The United Empire of Iridium Star in the Galaxy of the First Universe may not be the strongest or most advanced civilization, but at its level of civilization, it is definitely one with the most terrifying potential for war.
In some ways, Iridium Star and Teizene are quite similar. Teizene is a civilization oriented towards military aggression, whereas Iridium Star is a civilization geared towards comprehensive expansion. Both civilizations have a strong drive to expand outward. Teizene embodies brutal and ruthless militarism, while Iridium Star wields its mighty fists on somewhat reasonable grounds.
After the introduction of Atomic Substance Construction, the ultimate technology in productivity, Iridium Star's war potential had become extremely fearsome.
"Once we enter the highest level of combat readiness, nearly half of the capacity of the various Atomic Substance Construction devices will be allocated to self-replication and expansion. We will increase our manufacturing capabilities while ensuring the supply of various materials," Ministry of Industry Minister Xin Peng cautiously said to Bai Zhongqi.
Originally a minor official in an exploration fleet, he was now suddenly in charge of the entire Empire's industrial construction. In truth, he was somewhat out of his depth, but with the assistance of various artificial intelligence systems and the support of Earth's talents, the operations of the Ministry of Industry encountered no major issues.
Bai Zhongqi knew that the previous state of production in Iridium Star was greatly influenced by his own interference and was not exactly efficient. Often, he would simply use the Supreme Command to order the Atomic Substance Construction factories to produce whatever he desired.
The terrifying aspect of Iridium Star's production capacity lay in the self-replicating capability of the Atomic Substance Construction devices. One such device could build another within a certain amount of work time, and so on and so forth. This process allowed for continuous creation of new construction devices. Eventually, the people of Iridium Star possessed an enormous number of these unrivaled manufacturing artifacts.
These Atomic Substance Construction devices were operated by artificial intelligence programs and required no human intervention. After Bai Zhongqi set the production tasks, a multitude of productive facilities began to replicate automatically, expanding within their respective construction zones.
The increase in fully automated production devices allowed Bai Zhongqi to build war machines faster and in greater quantities. In the upcoming war, the most important military weapons would be starships.
More Imperial shipyards were built according to plan and completed, a large number of mining engineer vessels gathered vast amounts of minerals from various planets, and then transported them to the shipyards. The shipyards would then directly process these materials to form powerful starships.
At this time, Xu Lanzhou was also full of confidence. She proudly said, "Some people worry that even if we win the first battle and destroy a thousand Teizene warships, Teizene will send even more. But the ones who should truly be concerned are the Teizene Lizard People, not us. As long as we can achieve one or two victories and ensure our control over the Danlu Interstellar Cloud, the United Empire's production facilities will manufacture even more warships. It might take Teizene hundreds of years to amass ten thousand warships, but we can build thousands within three years. And as our shipyards increase, so will the speed of our shipbuilding. What truly restricts the size of our Universe Army is the number of personnel and our maintenance costs."
Bai Zhongqi deeply agreed with the judgment of this beautiful Universe Army Commander. He also felt that the biggest challenge for Iridium Star was the first battle against the Teizene people. The longer the time dragged on, the more advantageous it would be for Earth. Earth had an ample population, enough to match many civilizations with populations spread across a dozen or even dozens of planets. Iridium Star's manufacturing capability was like a cheat code, allowing a massive number of ships to be quickly constructed.
"The shipbuilding plans we made previously, not taking into account external threats, are clearly unsuitable now. Has the Universe Army completed the draft for the new shipbuilding plan?" Bai Zhongqi inquired.
Xu Lanzhou pulled up the document, and Bai Zhongqi didn't need any device, as his own neural-bone interface began to feedback the content of the documents Xu sent.
"The new fleet composition of the Universe Army will follow a balanced assembly of ships, seeking comprehensive and efficient combat capabilities and strength. Limited by the technology of the R19 fleet's warships, the most advanced main battle ships we can currently produce are only at the level of the Bojiang Class. The Bojiang Modified Class, previously revised under His Majesty's guidance, has been completed, emphasizing firepower and defense capabilities, resulting in an outstanding battleship that is also quick to construct. Our current struggle is that, although the construction time for the Bojiang Class is already short compared to other main battle ships, it still takes nearly 8 months to build one, whereas in that same time, a dockyard can produce eight Tai'a Class frigates."
Bai Zhongqi understood what Xu Lanzhou meant; the technology level of the Iridium Star warships was much stronger than that of Teizene. Escort ships like the Tai'a Class, which in the Iridium Star Universe Army could only play a supporting role, almost matched the firepower of Teizene's cruisers.
If Iridium Star deployed a large number of escort ships and used tactics reasonably, they could still cause significant damage to Teizene.
Without much thought, Bai Zhongqi clearly stated, "We have to build the Bojiang Class even if it takes a long time. If we lack a sufficient number of main battle ships, it will be difficult to exchange fire with the enemy's main battle ships. Even if we have many small vessels, they may not last long against Teizene's main battle ships before they break defense and get sunk. However, a heavy hitter like the Bojiang Class can take on two or even three Teizene main battle ships without problems.
Our newly organized Universe Army fleet must have a balanced composition of ships. Later, with more than ten shipyards each having 8-12 docks, we'll be able to use the precious docks to produce main battle ships. We'll build eight Bojiang Class in the first batch, and we also need aircraft carriers equipped with missile platforms."
Compared to the Bojiang Class battleship with its powerful main guns, the aircraft carrier Bai Zhongqi referred to, named the Aquarius Class Aircraft Carrier, was a type of warship unique to the Iridium Star Universe Army. The Aquarius Class carrier was expensive to build and took a relatively long time, but its combat power was especially formidable. It was a terrifying carrier equipped with atomic substance construction facilities that could automatically replenish fighters during battle.
Of course, what most troubled enemies were the extremely irritating missile platforms that the Aquarius Class carrier could create. As soon as it entered the battlefield, it would begin deploying missile platforms and then send out a large number of carrier-based aircraft on patrol. Once the enemy entered the battlefield, they would be hit with hundreds of thousands of missiles, and these missiles platforms, equipped with force field constraints, could also impact the navigation of enemy starships.
In such a situation, a plethora of missiles weakened the enemy ships' defense systems, force field constraints reduced their mobility, and large bomber carrier-based aircraft released by the Aquarius Class, armed with dangerous anti-shielding torpedoes or powerful bombs, would strike when the enemy was vulnerable.
Any of these weapons, used alone, would not be enough to trouble the enemy. Although there were many missiles, they had low power. Force field constraints were merely an annoyance. Carrier-based aircraft were easy targets for enemy defense systems, and anti-shielding torpedoes and high-powered bombs had short ranges and were easy to intercept.
However, when these elements were integrated by the Aquarius Class carrier, it turned the carrier into an extremely powerful main battle ship killer. To fight against an Aquarius Class carrier, the enemy would either need to have incredibly strong defenses to withstand the bombardment and get close enough to destroy it with heavy artillery, or they would have to possess the short-range battlefield jumping ability like the Sacred Falcon, or enter the battlefield first to compress the operational space of the Aquarius Class carrier. The Aquarius Class cared a lot about its position in a battle; if the positioning was off, it would struggle to exert its strength.
Regardless, Bai Zhongqi believed that the ferociously armed Aquarius Class would become a very effective weapon in his arsenal.