Chapter 100: Increasingly Professional Players
After thoroughly scouting Oasis City, Ye Xing and Caoyuan hid in the cargo holds of the trucks belonging to Cheng Yun's team, secretly leaving Oasis City and returning to the base camp.
Before leaving, they exchanged radio frequencies with Cheng Lei. After that, if anyone wanted to enter the city again, they just needed to call her to pick them up with her team,
meeting at a designated location in the Desert, avoiding the risk of an airdrop.
Cheng Lei had bribed and bought off city guards in advance. They would inspect the trucks entering the city under her name. This inspection had to be done and couldn't escape the eyes of their superiors, but he wouldn't be overly meticulous and wouldn't touch the hidden compartments in the cargo hold.
Of course, with this method, each truck could smuggle in at most one person, only enough for espionage activities.
After the two returned to the team, Lu Yuan initiated the third space mission, sending Black Smoke and 15 other Engineer players, along with their hibernation pods, onto the industrial ship, activating life support equipment to refill the ship with breathable nitrogen-oxygen air.
Moreover, they would stay there in advance to become familiar with the equipment and process flow.
To avoid the awkward situation of not knowing anything when interns ask questions later,
Because the Butler AI had designed a wide variety of cangyuan coin tasks for each stage of production, under the temptation of hard cash, no Engineer refused to board the ship, preferring to temporarily give up experiencing other game content on the ground.
In fact, even if Lu Yuan hadn't let the AI add money, being able to spend several consecutive days in a space super-factory was the dream of many of them.
Of course, earning money is even better; who would turn down money?
At the ground camp, liquid oxygen production was non-stop, and the previously accumulated methane was also consumed in large quantities. The spaceplanes frequently traveled between geosynchronous orbit and the ground, making one, or even two flights daily, transporting more players and intern workers to the ship. After personnel transport was complete, the seats were removed to continue transporting various materials.
Because detailed blueprints had already been obtained, complex components of space fighters such as radar, cockpit instrument equipment, and missiles could be prefabricated on the ground using 3D printers and brought onto the industrial ship to await assembly, maximizing the acceleration of production.
Finally, on the sixth day after discovering the industrial ship, Lu Yuan also sent his hibernation pod up.
Now, compared to the ground camp, this giant ship in space provided a greater sense of security. The only inconvenient thing was the lack of gravity.
Lu Yuan floated alone into the bridge, which had been cleaned by the interns, sat down in the spacious captain's seat, and looked out at Li Star through the transparent metal viewport, and the boundless void behind Li Star.
A sense of heroism welled up spontaneously.
So, this is what it feels like to be a star sea overlord? The deck below the bridge housed the captain's cabin and the first officer's cabin. The former was where Lu Yuan currently resided, a suite exceeding 200 square meters, with even a piano placed in a corner of the living room.
In comparison, his office at the camp was simply a shack.
It's hard to imagine what the internal configuration of those golden age capital ships would be like.
Just as Lu Yuan was about to sigh with emotion, Jubian floated in.
"Good evening, Executive Officer! The Engineers and I are planning to hold a meeting to finalize the production of space fighters as soon as possible. Would you like to preside over it?"
No.
Are you guys really working in the game!?
Although Lu Yuan really wanted to 'launch Steam', given his current status, it was indeed difficult to refuse.
"Alright, then let's go! Lead the way!"
Since Xue Jie stayed on the ground to continue developing the player skill system, the technical people in the meeting room were all men.
Full of masculine energy.
"Let's start with a brief introduction."
Jubian opened the holographic projection PPT, and the complete blueprint of a space fighter was displayed.
"Thanks to the witty and brave student Ye Xing and student Caoyuan, we now have the complete technology for the Apollo space fighter, except for the flight control software. In general, this fighter has excellent cruising capability, but its weapons and electronic equipment are relatively outdated.
"Furthermore, Apollo might have thought it wouldn't encounter any decent enemies in this remote corner of the star system, so the fighter's radar stealth design can only be described as barely satisfactory. The frontal RCS is no less than -10db, which our radar can detect from 300 kilometers away.
