Chapter 1091 - 197: 100,000 Infrastructure, 1,000,000 Starships (Part 2)

Chapter 1091: Chapter 197: 100,000 Infrastructure, 1,000,000 Starships (Part 2)

"So boring, is there anything to do?"

Right now, Big Bo was sitting outside a family base, watching the ever-changing energy auroras in the sky while shitposting and chatting in the group.

"Wiping out the remaining scum of the Walter Clan, brick-moving, mining, patrolling, repairing Spaceships, fixing weapons—if you want to do something, there are tons of quests." a group member complained.

"Those are all dailies, the Battlefield Points you earn are like one or two at a time. I’m not playing a mobile gacha. Who the hell grinds dailies every day?" Big Bo casually replied.

"Then go level up. You dropped like a dozen levels before, right? No motivation?" an acquaintance @-ed him.

"Doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel right. Did I get some kind of War PTSD?"

"Then what do you want to do now?"

"Give me a few big jobs—Species Extinction, Planet Destruction, neutron annihilation, that kind of stuff."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"That’s not PTSD, that’s you giving everyone else PTSD." a group member snarked.

"Good thing the Walter Clan was a full-on all-soldiers family, and most of them died on the battlefield. If this planet still had a ton of civilians, I don’t even dare imagine what you’d do."

"Friend, do you want to join our Paradox War Criminal Group too?"

"Holy shit!! The forum pushed the quest settlement!"

Big Bo’s spirits lifted; he quickly sat up, switched to the forum, and sure enough, a pinned post had appeared on the newly opened "Long-Horned Whale Alpha Forum."

Big Bo directly ignored the Forum Administrator’s whole block of standard boilerplate like "Dear Player... Thank you... Congratulations... Victory...", skipped straight to the bottom, and looked at the quest rewards.

To his surprise, for such a rare big Alliance story event, the system didn’t give rewards up front, but instead unlocked two new systems.

"Business Mode"

"Exploration Mode"

"Business Mode" was easy to understand: it assisted Players in building a Mechanical City. Everything in the city—taxes, housing, specialty buildings, Soldier Species, laboratories, group experiments, species production—was handed over to the Players to operate. They only needed to hand over a 10% city management tax to HQ.

The Battlefield Points cost to redeem a Mechanical City was 1 Million.

Not a lot, but not a little either.

It was even specially marked that Battlefield Points trading was allowed.

A High-End Player, plus a few Player friends pooling resources, could basically get there.

As for "Exploration Mode," it unlocked the Starship System. Players were no longer just button-pushers for cannons. From Level 1 Ship Officer, Level 2 Ship Officer, all the way up to Level 5 Ship Officer; above Ship Officer was Starship Captain, School Officer, and General.

Right now the highest visible rank was Major General. Supposedly, a single Major General could command a fleet of up to 100,000 ships and participate in the Alliance’s final decision-making.

Likewise, a Major General was also responsible for the fleet’s maintenance, patrols, and upgrades. If the fleet took heavy losses, their rank would even drop.

Under "Exploration Mode," a Major General could drive Starships to explore outer space, Extraterrestrial Stellar Vortex regions, and even the Extraterrestrial Zone. Once they discovered rare resources or habitable planets—for example, if they scouted out a new planet—there was even a chance of being appointed Governor.

And not only did a Major General have broad authority, even a Level 1 Ship Officer had the right to command a single Starship, and could assign Players and NPCs to various posts, including but not limited to gunners, Ship Maintenance Masters, Star Armor Pilots, and Armed Guards.

However, under "Exploration Mode," Battlefield Points could not be traded; any Battlefield Points gained had to be earned by yourself.

This also cut off the possibility for some battlefield freeloaders.

The Battlefield Points required to redeem Level 1 Ship Officer was 100,000, and Level 2 jumped directly to 1 Million.

Big Bo took a deep breath, suppressed his excitement, and glanced at the comments below. As expected, the whole ocean had been set on fire.

