Base System Overhaul
Hmm.
I found myself nodding again at the fact that the ships were coming out in a configuration that fit the Fleet Points exactly.
But the moment that thought crossed my mind, I suddenly realized something obvious all over again.
Looking at it this way — even after dumping 1.2 million in minerals, hundreds of thousands in rare resources, and still more materials on top of that — the combat power a player could actually add amounted to nothing more than a single battlecruiser and a single carrier.
Yeah. There's a hard limit to how much power a player can build up alone.
Even once the next docking facility finished construction, I remembered the cap would only climb to around 850 or 900 at best. At the absolute maximum, that meant three battleships and one battlecruiser. Or two carriers and one heavy cruiser. Or cancel everything currently under construction and crank out a measly fifteen heavy cruisers — and that was the whole menu.
I rediscovered this every single time, and I'd known it long before now. But unless you had a cheat code like Marianne and could solo a numbers war the way I could, a player trying to grow their forces alone was looking at some seriously cramped limits.
Even if I upgraded all the way to Stage 9 and Stage 10… under a large-ship-centric organization like the one I was running now, the fleet I could produce myself would struggle to break a hundred ships at most.
And now that Liran's defense fleet had left, the actual combat power standing between me and the rest of the galaxy had shrunk by a noticeable margin.
"Hey, Jessica."
"Yes, Commander?"
"If I started running around causing chaos with unlimited mercenary hiring and the like — how long do you think I'd last?"
"Well… it would depend on the scale of said chaos, but honestly? I doubt you'd last a week."
"…That bad, huh."
"Yes. Besides, you already decided to avoid racking up that kind of karmic debt through wanton rampaging, didn't you?"
She was right — and I'd said as much myself. Half-assed villainy wasn't worth the trouble. I had no interest in ending up like Raksha and the Rotten Water Clan, so for the time being I'd quietly stockpile resources, pour everything into base construction, and then — once I genuinely had nowhere left to spend the surplus — maybe snatch up a convenient stronghold or two and start expanding my own little territory.
A small, modest little plan. That was the idea.
But less than a full day after I'd settled on it…
A full-server announcement with a flashy UI I hadn't seen in a long while popped up in front of every player, myself included.
And the contents weren't the usual player-participation event. This one was about an update.
…Out of nowhere?
An update in a format I genuinely hadn't seen coming. As someone who'd taken a base and been perfectly content without giving it much further thought, the whole thing felt pretty random.
They hand out free resources every week, throw in Gold, give you Fleet Construction Points, and top it off with excellent self-defense capabilities — and that's still not enough?
But that was the perspective of someone running a one-man fortress. Curious how other players were taking it, I quietly opened the community window.
Ah, for fuck's sake.
I deleted the first four or five shock-image spam posts that greeted me as naturally as breathing, then opened the gallery to check the reactions. And, well…
[Image of a crowned toad giving a thumbs-up]
LET'S GOOOOO
— Upvote lmaoooooooo
— Devs finally doing their damn job lmao
— Yes. This. Exactly this.
— For real bases had zero point beyond resource scavenging, now it actually looks like something decent might come of them
— No idea what's coming but upvote anyway
The players were celebrating far harder than I'd expected, flames of joy roaring high. Clan-affiliated players in particular looked downright ecstatic — which told me the community's grievances had run deeper than I'd realized.
Base Update (2)
Three days later.
To be precise, three days and seven hours later, the full update details appeared with a cheerful little fanfare.
The update had rolled out with far more variety than I'd anticipated, and I was left with a thoroughly mixed set of feelings. A few of the features in particular made me wonder what the point of them even was.
But that reaction didn't last long.
…Ah. People like me aren't the target here.
Looking at it carefully, how should I put it…