The Avalonia Security Fleet
Without much deliberation, I decided to hire the mercenary corps on the spot.
Surely, I thought, the system wouldn't be so petty as to spit out a five-hundred-patrol-ship fleet just to hit the five-hundred-point mark exactly.
And a short while later, the mercenary corps I had hired — the Avalonia Security Fleet — materialized before Avalon Fortress, where we stood.
"Better than I expected."
"Right? For a single fleet, the balance is actually pretty solid."
The composition itself was as good as it got. You only had to glance at a few of the gallery posts from people who'd botched their base mercenary gacha to understand just how lucky we'd been.
[Assault Strike Mercenary Corps Composed of 500 Patrol Ships… written as "assault corps," read as "raiding party".jpg]
Are you kidding me? Five hundred patrol ships — am I just supposed to use them as meat shields?
And the armament is bare-bones beam cannons and missiles. Nothing else. Nothing.
[Mercenary Corps Composed of 3 Battlecruisers, 1 Destroyer, 2 Patrol Ships, and 250 Resource Mining Ships.jpg]
What the hell is this
What the hell
And the battlecruisers are covered in cargo bays. What is this even supposed to be. Is this a joke?
The real kicker? Those resource mining ships can't even mine resources in my territory.
At least I hadn't rolled the five-hundred-patrol-ship spam I'd been dreading. And I hadn't gotten stuck with two hundred fifty mining ships like that other guy, either. Small mercies.
Relieved that we'd drawn a reasonably solid fleet, I felt a small hunger stir somewhere in the back of my mind.
If a Level 5 base spits out ships like that… how absurdly stacked would the Level 7 I originally wanted be?
As if sensing that very desire, the gallery delivered a post from a clan member who'd seized a Level 7 base and was showing off their mercenary corps.
[Mercenary Corps Tuned to 700 Fleet Points: 3 Carriers, 7 Battleships, 20 Heavy Cruisers, 50 Destroyers.jpg]
With 700 Fleet Points to work with, the composition is stupidly generous.
And from what I've heard, other bases don't have this info yet — starting at Level 7, hired mercenary corps don't field anything destroyer-class or below. At all.
Meaning the patrol-ship spam and mining-ship spam that sometimes pop out at Level 6 and under get completely locked out from Level 7 onward. Yeah.
A lot of destroyers had been rolled, sure — but a single mercenary corps packing three carriers, seven battleships, and twenty heavy cruisers was nothing to sneeze at.
Looking at that, and with nothing particularly urgent on my plate, I decided to gather resources — just enough, carefully — and hire as many mercenary corps as I could, then go conquer a brand-new base in earnest. Alongside the newly hired Avalonia Security Fleet and every other fleet under my command.
And not just any base. Somewhere far larger than Avalon, where I currently sat. Somewhere like, say, the Tannhauser Gate Fortress — the one I'd tried to take last time before deciding it was a complete nonstarter and walking away.
Of course, cracking Tannhauser Gate Fortress would clearly demand far more resources than last time.
"Hmm… Jessica, the forces we committed when we took this place — converted to points, about how much was that?"
"Five hundred twelve mercenary corps, the pirate fleet, our main force, and the Monster Fleet all included… roughly a hundred twenty thousand?"
Interesting.
Hearing Jessica's answer, I figured that conquering Tannhauser would require, at minimum, five million minerals in hiring fees alone — plus another two to three hundred thousand rare resources.
But then it hit me: a small clan that had already taken on a Level 7 base was sitting right there as a reference case.
"Jessica, last time Rotten Water hit Tunguska Fortress City — how much force did they commit?"
That was the Tunguska Fortress City incident, where Rotten Water had burned themselves to the ground and come within a hair of success. I put the question to Jessica immediately, looking for a hard number.
Even so, I had a rough estimate of my own.
Eh, somewhere around two hundred to two hundred fifty thousand, right?
My estimate turned out to be wildly off.
"The clan had about eighty-five members total at the time, and given that all of them were mid Level 8… roughly sixty-four thousand points?"
"Mm."
"Mercenary forces added another eighteen thousand points or so. And if you factor in the three hundred Magellan Clan commanders who showed up, plus their mercenary corps… converted to points, at least three hundred fifty thousand were committed."
"Hoooooh."
A fleet worth roughly three hundred fifty thousand points. Realizing they'd thrown three times the force I'd committed and only barely pushed through, I found myself in a deep, serious spiral over whether to cancel the whole idea of solo-sieging a Level 7.
This is how you earn loyalty, Commander.
That threefold gap rattled my mental state for a moment, but I managed to lock it back down and look at the situation more coldly.
Thinking it through: when everything I fielded converted to a hundred twenty thousand points at most, their side had three hundred eighty-five players pooling three hundred fifty thousand. Of course there was a gap.
With the situation mapped out, I finally understood just how much force I'd need to invest if I wanted to gobble up Tannhauser Gate Fortress.
"Jessica, last time we hired all five hundred twelve mercenary corps — what did that cost?"
"Hiring fees were two and a half million minerals and three hundred thousand rare resources, if I remember right."
"…Hmm."
Rough math put it at three times that. But I also had to subtract the portion that had been covered by the Pirate Coalition fleet last time, so…
"We're screwed. Just the hiring fees alone mean a lump-sum investment of at least ten million minerals."
"That's enormous. We've only just scraped together two million minerals as it is."
Hiring fees alone: ten million minerals. Rare resources: at least one million.