Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 329 Ship Research Institute
According to Chen Ming's original plan, the Ship Research Institute should be a place he would visit in the middle of the war with the mechanical race.

However, plans cannot keep up with changes. The phase monster that Chen Ming encountered and the phase ship that Qiu Bowen promised forced Chen Ming to come here early.

Since Qiu Bowen had told the Ship Research Institute about Chen Ming in advance, Chen Ming also took the time to contact them.

So the location Chen Ming was going to this time was arranged by the Ship Research Institute, a space station located in the planet's orbit.

The shuttle took the VIP channel and entered the inner port of the space station.

When Chen Ming got off the boat, the director of the Ship Research Institute had already come here in person to greet him.

"Mr. Chen Ming, welcome, welcome."

The director of the Ship Research Institute in front of him had a kind face. Although his hair was completely white, he looked energetic and did not look like an old man at all in Chen Ming's impression.
Chen Ming extended his hand to the director and said, "Just call me Chen Ming."

The director immediately shook Chen Ming's hand a few times, but did not let go. Instead, he took Chen Ming and introduced him to the two deputies following behind him.

Both of them are ordinary people, they look quite old, and they are also top researchers involved in phase ship research.

Chen Ming has always been respectful to capable people and took the initiative to greet them.

The two deputies responded immediately.

Apart from these, there are some ordinary researchers and some accompanying security personnel. There are not too many messy people.

This simple and not noisy, yet extremely serious attitude made Chen Ming feel quite comfortable.

After Chen Ming greeted several important people brought by the director.

The director cleared his throat and said, "Chen Ming, General Qiu has already told us what happened."

"We are all willing to cooperate with your work. Currently, the institute has manufactured a total of seven phase ship prototypes, four escort ships, three destroyers, and a cruiser-level ship is still under construction."

"I'll take you there now."

"It's troublesome."

"It should."

The director obviously had no intention of wasting time. Soon, under his leadership, Chen Ming boarded a medium-sized shuttle belonging to the Ship Research Institute and left the space station.

Headed to the Orbital Test Site.

In addition to being a highly industrialized planet, the Ship Research Institute's planet also has two artificial orbital industrial rings in space.

The inner ring is purely industrial facilities, and the same is true on the inner side of the outer ring.

The outside of the outer ring is where most of the ship experiments are conducted.

The orbital test site is here.

Further outside is where Chen Ming had just been. Compared to the pirate space station with a city built inside, this space station is even larger than the one built inside. It is equivalent to the headquarters of the Ship Research Institute.

In addition, in the orbit of this planet belonging to the Ship Research Institute, there is a giant structure corresponding to the space station.

A massive shipyard for the production of capital ships and capital-class weapons.

All I can say is that all the necessary facilities are available.

While Chen Ming was observing the layout of the ship research institute through the porthole of the shuttle.

The shuttle quickly landed on the outside of the outer ring orbit.

The artificial gravity device plays a role here. Although the track is rotating, it will not throw people and buildings on it away.

After landing, Chen Ming and the director's team took a ground vehicle on the orbital industrial ring to a semi-open ship repair factory here.

Although there was a starry sky above his head, Chen Ming did not need to wear protective clothing when he got off the car.

Part of the oxygen on the orbital ring is maintained by continuous production by life-support devices, while the other part is bound by gravity, which is enough for people to work here without wearing protective clothing.

In this somewhat empty repair shop, there are seven ships parked scattered around.

All are undergoing maintenance.

These are the phase ships.

They look similar to ordinary ships, with no obvious differences. They all have the appearance of normal spaceships.

The main color scheme is close to dark blue and silver-gray, which should be due to the materials needed to build the phase ship.

Only the center of the spacecraft is slightly protruding, making the spacecraft, which should have been a trapezoid with a very large bottom angle when viewed from directly above, become more like a hexagon.

There seemed to be a lot of equipment installed in it.

These devices installed in the middle of the ship are the biggest difference between these phase ships and ordinary ships.

Generally speaking, these spacecraft are basically a bit rough, and the various equipment and lines have not been well optimized and designed.

However, the phase ship is still in the experimental stage after all, so it’s fine as long as it can move.

Optimization such as hiding lines and equipment will only be needed in the future.

The director gestured towards the seven phase ships and said, "All the phase ships that have been manufactured are here. If you don't mind the trouble, you can control them all."

