Game 17: The Banished Vault

"Survive a journey across space in the Auriga Vault, an interstellar gothic monastery crewed by the last remaining exiles of a terrible disaster." - The Banished Vault I don't remember where I heard about this game - possibly BlueSky? I don't know much about it except that I think it's complicated so it might not be for everyone. We appear to be the remnants of a monastery-colony ship that found something unpleasant.

I hope we're not doing vows of celibacy, it's gonna make the colonization thing hard.

Movement is indeed complicated!

There's a very detailed in-game manual and god help you if you don't read it.

This feels like a single-player board game, certainly it looks like the designers initially built it as such.

The use of actual dice mechanics just gives me that impression.

I don't believe I've seen a solar system laid out in an isometric fashion before, but here we are.

Thankfully we've arrived here during a planetary alignment.

Ok, so let's muddle through this system. The objective is to travel to the planets here, mine resources, manufacture fuel and Stasis (a resource I need for the Exiles to go into Hibernation), and get out before the Gloom arrives and swallows everyone in 30 turns.

There's also a Hallowed planet here on which to construct a Scriptorium. Doing this is important since it chronicles the journey and the manual says the journey is over if I can make four of them.

Our resources to accomplish this mission:

4 Exiles:

Reinald, Paganus, Cheli, Xave.

3 ships:

Spire Hendecad, a larger ship with more cargo slots but also more mass which requires more fuel. Accompanying it are Portal Fifty Nine and the unfortunately named Smoke Crater, smaller ships with less cargo space.

Each ship currently has two types of engines, one is more fuel efficient and one provides more thrust which is required for landing on planets, but each engine is taking up precious cargo space.

I also start with a bunch of fuel, Iron, Water, Titanium, and Silica.

Turns out the celibacy thing has no relevance for our colonization prospects, we're all dudes.

The System has four planets / moons down three main paths.

The center planet seems to have the most resources and it's easier to get to.

Before I even start my first turn I'm looking through the manual to see if it lists building costs, because I need to bring the right amount of resources with me to build at least the initial structures to harvest more resources. Thankfully those costs are indeed listed in here. All of the harvesting buildings cost iron, so starting is straightforward, and if we can get more iron on the planet we can build the rest of the buildings we'll need. And all of the main planets also have iron so we don't necessarily need to bring too much. Ok, overall plan: Send one ship down each route, the big ship goes to the planet in the middle. Each ship brings enough iron to set up initial resource gathering. We build what we can to maximize resources and get the scriptorium built, and see what happens when we accomplish those initial objectives. Paganus will pilot Smoke Crater for the most important mission: Build the Scriptorium.

A scriptorium needs Alloy and Elixir, and the set of materials here can be used to build Alloy but not Elixir. Smoke Crater will carry some Iron to start manufacturing buildings as well as some Elixir from Vault storage to try to accomplish the mission solo rather than make Elixir elsewhere and bring it over here from another planet.

He should also be able to make his own fuel on-planet to return home, Water can be turned into fuel.

Spire Hendecad is to head for the center planet and manufacture Stasis, the substance we need to successfully hibernate and have the Exiles survive to the next system. Using the big ship and two exiles here might be overkill, but I think lack of Stasis is the end so let's make sure we can successfully complete at least one system. Reinald, the highest faith colonist, is paired with the lowest faith colonist, Xave. Faith helps you overcome challenges and decreases after every hibernation.

Without Stasis I assume our Exiles will die.

Portal Fifty Nine has a tough job, one mediocre Exile, Cheli, on one small ship trying to manufacture Elixir with the resources spread across a planet and a moon. If either of the other ships can get their stuff done ahead of schedule I'll try to have them come help here afterward, but Elixir might be easier to make in future systems too. I'm going to try to remedy this by taking the Vault's supply of Silica with me to go directly make at least some Elixir without having to go to the moon. 

Elixir seems useful but not immediately fatal to run out of.

So I have a plan but I don't know the game well enough to know if it's a good one! This seems like an easier system overall, all of the planets starting with iron and titanium means that reaching them with enough iron to build an iron harvester is good enough to get going, and fuel can be made on all of them except this last one where the Water is over on a moon.

Godspeed, brave Exiles.

