were
sparks, not to mention the tanks that were holding back behind a ridgeline.
When the leading edge of the sparks crossed it they moved in, using the terrain
to block the firing lines from the mechs.
When that happened Tom sent Victoria a signal to take
them in, with him bringing the escort drone mechs along with her. They would
need to take the tanks head on, or otherwise their greater armor would allow
them to eat up the sparks. In the future they’d try to develop anti-tank
variants but right now all these could handle was anti-infantry, with massed
attack as the only hope against heavier targets.
That was one of the primary challenges for Tom today,
to see what he could do against them. The sparks were little more than floating
micro turrets that could be taken out with a single tank blast, so it was going
to be in the maneuvering that he gained an advantage rather than through any
shield recharging strategies that the Archons used heavily in naval combat.
Virtually everything Star Force built had that longevity in mind, but Tom was
going to have to go a different way against the tanks his mechs couldn’t take
down.
He barely noticed as Victoria opened fire on the
closest one, seeing it through the ‘eyes’ of the sparks and not the mech’s
telemetry. He was viewing the other four but not the morpheus ,
allowing him to handle more of the drones in lieu of keeping in the loop as to
what Victoria was doing. If his mental control were a hurricane, then the morpheus was the calm center of that storm that he was
completely blind to…which made his copilot even more invaluable in keeping him
alive.
Tom knew he was being crude with his control, but
right now he was using only three options for each spark. Target and fire,
position change, and altitude change. When he needed a lot of plasma beams on a
tank he’d raise up and stack the sparks into a wall, or form a brick of them
that would push into the infantry bots, flaking off dead sparks and driving
well into their formation in order to disrupt it. He’d send reinforcements up
that corridor so they could fire on the others from the sides, getting more
guns on target and managing the flow of bots that kept increasing with every
minute.
Had these been Regulars,
Knights, and Archons on the ground they would have necessarily turtled up and
worked to kill off those closest to them, weathering the storm through armor
and shields and rotational strategies in order to keep anyone from getting
killed, but since the sparks were just machines Tom could be more aggressive
and abandoned most of the shield recharging formations and just hammered the
opposing infantry. One on one the sparks would win easily, and it was important
for Tom to keep the bots from massing too densely, else their combined
firepower would eat through the sparks quite fast.
To do that he sent clusters shooting out into the
enemy formation like fingers, then spreading them out and sending units right
into the midst of the enemy formations expecting to lose them, but not before
they killed many bots and thinned the lines…at which point he’d surge the
others and wipe them out using traditional cycling strategies to preserve the
rest of his mechanical troops.
It worked well enough that he saw the infantry bots
start to pull back after about 12 minutes of fighting…then the tiny bit of his
brain that was still left to wonder realized it was because the walkers had
just gotten up over the ridge and into firing position. These leonardos were configured mostly as troop transports, but
the defensive weaponry on them was more than sufficient to do damage to armored
targets at range, not to mention some point defense weapons for if the bots
ever got close enough to start chipping away at their legs.
Suddenly there were more targets popping up, which Tom
only noticed due to their proximity to the walkers. He and the mechs were up
with the tanks now, leaving the walkers in the back with the extra
sparks, not to mention the tanks that were holding back behind a ridgeline.
When the leading edge of the sparks crossed it they moved in, using the terrain
to block the firing lines from the mechs.
When that happened Tom sent Victoria a signal to take
them in, with him bringing the escort drone mechs along with her. They would
need to take the tanks head on, or otherwise their greater armor would allow
them to eat up the sparks. In the future they’d try to develop anti-tank
variants but right now all these could handle was anti-infantry, with massed
attack as the only hope against heavier targets.
That was one of the primary challenges for Tom today,
to see what he could do against them. The sparks were little more than floating
micro turrets that could be taken out with a single tank blast, so it was going
to be in the maneuvering that he gained an advantage rather than through any
shield recharging strategies that the Archons used heavily in naval combat.
Virtually everything Star Force built had that longevity in mind, but Tom was
going to have to go a different way against the tanks his mechs couldn’t take
down.
He barely noticed as Victoria opened fire on the
closest one, seeing it through the ‘eyes’ of the sparks and not the mech’s
telemetry. He was viewing the other four but not the morpheus ,
allowing him to handle more of the drones in lieu of keeping in the loop as to
what Victoria was doing. If his mental control were a hurricane, then the morpheus was the calm center of that storm that he was
completely blind to…which made his copilot even more invaluable in keeping him
alive.
Tom knew he was being crude with his control, but
right now he was using only three options for each spark. Target and fire,
position change, and altitude change. When he needed a lot of plasma beams on a
tank he’d raise up and stack the sparks into a wall, or form a brick of them
that would push into the infantry bots, flaking off dead sparks and driving
well into their formation in order to disrupt it. He’d send reinforcements up
that corridor so they could fire on the others from the sides, getting more
guns on target and managing the flow of bots that kept increasing with every
minute.
Had these been Regulars,
Knights, and Archons on the ground they would have necessarily turtled up and
worked to kill off those closest to them, weathering the storm through armor
and shields and rotational strategies in order to keep anyone from getting
killed, but since the sparks were just machines Tom could be more aggressive
and abandoned most of the shield recharging formations and just hammered the
opposing infantry. One on one the sparks would win easily, and it was important
for Tom to keep the bots from massing too densely, else their combined
firepower would eat through the sparks quite fast.
To do that he sent clusters shooting out into the
enemy formation like fingers, then spreading them out and sending units right
into the midst of the enemy formations expecting to lose them, but not before
they killed many bots and thinned the lines…at which point he’d surge the
others and wipe them out using traditional cycling strategies to preserve the
rest of his mechanical troops.
It worked well enough that he saw the infantry bots
start to pull back after about 12 minutes of fighting…then the tiny bit of his
brain that was still left to wonder realized it was because the walkers had
just gotten up over the ridge and into firing position. These leonardos were configured mostly as troop transports, but
the defensive weaponry on them was more than sufficient to do damage to armored
targets at range, not to mention some point defense weapons for if the bots
ever got close enough to start chipping away at their legs.
Suddenly there were more targets popping up, which Tom
only noticed due to their proximity to the walkers. He and the mechs were up
with the tanks now, leaving the walkers in the back with the extra
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