The comprehensive additions that Ves intended to introduce in the MSTS Version 2.0 caused it to grow far beyond its initial confines as a training system.
This was why Ves saw enough reason to rena it into the Elental Universe.
He wanted to give his custor base the impression that it had turned into a more complete virtual universe where ch pilots and their battle partners could take refuge in when they wanted to retreat from their harsh reality.
It was not ant to serve as a playground. Much of the Elental Universe still retained the core training function that was ant to prepare ch pilots to fight against their real opponents with greater skill.
However, the institution of a currency as well the option to purchase and own virtual objects turned it into more than just a place to polish their piloting skills.
Ves actually did not have a complete plan for the Elental Universe, but that was okay. He could set it up first and see how his custor base reacted to its changes.
His plan to create a Personal Habitat and Living City for the Elental Universe could not be completed in a short amount of ti.
Ves and Ketis had better things to do with their ti than to design an entire virtual city. It was better to wait until they completed their marathon and exited the System Space before dumping this responsibility onto Vulcan and other workers.
"How will you arrange the training sections of the Elental Universe?" Ketis asked.
"I intend to divide them into 4 discrete facilities." Ves answered. "The ch Pilot Training Grounds will serve as a place for ch pilots to train specific skills under optimized training conditions. For example, there will be a targeting range for ranged ch pilots, and there will be a simulated swordsman ch for lee ch pilots. I could use your help to program the latter. It is best if you can divide its combat prowess into multiple levels so that everyone can experience a suitable challenge."
"No problem. This is one of my strengths. Will you charge EC to make use of these virtual training grounds?"
"Most of these training sessions will cost EC in order to access, but not too much. The training facilities are fairly small and limited in scope, so they do not cost too much energy to run."
"What is next?"
"The Cultivation Grounds are the entire purpose of renaming the MSTS into the Elental Universe." Ves replied. "I will co up with many different training rooms where ch pilots can experience an E energy attribute and either ditate on it or whatever. I may even devise a few more interesting training exercises that can help
people increase their comprehension of different concepts or elents. Every training opportunity will cost EC. I do not want ch pilots to look down on this facility, or devalue it in their minds. Only when stuff is costly will people learn to appreciate its value."
"What can also happen is that people will think that you are doing them a disservice by overcharging for your services."
Ves shrugged. That will undoubtedly happen, but as long as no better alternatives were available, then he would rather overcharge than do the opposite.
"Do you even know how to design the Cultivation Grounds so that it can provide focused training environnts that are conducive to promoting the affinities of ch pilots?" "Not completely, Ketis. My comprehension of the earth elent is too low to construct such a training environnt. That is what design spirits are for. I will design a few basic training grounds myself, but I will leave the ones that I am not able to develop myself to external helpers. If nothing else, I will use my connections with the Red Collective to convince their cultivation experts to assist with the designs."
That sounded like a decent plan, though it will take more ti to make the arrangents and wait for the third-party developers to complete their work.
"Aside from that, what else do you intend to create?"
"The Trial Grounds will encompass much of the current training scenarios. It will offer individual ch pilots or a small team of ch pilots the ability to pay EC to enter into simulated training sessions where they can fight against virtual chs, virtual phasefighters or virtual alien battleships."
Ketis grew a little more interested. "Will you attempt to simulate a phase lord as well? It would do ch pilots a lot of good if they can get used to confronting phase lords on the battlefield in advance."
That caused Ves to look a little more uncertain.
"I can't deny the benefits of doing so, but I fear that I will do a bad job at this. Sure, I may be a phase lord myself, but I am very different from the more developed and battle-hardened ones that appear on the battlefield. I think I will probably have to approach the Phase Lord Departnt of the Red Collective to enlist the aid of experts to accurately portray dozens of powerful phase lords and maybe even phase whales. The Elental Universe will also charge a hefty amount of EC just to be able to confront such a powerful opponent once. It will be difficult for Vulcan to accurately simulate their auras, their spatial abilities and more."
Standard ch pilots were not supposed to fight against phase lords in the first place. Their chs were simply too weak to pose serious threat to these alien monstrosities. At most, they could rely on massed firepower to deter the phase lords from persisting in their attacks.
Capturing or killing them was out of the question.
Oh well. Perhaps ch pilots might be able to keep their morale up whenever they fought in a battle where phase lords were close enough to intimidate entire ch
armics.
"What about the multiplayer features that you talked about earlier?"
