Log #56

My research into my own nature and the factories components in general has been forced to the back burner, so less has come of that since my last log than I’d like. But I did still learn a bit, different materials take different energy amounts to soften, and a little more research proved the same was true with shield generators if inverted, a gel like substance is extraordinarily easy to soften while taking a prohibitive energy cost to harden, or at least prohibitive to compared to any solid material.

This led me to discovering something else, mark 1 shield generators can’t harden a liquid, but mark 2 can, much like assemblers. If the trend continues a mark 3 shield generator could theoretically harden the air around it, at a prohibitive cost, but the ability to turn air into a solid wall whenever you need to? That could change the course of a battle… I think I'm not actually a tactician, that's what the minds are for.

So if what I’m seeing isn't just a coincidence the shield gens and projectors are both doing similar if opposite things, what this exactly means for my project of making a mark 4 assembler is to be determined but maybe finding a way to combine the things will be my next step, harden part of something while softening the rest will probably have uses.

Now onto the reason I haven’t been doing much with my research, Bulwark and Balistraia both sent me a proposal. A broad change in tactics, or at least the tactics for defending the bases. Right now each base is essentially an independent bastion connected via rail or drone, this means that while the routes between the outposts are patrolled they are not actually under our full control. Occasionally a bug attack will cut off a rail line or a large group of bugs will make it so drones can’t reliably sneak past.

Right now Balistraria will send her army to rout out the bugs, either destroying the hives attacking the rail lines or driving off the bug hordes, this is apparently not an optimal strategy now that we are getting more production capability.

The second issue with the whole independent bastion thing is that all the bases are independent and surrounded, each outpost needs to have enough turrets, walls, and drones to defend itself. And against larger attacks this is often not enough, the amount of resources sent to defend a small oil well is significantly less than needed to defend it against anything but the lightest of attacks, and while I don't consider those to be true “outposts” considering their small size and the easy of replacement the burden of actually defending all of it is taxing both in a logistic and processing way.

We have 56 “true outposts” now, things that both gather and process resources with more than one layer of walls, a few dozen “gathering posts” smaller resource patches not really worth heavy investment, and around a or so hundred kilometers of rails, though that's counting multilane rails as more than one rail.

I don't actually have the drone forces to successfully patrol all the territory around them, never mind the fact that tanks or at least higher tier drones are actually needed if the patrols are to serve as anything but an early warning system. The combat minds have decided that the task of managing defending a few hundred square kilometers from bug attacks in the most efficient way possible while also stuck with insufficient forces to actually patrol or hold the territory was un ideal, so the proposal they have me looking over.

It essential a great wall, or more great heavily patrolled border lined with defensive outposts every kilometer or so, there's more to it than that, like how they want to have their own tunnel systems to attack and retreat from along the border, or the massive operation we will need to actually clear out the inside of our border once its finished, but in simple terms defending one great section of land from one direction is easier than defending a bunch of smaller areas from all sides. Or so I have been told.

Log #57

I gave my approval for the plan, sure such a large assault risks aggravating more of the bug hives but as more time passes more hives seem to attack anyway so this is just speeding it up on our terms. The first phase of the plan is to scout out the ideal spots for our defensive outposts, rather than putting outposts in spots with higher resources than average. We are instead going to put these ones in defensive positions, so they won't be producing much surplus.

Honestly it's a toss up if I’ll be gaining more resources than I’m putting into these outposts, but that's not the goal of these anyway so the minds and I agree it's worth the cost. But make no mistake, this is going to be the single largest thing we have built yet. At least if you consider hundreds of separate outposts in a rough formation a single structure, which I do.

Balistraria is the mind nominally in charge of scouting and forward operations, so she has been the one sending out flights of planes and small groups of spidertrons to find where the ideal spots for each outpost are, and we won't begin actual construction till the whole place is surveyed.

I have begun work on a new tank variant, one specialized in underground warfare. It's only in the theoretical stage but if it works as planned it should use the assemblers projectors to soften the ground in front of it while also using its shield generators to keep the soil around it hard, though I don't think the hardened dirt thing will be viable, actually getting a shield generator to harden material it isn't inside or connected to is both inefficient and unreliable.

Also beginning construction on a second command tank, along with a second army to go with it. Actually having the forces to clear the border is kinda important for this whole idea.

