The Baldie Challenge Aftermath, Part Two: Getting Comfortable

in EXODE Pilots4 years ago (edited)


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Welcome back Captains!

Yesterday, you all settled down on the celestial body of your choosing. We did have some crash landings and other minor unpleasantries (like Kilbot going full auto inside the Baldie Shuttle), but what really matters is that all of you made it alive through day 1!

Today, we'll follow your adventures up until day 15, so everybody still alive at the end of this article will win his first prize - a random common card from @exoderewardspool.

This second article will also be about checking if you packed accordingly for the destination you picked. So while there's some story to it as well, there's also a lot of just going over your cargo list. Expect the coming parts to get shorter and more action packed again.

If you only want to check on how you are doing yourself, remember that there are two parts for each Captain in this one - a check-up of your crew and cargo first, and the next part of the story second.

So lets see how everybody is doing!

The Ocean World

After landing on the planets largest island, you quickly began to setup your makeshift colony. You didn't plan on staying here permanently, but 90 days can be a long time trapped on a lonely island. You spent your first days installing your prefabs and checking on the cargo you brought with. The planet may have a breathable atmosphere but you still needed to make sure you had enough food and water to survive until the Colombus picked you up.


@proto26: Your WHC Unit is going to provide you with enough water for your whole stay but you are going to run out of food way before the Colombus arrives. With 8 people to feed, you'd only survive about 20 days until you are all out of food. Energy is also going to be an issue, with the X-Gen TR20 only providing power for 50 days.


exode_card_062_tom_whcconverter.png

Habitat could also become an issue but as long as the climate stays as lush as it is right now you should be good.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You are set for now, but you urgently need to collect more food
  • Colony Health remaining: 75

@blockmonster: Thanks to the Soup and Cook and the Foodie Moodie, you are all set to supply your crew of five for a while. You won't make it to the end without finding additional sources of food and water, but you have enough time to take care of that without having to rush anything. Eventually, you'll also run out of power, so you need to find a solution for that as well.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You are set for now
  • Colony Health remaining: 90

@apprentice001: With only a single Foodie Moodie rescued from the aliens attack, you are bound to run out of supplies really fast. Your crew of 6 will be out of water in 20 days and out of food in about 33 days. Your energy sources aren't going to last till the end as well, but that's nothing you are going to worry about just now. You need to urgently find a water source or your crews morale will quickly deteriorate.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You urgently need to collect more food and water
  • Colony Health remaining: 75

@apshamilton: Between your Soup and Cook and your Foodie Moodie you are already well prepared to last for a long time. You are really glad that you managed to save some Rare Plants from the alien attack. These will not only allow you to grow additional food but will also serve to remind your crew of better times, boosting morale.


exode_card_E024_setRarePlants.png

As long as nothing unforeseen happens, you should have an easy time sitting it out until the Colombus comes to pick you up.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You are all set - Well done Captain!
  • Brought your own crops: Colony Health + 5
  • Colony Health remaining: 80

@raudell: Thanks to Soup and Cook your colony will be well supplied for a while. Combined with the food and water from the Baldie, you expect to cover about 2 months until you'd need food or water from the planet. Your Energy is also going to last almost as long as it will take the Colombus to pick you up. With these numbers, you are pretty confident to make it to the end and Eliza and the rest of the crew will have more than enough time to come up with a solution for the last month.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You are set for now
  • Colony Health remaining: 100

With your colony finally established, you begin to explore your new island home. Although it's the biggest piece of land you scanners found, it still only has a size of roughly 30 square kilometres. Most of the island is made up of a dense alien forest with huge trees. Oddly enough, there are almost no branches or leafs for the first 10-15 metres.

After some days of exploring, you were positive that there are no land animals present on the whole island. The ocean though seems to be blooming with life. All kind of different fish and crustaceans can be found close to the beaches. You seemed to be safe on the island for now and your crew got together in your colony to discuss everything you've found on the island...


