I made it back to my apartment. Ishmael was already there and sat in a corner seemingly inert. My guess is he was reviewing everything that I had told him to look at. I sat down on another chair and started to go through the last entry of the journal. While I was intending to go through it in detail, I knew my father had a habit of writing down the completion of each journey in this journal, as a way of assessing what the journey had made or cost them.

Journey to Gate 14

We decided to explore a complex for which some coordinates were gifted to us.

A small asteroid base was found that we cleared and then took from.

A bunch of materials, Couple of boosters, Some stuff that System will probably

pay for and an AI-bot.

The complex is on the verge of collapse and I estimate it will no longer exist within

a year as we have exhausted what was left of the power.

We will have come out on top with this one. Perhaps enough to stay on station with

the boy for a while. I imagine Astrid will love that.

My eyes blurred at this. Well, it didn't quite work out the way they hoped. Gate 14 however. Still largely unexplored. The world in Gate 14 that was opened was a desert world. Absolutely nothing lived on it. As a result, the man who had a claim to the system sold it to System, who promptly declared it as only accessible with the permission of System. Most of the people who had gotten permission had found some good stuff in there over the years, although for some, it had taken them literally years to find it. Like every system, it was stuffed full of goodies that could either be used or sold to System at a good price. Personally, I thought the guy who found system 14 had been shortsighted at just selling it to System once he realised that the planet was not the kind of planet he was looking for. But then he re-equipped himself and a team with what System had given him and tried his luck again. Gate 15 was then found and to his taste. He set up a clan and decided to live there. So it worked out for him.

I sat there suddenly wondering what to do. I had decided to honour my parents by becoming what they had. Indeed, my skills definitely had the makings of a spectacular start to it. However with the other skills I now had, I could add to it and go one step further. My father had a dream. While exploration was the family business and was always what he wanted to do, he had wanted to ramp it up. Make them truly self-sufficient and be able to go out on a tour that would last a couple of years at least and would enable them to garner a greater profit from it. Most importantly, it would enable them to possibly reach places that no-one had before.

While I had the makings of starting to realise that dream, I didn’t have all that was needed. Incredible as it would seem, I would need a bigger ship. Which meant I had to turn my small ship path to either a medium ship path, or push the boat out and the ship path, which was an all ship class path. It meant studying for sure. Luckily, by doing small ship path, I could easily do the in-system ship path as it was basically the small ship path with a couple of paths swapped. Medium ships I knew some, but would need a couple of modules to be learned, going onto large class and then specialised ship class. Insystem, Medium and Big ship path were all achievable within half a year, as Small ship path replicated a lot of it. Specialised ships were going to be the majority of the work. However, with what Ishmael knew, I would be able to achieve it a lot easier if he could teach me some of the modules he had.

Fortunately, that specialised systems path he had would help, although it would have to upgrade and merge with some others in order to qualify. It was best to place his current path points so that he could begin to grow on his paths. As he would not rack up experience until they were spent. System Connections and Jack of Trades were done. That left Small Ships T2, Exploration T2, Harvesting T2 Refining T2, Robotics and Specialised Systems. He had known what some of these were going to provide. But thanks to upgrades, merging of skills and new ones being added, He now had a bit of figuring out to do. He decided to bring up the paths and see what he was offered.

Piloting

Small Ships T2 (10 PP)

Small Ship Engineering

Small Ship Systems

Small Ship Weapons

Small Ship Command

Librarian

Exploration T2 (10 PP)

Survival

Space Exploration

Self-improvement

Personal Weapons

Plants

Harvesting T2 (10 PP)

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Mineral

Living

Liquid

Gaseous

Specialised

Refining T2 (10 PP)

General

Material

Liquid

Gaseous

Repair

Robotics (2 PP)

Design

Manufacturing

Programming

Modding

Data

Specialised Systems (2 PP)

Targeting

Ship Systems

Navigation

Cargo

These were my normal paths and the choices I could make. Depending on where I put my points, I could make myself more specialised in a particular part or I could spread them out and make myself a generalist. Most of the more common paths people knew what to hit to get access to new paths in order to improve themselves further. Some were dead ends, some gave some stranger paths or less common. The danger was, if you didn’t know what to choose you could end up dead ending your paths and wouldn’t be able to upgrade.

I knew some common ones. And I would have to incorporate them to achieve the Ship path I wanted. Some of these paths I would either have to wing or ask for help on. That or reset if I proved wrong and that could prove expensive. I might be able to afford that now, but would I be able to, down the road? It was a good question. I had an advantage in that I could reset the board at 18 and also rid myself of some skills that I might have gained in the meantime.

