The Age of Giant Ships and Cannons

Two hours later, the spacecraft appeared in front of an asteroid with a diameter of only a little over a thousand kilometers.

This asteroid is located on the edge of the asteroid belt, and its surface is covered with potholes of different sizes. Its gravity is smaller than that of a normal asteroid of such a large size, and it is not enough to pull the surrounding meteorites.

It is far away from the main sequence stars of the galaxy, and the temperature is very low, but there is no water vapor on the planet, so naturally there will be no freezing, only a thick layer of dust has accumulated for an unknown period of time.

On this asteroid, there are actually three personal bases not far apart.

When Li Qing came to the sky above Yang Yunbo's base, he received a public communication channel from Yang Yunbo, opened it and entered, a light curtain popped up, divided into six interfaces, each interface has a player, five men and one woman, all at the same time. wave:

"Welcome Brother Li Qing to settle down in this galaxy!"

He waved in surprise:

"Are you together?"

Yang Yunbo shook his head and said:

"Not together, but here is too far away from the Jinmen galaxy, there are too few people, and it's boring, so we communicate more and play together."

The frigate stopped in mid-air and entered the base in a small aircraft that was only five meters long.

Yang Yunbo's base is also a small base, the main core cabin is the same as his, but there are probably twenty or thirty auxiliary cabins piled up here, the outside is full of raw ore, and the waste piled farther away is like a mountain, which has expanded to a certain scale , the bases of the two nearby players are about the same size.

The aircraft entered the door of the main core cabin for a routine disinfection inspection, the door opened, and a gust of cold air gushed out.

Yang Yunbo and three other players, two men and one woman, were waiting for him on the steps. He hurriedly said hello and introduced themselves to each other.

The other three players are Xia Qi, Ning Xi, and Lu Yanqi. Among them, Lu Yanqi is Xia Qi's girlfriend, and she is quite pretty.

As the host, Yang Yunbo had already prepared food and drinks. A stone was chiseled into a tripod shape and stood on the ground. There was a tray-like groove on the surface, and many wire grooves were drawn on it. It becomes extremely high, and the thin slices of meat are spread out, and there is a sizzling sound, and it can be turned over in two seconds.

The five of them ate barbecue and drank drinks while chatting.

Most of the time, Li Qing asked them about the situation of this galaxy and nearby galaxies, and they answered.

Through understanding, there used to be six players in this galaxy, and now there are seven with Li Qing, and they can usually chat. Among them, the bases of Yang Yunbo, Xia Qi, Lu Yanqi, and Ning Xi are all on this asteroid. Both players' bases are elsewhere in the asteroid belt.

It just so happened that the two of them had something to do with the asteroid belt today, so they won't be able to come for a while.

"You have to say it earlier, and the two of them will come over."

Yang Yunbo coated a palm-sized piece of roasted meat with sauce, rolled it up, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed it, took another sip of his drink, and said to him:

"You are right to come to us. It is too difficult for a person outside to get along. I came here first, alone, and I was dying of loneliness. Every time I collected enough ore and refined it and shipped it out, I was afraid of returning to the base. Gone."

"Haha, I have the same worry."

"But don't worry now. If you want to go out and tell us, I will send two boats to your base to take a look."

Li Qing quickly thanked:

"That's too much trouble."

Yang Yunbo waved his hands and said:

"No trouble, let's help each other."

Li Qing nodded:

"We really need to help each other, otherwise we won't be able to get along."

"By the way, how often do you go back to Jinmen? Maybe we can go together."

"Jinmen? We seldom go back, maybe every three or four years."

Li Qingqi said:

"Does your mine take so long to sell once?"

Xia Qi, who had been eating, raised his head and said:

"You may have misunderstood, our mines are not sold after being transported back to Jinmen."

"where is that?"

"From here to the north, there is a large team called Burning Ghost in the JM-N-381 galaxy. In the 30 to 40 galaxies, the ores of all the individual players and small teams around are basically sold to the burning ghosts."

"Oh! That"

Just as he was speaking, Ning Xi just finished eating a piece of barbecue, looked up and said to him:

"You have to pay attention. Although we sold all the mines to Burning Specter, the reputation of this team is not very good in the vicinity."

"Tell me."

"The Burning Ghost team moved here more than 30 years ago and started to build a base. I heard that they started their business by plundering. Later, after establishing a formal team, they were cleaned up, but some things have been soaked in their bones. They are stingy and hold grudges. , greedy, because he is the only team nearby that buys various ores on a large scale. He keeps the price extremely low, and can only buy at 90% of the market price. It is 20% more expensive than Jinmen."

