The addition of the Flagrant Vandals to the Larkinson Clan proceeded smoothly, all things considered. Their military pedigree and their Brighter heritage ant that they were already very compatible with the ideals of the Larkinson Clan.
Though they were a little rough around the edges, they were hardly the worst in this aspect.
With Major Verle-Larkinson and Fleet Coordinator Ophelia Kronon-Larkinson banding together to form the nucleus of the Military Bureau, a lot of changes were in store.
Hopefully, the various combat units of the Larkinson Clan would soon be able to function alongside each other as parts of a greater whole.
In a way, what Major Verle started was much like designing a ch. The Larkinson Clan already possessed different parts which could fulfill their functions by themselves. Yet in order to transform their strength to a level where they could et any crisis with confidence, it was essential to combine them together into a single design that brought out the most of the specialized components!
The undercurrent of the Larkinson Clan surged even further. Though not every Larkinson accepted Major Verle's sudden elevation in leadership, the forr Brighter proved to be a quick worker.
Much of his work entailed convincing other people to accept his suggestions. This was sothing that Major Verle was particularly good at. After eting Commander lkor, Commander Magdalena and Commander Cinnabar on a regular basis, he soon managed to co to an accord with each of them. Every commander beca willing to accept his suggestions!
While all of these movents took place, Ves could finally devote himself fully to his ch design projects.
Though they had already been chugging along in his absence, his personal attention was still essential.
He not only conducted marathon design sessions with Gloriana in order to speed up the progress of their Hexer ch design project, but also supervised his design teams as they fumbled with the testing of the prototypes of the striker ch.
As a project that was much closer to completion, Ves paid an increasing amount of attention to the final stretch of developnt of the striker ch.
During the second round of prototype testing, he even took Maikel and Zanthar on a little excursion into space.
At one of the Cinach System's asteroid belts, a fair number of spaceborn testing grounds had been set up. Cinach VI was the ho to a large number of ch companies, each of which constantly developed new products that needed to be tested.
Right now, the LMC booked one of these testing grounds in order to comprehensively examine the performance of the current iteration of the striker ch under real conditions.
The sight was very spectacular. Thick, armored chs flew steadily across an obstacle course while firing their large and slightly-oversized flathrowers at various groups of targets along the way!
The test pilots skillfully increased the spread of the Enison Spreaders to engulf entire squads of projected chs in flas.
Against a single, more distant target, the pilots narrowed the cone of their flathrowers in order to increase their range and concentration of energy.
The striker chs expended a huge amount of propellant and oxidizers. Both of these substances were stored in the storage tanks attached to the Enison Spreaders and integrated in the fra of the machines.
While Ves had contemplated attaching the storage tanks to the exterior of the ch, they were far too vulnerable if left exposed!
A traditional striker ch had to be able to withstand a lot of hits. The carefully-planned tests exquisitely pushed the limits of the prototypes by subjecting them to precisely-calculated attacks.
It hurt Ves a bit to see one of the prototypes being blasted by laser drones from every direction. Yet despite the barrage, the armor system of the striker ch held up exactly as its specifications allowed!
To the two boys, ahem, adolescent n, seeing the chs in action with their very own eyes was an unforgettable experience!
Even though they were Larkinsons, their only opportunities to see chs in action was when they attended the ch gas in their old lives. Aside from that, they never got the opportunity to see an actual ch in action outside of footage and drama programs!
They even missed out the opportunity to watch the Battle of Kesseling VIII unfold because they had been among the first clansn to be evacuated!
"Wow." Maikel sighed as he practically pressed his entire face against the transparent screen of the space station. His eyes continued to follow the maneuvers of the nearest prototype as it spread its unnatural hellfire red flas in precise bursts. "I've seen the projections of the simulated tests, but they're not even close to the real thing!"
Ves smiled. "We aren't playing a video ga, Maikel. We are ch designers. Just because we sit behind terminals in order to manipulate projections all day doesn't an that our work has real consequences. The machines we design are just like this prototype, capable of unleashing an unimaginable amount of destruction in the right circumstances!"
Though Ves had already lectured them about this topic before, theory was different from practice. Now that they finally witnessed the outco of the effort that Ves and the rest of the design teams put into their striker ch design, the Larkinson seeds gained a clearer idea on what their profession entailed!
ch designers mainly created war machines that killed!
The flas unleashed by the huge machines that could tower over many buildings could burn an entire town if left unchecked!
The scalding hot flas possessed a rather sticky quality that allowed them to continue to burn in space for a number of seconds. If the flas ever landed on a ch, then it would continue to burn it down!
The main reason for this was the special propellant used. Not only did it burn longer, the Enison Spreader also released in a higher density.
