Mission Blog: Chapter 4 - Financial Times

I'd been searching for copper among the asteroids hovering in the nothingness for at least an hour. The hyperdrive upgrade I managed to find in the last system required hundreds of the stuff, and I was accumulating it at a snail's pace. After visiting a handful of yellow star systems and knowing full well that the other colours feature stranger planets with rarer stuff, I was determined to build that upgrade. The Mug system was letting me down big time, though. I decided to take a break from copper farming, and made a quick stop at the space station to sell some bits and bobs. I'd saved up a decent amount of money. Maybe soon I'd be able to actually buy a half decent starship, instead of repairing busted ones.

The nearest planet was probably the biggest one I'd seen in the game. It was also fairly close, and my interest in gathering copper was waning, so I headed down to see what I could find.

What struck me first was the sheer quantity of emeril deposits. The place was covered in the stuff, as far as I could see. This was one of the only examples of a planet that I had a name for pretty much instantly – welcome to Emeril City. It may not feature flying monkeys or a great and powerful wizard, but boy was there a lot of green. I set down and immediately got to work, mining the huge deposits for all they were worth.

I didn't stop to do much sightseeing. Once I found an outpost with a trade terminal, I made it my business to mine and sell emeril, and I did it exceedingly well. There wasn't much more for me on this hot, flora-intensive planet, but I didn't mind, as I was nearly a millionaire. Maybe that other planet, hanging close on the horizon, would hold yet more treasures.

A short trip later, and I was on my very first extreme planet, with very low temperatures and storms occurring every ten minutes or so. My hazard protection was taking an absolute battering as I explored the wintry landscape. Strange creatures hopped about as I ran around collecting zinc and plutonium. They were what I can only describe as overexcited pineapples. It appeared as though they were joined by some flying jellyfish type things, but it was hard to tell whether they were alive or not. Though they looked organic, shooting them down awarded me radnox, a resource I'd yet to come across. I couldn't find a practical use for the element, and assuming it'd be worth something, set to work on harvesting it.

It wasn't much longer before I hit that 1 million units milestone, and as luck would have it, I ran into a cluster of copper asteroids. That hyperdrive upgrade was finally mine, but look at all this money I had – I definitely deserved a new ship. I waited in the hangar for quite a while until a suitably awesome ship landed. I spent nearly all of my money on a super cool yellow fighter-style spacecraft, with a few extra inventory slots to boot. Once the hyperdrive upgrade was installed, I was super happy with my new ship, and I knew I'd be holding onto this one for a long time. A quick browse of the galactic map, and I found a nearby red star system. Without hesitation, I jumped.

I was immediately met with the sight of a dangerous-looking planet, its surface all craggy and sort of silver. It turned out to be another cold planet, but it was teeming with animal and plant life, including hundreds of trees, and a treasure trove of resources. Even chrysonite crystals were relatively abundant, along with some strange, bobbly golden growths that gave out small amounts of murrine. As expected, it was worth a lot of money, so along with scanning all the creatures I could find, I collected as much murrine as possible, and headed for a trading post. My money soon mounted up again.

Once I'd restocked and found all the creatures (another cash injection that I very much appreciated), I touched base at the space station to sell off some stuff and make some room. There were quite a few planets in this system which, I realised, didn't have a name yet. What else was in my vicinity that I hadn't already used… Of course! My better half. The system had a name, and that name was Rachel. I chose a planet at random and set off.

I had picked well. This toxic planet, like my previous stop, was home to plenty of wildlife, and the land was covered in snaking trails of rock and floating copper deposits. Aside from the whole toxic atmosphere thing, this was the best planet I'd landed on from a sightseeing standpoint.

Unfortunately, this was not a planet made for standing still. Many of the creatures were aggressive, and the sentinels shot at me on sight. It may have been a nice place to look at, but its inhabitants clearly didn't like strangers. I took shelter in a nearby Korvax building, where I found a multitool with some extra slots. It was too good to resist, and I bought it. In one of my dumbest moves, I decided I didn't like the layout of all its tech, so I broke it all down to reorganise, not thinking of everything on this planet that wanted me dead. I didn't have the resources needed for my weapon, and so I was defenceless. Whoops.

A desperate attempt to gather the elements needed began, and in the middle of all this, I discovered something shining bright as a star lying on the ground. I picked it up. A gravitino ball? Why did I suddenly have a three-star wanted level? What was going on? I was forced to hightail it back to the outpost to recover.

I soon discovered why the sentinels didn't like me taking gravitino balls; they're worth an absolute fortune. The multitool would have to take a backseat. I cracked my knuckles, scanned the environment, and found there were dozens upon dozens of the things just waiting to be cashed in. This was not only super lucrative, it was super fun evading the sentinels and their laser fire. I repeated the process for a long time, building up to a grand total of three million units before I stopped for a breather. Best planet ever? It was certainly the best I'd found. I named it Gravitino Rush, because puns. I'd definitely be back before I move on to the next system.

Guys, upgrade those hyperdrives and travel to different coloured systems. They are unquestionably better, and your wallets will thank you.