Log #3
The singularity is basically ready to go online, the foundation, containment and harvesters were built relatively quickly for how expensive they had been. Honestly while this is more expensive than just building nuclear reactors this is faster, and far easier to defend, also less maintenance compared to the few hundred reactors this thing can replace.
Now that the power situation is done I can roll out my infrastructure improvements, or at least let the mind roll them out. Remember what I said about not designing more weapons for a bit? Well even aside from the fact that the sentinels are weapons I lied, sort of. I actually already had these designs, they just haven't been implemented yet.
The first and most significant one is a networked city wide shield. I had previously accomplished the same thing with a giant metal net but now I can forgo that, and subsequently cover a fairly large city rather than a massive factory. I can even fire out of it though lacking an actual structure does reduce the amount of anti air I can field.
That's negated somewhat by the new laser anti-air batteries. Essentially less focused higher powered laser beams. With a longer range, wider beam, and lower damage and piercing they are somewhat suited for their roll. But there are two issue inherent with lasers, one is that they aren't an object, meaning I can't make a laser that explodes like flak, and another is that they are line of sight only. A laser does not really arc or curve like a shell, meaning no artillery or over horizon shots, and even a cloud can and will diffuse a laser. And they lose energy burning through the air.
A fair few of those issues can be solved by not being in an atmosphere, Lasers are excellent for space combat. But given I'm not actually engaging in space combat… Lasers have a niche, a broad and useful one but regular munitions just bring more to the table.
And I have decided to lean into that, I already had numerous ammo types, armor piercing, depleted uranium, and hollow point have always been common ammunition types, but thermite, phosphorus, just plain explosive, and even more esoteric effects have always been packed into my artillery shells, but I am now extending that, bringing those into mass production for all of my turrets. And just generally upgrading all of my turrets and vehicles, which are technically all railguns at this point. At least when they have a decent power supply.
Really armor piercing has been kind of outdated for a bit, and this was it's time. I had the decoders consentally improving it but at this point even poking a hole all the way through a bug doesn't kill it, and the bullets rarely do that. Still good on the machines though, but they are literally made from rusted scrap metal, if reinforced scrap metal.
Not that I'm particularly worried on that front, I've started a network of kill sats, got tank and command tank production lines back online, entire sub factories are now pumping out combat drones, and I have started on arming all of the androids and machines with proper combat grade equipment and armors. Full scale military development has begun basically.
A mark two spidertron is made every day, a command tank every three. Not fast by my standards but actually constantly building them rather than just whenever I need one. At this point a standard battle group is one hundred scout tanks, fifty shield tanks, twenty-five drone tanks, twenty spidertrons, four MK-2 spidertrons and two command tanks, along with on average three thousand supporting combat drones and five hundred construction drones. These units are usually joined by a few dozen YoRHa or resistance androids, and one of the command tanks is relegated to artillery duty as well as ensuring no androids are lost even if their bodies are destroyed, with fabrication units capable of building more bodies as long as it has materials.
This has led to an increased need for a specialized manufacturing tank, most likely serving as a mobile factory and refinery. Advances in both power production and fabrication ability make this far more viable. It takes a command tank losing a fair bit of its energy weapon arrangement just to make enough energy and room to build an android body every thirty minutes, while additional space is needed to store the 'base' bodies ready for immediate use. This basically means the command tank with these fabrication units give androids far more 'combat endurance' but that they lose the ability to function as a true combat vehicle.
So making a tank that is roughly the size of a command tank, or larger, and only giving it basic weaponry while severely increasing it's manufacturing capabilities would reduce the strain on my command tank production and allow a constant flow of replacement drones and androids, possibly even making replacement tank's during a battle. Essentially negating my armies need to have a supporting base or secure supply lines.
I already kind of do this with trains capable of manufacturing but those still need train lines and are far less mobile. The bug's are capable of surrounding and destroying the forces that don't keep on the move or fall back to supporting defenses with speed. Just destroy the rail line and the trains can't move at full speed, stuck at the pace they can build new tracks. Which is a comparatively slow thirty mile an hour.
My air force is similarly being rebuilt, two command carriers have been put into operation, one on Nauvis and one on Earth, Both are capable of constant sustained flight through nuclear propulsion and can resupply flights of lesser planes. Extending my air forces effective range and allowing them to keep pace with my ground forces. Honestly I waited far too long before building these, aerial superiority has so far always been mine and losing that would be devastating.
As such a new batch of bombers and fighters as well as recon and light scout craft have been built, using the enhanced tech I now have available as well as old android plane designs on what exactly an air to air fighter needs to be effective. Already the massive bug flights that used to cloud the skies of any major attack are now being cut down before my Anti- air even needs to fire a shot.
