Chapter 3

Do You Want to Build a Station?

Forty grueling hours later, I woke inside the regeneration chamber, having leveled and cleared the last of the 100 station rats. The section of the station I had access to for maintenance was huge, about the size of a football stadium, and it went across three different levels. All that running back and forth would have made my job impossible in the timeframe I had to work with, but if I got the rats to chase me to the regeneration chamber, they stayed in the area when they killed me.

This had been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. It was nonstop running and dying. And I’d been doing it for so long, my brain was telling me to get out and start running, find a rat and let it kill me.

A notification floated in front of me.

Congratulations, you have reached level 5

You have 2 path points to spend.

You have 10 station points to spend.

You have 10 dungeon points to spend

I hadn’t spent the path point I got from the control room quest because I didn’t know how I wanted to use it yet, and all I’d been doing was dying over and over again. But the point I got from leveling immediately went into my station tech path, bringing it up to 5.

You have unlocked internal turrets. You receive one additional internal turret for each path point in the station tech path.

You have unlocked dungeon turrets. You receive one additional turret for every five points in the station tech path.

“I’ve got good news,” Tee said. “These internal turrets aren’t stationary. I can deploy them wherever I like and then redeploy them somewhere else, as long as they’re not damaged. That’s going to be a major help with station maintenance.”

“That is good news, but how effective are they?”

“They’re better than your pistol. I could have cleared most of the level 1 rats with just these five turrets.”

“What about the level 10 ones?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.

Nothing was that easy.

Tee hadn’t gained full internal sensors until my station path reached level 3. I’d walked around so many corners only to suddenly die that it added hours to the whole process. None of this was fun. But I couldn’t take back my choice now. I was stuck with it.

And there was too much resting on me for me to give in or half-ass it.

Since I wasn’t immediately going to die, I got dressed and made my way to the control room to get to know my station. I took a seat in my chair and looked around. There were no buttons to the table for me to push, which sucked. It was just a flat slab of steel. I wanted buttons. Buttons were cool. The chair also wasn’t the most comfortable. It was too straight.

“So what can we build, Tee?”

“You’ve got a couple of options. And by that, I mean there are only two external weapon options that the station comes with at this level. But let me show you your station before we start talking about weapons or the dungeon.”

A holographic display appeared in front of me with a resource read to my right. My mood started to improve. Who needed buttons when you had holograms?

Station Name: Unnamed

Level: 1

Armor: 0

Damaged Systems: 0%

Resource Points: 100

Credits: 100 (In debt)

Station Systems:

-L1 Station Reactor: 1 100E

-L1 Sensor Array: 1

-L1 Railgun Fabricator: 1

-L1 Structural Fabricator: 1

-L1 Reprocessing Facility: 1

Additional Systems: 0/0

Structure Slots: 0/0

Defense Slot: 0/20

Station Tech Weapons:

-R1: 5

-R5: 1

Station Tech Subsystems:

-N/A

“Right now, your station is basic,” Tee said. “It would be defenseless, but you chose the station tech pathway, so you have a few weapons. As you saw on your notifications, you seem to get an R1 for every station tech path point and an R5 for every three. Once factions start attacking the station, you will develop rapidly, but until that happens, it’s going to be much slower than it should be.”

“Why?”

“The honest answer is, your faction doesn’t know their ass from their faces right now, so can’t support you. They should be pumping as many credits and resources as they can through your station as trade, but they aren’t going to be doing that.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly. For now, I’ll keep this simple. All you really need to know is that you have no armor, which means anything can damage your station. In fact, your station is weaker than it should be. But you are also leveling faster than you should be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me start by saying, every faction is different. However, normally station masters don’t level independent of their station. Every time their level goes up so does the stations. Your station hasn’t leveled despite you being level 5, which means your faction has probably been given a tutorial of some sort. That’s probably where your expand control quest comes in. You don’t usually get independent quests you don’t initiate as a station master. So when you do, you need to pay attention. Also, almost all quests like this will have secret quests attached to them that give additional special clearance rewards. These rewards can be massive, but because the rewards are massive, you normally have to do things the hard way to compensate. The tutorial is probably why your station sucks so much.”

This sounded like I was playing against a stacked deck. “They don’t make it easy do they?”

