Log #61
Yeah so about finally doing brain modifications, my brain has apparently decided to do it for me, the node in my brain that actually controls my connection with the factory is growing both larger and denser on its own, which is in turn affecting the rest of my brain. It is not going to cause any long term damage, or at least it shouldn't, my brain is surprisingly malleable. Well damage in the sense of killing or permanently crippling me, the blackouts should fade over time but the headaches could stay indefinitely. The medical bay does have medications for the headaches but all of the available ones would at least slightly hinder my brain functions and response times. So that's a no go.
The really interesting thing is what was exactly causing the growth and strain on the node, in the node there are strings of neurons for nearly everything in the factory, and when those buildings are deconstructed the node will shut down the neurons and then deconstruct or repurpose them, kind of a sensory and memory thing. The neurons let me vaguely feel and know about the machine it corresponds to. And with how many neurons fit in the node I can have millions or trillions of machines. The problem comes with an important realization, the strings of neurons are only disabled if the machines are deconstructed, not destroyed outright.
And without the neurons being disabled when they are destroyed they can cause damage to the node and interfere with the surrounding neurons. Causing stress and damage leading to blackouts and headaches, which technically means I had two different reasons for the blackouts and headaches, even if they weren’t concurrent.
The factory node could handle a few machines breaking or being destroyed, even a few hundred machines. But I have lost thousands of them, and then I would immediately replace them, further stressing the node. So the node started to grow larger and more powerful to compensate. Which appears to have worked, even if it is causing different problems now.
Yeah, the solution to my problem was quite literally ‘wait it out’.
With that dealt with and out of the way I can move on to other more helpful topics. Like approving Balistraria and Labyrinthine’s outpost locations and letting them finally start construction on the ‘great wall’. With the new knowledge that the exponentially growing factories won’t just cause my brain to explode I can lean more heavily into expansion.
So the factories that are only going to build more and more factories are back in full swing, and I can start plans to get some really big projects going. Like adding an underground portion to my main base, while also doubling the size of my main base. If the underground section goes as deep as the factory is tall and I’m doubling the surface size, I will have 4 times my current production capacity.
It will mean that my underground surveillance and defense network will need to defend significantly more space, and that it will need to defend from more angles, which was the reason I hadn’t done this before. But now I have the tunneling tanks in development, which should suffice to defend against any underground assaults. Also it's basically a giant bunker, and I am all for that.
But those underground assaults are honestly a huge problem currently, sure I can defend my bases, but the ground around them? The amount of mines needed is exponential the larger the area gets. And it's not exactly easy or quick to plant the charges. That means that while the attacks from the underground on a base are difficult for the bugs to pull off, the bugs can basically dig whatever tunnels they want anywhere else. And besides the few tunnels that get flooded the bugs have an underground network of tunnels spanning quite a large area.
This lets them pop up and harass my transportation networks, mainly the rails. It also allows them to get significantly closer to my bases without dying from an artillery barrage or a bombing run, at least if the tunnels are deep enough they can.
But I can’t really do anything about the tunnel network as a whole until I get my tunneling tanks in sufficient number, which means the bugs' widespread transportation network gets to stand a little while longer, but I can treat some of the symptoms of the network.
And at this point I’m just going to skip to the point, I designed a battle train. It's a significantly tougher train with thicker armor. Which means it's atrociously slow when compared to its transportation brethren. But it's nearly as hard to destroy as a command tank, it has dozens of replaceable wagons, each either carrying turrets or drones. It’s an adaptable beast, and I’m going to set it to patrol the railways and destroy or fend off any bug attacks. And considering it's still a train I gave it the capability to both repair and build new rail ways.
Once I build a few of these things I can just send them out into the wilds and let them pave the way for new outposts. Probably with spidertrons to help build and defend.
Right now it’s only in the design stage though, and the amount of resources this thing will take is not insignificant. I mean it's going to be over 300 feet of armor and turrets, or I suppose it would be more accurate to say that it can be that. If I need it smaller I can just remove some wagons. But three hundred feet of train is all that the engine will be able to pull so that's the hard cap on length unless I want to just stick another train engine on it.
But I’ll probably start it with 5 carts and one engine. Just to keep things simple and test it out a bit. And considering I already have train production facilities, it's actually a whole outpost that builds and repairs trains, it also makes the parts for them, this won't actually take that long to build.
That isn’t the only large scale vehicle I’m working on though, the command plane is still in the planning stages, but I have begun making and testing the plane's individual components. I’m thinking of having it drop rods with projectors(still need a better name), so the rods just tunnel a hole through whatever I drop them on.
Also making something that big good at flying is difficult, it needs to be at least somewhat evasive if I don’t want it to end every deployment covered in adhesive bug goop (which also needs a better name).
