Much to Ves' surprise, the SF-02 processor cluster began to produce fantastic productivity gains in less ti than expected.
He and his wife only taught the smart Als for a couple of days before they suddenly gained enough comprehension to complete many design tedious and ti-consuming work assignnts.
Ves was not entirely sure what level Momo had reached, but Polly's competency had reached the equivalent of a young Journeyman ch Designer!
While her grasp on fundantal sciences was impressively deep, she had yet to learn the full breadth of high technologies that a first-class Journeyman ch Designer was supposed to know. However, Polly did not need to learn how to apply over a hundred different high technologies when the Larkinson Clan did not even make use of most of them. Ves found that it was already enough to impart knowledge relevant to the ongoing ch design projects to the smart Al based on the ARMOR POLISHER template.
Once Ves and the other ch designers started to work with the SF-02 in earnest, they found that their progress was much faster than before!
"This is amazing, Ves!" Gloriana joyously exclaid as she held a physical projection of Momo in her arms. The black cat looked incredibly pleased after receiving praise. "Momo has learned the basic principles of archetech to the extent where she can design basic design solutions and accurately simulate the performance of archetal components. I have been trying out the data-driven design approach. The thod is rather crude in my eyes, but that does not detract from its effectiveness. I finally understand why all of those first-class ch designers are trained to design their chs by relying on large amounts of data. It is not only easier for to find the right solutions through a process of elimination, but it is also faster so long as Momo receives enough processing power! What she said made a lot of sense. In contrast to the more standard design approach where ch designers wracked their brains and manually ca up with elegant solutions, the data-driven design approach was mainly about brute forcing the right answers.
A typical way of using the data-driven design approach was by designing multiple rough solutions. It didn't matter if they were sloppy or incomplete. As long as you threw them into a simulation program and let it run for a while, the resulting data would show which solutions produced more performance gains than others.
If necessary, the ch designer could repeat this process. He would select the best-scoring rough solution as the baseline and develop minor variations that leaned in different directions.
After inputting these variations in the simulation program, a ch designer just had to wait until the number crunching process had run its course before identifying the solution that best fulfilled the goals.
There were multiple pros and cons to this design approach. Gloriana just discovered the pros, but she did not ntion the cons.
There were multiple downsides to the data-driven design approach. It required a powerful computing system that was loaded with a very accurate and realistic simulation program.
Many ch designers also risked becoming overly dependent on powerful computing systems to design their chs. The relatively stupid and braindead way of this design approach caused a lot of professionals to stop exercising their fundantal design skills.
Their productivity may skyrocket, but their growth slowed to a crawl. This was why first-class ch designers failed to progress despite enjoying access to the most advanced facilities and materials.
The start of the Phasewater Generation and the Hyper Generation proved that this phenona existed.
When phasewater and hyper materials beca available, it was impossible for all of the simulation programs to accurately model the behavior of these weird and exotic substances.
This ant that trying to simulate a phasewater ch or hyper ch at those early periods always resulted in faulty and invalid results!
Even if the developers of those simulation programs tried to publish software updates that quickly tried to predict the behavior of phasewater or hyper materials, the rules and formulas were still imperfect!
Anyone who tried to use these imperfect simulation programs to simulate the performance of a transphasic ch or hyper ch would likely end up with a substantially different machine!
It took at least a couple of years for the simulation programs to slowly perfect its new models.
Of course, ch designers did not suddenly beco helpless during those early periods. They could still substitute simulation testing with prototype testing.
Any tests conducted with real physical chs would always correspond to real performance!
As far as Ves was concerned, he had been trained to design chs using the classical manual process.
Third-class ch designers usually did not have another choice. Only by being more ingenious and flexible in mind could they save a lot of ti and hard work by coming up with an elegant solution the first ti.
The difficulty of doing this was great. Only the very best of ch designers could truly succeed with this approach, and they usually found ways to transfer to second-rate states.
After all, the second-raters valued these naturally intelligent talents who were able to perform well without relying on any augnts of powerful computing systems!
While Ves eventually managed to use the System to gradually push himself to a state where he could still rely comfortably on this old approach to design excellent chs, he did not necessarily look down on the much more clumsy data-driven design approach.
There were far too many instances as of late where he felt he was doing grunt work by working on shallow design problems that still needed to be done because there were no alternatives.
This ti was different. The arrival and successful activation of the SF-02 finally granted Ves the luxury of employing this thod.
Just like Momo, Polly had managed to accrue a lot of data and learned how to work on chs like a ch designer.
"Polly, test the performance of the latest iterations of the Minerva Mark II's Irvan rifle and suggest 5 potential improvents by order of importance.'