@proto26: While everybody in your crew agrees that the island is really beautiful, none of them has ever been in an actual wilderness. None but the Triskan Fighter that is. More than once he warns the Communications Officer not to blindly eat these tasty looking blue berries and without his words of caution, Norah would have already picked up that funny colored snail. If something looks tasty, it's probably poisonous. If something looks cute, it probably wants to kill you! he keeps explaining.


exode_card_235_crewTriskan.png

Still, you need food and you will have to live of the land to survive. Your Triskian Fighter and your Tech Expert work together to build some bait traps and the rest of the crew is collecting the different fruits and berries scattered on the island. Without any safe way of tasting whether it's edible or poisonous, the Triskian Fighter urges your crew to try small bites of the different plants and animals and see what happens. Some are indeed pretty tasty and nutritious, while the Security Officer gets really sick from eating a single blue berry and has to be treated by the Space Surgeon for more than a week before he recovers. In the end, you have a basic understanding what's safe to eat and what isn't, so your food problem should been solved for now.

Result of Encounter:

  • Eaten some poisonous food: 20 damage
  • Food poisoning treated: Colony Health + 10
  • Colony Health remaining: 65

@blockmonster: Thanks to your great planning there's no real pressure to find food or water on the island. Eliza and your Preservation Officer work together to sample and categorize all plants on the island. Most of them have a pretty poor nutrition value and some are even highly poisonous. Others are safe to eat and having some local fruits for dinner is a welcome variety to the daily Soup and Cook. The Preservation Officer also starts catching some of the fish and after a while, your crew starts cooking different dishes every day - a great boost to morale!

Eliza even manages to distill some drugs out of some of the poisonous berries. It seems they can be used to greatly increase wound healing. You hope that you'll never need to use them, but it's always best to be prepared.

Result of Encounter:

  • Enjoying a diverse menu: Colony Health + 5
  • Local Medicine found: Colony Health + 5
  • Colony Health remaining: 100

@apprentice001: While everybody in your crew agrees that the island is really beautiful, none of them has ever been in an actual wilderness. None but Eliza that is. More than once she warns Shen not to blindly eat these tasty looking blue berries and without her words of caution, Norah would have already picked up that funny colored snail. If something looks tasty, it's probably poisonous. If something looks cute, it probably wants to kill you! she keeps explaining. You don't have any means of catching fish other than shooting at them, but since your Colony is strictly vegan, eating them is out of the question anyway.

Eliza goes on to sample and categorize all plants on the island. Most of them have a pretty poor nutrition value and some are even highly poisonous. Others are safe to eat and will greatly help you with your food shortage. You don't manage to find any water, so Eliza starts working on a way to desalinate water from the ocean. This will take some more days, but she's positive to get it done before your colony runs out of water. Eliza even manages to distill some drugs out of some of the poisonous berries. It seems they can be used to greatly increase wound healing. You hope that you'll never need to use them, but it's always best to be prepared.

Result of Encounter:

  • Local Medicine found: Colony Health + 5
  • Colony Health remaining: 80

@apshamilton: While everybody in your crew agrees that the island is really beautiful, none of them has ever been in an actual wilderness. With his medical knowledge, Shen urges everybody to not eat anything found on the island. Since you've brought your own plants and have enough water as well, it's better to not risk anything. Since you don't have anything better to do, you use the next days to better fortify your colony.


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Result of Encounter:

  • Nothing noteworthy happened - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 80

@raudell: While everybody in your crew agrees that the island is really beautiful, none of them has ever been in an actual wilderness. None but Eliza that is. More than once she warns Tyron not to blindly eat these tasty looking blue berries and without her words of caution, Norah would have already picked up that funny colored snail. If something looks tasty, it's probably poisonous. If something looks cute, it probably wants to kill you! she keeps explaining. You don't have any means of catching fish other than shooting at them, so you decide to stick with the fruits and berries you can collect on the island.

Eliza goes on to sample and categorize all plants on the island. Most of them have a pretty poor nutrition value and some are even highly poisonous. Others are safe to eat and having some local fruits for dinner is a welcome variety to the daily Soup and Cook. Eliza even manages to distill some drugs out of some of the poisonous berries. It seems they can be used to greatly increase wound healing. You hope that you'll never need to use them, but it's always best to be prepared.


exode_card_058_tom_friendlyeyes.png

Your Friendly Eyes also is greatly helpful for exploring the island from the air. With its advanced sensors you even manage to locate an underground source of fresh water close to your colony. Getting to the water is no problem at all and with that, you are now set to easily survive until the Colombus arrives to pick you up.