Also more command tanks, at least 2 more with corresponding battle groups, but Ideally 3, I want each tank to control and manage a front, but considering my great wall will more encompass a circle rather than a square I think I’d be fine with each tank managing a third of my territory.
I haven’t really been doing much with the liquids though, or even many experiments. These new projects have been taking up most of my free time.
Oh yeah, it's only been a day but the defense tower is still standing, so that's a good sign.
Log #62
When I mentioned my brain was adapting on its own I didn’t really think it’d take it this far, I got exhausted last night and went to bed early, and when I woke up my entire body had changed. And it wasn’t some minor changes either, no it would genuinely be easier to find things that hadn’t changed about me. The changes won't even all be finished for a few weeks or months, my bones are literally turning into some metal composite for seemingly no reason.
The only thing I can think of that could have caused this is some sort of failsafe or contingency, something like a “combat mode”, how that lets my body spontaneously decide it wants to integrate fully with my cybernetic modifications is beyond me though. It will also make it much harder to install new cybernetics. I don’t know how well these changes will handle it, or if it will cause more changes to my body if I do. So I will be playing it safe and leaving the modifications as is.
I am going to be watching it extremely closely though, the realization that my body isn’t really mine is a harsh one. If it can do this by itself what else could it do if someone who knows what I am comes by. I had been operating under the assumption they had overrides and methods to control me but it was purely speculation until today. And I can’t even use the medical bays to check for or remove the overrides because the things are my own tech. If there aren’t specific restrictions for clearing my own restrictions I will be genuinely surprised, and getting my own brain hard reset because I was impatient seems a poor idea, or that's the restrictions talking. I don’t know anymore.
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This topic is making me significantly too upset, so I’m just going to move on from it, at least for now. I did set the minds to working on the restrictions, and since I made them myself without just directly relying on the blueprints they should be able to work something out. Even if its just recoding a medical bay.
I’m going to just end this log early, I need a bit.
Log #63
It’s been a few days, and while I wouldn’t say I feel better I have calmed down a fair bit. So I can go back into everything that's been going on these last few days.
The tower somehow managed to stay standing, so It’s been cleared to go into wide scale production. If we add a few radar stations we can have the whole border monitored. And with the simple design the towers won’t take long to build, so the bugs won't have time to mount an attack to stop the construction. Even if they can still overwhelm the tower after the fact.
Powered by solar panels and accumulators these things should be able to run passively off grid, and they can kick on actual generators when they need more power for an attack. Its basically a 5 story brick filled with batteries, guns, and drone ports. With a radar dish stuck on top. The combat generators are under the tower in a sealed bunker. So they are vulnerable to subterranean attacks. But once again, building tunnel tanks to solve that problem.
Half my plans will be ruined if these tanks aren’t effective, and I still need to make weapons that can work through stone. I had another idea to try and use a vibration gun, or sound gun. Yeah, that second one is better, to target the bugs through stone, just vibrate them apart. It’s not like anything I build has ears so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Also got the train engine for the battle train built, which was easy considering it's just a heavily armored train engine with a ram on the front, well a bigger ram on the front. The weapon systems for its wagons are in production, along with the wagons themselves so that should work out fine.
The command plan is also coming along fine, I have a bunch of the parts built and tested, and I just need to assemble the frame, finish the last of the parts, and then put it all together. Which won’t be quick by any measure considering all the pieces are complicated and take awhile to make and test, but it should be done soon enough.
Balistraia has also finished scouting the new perimeter and she and bulwark both worked together to make a nice defensive mesh, which Labyrinthine and Byzantine then vetoed. All the minds then worked together to make a more practical one, the preliminary transportation lines are going to begin construction and a fleet of buildertrons (spidertrons specialized in building) are going to head out and start on the first outposts.
Balistraria is going to have her work cut out intercepting attacks before they hit the construction sites though. The projects are on the edge of my territory so the bug hives out there are massive, and since they don’t send attacks that often they have significant numbers. Even if they are weaker pound for pound than closer bugs.
The total tally is 1346 over the stand-alone towers and 124 “defensive” outposts. But building that many will take awhile, like at current rate of production 3 years, so it'll probably be around 300 towers and 50 outposts as a start and then adding more and more onto it over time. And once the starting towers and outposts are done we can rapidly develop the interior and cut the three years down into 6 months.
Which is a fun thing to note considering a few weeks ago I thought I had a few months at most, now I’m making plans with over half a year of build time. But that estimate was made in the midst of a mental breakdown while I was thoroughly panicking and it was a worst case scenario.
Things are looking as up as they can be considering I live on a death world, including the water level but we just ignore that. It’ll go back down now that the rain is chilling out.
