In the camp, Lu Yuan was surfing the internet on his hibernation pod interface.
Through Ye Xing's live stream, he learned of Red Iron Town's attitude immediately.
The other party was friendly.
Moreover, they were looking forward to improving their lives through trade.
That was enough.
Lu Yuan opened the player community and found that the cloud players were also enthusiastically expressing their opinions on the content of the recent live stream.
"Oasis City will definitely be a huge obstacle to development in the future, conflict is unavoidable, it's best to make plans early."
A user with the ID "Old Man Emitting Black Smoke" posted.
Most people did not agree with his suggestion.
"Big brother, don't be so warlike. Although Oasis City is indeed not straightforward, you still have to size up the situation."
"Yes, I agree with the user above. It's good to uphold justice, but Oasis City has over 70,000 people and can be considered a main city. The strength disparity is too great."
"You also forgot one thing, Oasis City has cooperation with the Raiders and the 'Apollo' company. They are all allies and can unite against you if necessary."
"It's better to go and acknowledge a big brother early. When your strength becomes stronger later, you can just betray them."
"Right, right, right, feign conversion, and apostatize in the future~"
Old Man Emitting Black Smoke completely disagreed with the above opinions.
"No, you haven't figured one thing out. If you want to develop strength, just focusing on leveling up is useless, you must develop industry."
"What does industrial development rely on? First is equipment, second is resources, and third is skilled workers."
"Cangyuan Future Technology needs to replenish a large population from the Desert and Oasis City, especially skilled workers. 3D printers cannot completely replace factories, and specialized large-scale production lines will definitely be needed in the future."
"These production line positions are not suitable for players; otherwise, the gaming experience would be too boring, and they would quit within a few days. We can only rely on NPCs."
"And Oasis City cannot accept its subjects defecting to a new master, so there will inevitably be a war between Cangyuan and Oasis City, and this war will come sooner than imagined."
After his speech, the discussion became heated.
"But isn't this a vicious cycle? Without population, there's no strength. To increase population, you must challenge Oasis City. Without strength, you can't defeat Oasis City. What should we do?"
"Yeah, your logic is correct, but it's not practical. No matter how much you say, you still have to temporarily ally with Oasis City."
"@Old Man Emitting Black Smoke, or rather, do you have any specific strategy you can share?"
Old Man Emitting Black Smoke: "This... I haven't thought it through yet."
Lu Yuan carefully read their discussion.
This Brother Black Smoke is not simple.
At the very least, he was able to realize that Cangyuan would quickly have conflicts of interest with Oasis City before all other cloud players.
Leaving you alone and letting you develop under his nose until your strength surpasses his?
Don't be ridiculous, unless the City Lord is an idiot.
Want to form an alliance with the other party? Without a foundation of strength, what kind of equal cooperation can you talk about?
Using the super function of the hibernation pod chip, Lu Yuan quickly found out Black Smoke's specific information.
He is a relatively older online gamer who managed a very successful guild in World of Warcraft in his early years and also loves playing fighting games.
In reality, he is an electrical Engineer with a senior Engineer title.
Hmm, he is a talent.
As the camp's power generation increases, power distribution facilities will definitely need to be built in the future.
Lu Yuan added Old Man Emitting Black Smoke to the next batch of players and continued to select other community users.
He also needed "experts" in civil engineering. The Raiders only built dry toilets in the camp, which was not acceptable. The future camp must have a complete water supply and drainage system, and waste must be collected centrally.
Lu Yuan selected 4 players, then came to the mountain top outside to stretch his muscles.
Guo Li Cheng, who was left to guard the house, happened to come up on the elevator.
"Executive Officer~" She came up to Lu Yuan, "I suddenly had an idea."
"What idea?"
"We have plasma technology now, don't we?"
"So you want to make high-temperature plasma melee weapons?"
"Huh, how did you know?"
This isn't hard to guess, okay...
The current plasma generation and control technology comes from the plasma cutting equipment of the "Worker Ant" industrial exoskeleton. It cannot be fired long-distance, so it can only be made into melee weapons like swords or axes.
Lu Yuan: "I have to remind you, charging forward to fight the enemy in hand-to-hand combat when you have guns and cannons doesn't sound very smart."
"But I want to try!"
Guo Li Cheng tacitly agreed that it wasn't smart, her big eyes sparkling.
Lu Yuan was eventually moved by those eyes. With the camp's current idle capacity, it was not impossible to trial-produce a plasma weapon.
"Alright, I'll design the weapon. No need to bother Jubian and Xiao Xue. You can also observe nearby and try to learn how to operate the 3D printer as soon as possible."
"Okay!"
Lu Yuan used a two-handed greatsword as a template, choosing high-performance stainless steel and titanium alloy as the main materials. He changed the one-meter-long blade into a strip-shaped plasma generator, added a battery inside the hilt, and an external backpack-style charging pack.
The structure of this weapon was not complicated, and it was quickly completed.
"The battery capacity in the hilt is limited; it can only continuously release ultra-high temperature plasma for 15 seconds each time. You need to use the switch on the hilt to control the timing of your swings yourself, trying to only activate it when slashing the enemy."
"After the power runs out, you need to hang it back on the magnetic backpack to charge, which takes about 10 seconds to fully charge. It can be used a total of 20 times, or 300 seconds."
"Yay! How about the power?" Guo Li Cheng cheered, visibly happy.
Lu Yuan: "The power won't be small. The temperature of the plasma blade is close to 100,000 degrees. As long as you can slash it squarely, it can cut through any substance. Let's go down and test the sword."
The two took the elevator down to the camp area in the canyon. Guo Li Cheng swung the greatsword and tested it on a Raider's tin shack.
The result was as Lu Yuan expected, it was as easy as cutting butter, with a little resistance, but not much.
"But you still need to be careful when using it," Lu Yuan cautioned. "Don't let the high-temperature steam and molten material generated by cutting touch your body."
"Okay! Thank you Executive Officer for your concern! Then I'll go grind instances now~"
With a sharp weapon by her side, Guo Li Cheng was instantly full of confidence and happily ran into the deep cave.
Be careful.
Looking at her retreating figure, Lu Yuan shook his head slightly.
So far, no Mechanical Desert Spiders have been found in the cave inside the camp, but his intuition told him that as long as they explored a little deeper, they would definitely encounter that kind of mechanical creature.
Maybe even an enhanced version.
Whether the plasma melee weapon is easy to use or not, let Guo Li Cheng test it herself. He had to fully believe in the players' creativity and try not to dampen their enthusiasm.
Guo Li Cheng grinded for several hours, but the small team escorting Shen Quan returned first.