"But there is no way. It's too far away from Jinmen. It takes four or five months for the fleet to go back, and four or five months to come back. It takes nearly ten months to go back and forth. It's too time-consuming. On balance, I can only earn this 10% less and save ten months of time."

"In addition, the people of Burning Ghost are stingy and hold grudges, but most of the time they stay in the team's sphere of influence and rarely go out. I will send you a complete star map later. Take a look, don't run to them if you have nothing to do to dig mines in the territory, so as not to mess with them."

Li Qing said with a smile:

"Don't worry, I'm on a boat now, and the local mines can't be exhausted. It's impossible to go to other places to dig."

After chatting for a while, he found that although they had different personalities, they were all easy to get along with.

Most of them are very standard individual pioneers. They don't seem to have any ambitions. If they are ambitious, they are limited to their ability and have no achievements. They just want to dig some mines while they are young, make some money, and sell all the ship mines when they earn almost. Go back to the United Empire of Humanity and find a stable colonial star to settle down and become a financially free tycoon. There is no idea of ​​​​traversing the sea of ​​​​stars at all.

The most active ones are Xia Qi and another player. They will occasionally go out for adventures after mining, but they will not run far.

Li Qing likes to be neighbors with such people, so he can save his worry and peace of mind.

But I don't know if it's an illusion, he accidentally scanned the eye contact between Xia Qi's girlfriend and Yang Yunbo, which seemed a little strange.

He didn't dare to think too much, he just thought it was a mistake.

After eating and drinking together, everyone became familiar with each other, chatting and farting, Li Qing took the opportunity to ask more about the nearby situation, and got a more detailed star map, the farthest place has been explored to the galaxy JM-N-544.

After returning from Yang Yunbo's base, Li Qing was in a good mood.

This trip was full of rewards, I met a few friends, and learned about the surrounding situation, unlike before, my eyes were completely smeared.

However, they don't have extra ore crushing and refining equipment, which needs to be bought from the burning ghost team.

But in another month, Xia Qi and the others will mine almost the same ore, and they are going to sell it. They agreed to go there and have a look at it. By the way, the newcomers who are not brought along will definitely be lowered in price.

Returning to the base, only rested for one day, and continued to go out to mine the next day.

Although the base ore is piled up like a mountain, it is far from being digested.

Anyway, the universe in the palm of your hand is almost infinite, so it doesn't matter if you hold it.

Returning to the asteroid belt, the mining ship is still mining. Checking the previous records, there is no abnormality.

Although there are very few people here, and the wild monsters that spawn from time to time gradually accumulate, but compared to the distance of the starry sky, it is nothing. There may not be a single living thing in a radius of more than 100,000 kilometers.

Next came another boring day of mining. The only thing better than before was the communication channel opened by Yang Yunbo and several other players, where they could chat.

This communication channel is similar to a regional channel. It is established by the player's radar as the fulcrum. You must have a radar to join, and you must be allowed by others to join. You must be in the current galaxy. If you leave this galaxy, you cannot communicate.

Although the radars they use are not advanced and cannot communicate in real time, there is a delay of about a minute, but it is much better than not being able to communicate before.

The frigate pushed forward along the edge of the asteroid belt, and as long as it encountered a meteorite containing ore, it would be collected into the universe in the palm of its hand, no matter how much ore it contained.

Others also need to consider transportation costs and refining costs, he doesn't need anything.

Time passed day by day, and half a month passed without knowing it.

This day he was digging mines routinely. He opened the universe in his palm and collected a floating meteorite into the huge black hole. After losing this meteorite barrier with a diameter of several kilometers, there was a large empty void behind him, and a huge artificial creation at the end Looming, several armed mining ships are circling the huge artifact.

"Come here again!"

Li Qing glanced at the ore balls piled up next to the huge meteorite embedded in the huge artificial creation, and couldn't help swallowing.

The ore balls were collected because there was no place to put them, so they combined them into a huge mine ball in a special way. Many mining players will do the same, and then use tractor beams to bind the ball around the base, swim around the base, and wait for After accumulating enough ore, it was transported away in one go.

Obviously, this wild monster mining base has already collected a lot of ore, which is too much for the base to hold.

If there is no accident, after a period of time when more ores are accumulated, the base will convert these ores into resources, and then refresh more mining ships or escort fleets.

