Solar Apathy, Pride, Fear.
Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:26 pm
This little 1:2:1 locomotive is my solar farm train similar to many others people have I'm sure but despite everything else I have built and designed in this game, this sloppy construction is the one I am most proud off. It started off much simpler when all i had was yellow/red belt minimal experience and no bots. It has mutated to my needs along the way. But the bit that makes it special for me is when early on my solar outpost clogged up with wood due to all the trees and only having a couple of storage chests. Instead of just destroying the chests or placing more I was motivated to solve the problem permanently. So the outposts from them on in would load some Wood and Stone onto the train to be transported back to the main base for disposal. Some of the wood to feed the train itself the rest off to the boilers for night time burning and the stone was dumped in nearby chest that made rails with a simple red wire for preferential use. I never really thought about it after I set it up. When solar farm areas ran out of space I simply copy pasted the station to a fresh open area and deleted the old one.
The map is a 1500 tile high ribbon world and barring the first 10 or so squares every single solar panel and accumulator was carried by this train and placed by it's bots. But that is not the bit that makes me so proud. The bit that makes me so proud just dawned on me recently.
All the rails that are carrying this train to it solar outposts are built using the stone it harvested, the fuel that powers it's motion is harvested in the same way. While I have been building up my factories this little train has slowly and quietly being Terraforming the western world. Using the bones of the world to make grit for it's tracks and consuming the flesh of the land to power it's relentless mission.
I don't feel like i built all of this solar, I feel like I'm just a cog in the solar farms machine my only purpose is to feed it solar equipment. The rest of the factory is just a distraction designed like the matrix to keep me busy and give me motivation to want more solar so that i continue to clear biters and feed this little train on it's mission to Terraform the world.
Soon I will be demolishing this old belted base to free up UPS, my new rail/bot base is nearly finished on the Eastern edge, when I do their will be a new and more advanced loading area for this exact train, the rails and fuel will be provided exactly as before. It's first job will be to pave over my original base with solar. While I am proud of this train I fear when this map is said and done this train will have paved over every square meter in solar, including me.