The vehicular technology class was the biggest technology class and thus had multiple teachers, lots of students, and very little resources. It had been easy to get stuff from class storage or requisition for weapons and robotics but I had to complete with my teachers and peers when trying to get stuff to work with. Our teachers struggled to give us actual hands on work as most vehicle technology and scrap went into the few tractors and trucks the town already had.
That was why I was currently sitting on the floor with a fusion engine from a sentry bot hanging above me with a small hand crane. Two others were working on getting other parts from it as I went straight for the fusion core, and drivers for the robots foot wheel things. I was planning to commence my bike shop plans here as I still hadn't completed my stealth suit. I didn't want to go after deathclaws without it but I needed cpas. I'd already convinced the mayor to sponsor me and I was now getting the parts for a prototype of a self propelled bike.
I didn't have the resources for an actual vehicle so making a bike and welding and engine to it was all I could do right now. Normal bike were easy enough to make and I already had three made and stored in my place. The mayor wanted something more long range and what better than putting an engine on a bike and selling them. The old man had liked my idea and gave me a scrapped sentry bot to take from. I was taking what I needed and giving the rest to whoever wanted it.
After ripping out the essentials I slapped it all together on a frame that would fit in the bikes body and replaced the fusion core with a few fission batteries. Fusion cores were too rare and expensive to use for a bike unless it was personal transport, and I had Elizabeth for that. I took the parts after class to my little room and bolted them into place on an already prepared frame. Hooking up the chain and taking the entire bike to the mayors office I stop in front and toss a bottle cap at the mayors window. His head pops out as he looks for the person throwing stuff at his window.
"Hey! I've got the prototype you asked for. Come down here and take a look."
The mayors eyebrows raise and he disappears back into his office. A few minutes later he comes out and simply stares at the bike. "This thing actually works right? I've seen bikes with engines before but this is the only one I've seen so small."
I smirked back at the old man's question. As an answer I kick off and pull the power handle. I'd installed a brake handle and power handle on the left and right as I didn't want anything complicated by more than just simple easy to obtain parts. The easiest way I had was with cables and old scrapped bike brake handles. The bike had a top speed of 40mph which was incredibly good and would allow you to outrun a deathclaw in optimal conditions.
The engine itself would have to be redesigned as the blueprints and such that j had were unrealistic for the economy and resource constraints this area had. It wasn't the heart of the NCR and o couldn't simply buy whatever I needed. The biggest problem I had was the parts of the engine itself. As I drove around to show off my bike I went over what I'd need to do for the engine.
I'd simplified the engine as much as possible but I still had to source anything that couldn't be brought in from common vehicle scrap. I didn't have many problems for normal bikes but they didn't demand parts from fusion engines of the old world. I couldn't manufacture the engines unless I got ahold of the robotics needed so scrapping old cars and such was the only source. What I could manufacture was pretty much everything else. Fission batteries were common enough to be easy to source and most parts I'd need could replaced by stuff from robots as it was generally in better condition.
Once I finally got a proper sponsorship from the mayor and got a place to set up shop I immediately began work on a new robot. Using standard eyebots I made a simple personality that would use advanced scanners to find valuable scrap and such and cut its way to it with a plasma laser. With a Mr.Handy arm they could then haul the parts out and bring them to me and I could put them to use. After designing the eyebot and its personality I began work on a basic bot for building my products. A dumbed down version of the HK AI was easy to make and a few arms put under its control gave me a production line.
As the week passed I built three more of the production bots and made a proper production line. One bot would make the bikes frame, the next its wheels and seat. Next was the engine and then it was installed by the last bot. Most of the bikes produced would be taken off before the engine as I simply didn't have the resources for lots of motorized bikes. After setting up the production line the mayor came by to check on his investment in me and gave me more resources as I still needed to make the eyebots to get the scrap I needed for solid production.
I brought those resources to my robotics classes and convinced Joseph and Arvand to make building a scrapper eyebot into a graded project. I did have to trade some knowledge for them to do that but it was worth it as I didn't have to program the creation cycle of these bots into the production line. After that it was simply a matter of time before I started automated production. Laramie had plenty of scrap for the bots to work over as despite the people here going through it all there was always something left that my bots could find.
With time being the only factor left by the end of the week I began work on my stealth suit and an actual vehicle. This one would be a truck as I was planning to haul my hunted deathclaws back to town to be butchered by the specialists. After deathclaw hunting was a backup plan for my production line to build war bots and take them to grab stuff from Denver.