"Holy crap, is this the golden age of Business Mode Players?"

"Piloting Starships to explore the boundless mysteries of the Cosmos, the ever-changing diversity of Star Systems, the brilliance of Red Giant Stars, the terror of Black Holes, the annihilation of vacuum waves, and the limitless marvel of species within it—that’s the true beauty of sci-fi. You nailed it, devs!"

"By the way, can we trade with Alien Influences? Is it easy to source these Starships? How big are the cargo holds?" — Baozi

"You seriously never change, Baozi!"

"Worthy of a black-hearted merchant, already thinking about arms smuggling."

"Just wait till I report you!"

...

Big Bo’s gaze drifted between "Business Mode" and "Exploration Mode," and finally settled on "Exploration Mode."

He also wanted to ride a Starship into the vast Starry Sky, to tour different civilizations, meet various Intelligent Species, or even just grind mobs to level up—the Experience from one-shotting people with a Ship Cannon was insane.

"Looks like I’m still a bit short on points."

Big Bo checked his Battlefield Points. He had just over 80,000, still a bit shy.

But there were only 50,000 Starships, limited slots, first come first served.

Big Bo had no doubt that this herd of animals was currently going all out grinding dailies. If he was a little late, forget Starships—he probably wouldn’t even get a Spaceship.

Thinking of this, Big Bo didn’t say another word and started picking from the "daily quests" he used to look down on. Very quickly, he found one incredibly suitable for him: "Survey Crystal Ore."

This quest was a perfect match for his Acoustic Superpower.

...

As Gao Gong expected, the activation of the two "Modes" directly ignited the Players’ enthusiasm. On the Alliance Panel, that towering 100 billion Battlefield Points began to plunge like an Avalanche and quickly dropped by half.

50,000 Mechanical Cities, each at 1 Million points, directly wiped out half the points pool.

The remaining "Starship System" also attracted many Players to burn points, but 100,000 points was quite a lot, and most Players were still in the middle of grinding quests.

A looming financial crisis was effortlessly defused by Gao Gong.

"Looks like we’re headed in the right direction."

In his previous life, as a "Business Mode Player," Gao Gong had also reflected on why it was so difficult for Players to build a power of their own.

He observed in secret for a long time and came to a shocking conclusion—Players leveled up too fast.

Even though these grind addicts constantly complained that there weren’t enough mobs, too little gear, and monsters were too hard, to be fair, as long as a problem could be solved by leveling up, they could handle it themselves.

In other words, as long as the Technology Tree was deep enough, they could very quickly reach the tech ceiling purely through personal power.

Which led to a problem: in such a short time, they couldn’t build enough connections or relationships in any faction—yet they were already strong enough.

Killing people, making merits, farming bosses—any kind of violence, they’d do it.

Once a civilization hit an upgrade bottleneck, they would most likely go berserk. If they simply bailed, that was already considered having a conscience.

As an Alliance Leader facing this kind of species, you either step aside and let them take over, or you kill them. The choice is obvious.

This led to many Players switching factions faster than they changed gear.

Then, flipped around, what about building a personal power base?

When you founded a Level 1 Civilization, I was Level 30.

When you founded a Level 1 Civilization, I was Level 60.

When you founded a Level 1 Civilization, I was Level 90.

When you founded a Level 1 Civilization, I went down the Evil God route and broke through the Level 90 ceiling.

Fuck it, I’m not building a faction anymore, I’m going back to grinding mobs and leveling.

This was the biggest problem for sim-management-type Players: running a personal power took way too much time and had basically zero cost-effectiveness.

There were very few like Gao Gong, who could use Money Power from selling doujin books to rapidly boost faction levels.

So Gao Gong was attempting something new: within the Alliance’s framework, he allowed Players to build their own personal powers and provided various "system-like" auxiliary functions.

Once he completed Ascension, he’d even allow Players to develop "sub-civilizations" under the framework of his own civilization.