"What if we add the frequency modulator for the Plasma Fusillade to the Disintegrator? It wouldn't actually be plasma, but it might give the beam the same superheating effect when it impacted on a target." Max suggested as his System Function gave him a preliminary answer to the query.
"Oh, that could be fun. We will get right on it." The team two leader, an Innu girl named Nala, cheered.
Nala clearly was NOT old enough to have finished her time in the education system, so she must have gotten some sort of dispensation to graduate early. Uncle Lu wouldn't have allowed her to become a team leader without qualifications, and he definitely wouldn't have encouraged an Innu researcher to drop out of school.
"Alright, I think that we have it programmed into the VR simulation. Do you want to have the honours of trying it out first?" She asked, bouncing with excitement while she waited for his answer.
"Certainly. Let's see how it goes." Max agreed.
The simulation was set up with a variety of enemies in a row, using the data that Terminus Trading Company had amassed during their fights. There was still a lot of knowledge missing, as they hadn't had time to analyze the composition of all of the armours and technologies yet, but it should do for now.
Other teams here on the Moon Base were working on that exact topic at the moment, using the samples that the Androids had brought back for reference.
The more that they knew about the enemy, the better they could design weapons to kill them, and the better the chance that they would find a way to replicate and improve on the most effective armour.
Max put on the VR link headset and took a seat to begin the testing process.
The weapon was designed to be built into a small spaceship, but it could be adapted to a Mecha at a later point. For the simulation, it was on a Cutter Class ship, identical to the one that Max had taken to the Moon Base.
[Arming weapon for testing.] He announced to the team watching the simulation.
Then he fired and watched the enemies placed in front of him vaporize on impact.
There seemed to be a glitch for some of the Cathedral Ship units, though, as they were short on data for them.
So, Max exited the simulation and turned to their largest source of new information.
"Mister Ranarth, do you have full data on the armour of the warriors in the Cathedral Ships? They are resistant to our Disintegrators, and our simulation is having issues calculating effectiveness for the new weapon designs due to lack of data." Max explained.
"Of course. Here you go. There are a variety of armour sets, but this is the most common one. That should be suitable for your testing." He agreed easily but didn't stop his search for integrated energy weapons, even while the data was sent.
"Alright, let's try this again."
The second round of tests provided useful data from all targets, and the team was ready to get back to work.
[Battle Optimization] had also gained a large jump in efficiency with the new data available, and it was constantly calculating new ways to arrange the weapon's layout in Max's mind.
It was a ways off from completion, so Max continued with the experiments as the team rearranged the emitter array to better integrate the two technologies.
"I think that we have something here, boss. If we arrange the Orbital Lance like this and then add the heat generation algorithm from the Plasma Generator here and insert some superheated Nitrogen atoms into the stream, we don't get a pure energy weapon, but a combined particle weapon and look at the secondary reactions." The tiny team leader suggested.
Max looked at Nala's idea, and it seemed like it would work, so he input it into the simulation.
[Firing Main Weapon.] He announced and started the recording.
The results were unexpected, to say the least. The combination of the disintegration effect and the Plasma effect caused a secondary nuclear fission reaction, which chained to other atoms in the area as long as the beam continued.
When Max returned from the simulation, the whole team was in an uproar about the new data.
"That might just be the most effective killing weapon I've ever seen. Oh, think of how we could use that in precision weapons. If we put it in a drill, we could fusion mine through anything in an instant." Nala was rambling.
"Focus, focus. We're working on Killy things today. You can send the data off to be analyzed for use as a mining tool later." Max reminded her.
"Got it. I'll put it in my personal queue for later. It gets automatically bumped out to the public if I don't take it up after my current assignment is done." She agreed.
Basically, the feature was a personal reservation of a fun idea, but the Innu were so distractible that they had an automated function to give it to someone else if they forgot that they were going to do it.
"Alright, let's optimize this a bit and run it again. I want to know how it does on a larger scale, as the Orbital Lance is usually used." Max ordered.
The optimization process took much longer than expected, as there were so many different ways to go with the technology, but they had time for one more test before lunch.
"Alright, let's make this interesting. We're going to do an over or under wager. I say it's 48 percent more effective than a regular Orbital Lance. Do you bet over or under that number? Winners get one of my special raspberry tiramisu squares for dessert."
Those weren't programmed into the Moon Base replicators. They had been developed on Absolution and hadn't been shared among the rest of the Reavers yet. But, Max could easily share the data to the kitchen here for a single use or have the Androids bring one down from the ship.
"Over!" They all cheered as one.
"Alright then. Beginning the test."