The place was a no-go zone for pretty much anyone but the legion idiots and desperate people from the Chey. It was practically untouched due to the dog packs ruling it so I figured it'd be easy enough to make my way in with war bots and find a way to circumvent the cyberdogs that would likely be there. I definitely didn't want to contend with cyberdogs and the answer to them was probably in one of the police departments or tech companies of the city. From the games I understood that such things were a forgone conclusion as there was always a backup for almost everything that the people of this world created.
As the week turned over to my robotics class I completed my stealth suit and began work on a truck. I was slowly accruing scans of all the tech I could so I could easily follow what I had on my pipboy to help make the truck and other things. It would be way easier than previous builds due to the pipboy and the knowledge it had. As I worked on the truck I was also planning an actual army of robots. I wanted whatever was hidden in Denver and an army of bots would be needed to keep me alive while I tried to find a way to control or protect myself from the cyberdogs. I could remember in game that cyverdogs weren't a massive threat to geared players but in real life their sonic attacks would void most protections. I also could remember something about them being able to take on armored vehicles but I had no idea if that was accurate or even from this world.
The first batch of bikes I sold went to the mayor and the guards as he was my sponsor and reserved a large amount at slightly lower prices than what I would eventually sell them for. As I finally got some caps in my pocket I skipped a few classes and built my truck with the vehicles class. A bit of greasing wheels and some promises of more stuff to work in had the teachers of the class jumping at the gun to work on my truck with their students. With their voluntary support for education my truck quickly became a working model and we spent the rest of the week working out the kinks in the job and me teaching people how to drive. Once I had the truck done I began preparing to hunt deathclaws.
My main issue with this was my ammo. I only had a few custom rounds left for my rifle so I began readying other weapons. My laser rifle became a powerful mounted laser turret and I sourced some LMGs for smaller mounted turrets. Lots of mines bought on the guards black market for weapons and a custom project of both Arvands made the rest of my arsenal. I didn't of course arm multiple eyebots and slave their connections to a terminal in my truck. I'd have Radar flying high to scout with the weaker scrap bots working as a backup and distraction for an emergency.
The eyebots also all had explosives inside them for suicide attacks on the big ass lizards. I wanted to be as over prepared as possible as I could remember struggling with the Quarry Junction pack even when I was Over Powered enough to kill the big deathclaw in the lonesome road dlc. Finally three weeks after actually making the deathclaw hunting plan I was ready to go. I'd told the butchers in town to be ready as I'd be hauling back deathclaws as fast as I could.
I left Laramie with ten eyebots following me and Radar far above. I'd be passing through a small railroad town called Bosler to an old church out past the town. It was as far as the people of the town went as the deathclaws viciously protected the area past it. The known deathclaw territory went from that old church to Laramie peak and out to Seminoe state park. This group was known to be massive and control lots of land. The Chey had a bounty on any matriarch or patriarch of the pack and I'd be set for life if I could get them both.
I unfortunately was in reality and had no way of accurately finding either, without a legion of eyebots scanning the massive area they controlled. The entire outer territory had been decently mapped by the Chey and surrounding tribes. My current map skirted an edge of the mapped areas and went past the road to fort Laramie. The fort had been an early Chey stronghold against raiding groups from the Rushmore's.
That raider group had been cut down by the Moines of Iowa. A small ex military group that had suffered brutal losses against them and thrown their lives away to eliminate the Rushmore raiders. They were heavily honored in Chey lands near Mount Rushmore. Once I made it past the road to the old fort I finally made it to Glendo state park. I'd found some roads closed after Bosler and taken the road past Wheatland and past the fort to get here. If I'd been able to continue past Bosler I'd have probably found myself in the middle of the deathclaws territory.
Glendo as a town was little more than some burnt out houses, a gas station, and a high school. The school was the only building with anything as it was mostly concrete and scrap. People who passed through stayed here and hoped that the deathclaws didn't sniff them out and break in. I pulled up to the entrance and made my way inside courtesy of a key from the Laramie mayor. I stationed my eyebots in a patrol around the building and swept each floor. Radar had blasted the place with his sensors but I couldn't feel safe without a basic sight check. Once I'd swept the building I went to the roof. It was little more than flat ground with some old and scavenged HVAC units. With a few minutes of checking the visible area around the school and some instructions to Radar I went to find a comfortable place to rest.