Portal Fifty Nine arrives at the outer planet first, and I get lucky on the fuel calculations - he's used up more than half of his supply and couldn't return to the vault. After checking some things it looks to me like he still has exactly enough fuel to reach the moon with water and not a drop more than that.

I really need to understand fuel usage or someone is getting stranded.

But first, we start building. Planets are simply a little grid with resource nodes to build on. Turns out they also start with a few resources but I wasn't aware of that, I could have brought less with me but I'm glad that I brought some, there's not enough materials in the cache to build the initial iron harvester.

If I had come here with no materials for buildings I'd be screwed.

Paganus in Smoke Crater reports a serious problem. The blueprint for a Scriptorium is huge! Even worse, the resources on the inner planet are placed such that any placement of this massive structure will block two of the nodes. Worst of all, once a building is placed, it's placed for life - no moving or deconstructing it.

How many books are we putting in these scriptoriums?!

This really puts a crimp on the mission - do we sacrifice the resource nodes and build it anyway, or maybe we just skip it and just harvest resources now in order to make our chances of building one in a future system better? We'd pretty much have to sacrifice the Water node here, which means no more fuel.... I'll sleep on it, there's a lot of calculation and planning to be done in this game, this unexpected complication has thrown a huge wrench into my plans for this system. Spire Hendecad is doing better, with two people they've already got all their resource collectors set up and the distribution is such that they can build both a fuel producer and a stasis factory, but that doesn't leave much room left.

First hard lesson in this game is that planets are very, very tiny and space for buildings is at a premium.

It's slow going for Cheli out on the rim, being on the outer planets he's only refreshing two actions per turn, but he's making progress towards getting Elixirs made.

Two actions per turn is limiting Cheli's productivity.

Ok, decision time.

We're not going to build the Scriptorium in this system.

My fear is that if we build it then Paganus is stranded since he can't make fuel, and so not only do we screw up Paganus' resource gathering, we also screw up someone else's resource gathering because now we have to send one of the other ships with fuel to rescue him. Instead we're going to just focus on mining this system and try to gather a bunch of artifacts which will help us unlock more buildings in the future and try to set us up better for a Scriptorium in a future system. Spire hits a snag - the Stasis producing building requires one alloy to construct, and we didn't bring any nor do we have Silica here to make it.

It's a small miracle that the Stasis building will at least fit if I go get the materials for it.

Spire is going to make a bunch of fuel for the trip and send one Exile off to pick some Alloy up while the other remains on planet to work the factories.

Stares longingly at the Alloy that I just left back in the Vault.

Spire has the fuel, time to head out. The best source for Silica (for making Alloy) in the system is on the inner planet where I didn't build the Scriptorium, I'm glad of that decision. Xave, piloting Spire, arrives on the inner planet. These trips burn a lot of fuel so we'll take this opportunity to stay here for a couple turns to manufacture a full load of alloy and lots of fuel for Spire to carry back.

Paganus is thrilled to have the company.

Cheli, working slowly on the outer planet, has crafted five Elixir from the pre-brought Silica and now needs to head to the moon to get more and manufacture fuel. Before he goes he'll need to make six iron and one titanium here so he can construct the buildings to make fuel and harvest water / silica on the moon. At two actions a turn that'll be another three turns before he lifts off, so even though we have 30 turns to do this I'm feeling constrained for time. Cheli only makes it to the moon on his very last drop of fuel. He only just makes it because Portal Fifty Nine is a small ship and the moon only requires 1 thrust to land on so he can use the more efficient engine to get there.

I do not want to come this close to running out of fuel ever again.

The difficulty there is that how much fuel you need to go somewhere gets complicated.

He arrives and starts construction of a Fuel / Silica moon base. I got lucky as I realize that sometimes resources can be underneath the surface, requiring the addition of an excavation building to access - if that had happened I wouldn't have been able to get to the buried ones because I didn't bring enough additional stuff to build one.

Thankfully everything is on the surface. This time.

Spire is fully loaded with lots of fuel, nine alloy, the spare elixir we didn't use for the Scriptorium, and an alien animal skull that we can research.

From the skull comes Knowledge, and from Knowledge comes hopefully good things.

She takes off and heads for the middle planet.

At 15 turns we're halfway through our allotted time.

