Editing Openai/6921ae73-3700-8000-8ab7-90012976bb8a (section)

==== Here’s the twist: against your specific weapon, combining isn’t pure upside. ====

You’re not firing little rifle bullets; you’re throwing:
* 500 mm, 0.01c nukes
* With huge area-of-effect per impact

If the swarm combines into big chunky targets:
# They become easier to hit - Big target = less dodging benefit. - A mega-monster can’t juke as sharply as a bunch of small ones. - You can aim fewer shots and still connect.
# They waste their own numbers - 1 mega-monster = many monsters worth of mass in one place. - That can be: - Efficient if it pushes through, - A disaster if you delete it with a handful of well-placed shots.
# Your per-shot overkill becomes more efficient - Right now, a single shell might be wildly overkill vs one truck-sized body. - If they fuse into something city-sized, your shell’s insane damage is used more “properly.” - Weirdly, that plays in your favor: less wasted power per kill.

So combining is a tradeoff:
* Many small dodgy targets (harder to wipe out, each fragile) vs
* Fewer massive targets (harder to kill individually, easier to hit and focus).