Trailblazer Module

The Trailblazer Module is a temporary landing system used to place a Duplicant on the surface of a planetoid that does not yet have a Rocket Platform. It is only a transport method; it provides no life support, and a Duplicant who deploys from it cannot use it to return to the Rocket it came from. Because of that, the first priority after landing is to keep the Duplicant alive long enough to establish a Rocket Platform so the Rocket can land safely.

A Trailblazer Module can be deconstructed for 400 kg of refined metal, and two modules made from the same material can be deconstructed to recover exactly the 800 kg needed to build a Rocket Platform on the new world. This makes it a useful way to bootstrap a new colony on a distant planetoid without bringing extra building materials. The landing animation also releases a small amount of Carbon Dioxide.

Several practical details matter when using a Trailblazer Module:

• The deployed Duplicant emerges with many needs and status values effectively reset, as if freshly printed. Calories, Breath, Stress, Bladder, and Rad Accumulation are all reset to values near optimal, so it is usually unnecessary to prepare the Duplicant extensively before deployment unless neglect would actually kill them.
• Since the module offers no life support, oxygen supply is the main risk. A deployed Duplicant can suffocate before a Rocket Platform is built.
• This is especially important on the Radioactive Ocean Asteroid, where Reed Fiber is unavailable for making Atmo Suits until another asteroid is colonized. In that situation, an Oxygen Mask can be used as a substitute.
• If two Duplicants are sent to a new planetoid and both Trailblazer Modules are deconstructed, the recovered refined metal is enough to construct the Rocket Platform needed to continue operations.

In short, the Trailblazer Module is a one-way foothold tool: it gets a Duplicant onto the surface, helps seed the first landing area, and then pays for part of the transition into a permanent settlement once the Rocket Platform is in place.