Crystalline Reforged

Asteroids are the supreme rudeness of space, you've decided. They deserve all the destruction the Prime Crystal gives them as abrupt test subjects. There you were, busy with your research into making a more functional wireless control point so you could manipulate things at a distance just as well as you could around you! Something so good you'd surely get a promotion from your ordinary position on the outside THUNK

With no warning, an asteroid slams into you and shatters your edges, flinging you at immense interstellar speed away from where you wanted to be, giving you a massive headache, and stealing your attention away from the virtual blueprint of your project. A few of the fragments rebound off of your former home and hit you, so you quickly seal them on to not lose any more material. While a Crystalline cannot be killed by simple space exposure you now lack the power you were using a moment ago to keep busy, and really would rather not deal with this massive headache, so instead you just pass out.

---

CLANG! You get woken up by another never-sufficiently-damned asteroid, but one that is not large enough to significantly damage you further. It knocked you towards a planet instead. A planet that is giving off enough radiation of all the kinds you aren't sure if your remaining senses are working correctly or misinterpreting things. What planet manages to suffer through no less than two dozen failed mega-empires without one of them blowing it up? Some of the effects being sent your way you can't even recognize beyond that they are there. Hopefully you don't land in broken space, or in the middle of some malfunctioning relics, at the least. Or wherever that rumbly woopwooping loop is coming from, the signal is like a drill to your face.
But since there is nothing else to do at the moment besides wait for the inevitable landing injury, you brace as much as you can for impact and compose the longest, most complex and viciously worded insult against asteroids you can imagine. Someday you'll get off this mess of a planet, and you'll burn the entire thing into the largest space rock you can find.


---

So here we go again! This thread is a reboot of my previous quest, since I was going to use notably changed mechanics than before. There might be some retreading of old discoveries early on while this dimension's Shining-in-the-Space gets himself back in acceptable shape, since we're still landing near a certain functional alien base, just on the opposite side. Whether those are intentional or not is up to you bunch.
Next post will have the mechanics/research post, followed by the first turn. The former might end up split up again if it looks too big.

If you want some background and don't want to go to the old thread to see it, I put it in a box this time:

Mechanics:

Cycles: A cycle is half a day, unless the day is exceptionally short; then a cycle is a whole day. Cycles on this planet are the normal half-day kind, and can be subdivided if needed to deal with others who use different time units.
One turn on the other hand, is long enough to do as much as the previous plan as possible, along with anything that happens during it, interferes with it, or interrupts it.

Energy: Energy is very important to Crystalline. So much so that there is no hard cap on what you can store, although exceeding the capacity of storage crystals can lead to anything between slight glow and ruinous detonations depending on how far over you are. Each cycle, a pulse radiates from the core crystal into all connected crystal, leading to that cycle's round of energy gen from crystals that can do so. Any disconnected power-generating crystals will not output into the main pool and will remain inactive, and other power sources will react in different ways.

Any energy we have can be split between priorities each turn. Spare energy is stored by default. New priorities can be suggested whenever something substantial happens, and priorities with no energy will just do nothing. Added priorities that no longer matter will be removed from the list.

At the start we have these priorities:
Scouting: Cheap expansion using partially-assimilated material. Easily destroyed and needs to be told what direction to go in until we have some subordinates to automate finding interesting things. Assimilated matter does not produce energy and costs 100 per unit.

Expansion: Dedicated construction energy for proper base crystals. Extends how far out we can see clearly, and used for more solidly claiming an area than scouting. Also used for extra storage crystals as needed. Base crystal costs 200 per unit whether or not its replacing As. matter. Storage Crystals are the same cost and hold 2,000 energy each. Going past 50 units away from the core or a command crystal causes extra expenses due to the extra maintenance focus required, which adds up to 100 extra energy to build per unit out of range.

Specialization: Energy for converting base crystal into specialists. This is where everything that isn't research or energy gen or storage is built from when needed, and where all the research mentions of 'unlocks a crystal specialty' go to. Variable cost, describe what upgrades you want to happen (like 'convert as much armite as possible in-budget' or 'build a handful of defensive crystals near the trouble.'), and I'll give you what that would end up costing in energy. If using this for converting materials, we must be adjacent to it, if its converting crystals to other types, the cost is half of the more expensive one.