Reinald is on the inner planet making as much alloy as the small ship can carry back.

Paganus arrives back on the middle planet with the alloy so we can start making Stasis there. It should go quickly because Xave has been there mining the pre-requisites for it.

Cheli in the outer systems is working on the moon-fuel base to try and get some more Elixir made out there, but it's slow going. You refresh fewer actions in the outer system, so someone on the inner planet can get twice as much done with the time they have. With the arrival of the Spire, the Stasis producer is online.

We need 2 Stasis per Exile to make the next jump and I'd like to get more for the future.

Cheli has a full load of fuel and Silica to go back to the outer Planet with and try to scrape together some more Elixir before we run out of time.

9 turns remain before the Gloom starts to come in. The manual says it doesn't obliterate the whole system but it starts with the inner planets so Cheli has more turns than the others do.

I don't know how quickly Gloom will consume the system so I don't want to cut it too close.

I suspect that Spire Hendecad on the inner planet may not have enough time to re-visit the moon fuel base to stock up so I load it up with enough fuel to make the whole trip all the way back to the Vault. I would love to make a trip to the Vault and then come back for a second voyage to grab more stuff with Spire Hendecad and time is getting tight, so I'm going to leave now. It's going to take around 4-6 turns to get there and return to the planet. Her cargo is very valuable - the Skull worth 10 knowledge, 16 Stasis (which should be enough for this and the next system), 8 alloy. Xave will remain on the planet to make more fuel and Stasis in the remaining time and the return flight will probably just be a quick pickup of Xave and whatever resources he can get.

Xave better hope I'm right about how long this will take.

Five turns to go and Reginald in Smoke Crater on the inner planet has a full hold with more alloy, so he can leave early. This is good because I'm hoping this means he has time to swing over to the Fuel Moon because there was a very valuable artifact on it, Cheli didn't have the cargo space.

Have we considered perhaps just mounting both types of engines on the outside of the ship? I'd really like them to not take up space in cargo.

5 turns remain, and Smoke Crater starts running for safety.

As Smoke Crater departs, Spire completes her round trip back to the Vault and returns to the middle planet.

Paganus and Xave will work furiously until the end to try to obtain more Stasis and Fuel before leaving.

I check the Vault's resources to see what I should prioritize getting at the end here and I'm extremely glad I did - I used up ALL of the Iron we had and we have none of it right now! We wouldn't have been able to build buildings in the next system! We'll prioritize it on the middle planet now.

Vault to Spire Hendecad, grab as much Iron as you can or we're screwed.

2 Turns left - Reinald snags an alien plant. It's worth 20 knowledge! He heads for home.

20 is great considering I've found artifacts that are merely worth 1.

Spire Hendecad is close behind with an emergency load of Iron and a few more Stasis.

The last Exiles return to the Monastary

Back on the Vault, Reinald checks out the Shipyard. We can construct a variety of ships, but given the limitations of cargo / fuel I feel like 2 cargo slots isn't very useful. The Sparrow design however doesn't even have a traveler - I can see the utility of an unmanned scout to check out places ahead of time, we could have saved many turns knowing more in advance. I'll build a Sparrow.

The Vault has a shipyard where you can build more ships with harvested resources.

I was wrong, it is not unmanned, sadly it still requires a pilot, it just can't carry any passengers. Still, maybe I'll have a use for it. It only cost one alloy. But I don't think it can carry anything. The game names the tiny ship the Mass Cubic so that it sounds more intimidating than it is.

Its one cargo slot has to be for fuel.

Zero turns remain. The Gloom approaches.

The Gloom makes us sad and eats solar systems.

Cheli is the last to make it back home, clutching the precious 12 Elixir he managed to make. By the time he does only the outer planet he was on has not yet been consumed, so we cut it reasonably close. Our supplies look good, we have plenty of fuel, a lot more Alloy and Stasis. Elixir is dependent on how much we drink it - an Exile's faith can be increased by drinking it but to go from Faith 3 to 4 requires 4 elixir, so we can't restore all that we're about to lose. But hey, nobody died, we got resources, we're probably ready for another system, and we learned a bunch.

All in all I think our first excursion was a success.

Again, once more, into the dim starlight.

Stasis: Check. Exiles: Check.

