How did the engineer get to Nauvis?

[Navin]

Even before the edge of the solar system, there is a very dense asteroid belt that you have to cut through. Even assuming the ship we crashed in was an escape pod, how the hell did we end up in this nightmare solar system?!

[PunCrathod]

Maybe the engineer went over or under the asteroid belt. It is very unlikely that the asteroids form a complete sphere.

[königplatzen]

It's probably after a failed mission in the solar system and only the engineer survived with amnesia

[Navin]

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

Maybe the engineer went over or under the asteroid belt. It is very unlikely that the asteroids form a complete sphere.

Impossible, factorio only has two dimensions, elevated rails and underground belts/pipes are essentially arcane sorcery!

[Fel]

It is completely possible that his initial spaceship was a lot sturdier (and better armed, although that point isn't clear) than a standard space platform.

[Chindraba]

Look at one engineer, starting with a pick axe on an alien planet, can accomplish.

Envision, if you will, the capabilities of the society, and planet, from which the solo engineer hails.

The 'shattered planet' could be the remnants of the initial impact between the, previously un-shattered, planet and the space vessel the engineer was on. The promethium being collected is not from the body of the planet. Rather it is part of the flotsam from the space ship. Perhaps it was the core of its power plant. Or it could have been their primary data storage medium - promethium oxide can be heated and formed into a cubic lattice, or even annealed into a hexagon (bestagon?) lattice - great for data storage perhaps. The only benefit from in, in-game, is the research to increase research speed.

[knighttemplar1960]

The engineer's society is obviously colonial and exploitive. The only way to get the promethium may have been to intentionally shatter the planet to get the promethium from the planet's core. Something may have gone wrong, the explosion may have damaged the shields of the main ship so badly that it had a core explosion, and only the engineer (and any other players in MP) were able to make it to an escape pod/shuttle.

The non-promethium parts of the planet became the dense asteroids and some of those may have collided with the escape pod/shuttle, over loaded its shields, and caused it to crash on Nauvis.

The only tech the engineer had that survived was his indestructible pick and his perpetual motion generator that only works on conveyor belts. All of his other tech (including his technical manuals stored on computer chips) was destroyed and the research is how to reconstruct a reader that lets him access the tech stored on the chip that survived.

[malogoss]

It was all a dream.