Ves stood stumped in front of the 3D printer as he halted his fabrication efforts . The other mech technicians who watched from the sidelines couldn't help him either .
Initially, fabricating the components for the prototype went smoothly . Ves already practiced fabricating the most tricky parts, and much of the components used familiar materials employed in his other designs .
The HRF armor plating posed no difficulty at all, although Ves found its lengthy fabrication time to be a drag . It couldn't be helped, as the formula key draw was to refine a lot of cheap materials into effective armor plating . Transforming all of those raw materials took time that even the best machines couldn't hurry up .
As for the now-familiar Veltrex formula, Ves knew all of its nuances inside and out . Parts which other mech technicians might struggle with came out of the Dortmund production line with ease .
To be sure of their integrity, Ves scanned each and every part with his Vulcaneye scanner . Even a deviation of 0 . 1 percent led him to scrap the entire part entirely and force him to fabricate another copy .
Mechs could tolerate a lot of deviances, but just because Ves could clunk some sloppy parts together didn't mean it would fly in the market . The MTA strictly certified every mech sold in the open market because they disapproved of the practice .
Ves stuck to a higher standard, so he was even stricter to himself than the MTA .
The only unforeseen problem came when he fabricated the two light crystals . As the gimmicks of his second original design, the crystals needed to be attention-grabbing and unique . In order to amplify their performance, Ves stretched their physical attributes to the limit of what he could make .
The smaller crystal posed fewer problems . The main challenge with this smaller sample came when Ves tried to assemble the laser rifle . Even though it was scaled to the size of a mech, some portions required extreme precision, and that was exactly the case with the smaller crystal .
"Still, anyone can assemble this rifle with enough practice . " He determined after he fumbled around until he got the rifle to take on its intended form .
The big crystal rested on the chest of his hunched mech . Though the mech's posture made the crystal a bit less prominent than he originally intended, it would still be able to mitigate energy attacks from the front . Any laser beams that strayed close to the chest would partially lose their efficacy in the vicinity of this crystal .
The problem with this big one was that it was extremely hard to reproduce . It required a perfect environment and a flawless machine in order to recreate a large enough crystal .
It always worked when Ves practiced its fabrication in a virtual environment . He worked under perfect conditions back then . Right now, Ves already ruined his forth big crystal . He looked in dismay as the Dortmund printer spat out a huge crystal that was larger than his body but displayed a very large crack on its surface .
"This is why you need to test out your designs for real . " Chief Cyril said as he stepped forward until he stood next to Ves . "More complex mechs sometimes come with hundreds of tiny issues that aren't apparent during the modelling phases . Especially with weird stuff like these crystals . This is alien technology, right? Those fancy models of yours probably can't wrap their math around its attributes . "
"You have a point . " Ves conceded . "The smaller crystal is close enough to what I've reproduced in my lab to work . This bigger one is a different story . "
He never physically fabricated a crystal of this size before . He vastly underestimated the actual difficulty involved in creating such a monstrosity . He thought it wouldn't be so troublesome to scale up a crystal according to his current understanding of the alien crystal technology .
Ves discretely turned his attention inward . "Can you do anything to help?"
The spirit of the crystal golem barely communicated back . Even though it was a complete spirit, it did not retain too much knowledge from its predecessor . It retained a lot of knowledge in some fields, but possessed huge gaps in many other areas .
"Do you think it's a problem with my design or a problem with the working environment?"
The chief scratched his head . "I'm not sure, but my gut tells me that reproducing the crystal is pushing beyond the limits of the capabilities of the Dortmund printer . It's like trying to cook a traditional meal without a kitchen . "
The manufacturing of mechs and its components always centered around the design, the materials and the hardware . All three of these points needed to be satisfied in order to produce a good mech .
Right now, Ves encountered a shortcoming in the one area which he had never really worried about before . The formidable Dortmund printer which Ves relied on to produce his mechs for the next generation started to reach its limits .
Now that they recognized the problem, they could work on coming up with a solution .
"Maybe you should scale back your ambitious design . Do you really have to include such a huge crystal?"
Ves pursed his lips . "I can make some compromises on its size for the bronze and silver label variants, but the gold label mech is my poster model for this product line . It can't under-deliver on its promises . "
"That's the trouble with gimmicks . It all sounds well and good, but when you try to turn them into reality, you begin to realize that they're called gimmicks for a reason . Anything that's good enough to be included in a standard design don't come with so many issues . "
He basically faced two options right now . Either he could scale back his gimmick, or he could try to find a workaround for his problems .