Aside from some new armor plating and more efficient computation systems my other units haven't faced similar overhauls. Largely because they can't really be drastically improved by any changes, only slow increases in durability, fire rate, and fire power. But that doesn't mean they haven't seen any upgrades, basically all standard munition turrets are now railguns. Increasing shell speed, range, and accuracy. Not that my computer systems often miss, it just takes less processing power to achieve the same results now.
Overall I have kept myself busy recently, largely because an actually traversable portal to Nauvis will be opening soon, bringing back into conflict with the bugs. The mind's had been doing fine on their own, but I have some fairly lofty ambitions.
Mostly because at this point resource constraints aren't a thing. I'm actually having more issues moving material and product than getting the raw material. I have literally thousands of tons of metal being produced and used each week. At this point Logistics are being strained, and there's only so much Byzantine can do. Honestly if the mind wasn't here this whole thing wouldn't have been possible in the first place, but as it stands they need more tools.
The factory runs on three things, resources, power, and logistics. And as of now only the latter two are of any true concern, my new singularity will keep power needs in the green for a few months but logistics are approaching the red. So I've designed more efficient trains, larger aerial cargo craft, increased the production of both, and revamped both the logistics and courier drones. Also made a new faster type of conveyor belt, but that served as an impromptu cannon more than anything else, I think the mind's are using it to launch aircraft now actually.
Basically the Logistics drones now have far more lift, speed, and cargo capacity, more than doubling their cost and power usage but now they are fast enough to be blurs even under heavy load. They are actually just shy of the sound barrier, and needed projector systems just to reduce how much air they blow around.
The courier drones on the other hand are now BIG, ten feet of metallic cat, upgraded from the previous five foot units. Byzantine did need to make their 'play areas' larger as a consequence but now even the larger terrestrial animals on earth can't actually stop a courier, and for that matter neither can most of the rogue machine life forms. The courier drones have taken to this change with glee and I actually had to implant hunting limits into their code as they kept dragging back dead animals and machine animals. I mean they can eat both but it has the real risk of depleting the local wildlife populations.
Work to bring Panther back online has been, difficult, Largely as the drone had been close to developing full sapience and that is decidedly complicated to just rebuild. But I have been dedicating a full hour a day to bringing her back online, not just bringing something like her back online, using simulations and stored records of her outdated code. At this point I'm certain I can bring her back online with only minor memory loss, something well beyond my highest expectations.
When that's done I'm giving her a full suit of upgrades, at least to the same quality as my armor. With her tonnage that'd give her decent odds at taking on an older model command tank, if not the newer upgraded ones. And given that the current courier drones are her old size she's similarly going to be larger, a full fifteen feet.
Once the portal is open and my Earth side forces have built up some I'm going to have Balistraia mount the largest bug purge to date. The perimeter has long been finished and my core territories are secure from anything but subterranean attack, and even that has been slowed to a trickle, and now it's time to clear out the rest of the continent. That way any conflicts with the bugs are on my terms or at the very least blunted by the bug's need to bypass the oceans. Bug attacks via air would be their only option, as even tunneling under the ocean isn't safe, not that the air is that safe either.
The surface getting cleared is an inevitability, my artillery and air support making any defense the bugs can mount minor, it'll come at a heavy cost in metal but it will be one I can well afford to pay. Then it will just be a matter of clearing out the deep hives, which while secure from artillery and air support are by their nature smaller. Tougher, denser, and far easier to defend sure, but they produce less bugs. Far larger than one would think given a hive's ability to just assimilate the stone rather than needing to actually tunnel but the deep hives are only capable of being a nuisance.
Eventually the bugs will further adapt to subterranean conditions, but I don't intend to give them the weeks or months that will take. Right now only thirty percent of the bugs come from deep hives, and that number is only increasing. The bugs becoming fully adapted to it would be devastating, underground conflict favors them heavily given the close quarters nature. Tunnel tanks and Spiderbots are the only somewhat effective units I have and they face upwards of eighty percent casualties in basically any engagement.
There isn't any armor that a bug can't bite through if it gets close enough, even my shields only let grappled tanks get a mutual kill and keep them safe from any bug ranged attack. There isn't much you can do against a ten-thousand pound bite force backed by nearly mono-molecular mandibles. And that's not even the strongest registered bite force, just the average. I dominate ranged combat and have far better support units while the bugs dominate any close quarters battles, and they use this advantage well. On average a tunnel tank kills three bugs, three. A shield tank can be expected to take out twenty smaller variants and at least wound larger variants.
Honestly might need the androids for tunnel fighting, or perhaps the sentinels. It'd still be a gruesome slog but both will be extremely maneuverable and the androids are exceedingly good at close quarters combat. I mean a squad of YoRHa android's eliminated a full scouting group with nothing but some swords and pods, it'd be harder underground but I don't doubt they could. Add in that they'd be more than ecstatic to do the work and my temptation to let them is fighting my desire to keep them from fights with expected losses rather than possible ones.