Log #64
Expanded the mind's server banks again, and started on digging out the new underground section, all that raw stone is getting turned into walls and shipped off to the perimeter. Honestly building massive stone walls is really easy and quick, it's only the tech components that take a while, and installing wires and pipes into the stones, so when it's just outer walls with no purpose besides armor, and when they lack shields, it takes like 5 minutes to wall everything in.
Byzantine and Labyrinthine have started using basic stone walls to enclose low to the ground tunnels, the bugs should hopefully just walk over them and ignore any bots crawling through the tunnels, even if it doesn’t work it wasn’t hard to build the things, then cover them in dirt and then your good to go.
The train lines have also been finished and construction outposts have been established. The construction drones and buildertrons are going to work from those to build the rest of the network, there have been heavy bug attacks on them though. Balistraria is holding the line fine though, and this far out the bug’s are still vulnerable to most all my weapons.
I also have a few non-combat tunnel tanks digging around, I figured even if I didn’t have any weapons I could still use the things to build the tunnels, and strapping mines on them lets them collapse bug tunnels in a pinch.
The minds are still working on the medical bay thing too, it’s part of the reason I gave them more processing power, besides the fact that we are getting an exponentially greater amount of work.
I did discover a new use for some of the colored liquids too, the gray ones specifically. I was pouring them on bug shells as you do and found that the gray liquid reduced the shell's durability and made it less rigid. A closer look showed why, it carved thin lines throughout the shell, letting the thing bend and reducing its structural integrity.
I had figured the liquids that carved through metal like that would have some combat or production use, so it was just a matter of time till I found one. Now I just need to make it viable, because getting enough of this liquid to have it be useful as more than a last resort weapon will be difficult. And It's only really effective in support of other weapons. Also regenerative bugs will probably negate this by just regrowing the shell.
I’ll need to find some way to dilute it and keep full or most effectiveness.
Log #65
The bugs from inside the perimeter are now attacking it from inside, usually in joint attacks with the bugs outside it, and considering the perimeter is currently like 40 towers and 4 outposts it isn’t much of one. So that time to completion will probably be a while longer, but it is fulfilling its purpose of absorbing bug attacks, now that the interior is getting attacked less I can more easily expand here.
And if the bugs start attacking the inside a bunch I just defend there and build the wall, it's like running around a table, just never be where they are attacking. I say this like the bug’s don’t have the numbers to attack both the inside and the outside, but they really do.
If every single bug within 12 miles of me decided to attack at the same time I would run out of ammo before I killed a third, instead clusters of bug hives tend to attack in waves, which is manageable. The only bugs that coordinate large scale attacks are the command ones, and you'll note something.
Bugs are attacking from inside and outside at the same time. What does that mean? It means there is a command bug coordinating the attacks, I have balistraria scouting for it but the bug doesn’t seem to actually go to or near any of the battles, it just sends them at us.
Balistraia hopeful has that handled though, If she doesn’t the wall project might just fall apart.
The battle train is now out patrolling the lines, ten cars each with a variety of weapons. That frees up some of the patrolling drones and tanks which are needed on the front, and I have put a few more into production, I have the facilities to build them already and I’m not really building many more basic trains anymore, so no reason not to.
Bombing runs are basically constantly running to and from my main base, and there are hordes of flying bugs engaging the airforces in combat over the new constructions, which I have to admit looks amazing, Labyrinthine already made a sculpture of the fighting and has started putting depictions of dead aerial bugs on the anti-air turrets.
Which is easy to do when you're a robot that can shape metal and perfectly recreate that image in your head, or circuits.
A night sky lit up with hundreds of laser beams so bright you can barely see the stars, the flashes briefly illuminating shining metal and chitin covered monstrosities. I’m glad Labyrinthine can do art because I could not do it justice.
More and more of the basement is being dug out, and I have started moving some production down there along with some backup servers and power supply. I don’t want to move anything vital into it until the defenses are complete though.
That will be what's basically a giant shielded bowl filled electric wire, razor dust, toxic gas, and anything else I can think to add, so if the bugs do get past the tunnel tanks they either get stalled for a while or they die to a wide variety of deadly things, just make a thick wall filled with pockets of bad stuff and then have a thinner shielded wall behind it. I figure if the tunnel tanks don’t work that great I might as well recreate some of the great hazards of mining, and even if the tunnel tanks work perfectly I still like the extra reassurance.
I also got sonic weaponry working, it only goes through 5 feet of stone though, so its use may be limited. And it doesn’t do that much damage. At best it will disorient the bigger bugs
The water level also dropped a bit, only like 2 feet but it was something. Also noted something, this planet has minor tides but no moon, It could be the sun but the times don't line up, in fact the tides aren’t even consistent on a day by day, It's almost like something really big is swimming around the planet in circles, or a lot of really big things, moving a bunch of water and creating a fake tide. Maybe chasing the sunlight or staying in the dark?
I just need to say it again, I hate this planet.