The purpose of doing so was to enhance its area denial role by allowing it to continue to block off portions of space with longer-lasting flas.
The downside to this was the faster depletion of the propellant tanks. In most cases, the striker ch lasted from ten to thirty minutes before needing to return to resupply.
To Ves, this was barely adequate and far from ideal. He had never been able to solve the fundantal capacity problem of his striker ch design. The consequence was that he had to accept the fact that his upcoming product would be shipping with average endurance at best compared to the industry standard!
Of course, none of that affected the cool factor of his product. Both Maikel and Zanthar hadn't progressed enough to look beneath the surface of a ch. All they saw was big machines burning everything in their way in an aweso fashion! They were still kids at heart!
Not that this was anything bad. Every ch designer started off with a shallow fascination of chs in their youth. People like Ves simply retained their admiration for these machines into their adulthood and centered their entire lives around designing better models!
"How hot do these flas burn?" Zanthar asked. "Why are the flas so red? Aren't hotter flas supposed to be blue?"
Ves gently shook his head. "The color of the flas isn't necessarily correlated by the energy being released. While it's true that a more energetic thermal reaction can result in the release of higher frequencies of electromagnetic radiation or light, in practice it's always a mix. The propellant formula contains a lot of different substances that each emit a varying amount of energy in the form of heat and energy."
"So why are the flas released by your striker ch so red?"
"It's a costic design choice." Ves admitted. "It fits the overall the of my design. The ch already cos with a red-brown coating by default. Giving it the illusion of spitting hellfire will likely evoke all sorts of frightening associations to approaching enemies."
"I don't know, teacher. I think blue flas are scarier." Zanthar comnted.
"I watched a drama once where a squad of striker chs burned an entire street with purple flas!" Maikel shouted.
Ves chuckled in a good-natured manner. "As long as you work hard and study well, you can design a striker ch that releases flas in any color you like. Until then, you better learn honestly and keep up with my demands."
Their motivation was still as high as ever, especially after viewing the impressive striker chs in action with their own two eyes!
While Ves enjoyed witnessing his prototype in action, he wasn't looking at them in the perspective of a child.
While there weren't any control panels in front of him, his implant was receiving a lot of data. His implant quickly processed them and analyzed the patterns.
The test results largely t his expectations.
He felt a little disappointed at that. Though his striker ch was a functionally-sound product, it didn't perform notably better than the other offerings on the market.
Ves could only rely on the glow he planned to impart on his striker ch design to make the crucial difference!
Sotis, a boy was a boy, a Hexer was a Hexer and a striker ch was a striker ch.
Ves tried his best to square the circle and surpass the limitations inherent to this ch type, to no avail. Reality could be bent, but not to this extent!
Aside from opening his wallet and breaking his budget, there was no way to develop a striker ch that was completely to his liking.
It was worse now that Ves had a taste of second-class ch design.
Before he designed the Bright Warrior and embarked on the Hexer ch design project, Ves was fully grounded in third-class chs. He almost never had the opportunity to design sothing better, which ant that his horizons had never been widened.
It was a lot easier to design third-class chs back then. Ignorance was bliss and Ves had closed his eyes to the greater possibilities that second-class ch designers like Gloriana regularly took for granted!
That was not possible anymore. Once he was promoted to a second-class ch designer, Ves would never be able to stop his mind from imagining the endless possibilities if he just stuffed an expensive component or material in his third-class ch designs!
"Urgh! It's torture sotis!"
Despite these complaints, Ves still believed in his end product. A ch was more than the numbers on a spec sheet. Throughout his entire career, he had beco increasingly more dependent on his glows to augnt his chs.
The material performance of his products didn't matter as much as the combination of the tangible and intangible properties of the chs!
Unfortunately, Ves didn't get to see the full potential of his striker ch design yet. Only when he was finally ready to formulate the glow of the ch would he truly be able realize his vision. The weak spiritual foundation that the prototypes currently conveyed was just a pale shadow of what was to co.
"Let's go, students." He said. "The testing will proceed for at least three more days. That's far too much ti to be wasted on seeing chs burn empty space. There's a lot more howork in store for you once we return to Cinach VI!"
"Awww!"
While his striker ch already perford well enough to be competitive on the market, Ves had already made the decision to subject it to iterate on it for at least another round.
While he wanted to finish this project as fast as possible, he couldn't rush the project too much. Ves noticed plenty of details that required further optimization in order to receive good reviews from industry outlets.
This was not the ti where he was in the middle in a crisis and in a hurry to publish a new ch design! The circumstances surrounding the developnt of the Desolate Soldier was completely different from his current project!
"I won't tolerate as much sloppiness this ti!"
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