“New factions are made to fail. Most don’t survive the first 100 cycles. It’s only in your second season of the game that you have an actual chance. It takes centuries for a faction to build up the necessary skills to succeed. They tried to give new factions a decade to learn a long time ago, but it didn’t help that much, so they eventually just decided to let factions fail the first time.”

“That sucks even more, but it makes sense. It’s like the first time you play any new game. Almost everyone is going to suck at it. Or spend ages running around not knowing what to do.”

“Except if they’ve played something similar, that’s where you and the other station masters come in.”

“I guess.” I wasn’t that enthusiastic about my ability to defend my station anymore.

“Anyway, your reactor is shit. And you only have 20 defense points to work with, but that’s okay because you also only have 2 weapons to work with. I assume you will gain access to others later on.”

“What are my weapon choices?”

“You’ve got the R1 light railgun which costs 10 resource points or RP. It’s a small point defense turret that produces an additional station rat, or you have the R5, which is the weakest mid-class railgun I’ve ever seen but gives 3 rats. It costs 50 RP though.”

“Can I get a look at their stats?”

Name: R1

Level: 1

Designation: Point Defense Railgun

Damage: 1-3

Rate of fire: 30 rounds per second

Range: 1 unit

Accuracy: .5 units

Name: R5

Level: 1

Designation: Mid Weigh Railgun

Damage: 30-90

Rate of fire: 1/60 sec

Range: 30 units

Accuracy: 30 units

Shot Power Consumption: 10E

“What do range and accuracy mean?”

“The distance to the transit rings is currently 100 units. The R5 can shoot anything that is up to 30% of that distance from your station or 30 units which is its range. When you buy the blueprints for a level 2 R5, all its base stats will double, except for its rate of fire that will stay the same, but only if you buy all of the upgrades. Otherwise, it will fire slower. You can make hundreds of different changes to the R1 and R5, but right now, they are stock standard. It also means that the free ones you got from your station tech path are stock standard too. As for accuracy, that is the range at which your weapon will hit where it’s aiming 100% of the time. That doesn’t mean it will hit, only that it will hit where it was aiming. These are railguns so they fire rounds and those take time to move through space. Ships can and will get out of the way.”

I scowled. “What about damage?”

“Damage indicates whether or not you can get through someone’s armor. Ships don’t have health, so it doesn’t correlate to how many hit points you take off, only whether or not your weapons can harm them. You might hit a ship straight on and miss all its critical systems and have it come away damaged but entirely functional, or you might give it a glancing blow and take out something important. The former doesn’t usually happen with railguns. Rounds tend to fragment and at the speeds they're traveling they will take out most of the internal system unless they reinforce it, which they will probably do once they realize you are using railguns.”

“So as long as my weapons damage is greater than their armor, I should be able to do something.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why is there a variance in the damage amount then?”

“The closer their armor rating is to your weapons max damage, the more effective it becomes at redirecting energy. Think of it like this. You’ve got two curved shields. One’s made of Styrofoam, and the other is made from steel. You shoot both with a handgun. The Styrofoam is never going to cause a ricochet, but the steel one might. The closer the armor rating is to your max damage, the more likely you will receive a ricochet.”

“What’s up with the energy consumption and what does E mean?”

“E stands for energy. Currently, your reactor only produced 100E which is terrible. Thankfully, your R1s have an internal reactor, so don’t draw on the station. However, your R5 uses 10E when it’s active and that is a lot for a weapon that weak. Power is going to be a real problem for you late game.”

“But not now,” I said, trying to be optimistic, despite what seemed like mounting problems. “What can the weapons do?”

“The R1 is only useful against missiles and fighters and bombers. Their range is limited. Nothing else needs to come that close to the station to destroy it. The R5 is your only legitimate weapon, but it has a slow rate of fire, poor damage, poor range, and horrible power consumption. Its only not horrible part is that its accuracy is equal to its range. Your weapons suck, but to compensate for this much suck, you have one of the most versatile dungeon mobs I’ve ever heard of. It’s called an immortal soldier, and you can upgrade it in so many ways that I’m pretty sure the rest of your station weapons are going to be just as bad as the ones you currently have. Now, normally you would have 100,000 credits to spend on something to change your R1 or R5 into something that matches your style, but you don’t, so you are stuck with them.”

