[Server Announcement: The outpost has acquired a "magnetic confinement plasma processing machine tool." Durability: 99%. Industrial index: +100.]
[Note 1: This machine tool is capable of manufacturing metal parts of any geometry. Players may now submit blueprints and state their intended use to the Administrator's Assistant to obtain quotes and material requirements. Blueprints can be drawn in-game or submitted electronically via your personal page on the official website.]
[Note 2: The processing equipment can alter only the geometric shape of materials, not their inherent properties, and the cutting process generates scrap. If you wish to process steel ingots into steel pipes, please pre-treat them into rods or near-rod shapes first. If you wish to turn copper ingots into copper wire, please use a wire drawing machine; do not monopolize precious machine tool resources.]
[Note 3: The maximum dimensions for raw materials are restricted to 1x1x1 m. Materials exceeding these specifications cannot be processed.]
The announcement went live at six in the evening.
This coincided with peak login and logout hours for the players.
Whether they were brick-moving players hauling scrap from the northern ruins or hunters grinding in Yumu District, the vast majority had returned to the operational camp.
Looking at the notification popping up on their VMs, surprised expressions washed over the players' faces.
"A magnetic confinement plasma machine tool?"
"And it's CNC?"
"What kind of stitched-together chimera is that? Why have I never heard of it?"
"It'd be weird if you had. In real life, keeping confinement for one minute is already considered 'high confinement' and a 'long pulse.' Know what that means? Never mind, you wouldn't get it even if I told you."
"Man, these devs have wild imaginations. They talk out of their asses without even drafting a script!"
Although Chu Guang wanted to share his joy with them, human sorrows and joys were rarely aligned.
The vast majority of players had no idea how hard-won this machine tool was, nor could they know how much sacrifice had been made by those players locked out by the bug.
In their minds, it simply meant Boss Xia had gained another workbench—not only could she drill sockets into weapons now, but maybe she could engrave runes on them too?
Pointless features either way!
Smarter players, however, linked it to the Alpha 0.8 patch notes.
The outpost's industrial index had jumped by 100 points on top of the original 150, reaching 250... which was a 66% increase, right?
Didn't that mean the weapons shop was about to roll out new stock?!
A few players with slightly more dubious aspirations happened to be at the outpost, and they excitedly grabbed blocks of steel ingots and rushed to the Administrator's Assistant to ask for quotes according to the instructions.
Some wanted to make an axe, while others wanted to turn a steel ingot into a rifle. In the end, though, most left swearing under their breath.
Why?
Because it wasn't worth it at all!
The machine tool's startup fee alone was a staggering 100 silver coins, and the quote to process a single axe was another 100 silver, bringing the total to 200 silver.
With that kind of money, you could buy twenty axes! If you bought in bulk from No. 81 Steel Mill, you'd probably even have change left over.
As for rifles, the quote to machine a rifled barrel was 200 silver, and players had to provide the steel rods themselves.
If they didn't have any, the operation required plasma thermal welding, which doubled the price on the spot.
For that much silver, you could buy two rifles in the weapons shop!
Then again, using such an advanced machine tool for an ordinary rifle made no financial sense anyway.
Meanwhile, inside No. 81 Steel Mill.
Sitting on a small wooden stool, Ya'er I Wanna Go to the Restroom rubbed his chin with one hand and clutched a steel ingot with the other. After staring at it in contemplation for a long time, he finally squeezed out a sentence:
"I reckon that machine tool is meant for making production tools!"
His buddy, Who'll Smell My Athlete's Foot, rolled his eyes.
"No shit! Take an eight-figure lab CNC machine to mill seamless steel pipes and see if your boss doesn't cave your skull in."
Brother Toilet Cable said, "Uh... I think he'd panic, call the cops, and send me straight to prison."
Brother Levin said, "The operating cost for this machine is genuinely absurd. I don't think it's meant for individual players at all. Just the startup fee is 100 silver coins. Unless you're a shelter-backed enterprise, ordinary solo operations don't stand a chance!"