Result of Encounter:

  • Local Medicine found: Colony Health + 5
  • Colony Health remaining: 105

The Moon

That missile strike got you wary and excited at the same time. Excited because there obviously was more to these ruins than you initially thought. Wary because, well, there was more to these ruins than you initially thought. You wanted to get to the bottom of this as fast as possible, but since you didn't know whether there where more hostiles out there or not, you decided to play it safe first. You established your foothold inside a small canyon where you where hidden from plain sight. Before going for the ruins, you first wanted to make sure that you brought everything your colony will need for survival.


@slabakbg: Things are not exactly looking good for you. With 7 mouths to feed, you'll run out of water in about 16 days, and out of food in 25 days. Oxygen is also going to be an issue but unless you find food and water first, you'd be long dead before that. You also lack enough habitat to properly house everybody. That Mysterious Dark Boss certainly is not happy with his situation either. For now he only seems to be sitting in his corner, quietly pondering how the hyperdrive he got into that situation.


exode_card_087_Cryptoeater.png

Whatever his play is going to be, he's not looking like he's ready to just wait it out. You don't have much choice. You need food and water and you need it fast. For now, everybody is playing it nice, but who knows how long that would last without more supplies.

Result of Check-Up:

  • Things are looking grim: 10 damage
  • Colony Health remaining: 90

@palasatenea: You've brought enough water to supply your whole crew and thanks to your X-Gen TR100, energy won't be an issue as well. You brought just enough life support to provide your crew with fresh air for a total of 45 days. That's about as long as your food is going to last as well. So while you will absolutely have to find additional sources of food and oxygen, you have plenty of time to do so.

Your Plant Samples won't help you right away, but they could be used as an alternative to grow more food if you make some room for them. Still, your crew is confident that you'll be able to find the missing supplies in the alien ruins.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You are set for now - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 100

@nockzonk: Together with the Baldie's own reserve, your Soup and Cook will provide your crew with enough food and water for 50 days. You are lacking in shelter and life support, though. While both the Baldie and the Dropship can shield you from harm for a while, you only have oxygen for 20 days. You also lack energy to operate the Dropship. You will need to acquire both from the alien ruins if you hope to survive the coming three months.


exode_card_258_equipmentTomEssentialsHappyFood.png

The Rebel General and Eliza are eyeing each other with deep distrust. How did they end in a situation like that? Having the Kumicho in the mix as well won't make things any easier and Admiral Valro seems to be plotting constantly anyway. So far nobody is doing anything stupid, but you get the feeling that things could escalate quickly if any side sees their chance to make a move.

Result of Check-Up:

  • Things are looking grim: 10 damage
  • Colony Health remaining: 95

@veryanprime: Your Soup and Cook together with the Foodie Moodie will keep your crew well fed for quite a while. You are direly lacking in terms of oxygen, though. If you can't find fresh air fast, your colony is going to be dead within 15 days. Your only hope for survival are the Alien ruins, but after the missile attack your are hesitant to rush right in there. After some discussion your scientists decide to reprogram your suits so that they provide less oxygen. This way you'll have some more days to scout the ruins and explore it's outskirts but it will come at a price - not getting enough oxygen for a prolonged time is certainly going to reduce your crews efficiency.

Result of Check-Up:

  • Things are looking very grim: 20 damage
  • Colony Health remaining: 80

With your colony firmly established it was finally time to move out of the canyon. There was a reason why you picked the moon for landing. There was something to these alien ruins and you wanted to find out what it was. The missile attack already all but confirmed your theory of possible hidden treasures. Whoever was out there was not willing to share them with you, so you decided to approach slowly.

Instead of just walking into a potential trap, you started to observe the ruins from afar...


@slabakbg: With Shen and the Battle-Trained Socialite, you have two great choices for some scouting and reconnaissance missions. Both take turns observing the alien ruins from afar. After several days, you are confident that there's nobody around the station, at least there's no movement at all at the base.

