With seventeen hundred points to work with, the design process transformed from an impossible puzzle to a merely difficult challenge. Tanya found herself able to include proper life support redundancies, a decent navigation suite, and even basic defensive shielding without immediately hitting her limit.
"Right," she said, manipulating the holographic interface with growing confidence. "Let's see what we can do with actual breathing room."
The ship that emerged from her revised specifications was... functional. Decidedly boxy, with all the aesthetic appeal of a flying shipping container, but it incorporated most of the salvaged systems from her crashed shuttle and stayed just under the point limit. The design software highlighted her final tally: 1,687 points of 1,700 available.
"Not exactly going to win any design awards," she admitted, rotating the 3D model to examine it from different angles. "But it should get me off this rock. And it's built to keep me alive."
//Aesthetic considerations are secondary to operational capability,// Sage observed. //However, beauty often emerges naturally from efficient design.//
"Are you saying it's ugly?"
//I am saying it reflects your current understanding of the design process. Which, in this case, resembles a functional storage crate with engines.//
Tanya decided that was diplomat-speak for "yes, it's ugly" and moved on. The design program included sophisticated simulation capabilities that let her test her ship's performance under various conditions. She spent hours running atmospheric entry scenarios, engine failure simulations, and structural stress tests.
Each simulation revealed new problems. The power distribution was unbalanced. The structural supports created stress concentrations under certain load conditions. The center of mass was slightly off, affecting handling characteristics. She adjusted, refined, and re-tested, each iteration bringing new insights.
//Observation: your thruster placement creates asymmetric thrust vectoring during emergency manoeuvres,// Sage noted during her fifteenth revision.
"Where?" Tanya examined the configuration, then slapped her forehead. "Right there. If I lose the port engine, the remaining thrusters will send me into a spin. How did I miss that?"
//Pattern recognition improves with experience. You are learning to see the ship as a complete system rather than a collection of individual components. This is encouraging. You are now only a danger to yourself in half the scenarios previously projected.//
After three days of iterative design work, she finally had something she was genuinely proud of. It was still boxy, still utilitarian, but every component served a purpose and worked in harmony with the others. The simulation results showed solid performance across all test scenarios.
"Alright," she said, saving the final design. "Time to build this thing."
She expected the fabrication to be as straightforward as the design process had become. The workshop's machines were clearly more advanced and beyond anything she had experience with, with matter manipulation capabilities that seemed closer to magic than engineering. She was certain Sage could materialise her entire ship in minutes if properly instructed.
//Fabrication protocols are essential shipwright knowledge,// Sage informed her when she expressed this opinion. //Understanding how components are made provides crucial insights into their capabilities and limitations.//
"Right, but I'm a designer, not a manufacturer. That's what fabrication specialists are for."
//In your current situation, you are the fabrication specialist. Congratulations on your promotion. Beginning basic manufacturing instruction transfer.//
The knowledge download was less intense than her previous upgrades, more like remembering a half-forgotten lesson than learning something entirely new. Suddenly, she understood the principles behind all the operational parameters of the various fabrication machines.
Understanding the theory, she quickly discovered, was very different from applying it in practice.
Her first attempt at manufacturing the ship's primary structural beam resulted in a twisted piece of metal that looked like it had been processed through a blender. The assembler had misaligned the crystal structure, creating catastrophic stress points throughout the material.
"Well," she said, staring at the warped debris, "that's not right."
//Calibration error in the assembly matrix. The beam specifications require tighter tolerance parameters.//
The second attempt was better, but still wrong. The beam was straight and structurally sound, but three percent longer than specified. The third attempt was the right length but made from the wrong alloy entirely. The fourth attempt dissolved into metallic powder the moment she tried to remove it from the fabricator.
"This is ridiculous," Tanya muttered after her eighth failed beam. "I designed starships at university. I graduated with honours. How hard can it be to make one structural component?"
//Design knowledge and manufacturing experience are distinct skill sets. Your education focused on theoretical application, not practical implementation. Also, I have observed that you are attempting to fabricate with the same urgency as one might assemble flat-pack furniture.//
It took her two full days to produce all the structural components she needed. The hull plating alone required fifteen attempts before she achieved acceptable results. The power coupling for the main drive had to be completely re-fabricated four times when various settings proved incompatible with the materials involved.
By the third day, she was covered in metallic dust, her hands were stained with various fabrication compounds, and her patience had worn thinner than molecular-grade foil. But she finally had all the components laid out across the workshop floor, ready for assembly.
"Right," she said, surveying her work with the weary satisfaction of someone who'd just completed the galaxy's most frustrating manufacturing course. "Time to put it all together."
Assembly, she discovered, presented an entirely new category of problems.
The design software had optimised her ship for performance and efficiency, but it hadn't considered the practical realities of actually building the thing. Components that looked perfectly accessible in the holographic display were impossible to reach once other systems were in place. Structural elements that appeared to fit together seamlessly required precise alignment that was nearly impossible to achieve with the available tools.