Brother Toilet Cable replied, "Not necessarily. Old Mosquito could definitely afford it!"
Brother Levin sighed. "Don't even mention him. Anyone who looks at that guy knows he's walking on thin ice with the law. By the way, how much money do we have left in our account?"
Brother Toilet Cable answered, "4,000 silver... The new recruits bought a bunch of axes and arrowheads earlier. Why? Time for a dividend payout?"
Brother Levin scoffed, "Dividend my ass! As if this little change is enough to split. I plan to build a hot piercing mill. Those parts we couldn't make before should be machinable with this new tool. Once we have a piercing mill, we can produce seamless steel pipes!"
Hearing that, Brother Toilet Cable's eyes lit up.
"Brilliant, bro! We're on the exact same page!"
Brother Levin rolled his eyes again. "Save the praise. When we log off later, go find the schematics and upload them. Let's pick a simpler design; I figure it shouldn't cost too much."
Brother Toilet Cable grinned. "Got it, bro! That was actually my graduation project!"
...
While Brother Levin and Brother Toilet Cable were scheming their grand blueprint to scale up the seamless steel pipe industry and forge wasteland glory, Xiao Qi tilted its camera toward Chu Guang on the third floor of the nearby sanatorium and asked softly,
"Master, isn't the price you set a bit too expensive?"
At least a dozen people had asked for quotes just now, but upon hearing that the startup fee alone was 100 silver coins, they had turned around and bolted.
One hundred silver just to turn it on—it was daylight robbery!
Hearing Xiao Qi's concern, Chu Guang brushed it aside.
"It's not expensive at all. If anything, it's too cheap. They think it's pricey only because they don't grasp the patch meta, which proves they aren't our target audience. If there were no barrier to entry, heaven knows what kind of blueprints they'd dump on us. Do you want to waste that machine churning out crappy spears and beat-up axes?"
For that sort of thing, go bother Boss Xia!
Between her DIY workbench and the salvaged one, both could handle that basic stuff.
Xiao Qi nodded its camera in partial comprehension, seeming to understand yet not quite. In its view, if he didn't want the machine used for those items, couldn't he just forbid them by rule?
Why go through the roundabout method of using an economic threshold?
Chu Guang had no intention of explaining his motives to an AI, nor the difference between human behavioral logic and machine algorithms.
To put it simply, he didn't oppose players coming up with weird and creative ideas, but he needed systemic boundaries to force them to consider whether an idea was worthwhile before indulging in it.
Just as Xiao Qi had noted, this machine tool was never meant to manufacture crude junk.
Take the AK-47 he had machined earlier. Six kilograms of steel yielded a three-kilogram finished part, while the rest was turned into strangely shaped scrap that would likely have to be melted down in the steel mill.
On top of that came electricity consumption and the natural depletion of inert gas during operation. Those were tangible expenses, to say nothing of the hidden costs.
The tool's true purpose was to manufacture tools of production, or—when proper materials were available—to fabricate high-value, high-precision equipment.
The latter was out of the question for now, while the former was the primary goal at this stage.
Chu Guang intended to take it one step at a time. First, let his players build a hot piercing mill to solve the gun barrel bottleneck.
Setting aside three-roll continuous rolling and centering straighteners for now, a single piercing mill was enough to produce seamless steel pipes.
Whether they could mass-produce efficiently with consistent quality was a concern for later. They had to achieve manufacturing capability before worrying about optimization.
For a long time to come, seamless steel pipes would serve as Shelter 404's core pillar industry.
As for the receiver manufacturing process...
Chu Guang debated between milled and stamped receivers for a moment, ultimately settling on the latter.
Although milled receivers were more modern and precise, their drawbacks were glaring: wasted material, steep demands on personnel and machinery, and sluggish production speeds.
For instance, the AK-47 he had machined earlier technically had a milled receiver; even the barrel and its internal rifling had been carved out with a mono-atomic cutter.