Generation: Spending energy to get more energy. Converts base crystal into Refined Crystal, or other power types once learned. Refined Crystal costs 500 per unit to build directly, or 300 upgrading from base crystal. Generation gets first priority on Base crystal usage.

Computation: How much energy to pour into expanding the research cluster. 1k per Research Crystal added from base crystal, 2k per if there is no free base crystal. Each adds 1,000 more capacity to Research.
Research: How much energy we can spare for research this turn. Capped by the size of the research cluster, we gain 1 research point per 1000 energy spent.
Experimentals: How much research energy we keep set aside for science explosions investigating the stuff we found instead of Prime Crystal tech we're trying to rebuild from the ground up. If we don't have any looted xenotech or physical project experiments to spend this on, this is empty.

Repair: Normally empty. Will be given energy by default if needed for repairs. If something damaging happens, you cannot upgrade crystals that are damaged until they're repaired, but repairs are simple: Crystals are either 'damaged' or 'heavily damaged'. Damaged costs half the crystal's fab cost, Heavily Damaged requires full cost.

Move: Either is empty, or claims an entire turn's worth of energy to do The Move. Also requires a sufficiently big empty area to move into. If we have stored energy, the stored energy can be given out to Research, but not other areas since moving is extremely time-consuming for a space rock stuck in the ground.

---

Crystal creation: If you think we need a new kind of crystal for something, post it in the thread! Designs need a name, a color, and functions. These could be different combinations of existing ones, or new ideas. Functions we have researched or already knew about are in the crystal details post. More complex crystals will cost a lot more, and if it has new functions that would be based on nearby tech or magic, we'd need to research those first. If it doesn't, then I'll add accepted ones to the list.


Scouting expanded: I roll a die every few units of scouting budgeted for if something worth noting (ex. something salvagable, an interesting geological location, a big ghost, or the like) shows up, and maybe make a map if it was a big discovery like the underground prison from before. If we have a target kind of thing in mind, a second roll is made for if it is/is not that particular thing.



Research:

More to come as we find new things, or meet requirements.

Structural:
Repair Protocols [0/10]: Maintenance is important and you now have to do your own. Unlocks a repair crystal design.
Improved Self-Repair Systems [0/200]: You are almost certain this isn't the optimal way to repair things, but you aren't a repair overseer. This might take awhile to refine.

Improved Refinement [0/1000]: Delve into your very limited knowledge of the strange and very risky realm of the Reactor Researcher Crystalline, hoping to find a way to get more power out of your basic refined crystals. Some of them might explode violently along the way, but it could be easier than figuring out some broken alien generator designs, and as long as you keep them away from your core…

Energy Condensation [0/900]: You are pretty sure the Prime Crystal has better storage density than you do. But if you try to stuff more in the same space in a simulated storage crystal, it explodes. A conundrum.

Research Insights [0/150]: While extremely nice to have, your research cluster is hardly worthy of note compared to what you were used to using before if all it can do is run parallel simulation iterations and give the results back to you. The one you had could on occasion give an insightful suggestion based on previous simulation failures, and what you remember of their structure wasn't too dissimilar from the ones you have...but if you rearrange things incorrectly, it'll just fail. Unlocks upgraded research function if successful. Having command crystals to take care of minor details elsewhere would greatly increase success chance.

Reinforcement [0/25]: Adjustments, optimizations, or just adding armor. Making parts of your structure tougher can't be that difficult. You just have to figure out what works best. Unlocks a function you can add to crystal designs which trades higher cost for higher durability. Pre-req for the defensive fields techs below.

-Dampening Fields [0/250]: Specialized field arrays to dilute physical impacts with energy flow. May shatter crystal's network connection if overstressed. Unlocks a crystal specialty, incompatible with Absorption Fields.
-Absorption Fields [0/250]: Specialized energy array to drain energy attacks into itself and dump the reclaimed energy back into the network. May cause crystal to explode if hit with too large of an energy blast. Unlocks a crystal specialty, incompatible with Dampening Fields.
--Reduction Fields [0/500]: If you iterate enough, you'll probably find a way to make those two compatible. You just need enough virtual walls to throw them at. Requires both field types researched. Unlocks a combination specialty of both field types at half-strength. Still has a chance of crystal exploding if hit too hard.

