The security guard yawned as he closed the hefty coffer. Its antrigrav modules sprung back to life and took up position behind its sharp-faced owner.
"Everything checks out. It’s a false alarm." The guard declared and waved the new arrival away. "Off you go. Enjoy your stay at Cloudy Curtain."
The middle-aged man nodded and sauntered to the exit. Bypassing the security of this dreary spaceport had taken a lot more effort than he thought. For so reason, the spaceport recently received a massive upgrade in its security suite. It took so quick thinking for the man to respond to the alarms.
As he walked outside the building, he looked up at the dreary clouds that constantly shrouded this planets. The few sheens of color, akin to flattened rainbows, hardly cheered up his day. He hailed an aircar and set his destination to the opposite side of the planet.
After several hours of flight, the man departed from the aircar and looked at the quiet neighborhood he’d be living in for the ti being. He glanced at the sturdy walls of the guarded compound a few blocks away and whistled appreciatively.
"This is going to require a lot of patience."
His client had already prepared a house for him. Outwardly, it looked identical to the many other hosteads on the street. In fact, the house incorporated many dampening materials that suppressed signals and blocked unwanted spying.
After entering the ho, the man ignored the furnished house and the closet full of clothes. He directly climbed to the attic at the top and approached a camouflaged window that could not be spotted outside.
The coffer dropped to the spotless floor and opened by itself. Instead of the mundane clothes the man showed to the spaceport’s security guard, the coffer held a dizzying array of alloy components.
The man took each of the components and thodically assembled them until the entire construction resembled a tal tree sitting on its sides. Its intimidating size and shape resembled a railgun, only scaled up to the point it could threaten chs.
The main laid down behind the complicated weapon and swept over its systems. The railgun’s muzzle aid straight at the entrance of the guarded compound that could barely be seen through the attic’s window.
"You got away once, but I’ve seen your tricks now." The man whispered as recalled his previous failure. He never expected to co up short due the presence of a mythical miniaturized shield generator.
He made so adjustnts this ti. As long as his target left the compound, his railgun would never miss.
He simply had to be patient.
Back at the workshop, lkor expressed his views on rifleman chs with a very simple premise. "Why do chs wield rifles? Why don’t all of them co in the style of frontline chs?"
For humanoid chs, the main difference between a standard ch and a frontline ch had to do with their arms. A frontline ch replaced its arms with gun barrels, while a standard ch retained its human-like arms capable of manipulating external gear like ch-sized rifles.
"A skilled pilot can manipulate the limbs of their chs with great precision." Ves repeated the standard answer found in textbooks. "A frontline ch is largely reliant on its hardware and software to aim, which can shore up the aim of an average ch pilot. A standard ch on the other hand combines the use of its systems along with its pilot’s intuition to deliver better results."
A lot of ch designers thought that adding arms and a rifle to a ch wasted a lot of resources. Yet on an actual battlefield, a standard ch often outperford its frontline ch counterpart. Many factors played a role, from the increased range of motion afforded by its arms, to the ability to make better use of a pilot’s real life marksmanship.
"You ntioned plenty of reasons, but you forgot the most fundantal one. We simply like the feel of a gun in our hands." lkor tapped the side of his head. "You’re not a potentate, so you don’t know the feeling of piloting a frontline ch. The first ti I imrsed myself into such a model, I felt as if soone amputated my arms and crudely welded a pair of gun barrels in their place. No matter what, I never regarded them as my own limbs."
No one liked to pilot an amputated ch! Those who piloted frontline chs often fell behind in skill, work ethic and genetic aptitude. More than half of the ch pilots of the Bright Republic fell under this category.
"What makes piloting riflen so special then?"
"It’s the most basic archetype besides knights. A ch pilot who masters the rifleman can pilot every ranged ch. Skill matters the most. A great pilot can easily ruin a rifleman while a great pilot can mow down an entire squad before he succumbs."
Ves started to understand lkor’s perspective. "In short, it cos down to skill. How do you describe your learning experience when you were in your early teens?"
"Everyone started polishing their marksmanship with their own bodies. A Larkinson like enjoyed a great amount of tutoring, so I easily passed the early courses. I jumped straight into ch marksmanship and adjusted my habits to fit the ch scale. It was kind of boring, but necessary to go through this process. Not everyone succeeded in ti to take the follow up classes. These guys always end up piloting the frontline chs."
"If unlearning the habits learned through shooting a gun in your own hands is so difficult, why not jump to practicing ch marksmanship directly?"
"It has to do with foundation. Anyone who tries to learn a fundantal skill with chs will only ever master the process with that model alone. Once the ch pilot switches to another model, he’ll find out his marksmanship has to be broken down entirely before it can accomodate the new ch. Rember that humanoid chs are ant to reflect the human form."
"I see. If you master the skill with your own body, you will always be able to adjust your marksmanship with every ch you co across."
lkor smiled at Ves. "That’s right. The skill transference always works best if your mind and body has already been imprinted with the habits that work best for you. The real challenge a young ch cadet faces is to transfer his physical marksmanship to ch marksmanship. The first ti is always the hardest, but once soone is capable of doing it once, it takes a lot less ti to do it again with another model."
ch academies asured how much ti it took for each ch pilot to transfer his shooting proficiency. They kept scores separately for both laser and ballistic weaponry, as both types had their own nuances.
