Mystic Machinery: Industry is Magic

by Conglomerate

Chapter 18: Departure

Having to use armor brought up a glaring issue. I didn’t have a lot of shield bubbles, or more specifically, I didn’t have a lot of Celestite. That was going to be a problem.

Not having shield bubbles worked fine for now, but it would be impossible to continue forward without them in the future. They were required for the design of the satellites, along with any other Celestite derived tech needed. Since I already knew I could find Celestite on this world, I saw no reason to look for an alternative, doubly so because I was under a time limit.

It would also be incredibly helpful on the ground, maybe even necessary if things went poorly with the ponies. Physical armor was notoriously weak against energy based attacks, something I knew the ponies were capable of. Once they realize that standard projectiles won’t do much, they would quickly switch to more effective means.

Celestite was also required for advanced A.I.s, something I would definitely be making more of.

The point being, I needed more of it, a lot more. But it was really far away and difficult to mine. A regular trip in the plane would never be worth it due to the limited amount I could carry and the risk that came with mining it. Anything larger would not be suited for repeated trips, and drilling that distance would take way too long. I needed a way to get proper mining equipment up North and then develop a proper transport system to shuttle the Celestite back to base.

Thankfully I’ve recently developed a method of moving gigantic drills large distances.

A drill on its own wouldn’t be enough though, the North was cold, slippery, and avalanche prone, each dangerous in their own rights, but with possible solutions. The drill was heavy, operated on tracks, and spent most of its time sub-surface, slipping wasn’t going to be much of an issue. Avalanches though, would be, even if I had shield bubbles to spare, they weren’t going to stop a large chunk of ice from hitting the drill, I would need to protect it from large impacts.

GeoCorp’s Shock Plating would do wonders, and with an array of repair bubbles to fix any damage, it would be nigh indestructible. That led to the next issue, the temperature and power usage. The drill would need power to operate, and simply outfitting it with a bunch of batteries would only last so long, it needed to have its own source of power to remain in the North. The solution to that was simply enough, just stick some solar panels on top, and anchors underneath. That way when it was done mining, it could plant itself in the ground and start generating power, provided it was at the right time and the weather was clear.

The last step would be to fortify it against the environment. It could repair damage well enough, but there would be nothing stopping it from getting bogged down by a bunch of ice buildup. Sealing gaps and bringing its own supply of heating coils should alleviate that, and giving it its own set of manufacturing equipment should allow it to process all the harvested Celestite and store it in compact blocks, ready for pickup.

All this planning may seem excessive, but I had to pull out all the stops for this, it was one of the few things I couldn’t afford to waste time with trial and error on. For that reason, I would also be outfitting the drill with a wide array of weapons suited for the cold, mainly lasers. I doubt there would be many ponies up there, but there was definitely a chance of encountering some other local fauna.

The presence of Celestite significantly lowered that chance, but considering the situation, I could never be too careful. Creatures in the cold tended to get big too, and based on that dragon in the past, if anything did wander the frozen wastes, then I would not want to meet it.

So I had the materials, I had the transport, and I had the plan, there was only one issue.

Time.

My previous expeditions up North took time, a lot of time. Even with the higher tier propellers it took well over three days just to get there with a small plane. I would be flying in the big, heavy drill plane this time, which could easily turn those three days into an entire week.

A week to fly up there with the drill, and a bit less than a week to fly back without it, maybe taking the time to mine up some Celestite while I’m there.

I couldn’t spend that long away from base, but I couldn’t just set the plane to fly without going up there first to place a beacon, not to mention the fact that it wouldn’t be able to steer clear of any danger on the way. At the very least I could switch back to base once I arrived, cutting that time into just a week, and if there was an emergency I could always just land wherever.

Still, there would be so many things that would require my attention during that time. Mainly tunnels, but it would also overlap with another meeting with the dogs, and if Twilight responded while I was away… Well it would make me look bad if I was late.

I really needed that Celestite though, and waiting any further will just continue to delay all my plans. As much trouble as it would be, it was simply higher priority.

I started by gathering the materials needed to upgrade the drill. The most expensive part was of course the armor, requiring a bunch of Plumbite, Titanite, Rubber, and even Luxite in some cases. In order to cover most of the drill, I burned through almost my entire storage of Titanite. Next up was power, and by sacrificing a little more, I had a couple GeoCorp Battery Packs to use along with some GeoCorp brand solar panels, which would be plenty for the amount of repair bubbles coming with as well. Then came the finer details, such as an array of lasers and plenty of smaller blocks to help patch holes. Finally, with the simple addition of a refinery and fabricator, along with a load more collectors, everything was ready.

Loading it all up into the plane, it weighed a lot, too much in fact. The armor alone was about half the weight of the drill itself, and simply combining them together would make it too heavy for the plane to fly.

There were three things I could do to resolve this. One, beef up the plane even more so that it could lift the modified drill. Two, create a secondary plane to follow the first in a sort of aerial convoy. Three, make two trips.

I’m not spending upwards of four weeks just to get a drill up North, and I barely had enough Erudite and Ignite to make the upgrades for the drill. However, I did have other planes I could break down for parts, and the drill wasn’t going to need its A.I. cabin whilst in the air.

And so I boxed up all the armor, weapons, and accessories into a slightly smaller plane, plugged in the A.I. cabin, told it to follow me, and took off in the direction of the Rodite drill.

It was going to be a long trip to the frozen wastes.

To Be Continued…

Author's Note:

Under 1,500 words :(

This seems like a good spot for a hiatus, Teck is leaving for a few weeks, and so am I. Metaphorically of course.

Unfortunately, as alluded to earlier, I have lost my chapter lead on this story, and rather than lead you along with increasingly long wait times between chapters, I'm putting this on hiatus until I finish the first part. Once it's done, I'll go back to weekly uploads, but in the meantime I'll try to finish some other stuff and get back on track.

I will be explaining this in further detail in a blog post.

Happy prospecting
-Conglomerate.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

At least Tek doesnt have to tow the second plane load behind them on a tow rope like the bomber hauled gliders used in WW2.

Now I have the image of a return flight from Up north, of Tailspins Iron Vulture, towing that Iceberg.

[herobrins mom]

11845041
Hehehehheheh

Also wow...we are already caught up on the backlog?

...I mean..given how quick these chapters come up I can see why...

Also thank you conglomerate for letting us know instead of potentially months of no chapters and no updates to the situation for us readers.