Shielding Theory [0/400]: Shields exist, the Prime Crystal has them for space debris. But how do you make them at your size, and without having to completely focus on keeping them from falling apart constantly? Unlocks crystal specialties with shields.

Absolute Denial Matrix [0/10000]: If you stack enough defensive ideas together, eventually you should be able to nope anything and research a way back home in peace. Even on this mess of a planet. Unlocks a lesser command crystal-grade crystal specialty that is too busy balancing your entire defensive arsenal to be compatible with any non-defensive functions. All defensive functions are at full power and ignore incompatibilities. Crystal cost rises with new defenses researched. Pre-reqs: Reduction Fields, Shielding Theory, Defensive Offense, Improved Self-Repair Systems, a form of arcane defense, and Delegation.

Logistics:
Communicative Augmenta [4/4]: An assortment of etchings and wind-holes to let you talk to aliens. Not something you thought would ever be relevant to you, but something basic enough even getting dropped on a planet without warning failed to knock it out of your memory. Unlocks a function whose cost to add to new designs is inconsequential, since talk is cheap.

Wireless Theory [0/800]: Your favorite project. Your almost completed project. Your now entirely lost project. This time, no relying on external data storage. You aren't losing that much work ever again. Unlocks Ranged options.

Delegation [0/1000]: DIY helpers is hard. Really, aggravatingly hard. And they wouldn't even be actual assistants yet! Just some automation assistance really. Unlocks Lesser Command Crystals, and being able to delegate simple tasks to them like maintenance.
-Greater Command Crystal [0/2500]: Some help that can actually understand what the box is, if not how to think outside of it. And yet still a massive improvement over lesser command crystals. Unlocks command crystals who can interpret orders instead of needing direct ones.
--Lesser Crystalline[0/?????]: Actual assistants. Still only about as smart as adolescent aliens, but its as close as you'll probably get without direct help from Prime. Or a second True Crystalline to examine/talk to. Would unlock helpers if you had any idea whatsoever how to jump from 'can interpret commands and do them for you' to 'self-sufficient but incomplete Crystalline who doesn't just mindlessly and instantly accept your orders.'

-Farseer Array [0/???]: Specialized long-distance crystal design, for detecting clearly further than you can see normally. (Requires some form of high-tech sensor array that could match the description. Research cost based on integration difficulty)
-Crys-Scryer: [0/???] Specialized long-distance crystal design, for detecting clearly further than you can see normally. (Requires some form of arcane effect or magitech detection device(s) that could match the description. Research cost based on crystal compatibility)

-Hypercom [?]: You know this is what you want, and that it would be easier than getting back into space alone. But you have no idea how to get to it from scratch. Maybe you could get a jumpstart off of something here?

Warfare:
Defensive Offense [0/50]: Defensive laser arrays built-in to crystals facing the Bad Things. Unlocks a crystal specialty.

Bright Blaster [0/50]: Lasers for offence, or for cleaning surfaces. Can also vent some stored energy for extra blam! Unlocks a crystal specialty.

Explosive Entry [0/75]: Explosive armaments, for longer-than-beams range. Needs a bit more effort to get right, since if you don't they'll blow up in your face and repairs are a bother when you have to do them personally. Can be charged up extra for bigger explosions from the unlocked crystal specialty.

Arcane:
Varunan Runesmithing [?/??]: You know they exist, and you have some examples, but so far the specifics elude you like the wind.

Xeno-tech:
None yet.



Crystal Designs & Functions:

Starting crystal designs:

Core Crystal - Its you!
Refined Crystal - Generates power. 200 energy.
Storage Crystal - 2k safe energy storage. 200 energy. Could explode if shot.
Research Crystal - Basic support variety to help you figure out the right idea faster. 1k energy, adds 1k capacity to research priority.

Since we currently only have the functions of each of those and they wouldn't work all stuffed into the same crystal, the functions list doesn't have anything else to show yet.

Cycle 1

By the void, that hurt even more than you were expecting. Why are planets so solid?

...no, ugh. That was rhetorical. Stop it. Apparently the two research crystals you managed to hold onto assumed you were serious about that. Aside from that, you've stopped hearing much wind, so now was as good a time as any to see what you had left to work with.

Yourself, intact: check.
The tiniest power pulse you've seen in your entire life: check.
Two apparently still functional research crystals: check.
A hopelessly small amount of storage: check.