In between systems we can spend the knowledge from those artifacts for more blueprints and abilities. +1 Thrust is very tempting because it means our ships can use more fuel efficient engines more often, but we'll definitely want the resource excavator and I can get that plus the Titanium harvester which will save action points. And 12 cargo spaces on that massive ship is tempting but I don't think I could land it on a planet right now.

Oh, the abilities on the left only benefit a single Exile. I'm going with the Titanium Harvester and Resource Excavator.

Next system: we arrive at Roialmet.

There's a beacon here.

This is a bigger system with more planets. It also features hazards, the red marks - the last system didn't have any. My goal this time is to build the Scriptorium, there is a hallowed planet for it. Ideally, this time we send a ship with everything we need to just land, build it, and leave.

And we also want to see what the beacon is about.

Cheli will take the Mass Cubic and first visit the beacon, then scout the rest of the system looking for artifacts. He'll hit a lot of hazards doing this so I start by raising his Faith to 4 with some elixir.

The Vault has a chapel where an Exile can spend all day drinking Elixir to raise their faith by 1.

Reinald will take Smoke Crater and go build the Scriptorium with it.

Xave and Paganus will take Spire and head to an inner-system moon and set up an initial Fuel production base there and then we'll figure out what resources can be usefully mined later on. I must remember to bring enough to set up initial iron mining and any deep resource excavators in case anything is buried on this moon.

Hopefully the Hazards aren't too bad.

Hmmm... I just don't have enough cargo space to bring enough fuel to get the the Hallowed planet and back with Scriptorium supplies. Instead I'll have Smoke Crater also go to the same moon as Spire initially, we can use it as a stop-off point to refuel and Reinald can help set up the Fuel base before he goes off to the hallowed planet. Actually I don't think there's any reason not to take all three of the cargo ships to the fuel moon and then branch out from there. We'll use more fuel getting there and back but we can make fuel there and should be able to carry more back than we burn up. Ah, strike that - we wouldn't have a fuel efficient engine for one of the smaller ships because we need it for the little scout ship. I can't build any more engines because I didn't bring any methane back from the first system. So, one big and one small ship with 3 exiles to the moon, Cheli to the beacon. There's also Carbon on the gas giant nearby so we can make Stasis on the Fuel moon if we can harvest that as well. We'll bring an Alloy from ship stores in the Spire Hendecad so that we can build the producer without having to go get it elsewhere. Godspeed Exiles!

The new ship strongly resembles a fire hydrant.

The Beacon apparently indicates the presence of resources - there's an engine, some fuel and Titanium floating here. I'll send Cheli back to the station to return here with a larger ship to pick this up after scouting.

The Mass Cubic is super fuel efficient - it can pull this maneuver between the outer moons for a single fuel unit.

We hit our first Hazard. Exiles get one die per faith to try to match the difficulty. Despite an 80% success chance, we still fail - but thankfully the last die results in less ship condition loss than might otherwise have happened.

Also, can I re-roll that cocked die?

Unfortunately hazards do NOT go away after you encounter them, or at least this one didn't. Thankfully we pass it on the return flight, but it's something to consider if you're thinking of taking multiple trips through one.

Losing to a dust field appears to be catastrophic in terms of effects but it's easy to pass.

I gave Xave the Titanium harvester ability so I want him to be the one to do all the Titanium mining.

He can generate 8 Titanium per turn here, the monster.

Fuel production is online with 25 turns remaining. Cheli arrives at the fuel base with the Mass Cubic a turn later, it doesn't cost us too much to scout and I really like having the little ship. We found half-decent artifacts on this planet but none of the others.  With all four Exiles working together on the fuel base, production proceeds quickly and we prepare for the next mission - setting up the Spire Hendecad to build the Scriptorium, and take enough supplies that we can also do some mining there and bring back a bunch of Methane and Silicon if we can get to it.

It's gonna take 30 fuel to make the trip there and back so half the cargo will just be fuel.

Reinald and Paganus head out, leaving Xave and Cheli at the fuel base.

Reinald is our highest Faith exile and he successfully navigates past a difficult dust field.

Reinald lands successfully, and the layout of the planet is such that I have to cover the Iron node but we brought enough Iron for a Silica and Methane harvester. The first scriptorium is built!

