The next day, the characters for the four new players were created, and the clones began manufacturing.
Lu Yuan finally adjusted to a normal routine.
After getting up in the morning, before the temperature rose above 30 degrees Celsius, he went to the edge of Devil Mountain's cliff, overlooking the Desert below, contemplating how to deal with the three potential threats: Raiders, Oasis City, and "Apollo".
"Good morning, Executive Officer," Nan Guo de Xue walked over as the sun rose.
Lu Yuan turned and nodded in greeting.
"Good morning, you did a good job reprogramming the Mechanical Desert Spiders. These things have great potential."
"You flatter me, it was just a small effort. Based on the current results, I've designed a blueprint for a drone system, you can take a look."
Lu Yuan took the Pad she handed him.
Xue Jie's design was called the "Drone Reconnaissance Base Station", consisting of two drones, a charging dock, and a set of solar panels.
The base station is placed on high ground in the wilderness and powered by solar panels.
The drone batteries were replaced with all-nitrogen anion batteries, increasing endurance by 10 times. The two drones charge alternately, ensuring one is always in the air to scout for enemy movements.
The charging dock has an automatically opening and closing cover to deal with frequent sandstorms in the Desert and prevent drone damage.
Each base station can operate independently for at least a month, requiring no human maintenance during this time.
"I applied the behavior patterns of the Mechanical Desert Spiders to the drones," Xue Jie said, "They will now automatically track and investigate phenomena that interest them, such as newly appearing vehicle convoys in the Desert. Based on my calculations, by deploying six such base stations around the camp, we can form a field of vision with a radius of at least 80 kilometers, providing effective warning for enemy attacks."
"How long will it take to produce six base stations?" Lu Yuan asked.
"With the current production capacity, about a day and a half."
That's one every 6 hours, quite fast. Lu Yuan fell into thought again.
While providing reconnaissance warning is good, he also thought of another use for the drones.
"Can the drones be modified into aerial communication relay stations?"
"...Yes."
Nan Guo de Xue didn't react immediately, her answer was hesitant for a few seconds.
"What is the communication range between two flying drones?" Lu Yuan asked again.
"That depends on the signal frequency and communication power."
"The simplest radio will do."
"That would be very far, at least 100 kilometers. The Li Star's solar radiation is very strong and severely interferes with shortwave communication; on Earth, it would probably easily exceed 500 kilometers."
Lu Yuan paused for a moment.
"So, if I'm not mistaken, with about thirty base stations, we can form a communication relay area with a radius of 300 kilometers."
"That's right..." Nan Guo de Xue reacted, "Are you planning to build a surveillance network in this Desert?"
Lu Yuan smiled faintly and nodded.
"I plan to monitor all nearby radio communications. The Raiders must have also established a large number of relay signal towers nearby, especially the powerful warbands. Only this way can they maintain contact with the rulers of Oasis City."
"After intercepting the Raiders' communications, we can use the drone swarm for triangulation, which should allow us to pinpoint the location of these signal towers."
Nan Guo de Xue nodded in agreement; there was no technical difficulty in this.
"Then what?"
"Then, we'll launch a surprise attack to destroy these signal towers, then replace them, using AI to forge voice communications between the Raiders and Oasis City, and take over their calls."
"Oh, I see."
Xue Jie's eyes became sharp.
"I didn't expect the Executive Officer to be so cunning."
"Is the word 'cunning' a bit..."
"Then I'll go write the program according to your requirements. Bye."
Nan Guo de Xue waved her hand and turned back into the aerospace plane.
Although her work is excellent, her personality is really cold... Lu Yuan shook his head helplessly and continued to ponder the problem.
Making it impossible for Oasis City and the Raiders to communicate effectively is just the first step of the plan.
................
Another day passed, and the four new players came online.
Old Man Emitting Black Smoke, male, 【Engineer】 sequence.
Ma Lou, male, 【Soldier】 sequence, a master of action games, humble, and also a major outdoor mountaineer.
Coffee Cat and Mi Mang De Da Chui, two female players, both chose the 【Engineer】 sequence.
Both are fond of construction games like "Minecraft" and "Cities: Skylines", share a video website account, and often publish astonishing works that make viewers sigh, "Why is this game different from the one I bought?".
They are classmates, studying architecture and urban planning respectively, and their theoretical knowledge is quite strong.
With these four coming online, Lu Yuan immediately completed two main tasks.
【Main Task: Survival III completed, survive for two weeks, gain 40 points】
【Main Task: Survival IV activated, objective: survive for one month】
【Main Task: Development II completed, camp residents reach 10, gain 20 points】
【Main Task: Development III activated, objective: camp residents reach 20】
The total number of points reached 123. Besides exchanging for the large 3D printer, he could also exchange for one ordinary 3D printer to maximize production capacity.
Without further ado, after introducing the background, Lu Yuan, while all players were online, issued the next stage of player tasks.
"Next, everyone can receive daily tasks for building the camp and gain experience from them."
"The camp needs at least two staff dormitories, one multi-functional office, one dining hall that also serves as a meeting room, one research laboratory, one armory, and several workshops and ordinary warehouses."
"The largest workshop needs to be no less than 35 meters long, no less than 15 meters wide, and have a clear indoor height of no less than 10 meters."
"In addition, the main gate of the camp needs to be repaired as soon as possible, the two defense towers need to be rebuilt, and the weapons on the towers need to be strengthened."
Coffee Cat and Hammer Girl instantly got excited upon hearing this.
Isn't this building a small main city? We're good at this!
Everyone was in high spirits and threw themselves into this infrastructure campaign.
Old Man Emitting Black Smoke took the lead, skillfully drawing the blueprint for the power distribution system under everyone's admiring gazes. Then, using the life support system on the aerospace plane as a template, he designed the crucial central air conditioning system and domestic water purification system.
Next, Lu Yuan led the employees to first build the workshops.
The main building materials used for the workshops were steel and tempered glass, and the main raw material for glass was the ubiquitous sand.
In the camp, the most abundant materials were scrap metal and sand!