"There shouldn't be a problem with the concept . It's only our hardware that's failing us . " Ves summed up . "Problems with engineering can be solved with engineering . "
Cyril snorted . "That's easier said than done . What do you want to do? Improve the Dortmund printer? You don't understand a thing about how it works . "
"That's true . I'm thinking about using an entirely different approach to create the crystals . When you think about it, using a 3D printer to fabricate a crystal is like using a feather to hammer a nail . It's the wrong tool for the job . "
The insights provided by the crystal golem revealed that his former race utilized an entirely different method to make their crystals . Human fabrication technology predominantly pieced the crystals together at an extremely microscopic level, while the extinct aliens essentially grew the crystals in a more organic manner .
Ves could go on and on about the technical details, but the basic solution would be to imitate the alien race's method of production by creating a customized, homebrew synthesizer .
"Instead of making our own machines, why not buy an existing one?"
"They won't be tuned to create the kind of crystals I want . " Ves shook his head . "I already looked it up in case I can simplify the production of the crystals . There's no easy solution out there . "
The machines that met his standard could only be obtained from second-rate states such as the Friday Coalition . He could get his hands on a basic machine that fit his needs for the ludicrous price of 100 merits .
He would rather make his own machine than to cough up that much merits at once .
"Do you even know how to make your own machine?"
"I've never made one before, but I already have a framework in mind . With my understanding of alien technology, I can probably kludge something together that works . "
Even if Ves specialized in designing mechs, he possessed a broad breadth of knowledge that would not lose out to any of the engineers working at equipment manufacturers like Benson Industrial Machinery .
He only lacked practice and familiarity with industry-specific methods, but Ves had become somewhat familiar with the makeup of these kinds of machines . He personally worked on reconstructing the Dortmund printer by hand so he wasn't working from scratch .
"How much time and effort will this take, though?" Chief Cyril asked a very pertinent question . "If it takes a couple of months or more to design a tailor-made synthesizer, aren't you better off with an off-the-shelf machine?"
Ves faced a lot of time pressure as well . With everything that happened so far, the war between the two states risked becoming super-heated at any moment . Ves really wanted to finish his current design project before that happened .
He tried to estimate how much time and effort he needed to put in the design and creation of the crystal synthesizer . "Most of the technology involved is readily available . I only need to design fabricate some custom modules in order to accommodate the alien technology . It's going to take some time, but not that much . "
Most importantly, Ves did not intend to work by himself this time . In a project like this that fell out of his expertise, he figured that soliciting everyone's advice couldn't hurt .
The entire Production Department led by the Chief and Carlos started rotating in different shifts . They looked on as Ves designed a crystal synthesizer in front of their eyes . He already had a good idea on how it should look like, but he felt much less certain about some of the details .
He couldn't hope for the mech technicians to understand the entire machine, but their puzzlement guided Ves into a deeper understanding of what he did . Sometimes, they pointed out a couple of faults that Ves had overlooked, which saved him a lot of time down the road .
Five days went by as this open process continued . Both Ves and the mech technicians gained a lot out of this exchange . On the sixth day, Ves felt the crystal synthesizer's design looked good enough to reproduce .
"I don't fully understand how it works, but even I can see it doesn't come cheap . " Chief Cyril spoke as he inspected the final design for anything else they overlooked . "Unlike with mechs, you can't put it in a simulation and see whether it works . "
Ves and the LMC lacked the right mathematical models to do so . As a company that mainly produced mechs, it had no business with designing and producing its own production equipment . Ves would have to sacrifice a lot to get his hands on the right models .
He would rather save himself the trouble and create the synthesizer on the spot . It was sloppy, but it worked .
"I think the cost of the raw materials alone will amount to about 250 million credits . "
That was not a light sum, but the LMC could handle the cost . Ves only needed one of them in order to enable the LMC to mass produce the crystals necessary for his design .
Ves used the Dortmund printer to fabricate the components . He then moved on to the assembler to piece the synthesizer together .
Naturally, he did not fully rely on the machines to do all the work . For some of the more delicate components, he put them together by hand . At each step, he verified the assembly by scanning his work with his Vulcaneye . Any deviations from his design could prove costly, so Ves was very meticulous about the assembly .
A couple of days later, a crystal synthesizer half the size of a massive industrial printer rested in the corner of the Dortmund hall . After an extensive round of checks, Ves fed the synthesizer with the necessary materials to produce a big crystal .
After a couple of hours of work, the machine spat out a crystal with a multiple cracks on its surface .
Ves, Carlos and Chief Cyril looked at each other in dismay .
"Maybe it's just some teething troubles . "
They put the synthesizer to the test and let it grow more than ten crystals in a row .
Five of them came with enormous cracks . Three of them looked fine to the naked eye, but when they scanned the crystals, the discovered numerous micro fractures .
Only two of the crystals met the standard .
What now?
Chapter end
Report
|
Donate
Oh o, this user has not set a donation button.
|