Guys, this was a lot of work for four sentences.

Ah, I have a problem. The Fuel base, by one single square, lacks enough space to have both a Stasis and an Elixir factory. I could ship Titanium down to the planet with the Scriptorium, that would work... but costs time and the use of a ship I was planning to go get CO2 at the gas giant for Stasis. Well, Stasis is the core lifeblood of surviving in this game and Elixir is just good for keeping faith up. I think I'll just have Spire harvest the raw resources and bring them back to the Vault and focus on making as much Stasis as possible in this system. Cheli discovers that you need an additional 'Orbital Structure' building before you can build the orbital CO2 harvester he intended to make, resulting in a quick and embarrassing return to the fuel base.

Oops, I didn't bring enough stuff to build both the collector and the thing I need to attach the collector to.

Spire lifts off from the inner planet with a full load of Silicon and Methane, and since I brought extra fuel it still has enough to go all the way back to the Vault. Once there I use some of the Methane to make a new engine. It's close to the efficiency of my best one with better thrust, and in this case that means the Spire can make this next trip with just this one engine to head back to the Fuel / Stasis base, leaving the rest of its cargo free to haul stuff. With 7 turns to go, everyone is back on the Fuel moon. We've been getting plenty of CO2 from the nearby gas giant and pumping out Stasis like mad.

We're up to four full stacks of Stasis, enough to get through several systems ahead.

With 2 turns left on the clock, all of the ships have completely filled their cargo hold and are ready to head home. Tons of Stasis, a couple artifacts, and some iron and extra fuel. We got quite a haul in this system and built our first Scriptorium, a huge success. If you can get all the Exiles working together on one place you can do a lot with it. The only downside is that we're going to lose faith and we made no Elixir at all, we still have some reserves on the ship though and we still got some materials to make more.

I don't know if Faith 0 kills an Exile but if we have none then Hazards will finish us.

What a haul! We have 74 Stasis - enough to go to inter hibernation nine times before we run out. Now we don't need to worry about it at all and can focus on other things in the next system.

All four travelers return to the Vault.

Once more into the dim starlight.... I only got ten measly knowledge from the artifacts in that system. I'm not sure how well these abilities are balanced. There's a 70-point ability that's worth the cost here and a 35-point ability that's borderline useless. The Lynx engine there is worse than the 3-thrust engine I can already build.

Gonna save the knowledge points this time.

Welcome to Lonneoenoennoesoet

These are some strange system names.

This system looks tough. There's only one level-3 Hazard, the main problem is that there's no water on the middle planets - if I'm going to make fuel then it'll either have to be on the deepest world where the Scriptorium goes, with a huge energy cost to get to / from it, or suffer through some outer-planet water with just a few actions per turn.

Ugh.

There's an abandoned ship in this system, we'll want to check that out. I think my best bet is to suck it up and just make a fuel base on the outer planet with water and stage from there, and we'll also take the Silicon we mined int he last system to the Methane planet and make a bunch of Elixir - we're getting low on faith and need to restore it for systems with future bad hazards. We'll also take enough to build another Scriptorium and try to get a ship down to the inner planet to make another one. This time I'm going to scout it first, the water and massive action count means it could be an excellent fuel source even with the cost of getting there. Ok, Spire to the Methane planet to make Elixir. The two medium ships to the crappy fuel planet. Cheli scouts the system.

Cheli discovers 20 knowledge worth of Artifacts on the outermost planet, gonna want to pick these up.

And another 10 knowledge on an asteroid!

This could be a high knowledge system.

I very nearly screwed up here.

It would have been a really catastrophic screw-up.

This is crappy fuel planet.

One iron made all the difference in the world.

I went to the fuel planet with only just enough iron to build the iron extractor to get more, but the Iron is buried. It'll cost me an extra iron to build the extractor to get to it. Thankfully there's iron in the location already that I can use, but if I had counted on it being here and brought one fewer iron then we'd have to go all the way back to the Vault to get more, wasting like 6 turns. I get the sense that this game is not actually very hard if you don't screw up, but the complexity of the game is such that it's easy to screw up - and indeed likely if you're not paying sufficient attention to what you know and what the possibilities are on a planetary layout. Incidentally, we can't get both the Iron and the Titanium on this planet due to the layout since you can't place buildings on the whited-out squares. At least it still works as a fuel base but that could have been where the Water was! The Fuel Base is online and slowly making fuel, but with plenty of time to go we should be able to recoup our fuel losses. The Spire is getting Methane from an orbital facility and will soon be making Elixir, but the big news is the abandoned ship!

