Starfield | Securing The Scientist
CryoFall | Advancing Up The Tech Tree
There comes to a certain technological point you need some rather advanced materials to go any further. It was time to venture down to the sands and battle it out for some rather hard-to-come-by resources. These resources are also a bit trickier to gather as well.
I was not quite sure where on the map what I was looking for would be. I just knew a road should take me there at some point. As a result, I made a B line east towards the nearest road. I then followed it for quite some time hoping sooner rather than later I'd get to the location I desired.
This included having to cross some large bridges and even risky areas of the game. However, they all paled in comparison to where I was heading. I just hoped the massive stockpile of ammo I brought along taking up a few inventory slots was going to be enough.
After quite a long walk I could tell, I had finally come to the entry into the area I wanted. It was, however, getting quite dark. I did not dare enter at night as I would surely get killed. My inventory was also full at the time.
I ended up stopping and setting up a little spot to retreat to it. It is also I dumped everything I was not going to need into a chest. The plan was to return at some point and collect all the stuff I had gathered along the way. I did not return for that chest. To this day I'm sure it’s still there filled with all kinds of goodies just not stuff worth my time in retrieving.
I was coming into this area of the game rather unprepared. There are certain things you can craft and have at hand to make it easier to locate the resources I was looking for. Along with gathering them. At the time I did not want to spend the resources to do so or simply lacked them. I ended up going without.
It was quite a slow clearing process once I got into the area I wanted. Everything here for the most part would require quite a lot of damage to get killed. Enough to the point as soon as I started shooting anything at max range, I started to run backwards to give myself just a bit more space.
I then spent a large part of the in-game day exploring around, not finding a single drop of the crystal I was on the hunt for. I, however, knew at some point soon I'd be needing a decent chunk of it and I'd rather have it now than return empty-handed and have to make such a long trek back out here. At the very least I now knew where on the map it was, so I'd get there quicker the next time.
I then finally found what I was on the hunt for. It, however, had some bugs I had to clear out. While they dropped some of the blue stuff (Pragmium) I needed. It was not going to be enough. My character fell under some nasty effects clearing out the area and getting close enough to the crystal to start the task of mining it.
The real issue begins once you break the crystal. You have a very short amount of time before it explodes. As soon as I landed my final hit on it I ran as fast as I could. I however was not quick enough and got killed in the explosion.
Even worse it broke all the gear I had on me at the time. I ended up having to make quite a long run back with no armor to collect my reward. I then hunted around a bit more looking for any further large crystals to mine without much luck.
At least for now, I had enough of it to craft a thruster and whatever else I'd be needing. I wanted to craft a hoverboard myself so I could move around quickly. Along with things like drones and many other things.
The however board itself required quite a few different pieces. It also burns gas-powered cells. This would be yet another thing I'd be using that has a consumable part to it that I'd have to replace every so often.
This is perhaps a rather annoying part of this game. The further along you advance in this game. It seems the more stuff you have that consumes and requires some kind of maintenance. The stuff was also quite a pain to craft so if it could take damage and decay over time you would have to keep reinvesting quite some heavy resources into making more armor, weapons, and other stuff as they slowly broke down from use over time.
I was also getting quite deep into the tech tree at this point. One item I wanted was a Pragmium sensor to detect the whereabouts of more of those blue crystals.
I was also starting to enter a new cycle of industry. A while ago they removed the restriction of where you could pump oil. So, I ended up putting down a second land claim next to my base for a spot to farm for oil and refine it down. I also had some salt extractors and other things going as well.
I would pump the oil and turn it into gas. I then would use that gas in generators to create electricity to power everything. Since a lot of these things require electricity to power, in the first place it was quite a slow process to get everything up and running.
For a while, I was running off a single steam generator. It required being fed water and wood to burn. It then would boil the water which took a while and generate power. The amount of power it created was not a lot.
While the resources that were required to get everything up and running were a lot. It was nothing compared to the endless number of containers I needed to craft to hold liquids. You needed containers for the oil, gas, and a gas byproduct mineral oil.
The biggest culprit that held up a lot of things was the mineral oil. For a while, I did not have a massive use for it yet. So, I'd have hundreds of containers being taken up to hold it. You, however, had to have enough containers in the refinery for it otherwise the whole thing would shut down.
In the end, I'd be making thousands of containers as my production levels kept expanding. A large part of the power I was generating was becoming consumed in the process of making it which was a rather huge pain.
At the very least I did not have to travel halfway across the map to the desert where in the past I'd have had to go to mine for oil. That kind of thing required having other players with you or putting your main base not that far off. So, you would be spending most of your free time moving back and forth between multiple bases of getting oil, refining it repeating it all over again. As you slowly try to craft more and more containers to keep the process going longer each time before you have to go around collecting everything again.
Final Thoughts
My new daily routine began all focused on crafting and having more containers. I kept everything running so I could keep adding more machines that required power. It felt like I spent a lot of time at this stage barely keeping everything going.
Looking back now I also find it kind of funny. I ended up going quite a long time without replacing the armor I lost when I got blown up and killed. I wanted to make the next set up and it was quite resource intensive to make. I was just so focused on making more containers I did not even think about it at the time.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about CryoFall.