Chen Ming suddenly suspected that he had heard it wrong, and asked, "All?"

"Yes, the phase ship itself is very easy to lose, especially in the early stages of the experiment. We don't know much about the phase space. Basically, two or three experiments will cause a spacecraft to be damaged."

"If you were here, the damage to our ship might be less."

"Row."

Since the director said so, Chen Ming didn't hesitate. After all, no one else had to think about taking back the things that were in his hands.

Chen Ming immediately walked around the seven ships and took control of each phase ship.

Through observation of the panel, Chen Ming discovered that the biggest difference between a phase ship and an ordinary ship is indeed the things installed in the middle area that looks bloated in appearance.

Phase devices such as [Phase Coil], [Phase Force Field Modulator], [Phase Field Stabilization Anchor] and [Phase Traction Device].

The most critical one should be the phase coil, which not only occupies the largest space inside the spacecraft, but also uses a special material.

And around the complex phase coil there are several small coils made of different materials.

It seems that they want to test what materials can be used as substitutes for this special material.

It’s a pity that Chen Ming can only see these superficial things through the panel.

But once he understands the technology and manufacturing conditions of these things, he will be able to build his own phase ship.

It’s too early to say this now.

After Chen Ming took control of the spacecraft, he returned to the director.

Just at this time, someone came to the maintenance plant, handed the director a document, and said, "Director, the experiment can begin."

The director immediately blinked a few times at Chen Ming.

Ah this...

Now Chen Ming knew why the director let him take control so quickly.

However, he didn't think there was anything wrong with this. After all, the value of the phase ship was not low, especially the prototype in the testing stage.

Qiu Bowen had only promised to give Chen Ming one phase ship before.

But the director chose to directly hand over all the phase ships they currently had to him for control, and the meaning was very simple.

The control of all these ships was given to him, and he was asked to help ensure the progress of some more dangerous experiments.

After all, if the prototype is lost, it will have to be rebuilt, but if it is given to Chen Ming, he can just repair it if it is damaged, and they will definitely provide the materials.

In this way, the institute gained the guarantee that the experimental ships would not be completely lost in the future.

And Chen Ming gained control of all the phase ships in the institute.

When the Ship Research Institute has more phase ships in the future, all of these ships will belong to Chen Ming.

There may even be more than the current seven ships, and there may be more in the future.

A win-win situation Chen Ming doesn't think there is anything wrong with the director's behavior. Rather, the more such situations there are, the better.

And this can actually be regarded as a test of him by the director.

After all, Chen Ming was an airborne person arranged by the legion commander. Unlike He Gu from the Psychic Research Institute, he did not have too many intersections with the Ship Research Institute, but he happened to be a person with very high authority.

If the Ship Research Institute doesn't find out Chen Ming's background, it will not be able to do many things.

If Chen Ming is willing to get along well, then many things can be discussed.

But what if Chen Ming is a greedy person who wants to swallow an elephant?

Then the director of the Ship Research Institute should consider a new way to deal with Chen Ming.

Chen Mingke has always been a very kind person. He treats others the way they treat him.

Since the director took the initiative to show goodwill, Chen Ming was of course willing to return the favor.

He responded: "If I control the ship, there will most likely be no problems, but I have never been in phase space, so I can't give a 100% guarantee."

Just this sentence was enough. The director nodded at Chen Ming, took Chen Ming on the shuttle again and headed to the experimental site.

There were two phase ships in the repair shop, one destroyer and one escort. They also took off after the final inspection and caught up with the shuttle.

Ten minutes later.

The shuttle and two phase ships arrived at the test site.

However, although it is called a test site, in fact many experiments on spacecraft are conducted directly in space, and this time is no exception.

The institute simply arranged multiple automatic observation points near the determined experimental site and a relatively distant main observation point to completely surround the center of the experimental site.

These observation points are similar to miniature space stations. Both automatic observation points and main observation points can accommodate sufficient equipment and manpower.

No data or images will be missed.

However, because the automatic observation point is close to the center of the test site, usually only the equipment is left at the automatic observation point to establish a signal connection with the main observation point remotely.

Therefore, the shuttle finally landed on the satellite space station which served as the main observation point.

After getting off the ship, the director immediately arranged the progress of the experiment.