The second layer has finished all but the detail or more complex bits we had planned, so the airforce actually has some production behind it now and losing a plane isn't nearly as problematic as before, so I have begun designing a command plane, which is basically the flying version of the command tank, though when exactly I’ll need that is a decent question having a giant flying fort can't really be a bad idea.

I did manage a little more work on the assemblers, mainly figuring out which materials are easiest or hardest to soften, which will probably be important for actually building the things, if I’m planning on making a higher powered assemblers I need to make sure they don't just melt the whole machine when they use that higher power.

I’m also beginning to wonder if I could get the assemblers to trigger chemical reactions to change an objects material composition rather than moving the atoms themselves, and a higher tier projector can’t just be making a material softer, that's not enough to magically make a material better once the fields effect fades, I mean I already knew that they moved the atoms into a more stable position but how are they doing it?

Mystery after mystery here, and if I’m getting into this sort of stuff I should really figure out how the decoders work, and the liquids they seemingly disintegrate.

Log #58

The design for my new tank is finished, honestly it's just a Hodge podge of random bits of machinery from the factory, and interesting info, the mining drills use the projectors too! Or at least the electric ones do, that's why they can just be left on their own so much. And how they can dig so much out. Or at least I think that's why.

I know this because I just used a bunch of the mining rigs designs on the tanks drill, which should allow the thing to make tunnels, not very wide mind you as the stone and dirt still has to go somewhere but it will compact the stone enough that smaller drones should be able to use the tunnels, even if larger drones and the digging tanks themselves can’t. Maybe future designs will allow for better tunnels but right now I don't really need them, even just the ability to send smaller drones as reinforcements was an unexpected thing.

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Balistraias scouting mission hasn’t done anything but identify more resource nodes that I could take, which considering how thin I’m already spread, those discoveries are just something ill be able to take advantage of later.

I did decide to see just how much stuff I could fit within myself, but that kinda petered out after the third train load, I was starting to get headaches and chills so while no hard limit was found a soft limit was, which once again brings up the question of why I don't weigh multiple tons I don't actually have the tech or scanners to figure this out.

I managed to get the assembler projectors working at the same efficiency for less power though, it does make the actual assemblers more expensive, so that's more progress on the mark 4. Also did research into what exact chemical reactions I’d need to induce to change the states of metals but that didn’t actually lead me anywhere considering I am not a chemist, I just kinda poured the magic liquids on some iron and copper to see what would happen. The result changed based on which liquid though.

Red didn’t seem to do anything at all, green just carved random lines into the thing where it flowed, but pouring more didn’t add more lines, gray just caused the metals to bubble and hiss, which implies its acidic, the blue didn’t seem to do anything just like the red, though closer examination showed a thin film over the metal, finding out if the film does anything is gonna be a later thing, purple carved geometric shapes into the metals, and not just along them like the blue, but through so when hit the brick fell apart into shapes, and yellow didn’t do anything, same as red.

What does any of that mean? Great question! Moving on.

Bulwark hasn’t been idle while Balistraia was scouting either, not that the mind is ever actually idle, what with the constant attacks, simulated training, and redesigning defenses, but the mind did take an additional task on. Designing the purely defense focused bases, while before the mind has had free range on the walls and a little power inside the walls, mainly to make traps and hazards for intruders, these bases are entirely their purview rather than something they are just advising on, so you know defense in depth.

The mind has also been making stand alone sentry tower designs, things that don't need any connection to the greater factory to run, basically just tall towers with solar power, limited drones for basic repair, and any guns that don't need heavy ammunition, these things are going to be placed along the border to hold territory, or at least stall or shot at bugs as they run past. Without resupply these things could fight for a few years, but that's only without damage, as it is with routine combat I expect these things to last weeks at most, so making them easy to build and cheap is a must.

Honestly they are probably going to serve more as watchtowers than anything else.

Log #59

I think my success with the assemblers gave me too much confidence, also the decoders can detonate if disassembled while they are running, and with all the fluids inside one… well that was the lowest my shield has ever gotten in this new armor, and it took the bots awhile to pry me from the ceiling. I have also been forbidden from trying that again, apparently the detonation messed with a bunch of scanners and more sensitive pieces of equipment, even though I did the experiment in a sealed bunker.

Don't get me wrong here though, I didn’t start with disassembling a running decoder, I started with a brand new one, it's just that I have literally no idea of where anything goes, it's just a mess of piping and tubes with a few odd contraptions inside, half the pipes aren’t even connected to anything! It's just chaos.

