Casting an eye over the annual mission, Zhao Chen was still fairly well satisfied.
Requirement 1's monthly earnings, on account of the mining development's income, were already met.
Requirement 4's in-service T4-interstellar-warship count, thanks to the mass entry into service of the T4 Paladin-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Frigates, likewise went straight to five stars.
Requirement 5's controlled star regions, since all five outer star regions were now under Zhao Chen's actual control and had been demarcated by the system as Zhao Chen's, joyfully took five stars too. (As for why it was divided into five star regions — that, in fact, Zhao Chen had marked off himself, directly by the system's stipulated star-region ranges; simple and convenient.)
Adding in the in-progress Requirements 2 and 3, Zhao Chen had thus racked up 20 stars — which counted as meeting the annual mission's minimum requirement.
To go further would depend on the completion of Requirements 2 and 3.
Originally Zhao Chen had worried over the interstellar-warship-count of Requirement 2, but he'd never expected that the T3 Prospector-class Heavy Interstellar Mining Ships he'd produced and assigned into the North Dragon and Rose Red-Dragon Mining Groups would be counted in as well.
And so Zhao Chen's present interstellar-warship count had broken straight past 10,000!
Looked at this way, the five-star requirement of 15,000 was no hard thing to reach before year's end.
The one difficulty was Requirement 3's five classes of T4 combat-type interstellar warship!
If it were only T4 interstellar warships, Zhao Chen already had three classes of auxiliary-type T4.
Only a pity the requirement was for combat-type.
And Zhao Chen at present had only the two, the T4 Vermilion Bird and the T4 Paladin.
Which meant Zhao Chen still needed to settle three more classes before year's end.
Zhao Chen cast a glance at his present 'account balance.'
Host: Zhao Chen
Occupation: Top-tier Starship Engineer
Special attributes: Fleet Luck-Value bonus; Eye of Insight
System points: 1,690,000 (monthly fleet earnings: 940,000 points)
Task points: 380
Interstellar warships: 10,987
Mission: Annual Mission (incomplete); Quarterly Mission (not yet posted)
Warehouse: T5 Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought; Hades Matrix module; T4 Paladin ships……
Because of the mass entry into service of the T3 Prospector-class Heavy Interstellar Mining Ships, the monthly fleet earnings had shot up enormously!
Zhao Chen had made a rough reckoning: by the system's standard, holding a single T3-grade interstellar warship earned about 60 system points a month; a single T4-grade interstellar warship, about 6,000!
The point-yield of different ship-classes differed too — an interstellar battleship's ran higher than an interstellar frigate's; and a higher-grade interstellar warship's ran higher than a lower-grade one's.
This, too, was why Zhao Chen's fleet point-earnings had leapt ahead by bounds.
After all, the overwhelming majority of Zhao Chen's present fleet were T3-grade interstellar warships!
"I ought to lay in a few more classes of T4 combat-type interstellar-warship technology," Zhao Chen muttered inwardly.
With his present system points, redeeming one should be enough.
Zhao Chen opened the system mall and began to browse.
A sweep round, and Zhao Chen very soon fixed on his 'quarry.' An interstellar battleship!
Expend 1,600,000 System points and 80 task points to redeem the item 'T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship'?
Confirm!
Congratulations — obtained the 'T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship' technical blueprint[1]
Before — System points: 1,690,000
Before — task points: 380
Spent — System points: 1,600,000
Spent — task points: 80
After — System points: 90,000
After — task points: 300
Zhao Chen's mood was a touch elated.
The interstellar battleship — this was a most important main-battle ship-class!
An existence of the utmost importance in a large-scale campaign.
The reason Chu Changhe could trade blows back and forth with the Prince Faction for two months and more despite so vast a gap in numbers was precisely that Chu Changhe held a great many T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships in hand — enough to hold the field!
Zhao Chen had all along wanted a T4 interstellar battleship of the Owl Dragon's own.
After all, watching another's T4 Boreas flaunt its might all this while — to say he didn't want one would be a lie.
And this T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship Zhao Chen had just redeemed was, one might say, an interstellar battleship far surpassing the T4 Boreas!
For a start, one could tell from the very name.
Interstellar Armored Battleship!
To be able to add the word 'Armored' meant this was an interstellar warship of exceedingly strong armor-defense.
Zhao Chen called up the relevant brief data.
Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship
Ship-class: Interstellar Battleship
Hull-armor strength: 100,000–130,000 units
Star-shield energy: 2,000,000 units
Cruising speed: 360 star-knots
Warp drive: Grade-8 warp drive
Length: 12.88 kilometers
Mass: 8,660,000 tons
Crew complement: 4,800
Ship weapons: one Blue-Eyes White Dragon-type pulse-laser bow giant cannon (a solar-particle pulse-laser cannon); twelve 15,000mm-caliber heavy electromagnetic railgun main cannons (able to fire nineteen kinds of physical shell — electromagnetic-pulse, armor-piercing, proton, plasma, fusion, and the rest); 288 six-barrel heavy particle-energy rapid-fire cannons; 888 fully automatic high-density eight-barrel energy close-in defense cannons
Zhao Chen's heart was restless beyond measure — it was for all the world as though he saw a bride newly come through the door, sitting on the edge of the bridal bed craning her neck in eager wait for him.
As for its performance data — take the T4 Boreas for comparison.
In hull length the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon was twice the T4 Boreas; in hull mass, a full three times the Boreas!
And yet, for all that, the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon's starship engine and energy system ensured that its sailing speed was not a bit behind the T4 Boreas.
In hull-armor defense, it left the T4 Boreas several streets behind — even the hull armor of the T4 Paladin-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Frigate Zhao Chen had just put into service came off slightly the lesser.
In star-shield defense it led the T4 Boreas by half a head, though set against the other T4 interstellar warships under Zhao Chen's hand it could only be called average — for this was, after all, an interstellar warship that took hull armor as its means of defense.
And last, as for weaponry — one can only say that a single T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship could take on five T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships!
One can well imagine, then, just how terrifying this T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon was.
Having looked over the performance, next, naturally, came the build requirements.
The build cost ran to a full 20 billion star coins!
It had to be said, this build cost was truly terrifying — by all estimates, enough to build several T4 Boreas.
And if it was a T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship undertaking the build, it needed five months' build time.
Though a T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship could undertake it too, built by a single one it would need a full 300 months.
"Get me Annie." Zhao Chen suddenly turned and looked toward Lilith behind him.
Lilith paused — how had the Commander suddenly thought of contacting Annie?
At this moment Annie, still 'battling on' at her own work post, suddenly gave a sneeze, and shivered all over.
"Could I have caught a cold?" Annie muttered, supposing it must be that these past few days she'd toiled and suffered too hard — for the sake of that big pig-trotter of a Commander she'd borne it all without complaint.
Annie sighed on her own behalf a moment, then reached for a basin-sized tub of ice cream beside her and began gnawing at it.