War Core Wednesday, War Core 3, Chapter 9.

Chapter 9.

They had gamed out most of the battle types that had been discovered, though the GCA still liked to throw a few twists into each fight. For a control point battle, there would be a critical location that the cores would have to seize. Once in control of that location, you would begin to amass victory points. How fast the victory points accumulated and how many were needed to secure victory was unknown, but as he flew through space and approached the conflict world, Hugh figured he was about to find out.

The battle planet the GCA had created for this fight was about what he expected, a desolate and worn-out world that sported a single speck of life where the battle would be fought. Unlike many of his other fights, the battlefield was perfectly round, which he supposed was fair given how three factions were vying for control. Something about the fight didn’t sit right with Hugh, according to the intel reports, he had been led to believe that these Yaelar would be inclined to join them against the Ssath, but instead, they had declared themselves hostile to all parties. Hopefully, their intel analyst, Marcum, would dig up a reason by the time Hugh returned from the fight.

He was getting closer to the battlefield and surprised that, for the first time, there were very few terrain features. The ground was even with only a slight rise and fall that wouldn’t serve to hide any forces but might provide some cover for prone infantry. A strange orange growth, that resembled a blend between mold and grass, covered the entire battlefield. He would have liked to have had some time to scout the rest of the battlefield before the fight began, but they hadn’t been allocated any pre-battle recon for this one. Near the edge of the battlefield, Hugh spotted his command post. A prompt appeared when he examined the edge of the battlefield.

The boundary for this battle is not physically restricted by terrain. Should any unit cross the boundary, that core will begin to lose resources and victory points. The rate of loss is determined by the time spent out of bounds as well as the number and type of units violating the boundary. It is possible to go into the negative on both resources and victory points. Should the battle end with a core in the negative for either resource, they will experience a higher mortality rate in the post-battle calculations.

After each core discovers the control point, they will unlock access to an observation drone that will hover over the control point. The drone cannot be targeted and will persist through the battle. When a core secures the control point, it will begin to slowly lose resources. The resources lost will be divided equally among your opponents. Plan your attacks well or find yourself overwhelmed by your opponents.

Should a command post be destroyed, the core will be removed from the battle for a period of five minutes before a new level 1 command post is created for them. It is not possible to remove an opponent from the fight by destroying their command post. After a command post is rebuilt, a small area around it will become a sanctuary for that core until 10 minutes have passed.

Hugh felt himself connect to the command post; his vision now limited to the area around the structure. It was a level one structure, and there were no additional starting buildings, not even the typical low wall around his base that at least provided some cover during an attack. He felt some nearby mechs come online and begin the connection process with the soldiers in the combat pods. Inside the command post, the assembly line started to build the first of his construction drones.

Current Battle Information:

Resources: 250.

Structures:

Command post, level 1 (unit points: 50/100). A total of 500 resource points are required to upgrade to level 2.

Units:

Construction drones: 0/5.

Combat Units:

Infantry mechs: 10/10.

Defensive garrison: 0/10.

Available Structures:

Barracks: This structure requires 100 resources to construct.

Signal tower (0/2): A signal tower requires 50 resources to construct and provides 50 unit points.

It wasn’t much, but he assumed the other cores would have similar starting options. The system had queued up five construction drones, with the defensive garrison troops next in line. Hugh wanted to get his economy up and running before he worried about the garrison troops, so he added another ten drones to the build queue ahead of the garrison units. Hugh then ordered the first squad of five drones to start on a barracks. The construction drones wouldn’t take too long to build, even if he only had a single, inefficient assembly line to work with.

With his resources now down to 140, Hugh didn’t have much to work with. Once the first squad of drones had been produced and started their work on the barracks, he ordered the second squad to begin scouting the area. One drone went toward the center of the map while two branched out the sides to locate the enemy command posts. The GCA must have placed some resources for them to work with, and with the limited starting funds, gathering as much as he could was the priority here. Setting aside fifty resources for the barracks armory addon, Hugh had ninety remaining. He would spend some on additional infantry and bank the rest for further upgrades and structures.

