Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 198 Intention to Cooperate

Early the next morning.

New week begins.

As usual, Chen Ming read the status of Yuhui's individual investigation that Huihuang was still arranging during last night's break.

Although his main focus in the first two weeks was on the mechanical tribe discovered during the exploration and subsequent research on the mechanical tribe and Zerg as well as the improvement of technology.

But the matter of developing the star systems around the temporary base has never been abandoned.

After all, this has been Chen Ming's goal all along.

Everything else he does midway through is building up to that goal.

The daily report sent by Huihuang showed that last night was calm and nothing happened.

It's a pity that the Afterglow team's investigation of the galaxy near the previously discovered Kongyu bones yielded little results, and they still found no trace of the Kongyu school.

The corpse has been bombarded by a large amount of space radiation and various particles, and has lost its original properties. Apart from the skeleton, it can be seen that it is an empty fish, and has no value for feeding the insect queen.

However, the Yuhui individuals who were still out investigating last night have basically returned safely, and few of them were damaged, let alone those who were lost.

So it doesn’t matter if you can’t find the empty fish, there will be opportunities to find it later.

And this morning, the material consumption list for the previous week as of last night was also listed brilliantly.

It can only be said that the amount of material consumption is still as shocking as last week, or even much more than last week.

There are currently more than 50,000 Afterglow individuals in the temporary base.

There are actually about 20,000 people active outside, and there are still more than 2,000 individuals doing logistics work in temporary bases.

All the rest are dormant.

As a back-up when necessary.

And, when making the second jump, the main force to develop a second temporary stronghold.

Therefore, when the star port of the temporary base was built, it was not based on the goal of carrying all 50,000 extra lights.

Then this star port cannot be built in a few weeks.

But even so, the amount of fuel consumed by the more than 20,000 Yuhui individuals who drove out in no more than a destroyer was not a small number.

If the quantity of materials is converted into money according to the market price, it will be even more huge.

In addition to the cost of Chen Ming's fight with the Machine Tribe...

It really made Chen Ming feel heartbroken once he saw it.

Fortunately, Chen Ming still has the support of his boss, so he can purchase large quantities of supplies in batches at very low prices.

Otherwise, he would have already started reducing the number of Afterglow individuals operating outside.

The rhetoric before leaving the empire had to bow in the face of the actual consumption of money and materials.

But it is definitely not an option to continue like this for a long time. Chen Ming, a colony that only sees investment but no output, looks a bit uncomfortable.

Although the boss didn't seem to have any objections, he had been silently preparing new supplies for Chen Ming based on the supply consumption list sent back by Chen Ming every week.

But Chen Ming couldn't accept it for granted.

Therefore, he would improve the promising technology he had previously studied and publish it to make money.

Only then will he try to improve anti-matter technology and let Chaofan study anti-matter engines.

Although this investment is also huge, in a short period of time it is greater than the material consumption of 20,000 yuan more than Hui per week.

But Chen Ming believes that his current investment will definitely be earned back in the end, and even more.

After all, this is an antimatter engine, with specially matched antimatter fuel.

In the same trip, the output power is higher, the speed is faster, and the fuel mass consumption is less.

The improved anti-matter engine will only be more cost-effective.

And the antimatter engine itself can also use ordinary fuel, but the conversion efficiency of ordinary fuel is lower.

But even if it is low, it is not much lower. At least it is more efficient than ordinary engines in converting ordinary fuel.

While studying the anti-matter engine, Chen Ming's plan to expand the Zerg hive and the mechanical city was also a decision made to increase his own mental power and thinking speed.

After all, the core of the entire Afterglow, the entire mechanical race, the entire Zerg race and the entire development process is himself.

And he himself can rely on other methods besides exercise - receiving feedback from the hive network of the mechanical race and the zerg race to become stronger.

Therefore, in the process of development, it is a normal choice to develop the Zerg and Machine races in order to develop itself.

And developing Zerg has another benefit.

That is, after swallowing the energy crystal crab, the Zerg can produce Zerg energy crystals.

A product with better yield, output stability and ease of output than crystal crabs.

Moreover, energy crystals are basically pure energy aggregates, but the parts condensed into crystals may be mixed with some substances that express the producer species.

But as long as Chen Ming asks the insect queen to make some simple modifications to the insects that specialize in producing Zerg energy crystals, the traces of the Zerg can be erased from the energy crystals produced.

Forging Zerg energy crystals is the result of the production of energy crystal crabs.

