Planning For The Future

The Main base's operations had expanded and thanks to the new war factory and vehicles the speed at which the soldiers cleared the land was growing exponentially.

Thankfully the produced vehicles did not run on gas or dieselt instead it was more like a Electric Vehicle that was able to replenish it's battery at any time since after running out of "fuel" they could be replenished with a couple of credits.

They operated in the same way that the soldiers weapons did, the same was true of the tank shells and machine gun belts.

Initially due to speed issues and for safety Jake's soldiers had not wandered more than 100Km away from the base so that they could always make it back before nightfall.

however now that the worries about fuel were a thing of the past, their effective range had increased and they'd begun to explore all the sections of the map displayed thus far.

Only avoiding the locations listing the territory of the 4th and 5th rank mutant beasts at least for now.

Another advantage he found out was that since he'd reached the 3rd level he could now perform upgrades to his base's structures.

Upgrading the powerplant would make it more effective however he also now had access to the Advanced Powerplant so recycling the basic ones in favor of an advanced one was preferred at least till he could unlock the nuclear power plant that provided more energy than he'd ever need.

The most important thing was that by spending credits to upgrade his Barracks and War Factory the units that were deployed from within would come out at a higher rank than the standard rank 1, sadly he could only upgrade the buildings a single time for now, and that cost was absolutely outrageous.

But if it meant he got to save on having to produce and constantly upgrade each RA soldier he deployed he was all for it, plus while they were units the tanks and Rangers could not be ranked up like the RA soldiers could be, so this method was the only way to rank them up.

Having conducted a number of field tests, it was found that event he rangers Heavy machine gun could easily deal with up to Mid 2nd rank beasts, while the tanks could deal with low/med/high 3rd rank ones depending on if it was a light, med, or heavy tank attacking.

However each of these got a significant power boost following the factory's upgrade.

The Rangers now could compete with 3rd ranks, while the tanks could openly content 1-1 with 4th ranks.

When assembled into groups they could even begin to hunt the fifth ranks however doing so would result in considerable damage to the beasts meaning that the meat could not be recovered and the same was mostly true for the soul gems as the tank shells generally just blew everything up into a shower of liquified meat.

This made the initial costs even more worth it, Jake also was able to further progress the running experiments while the cultivation rank of the troops was a known the same could not be said for the vehicles since they didn't technically possess a ranking in this regard.

Upgrading the factory increased their power but its not like he could say the the tanks were likewise cultivators, but the system in the game made it possible for units to gain veterancy levels until they became Elites, and finally capped their strength by becoming Heroic units.

At first the veterancy did not grant much in terms of benefits other than an increase to the health and damage output of the unit that gained a rank, while getting up to Elite would generally upgrade the units weapon, using a conscript as an example while the AK-47 was capable of full auto until a unit reached the elite rank they could attack in simple short bursts while as an elite they would just keep firing, and getting to the Heroic rank, well that granted them the ability to auto heal while increasing their range, line of sight, and speed while also making the units immune to bribery and mind control.

If the tanks could not be cultivated perhaps using the experience system they could be "Grown" by creating specific hunting parties that would gain experience and should they break through and gain veterancy a long term plan could develop to produce even more elite units, and one day a Heroic set.

The easiest way would be to send a spy into the enemy camp but first he'd need to find an enemy barracks or war factory to do that too.

Assuming the concept worked the same in the real world as it did in the game.

Since getting a spy into the opponents base in this way granted an automatic veterancy rank to anything produced out of the bases corresponding building.

For now the base was expanding but there was one single problem, which mainly was food.

While they certainly had acquired a truly massive amount of meat that they could preserve thanks to the Silo's getting their hands on other food was proving troublesome, as there presently were only a couple mushrooms and plant life identified to be edible from the forests that had been transplanted within the base to serve as the base for greater fields but that would take years as more seeds are produced to expand the yield to be enough to feed Jake, his soldiers, and of course the slaves as well.

For now it was clear they needed to do something about this.

And so Jake made a decision, he'd need to expose themselves a little to acquire the food they'd need before winter could close in on them.

So an elite team of Soldiers mounted on Rangers set out looking like a simple military convoy of 7 vehicles filled to the bring with 5 soldiers per and all available free space being loaded up with simple reed woven bags that could hold the preserved beast jerky.

This was his plan, Alpha would lead the very first trade convoy but not to Outpost #7 but instead to Outpost #6 whose location they acquired from one of the captured scout after some... not so gentle persuasion.

Having decided to do this to lead whomever was looking for them off the scent, if word appeared they'd arrived once more in Outpost #7 it was clear they were operating in the area leading to more pests coming by, but if they went the opposite way they could reach another outpost who knew less about them acquire what they needed and then take a detour in getting home leading them to believe that the military forces had already progress on a trek away from the area and were only replenishing supplies for the journey.

Alpha's top priority was to acquire crop seeds if possible, and additionally to get edibles cereals and vegetables, possibly even some dried fruits however the seeds were still the top priority.

A little temporary malnutrition was nothing if it mean eventually they could stabilize again and short term its not like Jake and the POW's couldn't just consume vitamins provided by the Medics to correct the imbalance until the nutrition could be acquired through their meals once more.

The summoned conscript meanwhile had begun to form up his own elite unit to replace Alpha while they were gone, this was thanks to the 'luck' of my 3 draws since unlocking the gacha system.

My first pull was the conscript while the second got me an Allied G.I and the third pull well you could at least call it lucky compared to the first two, the unit was an exclusive to when playing multiplayer in the second game, this was a British Sniper thanks to the gacha all three units were already peak 3rd rank upon their summoning which mean I didn't need to waste energy elevating them.

Each was blessed with their own ability as well just like in the game, the G.I could deploy an instant sandbag bunker, while the sniper could typically one-shot kill anything even outside of it's own maximum range for a short while.

Well all except for the conscript but then again in the game Conscripts were designed to be a quantity over quality kind of ordeal as the Soviet style was Mass Assault with strength of numbers coupled with the overwhelming might of their armor divisions and Naval powers, compared to the Allied forces who'd fight a more technical battle using abilities and a more defense in depth method of survival wearing down the Soviets resources until they could not keep expending such forces leading to their eventual demise.

With the base being slowly upgraded with it's newest defenses, and the expansion of the army, while Alpha was gone on the trade mission, Jake began further expanding the base.

The crescent shared mountain range was still perfect for a defensive positon, but in the future expansion was always needed so while the existing wall would remain along with it's defenses, Jake began the creation of a 2nd wall which would effectively make their base one that would be like a Medival castle or even turn of the century fort with layered walls allowing for you to take part in multiple sieges of the same location, even if the first wall could be breached you'd just fall back to the 2nd and resume the fight.

Their was even the white city in that famous Fantasy movie that had 7 layers of walls truely making it a fortress city of kings.

However this being the modern age, the possibility of aircraft and flying beast exists would nullify the multiple walls but with a number of AA guns and S.A.M launcers keep a watch on the sky the risk was lessened unless of course they came in such an overwhelming number that they could still breakthrough even after taking the barrage of anti-aircraft fire from all his defenses.