At this stage, players can snatch these ores, and if they snatch them, they will be raw ores, which can be sold directly for money.

but

Li Qing glanced at the patrolling fleet not far from the base, and the leader was a destroyer.

With my current strength, I definitely can't do it.

but

He left a message to everyone else in the communication channel:

"Brothers, I found an anomaly here. There is a mining base. The ore is piled up into balls. There is a destroyer and more than 20 frigates. Are you interested in making a wave?"

After almost two minutes, Ning Xi replied:

"I can't do it."

At this time, another player named Zhang Weiqi, who was not here last time, said:

"This is meaningless. The most indispensable thing in the asteroid belt is this kind of wild mining base. We have found no less than ten here, and we are not interested in dealing with it."

"what"

Li Qing asked in surprise:

"Can't the six of you handle it together?"

After another two minutes, Zhang Yunbo responded:

"Small-scale ones can be done, of course, but there will inevitably be losses. There are more than 20 frigates plus a destroyer, and the firepower is quite fierce. A frigate will be blown up if it can't carry it a few times. If you lose one, even if you take one Going down to the base is also a loss."

"This kind of mining base will drop some wreckage at most, as well as the ores in the base. There is a very small probability that data chips or blueprints will be dropped, but the drop rate is extremely low, and the ore asteroid belt is the most abundant. It just takes some time to mine. It is not wise to take risks with such a small probability.”

"You only have one ship now, and your strength is too weak. Don't think about other things in the early stage. First make money to buy more mining ships and build a fleet to make money. Only after earning more money in the future will you consider deploying more warships."

"Oh!"

Li Qing stopped talking, they've been around longer than him, so if it's not worth it, it's definitely not worth it.

Putting away his thoughts, the frigate turned and left.

But just halfway through, the frigate stopped again and returned.

Li Qing stood in front of the glass of the bridge and looked at the scene in the distance, holding his chin with his hand, and had a bold idea in his mind.

There is no doubt that you can't beat it, but it doesn't mean that you can't get some benefits.

This wild monster has limited AI, and now he is observing the base from a distance, but the base and the surrounding escort fleet have not found him, which means that the base radar is no match for his third-generation radar, and the coquettish idea in his mind has an operable room.

It's very simple, open the handheld universe outside the detection range of the mining base radar, and steal the mineral balls piled up around the wild monster mining base.

The base cannot be moved, and it is still no problem to steal a mine.

Anyway, the maximum distance of the universe opening in the palm is determined by the line-of-sight, that is, it can be opened within the maximum detection range of the radar.

His radar detection range is farther than that of wild monsters, stealing ore from a long distance, they don't know where the enemy is at all.

The opening space of the universe in the palm is not invincible, but it is definitely not something that can be shaken by the attacks of ordinary wild monsters.

As soon as he thought about it, Li Qing first walked around the vicinity and found a huge meteorite hidden behind him. Then he looked at the picture of the wild monster mining base from the subspace radar sensor in front of him. With a thought, the light curtain displayed the mining base Surrounded by a mine ball with a diameter of four to five kilometers, a huge gap in the black hole quietly opened in front of it, and the mine ball moved inertially and quietly drilled into the black hole.

Then, Li Qing felt a ball made of pure ore with a diameter of nearly five kilometers appeared in the universe in his palm.

"YES!"

He swung his fist vigorously, closing the universe exit in his palm.

Looking at the radar screen again, several frigates are constantly flying back and forth where the mine balls disappeared, like a card bug.

Normally, how could the little AI of wild monsters understand what's going on? It's probably never encountered before, so that there is no way to deal with this aspect in the AI ​​logic, which leads to logic conflicts, resulting in similar card bugs this weird change.

Li Qing was very excited when the attempt was successful. Just that one ball, even if it was all iron ore, the total value would definitely be tens of millions.

There are six such balls in the mining base, and the total income from all of them may exceed 50 million.

It's a pity that it is raw ore. If it is refined ore, the total value may exceed 500 million.

But no matter what, it's all for nothing.

After waiting for a while, Li Qing repeated the old trick and used the same method to steal the other mineral balls one by one.

The escort fleet guarding around the mining base saw the emerging black hole attack, but no matter what the attack was, it could not destroy the black hole.

After stealing all the mines, the frigate quickly retreated, and Li Qing consciously returned to the universe in his palm, full of excitement.

It's not just the six mineral balls worth more than 50 million star dollars, but through the actions just now, he seemed to have opened up a new world, and countless more slapstick operations came to mind.