"How am I supposed to install this power coupling?" she asked the air, staring at a junction that was clearly meant to be accessible but was now blocked by the navigation array she'd installed an hour earlier. "I'd need to disassemble half the ship to reach it."
//Assembly sequence optimisation is an essential consideration in spacecraft design. Your current approach demonstrates why experienced shipwrights plan construction methodology alongside system specifications.//
"Great," Tanya said, beginning the tedious process of removing the navigation array. "So I need to redesign the entire ship for buildability, not just functionality."
//Incorrect. You need to develop a construction sequence that accommodates your existing design. This requires spatial reasoning and methodical planning. Fortunately, your Utilitarian specialisation suggests this is something you will excel in.//
It was like solving a three-dimensional puzzle where every piece affected every other piece. She found herself building and rebuilding entire sections as she discovered optimal assembly sequences. What she'd thought would take a day stretched into three days of careful, methodical work.
But finally, impossibly, she had a complete spacecraft sitting in the workshop. It was exactly as ugly as the design software had promised, a utilitarian box with engines, but it was hers. Every rivet, every weld, every carefully aligned component was the product of her hands and her growing understanding of what it meant to truly build something.
She stood back, admiring her work with the pride of a new parent. "Well, she's not pretty, but she's mine. And she's built to keep someone alive, not to win a fight. That's good enough for me. What do you think, Sage?"
//Assessment requested. Beginning comprehensive evaluation.//
The analysis took several minutes, during which various scanners emerged from the workshop walls to examine every aspect of her ship. When the results finally appeared in her visual display, Tanya's pride deflated like a punctured balloon.
CONSTRUCTION ASSESSMENT: D+
Functional: Yes
Aesthetic Value: Minimal
Structural Redundancy: Insufficient
Critical Failure Points: 7 identified
Resource Efficiency: Poor
Overall Rating: Barely Adequate
//Your design demonstrates basic competency in spacecraft construction,// Sage explained with what she was beginning to recognise as its version of gentle criticism. //However, it reflects significant limitations in your approach to resource utilisation and risk management.//
"Hey!" Tanya protested, though part of her knew the assessment was fair. "It flies, doesn't it? And it'll get me off this planet?"
//Correct. It is a functional atmospheric vessel. However, you have limited yourself to immediately available materials when an entire abandoned city surrounds this facility. Your resource tunnel vision has resulted in numerous compromises that could have been avoided with broader thinking.//
Tanya looked at her ship with new eyes, suddenly seeing all the places where she'd made do with salvaged components instead of seeking optimal solutions. The thruster configuration that was good enough rather than ideal. The structural supports that were adequate instead of elegant. The life support system that would work but had no backup redundancy—something she'd sworn to always include because keeping people alive was the whole point.
"I could have explored more of the ruins," she admitted. "Found better materials, more advanced components..."
//Additionally, your focus on individual systems has created several critical failure points. The power distribution node has no backup. The atmospheric processor has a single point of failure. The navigation system depends entirely on components salvaged from your crashed vessel.//
The criticism stung, but it was accurate. She'd been so focused on getting off the planet that she'd built the spacecraft equivalent of a house of cards.
"I'm sorry," she said to her ship, patting its dull metal hull. "You're not ugly. You're just... efficiently functional. Don't listen to the mean machine."
//Mission parameters updated. Objective: Improve the current vessel to achieve a minimum C+ rating. Additional components and materials must be sourced from the city ruins. No point limitations apply to upgrade operations.//
"Another mission?" Tanya asked, though she was already mentally cataloguing improvements she could make. "What's the reward for this one?"
//Skill advancement has already been achieved through the construction process. You are now a Level 3 Shipwright with enhanced fabrication capabilities and spatial reasoning. The reward for improvement missions is the improved ship itself.//
Tanya checked her status display and was surprised to see that Sage was right. Her skill levels had increased across the board, and new capabilities had been unlocked without her noticing. She could now see stress distribution patterns in her ship's structure, identify optimal material compositions for specific applications, and understand the relationships between different systems in ways that had been invisible to her just days before.
"So, the real education wasn't the lectures," she said, understanding dawning. "It was the doing."
//Correct. Knowledge without application is merely theory. You have now experienced the complete shipwright process: design, fabrication, and assembly. This foundation will support all future learning—and possibly reduce the number of times you install a component backwards.//
Tanya looked at her functional, ugly, barely adequate spacecraft and felt a mixture of pride and determination. It wasn't the ship of her dreams, but it was proof that she could take raw materials and turn them into something that defied gravity. That was no small accomplishment.
"Alright then," she said, rolling up her sleeves. "Let's go see what the neighbours have been keeping in their garages. Time to turn this flying box into something worthy of the Furrow name."
//Excellent attitude. Your education continues.//