There's an Adroid on the abandoned ship that joins the Exiles. Problem is, he's all that's on the ship - and the ship is in poor condition, has no fuel and no engine.

That said it's only Mass 1, like our scout ship, and this one can carry passengers so I can at least use it for both scouting and flying personnel around.

I think that's a pretty good deal, so I'm going to abandon the Mass Cubic and take its engine and fuel so we can use this ship instead.

Android Iatvolu, welcome to the team!

Huh... the Android doesn't use faith, he uses 'Condition'. And he has to spend it every time he navigates a hazard.

Condition doesn't come back so we'll keep using Humans for hazards.

The Android / Human team scouts the innermost Hallowed planet. Good news on the layout, the Water is buried but we can bring enough Iron to fix that and still build a water extractor and fuel producer.

It's feasible to build the Scriptorium here and then manufacture the Fuel to get back out.

The Arch Myriad, our new scout ship, runs out of fuel just shy of crappy Fuel base.

Fortunately this is an easy rescue mission.

In 12 turns the Fuel base has made enough fuel to fully load one medium ship, I'll send it back to the Vault now to both rescue the scout and get supplies for the Scriptorium building mission. I've just now discovered there can be hazards on the planet's surfaces too!

This planet sucks!

I was feeling like we were going to cut the timing pretty close, so in addition to sending the Smoke Crater with supplies for the Scriptorium I also sent the Arch Myriad just to have an extra Exile there to help set up the base and make enough fuel to escape in time.

This ends up saving the entire mission when I discover that I wasn't carrying enough fuel to even get to the planet with Smoke Crater - Arch Myriad has some to spare and we can transfer fuel before landing.

Another near-disaster because my fuel calculations were off.

The two ships land with only 8 turns to go, but with each Exile getting five actions I think we can pull this off.

The second Scriptorium is built!

The Scriptorium will be destroyed by the Gloom in less than ten turns, so I'm really not sure why we're building these. 

Paganus has had a lonely but successful time building Elixir. He takes off with three full cargo holds and a couple artifacts. Cheli is off grabbing the Artifacts we scouted earlier so we should get a big Knowledge haul.

Finally we manage to get a good haul of Elixir out of a system.

With all the ship-moving around that I'm doing, our Android friend ends up stranded on the Fuel base making way too much fuel, just not much else that's useful that he can do there.

Don't worry, we'll pick him up when Spire stops here to refuel.

Incredibly it's only 2 turns before we're refueled and lifting off from the hallowed planet where the Scriptorium got built. 10 actions per turn (5 per exile) goes a long way. Everyone makes a pit stop at the fuel base on the way home to top off.

Despite being 'Crappy' this fuel has been instrumental in our success in this system.

We are bringing back so much fuel and Elixir that the Vault isn't going to have enough space to hold it all. I've built an additional ship, the Light Thirteen, just to have extra cargo space.

The Mass Cubic would have been a much better name for a ship that sits around holding stuff.

We now have 36 Elixir so in the final turns of this system I'm going to use it to raise the Exile's faith. This is more expensive than doing it after we lose faith getting to the next system but if I wait for the next system it costs time.

Right now I have lots of elixir and I don't know how much time I'll need in the next place. We wave a final farewell to the Mass Cubic, left abandoned in this system. Once more into the dim starlight.... Our Android doesn't require Stasis to hibernate but he does lose 1 condition, so he won't be around forever.

I'm halfway done with Scriptoriums so Iatvolu may well survive to victory.

We've got a lot of knowledge - 50! in that system.

 And we have some useful things to spend it on.

Resource excavator 3 ensures that there won't be any resources denied to us because they're too deep.

The Engine is the most efficient one we've seen and will make the Scout ship even more fuel efficient. I don't know if Gain one artifact when gathering will generate an extra one (which would be great) or just dig up two at once (which would be meh) but I'll take it in hopes of the former.

