Swapping Battle Losses
If we only look at the numbers, the Swarm's losses seem to be Duoqi Race, but in terms of actual combat losses, the Swarm is not at a loss at all, and can even be said to have made a huge profit.
In terms of size, the Swarm lost mostly 500-700 meter-class Space Octopus, while the Duoqi Race lost giant warships around 2000 meters in size. Although they may seem to be similar in length, their tonnage can differ by tens or even hundreds of times.
In terms of tonnage, the Duoqi Race suffered a huge loss.
There are reasons why it has reached this level.
Taking someone by surprise is one thing, but without a clash of hard power, no amount of tricks will be of any use.
The external Reactive Armor of the Duoqi Race warships was specially developed for energy-based weapons and has extremely high resistance; otherwise, it would not have been able to withstand the barrage of cannon fire.
The Swarm, on the other hand, didn't take any shortcuts and relied entirely on their armor to withstand the attacks. If it were the Primordial -Ancient Class from decades ago, the casualties would certainly be much higher, perhaps dozens of times greater. In fact, the Duoqi Race could have completely wiped out the Zerg base on Chuyun Planet with only a small cost.
However, in the first battle on Laze Planet more than a decade ago, the Swarm forces broke through the Riken Race's numerous obstacles and finally planted Creep on Laze Planet. Subsequently, those Creep were subjected to relentless bombardment by the Riken Race day and night.
During this period, the Swarm collected a large amount of data, and the genetic structure of the Creep was adjusted. The resulting external manifestation was that the Riken Race found that energy beam bombardment was becoming increasingly difficult to damage the Creep. Finally, as a last resort, they used "Riken's Radiance" to completely vaporize and eliminate it.
However, all the previous data had already been uploaded through the Swarm Network, and the external armor of the Swarm combat units was subsequently upgraded.
Later, Rowan even mobilized a group of Intellect to be specifically responsible for the testing and upgrading of the external armor of space combat units. They had several dedicated underground experimental sites in the rear for research.
Over the years, the Space Octopus's external armor has undergone several minor upgrades, but it has not been tested in actual combat and there has been no feedback on new large-scale campaign data, so its actual performance is unknown.
The second battle on Laze Planet was a moderately intense one, but unfortunately, the troops involved had been deployed from the Proxima Star System long before, and they did not have the energy and resources to upgrade their armor in this wave.
After the war ended, the Riken Race retreated all the way to the Binary Star Defense Line. The Swarm forces, having acquired resource stars, completed their upgrades. However, the two sides entered a stalemate and there were no more large-scale confrontations, not even a low-intensity war.
Therefore, although the Swarm didn't deliberately conceal their armor, it remained undetected due to the lack of combat. Until now, the Duoqi Race have gotten the first taste of their advantage.
Since this was the first time the Duoqi Race had fought against the insectoids, although they felt that the enemy's defense level seemed to be much higher than the intelligence indicated, they simply assumed it was an intelligence error and didn't think much of it.
But the Riken Race, who were watching the spectacle unfold, had definitely sensed something. However, they were now quite confused. Was the world changing too fast? Or had the other side been holding back all along? They couldn't dwell on this question, otherwise they would most likely be the ones to suffer in the end.
However, synthetic metals are indeed much stronger than biological materials in resisting energy attacks, which is an inherent limitation. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the Swarm. This time, we can capture several Duoqi warships. When we reverse-engineer the materials of the Reactive Armor, the Swarm's Biological Armor should receive a small upgrade.
Moreover, combat isn't just about comparing weapons and armor. For example, the damage to the Duoqi Race warships was genuine damage. Not to mention those that were completely destroyed, even those whose structures were relatively intact but whose engines were damaged and rendered them inoperable had to either self-destruct or await dismantling, which were all real losses.
On the Swarm side, although many combat units have withdrawn from the battlefield, they have mostly withdrawn because they cannot recover in a short period of time. So far, none of them have truly died completely. They do not have any particularly obvious fatal weaknesses. As long as the Node Strain all over their bodies are not completely destroyed, they all have a chance to slowly recover, it's just a matter of time.
Some of these vehicles had most of their body parts pierced, and their engines, radar, and other systems were destroyed, but their weapon systems were relatively well preserved. After simple restoration, they could still be put back into the battlefield.
Dialo was clearly aware of some of the Swarm's characteristics; he needed to create distance to regain the initiative.
Amidst the roar of artillery fire, the two sides exchanged fire several more rounds, with the firing rate generally maintained at three rounds from the Duoqi Race and two rounds from the Swarm.
The casualties in both battles continued to increase. During this period, the Duoqi Fleet lost more than two hundred warships, and the Swarm also lost thousands of Ancient Class ships.
Dialo clearly couldn't accept this exchange of forces, but fortunately they were about to turn to the other side of Chuyun Planet. By then, with the cover of Chuyun Planet, they might have already replanned their route and accelerated their evacuation.
"Your Majesty, although our Ancient Class are still maintaining firepower, more than 70% of their engine systems have been damaged to varying degrees, limiting their mobility. Once they get around to the rear of Chuyun Planet, there won't be many Ancient Class ships left for us to catch up with," a Blade said with some concern.
Sarah stared at the battlefield, did some quick calculations, and then said, "Have all the mobile Ancient Class engage them! The rest enter Overload mode, disregard damage, and try to fire as many rounds as possible."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
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"Your Highness, the Zerg have caught up, but judging from the exchange of fire just now, their losses are far more severe than we imagined. More than 70% of them are motionless, seemingly incapacitated." Aslite summarized the information sent from various parts of the fleet and promptly reported it to Dialo.
"Phew... I knew they couldn't have only lost this much, but even so, it's still too different from what was described in the intelligence. Do you think the Suzerain is deliberately trying to harm us?" Dialo's imagination ran wild, and he thought of all sorts of things.
"I don't think it's necessary. It's probably just a simple misinformation or the Zerg have been hiding their true strength all along. They deliberately increased their losses against the Riken Race, which led to our misjudgment," Aslite said softly, inwardly cursing the Suzerain for really trying to harm him. Why did he have to go through all this trouble?
"You're right, it's infuriating! What were these Zerg guarding against before? Did they really need to be so cautious?"
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