“Is this as bad as it seems?”

“It’s almost as bad as it seems. Your station tech path has given you five R1s and a single R5. None of these draw on your station's power supply, so you’re not completely defenseless. You just need to use some station points to upgrade them into something that isn’t complete trash.”

“I’m not going to do that unless I absolutely have to. I’m pretty sure I need those points for when I get something better.”

“That’s going to take a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“With your debt, it’s whenever you faction gets their act together.”

That could be a long time. “In that case, give me ten R1’s and I’ll go level the rats. We’ve started this. We might as well finish it.”

“Hold on, Morgan. You’ve died a lot, so you probably aren’t thinking clearly. Your station currently only has 20 defense slots. To increase that number you need to expand the station, but if I’m being honest, I don’t think you will be able to clear the quest the station generates for you, which means you are going to have to wait until you are a higher level and I have more internal turrets.”

I didn’t like that. “What about the special clearance reward?”

“I say this with as little sarcasm as I can manage, but you can’t kill a level 1 station rat, so special clearance is beyond you. Since you’re going to have to wait to clear the expansion quest, the best option long-term is the one you need to take. And that’s the R5s. The R5’s might give fewer rats today, but they only take two defense slots, whereas the R1’s take one. So when you’ve built them all, you will have 30 rats, not 20.”

I paused.

Tee was right. My mind was in turmoil from being killed so many times. It hadn’t been like actual dying. There wasn’t any trauma associated with my death. But I’d been so focused on running and dying for so long that I didn’t want to slow down and think. But I knew I needed to. His explanation was so basic that it was embarrassing that he had to say it to me. It was standard resource management.

I took a breath and tried to practice mindfulness. Breathing in and out, focusing on being in the present. It helped. In a few minutes, I was calmer.

I started thinking about my problem.

I had a station that could field a maximum of ten R5s. Railguns that were apparently shit but better than the R1 since they could damage larger vessels. I had a mountain of debt to pay back, so much debt that if I didn’t die, it would take more than 100 cycles to repay it. I had very few options, so I had to make the ones I did have count.

I frowned. “When do you think I’ll be ready to do the expansion quest?”

“It’s not you who will be ready for the quest. It’s your internal turrets.”

“Fine, when will the turrets be ready?”

“Well, you received them when you reached level 5, so they might upgrade when you reach level 10. But it might not happen until level 15. And I wouldn’t want to try the quest before the turrets could take care of the level 10 rats without having to worry. Right now, you have to worry. I’m still trying to work out how many I can kill before they all get destroyed. So it might be a long time before you’re ready to tackle the quest.”

“Okay, so the quest is too hard until I’m level 10 or 15.”

“The quest isn’t too hard. It’s just too hard for you. The station master of any other faction would walk through it even at level one. You can barely shoot something at arm’s length, so this is a you problem, not a quest problem. But at level 15, we should definitely get an upgrade for the turret systems, which will be enough to take care of the quest for you.”

Tee wasn’t mocking me. He was just stating facts, so I didn’t take offense. “Give me 2 R5’s.”

“On it. Wow, that’s cool. The R5 quest generated 25 level 1 station rats each.”

“Can I level them?”

“You can. I wouldn’t though. Having to repay 1,000,000 credits for a one-time experience bonus isn’t a good exchange. And you don’t have enough time left in this cycle to do so.”

“But that would be an additional 2,500 experience once it was used across all the turrets, which would take off almost 2 cycles.”

“How about you let me use the turrets to gun these ones down and then level the 6 from the new R5s to 10, and then next time when you have more time, you use your crazy let's owe a stupidly large amount of credits plan. I still need to explain what you are up against before you return to earth. Or do you want to spend the next four days without the ability to plan ahead?”

“No, your way makes sense.”

“I’m glad you agree because I started gunning them down the moment they appeared. You don’t have to thank me for the free experience. It’s all part of the job, ma'am.”

I smirked, realizing Tee was trying to make me feel better. “I’ll have you know I’m a Miss. I’m far too young to be a Maam.”

“You need to moisturize more then. You can do that while you are completing the quest. These are R5’s so the quest is basic. Since I killed the rats, you just need to go to the power junction and throw the switch. The station rats will spawn after you’ve thrown the switch, and then you can level them to 10.”