The Veoetot system promises to be a different beast.

Yes, it is very much a different beast.

No planets at all.

No Hallowed planet so no Scriptorium here. Each asteroid has one resource so we absolutely have to ship resources around to manufacture anything. Lots of actions in all areas of the system. I want to scout everything for artifacts. There's NO thrust requirements to land on anything so we can actually use that tiny new engine to move all of our ships around everywhere, even the biggest ones. We're low on Alloy so I'd like to make more in this system, even if combining three components will be a pain in the rear. This is also not a bad place to make more Elixir, there's SIlicon and Methane in the same row with no energy requirement to go between them.

Going between asteroid rows uses up time so I'm looking for single-row manufacturing possibilities.

Ok, we'll use both the big ships here then since we have to move cargo. Cheli will take the scout ship and look for artifacts after he sucks down a bunch more Elixir to pass the system hazards. One ship will work the outer belt and make Elixir, the other will dip deeper into the system and get the materials for Alloys. We'll just use existing Iron and Fuel stores for all this initially, and if we start to run low we'll hit an Iron / Water asteroid later for fuel / iron replenishment. And I suspect we'll need someone to sweep the system to pick up artifacts - actually maybe Chell should take a smaller cargo ship for scouting this time so he can get them as he scouts, the fuel costs won't be much worse in this environment. Asteroids are tiny.

I hope I can put the Elixir manufacturing building on the same asteroid as at least one of the resources.

On the plus side, an entirely 0-energy trip doesn't require any fuel at all.

We won't burn much fuel moving resources around.

Shipping minerals around isn't bad at all given the lack of need for fuel. We're gathering up a lot of materials for Alloy and Elixir production and Artifact discovery has been going very well.

Cheli is about to return with 40 knowledge worth in just this trip.

A full load of alloy back to the Vault by turn 10 means I think we're good to just gather some Titanium and Water with our remaining time and use it to build a couple more 8-slot ships for storage.

Given its size the Vault's cargo hold isn't very big.

The Elixir factory has to go on its very own asteroid and doesn't go up until there are 7 turns left - but with all the resources harvested and shipped these two will be churning out 8 elixir per turn.

This is some serious Elixir manufacturing.

And that becomes 12 per turn when Cheli, having cleared the system of valuable artifacts, shows up to help.

We're headed back with 1 turn to spare.

The Asteroid system is our most successful yet. No screwups to slow us down, massive Alloy and Elixir production, and a huge Knowledge haul.

We actually get ahead of the game on faith loss and have plenty of Elixir left over.

Two more 8-slot ships have been created just to hold all this extra stuff.

Once more into the dim starlight... The Fifth system. Faleffet.

Another system with a beacon.

I wish I could zoom out further and see the entire system at once, its huge.

Huge and hard to screenshot.

Just put it together in your mind's eye.

This system goes very deep, and features several double-time transitions from the outer system. It'll take a whopping 7 turns just to get to the inner planets so if we want to build a Scriptorium we have to be quick about it. We are good on just about every kind of supply material... except for basic Iron, the stuff you need to start building infrastructure. I drained our Iron supply for the Asteroid infrastructure and neglected to replenish it. We only have two now, and the only thing saving us from basically ending the game here is that locations with Iron will have an Iron already present, meaning that I can build the Iron harvester which itself costs three Iron.

I'm going to be fine but if locations didn't already have free resources sitting around this game would be over.

So, three main objectives here: Replenish Iron supplies, build the Scriptorium, get Artifacts. The Scriptorium will be a challenge.

These are some brutal energy costs to get to the inner planets.

The good news though is that there are two water planets down near the Hallowed planet, so if we can just get there we can manufacture fuel to get back out, this time we don't need to carry enough fuel for a round trip. First order of business - Cheli goes deeper into the system to scout for Artifacts. He's taking Portal Fifty-Nine since it proved so handy to just have cargo spaces ready for the artifacts when scouting last time.

Everyone else heads for the very fortunately discovered water / iron outer planet to get fuel for the journey in and Iron to both replenish supplies and provide enough to build more infrastructure in the rest of the system.

I spend a long time planning when entering a new system.

Our Iron planet has a very generous location cache!

We actually could have built an iron extractor here even if we had no iron left.