“We’re in, sir, I see we’re driving the economy model today,” Captain Tran said as his pod linked to one of the tier zero infantry mechs.

“Good to have you. I’ve got a squad of drones out scouting and if things are set up here like the GCA usually does, I expect them to find some means for us to gatherer resources. I’m sure you’ll have a fight on your hands with whatever creeps are guarding it,” Hugh advised. Maddison had finally got him saying creeps to describe the non-core-controlled units that guarded the neutral areas in the game. It came from some of the games she played, but the term fit, and more and more of the soldiers were starting to use it.

“Just one squad for me to work with, or is there more in the pipeline?” Tran asked.

“Resources are pretty sparse and with only a level one command post, there aren’t many unit points to work with. Once the barracks is up, I’ll get some reinforcements out to you until we hit the unit point cap. I didn’t get any pre-battle recon, but from what I saw on the flight in, the battlefield is round and open, no terrain features to speak of,” Hugh replied.

“Good enough, as long as the enemy has the same limitations, we should be good with some extra infantry, at least for a while. We don’t know much about the Yaelar, but the Ssath are going to love this terrain. As long as we spot them early, we can use our superior ranged weapons to whittle them down before they get into tooth and claw range,” Tran replied, arranging his single squad to cover the base while they waited for more intel.

“The only thing I know about the Yaelar is that some of their mechs have been used as creeps in other battles. They looked like giant mechanized cats, but that’s the only type of unit we’ve seen. From their size, it was more akin to a light mech than an infantry unit. I expect we’ll find out the rest of their lineup soon enough,” Hugh said.

As they waited, the barracks was completed as well as the addon for the armory. Sadly, the barracks started out as a level zero structure, and it would take another two hundred resources to bring it up to the command post level of one. Once it reached one, he could also begin construction of the light mech factory. Even some level 1 T-7’s would be welcome as a rapid scouting force given how open the battlefield was. A quick check showed that resources were trickling in naturally but it was only a single point every minute or so. In most of his battles, the rate would increase slightly as the command post leveled, and Hugh’s investment in resource gathering upgrades to his core was likely helping out as well, though he had no hard numbers to verify it.

“Looks like one of the drones found our supply point,” Tran announced. Hugh shifted his attention to the drone, watching as it approached a resource pumping station guarded by a pair of human infantry mechs. The station was located about midway between his command post and the center of the battlefield, which is where the control point would be located. To his delight, it appeared there were several resource crates stacked near the pumping station, and if they were full, it would jump-start his base construction.

“Take it over and hold the location for now. Once we get an idea of the enemy's disposition and a peek at the control point, we should know where to send you next,” Hugh ordered. Tran led a total of seventeen infantry mechs toward the pumping station. It was odd that the location resembled an older design of an oil pump, and it made him wonder if the other alien cores saw something different that was more in tune with a similar piece of their homeworld tech.

His infantry mechs were slow at level zero, but, thankfully, the defensive forces protecting the pumping station didn’t receive any reinforcements before his troops arrived. The firefight was over quickly, two of Tran’s mechs had superficial damage, but with the odds on their side, the human-controlled mechs brushed aside the pair of defenders. As they walked near the station, Hugh received a confirmation that the location was now under his control.

You have taken control of a resource gathering station. This station is also equipped with a resource drop-off addon that is now linked to your command post.

“Nice, this one has a drop-off location, that should speed things up,” Hugh commented before assigning a squad of drones to that location. Once they arrived, he would have them gather the crates and effect repairs of any damage to Tran’s infantry force. They would also be close by to upgrade the troops once the barracks hit level one.

The squad of drones he had scouting was still working, trying to locate the enemy command posts as well as the spot they would have to control if they wanted to win this fight. One of his drones sent an alert, and Hugh watched as a single Ssath infantry mech charged at the drone. The Ssath raptor-like mech was also level zero, but even in its most basic form, it easily outpaced the slow-moving construction drone, tearing it to shreds and hauling the pieces back toward where Hugh suspected their command post was located. The Ssath were to his left if Hugh was facing the center of the battlefield, which meant the Yaelar would be to his right, but the pair of drones working in that direction hadn’t seen anything yet.

