Factory of the Magical Variety

by Conglomerate

Chapter 2: Getting Started

With everything back in the cave as secure as I could make it, I decided to explore the ravine I was situated in. I could see a small pathway/ramp out of the ravine that my current tech was too big to drive up, I'd have to shuffle around a few blocks if I wanted to fit up there. Moving on, one side of the valley had a small vein of Plumbite, glad to know I can fabricate a simple blocks without venturing far. On the other side of the ravine, there was a large landslide, a bit too steep to drive up with just wheels, but some of the rocks were small enough to move with my tech, something for a later date.

Having thoroughly explored my immediate surroundings, I realized that if I wanted to fabricate some more blocks, I'd need some Fibrewood chunks, so I had to make it up to those trees. Reassembling my tech to be a bit smaller, having the drill on front and the collectors at the back, I drove up the pathway and reached the top of the ravine. The trees were massive, I would only have to harvest about two to completely fill up my collectors, that was nice. Using only a small drill on trees certainly took a while though, before when I needed Fibron, I'd always just gun down a group of trees with a wall of guns, always faster and easier.

There wasn't as much Rubber Jelly in these trees, but there was enough for a tenth wheel, that was a relief. With my collectors saturated with Fibrewood, I had to head back down to my base in order to actually make something with it. Before I could make it back to the pathway though, I was stopped by a low growling noise. Turning my tech around I saw about five creatures that seemed to be made of Fibrewood? That was interesting, I wasn't certain that they posed a threat, but it never hurt to be cautious. I only had about five guns on me, it should be enough, these creatures were just a bit bigger than a standard GSO block.

The five creatures vs the five of my guns, the only problem was that it was really hard to aim at more than one targets at the same time, knowing this, I fired as soon as they got in range. They reacted quick however, four of them dashed to get to my tech, the first one being obliterated by my guns, falling apart into Fibrewood, Rubber Jelly, and some green fluid I didn't recognize. The next creature fell to my guns, the last three having finally made it to my tech, they immediately starting tearing at the armor plating, not getting very far but still damaging it. Using my tech's superior size, I drove over and crushed one of the creatures while locking on to the next, quickly ending it leaving only one left. Seeing that it could not defeat me, the final creature stopped it's assault and ran back into the forest.

I now had more Fibrewood than I know what to do with, I certainly couldn't carry it all, so I left it in a neat pile to pick up later. The mystery green fluid had quickly seeped into the ground and was no longer accessible, so I left that too. Driving back down the pathway, I made it to the entrance of the cave and started heading back towards my impromptu base to begin fabricating more blocks. Not having conveyor belts sucks, I'll tell you that much, having to manually move each piece of material to the fabricator sucked. In the end though, I had some more blocks to build with, and my tenth wheel.

I could finally gain back some symmetry! It wasn't like the rest of my tech was very symmetrical, I had to shuck off a few blocks from the different companies because I could not find a way to evenly incorporate them into my design. I was very lucky to find a way to get three different licenses(not to mention very illegal), it allowed me access to the best of all three, GSO, Venture, and Geocorp all had their strengths and weaknesses, and I had access to all of them. There were a couple other companies to gain as well, though I haven't found a way to get a Hawkeye license, and there was no way I was spending that much on a Better Future license, they really didn't have anything I wanted anyway.

It was then when I realized my next problem, I only had a GSO Fabricator, so I had no way of reproducing any of the other companies blocks. Well shit, maybe I could try to reverse engineer another Fabricator once I make one, I loved being able to fly. Of course GSO had flying equipment, but Venture was just so much better at it, they were faster and did more damage. I moved this problem off to the side though, there wasn't much I could do about it until I made my second Fabricator.

Having reassembled my tech once again, leaving all the excess blocks I didn't need at the moment off to the side, I realized my defenses were still very pitiful. I'd have to fix that, but to make power generation and storage, shield and repair bubbles, and weapons I would need a lot of resources, stuff that I did not have nor knew where to find it. Ugghh it was always so much easier to just buy things straight from the station, no wonder other techs hated crafting their own equipment.

First things first, I had to make a Component Factory, to make that I needed Rodite, Carbite, and Oleite Jelly, some of the more rarer materials, and none of them are typically found in a forest. However I wasn't on planet 8953 anymore, I could very well find all of those in this very forest or nearby. So with new found vigor, I made my way back to the top of the ravine, with trees so dense however, my tech could not properly fit through the gaps, and not wanting to anger anymore hostile creatures, I had to downsize.

