Chapter 172: Turrets in the walls

Reinforcing a town without anyone knowing. That’s something I’ve not attempted before, that’s for sure. It might seem simple at first… Until you actually start planning things. Shields, too flashy, and I hate them. Mobs of some kind, first I don’t know how to do it; second, it’s pretty apparent.

My current idea is hidden turrets of some kind. Searching my NEI, several turrets seemed promising. Open Modular Turrets seems like the best option for the task I want.

Turning to Paul, “I’m am going to be neck-deep in crafting; you can wait around or head home.”

“Boring,” he whines. “I’ll wait for ya, pain. See ya at deh island.” He says before disappearing in purple particles.

“So extra.” Would have teleported him back to save him the charge.

Returning home, I begin to make a ton of level 1 turret bases and disposable turrets. Along with this, I prepare a vibrant capacity bank, ender alloy wires, item pipes, and stuff for and a cobblestone generator.

To power what I intend to build, I prepare some thermoelectric generators.

After all this, I head back to the town. Thankfully, the walls are three thick, so as subtle as I can be, I burrow into them. Like a belt, I hollow out a large ring around the entire wall. This task alone took a very long time. The wall is absolutely massive. The belt is about 4 blocks from the ground.

In one spot, I tunnel underground and build an energy generation area and cobblestone generation area.

The cobblestone and energy are piped up and around the entire belt. Next, every couple of blocks, I create ghost camouflage blocks. Behind them, I set the turret base on the wires with the energy and ammo pumping into them. On the left and right, I place a turret on each turret base. Leaving the top open for a means of turning them on and off.

Placing down all the turrets wasn’t tricky; changing the settings was. Having had the foolish idea of not making a memory card, I had to manually input them to shoot everything that moved.

They are designed to have players listed as non-targets. Sadly, this is not ideal for a city with constant foot traffic. My plan is to have them turn on and off at the click of a master button. That way, they only turn on in times of crisis.

Next, I used some Redstone conduit to connect them all and activate with a Redstone signal. It’s effortless to make, so I had no issues in procuring a lot.

The Redstone conduit was attached to the top of the turret base and ran through a separate tunnel network to try and minimize how much open space existed. Returning to the previous tunnel, I replace every air block with obsidian. The ghost blocks pose a security risk. This reduces it substantially.

The Redstone conduit was run down some of the thicker brick and towards the mayor’s office. When I poked my head out of his floor, he made a startled “yelp.”

“Just me, just me!” I shout, getting him to calm down.

“What in the flames of the nether are you doing!” He shouts at me.

“Setting up a security system,” I say simply before hastily installing a big red button under his desk.

“What’s that?”

“I’ve placed short-range turrets inside the walls of the town. They are indiscriminate and turn on and off at a click of that button.”

He looks at the button for a short while, kneeling slightly to get a better look at it. He takes a deep breath, “thanks, Aeternum.”

“Your welcome,” I say, turning and leaving. Mission semi-accomplished. It’s not ideal, but it will work until I can think of some better ideas. If I recall, some pretty powerful missiles exist.

I opted to walk through the town. Taking a small amount of joy in knowing that no one is aware of the hidden weapons in the very walls.

On the way, I check NEI for missiles. Finding a slightly unnervingly long list. ICBM, in fact, had a tantalizing list of explosives. The simplest of which is a condensed explosive that can be planted like mines. With that in mind, I teleport home and make a massive quantity.

Along with some glass pressure plates, I deposit them at the office buildings with instructions for use. I refuse to place them based on the sheer risk of life if I bugger it up.

But with my head in ICBM, the missiles looked valuable and fun. And I happen to have a giant floating island nearby that would make an incredible missile platform.

Teleporting to my crafting area, I set to work on crafting some missiles. My goal is tier 1 and 2 missiles. Two reasons why I chose these tiers. First, tier 3 and onwards are just stupidly potent. Second, I am not going to be responsible for the reinvention of nuclear devices.

Exaggeratedly cracking my knuckles, I get to work.

The explosive device I chose was a fragmentation explosive. It explodes with great force, raining down explosive fragments like mini-grenades. It is created from one incendiary and 4 shrapnel explosives. Both tier 1. The shrapnel explosives were easy, being mass-produced on the spot. The more difficult task was the incendiary explosive.

“I need sulfur.” Of course, the one thing I don’t have. Prompting a visit to the mines, something I haven’t done for some time. Of course, it turns out regular ground doesn’t hold sulfur, because why would it be easy. This resulted in the rest of my day being spent looking for a volcanically active site. Which are pretty rare, would you believe.

I’m grateful for my fast flight speed. Otherwise, this would have been unbearable.