As long as the existence of Zerg energy crystals normally produced by these energy crystal crabs, which have been crushed in all aspects of output, is known, they can cooperate with the anti-matter engine that can greatly improve the performance of the spacecraft.

It will definitely be welcomed by the empire and be widely disseminated.

Soon, Chen Ming will have a new amount of funds on hand.

And as long as the output of energy crystals is still controlled by Chen Ming, the funds imported to him will definitely continue for a long time.

Even if the empire has crystal crab samples, it will take at least several years to start mass cultivation of crystal crabs.

But by then, regardless of the issue of production, Chen Ming's energy crystal-producing bugs may have been replaced for several generations.

It would be impossible to keep up with his progress if we slowly started developing the crystal crab.

Chen Ming sorted out his current thoughts a little, and after confirming that there were no mistakes or omissions, he put down the daily report sent by Huihuang.

Then he continued to confirm other situations last night.

Before Chen Ming took a break yesterday, he promised Chaofan something.

He had randomly found a gamma afterglow and tested it.

Although Chen Ming passed out midway, the in-depth repairs did not stop.

And when Chen Ming looked at it now, the changes that had taken place in that gamma afterglow were indeed very gratifying.

According to Chen Ming's observation and comparison, the structure of this optimized gamma afterglow core has basically been optimized.

The running logic circuit is obviously much simpler, and its running speed has also been greatly improved, by about 50%.

And the changes in the entire core did not have any impact on the afterglow individuals inside the core, and even caused this gamma core to produce an emotion called comfort.

I can only say that the effect is very good.

Although Chen Ming is not sure whether the Alpha-level afterglow core will have such an excellent optimization effect during in-depth maintenance, it is unclear whether there will be new changes.

But even if it is only 1% optimized, Chen Ming will definitely have to perform in-depth repairs on the several Alpha-level afterglows he has on hand one by one to further improve their capabilities.

Chen Mingke has not forgotten that he has not chosen appropriate Alpha-level core bonuses for the several Alpha-level Afterglows he has except HR.

If Chen Ming's optimization allows the enhancement of Alpha-level Afterglow's capabilities to be superimposed on the enhancement of core bonuses, even if they are not multiplied, the overall improvement for each Afterglow core will be extremely obvious.

Chen Ming is the core of the entire development plan.

The few Alpha Afterglows in his hand are the trump cards in the core's hand. It is always okay to strengthen them if there is an opportunity to strengthen them.

What's more, this only consumes the remaining mental energy before taking a break every day.

And with Chen Ming's success in strengthening the Afterglow Core last night, another thing happened smoothly.

It's just a little different from the smooth way Chen Ming imagined.

Because to this day, he still hasn’t waited for his paper to be published in that journal, or for a reply from the reviewer.

Instead, I waited for Bai Quan to contact me.

Before the daily command and teaching time began, Bai Quan took the initiative to make a phone call.

Chen Ming answered the phone immediately and said, "Bai Quan?"

The voice on Bai Quan's side seemed a little noisy, but it immediately became quiet. Bai Quan could only be heard saying: "Chen Ming, I'm here to discuss with you the technology you were researching that you told me before."

Chen Ming immediately became energetic and asked, "What's wrong?"

"That technology... our Fourteenth Legion is very interested in it."

Chen Ming showed a slight smile on his face and said jokingly: "That's not what you said two days ago."

Bai Quan said without blushing at this time: "The situation will always change with time."

To be honest, when Chen Ming said before that he had a technology he was researching that he thought had potential, Bai Quan didn't think much about it at first. After all, Chen Ming's technology was just like that. He just thought it was Chen Ming's strange invention. .

A few days later, Chen Ming confidently mentioned in class that he had completed his research and wanted to publish it. He also mentioned that someone he knew could help speed up the review.

Who happened to let him know that one of the reviewers of the journal that Chen Ming was going to publish was a person from their 14th Army Corps.

Then Bai Quan basically forgot about it after explaining it to others.

But something unexpected happened later.

It was the reviewer Bai Quan found. He was not always at work. His job was still the director of the research institute affiliated to the 14th Army Corps. He only had his name on that journal and occasionally reviewed two articles.

At the same time, he does have some power to push some papers sent to journals for review to those who are actually reviewing them in advance, so that they can review them early.

When Bai Quan came over and mentioned Chen Ming's thesis to him, he remembered it, but did not help immediately.