"In summary, the three Cangyuan space fighter blueprints from the late 23rd century found in the industrial ship are overall at least 50 years more advanced than the Apollo, but due to the scarcity of nuclear fuel, we can only temporarily replace the nuclear fusion plasma engines with chemical engines. Our flight capability has instantly regressed back to the early 21st century—"
"This is like sailing an ancient small boat to attack a modern military port guarded by modern warships."
Black Smoke made a very apt analogy.
"Indeed. But the boat is carrying modern Soldiers and modern weapons. As long as we can approach the military port without anyone knowing, this battle isn't unwinnable."
Lu Yuan said.
"Team Leader is right! We can bring a few metal-hydrogen batteries and supercapacitors, and then equip the fighters with infrared lasers and blue lasers. That way, our frontal firepower will be absolutely overwhelming!"
"By the way, how heavy is this whole system?"
"An infrared laser is one ton, and a blue laser is at least three tons. If we reduce the number of firings to within 10 times, we can also reduce the weight by 25%."
"I think it's feasible! With the precision of lasers, we won't need to fire too many times in actual combat! In reality, a fighter's autocannon is only enough for five or six bursts."
"You're talking about Russian fighters. American ones can fire a few more rounds."
"But the single-shot power of American ones is small."
"Cough, cough!"
More than half of these people were seasoned military enthusiasts, and a few, like Jubian, were genuine military industry professionals. If left unchecked, they could talk forever.
Lu Yuan quickly told them to stop.
"Let's leave the details for last. First, let's decide on the general framework. Let's talk about the 'Sunfall Plan'. Is it actually feasible?"
"I had the Butler help calculate the orbit, and it's feasible!" Jubian replied. "Astronomically, every 16 days, Li Star and its satellite move into a relative position suitable for the mission. The next time is in 13 days."
He pushed up his air glasses and continued:
"At that time, we can first depart from the industrial ship, quickly lower our altitude to low Earth orbit, use Li Star's gravity for a slingshot acceleration until we break through the second cosmic velocity of this star system, and then head straight for the Moon along a hyperbolic orbit. The entire journey will be hidden within the Sun's intense light and radiation, taking about 11 hours and 20 minutes."
"Good!"
The light and heat cast by this brutal star had tormented the natives for hundreds of years. Now, it was time to give back a small contribution.
"Since it's feasible, let's decide on the fighter model. Lightweight, medium-weight, heavy-weight, which one do you gentlemen recommend?"
Everyone unanimously recommended producing lightweight fighters. The reason was simple: low production consumption, fast manufacturing speed, and the ability to quickly build up numbers.
Only Chang Kong, the future 'user', lowered his head and remained silent.
He was truly envious of the heavy fighter. The heavy model exceeded 30 meters in length, at least four times the size of the lightweight one, and looked very imposing even on the blueprint.
If placed in the same frame as the Apollo fighter, it would look like an eagle pouncing on a chick.
But there was nothing he could do; he also understood the current situation.
"Alright, then it's decided: lightweight!" Lu Yuan declared.
Thus, a dozen Engineers led dozens of intern workers in starting a new project. More than half went to manufacture space fighters, and a smaller portion manufactured power armor.
After the two emergency fission reactors were activated, Cangyuan's power generation capacity directly exceeded 600MW, causing Lu Yuan to complete the fourth and fifth stages of the 【Development】 main quest in one go, earning 140 system exchange points.
The matter of producing fighters also caused a huge stir in the player community.
Some newbie 'cloud players' felt that this development speed was too absurd. Just over two months ago, they were still using gunpowder weapons and hunting everywhere, and now they were actually going to hand-build real sci-fi vehicles.
However, veteran 'cloud players' who had been following 'Star Sea' knew that with Cangyuan Future Technology's advanced equipment in the game,
plus AI assistance, and the dedication of the beta players, this was not a fantasy.
Seeing the online discussion heat up again, Lu Yuan directly published the space fighter blueprints in the player community as a 'setting' supplement.
This action also caused 'Star Sea' to completely break out of its niche, attracting high attention from more 'professionals'.