"Polly, create 5 draft designs of the first phase of the combination juggernaut for the Minerva Mark II and test which ones earn the highest overall score. Repeat this process 25 tis. You have my permission to use 50 percent of the processing power of the SF-02 to perform your calculations." "Polly, test the current and last two iterations of the sword fey designed for the First Sword Mark III. Identify as many flaws as possible and record them on a docunt. Please your judgnt whether the flaws are best addressed by one of the 5 ch designers who are contributing to this ch design project."
Ves grew more and more comfortable with issuing instructions to Polly. He had to be fairly precise when describing what he wanted, but it was no different from using a non-sentient AI.
As Polly handled more requests, she beca increasingly smarter. She was even able to deduce the correct steps from flawed or improperly articulated requests.
As Ves grew more confident in Polly's abilities, he began to issue vaguer and more open-ended
requests.
These assignnts truly tested an Al's adaptability and cleverness.
He quickly found out that Polly was able to understand exactly what he wanted based on her extensive analysis of him and his work!
Not only that, but she was able to complete all of the necessary calculations in a matter of minutes or
hours!
This was incredibly fast considering the old computing systems of Diandi Base would have easily remained occupied for days or even weeks to present their answers.
Polly had gained competence so quickly that Ves beca increasingly more scared at what she was growing into. She simply did not stop growing smarter and more capable.
He beca more and more guarded against the possibility that the smart Al might go rogue and decide that humans were no longer needed to design chs!
However, there was no sign that happening for the ti being. Ves cared a lot more about the direct gains brought by the SF-02.
"You have made an excellent decision to exchange all of those RF Warship Tokens for this processor cluster.' Gloriana said. "We could never work as authentic first-class ch designers without a large amount of processing power at our disposal. To think that other professionals have to make do without the excellent assistance provided by the smart Als. If they were not artificial creations, I would have felt tempted to invite both Polly and Momo to beco my disciples.
"I am glad you like these additions! Ves smiled. "Let's talk about a more practical topic. Are your revised projections about the completion of the Minerva Mark Project still valid?"
His wife shook his head. 'No. I underestimated the benefits brought by the SF-02. Our simulation work and problem-solving efficiency has grown so much that it may take less than a month to complete the ch design! Momo has been especially helpful in designing the simpler archetal components. Even if I have to inspect each of her works and fine-tune them according to my more ideal specifications, I have to spend much less ti and effort to complete this process than the more traditional design approach.
"It's the sa for more or less." Ves responded. "I am spending more ti on solving high-level and open-ended design problems than on more routine design work. My productivity has improved by at least 3 tis. I am not sure whether this will hold up during different phases of the design. process, but even if my progress is slowing down, it is still far faster than before." "Archetech is a deep and complex field." Gloriana explained. "It is challenging to teach the higher-level concepts to Momo. This ans she is of limited assistance in the design of more advanced and complex archetal components. My productivity gains are not as good for now. I estimate that I am only completing my work twice as fast as before. This may improve as Momo gradually learns how to design and test more advanced archetal components.
Being able to get twice the amount of work done in the sa ti interval was still an impressive
improvent!
Ves smiled. "We should call Saint Commander Casella Ingvar and tell her to co to New Constantinople at her earliest convenience. By the ti she arrives, her Minerva will be ready for an
upgrade. I am sure of it. She can finally begin to fight the battles that truly matter!"' "The Saint Commander will not be pleased. She still prefers to stay in the expeditionary fleet!
Gloriana warned.
"Well, tough luck, because she is needed elsewhere. Human High Command is pretty insistent on transferring strong ace pilots to the Upper Zones. She may be able to get an exemption if she has only recently broken through and still needs to figure out what she can do, but that is not the case this ti. Her capabilities as an ace commander is a lot more impactful than the combat prowess of conventional ace pilots. The fact that she is able to Commandeer powerful first-class chs and to a lesser extent warships is a ga changer.'
Saint Commander Casella should feel blessed that Ves and Gloriana were able to complete the Minerva Mark II at least several months in advance due to making use of the SF-02.
If the couple could shorten the design tis for the other high-end ch design projects, then Saint General Ark Larkinson may just be able to receive a generous upgrade to his Lionheart in a year
instead of 2 years!
"I have a request, Ves!
"What is it, honey?" "Please contact your liaison from the RF and ask how our SF-02 can be upgraded. It should be able to
perform much better. If the Red Fleet has no solutions, then it would be convenient to know possible research directions that can make this happen. Our research institutions will conduct the research themselves if necessarily
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