I thought if I could watch what it was doing I would get a better Idea, but none of the sensors could see into the things while they were running so I decided to cut one open, which led to the boom.

I mean that isn’t all the decoders have, there are the computer bits, but those just have software that runs basic if realistic simulations, and that I can at least understand being useful for research and tech development, but once again when the things running the simulations are also nonsensical, not as in random chaos though, more tangential related stuff, like if I tell it to make a hotter napalm it’ll request the liquids and then start glowing and show images of various fires burning, and at one point a volcano, which isn’t actually fire, just really hot rocks.

I would understand if it was just different types of napalm or something but I really dont get how a wood fire equates to napalm, or how it knows what a volcano is for that matter.

So yeah taking a break from that for a bit, Balistraia has made a decent amount of progress scouting though, even if she has been provoking more hives through the mere act of existing near them, I have also built a few new outposts entirely dedicated to building the defensive wall, or at least they will be, right now they are just making more outposts to build the wall.

This kind of exponential expansion is hard on the minds, and me honestly. But besides headaches and horrible sleep, along with increased power consumption by all the minds, there have been very few side effects.

I think rapid expansion is hard on me, or at least unceasing rapid expansion, I’ll probably be getting a brain scan to ensure nothing is getting broken though. It seems like the smart thing to do.

The first few prototype tunnel tanks, diggers? A name can be decided on later, anyways I finished the first few of the prototypes and sent them around the main base, the water did pose some problems while the tanks were near the surface but nothing seemed to actually flow through the stone and dirt to get the tanks, which eliminates some of my fear of this worlds ground water, though I do not want to know what lives in this worlds natural cave systems.

The tanks were slow, which was to be expected considering how much material they have to move, along with the fact they have comparatively little power to movement then all the other tanks, what with the assemblers positively devouring it all, honestly the projectors take significantly more power than the shield units, it's almost like they weren’t designed for this, who would have thought.

But the things do work, which is all I need from a prototype, I can add weapons later, along with a few better power systems.

Bulwark has built a few of their towers around the main base for stress testing, there are three of them and each is a different variant or design, we are going to see how long they last before either breaking or being destroyed. There is currently a debate going on about whether it'll be the bugs or the fish who do it, considering the towers are on land I’m betting it's gonna be the fish.

Those things are evil, actually that's wrong. Evil implies they care about something, I refuse to believe that.

Log #60

One of the towers got struck by lightning, this didn’t break the thing but it did remind me that while the fish and bugs are bad the planet itself is also a contender for “most dangerous thing” what with the flooding and storms.

In accordance I have changed my vote to Nauvis itself, as at this point I fully expect an earthquake to hit even though I’m 90 percent sure this planet lacks active plate tectonics, and that if it had them the fact there are no mountains or trenches near me implies I’m not on a fault line, probably I'm not a geologist.

I mucked about with more of the liquid, just pouring it on various metals, the result was largely the same even with noble metals that should have been resistant to it, which raises the question of how the pipes are moving the stuff but it's probably just exposure to air, or factory shenanigans. Actually the liquids themselves are shenanigans so any answer I find qualifies for the latter anyway.

I was thinking about why expanding was just now starting to affect me, considering I have expanded more at once than just building 2 factories. I have 2 separate theories for this, either my mind is getting itself ready for the exponential expansion and is stressing itself to accommodate it, or I hit a total cap rather than a rate of expansion one.

The first one is okay, not really a problem as long as it doesn't kill me, annoying sure but livable, the latter? If that's true I’m probably dead. Maybe I can figure a workaround like just making larger factories rather than more, or offloading some of the strain by finally doing brain augmentations, but neither are certain considering I have no idea how any of this works.

The brain scan is currently being processed, and it'll probably finish in a few hours so for now I can only theorize.

The attacks on Balistraias scouting forces have been necessitating sending her more reinforcements, which along with the new build projects and the increasing bug assaults… I’ll probably need to start on the third floor. If that doesn’t detonate my brain or something equally stupid.

I further improved power efficiency on the tunnel tanks by reducing the projectors power, they already have the equipment to dig through stone so making it softer just makes them move quicker and quieter, so reducing it means the prototypes can dig longer and move slightly quicker, gonna need to figure out how you arm something to fight underground though.