Your officers decide to approach the ruins in the cover of the next night. As they carefully sneak towards the ruins, they recognize some odd looking stones scattered across the ground. Shen almost kicks one, but the Battle-Trained Socialite stops him at the last moment. Booby Traps! The two carefully look around: It seems they have been walking right into a mine field! Not wanting to risk it, they carefully retreat back to safety.

The next days are spent trying to approach the ruins from other sides but no matter, the mine field seems to enclose the ruins completely. Without any means of flying over them, Shen proposes to just blow them all up but Eliza has a better idea: She'll construct a contraption that should be able to deactivate them without making them explode. It's just going to take a couple more days...

Result of Encounter:

  • Nothing bad happened - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 90

@palasatenea: With Ayumi and the Exploration Officer, you have two great choices for some scouting and reconnaissance missions. Both take turns observing the alien ruins from afar. After several days, you are confident that there's nobody around the station, at least there's no movement at all at the base.


exode_card_077_SyndicateAyumi.png

Your officers decide to approach the ruins in the cover of the next night. As they carefully sneak towards the ruins, they recognize some odd looking stones scattered across the ground. The Exploration Officer almost kicks one, but the Battle-Trained Socialite stops her at the last moment. Booby Traps! The two carefully look around: It seems they have been walking right into a mine field! Not wanting to risk it, they carefully retreat back to safety.

The next days are spent trying to approach the ruins from other sides but no matter, the mine field seems to enclose the ruins completely. Without any means of flying over them, Ayumi proposes to just blow them all up but the Syndicate Hacker has a better idea: He believes that these booby traps are linked together in clusters and that he should be able to hack that link and thus disable them. You are not really sure about that, but without any better options you agree to give him some days to prepare everything...

Result of Encounter:

  • Nothing bad happened - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 100

@nockzonk: With the Rebel General and the Battle-Trained Socialite, you have two great choices for some scouting and reconnaissance missions. Both take turns observing the alien ruins from afar. After several days, you are confident that there's nobody around the station, at least there's no movement at all at the base.

Your officers decide to approach the ruins in the cover of the next night. As they carefully sneak towards the ruins, they recognize some odd looking stones scattered across the ground. The Battle-Trained Socialite almost kicks one, but the Rebel General stops her at the last moment. Booby Traps! The two carefully look around: It seems they have been walking right into a mine field! Not wanting to risk it, they carefully retreat back to safety.

This is not the first mine field the Rebel General has seen and he'd be damned if it was the last. His first thoughts revolve around how he could get Eliza to walk in there but he discards the idea, for now. We still might need here. Eliza herself has the idea to construct a contraption that should be able to deactivate the mines without making them explode, but the Rebel General is not convinced. If it doesn't work, everybody will know we are here. No, there's only one way. He'll lead the team through the field! If everybody follows his footsteps, nothing bad can happen. Everybody spends another day preparing before your team returns to the mine field...

Result of Encounter:

  • Nothing bad happened - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 95

@veryanprime: With the Special Infiltration Agent and the Exploration Officer, you have two great choices for some scouting and reconnaissance missions. Both take turns observing the alien ruins from afar. After several days, you are confident that there's nobody around the station, at least there's no movement at all at the base.


exode_card_124_crewSpecialInfiltrationAgent.png

Your officers decide to approach the ruins in the cover of the next night. As they carefully sneak towards the ruins, they recognize some odd looking stones scattered across the ground. The Exploration Officer almost kicks one, but the Special Infiltration Agent stops her at the last moment. Booby Traps! The two carefully look around: It seems they have been walking right into a mine field! Not wanting to risk it, they carefully retreat back to safety.

The next days are spent trying to approach the ruins from other sides but no matter, the mine field seems to enclose the ruins completely. Without any means of flying over them, the Exploration Officer proposes to just blow them all up but Eliza has a better idea: She'll construct a contraption that should be able to deactivate them without making them explode. It's just going to take a couple more days...

Result of Encounter:

  • Nothing bad happened - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 80

The Asteroid

After the incident with that alien drone, you decided to stay in hiding for a while. Your sensors still weren't able to get any better readings of the asteroids core, so after several days of doing absolutely nothing, you decided that it finally was time to act. You ordered your crew to unpack all prefabs and get the provisional colony up and running. Your first priority was making sure that your crew and officers would have enough food, water, and air to survive until the Colombus arrived.