Making a smaller tech when coming from a larger one always was hard, you have so much you want to keep, from wheels to size to equipment. However keeping all that was not an option, I shaved off a majority of my tech until I only had six wheels, three guns, my trusty radar, a couple of collectors, some lights, and enough blocks to cover my cabin. Hoping I wouldn't run into anything too dangerous, I drove into the trees, the lights flicking on to help see through the dark interior.

There wasn't too much to see, nothing appeared on my radar, and I didn't find anything too interesting, at least until I was about to head back due to the setting sun. Something peaked my interest. What looked like a tree that was carved out and lit up, I could see an obvious door and window, this had me both excited and scared. For one thing, sapient life could help me, very much so, but it could also be very dangerous, should they find me undesirable and try to destroy me. Realizing my day's worth of searching brought up none of the materials I needed, I drove closer to the house, which was a bit larger than my tech.

I was not hoping to make any enemies, so I kept my guns lowered, but ready just in case. It wasn't easy to see inside from just the window, however from what I could see were many pots and urns capped off with lids. There wasn't any words on these urns, however there were pictures drawn on. It wasn't easy to make out, but on one urn was a depiction of a bright green dust, another depicted chunks of a black substance, and the final one depicted a dark red liquid. Just my luck! This random dwelling in the middle of the forest held just what I needed, I would have to ask for it though, I wasn't just going to steal it! I did not need to be making enemies just yet.

Hoping to catch the owner of the house and ask nicely for their materials, the sun finally went below the horizon, causing the whole forest to suddenly get a lot darker, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention, I shut off my lights and laid in wait. I didn't know how long the nights lasted on this planet, hopefully not too long.

To be continued.

Author's Note:

Second chapter down, I now realize that not everyone knows what Terratech is, and I hope my explanations have been straightforward enough to leave out an explanation chapter. Another thing I wanted to add was the scale, I had trouble thinking of how large the techs actually were compared to ponies, so I came with a comparison. A regular pony is just a bit taller than a standard block, and they could look over it if they stood on their "tiphooves". Another thing is weight, in the game, it's said that the blocks are relatively lightweight, especially Venture, so in this story I made it so that a majority of ponies could push a single block, however larger blocks such as Geocorp could easily crush a pony, not that I'd let that happen.

Comments

[Conglomerate]

10811140
You'll be happy to know I do in fact have plans for Factorio style content, to give a hint, why do you think that the manufacturing equipment in Terratech is so easy to move? Then what happens when you don't have to move it anymore?

[Lioth]

10811194
Never played terratech myself, mostly cuz I don't have the money. But depending on the setup you use, its certainly possible to have segments saved as separate techs and just assemble them when you need them. Oh a truly optimized/efficient setup would be possible if moving it would not longer be required, but lag would be an issue in-game.

[Conglomerate]

10811201
I do know what you are talking about, I have this great trick of having a plane tech saved so I can just reassemble techs on the go, however, in this story, it's explained in Chapter 1 how the MC doesn't have access to these commodities due to their distance from their storage.

[Auram Potentia]

ya geocorp and halkeye's blocks are the heavy blocks with everyother corp being lightweights

[Lioth]

10811206
Ah, truthfully I normally wait until a fic is at least 10 chapters in before I start reading. I just bookmark any I find interesting.

[Lioth]

I was not hoping to make any enemies, so I kept my guns lowered, but ready just in case. It wasn't easy to see inside from just the window, however from what I could see were many pots and urns capped off with lids. There wasn't any words on these urns, however there were pictures drawn on. It wasn't easy to make out, but on one urn was a depiction of a bright green dust, another depicted chunks of a black substance, and the final one depicted a dark red liquid. Just my luck! This random dwelling in the middle of the forest held just what I needed, I would have to ask for it though, I wasn't just going to steal it! I did not need to be making enemies just yet.

Wait, the MC isn't a total douchebag like most player controlled characters? NICE!

[Lord tabz]

I lik this

[Draco Dei]

10818753
Or at least he has a grasp of enlightened self-interest when making contact with a civilization whose numbers and capabilities are unknown...
Hoping (s)he is a genuinely Good person though...