War Core Wednesday! War Core 3, Chapter 34.

Chapter 34.

At the twelve-hour mark, the stations had all reached tier four, except for the ground-based stations, which seemed to make slower progress. Instead of just system defense boats, the stations he was watching in the asteroid field also sported a pair of true shipyards, one smaller yard that had unlocked at tier two, allowing the stations to build frigates, and which now at level four switched over to making destroyers. The larger shipyard, the newest addition, starting to crank out cruisers. Defenses had improved as well, and the firepower on each station was enough to fight off a few cruisers all on its own. Hugh reviewed the changes, happy to see upgrades were also starting to appear on the vessels. Each station seemed to choose a different focus, but half the ones he was observing were building ships that focused on point defense.

That wasn’t to say they were just stuffed with small point defense lasers and missiles, they all had their full, and somewhat impressive, standard armaments. It was the upgrades that were focused on point defense. Where an additional ship-to-ship missile could have been mounted, the ships instead had huge box launchers stuffed with small point defense missiles. Where some secondary ship-to-ship weapons could have been added, they added additional pods of point defense guns.

The other half of the stations in the belt made balanced ships that focused on dueling with the other vessels and taking only the point defense weapons that were standard to their class of ship. Each of the stations also had a starfighter hangar that included a small production facility to build the craft. Hugh could just guestimate, but it looked like each of the stations could house around two hundred fighters if they were given the time to produce them.

Over near Jupiter, the stations defending there were producing ships geared toward ship-to-ship combat, mounting additional missile tubes and heavier guns. It looked like the human fleet had decided that by the time the Ssath reached Jupiter, they would be running out of fighters. Hugh wasn’t sure that was the right conclusion, but he didn’t have all the information that the commanders running the stations had. He would just have to wait and see how things played out.

The four stations hovering near the Ssath entry point were doing things differently from their counterparts. Instead of the new, larger shipyards, they had built two more boatyards and were producing system defense boats. Hugh wasn’t sure what they were thinking, those small crafts might be okay to stop a few missiles or break up a fighter attack, but they’d be lucky to last more than a few seconds against the Ssath heavy hitters. It took a while and a lot more zooming in on his interface to see what they were up to.

Apart from the first wave or normal system defense boats, all the new ones being produced were something called a minelayer variant. They were cruising around the area, dropping small, stealthy mines all along the path the Ssath would use to approach the four stations. The mines themselves were little more than a ship-to-ship missile with the launching unit holding a passive sensor array to sniff out approaching enemy vessels. Coated in sensor absorbing materials, they would be hard to spot by enemy ships until they were well within the engagement envelope.

Another odd thing happened at what Hugh was now referring to as the minelaying stations. After their normal system defense boats received their tier four upgrades, the max they could get, they fired up their engines and headed deeper into the system away from the Ssath entry point. They were on a course to reach the ten stations inside the asteroid field so maybe the commanders felt they would do better as part of the larger fleet that was being built there.

With eight hours remaining, the stations finally hit tier five, which unlocked a large shipyard giving them the ability to produce battlecruisers and light carriers. Each carrier could hold fifty fighters and had internal production facilities to replace losses over time. Like with the wet navy carriers, they were vulnerable to just about anything, but the commanders in charge knew their stuff, positioning them well inside the point defense envelope their ships could produce. The stations continued to add to their arsenal, mounting more heavy guns, point defenses, missile launchers, shield projectors, and an additional fighter hangar. The existing fighter hangars were also expanded, each one now holding three hundred starfighters, though none of them had produced enough to fill up even the previous smaller-sized hangars yet.

The fleets built up their numbers as those ships already produced cycled through the stations to receive their upgrades. Upgrading a ship seemed to take a much shorter time than Hugh would have thought, with even the large cruisers only needing a few minutes to do their thing. Even though it was quick, the upgrade process did mean that the fleets had to stay close to the stations, limiting their range for the time being. Hugh figured it was a race to see if they would hit tier six before the Ssath arrived.

After the fleet reached their tier five upgrade, something odd happened. Half the fleet fired up their engines and laid in a course that would take them toward Jupiter. Hugh was confused with the tactic, it seemed counterproductive to weaken the fleet nearest the enemy, when the stations near Jupiter, while fewer in number, would have more time to produce units than the stations near the entry point.

Looking closer at the Jupiter stations, Hugh could see that they had altered their configurations. The boatyard and small shipyard had been converted into additional fighter hangars. Each of those stations now had five fighter hangars, the two the station normally mounted, one converted from the boatyard, and two converted from the shipyard. The remaining shipyard seemed to be producing a mix of half battlecruisers, half light carriers. Hugh had a hard time figuring out what was going on until he remembered that Maddison was part of the Jupiter team. She was pulling a cheese tactic against the Ssath, and one that the commanders in charge must have felt had a good enough chance of succeeding given how they were all participating. Hugh thought he had it figured out, but he would have to wait and see if his predictions were correct.

Time continued to pass, and the fleets grew. As before, half of everything produced in the asteroid field was being shipped to Jupiter, but there was still a formidable fleet forming up in the belt, not to mention the minefield was becoming massive to the point that they were freeing up minelayers to work the asteroid field, dropping their deadly surprises on the likely approach paths the Ssath would take.

With two hours to go, the stations hit tier six, the highest tier the stations in the asteroid field and Ssath entry point were likely to achieve. The large shipyard for each station expanded, being replaced by a massive one that could handle battleships and fleet carriers. The ten stations in the asteroid field stopped battle cruiser and light carrier production, switching completely over to Battleships, and not worrying about any of the fleet carriers. The Jupiter stations kept up the same mix, alternating between battleships and fleet carriers.