The energy costs for the inner system are such that I think my best chance is to use a bigger ship with more space for fuel. Even though it's less efficient I can dedicate a lot more cargo to fuel space. With 27 fuel I think Spire has enough to go all the way to the inner system planets, and we can both harvest more Iron in this Iron / Water planet next to the Hallowed planet.

It pays to not have to rely on the Hallowed planet for anything if you want that Scriptorium.

And with the time it'll take to get in and out I want to start their journey early. We can hit the Beacon on the way back out.

I don' t know if Hazard / artifact generation is random but this planet that Cheli had to navigate two level-4 hazards to get to rewards me with a 20-knowledge plant. 

Excellent work Cheli!

YAHTZEE

I really hope I've got the fuel calculations right on this.

Spire's final descent into the inner system costs a whopping 12 fuel.

Let's see, three fuel to land, three fuel to take off, two fuel to then get back to the Iron / Water planet... leaves us with one single fuel remaining. We have just enough fuel to land and build the Scriptorium first before we establish the fuel base.

I prefer to do it that way so we can free up the cargo slots currently used by the Scriptorium materials.

You know what Iatvolu, you have earned your place in the Exile. I give the Android the honor of constructing this one. That proves to be a mistake.

This is absolutely the last time we let the Android write the Scriptorium entry.

I was hoping to get both Iron and Fuel (Water) from this planet to take out of the inner system, and that isn't happening with this layout.

Fortunately I think I can still get fuel out of it, and that will be good enough.

With a fuel base up, Spire searches all the inner planets for Artifacts and comes away with a pretty great haul.

This is going to be another big Knowledge system.

Because the flights between planetary orbits are taking several turns in this system, I attempt to save time by having Smoke Crater come in from the outer fuel moon and deliver fuel to Cheli in Portal Fifty-Nine. Cheli drops off his artifacts with Smoke Crater and gets topped up on fuel so he can immediately fly further into the system from here rather than going back out first to refuel. Spire Hendecad (left) is on the way back to the vault.

Behold, the dance of masterful logistics!

Cheli finally reaches the beacon with 10 turns remaining.

4 alloy is not bad for the price of 'free'.

Actually, even better, there's enough Titanium / Water here to just take it and land on the planet to make a fuel base. 6 water can turn into 18 fuel.

The planet has some freezing temperature hazards but I can work around that.

In the waning turns of the system, everyone works the Fuel base for additional fuel before we have to head out. Spire runs the Fuel and Iron (Not forgetting it this time!) back to the Vault.

We burned a lot of fuel in this system but we'll still be well supplied for the next one.

Two full stacks of Iron and plenty of fuel later and we're ready to go. I'm going to burn through a bunch of Elixir to get two exiles up to the max Faith for what could be the last system - if we CAN build the fourth Scriptorium, we will, and presumably win. Or at least 'end the journey'.

Drink that Elixir like there's no tomorrow!

Again, once more, into the dim starlight... We went crazy on artifacts and got 160 knowledge. Sadly the ability choices aren't great so we're saving most of it.

The water one is solid though, pretty much always need fuel!

Feels like the systems are getting more difficult.

I just had to deal with long travel times in the last one!

It's actually not that bad, it's seven turns to get in-system like the last place and the energy costs are lower.

We can do this. We can get there.

It's time to cast efficiency to the wind. All five exiles are going to pile together into two ships and head down together to build the Scriptorium, and everyone will be present when it is built.

This game has been quite a mental exercise. You really need to think about what your ship is going to carry to accomplish it's mission and pre-plan what you are doing. I've spent a ton of brainpower on logistics, primarily on entering and analyzing how to handle each system when we first arrive.

Our last system is a nice change of pace - load up on enough supplies for a Scriptorium and a fuel base, just in case, and pack the rest of the cargo with fuel.

The turns pass quickly as we do nothing but travel down together.

The foundation laid. Paganus does the honors.

The Final Scriptorium is built.

Uh... does anyone want to rewrite the bit the Android did? No?

Well, it wouldn't have been the same journey without our Android buddy, would it?

Your victory is that your story lives on.

Banished Vault was a really interesting game - very cerebral, and like nothing I'd played before.

I'm ready for something less mentally taxing.