@drillith: Luckily, your Prefabs didn't get damaged during the shoot-out with the alien sphere. Still, after setting up your Prefabs, you realize that you are in big trouble. Combined with the two geniuses sitting in the corner of your shuttle just staring at you, there are a total of five persons to feed. Without any additional oxygen, you'd run out of oxygen in about 20 days.


exode_card_057_tom_foodiemoodie.png

Things are not looking much better on food and water. With only the daily Happy Soda from your Foodie Moodie and three Recombined Food daily, you'd run out of water in 25 days and out of food in 50 days. You might be able to ration your food, but the lack of water and oxygen is going to kill you if you can't find anything inside the asteroid.

Things are looking tough, but you will not go gently into that good night!

Result of Check-Up:

  • Things are looking grim: 10 damage
  • Colony Health remaining: 55

@craniuma: Because of the sudden alien attack and the ensuing panic, you were not able to bring any prefabs or cargo with you. You barely made it out of there alive, but now the five of you are close to either suffocating or dying because of dehydration. Without any means of surviving outside the Baldie, your chances of survival are mostly only theoretical.

Only a miracle can save you now.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You are doomed: 25 damage
  • Colony Health remaining: 75

@digital-wisdom: In good mood because of how your Mysterious AI managed that alien encounter, Eliza is already working on the mysterious red crystal while the rest of the crew is setting up base. Your cargo is filled to the brim with oxygen, food, and water. You do a quick calculation and are pleased to know that you have enough of everything to survive until the Colombus is going to pick you up. She could even be late 10 days and you'd still survive. The only downside is that you don't have any additional habitat, so you'll have to live cramped inside the Baldie for the time being.


exode_card_116_officerEliza.png

But Eliza and her crew are not prepared to sit around for 90 days doing nothing anyway. There already was one hostile alien encounter and you are pretty sure that it won't be the last. You decide to not rush anything, but you are going to prepare a first expedition deeper into the Asteroid.

Result of Check-Up:

  • You are all set - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 105

After you finished setting up your shelter, you prepare to start your first Expedition deeper into the asteroid. You don't know what to expect, but after your contact with that alien drone you prefer to be prepared for anything. Lack of gravity is going to make exploration a lot slower than what you'd like to see but there's no helping it. Without any means of scanning the inside of the asteroid, you'll just have to choose and pick one of the tunnels.

You decide which route to take and muster the options available to you...


@drillith: Your crew is ill prepared to leave the safety of your Shelter behind. You could send the Kilbot out there alone, but considering he would just shoot anything on sight that's probably not the best idea. After some discussion you decide to send the Federal Marine with him. The tunnels themselves have a diameter of almost 10 meter and are way to evenly sized to be a natural occurrence.

The lack of gravity makes traversing the tunnel really hard and getting anywhere takes your team a long time. After what seems like an eternity your crew realizes that there's a dim red glow coming from deeper within the tunnel. They approach it with caution and after some more minutes they can finally see the source of the glow: There's a red energy shield covering the whole tunnel. The shield generators seem to have been embedded within the tunnels walls. It seems this asteroid was or still is some sort of alien base.


exode_card_224_crewFederalMarine.png

Unsure what to do, your Federal Marine slowly approaches the shield. There's no way of getting to the generators and there seems to be no control element. Frustrated with the lack of progress, your Marine finally aims at the shield and fires a couple of rounds at it. Once they hit the shield, they just disappear. Always up for violence, the Kilbot joins in, but even a full barrage from his KB Blaster simply disappears into the void once it touches the shield.

Without any options, your crew returns to your makeshift colony. In the following days additional tunnels are explored but each expedition ends with the same result. Once you get closer to the core, the path is blocked by a red energy shield.

By day 15 you are still alive, but you are running low on oxygen and your untimely death seems to be all but inevitable.

Result of Encounter:

  • You are trapped: 25 damage
  • Colony Health remaining: 30

@craniuma: There's nothing you can do. If you leave the Baldie, you will suffocate and freeze to death.