Stamped receivers were a different story. Aside from the initial hassle of creating the dies, the actual production process required virtually no technical expertise and boasted extraordinary mass-production efficiency.
The only flaw was poorer accuracy, but against the twin virtues of dirt-cheap cost and rugged durability, that flaw wasn't really a flaw—at most a minor quirk.
After all, in the wasteland, the average combat engagement distance was under a hundred meters. Hitting a bullseye mattered far less than firing fast and firing reliably.
Building upon stamping techniques, Chu Guang decided to mimic the AK receiver directly and design a 7mm rifle.
Compared to the AR platform's upper-and-lower receiver layout and seven-lug rotating bolt, the AK's U-shaped receiver and two-lug bolt were more than twice as easy to produce. Once the dies were pressed, an entire receiver could be stamped from a single sheet of steel.
What did stamping from a single sheet mean?
It meant receivers could roll off the line like pages from an ink printer. Slap on a barrel and a solid wooden stock, and it was ready for war—a flawless fit for the harsh demands of wasteland combat.
There was a reason the design sold so well across the third world.
In places where human life was cheap, firearms had to be as inexpensive as possible.
Otherwise, dying with an expensive gun was far too wasteful, wasn't it?
...
The next morning.
A bustling crowd packed the entrance to the weapons shop. Many players had rushed back from the operational camp the previous night, eagerly awaiting the shop's opening.
Boss Xia, yawning, had long grown used to the sight.
Opening the shop on the dot as usual, she carried out the two prototypes Chu Guang had asked her to make yesterday and hung them in the semi-open display window.
They were two rifles made of solid wood and pure steel.
One had a compact layout, with a stock and magazine typical of an assault rifle. A top rail allowed for optical sights, and a foregrip could be mounted beneath the barrel.
The other had a noticeably elongated barrel and receiver. Its magazine was recessed into the body, showing only a slightly wide triangular outline.
Both shared a rugged silhouette and bold, utilitarian lines. Their appearances were so similar that they looked like brothers rolled off the exact same assembly line. Not only did they look alike, their designations were nearly identical too: the longer one was labeled LD-47s, and the shorter one LD-47.
Furthermore, they shared a stylish nickname—
Sickle!
"Holy crap, the weapons shop really did get new stock today! Brother Fang Chang is a prophet!"
"I know this one! The LD-47s must be a sniper rifle!"
"Understood! It's a Kar98k!"
"98k my ass! That's obviously a DMR!"
"Wait, that short one... why does it look more and more like an AK the longer I stare at it?"
"Be confident, drop the doubt. The devs got lazy again. They probably ripped the skin straight out of CrossFire!"
Both guns were remarkably cheap: 250 silver coins for the long one and 200 for the short one—only twice the price of a pipe rifle!
Nowadays, what veteran player didn't have two hundred silver coins in their pocket? Just that skirmish with the Legion had paid out a base reward of 150 silver!
While many were still hesitating, the quick-handed Tail had already made her move.
"Proprietress! Give me one! Tail wants the long one! Give the short one to Sisi."
Xia Yan rolled her eyes at the short-haired girl and yawned, letting a few words fall from her lips.
"Samples, not for sale. Want to buy, wait two days."
Hearing this clumsy, non-standard Mandarin, the surrounding players froze in astonishment.
Holy shit?
The boss lady hadn't just gotten a new leg—her voice pack had updated too!
What an epic buff!
While the entrance of the weapons shop buzzed with excitement, the southern industrial zone was equally lively.
Several production players who had registered as sole proprietors logged in, intending to hop onto trucks to the operational camp's market, only to see their VM quest logs suddenly flood with a barrage of orders.
Some called for manufacturing wooden stocks, others for grips. The difficulty was minimal—so simple that anyone with hands could manage.
Slightly more demanding orders required grinding lenses and assembling optical sights, offering a wide variety of tasks.
All these quests shared one common feature: generous rewards, further boosted by an extra 10% bonus from the Alpha 0.8 update!
