An Engineer In Night City

Mark kept hammering at the debris of the landfill for hours, until the first lights of the day blinded him when it reflected over a nearby broken window. Pausing for a moment, he checks the bounty of materials he managed to salvage.

There was plastic and glass, a few iron plates, some steel, and a little of copper wire. An insignificant amount of stone and coal, but the majority of what he mined was considered “Scrap.”

“Research Unlocked: Scrap Mining”

Looking at the technology tech tree, I found out that I unlocked a new, previously hidden research by mining the scrap. Marks suddenly remember that in the new Spage Age expansion there was a planet where he could mine ancient ruins for scrap and get resources out of it, and the new research reflected that.

The Scrap Mining allows any of the miners to dig through scraped ruins like the landfill to dig up “Scrap,” and the new Recycler building transforms the scrap pile into various recovered materials. Each scrip unit has a certain probability of returning an item, with the changes starting from 1% up 12% for certain products. The Recycler can recover Iron and Copper in their oxide forms, requiring re-smelting into plates; excavates Stone and carbon products are stacked together as Stone and Coal; some of the more intact material can be broken down into Processing Units, Advanced Circuit, and Low Density Structure; the larger pieces of steel are fused together into Steel Plates; usable Battery is recovered; concrete is cut into Concrete blocks; more volatile hydrocarbons are compressed together into Solid Fuel; useable Gears and Wires are also extracted from the scrap; and finally a small selection of exotic mineral oxides can be found.

The exotic minerals are grouped into different ore groups, but for the moment Mark doesn’t have the means to turn them into useable items.

“At this point they’re just occupying space. I mean, who would buy Holmium Oxide at retail volume? No one, that’s who, isn’t it right Solvy?”

Mark likes to believe the silent reply is a product of their fatigue. Mark takes a few experimental swings in the air with his iron axe, then he agrees with his companion.

“Yeah, I can keep going, but I don’t want to test my luck and drop on the ground in exhaustion. Let’s stop for the day for now.”

…

After a long walk Mark returns to civilization, and a few of the pedestrians gives him a wide berth from the lingering smell on his uniform. It takes a while, but Mark manages to learn the directions to the nearest weapon shop near the Petrochem Dam.

“What can I do for- what the fuck is that smell!”

“Sorry, some jackass stole my things while I was at work, so I’m strapped for cash.”

“Where the hell do you work, the city sewers?”

Mark shrugs. “Smells like it.”

“What do you want, gonk, this isn’t a charity.”

“Do you also buy used weapons?”

Quickly motioning Mark to approach, Mark produces three Pistols and three Standard magazines from his utility belt and places them on the counter for appraisal.

“Never seen something like this, but it resembles the Unity.” The vendor mutters under his breath. “Where did you get this?”

“I made them myself, as a hobby. I was going to take them for a spin today after work, when I noticed the rest of my stuff gone.”

The Vendor checks the guns and magazines while Mark looks around the weapons on display, their prices proudly shown on the old-style glass displays.

“I can quote you a price, but if you want me to keep quiet about the weapons origins I’m going to take an extra cut.”

Marks ponders for a moment before making a counteroffer. “Tell you what, if you have an unused, old Agent lying around and throw it in for me we have a deal.”

“Hm. Alright, deal. I will be right back.” A few minutes later the vendor comes back with the Agent, the device looking suspiciously like a Samsung A-11 model. “It was my grandfather’s; it should tide you up until you get back home. The eddies are on the Agent chip.”

Mark fiddles with the device for a few moments while the vendor stares at him. Mark felt like his father when he tried to teach him how to use a smartphone for the first time. Thankfully, Mark was spared the indignity of asking for help due to the Agent ease of use.

“Alright, everything’s fine. Thanks for the help. Now, where can I take a cab?”

“Cab? What are you, a Nomad New Yorker?” The vendor shakes his head, “check your Agent, there should be a map for the NCART lines there. Now get out of my store, your stinking up the place!”

…

While walking towards the Mega Habitat 7, Mark experiments with his new Agent hoping to connect it with the Factorio System, and just as he believes he makes some progress he senses a few marks coming closer to him on the mini map of his HUD. Mark takes a turn to a quieter street, and the possible hostiles follow him.

Turning around Mark confronts the group. “Can I help you?” They both look at each other, before silently turning on their cyberware, “donning” a holographic mask that displays an old emoji instead of their faces.

“>:)”

“Nothing to say? What do you think, Solvy, should we give them a change to explain themselves?”

One of the unknown assailants draws a weapon at Mark.

*Plat* *Clack* *Tra -tatatatatatata* *Tra -tatatatatatata* *Tra -tatatatatatata*

Before leaving the landfill, Mark used some of his collected resources to “handcraft” a couple of supplies, and used them to craft both a Burner Assembler and a Burner Lab. With those two items Mark crafted ten Automation Science Pack, or “Red Science” as the players calls them. Those ten red sciences allowed Mark to research the Gun Turret technology, providing him with the capability to craft automated gun turrets.

Differently from the game, Mark could determine how to program the turrets Friend or Foe Identification protocols, setting it to blacklist mode. In blacklist mode, the turret will only target those on the blacklist, compared with the whitelist mode that will shoot at everything except those inside the Factorio System database. Mark has no idea how that works, but as a systems engineer he is used to this kind of black magic.

Much like in the game, he can place the gun turrets at a certain distance from himself, and he can also load the gun turrets at a distance. With a twitch of his fingers, the gangsters had three turrets at their backs, and with another twitch the guns are loaded. The next moment, all hostiles are neutralized.

Mark takes a deep breath, before staggering to the nearby wall, picking up Solvernia from his inventory.

“T-that w-was e-easy, right?”

The plushy doesn’t speak, thus it can’t judge him. After spending a few moments recomposing himself, Mark recovers the turrets and loot the corpses of useful items. Mark leaves the small street as if nothing happened, leaving the corpses to rot in the open, and going back to his business.

To Night City, nothing out of ordinary happened.