Chapter 283: Mars-class Warship

Back during the war with the Harville Civilization, Li Qingsong had discovered a weakness in his own military system.

Namely, his forces lacked a piece of war equipment with enough combat power and deterrent force, making it difficult to exert sufficient influence over a specific region or in a particular battle.

For example, when the two sides were in a stalemate, his forces lacked such equipment to break the deadlock.

When his side held the advantage, they struggled to quickly convert that advantage into a decisive outcome.

When at a disadvantage, it was also difficult to quickly turn the tide of battle or execute a swift breakout and retreat.

To use classical military terminology, his forces had a “Marshal” to act as the battlefield commander and plenty of foot soldiers at the lowest level, but they lacked a “Grand General” in between.

Originally, this battlefield niche of “Grand General” was filled by the Earth-class Warship. But with technological advancements and enemies growing ever stronger, the Earth-class Warship was no longer capable of playing this part.

Now, with significant improvements across various technologies and all the prerequisites in place, the “Mars”-class Warship that Li Qingsong decided to develop was intended to assume this “Grand General” role.

Given the crucial role the Mars-class Warship was destined to play on the battlefield, Li Qingsong went to incredible lengths to develop it.

For the initial overall design blueprints alone, Li Qingsong scrapped and redid them over a thousand times. Each design iteration required him to mobilize at least ten thousand Clones, who did nothing but focus exclusively on the design work.

Each revision represented an improvement, an optimization.

He spent years constantly optimizing and iterating on the more detailed internal layouts before the overall design was finally complete.

Once the blueprints were complete, the project entered the next development phase. Only then did the real challenges begin to surface.

The design standards for the Mars-class Warship were exceedingly high. The requirements for material performance, power source intensity, armor strength, chip stability, and weapon systems performance were simply too demanding. Even with the significant technological leaps he had already made, his existing materials and equipment were still insufficient to meet the specifications for the Mars-class Warship.

Left with no alternative, Li Qingsong established a dedicated task force for the “Mars-class Warship” project. He assigned over one hundred million Clones to the R&D of every single component and allocated dedicated resources, redirecting the industrial output and research capabilities of hundreds of thousands of factories, institutes, and laboratories to the task force.

Ultimately, after several more years—a period that required cutting into the resource quota for space exercises and forcing Li Qingsong to temporarily lower the acceptable attrition rate for warships in drills—all technical obstacles to building the Mars-class Warship were finally overcome.

A gigantic space dock had been constructed, and all the necessary equipment and resources had been transferred into place.

Li Qingsong was filled with excitement.

‘After all this time, the moment to turn blueprints into reality is finally here. That incredibly powerful warship, which has only ever existed in my dreams, is at last entering the construction phase!’

Heavy transport ships shuttled back and forth between the space dock and the industrial bases. Across the Super-distance Communication network, the processing power of hundreds of Supercomputing Bases converged on this location. Under Li Qingsong’s control, the collective intelligence of tens of millions of Clones was channeled into the project.

Soon, the first keel was laid. Building upon this foundation, equipment, compartments, cables, and conduits were rapidly installed one after another.

It was like a tree in springtime. From a bare trunk, branches rapidly sprouted, and upon those branches, leaves and flowers bloomed.

Finally, after more than two years, the unprecedentedly massive super-warship stood tangibly before Li Qingsong.

Gazing at the colossal warship—a rectangular prism bristling with protrusions, indentations, and all manner of equipment—Li Qingsong was overcome with excitement.

The total mass of an Earth-class Warship is approximately 16,000 tons. This Mars-class Warship, however, boasted a fully loaded mass of 300,000 tons—an increase of more than eighteen-fold.

Its total length was over 400 meters, with a maximum width of 60 meters and a height of 40 meters.

Compared to a transport ship or a Space-Air Carrier, it was a lightweight. But compared to other warships, it was an absolute behemoth.

Even an Earth-class Warship looked minuscule before it.

Its immense volume and mass allowed Li Qingsong to outfit it with all the large—and even enormous—weapon systems he had developed to date.

Among these, the weapons Li Qingsong valued most were the four Energy Cannons, which could only be described as colossal.

Typically, a projectile from an Energy Cannon has a mass of no more than 5 grams and a muzzle velocity not exceeding 200 kilometers per second.

However, the projectiles fired by these four colossal Energy Cannons had their mass increased tenfold to 50 grams. Simultaneously, their muzzle velocity was higher, reaching a full 300 kilometers per second!

By that calculation, the kinetic energy alone of a single projectile would be 2.25 billion joules, equivalent to the detonation of approximately 500 kilograms of TNT.

But kinetic impact was merely its most insignificant aspect.

These colossal projectiles were also maintained in a Strong Core Excited State! Upon impact, the destabilization of this state would convert approximately 0.005% of the projectile’s mass into energy. For a 50-gram projectile, this meant about 2.5 milligrams of mass, which was equivalent to the energy released by detonating approximately 50 tons of TNT!

A single one of these standard projectiles would have been enough to obliterate a mountaintop on old Earth. A direct hit on a small warship, such as one of the Water Star Level, would be enough to completely deplete its Energy Shield.

And the rate of fire for these four colossal Energy Cannons could reach fifty rounds per second.

When fully loaded, it would carry a total of approximately 80 million of these specialized projectiles, enough to allow all four colossal Energy Cannons to fire continuously at full power for 110 hours.

The mass of these projectiles alone reached approximately 4,000 tons—heavier than a fully loaded Venus-class Warship!

But these four colossal Energy Cannons were just one of the weapon systems on the Mars-class Warship.

Beyond these, it was also equipped with four ultra-high-power Laser Cannons. Numerous medium and small Energy Cannons and Laser Cannons were distributed across its hull, leaving no blind spots. It could deploy a large number of Interstellar Mines at a moment’s notice. For defense, it mounted an even greater number of Intercepting Energy Cannons and laser cannons. Its arsenal was further supplemented by a total of 640 Interstellar Missiles and 128 Energy Cannons, among other systems.

In terms of defense, it was equipped with Li Qingsong’s newly developed multi-layered, high-intensity Energy Shield, boosting its defensive capabilities to an unprecedented level.