Log #36
Remember those spidertrons I mentioned a while ago, well they had been doing fine, but we lost contact with them awhile ago and they were destroyed, and the bugs that surrounded them couldn't destroy a spidertron even if it didn't fight back, that means something else did, I'm blaming the fish personally, it's about time for something new to try and kill me.
In somewhat good news, I collaborated with the 2 ….. Civilian? Minds and came up with a new sub factory layout, its less efficient in literally every way, and it is expensive to build, but we came up with a fully enclosed factory that scrubs all the air leaving it with water to keep in contaminants from leaving the base, with the waste water itself being distilled to filter it, before I just dump the clean water out the factory.
With this design even a small outpost will need a nuclear reactor to run it, which is somewhat good because the heat makes it easy to distill water, but bad because reactors are expensive, and I still need to figure out what to do with the sludge that gets left over.
In preparation for this I had Labyrinthine expand the nuclear material production, which means I get to do more things with nuclear power, remember how I was having trouble fueling my helicopters? Now they’re nuclear! Well the design for it is, they haven't actually entered production yet, in fact I designed nuclear versions of all my vehicles and designs, hellishly expensive but if the bugs can really track vehicles through pollution any stealth designs I make need to be able to run cleanly.
Balistraria is currently working on clearing a spot for the new sub factory, and it should be built within the week.
Log #37
The cages over my main base and a few sub bases have been finished, looking up is weird now, as its just kinda dark, still Labyrinthine has begun stringing lights up around there in interesting patterns, kinda starting to look like stars, which is neat, and from outside the factory just looks like a 3 tiered wall that goes up around 100 ft with a big golden bowl on top, and the entire thing is lined with missile pods and turrets, and looks a bit like a golden ant hill with how many drones circle the thing, I am bad at describing things aren't I.
I didn't even mention the gates for the trains and aircraft to get in, or the intricate patterns Labyrinthine has carved onto everything, I’m pretty sure they have spent more time etching the thing then building it.
The green sub base is still under construction, but it's coming along fine and Bulwark has been able to fend off any attacks on the thing while it's being built, even launching a few nukes when one of the largest bug variants began to approach, didn't kill the thing but it did drive it off short a few legs, I tried to send Balistraia to hunt it down but the other bugs were especially driven to defend the big one, so that was a no go.
The air force is coming along well, I have two combat variants of the helicopter in production, bomber and fighter variants, the fighter has 2 rapid fire laser turrets slung under its wings, a large nose cannon, with variable ammunition, and the largest gun is a giant radiation turret, the bomber variant is just missing the radiation turret, with the space being replaced with well bomber equipment, a targeting system, guided bombs and space to hold those bombs.
They have heavy armor and 2 propellers on the end of some kinda stubby wings, and have a top speed of around 130 kph.
They each have a new variant of drone, a high speed sleek variant that rests on top of their wings when not in combat, the fighters carry 10 and the bombers carry 25, the drones are faster than the plans but don't have the battery life to keep up, so they charge on the wings when not in combat and break off to deal with any small bugs trying to swarm the things.
I don't really know how well they will work, but that's why I am building 10 of each before sending them out to Balistraria for live fire testing.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Had another net loss of 2 outposts, and the bugs are pushing harder again so hopefully this airforce can even the scales more in my direction.
Log #38
Apparently Balistraria has a new favorite toy, she ordered the construction of more bombers, but not any fighters, apparently the things are “just weaker flying tanks”, and aren't especially useful, she's also increased the fighter drones the bombers carry to its maximum of 40 but I had kinda expected that, she seems to prefer using drones to give larger bugs a death by a million cuts. And an extraordinarily agile and fast drone that can dice up a bug with its laser while still moving at high speeds? Well that's her new favorite toy, they only have 10 minutes of battery though, which annoys her, as most fights last at least an hour now. Still she has added a few of those drones to her drone tanks armaments.
She even suggested using them to drop of small bombs, and I have begun working on a version that can do just that, with how fast they are they can basically put a bomb anywhere on a bug before it can react.
Designing a bomb that can do a significant amount of damage is the more difficult task really, turning them into bombers just means you need to give em a little graspy arm to hold the thing.
The green base was finished just a few days ago, and while the bugs still attack it they don't attack the base as often, seemingly preferring to attack other bases, still the design isn't suitable for larger scale bases, cleaning that much air is just not feasible, but if I can clean up some of the air it might make the bugs a little less aggressive, why they apparently want a food source dead is beyond me though.
With the new flights of bombers destroying or weakening attacking hordes before they reach outposts I have been losing significantly less, and I am up to 20 outposts now, with each outpost I gain I can produce more supplies to build more outposts, so the more I get the faster I get them, which is fairly basic logic.
Log #39
The bugs have begun to incorporate their own anti air around their bases, and have begun producing more of the aerial bugs, which is exactly what I thought would happen, still my planes can fly higher than the aerial bugs and the anti air isn't too dangerous, only taking down a few plans and a few more drones, still keeping an eye on that though.
There are more cloaked bugs running about, the more advanced sensors in the tanks and higher tech turrets can still find them but the less advanced turrets and most of the drones can’t see the bugs, still using the camera on the turrets and tanks that can see the minds can figure out where the bugs are, It just takes more processing power, and as time goes on the sensors are getting worse at spotting the bugs, and that's when they are moving.
I’m now needing the expand the train network to deal with all the resources being moved around, the 4 lane train system isn't cutting it anymore, so 8 lanes it is, trying to lay all those tracks in an efficient manner is taking up a fair bit of Byzantines time, besides the dozens of trains there are thousands of courier drones ferrying resources around and around 50 cargo helicopters, though I am building more helicopters, It's just unloading them is annoying, so I'm probably going to redesign them.
Up to 27 outposts now, and only lost 4 since the last log, mainly to stealth bugs or giant regenerating bugs, but the large hordes did take their toll too.
Log #40
Why was I only loading the helicopters, It would have been so much smarter to just have the helicopters carry a large crate and then just drop it off to be unloaded, rather than having an actual cargo bay on the things, it can travel faster and be significantly lighter without a crate and doesn't have to wait to load, it can just pick up a filled crate waiting for it, the new design is going into production, and the old one has ceased production, but still.
The bugs have done something clever again, even if the propellers on the bombers can't be melted or broken, they can be gummed up, the shields wont stop that and having your propellers stop spinning usually cause you to crash, spitting variants of the bugs have even started using this against my drones, even if most drones aren't shielded and acid works fine on them. The only easy solution is a new type of drone that will remove the liquid, I just haven't found a good way to make that work yet, the stuffs surprising durable and hard to remove, still I’m working on that problem, leaning toward wither burning it off, or precisely cutting it with lasers.
The sticky stuff also works to gum up tank wheels, it's just less catastrophic to stop driving than it is to fall multiple thousand feet into the ground. And there are repair drones supporting the army which can just cut off and replace the gummed up bits. You can't do that to a planes propeller mid air.
I have hit 30 outposts and only lost 2, both to the giant bugs, Bulwark has just started having the drones move erratically to try and hit the camo bugs which works well enough even if it looks stupid.
Don't currently have a solution beyond nukes for the big bugs, but I have one in the works, nuclear artillery, or an artillery shell with a nuclear payload, if that doesn't do it I'm fresh out of ideas.