If I didn't have the capability to restore destroyed androids I wouldn't even consider it, but given it'd take minutes at most to bring them back online even if they were entirely destroyed? It's tempting, if morally gray at best.
In less grim new's I finally got my android protection detail to wear something other than skirts and trousers when they aren't in full armor, actually they are still in skirts but it is Progress! And I will take it. I just had to say it was a uniform and they were all for it, given their un-official transfer to my 'command'. Not quite power armor, as they all already have suits, it's an armored bodysuit. Still has shields, but it lacks any offensive capabilities and only moderately enhances strength. On an android, and even me, it's not actually noticeable. Lifting an extra ten pounds when you can lift tons isn't much, but it's there now. The base undersuit is still just black, but with added gray in a camo style, while the armor plates are black with blue and gold trim. A2 has refused the gold trim though and instead just has the pseudo camo pattern on the whole thing, and she and the other YoRHa combat androids have kept a skirt on the suit. Though the scanners are fine without. Currently taking what victories I can, now they have no exposed skin, cleavage, and they have helmets. Not that they wear them inside the base. I however haven't taken mine off since I built it.
Also going to turn the skirts into either lasers or guns, just to give them some use. Right now the edges are razor sharp and the skirts themselves are heavy and armored, meaning they can spin and cut through metal like a buzz saw, but I can do better.
The destroyer drone… collective? Has been eating steadily more processing power. Seemingly triggered by the upgrades to the standard destroyer drone doubling the network's available processing power. I seemed to pass some sort of threshold and now it's requesting more dedicated decoders, and I have just been throwing the super-computers at them. Honestly just curious as to what will happen, they've had more processing power than an individual mind for a bit now, but it's been spread out across tens of thousands of drones. Even the current 'central' processing the decoders have given them is only one percent of the overall available power.
They aren't a threat, even Balistraia alone is more potent and the destroyer collective is very diffuse. Making them fragile and incapable of standing up to a mind, but with Maso doing something to them I'm more curious than worried regardless. I doubt they'd even be hostile in the first place, but at this point nothing is certain.
But it'll be a few more days before that develops, the portal to Nauvis will happen well before that, and the grand offensive might begin before it resolves. So that's on the backburner for a bit.
Infrastructure and the new towns have been being built and managed without much of note happening, more towns are built, staffed with androids and machines vetted by my cities council and then left to govern themselves with the minds only stepping in on the few occasions of corruption or just plain idiocy. The only true issue is the ratio of android to machine leaders being heavily skewed towards androids but until I have more properly intelligent machines to fill the rolls I can't see that issue being fixed. And none of the machines actually seem to overly mind, only a few minor groups have complained. Those are also usually machines based on human revolutionaries or civil rights activists, who like most machines just parrot old human philosophy without actually developing their own understanding of it. Yet another reason to upgrade their brains.
Actually already have the upgrade package ready, any machine or android with maintenance skill can install it on the standard or even aberant machines. It does come with heavily increased power consumption but within a city that isn't an issue and outside of one I have hydrogen batteries/generators. It does mean the machines need to 'eat' but letting them actually come up with ideas is worth that minor cost. One hydrogen cell is only a pound and it can fuel the machine's increased intellect for a full day, and even without increased power the machines will be minorly smarter. Could have added the couriers generator but this takes up less space, making the modifications needed far easier.
If I added a courier generator to a machine It'd need to be in one of my factories, making an unacceptable bottleneck. I still plan doing it of course, it just won't be the standard. This thing can be produced by both machines and androids without me now that the design is in the wild, and hydrogen generators can be fueled refilled with a device capable of producing hydrogen, including a water to hydrogen generator that can be powered by any available source, which comes with the upgrade package Byzantine is 'selling'.
At the end of the day things are looking drastically improved on basically all fronts, and I should have the portal opened and the initial stages of the offensive begun by log four. If nothing goes wrong, which it will as nothing is allowed to be this nice for long. I'm betting the portal unit spits out a baby eldritch horror and its parent arrives to drive everyone insane. The androids are betting on extra-dimensional invaders, the minds continue to say both things are improbable. But given how they have heavily increased the internal defenses around each portal and staged an army on both sides? They are learning.
AN-
The ... variants? are coming along okay, only got two done but I have alot more plot summaries. they are are more prologues than anything but it would be the start of a new book if this was actually formatted with any skill.
Ideas will be accepted until I finish up all the variants. Not saying I will write all the ideas, but I wont exactly tell you not to post them. though to be fair I've always accepted them. I mean if I wrote all the ones I had now it'd be like 18k words just to hit the 1k word minimum I set.
likes and comments are fantastic, two variants on Patreon.
