Resource Supply Event is Sweet! (1)

"Huh."

"Hmm, well then… about this much."

"…That's pretty short."

"Well, once the third forward base comes online, we should be back to hitting twenty thousand a day."

Not a bad thing, but if things kept going like this, even by the time the carrier repairs finished in about twenty-four days…

At best we'd scrape together five hundred thousand minerals and not even fifty thousand rare resources before we had to hire the mercenary corps.

"Still, Commander — we do have weekly quests, monthly quests, and those occasional quests the kaiju side hands out, right?"

"True… but weekly and monthly are one thing. Faction quests are way too random."

Even if we cracked every resource crate still sitting in the base — including the ones from the last gacha pull…

Maybe two hundred thousand, if we were lucky.

And just like that, as I took stock of the situation, I realized that assembling a force for the space-city stronghold assault was going to be a lot harder than I'd expected.

"This isn't easy."

"Isn't that just how city sieges always are?"

Still, it wasn't like I could scrap a plan already in motion.

I resolved then and there that if it came down to it, I'd strip the trading market of every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last bit of Gold, buy resource crates in bulk, crack them open, and build that mercenary corps myself. I wasn't going to let this burning resolve die out.

But really, you had to call it a silver lining.

Barely three days after I made that decision — not long after the third forward base properly came online…

"Oh…"

"My, this… if we play it right, couldn't this be a chance to pull in extra resources, Commander?"

"You're right, Jessica."

An event that was basically scattering resource-crate ships across the player base.

I decided to take full advantage of that bittersweet little event and form a proper capture-and-survey team to secure as many resources as possible.

Of course, "survey team" was a generous name for it. In practice it was more of a smash-in, cut-everything-down, and plunder-the-resources operation…

But if we happened ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to pick up superhumans, tech, or gear along the way, that would just be icing on the cake.

Resource Supply Event is Sweet! (1)

The next day.

Maybe the mini-event really had dropped out of nowhere, because the gallery was starting to trickle out posts about how jarring it felt.

Of course, as always, those were the minority opinion.

The basic trend among most players was that anything was better than no update at all.

And given the nature of the event, there wasn't much risk of fleets or superhumans getting shredded left and right.

So the community's reaction to the mini-event was looking pretty positive overall.

And I was no exception.

"If we play this right, we might scrape together some extra resources before the sector siege."

"Even if we keep collecting until then, crack every crate we already have, and sweep the trading market clean, we'd still struggle to break two million… so this is a welcome development."

Just as Jessica said so evenly, at this rate we wouldn't even hit two million resources by the time the city siege rolled around.

So this event was clearly going to buy us at least a little breathing room.

Reading through the gallery reactions, I steeled myself to give this event everything I had.

The problem was that the "lost ships" described in the event text were… significantly larger than anything the players — myself included — had been picturing.

How large, exactly?