After all, someone wanted to publish a paper in that top scientific research journal through Baiquan's connections. If the content was rubbish, not only would it fail, but it might also affect Baiquan's reputation.

Although he is not responsible for the review of Chen Ming's paper, it is better for insiders to check it in advance than to let it out and lose face. Originally, he was just taking a look.

But after actually seeing the content of the paper, he found that the situation was different from what he thought.

This paper is not a paper that relies on journals for gold plating. The technology in this paper is a paper that has been actually tested and has a considerable degree of value.

The purpose of asking Baiquan for help is to speed up the review, nothing more.

So the researchers from the 14th Legion went directly to Bai Quan and explained the situation.

Then Bai Quan discovered that he had been paying more attention to Chen Ming, raising the upper limit of Chen Ming's psychic abilities in his perception, and incidentally raising his understanding of Chen Ming's own abilities.

But his understanding of Chen Ming is still not perfect, even a little low.

Bai Quan's understanding of Chen Ming is mainly about psychic abilities, not Chen Ming's own abilities.

Of course I am not looking down on Chen Ming. After all, the psychic powers of psykers are of course the abilities of psykers, and Chen Ming is very good.

Moreover, the terrifying learning ability that Chen Ming has shown recently is indeed exaggerated.

But Chen Ming’s learning ability is more in the learning of command techniques, and other aspects of learning...

Although Bai Quan also knew that Chen Ming was really good at learning, no matter what, before he became a psyker, Chen Ming was only the leader of the logistics maintenance team within a space station in the edge star field of a branch of Sindar Company.

The technical ability is pretty good, but when you zoom in, it’s just like that.

Chen Ming has never shown any research ability before, and he only improved it later. To be honest, it is really difficult to convince people.

But now, the director of the research institute directly under the Fourteenth Army Corps came to personally come to Chen Ming for his thesis, so Bai Quan's evaluation of Chen Ming had to be raised again.

Not only in terms of psychic abilities, but also in other abilities as an ordinary person.

At that time, Bai Quan made plans to talk to Chen Ming about this matter again.

So when faced with Chen Ming's seemingly teasing words, Bai Quan could only shamelessly pretend that nothing happened.

After all, since Chen Ming took the initiative to mention this matter to him before the paper was completed, he had the idea of ​​​​trading with the 14th Army.

As for this paper and the technology contained in it, which the director of the research institute could find personally, he would not be able to push it away on his own initiative no matter what.

Just as Bai Quan thought, Chen Ming didn't talk nonsense here. After adjusting his mentality a little, he formally said to Bai Quan: "So what do you think?"

Bai Quan cleared his throat again and said, "First of all, make sure one thing is true. Did you develop this technology yourself?"

"Of course that's for sure, and you should have checked it out, right?"

"Indeed, we couldn't find any similar studies."

This is crap.

Chen Ming checked this technology before deeply repairing it and conducting research. No one in the empire had ever conducted similar research.

What's more, this entire technology research plan was inspired by the samples of Yu Hui's abandoned research projects when Chen Ming was still there.

Afterglow If these abandoned plans were grasped by humans, the Afterglow of this star field would have died long ago.

Which round should be studied by Chen Ming.

However, although it was a plan abandoned by Yu Hui, after Chen Ming's development and in-depth maintenance, the effect was amazing.

The product of Chen Ming's technology called the Stable Hyperspace Channel Jump Engine is actually an engine, rather it is an additional device mounted on the engine similar to the hyperspace channel system.

The effect after stabilization is also very simple and crude.

With only one coordinate and much higher fuel consumption than normal space navigation, a spacecraft equipped with this device can jump in hyperspace.

There is nothing to say about the effect of the jump. It is a cruiser equipped with a jump engine.

What's truly unique and powerful about this hyperlane jump drive is that it can be mounted on a frigate.

Allow frigates to jump as well.

It can only be said that Chen Ming has found a lot of relevant information.

I found that many people have tried to research the lightweight and miniaturization of the jump engine.

But so far, no one has done it, no one has successfully researched it, and no one has thought of using hyperspace to achieve an effect similar to a jump.

Yu Hui thought of a similar method, but Yu Hui's research also failed, and perhaps due to problems with their thinking, they did not continue, leaving the inspiration and failure process of the research to Chen Ming.

Chen Ming actually didn't succeed at first. Using the unstable hyperspace jump engine blindly would be almost suicide.

It wasn't until this technology was deeply optimized for psychic energy that he could accomplish this goal that no one has been able to accomplish so far.

