Milestone 3 — Tier 3: HV
The dirt is gone. This is the most visible change between the LV post and this one, and it would be dishonest to pretend it isn't an improvement. The base is now paved, lit, and laid out with enough intention that it reads as a place that was planned rather than accumulated. The map view makes this clearest: a white rectangle on a peninsula almost entirely surrounded by water, with the industrial district running down the centre and everything else arranged around it. There is also a lot of empty space inside the claimed area, which is either evidence of forward planning or optimism, depending on how the next few tiers go.
The industrial buildings are the main story. Four large black structures on either side of the central walkway, housing the machine lines inside. The LV machines occupy one building, the MV machines the other, and the separation is deliberate enough that it is clearly a system rather than an accident. The EBF sits alongside the steam crusher and separator for ore processing, which, between them, have made the manual processing pipeline from earlier tiers a distant memory.
Outside the industrial area, the base has developed considerably. The slime tree and apple tree frame the approach from the farm side, the Forestry bee farm is running in the background, the water side tanks are feeding the solar boilers, and the tree farm is handling wood supply without requiring much attention, mostly for the production of creosote oil. The Tinker's smeltery is still there, still useful, tucked behind the slime tree.
The living quarters are a single dark-walled room: a bed, some chests, and a crafting table. It does the job. The view from the windows looks out over everything that has been built, which is either a nice touch or just where the windows ended up.
HV is in. The peninsula has room to grow. That is probably going to be necessary.