A Space Engineer Story: Stranded - Day 1

I hope I've already been able to leave this planet by the time someone reads this. If things went well, I've successfully escaped this desolate place and made contact with my fleet. Hopefully by now I'm back in civilisation, rejoined the others and me ending up on this planet will only be a memory, a story to tell my friends ... something to laugh about.

Right now I don't feel like laughing though.

I had just finished my final space engineering certification and was on the way to my final task with my other fellow students. Land on a habitable planet and build an outpost. A teamwork exercise.

I don't know why our command ship made the jump to this planet. First there was the announcement and everyone was hurrying to get ready. I remember rushing to my lander ship as we practiced so many times before. Initiating the launch sequence, just like in the simulator. When we were still doing the simulated approaches, I always wondered how it might feel in reality: being catapulted from the launch bay, hurtling towards the planet surface, getting closer and closer until the atmospheric thrusters kick in and the ship computer safely navigates to the landing site.

But something was wrong. First of all, there was no radio chatter, no instructions from fleet command. Checking all the systems again did not change anything - there was only complete silence. No ID signals from other ships, except the command ship. Sitting there above the planet it was now barely visible as the gravity pulled my lander ship closer and closer to the surface. "Remember, once you're launched there is no turning back. Your lander does not have thrusters suitable for spaceflight. Once you are on the way, your first task will be touching down safely at the landing site. Make sure to use your ship computer for the approach once you have pinpointed the landing site signal."

I checked the instruments again. No other ships found. That's when I saw the command ship firing up it's jump drive and moments later it was gone. It was then when I noticed that the planet below did not seem habitable at all. The ship computer did not recognise any navigation signal from the landing site. It finally became clear to me: this is not where I'm supposed to be.

I still can't tell if I'm the only one who made it to the planet. I doubt this is part of the exercise, but you never know. They've been bugging us with this "think outside the box" story all the time, but this seems a bit too extreme. Landing proved to be more difficult than expected. I should have signed up for the "Emergency Lander Pilot Training Workshop" as the manual approach was a lot more challenging as any basic piloting training could prepare you for.

It was just a small adjustment, just moving a little bit to the left - aiming for a small plateau which looked like the perfect landing spot. I must have missed a rock or something and slammed the right upwards thruster into the ground. The thruster is trash and with only one active engine I might not be able to achieve stable flight on this planet or even think about looking for other ships. But that is the least of my problems right now. There is no oxygen in the atmosphere.
This ship is equipped with an O2/H2 generator though and I saw some ice pockets from above, so I better fill up the O2 reserves as soon as possible - as long as I still have some energy left in the lander's batteries. Which leads to the next problem: there is only very little uranium left in the ship reactor fuel chamber. I need to find uranium, or try to come up with some other way to recharge electricity.

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I'm a computer gamer.
I like sandbox games.

Sandbox games often don't have much of a storyline. But you can always invent your own.
This is the story of an engineer and his journey.
This is my story of playing Space Engineers.
It is a diary and it is a game walkthrough. But most of all it is meant to be fun.
I hope you will like it.

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