Although Chen Ming's technology is suitable for any frigate that is not equipped with an anti-matter engine, the fuel will be basically empty as long as it makes a hyperspace jump.

But that's the limit of the rules of physics.

Furthermore, the hyperspace channel jump engine does not directly use the jump engine that can be used in the normal universe, but uses the gravity well of hyperspace to achieve a pseudo jump. It is normal that the energy consumed is larger.

But whether there is any remaining fuel after using up the jump is one thing, and whether it can jump is another matter.

A jump means an opportunity, maybe a chance to escape, maybe a chance to win.

So this cause also has its value for the frigate.

Needless to say, there is no need to mention the destroyers further up.

Its power is enough to support the consumption of the hyperspace channel jump engine technology, unlike the frigate, which still needs to be considered.

And higher-end ships are more casual.

Because the technology of the hyperspace lane jump engine is not the same system as the jump engine used by normal cruisers.

There is no conflict between them.

This means that any ship from cruiser and above can choose to install two systems.

Prioritize using the hyperspace jump engine, then use the normal jump engine.

This is the value of Chen Ming's research.

Of course, this thing also has shortcomings.

For example, it needs time to cool down just like a normal jump engine.

At the same time, because Chen Ming is a device designed based on the gravity well of hyperspace, it is subject to system design limitations.

Therefore, even if the jump is made in a hyperspace that is smaller than the normal cosmic environment, the actual jump efficiency cannot be compared to the genuine jump engine.

The limit of a hyperspace jump is about half of the limit jump distance in a normal cosmic environment.

In addition, the coordinates of the hyperspace jump engine are also limited.

Although hyperspace is similar to the normal cosmic environment, it is basically a proportional expansion and contraction relationship.

However, due to various strange curvatures caused by the gravity of various planets and other cosmic environmental influences, the actual coordinates in hyperspace and the coordinates of the normal universe do not completely fit. Instead, it can be said that there must be a deviation.

This means that the hyperspace channel jump engine must have very precise coordinates to make the jump.

Otherwise, once there is a deviation, the end point of the jump may appear in a certain high-density hyperspace channel cloud and be struck half to death by hyperspace lightning.

It was even directly sucked into the gravity well of a star in a certain galaxy and torn into pieces.

But in general, as long as you have accurate coordinates, there is no problem.

Therefore, this system can be used in any galaxy where humans have set foot and recorded hyperspace information, and there is no possibility of problems.

And there is another drawback to this system.

That is, it is mounted on the hyperspace channel system. Like the hyperspace channel system, it is easy to receive interference.

Any blocking device of the hyperspace channel system can directly stop its transition process.

It is extremely fragile compared to the jump trigger that requires a blockade of the entire galaxy to make it unusable.

However, even if this system has various shortcomings, they cannot cover up its advantages.

The coordinates of hyperspace can be obtained, fuel can be solved through logistics, and the military definitely has a way to deal with interference problems.

As for the problem of only being able to make one jump, that's not a problem at all.

Because so far, almost all spacecraft can only make one jump under normal circumstances.

How could this extra time be considered a shortcoming? On the contrary, it has obvious strategic significance for military operations at any time.

In the case where not everyone can use the jump device almost unlimitedly like Chen Ming, the opportunity to jump multiple times is definitely very important.

So now it is reasonable for Bai Quan to come and handle it personally.

After confirming with Chen Ming, Baiquan also talked about his thoughts, or the thoughts of the Fourteenth Legion.

"Our current decision regarding your technology is that we must cooperate with you to develop this technology, and subsequently block this technology from the outside world, and only use it within our military."

Just as Chen Ming opened his mouth to speak, Bai Quan said first, "We can see that the potential of your technology is definitely not limited to military use."

"It's a cutting-edge technology that is enough to enable the entire empire's low-level spaceships to leapfrog a big step in mobility."

"But because of that, we have to limit it."

"You may not understand it, but the empire has always intentionally restricted the development of civilian hyperspace channel technology."

Before Chen Ming could ask the question, Bai Quan explained on his own: "Because now the empire's civilian hyperspace channel technology has developed to a sufficient level."

Chen Ming intervened this time and asked: "Enough?"

"Yes."

"Military spacecraft can use jump engines and stargates to move far beyond hyperspace speeds, while civilian ships can often only move after a long process of approval or by slowly sailing in hyperspace. This is enough."

"As for why? What's the reason behind this? I think you should understand."

(End of this chapter)