Twenty refines. How were you supposed to get anything done when what you had left couldn't even fully power the infinitely tiny fraction of a research cluster you still had? It would take you months of cycles, even if you powered the other half of it yourself, to get back to being able to run what you were doing with your project, which...was in your work databank.

Your still-on-Prime work databank. Which was who knows how far away now.

Spending the rest of the time it was light out grumbling to yourself was entirely justified in that case. It wasn't because you were actually upset or anything.

---

One entirely reasonable half-cycle sulk later, you notice how dark it now is above you. And that one of the many random transmissions emanating from the planet isn't just repeating or white noise.

Because of course you had to have living neighbors of all things. Entire planet of failed empires, holes in reality spewing nonsense at your senses, and other things you felt on your way down to crashing, and you land near the stars-damned single biggest source of potential danger short of an exposed micro-singularity sitting within throwing distance of you.

And even worse, it wasn't even encrypted transmissions, since what you were hearing wasn't a blurry wave over faint noises, but just words. They were letting everything and nothing hear all their blather, and who knows if that was attracting old killer robots the size of large hills or something equally ridiculous in how broken-yet-dangerous it was towards themselves and you.
But on the plus side, it saves you time finding out what they know. The rest of the cycle was spent feeding xenobabble to your excuse of a research cluster until it finds the specific patterns you were expecting.

One of the odd things your field of xenotechnology knew about on Prime was how every alien language had the same one set of patterns buried in it somewhere.
None of them sounded alike, and at least half of them were impossible for other races to speak, but there was always the one set buried somewhere in each one. Finding it unraveled the rest of the language mystery like a tightly wound spool of wire being poked with a stick. Once, you had heard a pair of races had threatened to declare war on the Prime Crystal mega-cycles ago when they had gotten this answer to how it could speak to them so easily; apparently having even the tiniest scrap of relation to each other had been offensive.

"...isotopes of unknown element in wreck Zon-8-1-1-1-1"

"...And then it probably self-destructed, otherwise we'd have more pieces left to work with..."

"Whoever's kept that expensive sky island projection running for a month now is getting fined double for all the base power they're wasting when I find you!"
"Sir, we've told you three days in a row now. No one brought a hardlight projector big enough for that. It can't be a projection."
"Your memory is the size of a sand grain! I explained in detail how that is physically impossible just an hour ago when you claimed I was wrong again. I'll repeat myself all day if needed to fit basic physics in there."

"How the fuck does this even stay together?! It is made of energy projectors and graphene and no connective components whatsoever!"
"It didn't, mate. Thats why its broken. Also, maybe don't shout quite so loudly, I'm pretty sure the senior investigators managed to hear you all the way back at base."

"That meteorite earlier looked pretty cool. Think theres anything good inside it?"
"It probably is just more rocks. Rocks are boring."
"What if its got rare, shiny rocks?"
"Then you hand me the heavy laser scalpel and stop pestering me about space rocks. This is cooler."

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

If you had to deal with competition, it was at least good to know you weren't immediately the most interesting thing around.

---

Known places:
Somewhere West: Aliens. Supposedly a floating island too.

What to do next?
Plans can take multiple cycles, and at this point not much is happening, but they'll eventually come this way to check the space rock. One cycle is half a day. Votes can be combined if it would make sense.

[] Scout in a direction (pick between N/S/E or Down.)
-How much energy are we spending to do so?
[] Expand west towards the aliens
-With how much energy?
[] Get power, get good. Planet can probably wait. (Everything to generation until something of note happens nearby)
[] Write-in

Cycle 2

It got remarkably dark at night on this planet. Or maybe it was just the lack of glow, since you were the only Crystalline here. The aliens were incredibly easy to spot in the darkness, even if they were too far away to see precisely. You just looked for the only significant, steady light source in the area. Most of them looked to be heading further west, and since you had time, there were certain things that needed doing before you started looking around or building up. First among all else, cover. The crater you had created looked to be approximately 7 wide by 3 high in crystal units, so half of your stored energy is spent giving you a basic, but layered shield from anything that tries to dig into you or from other impacts. If you had missed any space, it could be filled in later, but for now there was exploration to do and then a proper buildup. You take the whole cycle's worth of energy and fire it south in a concentrated blast of conversion power.

