Wrong Way Down - Part 2

In episode 2 of Wrong Way Down, Splitsie imposes a new rule: From now on, he'll use mechanical means (pistons) to right tipped rovers. He is now ~20km from the north pole marker.

He has no design for a deployable bridge yet, so he builds a bridge out of unwelded Refineries. He announces that next week, Capac Amaru will join. After passing the bridge in the polar night, he announces he'll activate the Airtraffic mod later today. Regarding a comment that having gyroscopes would make driving too easy, Chat is fine with only reducing their strength. When Splitsie reaches the mountains that surround the polar region, he recommends Chat against drinking games tied to Capac dying. He decides to make GPS markers to keep track of the path taken. When chatting about epic fails, he tells how, when he built the Goose in Survival, Maybe..., he kept misaligning merge blocks. Heading at a steady pace through snowy plains towards a steep mountain range, he reveals that he always wanted to try climbing a mountain with magnetic landing gear on pistons. The rover's drill scrapes the ground to gather snow and stone in passing.

(0:30) While Splitsie's struggling to climb steep hills, Chat's heckling about his tree destruction continues. In the tundra, the rover gets stuck, and he enthusiastically starts his maglock-on-a-piston grabber idea (until Chat points out that it's just the drill and a wheel being stuck). At first the arachnoid grabbers are too rigid and weak to pull. He realises the maglocks will need joints and the two grabbers will need to lock *in turn* in order to "walk". Trying to heed Chat's wise words hidden among the Klang jokes, he suddenly rolls backwards, damaging the hydrogen engine. He's out of hydrogen and has to find ice on foot.

(1:00) By salvaging the drill, Splitsie manages to get back up into the rover. Texfire joins chat and Splitsie defends himself saying the problem was not wrong planning and bad decision making, he just pushed a wrong button! A minute later, he jetpacks into a spotlight and has to respawn anticlimactically. Splitsie figures out quickly what the weak points of his first grabbers are and tries a new approach. Now without the drill, driving seems easier -- until he slides down the side of the mountain. At least he's sliding *south*. Next he tries going through a narrow valley. He doesn't urgently need Cobalt anymore, but power reserves are getting low. As Captain Shack joins the chat, Splitsie admits it's going both well and poorly, in quick succession.

(1:30) He stops to add an antenna (to broadcast the ore detector's findings), to reposition the grabbers and spotlights, and to add windmills to the grabbers. After drilling gold nearby, he hurries back out the tunnel to stop the grabber pistons from clanging ominously. Driving on, he immediately breaks part of the grabbers. Low on power, he stops to build a new drill to collect snow for the hydrogen engine.

(2:00) On the "road" again, he bottoms out and breaks the low-hanging cockpit. Seconds later he smashes the wind turbines... He made it 15km, which is too slow. After several more near-desasters, he decides against exploring a Supply Cache because it might be trapped. He notices that he hasn't encountered any hostile drones yet. Reaching low-oxygen highlands by daylight, the terrain is not getting much better. He stops to build an outpost to redesign the rover with 5x5 wheels.

(2:30) Splitsie considers Texfire's building tips in chat. While using merge blocks, he accidentally disconnects part of the rover (almost repeating the Goose incident) but he can fix it using #OneMoreMergeBlock and #OneMorePiston. Splitsie wonders what a bored Capac would do now if he were here -- probably chasing Unknown Signals. Actually, he wanted to enable hostile NPCs now, but the new rover is jacked up and far from functional, so he postpones the activation.

(3:00) When the sun rises, he's almost ready to drive on. When a hostile *Spirit of Lomond* passes by, he rushes to add interior turrets. He makes a backup, cuts loose the new rover and inelegantly drops it to the ground. After a restart, he expects the drones to come. Chat helpfully suggests decoys, specifically, orange Capac shaped ones. Even without Ackermann steering, the new rover handles better than the old one. The *Spirit of Lomond* sends a *Drifting Persuant* equipped with a missile launcher. He defeats it but loses his drill. A second *Drifting Persuant* appears: The interior turrets are out of ammo and Splitsie gets wrecked by the drone several times, losing his inventory to a bug. Everything's on fire.

He makes another backup and reloads again with the Airtraffic mod. He attempts the first battle again, and the rover gets wrecked by *Drifting Persuants* just the same. Splitsie announces he will continue the battle next week with Capac's help and better turrets. He reloads the game from before the drones spawn. Also he'll reduce the number of hostile ships and increase the number of neutral ships.

(3:30) He admits the rover (an undecorated scaffold on wheels) has no name because he did not expect it to survive. He drives on until he reaches a cliff where he slides down the mountainside. He flies straight into a ditch but is saved by the gyroscope and suspensions. He drives down the next cliff and even brave Texfire asks for an Inclonometer now. Chat declares that, instead of counting killed trees, it's easier to count the trees that are still standing. Splitsie claims trees want to fly free. The next hillside is in the shade and the rover gets wedged in a gully. Trying to free himself with the pure willpower of not wanting Capac to see him stuck, he destroys the cockpit and falls into a crater.

... Next week, he'll continue with Capac from the crater.