By day 15 you are still alive, but unless something happens soon, your going to die in a couple of days.

Result of Encounter:

  • You are trapped: 25 damage
  • Colony Health remaining: 50

@digital-wisdom: You have prepared for that exact situation. Because you are not sure what to expect, you decide to send the Little Buddy in alone for the first expedition. He's not really built for zero gravity but there's no helping it. He'll still be able to navigate, albeit at a lower speed. The crew nervously watches his camera feed as he slowly descends into the asteroid. All of sudden, you loose contact to the drone. What ever is blocking the sensors seems to also block communications.


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After several agonizing minutes, the feed comes back online. Luckily, the Little Buddy is programmed to return immediately should it ever loose contact with base. Since sending the drone to explore alone is no longer an option, you decide to send your Exploration Officers out there with him. Just to be sure, the Kilbot is coming with your crew as well.

The lack of gravity makes traversing the tunnel really hard and getting anywhere takes your team a long time. After what seems like an eternity, your crew realizes that there's a dim red glow coming from deeper within the tunnel. They approach it with caution and after some more minutes they can finally see the source of the glow: There's a red energy shield covering the whole tunnel. The shield generators seem to have been embedded within the tunnels walls. It seems this asteroid was or still is some sort of alien base.

Full of curiosity, your Exploration Officers slowly approach the shield. There's no way of getting to the generators and there seems to be no control element. With the help of Little Buddy's sensors your officers analyze the shield. It seems to be of a rather low power level, not sure if it will really withstand anything. One of your officers picks one of his flares and throws it into the shield. The second it hits the shield, the flare just disappears into the void. Woah, it's power level went up 10000% in basically no time! Whoever set this up certainly doesn't want visitors!.

Without any options your crew returns to your makeshift colony. In the following days, additional tunnels are explored but each expedition ends with the same result. Once you get closer to the core, the path is blocked by a red energy shield. After several unsuccessful expeditions, Eliza comes up with an idea. Maybe the energy is shared between these shields? So if one gets hit with something, the others will go down! Because communication won't be possible inside the asteroid, testing this theory will needs to be coordinated perfectly.

You spend the next days picking the best tunnels for this little experiment...

Result of Encounter:

  • Nothing bad happened - Well done Captain!
  • Colony Health remaining: 105

Conlcusion

And that's all for today Captains! All colonies are still alive, although @craniuma and @drillith are barely hanging on.

On the ocean world, everybody seems to have settled in quite nicely, so what could possibly go wrong there? On the moon, everyone did pretty well this time, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see who has the best solution for that minefield. On the asteroid, things are pretty one-sided with only @digital-wisdom having realistic chances of long term survival.

A random common will be send from @exoderewardspool to all participants in a few minutes. Congratulations on making it to the first reward tier everybody!

We hope you enjoy reading these daily posts as much as we enjoy writing them - We'll be back tomorrow with day 16-30!

Please follow to keep up to date on all things @eXodegame!

Hyperspeed to the eXode universe!

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Ooof, didn't realize our oxygen supplies would be that low!
I guess I should have brought extra air instead of a habitat... Though I'm sure we'd have other issues then.
Certainly hope we get to the ruins successfully and find something helpful.


Also, if you don't mind a bit of formatting advice, it's a bit unclear which result block goes to which person. You might want to use lines to box it off. (three dashes)


That'll make it much clearer! But that's just my opinion.

That's some solid advise right there!
I'll do that right away, thank you very much.

Glad to help! Thanks again for running this!

Should I confess that I learned something today :D

I didn’t think it was possible, but This contest makess me even more excited for colonization...

I am so engrossed by this evolving story!

If the actual gameplay of Exode is half as good as the way these scenarios are put together and play out it will be a huge hit.

I can't wait for the next instalment.

Amazing work @Khazrakh!
Real life eXode aims to be like that!

I'm looking really forward to that :-)

I knew my triskan fighter would prove useful. Everyone's stories are so interesting.

Great job as always, I readed all the reports with an intense curiosity about what happened to all the participants, events are turning dangerous out there!.

Another great episode, thanks!

Slight typo at the end should be moon instead of the astroid

Indeed, thank you for pointing it out!