On your way south to check the first investigative line formed correctly as well as clean up any stray bits of crystal that might've been created off the intended path, something glimmers in the dirt off to the side. A very orbular but heavily cracked something, less than a meter across, that occasionally emits a burst of radio waves that fades out after a few moments in a sad whine. The radio burst is always sent in the same direction, further south. You make a note of how far away it is and continue double checking the line.

10 scouting units later, you find its probable intended destination. A second orbular object, the same size, and far shinier. However, the increased shininess comes from being able to see inside of it, as this one is completely ruined. There is either a giant dagger or a medium-sized sword buried in this one, and from what you can see of the blade, it glows an angry violet on both the end sticking out the other side of the orb and the hilt side. Most curiously however, is the transmission being sent and failing to be received by this object, because it is in a language you've heard before. Perhaps you aren't too far away from a previous path the Prime Crystal had taken?

[heavy crackling] Virain! Fucking pick up Virain! The Queen has arrived, activate Alpha-12! Repeat, Activate Alpha-12! I've set my communoid to spam this at you until you acknowledge and do your fucking job to end this! [sound of artillery fire for 20 seconds, speaker voice lost]...If I see your lazy face again we're either both dead or I owe you an entire barrel of beer. End Loop. Message has repeated 4,574,246,322 times. Read state: Unread.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

After making a note of the location, you finish up your check, but don't find anything else worth noting. There is more scrap metal and rubble than you'll ever need spread all over the place, but without something to make it into its just more junk. The remainder of the cycle and a few cycles afterwards are spend building up a usable power base.

Cycle 6

Building up energy was important, and necessary, and boring. All you had to do personally was make sure the refined crystal was forming correctly. The rest of the time, you'd been trying to pick up on any news you could catch off of the aliens. You were fairly certain about a distance estimate towards their base (significantly far away enough that you would get warning they were coming), and had used that to try and get a signal into their base. It had bounced off with a '400: signal too degraded' response, and not wanting to draw any extra attention, you let it slide for now. You could still reach out and hear their transmissions after all, and this time while it was light out was apparently the 'day' they were going to investigate the floating island.

"No obvious signs of anti-grav propulsion on the exterior, will need a closer look"

"EM scanner not detecting anything flowing from this clearly operational (if badly designed) solar array..."
"EM scanner is picking up power from this...flower pot? What, does it auto-water your plants or something? Plant in it is dead."

"Found some sort of weather prediction board. Unknown language, unknown measurements. Claims there is clouds in the future if it reads from left to right."

"Door refuses to open. Door is unaffected by guard firing into it at full power. Door is stupid and probably important. End recording."

"Closer investigation of the underside of the island has revealed...rocks. Lots of rocks. Not the interesting anti-grav or thrusters i was hoping for. Maybe I need to dig into it a bit, base?"
"Don't break whatever is keeping it up in the air."
"Well of course I want it to stay up here. I'm gonna assume you meant yes."

"Plant in powered pot abruptly returned to life after being unplugged. What."

"Hey! No digging up the floor looking for 'secret passages', Favon. You're more likely to dig too far and fall off the island."
"Which is why I brought a very long tether"
"I said no. And I have the seniority."
"By a week."

"Was that the commander who just got flung through that door?"
"Who else would be wearing power armor to explore an uninhabited island, man. He probably triggered a...do you smell fire?"

"YOU CANNOT STOP THE WHOLO WITH ONLY THAT HANDFUL OF FIRE, SMALL GHOST! EN GARDE!"

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Well. Maybe you should get up there yourself somehow, see what excitement they're getting into. Or find out how to be your own floating island, being that mobile sounds awesome. And probably terrible expensive, but think of all the stuff you could find!

Plan time!
Energy distribution:
[] Keep focusing on building power, the sky is a vast and distant target
[] Max research, split anything left between generation and scouting
[] Just keep scouting to the south, you don't need to research yet.
[] Write-in

Other plan details (initial scans and other basic sorts of looking at a discovery don't cost enough to be relevant to the energy budget):
[] Scan the working Orbular Radio Thing, see if you can find a way to safely dismantle it
[] Investigate the glowy blade first
-Then take apart the broken orb?
[] Take apart broken orb first, examine it for ways to better investigate the working one
-Then the blade?
[] Write-in