The Ssath mech hunted down Hugh’s second drone on that side, forcing him to build replacements that were kept at the command post. Until he had a stronger force to do more serious recon, pushing any additional construction drones toward the Ssath command post was a waste of resources. He kept the others at their task, they needed to get eyes on the control point and if he lost the ones heading toward Yaelar territory, it would be worth the minor cost to replace them in exchange for some intel on the new foe.

He felt a surge of resources as the drones working on the pumping station arrived and hauled the first crate onto the drop-off location. The drop-off location was a simple square platform that once loaded with a resource crate, began to descend. Hugh couldn’t see where it went, but after about ten seconds after it descended, he received a burst of resources. There were five crates at the pumping station, but only four of them were full of resources. Curiously, as he looked over the station, a new prompt appeared.

This resource gathering station is linked directly to your command post and will now deliver those resources directly to you without the need for using the drop-off location. The drop-off location may still be utilized to process salvage or any other resource materials you may find. As your command post levels, this station may also unlock further upgrades to improve its performance as well as aid in its defense.

That was good news, but it could also bite him in the rear if he were to spend a ton of resources on upgrades for the station only to lose it to enemy forces. He’d wait and see what options he had as things leveled up. For now, he had enough to build up the barracks to level one, which would cost him two hundred resources. The four full crates had held fifty resources each and the partially filled one had given him thirty.

Now that the Ssath had shown themselves, Hugh was feeling the pressure to expand his forces. He was at his unit cap, and while he didn’t have enough resources to hit level two on the command post, he could purchase a signal tower and bring Tran up to two full-strength infantry squads. Once the new infantry was online and the existing infantry was upgraded to level one specs, he’d have some tough decisions to make. Should he pump out cheap units to flood the battlefield, or go with upgrades early on and a limited defensive force?

While he waited for the barracks to upgrade and the signal tower to be built, Hugh’s drone made it close enough to the center of the map to finally get a look at the control point that would decide the battle. It wasn’t a simple command post type of structure as he had assumed it would be, instead, it was a fortified bunker with a single trench line dug in around it. There weren’t any defenders that he could see, but Hugh was willing to bet that something lurked inside the bunker and was standing ready to engage any challengers.

His drone wasn’t alone here, and to the left of the control point, he spotted a section of five Ssath infantry. They weren’t making a play for the control point but given everyone’s lack of forces at this stage of the battle, it was a wise decision on the part of the Ssath commander. Hugh felt the connection with the observation drone controlled by the GCA. It gave him a top-down view as it slowly orbited the control point, but he couldn’t adjust the camera in any way. With no need to risk the construction drone, Hugh ordered it back to the command post where it could join the replacements for the ones destroyed by the Ssath.

His units heading toward the Yaelar command post finally got eyes on that foe, and it wasn’t what he expected. The large cat mechs from the previous battles were nowhere to be seen, and the infantry mechs guarding the Yaelar command post and their resource gathering station were almost the complete opposite. To his eyes, the Yaelar looked as if someone had taken a werewolf and made it into a mech. Slightly larger than the human mechs, the Yaelar were bipedal and had long arms with sharp claws on each hand. A short, canine snout filled with sharp teeth looked dangerous. While the Yaelar didn’t carry rifles or any hand weapons that Hugh could see, they did have a small weapons mount on their right shoulder that carried what looked like a pistol-caliber plasma weapon.

Looking like a bad horror movie monster come to life, Hugh dreaded what the Yaelar would resemble once their mechs reached the higher tiers. He knew the Ssath were formidable, and these Yaelar at least looked the part, but he had mechs controlled by highly trained soldiers, and he knew from experience that they were more than a match for anything that the aliens could throw at him.