With a small volcano in sight, I spent a short while finding a sulfur deposit. I’m sure the volcano is dormant, but it has sulfur, so that is all I care about. Although, I did sit upon its peak for some time, enjoying the view of the forests and hills around. Got to live life at the moment, after all.

With sulfur in hand, let’s make some fragmentation explosives. Before that, while at home, I produce sulfur seeds, so supply shall never be an issue again.

Next, I produce a large handful of the explosives. Beginning my journey towards having missiles.

The missiles fundamentally require a launcher platform and a control panel to shoot the rockets. Along with a support frame to aid accuracy. The latter of which becomes a requirement given the proximity to a local populace.

I made a tier 2 launcher, which required a bit of steel, copper, and Redstone really. Bit of compound crafting, and it’s done. I could have prepared a higher-tier launcher, but why bother.

The support frame was up next, and in this case, tier 3 is produced. Requiring steel and bronze. Tier 2 had an accuracy of 7 blocks; tier 3 is perfectly accurate. The choice is simple, and everything is terrifyingly cheap.

The final item, the control panel. Tier 3 allows the laser pointer and radar gun to work, making a tier 3.

It’s by far the most complex item to make, but again, it requires everyday things. The most difficult, in fact, being the copper wires coated in rubber. While I was at it, I made a laser pointer for people to actually use.

With the items in hand, I head to carnival island. Quickly entering the secret hollow cavity. I create a small offshoot from the island, like a large boulder towards the town. Inside, I place the missile launchers, the missiles, and an electrical system to power the whole thing. While powering a couple laser pointers as well. The entire thing was topped with ghost blocks to make it hidden while still being usable.

While making all this, the simplicity of it stood out to me. Making me very concerned that this war has missiles on the table. Perhaps I should make them a forcefield of some kind as well?

“Yeah, no!” I said after looking at the requirements for a force projector that wouldn’t look like a big and ugly mess. So, to have an invisible forcefield, I need to gather an ore I’ve never heard of. Using that ore, produce an energy network revolving around the ore, I would need a steady supply of and enter several mods I’ve never touched.

There are a million reasons I am not doing that. First, I don’t know where the hell to get monazite ore. Next, I don’t know where to get a consistent supply of it. I would also have to spend several days working on a whole new mod, fumbling around and likely buggering it up. This alone would take weeks, if not longer. Wars are slow… Not that slow.

I’ll have to think of something else. I wonder if my regular shield generator has an invisible option. Guess checking would be wise.

It does, and it turns out they are called shield projectors; oops. But yes, they have an invisible option. The new plan uses inverted sky blocks to hide an energy production area in the sky powering a double-layered shield.

Heading to town, under cover of true invisibility, I use an angel block to place in the sky. With the greatest haste I can master, I create a large area of inverted sky blocks. Virtually camouflaging all my activities. On top of it, I place a relatively sizeable thermoelectric generator setup. Using the most space-efficient configuration possible. With that, I then do that which I have been dreading. Undercover of nightfall and the use of a builder’s wand, I erect the shield using the template blocks. Just a massive flat plane of shield template blocks with one exception. Some template blocks also defend the power generator.

The next step, place all the shield generators, which took a significant chunk of my dark time window. Having to measure the distance, so they share the burden equally. They were all configured to be invisible and allow people to go through. This is to stop people standing on it and trying to wack at the power, powering it. It will block projectiles, mobs, monsters, everything except people.

The finishing touches involved adding shield blocks around the shield generators and adding a few redundant power generators. Each was camouflaged about a third of the size of the middle generator.

With that done, they’re a kind of sneaky shield system in place that is self-sufficient and defends itself.

It’s the best I can do to defend the town. I refuse to devote any more time, resources, or energy to this. I like the place, not that much.

Well… that’s a lie. I really do like this place. Like, it’s nothing special, but I’ve met some really cool people here. And, like in my life before, I have a hard time moving from place to place. Having lived most of my life in the same area, same house, same town. I don’t like moving, hate it in fact. Normalcy is kind of a craving; you don’t like the unknown. I display that every day I avoid unfamiliar mods because they are more complicated. And those I do mess with are the pinnacle of simplicity.

Well, I best get some shut-eye before working on that magic mirror. After that, I can teeter on the precipice of boredom for a while like usual. Contemplating different things to do and choosing none of them. Sometimes, finding things to do is easy; other times a nightmare. Sometimes I should just disappear. Change my face, get a regular job and live a life of normalcy. I am immortal, after all. It’s what Cassie wants. The life span is a bit longer here, so I might not last the whole 90 or so years before falling back into, let’s do something exciting mode again. Who wouldn’t want to adventure with a Tardis? Have a problem.