Project Overworld

During the few days following his arrival on the new continent, Keith installed his drills and his generator on temporary locations and gathered some essential resources.

In the meantime, he thoroughly thought about how he should make his future base.

First of all, most of the build would be buried underground. In fact, he needed lots of space for his future projects but did not want to expand the time and resources needed to build a giant facility on the surface.

Secondly, he would use strong alloy and materials to reinforce the tunnels and the vast rooms. He wanted to do this because the base would have to endure powerful machineries and generators, as well as temperature changes.

Finally, Keith wanted the base to be discrete and being able to defend itself like his previous one. He thought he had a few months of respite before someone lay foot on his new territory, but he did not want to take any risk.

Those were all the troubles he went through while planning for his new base. He wanted this base to be permanent, not some kind of a temporary home like his previous ones.

Only, considering the pace at which he developed things and the exponential need of resources, it was like the shoes of a teenager whose feet were growing more and more as time passed.

That was why he planned to make a base larger than necessary, because he knew he would need this much space in the future.

During this time the situation at the world spawnpoint settled quite a bit. Some of the most ancient guilds were still fighting over territory - such was the case for the New Dawn guild - but the spawn itself was doing well.

Through a community effort, a beautiful town was built around the spawn and a giant hub was welcoming new players to the game. Various signs were placed to indicate where to find basic resources and the warzone made by the ancient guilds clashing against each other was delimited so that new players would not come across the battlefield randomly.

The goal was to give an enjoyable first impression to everyone joining the game and allowing them to chose what they wanted to focus on, be it fighting, crafting or even exploring.

As for the Pioneers, the largest guild existing in Project Overworld, they quickly aligned with the vision of these new players. Not because they adhered to their values, but because they knew they could not hope to win against a community of around ten times their size.

They helped a lot during the construction of the spawn city, baptized Midgard in reference of the way Earth was described in an ancient culture, by providing resources and manpower.

The Pioneers became true pioneers to the tens of thousand new players joining the game and gained in popularity but not that much in term of members.

Every new player wanted his own experience of the game and this old guild, mostly made out of veterans of the game, was not appealing to them.

However the biggest change that occurred because of the limitation of war was the social interactions. Players stopped being afraid of coming out of their base, exploring the region and visiting other players' home.

A real technological boom blew within Project Overworld.

From prehistoric tools to medieval warfare, players were now building beautiful houses and perfected tools to help in that matter.

People were even starting to sell resources and crafts to other players, in exchange for another craft or resource they needed.

It was the true beginning of civilization.

A few weeks later, Keith dug up most of the shape he wanted his base to look like.

He stored his generator and workbenches, as well as his automated furnace inside a room made for crafting purposes and the rest in the storage room.

Since then, he started smelting ore at an alarming rate, even creating a second furnace to smelt faster, in order to reinforce the walls.

As for the drills, they were working all day long, and even while he was disconnected.

Even then, they did not suffice and he had to design new ones.

Of course, he did not waste time while the huge junks of ore were smelting and worked on processors to make a smaller-size computer.

His calculator would not be enough for all the automation he wanted to make and it was already taking lots of space. It was around four feet wide and seven feet high.

However, Keith was displeased with its energy consumption compared to the processing power it could output. In fact, it could not process much information, and its storage capacity was poor, while it was currently consuming around thirty percent of the energy furnished by the generator.

In his previous base, because the calculator had to process the turrets' data, most of his energy generation was s.u.c.k.e.d up by this processing unit.

Because of this, he did not take his turrets out of the storage room and used the calculator to improve and optimize the drills and furnaces' efficiency instead. It was also constantly checking their data to prevent any incident from appearing.

Only, thirty percent of his energy production being used by a single machine was really harsh for him.

He could not add any more machine or the whole electric installation would black out due to over-consumption.

Two solutions came to his mind to resolve this problem, either make a new and improved computer to replace the old calculator, or make another generator.

Thus, he chose both.

The parts required for the generator were currently being smelted but he already finished the rotor and stator required for the alternator. The alternator was the part of the generator producing electricity using mechanical energy such as water flowing through blades.

For his generators, however, he used a much more efficient energy source, steam, produced by boiling water.

As for the computer, he was working on it when he had spare time while the generator parts were being refined.

It was a secondary project because what he needed most at the moment was energy.

However, he wanted to optimize his consumption as well. It was a good practice for the future.

In fact, as he would automate more and more of his various craft processes, he would consume lots of energy. The earlier he thought about a solution, the faster he would advance.

That was why he wanted to improve his calculator. He also wanted more control over his electrical installations, thus he was designing gauges and a few buttons to modify each machine's power individually directly from the computer.

This project of a smaller-sized computer would also prove essential in the future. Working on small-sized technology was necessary for a space rocket for example as it would need more fuel and boosters the more it weighted.

'Yeah a space rocket would be nice, but I have a base to take care of beforehand.'

On that note, Keith focused back on his generator and worked as diligently as he ever did... If not more because of a sudden surge in motivation.