Chapter 457

Chapter 457. Not all assault battle carriers are the same.

Of course, as soon as I reopened the gallery, there were, as always, a bunch of Kraken enthusiasts and perverts piled up.

And those who got caught trying to sabotage other clans and got beaten like dogs.

Dealing with those miscellaneous reports filled with such characters was my priority…

“Why don’t these bastards disappear even after getting beaten and dealt with? It’s like they’re infinitely respawning mobs.”

After calmly blocking them for 2-3 days while having such useless thoughts, I finally managed to open the wiki tab and find the post.

And, as expected, it seemed quite a few users had chosen the Rafflesia-Class.

The wiki post I found about the Rafflesia-Class had surprisingly active comments.

But regardless, the important thing was the performance status of the Rafflesia-Class.

I pushed the scene of comments exploding from hundreds to four digits out of my mind for a moment and decided to quickly check the content first.

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Title: Rafflesia-Class Assault Battle Carrier Review

Author: Wiki Officer mk-58

Content: [Rafflesia-Class concept art.jpg]

But honestly, there’s not much to explain.

Straight up, this ship’s performance matches its lore description pretty well.

Since a top-ranked player has been using the Kraken-Class recently, let’s compare it to that.

The Rafflesia has a higher floor but a lower ceiling compared to the Kraken.

Overall, its performance isn’t bad.

Given Xenobia’s trait of aiming for versatility (except for tanking), you can pretty much throw it into any situation and it’ll handle things on its own.

But the problem lies in its teleport function, which is both its alpha and omega.

Using it disables all functions except for aircraft deployment and CIWS guns.

Barriers? Gone. Maneuvering? Impossible.

Even radar detection gets disabled.

And the worst part? It includes “posture control” in the list of disabled functions.

So if it gets hit by artillery or collides with another ship, it’ll get pushed around and wobble all over the place.

That’s why NPCs never use the teleport function in large-scale fleet battles unless there’s protection to prevent the Rafflesia from getting hit.

And of course, its armor is paper-thin, so even rockets or missiles from bombers can deal massive damage. If enemy fleets get close, forget about teleporting—it’s game over.

Also, its speed feels kinda slow in many ways.

I mean, it’s not as frustratingly slow as Earth Federation or Space Monster super-large ships, but it completely ditches that subtle agility you’d expect from the Xenobia Empire.

Other than that, it’s just decently good.

The function loss from teleporting lasts about 10 to 15 minutes, which isn’t too long considering the nature of fleet battles.

Oh, and one thing not mentioned in the lore: it has fewer assault pods than the Kraken.

The flight deck is packed with aircraft, so it looks like there’s a ton, but even with max leveling, it’s about the same as the Kraken (around 5,500 units).

———-

Edit:

No wonder there were so many comments all of a sudden—the Rafflesia got released.

As summarized above, unlike the Kraken, you really gotta think hard when using its teleport function.

Comments:

– [Kyaaaa, I’m a teleport owner now toooo!]

– [Congrats]

– [Ah, I see]

– [Can’t do everything with just clicking, huh]

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And after realizing, “It’s similar to the Kraken, but with its own fatal weaknesses!”

I nodded in satisfaction at its performance, which was much better than I expected.

Especially the fact that its “lore performance” and “actual performance” matched so well was absolutely brilliant.

So, I immediately filled the Rafflesia’s hangar with minerals.

“Tiamat.”

“Ah, yes! Commander!”

“Take the Kraken, another large carrier, and include the Rafflesia-Class to do some proficiency training around here.”

“Yes, I’ll get right on it!”

I instructed Tiamat, who was watching from the command screen beside me, to proceed with leveling up the Rafflesia.

And maybe because she was now “definitely” experiencing the thrill of controlling thousands of aircraft at once, or maybe just because her fleet was growing—

Tiamat had an incredibly happy expression as she cheerfully went off to issue air-raid alerts against the naturally respawning (?) pirates nearby.

==========

And as Tiamat set off on her new mischief…

At that moment, I was having a blast playing with the 감인 라플레시아.

While casually receiving the rewards for the naturally resolved daily quests, I was spending a rather uneventful time as usual.

“By the way, Commander, there’s something I’m curious about.”

“Huh?”

“Do you have any plans to recruit a Base Mercenary Group at the Spiralus Research Institute?”

“…Now that you mention it, I remember Spiralus could also hire mercenaries, right?”

Lately, I’ve been so busy that I had completely forgotten about it, but Jessica pointed it out.

Realizing she was right, I immediately opened the Spiralus base management window and decided to hire a Base Mercenary Group.

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[Spiralus Research Institute Base Mercenary Group Recruitment Menu]

[When hiring a mercenary group, the fleet composition will be as follows:]

[Base Level x100 Points]

[Current Base Level: 5]

[The mercenary group’s fleet will be set to ‘500 points.’]

[Commander: ???]

[The commander will be randomly assigned when you hire the mercenary group.]

[Note: The commander of the mercenary group could be a superhuman or not.]

—————————————–

As I looked at this information, I felt like I was rolling a gacha that wasn’t really a gacha, and I pressed the hire button…

“Commander, a large warp reaction has been detected ahead.”

“Ah, they’re already coming… huh, ugh.”

The moment I saw the guys that came out after pressing the hire button, I found it extremely difficult to manage my expression.

And for good reason, because the composition of the 500-point fleet that arrived after the large warp reaction was…

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[Mekarshetentakel Experimental Assault Assimilation Strike Force]

[Fleet Composition]

[1 Battleship, 560 Assimilation Assault Ships]

[Commander: Nero]

—————————————–

‘Do the developers have some kind of grudge against me?’

It was because the fleet was in an even more extreme form than Bendalope’s ‘Lemmings Strike Force,’ who had become a 130cm tall senior girl.

“Wow, except for the one battleship, the rest are all patrol ships… no, assault ships.”

“Hahahahaha.”

Even the so-called ‘Assimilation Assault Ships’ were quite bizarre, and I couldn’t help but shake my head.

“Moreover, they’re not just regular assault ships but assimilation assault ships.”

“Is there any difference?”

When Jessica gave me a look that seemed to say, ‘So what do those ships do?’, I called Bendalope, who had just entered the command center, and sat her down next to me.

“Bendalope, how does your assault ship’s combat style work?”

“Our ships? Well, the goal is to get as close as possible to enemy ships and then unleash all our weapons and quantum torpedoes to inflict as much damage as possible.”

“So it’s essentially a hit-and-run tactic, right?”

“Exactly… but why are you asking?”

“Well, the new Base Mercenary Group that just arrived has ships that are somewhat similar but also different from yours.”

After Bendalope’s explanation, I turned my head back to Jessica and decided to briefly explain what the ‘Assimilation Assault Ships’ brought by the commander character ‘Nero’ were all about.

“Unlike Bendalope’s assault ships, the Assimilation Assault Ships literally ‘ram into’ enemy ships and spread assimilation-type nanomachines or monster cells to take control.”

“So you’re saying those patrol-sized ships are basically no different from assault pods?”

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

Hearing that they were ‘literally’ no different from assault pods, Jessica took a moment to ponder.

“If we keep going like this, the fleet concept will get mixed up, and neither side will have any meaning.”

“Eh.”

With that, Jessica calmly dropped a bombshell that made Bendalope’s gaze waver.