Desperate Struggle Against the Advance Force (2)
Users at other bases—even most of the ones living in the residential clusters—looked like they had more than enough free time on their hands.
Watching them, I couldn't help thinking the event had been deliberately dialed down for the opening act.
And while I was still browsing the chat like that—
True to their nature as mindless drone fleets that just ramming-charge everything in sight, they had actually picked a fight with the Leviathan Fleet and gotten vaporized for it.
No matter how I looked at it, I was more and more convinced the staff had deliberately made Round 1 easy.
Of course, sailing through Stage 1 this smoothly only really applied to users and clans who held powerful bases like mine.
With no further invasions in sight, I lounged around fondling Jessica's ears, her soft intelligence pouches, and the silky stockinged thighs underneath, and opened the gallery—
The first thing that greeted me was a post of pure sobbing, screaming profanity. That was when I realized Stage 1 was, quite literally, a classic case of the strong getting stronger and the weak getting crushed.
Holy moly.
Desperate Struggle Against the Advance Force. (2)
<Image of superhumans and internal garrison forces resisting Advance Force troops that have stormed into the base.jpg>
Why! Goddammit!
My fleet! Is! Right! There!
And base defense! Can't stop them! At all! Fuck! Shit!
Shi;t!
Shi
Shit!!!!
Seeing a user so overwhelmed with emotion that he couldn't stop wailing—
I was reminded of my own past life as a true solo player, and I couldn't hide the tears.
How tragic.
But once I started digging through the gallery in earnest after seeing him, it became clear that far more users than I'd expected were already crying pain from Round 1.
<Results screen saying the Advance Force was defeated.jpg>, <Remaining ships excluding resource miners: barely 10, and not even 5 of those are Large Ships.jpg>
At least mercs hired from the Mercenary Office don't count toward combat power, so I scraped by somehow
But it was fucking close
<Faction expedition force reduced to under 20% strength.jpg>
The merc company got wiped out completely, yep
<Compilation of various complaint posts flooding the gallery.jpg>
The Advance Force structure is designed around flooding you with large numbers of small ships
And because individual Advance Force ships suck, they jack the numbers way past the player's to "balance" it
The problem is, that means if a player faces them alone, Advance Force troops will almost guaranteed penetrate into the base
And since this is an event, the troops themselves are pretty tanky—unless you pulled a decent number of superhuman soldiers from the Superhuman Barracks, you'll get overrun easy, yep
Even if you try to block with your fleet, there are just too many enemy ships for one person to hold the line
<Fleet on the brink of annihilation when a fleet appears from nowhere.jpg>
Doesn't even have to be your fleet
Just use your connections, whatever—hell, even beg the player who's been raiding you. Pull the classic "please have mercy and save me" routine
Otherwise you won't make it, yep
<List of users whose bases nearly fell.jpg>
Of course, no matter how hard the Advance Force goes, they can't beat the superhumans you've been stacking by now, so your base itself won't get sacked
But your fleet and internal facilities will be demolished and repairs alone will take forever kekeke
There was plenty more talk beyond that, but to roughly sum it all up…
"Unless you're docked at a base with a fortress main gun, sitting inside its range, or living together with other Commanders—everyone's suffering."
"…Exactly."
Before I could even finish the thought, our dear Jess-Jess was already showing off her intellect by way of those ample intelligence pouches of hers.
I immediately grabbed both of her ears and pulled—punishment for snatching the words right out of my mouth.