In addition, the first 100 orders completed for each item granted bonus contribution points and regional reputation.
Who would dare miss out on this?!
Spurred by such juicy rewards, many lifestyle players were practically in ecstasy. One by one, they grabbed their tools and bolted into their workshops, eager to weld their rear ends to their stools.
Of course, compared to those independent handcrafters, the real winner was a certain "manufacturing titan" backed by shelter investment.
Early that morning, No. 81 Steel Mill received an exclusive order: [Manufacture 100 receivers and 100 barrels for the outpost.]
The order came with strict specifications for materials, dimensions, and tolerances; the manufacturing difficulty was considerable.
None of that mattered, though!
What mattered was that the wise and mighty Lord Administrator had not only offered a generous sum of 4,000 silver coins, but had also wired a 50% advance payment upfront.
This sudden windfall left Brother Toilet Cable and Brother Levin dizzy with excitement.
Even though the money sat in the corporate account, money was money!
Fired up by the order, the pair abandoned their earlier hesitation. Armed with their 4,000 silver savings and their warehouse's vast stock of steel, they rushed to the Administrator's Assistant to order a large batch of parts, eager to dive into production and set up both the piercing mill for gun barrels and the stamping dies for receivers.
On top of that, they sank the freshly acquired 2,000 silver advance right into posting scavenging commissions and ordering raw materials.
Although the mill's account was drained down to the last copper, neither felt the slightest unease. Instead, the future looked brighter than ever.
On the surface, fulfilling this contract didn't net them any immediate profit; they had even poured their own savings into it.
Could you look at things only on the surface?
Of course not!
That money hadn't vanished; it had merely taken on a higher form to remain by their side forever.
With a piercing mill and receiver dies, they could fulfill countless future orders, slashing production costs and ramping up efficiency until their snowball grew unstoppable.
Far from taking a loss, they had won big!
Coincidentally, as the steel mill's majority shareholder, the wise and mighty Lord Administrator thought the exact same thing.
To Chu Guang, the silver didn't matter. What mattered was that this single stroke dramatically boosted the mill's production capacity while slashing the outpost's logistical burden.
All it had cost him was a few thousand worthless game tokens.
Calling this winning big wasn't quite right.
It was a win-win!
After all, he had won twice.
Beyond the firearms themselves, Chu Guang intended to roll out wooden stocks, triangular bayonets, magazines, drum mags, bipods, and optical scopes.
Down the road, selling accessories and ammunition alone would recoup vast sums of silver coins. He could even dump the surplus capacity onto surrounding wastelanders or export weapons back to Red River Town and Boulder City.
Chu Guang was certain that as long as his guns were cheap enough, mercenaries and caravan guards who couldn't afford high-end gear would fall head over heels for him.
"Still... once that time comes, relying on arcade tokens as currency won't cut it anymore."
Though these pre-war arcade tokens were well-crafted with decent anti-counterfeiting features, their supply was fundamentally limited.
Players could use digital balances, but wastelanders wouldn't accept invisible wealth; they didn't even trust paper banknotes.
Moreover, Chu Guang couldn't be sure whether that wandering merchant Sun Shiqi had held something back—like stashing away a bag of coins instead of selling them all.
Such a scenario was entirely possible.
Watching the outpost's industrial zone hum with renewed vigor, Chu Guang made a quiet resolution.
"A second-generation currency must be rolled out as soon as possible!"
This project had to be completed before winter ended.
Once winter passed, trade across Qingquan City's northern outskirts would surge back to life. When that happened, the players would step into a wider, more open, and far more challenging world.
Right then, a familiar voice came from behind, pulling Chu Guang's thoughts back to the present.
Fang Chang, fully geared up, gave a slight nod and spoke with respectful deference. "Respected Lord Administrator, we are ready. When do we depart?"
Rising from his chair, Chu Guang gripped the warhammer resting beside him and slung it across his back.
"Now."
Chapter 161