fabrication, then I’ll just alter it afterwards.

That also wasn’t easy, but opening up a few panels was a much better alternative than trying to crack the code to an encrypted schematic. I quickly fabricated a new fabricator, and went about trying to open it up. In the age of techs, accessible designs had long since faded out, meaning I had to tear away the entire back plating of the fabricator just to access it.

Its juicy insides were not all that complicated, though I was in no way an expert. My general understanding combined with my limited manipulation wouldn’t be making this easy either. So with great difficulty, I crossed some wires and removed some limiters, hoping that whatever I was doing would work.

With my bootleg modifications complete, all I needed to do now was to amass the resources necessary to fabricate a Geocorp fabricator. It just needed some Titanite, which was now the easiest to get, some Plumbite, Carbite, and some Rodite.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to bring much with me in my rush to escape, not to mention I didn’t have much stored in the first place, so I was missing most of the required materials. Fortunately, I knew several locations where these materials could be harvested, so I could just go out and get some. There was also the fact that the areas weren’t very populated, at least from what I saw, so that was a plus.

I still wasn’t too fond of travelling far just yet, I was in a very vulnerable position, but this endeavor would certainly aid in the matter, so it would be worth it. I geared up the plane for a little mining expedition, and took off.

There was no way for me to make it all in one trip, which was a little disappointing, but it certainly wouldn’t take as long as the receiver did. With that in mind, I began to fly in the direction of the first location, one of the Plumbite fields nearby.

As with most of my flights, it was pretty uneventful, which gave me the time to get a lay of the land, and possibly plan out how I’m going to do things. Along the way to the Plumbite zone, the surface was calm, with rolling hills and plenty of trees and grass. Though it gave no indication of what may lay below, this area certainly seemed like a more easier place to tunnel through.

The same could not be said for the next area. The direct pathway to the Rodite location was a mess. Rock and stone littered the ground, with large boulders peeking through every now and then. This gave a little more inkling as to what the underground consisted of, and while it probably wouldn’t be an issue to drill through, it would take longer, and tunneling through rocks that breached the surface would be a dead giveaway. This would certainly put a hamper on my progress, but for now I just needed to grab the materials.

Collecting the Carbite was much easier, even though the trips were all pretty much the same. The landscape was of the same nature of the Plumbite location, so from up in the sky it was shaping up to be an easy dig, though there was no way for sure to know what lay below the surface yet.

With that in mind, and now that I had the materials necessary, I went about preparing for the fabrication. This time I spared no expense, I made a second extra fabricator just in case things got outrageously destructive. I lined the modified one with a wall of blocks each equipped with a repair bubble and plenty of batteries. I set up the whole thing away from my base as well, making sure to build a secondary wall between them.

Just in case. You never know what might happen.

And so I was ready to fabricate. Loading up all the materials, it didn’t even get halfway through the load before it gave a distress signal. I quickly overrode it, and the next few ingots were packed in. The last one physically couldn’t fit inside, and I was forced to jam it in with an inserter. The fabricator’s storage compartment bulged outwards, but it held.

Then it began fabricating, the assemblers inside processing the insane volume. Slowly of course, it took well over ten minutes for it just to get a third of the way done, and it started slowing down even further partway through. The machine was failing, the storage was overstressed, and the assemblers were wearing down, but with a few bouts of percussive maintenance, it kept on chugging.

Eventually, after nearly an hour of fabricating, it gave the completion signal. And yet, nothing popped out, the Fabricator simply went still.

Now, I’m sure you’ve been taught to never look down the barrel of a gun, especially if it’s jammed or loaded. So the first thing I did was look down the output of the fabricator, it wasn’t like I had to be in front of it to do so. There was something obviously jammed in there, stuck against the walls and refusing to exit the machine.

At least something was there, I just had to get it out and see what it was.

It didn’t budge with any amount of pulling. Even with an Ignite powered inserter, it only served to crimp the edge that was visible. Not wanting to damage it any more, I set about releasing it as opposed to forcing it out.

Did somebody say loop?

I had no way of reliably cutting through the fabricator, and while Geocorp gave me access to plasma cutters, I could not get them without first cutting through the fabricator. I needed Geocorp to access Geocorp, the entire cycle I was trying to break with this workaround.

Whatever, with enough effort I was able to start ‘disassembling’ the fabricator, allowing me more room to work with. The object inside was given a little leeway, but it was still stuck, the frame of the fabricator being the only thing left to hold it.

Oh well, it wasn’t like I was going to use it again anyways. I tore the frame apart, completely compromising the base structure of the fabricator.

That was when it exploded.

Don’t look down the barrel of a gun? Try smashing a bomb with a hammer.

At least it wasn’t a very powerful explosion. Just a simple release of pressure with no combustible materials. It still gave me quite a jolt, but nothing was outright destroyed.

Except the GSO fabricator of course. In the wake of its death, a brand new, heavily damaged, and off color Geocorp fabricator lay on its side. I had done it again.

Take that, corporate seclusion!

I immediately brought the fabricator over to a repair bubble, it barely fit into its radius, but the damage slowly started to mend. I then opened up its menu, redeemed my license, and was met with an array of basic Geocorp blocks. Calibrating it with my mineral findings of this planet so far yielded a multitude of familiar blocks along with quite a few new ones.

Similar to GSO, Geocorp had their own line of motors and pistons. Of course, they were much larger, could move more weight, and provided more torque/force at the cost of moving slower overall. I was also surprised to find they had a brand of inserter. Again, it was much, much larger than a GSO one. Even when folded, it took up a ridiculous amount of space, but it could reach a heck of a lot farther.

It also came with the benefit of transmitting power to the claw.

That being said, it was certainly expensive, but it would be instrumental in any further mining operations. That kind of control would allow me to harvest any material with peak efficiency.

I wanted one immediately.

It took a literal ton of Titanite, and given that the sun was rising on the horizon, I decided it was finally time to gather some more. There were a few other things I needed as well, as I was getting ready to create the ultimate mining machine

To Be Continued…