Lu Yuan gathered a few people together to understand the general situation.
First of all, Red Iron Town can produce various types of metal in large quantities, which is beyond doubt.
Using high-purity metal ingots as raw materials to produce various types of equipment can greatly reduce production energy consumption, shorten production time, and is crucial for industrial development.
However, precious goods like rare metals, even if supplied to Cangyuan on a small scale, would be enough to attract the attention of Oasis City.
"The Town Chief said he would forge a record of equipment failure so that he can reconcile accounts with Oasis City in the future," Jubian said, "Perhaps Oasis City won't detect our presence for a short time."
Lu Yuan waved his hand.
"Red Iron Town has a population of several thousand, and there must be spies placed by Oasis City among them. The news will spread quickly. From the moment you set off, I was already prepared to make contact with Oasis City."
Oh, as expected of the Executive Officer!
Everyone nodded.
"Let's talk about what goods are most in demand over there. I plan to trade with them and gradually build trust."
"Red Iron Town basically lacks everything," Nan Guo de Xue said, "Oasis City keeps the purchase prices very low. They earn very little money from selling metal and can only buy the most basic living supplies and production equipment."
"But what they lack most should still be weapons. The people there feel a great lack of security," Caoyuan said.
"Hey, is anyone there?"
As they were talking, Guo Li Cheng's voice came from the dungeon entrance.
"I captured a big one alive! Come help!"
Captured alive?
So fierce!?
Everyone followed Guo Li Cheng into the cave, all surprised by her achievement.
Guo Li Cheng had taken down a Mechanical Desert Spider variant. That guy had six legs and was bigger than a regular Mechanical Desert Spider, estimated to be six or seven hundred kilograms.
"Damn, you took it down by yourself?" Ye Xing took his cousin's greatsword and swung it a couple of times, feeling it wasn't particularly easy to use.
"How did you do it?"
"Don't even mention it," Guo Li Cheng took off her helmet and took a few breaths of fresh air. "At first, I couldn't beat it. After being pushed to a dead end, I decided to give it my all. So, I rolled to dodge the attack, then did a slide tackle..."
Everyone cast suspicious glances.
Guo Li Cheng: "I'm serious!"
Lu Yuan stepped forward to inspect and found that the Mechanical Desert Spider's body was paralyzed, with only its four camera eyes still looking around in panic.
Poor guy.
The scan results showed that Guo Li Cheng only managed one stab, but that single stab, whether due to skill or just sheer luck, precisely severed the Mechanical Desert Spider's "spinal cord," which is the bus, thus completely preserving its CPU and memory storage.
In addition, Guo Li Cheng also explored nearly 7 kilometers of underground tunnels, making Ye Xing, who was an Investigator, feel inferior.
As expected of a Soul Roam fanatic, map exploration is a basic skill!
This map data had already been shared to everyone's tactical helmets.
"Um... Mr. Executive Officer?"
At this moment, Nan Guo de Xue approached Lu Yuan.
"What is it?"
"Since the Mechanical Desert Spider's 'brain' is intact, I want to try downloading its artificial intelligence program and applying it to our drones. Perhaps I can even reprogram it and convert it into a mechanical servant."
"Is something like that possible?" Lu Yuan was very interested in this suggestion.
"As long as we print a main interface, it shouldn't be difficult. The Mechanical Desert Spider is a human creation and uses our own human programming logic."
"What about the danger?"
"It's hard to guarantee absolute safety, but even if the target goes out of control, it's easy to suppress."
"Alright, go ahead and do it."
Over the next two days, Lu Yuan had the 3D printer produce 4 more player hibernation pods.
Afterward, he sent invitations to the 4 selected new players and also released the version update announcement.
【Version 0.1a Update Announcement.】
【Balance Changes: Based on actual gameplay feedback, the new version will appropriately lower the game difficulty. As the plot develops, more powerful industrial equipment will appear in the camp. Please look forward to it!】
【New Profession Series: Added the Engineer profession. This profession series gains extra experience from daily design, construction, as well as equipment installation, calibration, and repair. When leveling up, prioritize increasing Intelligence and Strength.】
【Added Melee Gameplay: In certain special circumstances, melee weapons incorporating future technology will be more effective.】
【Content Expansion: Now, Oasis City and more Raiders camps have been completed. They are located deeper in the Desert, waiting for players to explore!】
【Increased Testing Slots: Benefiting from server upgrades, the number of closed beta players will be greatly increased.】
"Oasis City is already done? The development team is quite efficient."
As expected, in the player community, the most discussed topic was Li Star, the main city shrouded in mystery.
"What I'm really interested in is whether this city is actually modeled to the scale of 70,000 people, or if it's like most games, a miniature city with only a small number of NPCs?"
"Industry common sense tells me it's definitely the latter, but given the tone of this game, it might just be the former!"
"Agreed, the suspense is huge."
"Ah, what's there to be suspenseful about? Just have a rich guy give some gifts to the great Ye Xing and let him go take a look first, wouldn't that work?"
【Jin Yi Ye Xing】: "Hehe, I will definitely fulfill this request as soon as possible!"
"Holy crap! It's him, quickly hold him down..."
On the players' side, the Mechanical Desert Spider was successfully reprogrammed, and its AI behavior logic was extracted. It is currently being modified by Xue Jie, the expert, to develop an autonomous patrol program for drones.
The reprogrammed Mechanical Desert Spider was converted into a pack animal. It can carry a team of up to 5 people and a large amount of supplies into the depths of the cave to save players' stamina, or help drag heavy loot out of the dungeon.
This type of Mechanical Desert Spider uses a larger methane tank. Its six-legged walking mechanism is more suitable for the rugged terrain inside the cave compared to wheels. After being fully fueled, it can walk over 500 kilometers, and its sprinting speed is also quite fast, reaching 50 kilometers per hour.
Since it was extremely useful, Lu Yuan issued a quest to capture more Mechanical Desert Spiders alive.
After the player hibernation pods, he additionally produced more plasma melee weapons, including great axes, one-handed swords, and spears, and personally joined the fun spider-catching competition.
However, capturing them alive was not easy. Currently, everyone is exploring and practicing, and no one has been able to replicate Guo Li Cheng's slide tackle plus "God's One Sword."
The armor-piercing effect of plasma weapons is too good. If you accidentally cut through the methane tank, the result is everyone nearby running to wait for resurrection.
A more reliable method is for one person to first suppress with grenades, and the rest take the opportunity to surround it from all sides and cut off all six mechanical legs.
This way, you just need to print out the damaged parts with a 3D printer and replace them. Repairs won't take up too much production capacity.
Ye Xing and Caoyuan could also manage to only break the legs with just their marksmanship, but this performance wasn't stable every time, and not everyone had the marksmanship these two did.
Looking at the diligent mechanical pack animals going in and out of the dungeon, an idea arose in Lu Yuan's mind.
If this thing is slightly modified and transported to Red Iron Town, it can definitely greatly improve mining efficiency!