"I intend to create the Combat Dispatch Center to accommodate the ch pilots who want to satisfy that specific need. This is where large groups of ch pilots can sign up for big simulated matches that pit them against each other. This facility is not ant to help ch pilots devise specific tactics and solutions against native aliens. It instead serves to temper the courage, refine the application of combat skills and increase the overall combat experience of our custors. ch on ch combat involving actual human pilots on both sides is a homage to the Age of chs. I think it will do these ch pilots a lot of good if they can compare their skills against each other."
Ketis saw another benefit to the Combat Dispatch Center despite the fact that it had nothing to do with the aliens.
"ch pilots are highly competitive. They want to be the best. At the very least, they want to outperform their direct peers. Giving them a venue where they can enter into simulated battles against similar ch pilots who also make use of living chs is a great way to stoke their competitive streak. Those who lost against an identical ch to their own will work harder in order to produce a better outco next ti. Those who won will not only boost their confidence, but also gain more fa and other benefits." Virtual reality ch simulation gas also created a competitive dynamic between players. The companies who developed these gas knew exactly how to profit from the custors who wanted to defeat their opponents in the virtual arenas of battlegrounds. Ves sumd up his overall setup for the Elental Universe.
"In short, my new vision for the future of the MSTS is a comprehensive virtual training and relaxation destination where every custor can participate in activities to raise their Heaven and Man scores. ch pilots have a good amount of agency in doing both. They rely need additional guidance and training venues in order to improve in a targeted and more effective manner."
The only factor that most ch pilots could not improve on their own initiative was
their Earth score.
The Elental Universe may be able to improve the growth and developnt of living chs, but it could not apply any material upgrades to their designs.
This could only be done by the party who owned or fielded the LMC products.
While Ves found it regretful that the Elental Universe was not complete enough to address this need, the current plan was already comprehensive enough to help ch pilots a lot more than before.
The Cultivation Grounds should help his existing custors gain a much better connection to the five classical elents as well as various other attributes.
This should remain the case even if they were already practicing auxiliary qi cultivation
thods.
The two could even be combined to produce a compound effect that would allow them
to gain better results!
The only price that ch pilots needed to pay was to continue to make use of living chs and to exchange their spiritual feedback with Elental Credits.
"The blueprint that you have created for the Elental Universe sounds attractive." Ketis comnted. "I have a feeling that many ch pilots will soon grow frustrated by how much everything costs. What you have described is not cheap in terms of energy consumption. If the only way you can support all of these activities is by fueling it with the spiritual feedback of your custors, then most of them will probably be able to partake in a few activities a week or less."
Ves sighed. "It can't be helped. I need to make the Elental Universe attractive enough
to increase its usage rate. This statistic a bit too low for my liking at the mont, so I really need to bring out the big guns in order to lure more custors into using the evolved version of the MSTS on a regular basis."
He actually gained inspiration for this idea from learning about the mysterious prison that sustained the Nyxian Gap.
The Elental Universe was a partial recreation of the mysterious prison.
Of course, instead of capturing unwilling souls and forcibly squeezing them in order to produce spiritual energy across eons, Ves rely wanted to earn spiritual feedback from his custors through honest work.
While he could not guarantee that he could retain enough custors in the long-term,
he did not mind it because he felt confident enough in his work to continue to bring them back again and again.
In other words, as long as Ves continued to do his job as a ch designer, he should
never be afraid that the Elental Universe would cease to maintain a positive energy
balance!
Vulcan might even be able to reinvest the surplus inco into accelerating his own personal growth and developnt!
The Elental Universe had the potential to beco a huge phenona. Red humanity
may be able to derive so many benefits from it that it could beco a public service that was almost as helpful to all of his custors as the Red Kingdom!
Of course, the gap between the two was far too great at the mont. Ves did not hold
any unrealistic expectations in the short term, but who knew what might happen in the long term.
If Ves wanted to, he could co up with additional energy inco sources for Vulcan. He refrained from exploring them further. Each of them introduced additional risk factors, thereby increasing the possibility that his external incarnation could beco
compromised.
The additional functions of the Elental Universe would also impose a much greater burden on the design spirit. Just maintaining the Elental City that could potentially accommodate millions of ch pilots was a heavy burden that would persistently prevent Vulcan from spending his energy on other activities.
Ves still remained committed to it, though. ch pilots did not just pay for accessing the
Elental Universe with their spiritual feedback.
They also paid with their information.
Vulcan would be able to grasp their piloting skills, their interpretation of different E
energy attributes and more.
This would subsequently allow him to enrich his understanding and apply his newfound gains onto his increasing number of artifacts!
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