I looked at Small Ships T2. initially I was going to specialise in this. However, to achieve the Ship path, I was going to have to generalise in this path instead and specialise in Ship when I got it. However, the good thing is that you could part spec and part gen, to achieve the same result. All the paths regarding the general ship paths were known and easy enough to achieve if you had the money and time. Which I did. However, I also knew with 10 points to spend, and 15 points to earn plus the skills that the bots had, I could choose what I wanted and come back to the rest when I got the points to spend. So I stuck 1 in piloting, 3 in ship systems, 1 in weaponry and 5 in ship command. Ishmael and Artoo would make up for my deficiencies in the meantime, in the one I had chosen and skimped on.

I then chose Specialised Systems. My initial choices I wasn’t going to take any more. To make my Ships T2 path I was going to have to specialise this skill, possibly more than once. But I could only have it in my T1 skills one at a time. However, I had a plan for this. I put two points into Cargo and then used three of the free points I had been given into Ship Systems. I was then given a choice.

Evolve Specialised Systems into Specialised Shipping?

This was one of the paths I needed to make up my Ship path. I selected yes. It then appeared on my sheet with two PP. The three free points were then dissolved. That was the danger of free points. You could use them anywhere. But if you used them to upgrade something, they went away. I considered it a fair trade in this case.

I then looked into Robotics. This had not gone the way I had planned to. I had planned to use computer engineering to further my computer skills. However it struck me that with two AIs now helping me, This would not turn out to be a bad choice for me. I decided to put both points into repair for now, as this would help if one of them got their exteriors damaged. One thing suddenly struck me. This was not a usual skill. I would have to find out more about it.

That took care of three of the paths I needed to sort out, although a new one had been added. Now the more difficult ones. I turned to the one I knew somewhat about. Exploration. It had been one I was working towards. It was different to the way my parents had achieved it however, which meant I could not take the safer path using their knowledge. That said, The ones that were different from my parent’s path seemed to be upgraded ones.

I knew I had to enter two points in the self improvement path as that was the one that would operate my new improved eyes and whatever other parts I might improve. So that just left 8 points to allocate. I put one into Personal Weapons and Survival each as my parents said that was crucial to surviving in dangerous situations. They also said more points there couldn’t hurt, but at least one in each was needed. So that took care of 4 of my points.

I had an AI-bot that could be a Bodyguard, T2 no less, So I felt safe just leaving one point in Personal Weapons. I pondered Survival. One more couldn’t hurt, so I added that. I then decided three into Librarian. A lot of what I would need to do in the near future would be research and I was guessing that would help. The last two I put into Space Exploration. At this moment in time, I wasn’t aware what I could combine with it to make a T3 skill and I wasn’t that bothered. Being T2, it was going to take me time to make those points.

Harvesting I then looked at. I had the knowledge on what it did, and could do a lot of basic harvesting, due to it being T2. By the looks of the options, this was more about specialising or deciding to generalise. I decided to specialise. If I ever needed to do something with the living or plants, I could either learn the skills again to specialise, taking the time or I could hire someone else with the knowledge. I decided to put 4 into Minerals, 3 into Liquid and 3 into Gaseous. From something else I had learned, this would prove most optimal when it came to doing space harvesting. If it would lead to something, I wasn’t sure. But I was willing to take the gamble.

When it came to refining I was a little more stumped. This had actually been a dream of my father’s, to be more independent refining typically meant you made a lot of material into smaller but more valuable lots. I decided to stick one into Gaseous, one into Liquid, four into material and two each into General and Specialised. From what I could remember from childhood conversations with my dad, This was the way to go. If I was wrong, well, reset at 18 I guess, or pay for it later.

Now to look at the new Specialised Shipping.

Systems

Specialised Shipping (2 PP)

Cargo

Structure

Knowledge

Markets

I knew it would be one in each of them. But for now, I decided to hit the two I knew I would find the hardest. Knowledge and Structure. Systems was one I had made headway into and could probably earn the point easily enough for that. Same with Cargo. Markets, I had a feeling my system connections skill could help with that. If not, well I could spend a free point if I had any saved and was not making progress?

So that left me with all my path points selected. I had used three free points, leaving me with six. I debated on using any at this stage, or leaving it for another day. Another day I decided. I then felt myself yawning. I had spent a lot of path points and I would wake up with a head full of new knowledge. Everyone knew how it worked. Tomorrow I will have a lot more knowledge and skill. I made myself something to eat and looked at Ishmael. Still in learning mode by looks of it. I decided to go to bed.