I turned around and started running. “Just tell me where I have to go.”

Tee gave me directions, and I ran through the station, following the ramp up one level. I ended up in a nondescript corridor that looked like the others.

“Now walk forward five meters and open the middle maintenance panel on the wall to your right,” Tee said.

“How do I do that?”

“You see how the walls are separated into three rectangular panels?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, tap each corner of the panel in a counter-clockwise order and it should open.”

I did what he said.

The steel panel popped out two inches and then slid up the wall. There was no visible mechanism to make that happen. It was like it was floating. Behind the panel, nothing made sense. There was a bioorganic root system that glowed with a gentle blue light. The roots were wrapped around square pipes that looked like they were covered in hieroglyphs.

I blinked, but the view didn’t change. “What the hell am I looking at?”

“That’s Peacekeeper tech, and I have absolutely no idea how it works. But it’s what makes the Great Game possible. You see those gel-covered roots hanging from the square pipe second from the top.”

“Yeah.”

“Good, now there should be some loose roots attached to the pipe third from the bottom directly below it. You just need to lift them up and touch them together. They will intertwine automatically.”

“This isn’t throwing a switch.”

“It’s the Peacekeeper equivalent to throwing a switch.”

“It’s still not throwing a switch.”

“Fine, if you want me to be more accurate. Morgan, gentle caress the station's lubricated internal root system with your fingers and delicately intertwine them with their partner so that the climax of this quest can be met with a sensual, fulfilling, and satisfying ending.”

I paused, a little ill. “So I just throw the switch.”

“Just throw the switch.”

***

I had two hours left before the first cycle was over, and I was sitting in my control room, ready to learn the rest of what my class had to offer. Leveling the rats had caused them to grow strong enough to destroy Tee’s automated defense turrets. And he was a bit peeved at how easily they could do that if he didn’t pay attention.

I adjusted my position, trying to get comfortable. It didn’t help. The chair was too straight. After a couple of minutes, I gave up. “So, how do these upgrade points actually work?”

“They’re just upgrades. If the upgrade says missiles will be 10% faster, it just means that whatever version of missile your station uses will have a limiter on their speed removed.”

“So we’re given weapons that are capable of doing more, except they won’t unless we have the right upgrades.”

“Basically.”

“That’s good to know. It means that if we see an example of a weapon they are using we can guess at what the more powerful version will be capable of.”

“Or you can just buy the information packet on a species weapons growth for me. They are cheap, so even you will be able to afford them. It will let me tell you what they're using.”

“Good to know. So, who am I fighting?”

A hologram appeared in front of me, showing the barren station and the seven transit rings. One began to glow red. Then a grey skin octopus with eight eyes appeared in front of me.

“I’m going to go in order of importance and the most immediate threat to your survival. The third transit ring leads to the Octorin faction. They are your first problem. They use swarm tactics. Expect them to send a large swarm of octopus shaped drones within the first 30 cycles. They do not engage in combat themselves, so you don’t need to worry about them invading your dungeon. They will try to rush this station as early as possible. If their first attempt fails, they will wait until they have created a big enough swarm to destroy this station and begin conquering another faction and then try again. While they built up for their second attack, they will trade through your station quite a lot. If you survive their first attempt, they will become great neighbors. Or they would if you weren’t losing 90% of your credits to paying off your debt.”

The red glow faded from their ring and moved two to the right. A reptilian humanoid appeared. Its skin was pebbled and green, its body thickly muscled like a gorilla, and its eyes were oversized like a gecko. It was like someone had made a human out of a weird komodo dragon.

“The fifth transit ring leads to the Kilocksin faction, who is your second problem. They are a war-loving clan-based society. They like to fight and are very good at it. However, the fragmented nature of their society means they never unify and actually have a great deal of infighting. They will be the first to challenge your dungeon simply so they can brag to their people that they were the first to attack you. They will also be the first to attack your station. These attacks will be about status, skill, and bravery, so they shouldn’t succeed. Once they have made their initial attacks, they will attack you sporadically whenever they get bored or have something to prove. It’s useful to know that they normally don’t last past the early stages of the Great Game. But their chaotic nature makes them hard to defend a station against. They might attack with a single ship or 10,000.”