"Since your very first breakthrough matters a lot, I can imagine the academies pays a lot of attention to its training chs. What kind of models have you worked with?"
His cousin chuckled. "My experiences aren’t typical. My aptitude is quite high and my talent in marksmanship is pretty impressive. Furthermore, the family offered a lot of after-school training so I gained my proficiencies five years ahead of everyone else. You should ask Raella what she thinks about those chs."
"Pff." The woman blew as she finished her drink nearby. "Don’t get started on those machines. All of the models boast that they’re easier to breakthrough than others. You can pick between light chs, dium chs, fast chs, slow chs, tall chs, short chs, whatever you want! Most people pick the models that closely resemble their own bodies, but I don’t think it matters really."
Raella’s opinion echoed the studies conducted by academics. Not a single consistent factor had been detected that could increase the odds of breakthroughs. It appeared to everyone that rather than chs, the key point of focus should be the ch cadet in question.
"Rather than try anything fancy with the training chs, the academies just offer us the least complicated chs. There are many things a cadet has to take into account when piloting a multiton machine that could easily crush a house. Too many distractions can hinder the learning experience."
This was also why ch cadets started their training with older, outdated chs. Modern designs incorporated many features that could easily overwhelm a young and immature mind. A good training ch focused on simplicity first and performance next.
Ves had already done the sa with the Young Blood, but the stakes were higher this ti. Proficiency in lee combat always transferred easier than proficiency in ranged combat. No holy grail existed that could shrink this disparity, and Ves didn’t delude himself into thinking he could accomplish what millions of ch designers failed to achieve.
As Ves kept asking for stories, he caught an important difference between Raella and lkor. His niece never enjoyed the training. She only grudgingly kept up with her academy’s demanding curriculum, but spent most of her spare ti mastering knife fighting.
This gave Ves an opening if he employed his unique insights into the X-Factor. He might not be able to stumble upon the holy grail, but perhaps he could make do with fruit juice. Compared to the bland water that no one really liked, perhaps he could entice the kids to drink a little more.
All in all, his talk with lkor proved useful in shaping the concept of his next design. In his opinion, the way forward did not rest on coddling the kids.
"Simple chs don’t make very fun chs."
A lot of training chs went overboard in terms of simplicity. One of the reasons why his Young Blood drew so many teenagers was because it featured a couple of interesting gimmicks. It spiced up the boring knight concept and made it a lot more interesting without demanding an excessive amount of skill.
Those who ascended from piloting 1-star chs sought to pilot more powerful chs. They’ve already achieved the minimum amount of proficiency in marksmanship. In his mind, a training ch should have a soul.
When Ves left the gym and reached his terminal, he browsed the galactic net to see so examples of rifleman ch ant for training. As expected, most tended to be built for simplicity and ease of use. Other designs chose the other extre and spiced up the design in order to generate more interest.
"They’re too much like toys." Ves shook his head. He didn’t agree with the notion of treating the ch cadets like kids suffering from a short attention span. "
Now that he established a direction, Ves considered what kind of rifleman ch he should design. He chose to go for a dium weight class due to the additional power and capacity it afforded over training chs designed to be as cheap as possible. In any case, Ves didn’t need to consider the costs when designing a virtual ch.
"Properly speaking, a rifleman ch is all about its rifle. I should begin with the weapon."
He recently acquired the Directed Energy Weapon Optimization II sub-skill, so he knew a thing or two about laser rifles. He chose to go for laser rifles which many ch pilots mastered first. Energy weapons demanded a little less consideration compared to ballistic weapons, though those who mastered the latter first all turned out to be prodigies.
Still, even with the optimization skill, Ves did not fully understand the full nuances of laser weapons. When he thought about his inadequacies, he suddenly reminded himself that he once made off with research notes on a certain kind of laser.
Ves looked around and saw that no one was present. His cousins likely entered the simulator pods while Carlos already worked on their company’s next order.
He turned on his comm and turned on his Privacy Shield. Now, even the security caras and other sensors wouldn’t be able to spy on him. He navigated to his files and after inputting a couple of passwords, he reached the folder labeled ’Gamma Laser Rifle Research and Developnt’.
If anyone from the MTA could see him now, they’d shoot him on sight. Ves knew he had a poisoned chalice in his hands, yet he couldn’t bear to delete the files. Radioactive or not, gamma lasers worked on much of the sa principles as regular laser rifles.
He stood to gain a lot of understand in the workings of a laser rifle if he gleaned so insights from the research notes. While Ves didn’t have enough ti to decipher the complete collection, he only needed a few pointers to elevate his next design.
"It might not be a holy grail, but a poisoned chalice shouldn’t bring any harm as long as I don’t take a sip."
Whether he’d be able to resist the temptation, no one knew.
User Comments
0 comments from readers