Production of the battleships and fleet carriers was slow, about one per hour, while the shipyards producing standard cruisers were making about three per hour. The small shipyard and the boatyard were producing a little better than four per hour each. On the stations, each of the fighter hangars could produce one ship per minute but the carriers were a bit slower, needing two or three minutes to create a new fighter. While they still sent half of the other ships they produced back to Jupiter, the stations in the asteroid field kept every battleship, they were going to need them. At the one-hour mark, the ships stopped flowing to the Jupiter stations, and a system prompt told Hugh why.

The battle for control of the human homeworld will commence shortly. Once the first Ssath ships arrive, you will no longer have unrestricted access to view the battlespace, and instead will have to rely on whatever the sensors of the units and structures under Earth control can see. Ssath will be under the same restriction, having no idea of the defenses your faction has prepared until they are within range of their sensors. An important caveat is that the Ssath knows the general location of each station, base, or command post representing a conquest point.

Hugh’s god's eye view of the battle would end, but at least he could still monitor things from the ship and station sensors. It was worth it to leave the Ssath at least partially in the dark, and he could see where the GCA wouldn’t want the conquest point locations to be hidden, blindly searching the solar system for hidden stations didn’t exactly create a lot of excitement for their viewers. By cutting off the flow of ships now, the station commanders would prevent the Ssath from being tipped off as to what was happening, the ships already on the way would be well beyond the sensor range of the Ssath once they arrived. Since the Ssath didn’t know the production rates of the human stations, they would think that the fleet facing them represented the sum total of everything the human stations could produce.

When the invasion timer ended, Hugh’s command post unlocked. A quick check showed that there wasn’t much he could do just yet, other than wait for the first batch of construction drones to be produced. He queued up some infantry mechs and was annoyed to find that the light mech factory was inactive, requiring tier two of the command post for some reason. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be delayed a tier on all his other mechs. Hugh now got his first look at the victory points he needed to defend. To the south, in Long Beach, the Queen Mary was designated as a victory point, and there floating in the strange colored sea was a mech-like representation of the venerable craft. Just north of the Queen Mary, a section of the Dominguez Gap Wetlands where the LA river and the Compton Creek met was also a victory point.

Southwest of his command post, the Los Angeles International Airport wasn’t too much of a surprise as a victory point, but one just northeast of the airport was a bit odd. The GCA had chosen Randy’s Donuts off the 405 freeway as a victory point. Given the famous little building with the giant donut on top was a local icon, he’d do what he could to defend the place. East of the command post was another victory point location where 10 and 5 freeways met. North, between the river and the freeway, was the Lincoln Heights Jail. An abandoned building complex in the real world, it was a fortress on this one, a fortress designed to keep Ssath out, not prisoners in.

Also in the north, Dodger Stadium was a victory location and would make a great defensive area given the structure and surrounding terrain. To the west, the LA County Museum of Art would be another victory point. The Griffith Park Observatory to the northwest and finally, Mount Lee near the Hollywood sign.

It was an odd collection of locations but given that the structures in each area seemed fortified, Hugh could make it work. For now, he’d try to keep producing units, sending infantry to secure each location. Production of his units was slow given that his command post was only tier one. He’d hold off on using any of his abilities or items yet, it was far too soon to decide on a final plan of defense.

A quick check showed that resources trickled into his command post every few seconds. Hugh could see a link from his command post moving toward each of the victory points, but they were inactive, and he would need to send a combat unit out to capture them before he could reap any benefit from the victory points. A progress bar for earning his next tier was starting to fill, but it remained at 1% the entire time he had spent inspecting the area.

The resource flow was sufficient to produce infantry without any delays, not surprising given that his command post at this tier was painfully slow with production. If production sped up he would quickly reach a supply bottleneck, especially once he started producing the larger mechs. The other victory points were going to be key to building up his army quickly. Other defensive structures were likely to unlock as the command post tier increased, and he’d have to weigh whether or not it was worth spending the resources to construct fixed defenses instead of just making additional mechs.

“Major Logan, we’re linked into the mechs, where do you want us?” Captain Tran asked. It was good to hear another voice he recognized, and he was always glad to have his soldiers piloting the mechs under his command. The last mission had been difficult with the majority of his forces being automated, AI-controlled units.

“Good to have you, Tran, take a look at the battlefield, we’ve got a lot of time, so for now, we’ll produce infantry and assign them to each of the victory points. I hope to have a platoon on each, but that might take a while at our current production rates. First off, get someone out to each victory point, we need to cap them to improve our resource flow,” Hugh said.

“Roger that, I’ll try to get my best NCOs assigned to each location as they connect. This place is weird, but it looks like good defensive ground from what I can see. What gives with the projected landing points?” Tran asked, his interface flooding the map with possibilities.

“That mess will clear up as the space battle progresses. The Ssath are just arriving and as they take casualties, it lowers the number of units they can attack us with,” Hugh advised.

“How’s that fight going?” Tran asked.

“Let me see if I can link you up. While we’re waiting for our units and upgrades to be built, we can watch the battle,” Hugh said, happily noting that his tier one upgrades for the infantry were being automatically researched and installed as they were built, thanks to his newest perk he had selected when his core had leveled. At this tier, his units would get a targeting upgrade module, an improved heatsink for better rates of fire, and enhanced armor. Fiddling with the interface controls, Hugh was able to get Tran a feed to the space battle, at least they could see what the sensors on the defense stations and ships could see. Having so many mines spread about that area of space gave them a decent field of view. Hugh queued up each of his officers to have access as well when they logged in. A quick check on the Ssath invasion fleet showed Hugh that things were heating up at the edge of the solar system.