The red glow shifted left to another transit ring, number four. A skeletal thin minotaur creature with pink pig-like skin stretched over emaciated bones appeared beside it. It looked undead.

“This is the Horde. They are going to be a problem. They are an extremely territorial herd species. They will be your biggest issue if you survive the other two. Their species excels at alloys, so they use heavy vessels with good armor. Their territorial nature means they will keep coming until they control the station because they hate anything near their territory. Most species build up defenses on their side of the transit ring. The Horde doesn’t. They keep a fleet on the other side of their ring, so they can counterattack whenever a species moves to attack their station. They don’t expand their territory once it’s connected, but they aggressively defend it. Your station is considered too close for their liking.”

The red shifted to the sixth ring. An armadillo-like humanoid appeared in front of me.

“These are the Uon and your fourth problem. They are going to fuck you up if you survive long enough. You aren’t going to see their forces at all until they are ready to conquer the galaxy. They’ll even trade through your station until they destroy you. They have these massive battleships they like to build that are basically planet killers. Your only hope of not being destroyed is making your station powerful enough that it is cheaper and easier for them to conquer the galaxy by attacking a different station. They’re very good at resource management.”

The red glow shifted to the second ring. An insect version of a centaur appeared in front of me.

“These are the Clack. You know the story The Three Billy Goats Gruff? Well, these guys embody it. They will send escalating waves against you, each one stronger than the last until they succeed. This is more dangerous for your dungeon than your station as their raiders can grow stronger more quickly. But they are also incredibly predictable as an instinct-driven hive race. Any questions?”

“Let me make sure I understand. The Kilocksin will attack me first, but it’s only going to be a token gesture. The Clack will attack me second and potentially third. The Octorin will attack me next, and if they fail, I won’t have to worry for a long time. The Horde will probably attack me after that, but once they start, they are going to be super aggressive, so I have to be ready for them. The Uon will win if they attack me, but they won’t attack me for a long time, and I can stop them by making myself too strong to bother with. How long is a long time?”

“At least a decade by earth time,” Tee said.

The amount of time shocked me. “Wait, how long does a season of the Great Game go for?”

“It depends. Whenever a new race is introduced a new season begins. The last one was introduced 348 years ago, earth time. That’s about normal.”

“How long before the first attack again?”

“Probably 4 months, but I said 3 in case the Kilocksin try to rush here. But that would be ridiculous. Their faction will have quests that need to be cleared, similar to what you’ve gone through. Also, their ship construction capabilities will be limited until they build up. If they ignore that, they will put themselves behind, but some young idiots might come here earlier for the bragging rights. It happens more often than not. Their young are hot-headed for a cold-blooded race.”

“What about the faction through the seventh ring?”

“That’s an AI faction. It’s their job to cause trouble. They don’t have a racial profile like the other factions, and I haven’t skimmed enough information to have a good view of what they will be like yet. They could be militaristic or they could be a trading faction. I don’t know. Hopefully, I will know more in a few days game time.”

“Okay, how can earth help me?”

“They can do large amounts of trading through your station to give you credits and resources, and they can send a fleet to another factions ring when you are attacked. While the fleet is passing through the transit area, they will be able to attack those attacking you, but they will have to go through the ring and then turn around and come back. If the faction on the other side of the ring doesn’t like them, they might obliterate them. It’s risky unless you have a lot of military might, or a friendly faction nearby, or have two sectors that connect to a single station. So assume you’re on your own.”

“I can do that. So what’s the plan?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure yet. It’s going to take you four more cycles to build all the R5s. That means at the very most, you are going to have 10,000 credits to spend in a single cycle until then. After that, you will have one cycle where you will have 20,000, and that’s if you save everything and don’t die. That’s not a lot of credits for your class, but a normal class would kill to have that much.”

“Is there anything I can do with the limited credits I have access to?”

“You can buy information. Information is cheap. But you’re not going to be able to afford upgrades. Your path will do more for your defense than the few credits you gain from killing station rats will.”

“How does a station even survive to late game if that’s all we get?”

“Normally, your faction would throw all the resources and credits that your local system produces through your trade station to help your station grow. A strong station is a better defense than a local fleet most of the time. The resources your station produce is actually intended to only be enough for general repairs and maintenance. It isn’t there for expansion. So you’re going to need another plan or a lot of luck.”