It can be seen that the director has rich management experience. There are at least hundreds of people involved in the entire experimental process, responsible for different tasks.

All these people were doing what they were supposed to do in an orderly manner under the command of the director.

Chen Ming watched silently and learned silently.

After all, he is the director of the Extraordinary Research Institute.

For those researchers who usually manage purely by their own prestige and ability, there is no problem when the time is short and the number of people is small.

But if his laboratory expands in the future, or if he wants to carry out some projects that require the entire institute to work together, his current management skills will be a bit behind, and it will never go a wrong way to learn some project management experience.

The director seemed to notice that Chen Ming was listening very carefully, and he even went out of his way to show Chen Ming some details of the work flow arrangements.

I really treated Chen Ming as a member of this experiment.

However, Chen Ming knew nothing about phase ships now, so he just took a look and repaired the spacecraft when there was a problem, but he was also very interested in learning about phase technology.

So after the director had almost finished arranging everything, he asked, "What is the purpose of this phase ship experiment?"

"Use the special resonant frequencies of phase space to attempt to allow friendly units to observe phase ships in phase space from the normal space environment."

Chen Ming understood, but he didn't understand.

The director saw Chen Ming's situation, and while continuing to manage the overall control of the experiment, he began to explain the basic knowledge points of phase ships to Chen Ming.

After roughly explaining some basic concepts of phase ships, he talked about the experiments currently being conducted.

simply speaking.

The purpose of this experiment is to verify a special device that has just been developed by the Ship Research Institute.

It allows fleets in the normal universe to observe friendly forces in phase space, preventing the situation where the phase ship appears within the friendly force's firing range when returning to reality.

Moreover, this device will only have an effect on friendly forces and will not be discovered by the enemy.

It is similar to the situation where Chen Ming saw the mechanical race using phase weapons but could also see lasers in the normal universe, but it is different.

Since this death sample requires repeatedly entering the phase space many times in a short period of time to simulate actual combat, it is a little dangerous for the current phase ship, and Chen Ming needs to provide some protection.

Chen Ming had a question about this: "During actual combat, doesn't the phase ship always stay in the phase space?" "The phase ship cannot dissipate radiation energy in the phase space."

The director explained some basic concepts of phase space: "Although phase space corresponds to the normal universe environment, in phase space, all places where there is no matter are filled with a special medium."

"This medium has no effect on the human body and can be directly treated as non-existent. However, for spacecraft, it will hinder the spacecraft from dissipating radiation energy."

"Entering phase space itself will lead to the accumulation of radiation energy, not to mention the use of weapons in phase space."

"So in a war, it is impossible for a phase ship to remain in the phase space all the time. The most likely scenario is that it will repeatedly enter and exit the phase space to engage the enemy and avoid the enemy's attacks."

Radiation...

Chen Ming almost forgot about radiation energy.

Every ship will generate radiation energy in its radiation energy system no matter what it does when it starts.

Whether using weapons or letting the shield take damage, it will lead to an increase in radiation energy, and radiation energy can be divided into soft and hard radiation energy.

Once the radiation energy exceeds the upper limit, a radiation overload will occur, paralyzing the entire ship.

However, due to the existence of Chen Ming's psychic energy, no matter what happened, the radiation energy value of his spacecraft would never go up, and it would all be wiped out as soon as a maintenance psychic energy was sent down.

Unless something can directly fill up Chen Ming's spaceship with radiation energy, leaving Chen Ming no time to repair it.

But that would either be a crushing force in terms of fleet numbers, like the last time the Mechanicals ambushed him with their Colossus-class vehicles.

Or it could be a crushing defeat in terms of ship level, for example, the Afterglow cruiser controlled by Chen Ming was destroyed by a single shot from the legion's battleship.

But the concentrated fire from more than twenty mechanical cruisers last time only almost destroyed the shield.

For Chen Ming, as long as the radiation energy system is not penetrated by a wave, it is in good condition.

Even if it was penetrated, it would not be a big problem. As long as the most fierce wave of enemy firepower failed to completely destroy the ship, then under the effect of his psychic power, Chen Ming could drive the ship back intact even if the spaceship only had a handbrake left.

And it was a low probability event that his ship encountered the battleship at that time.

So all these factors combined have led to Chen Ming never caring about the radiation energy system. At most, he has been concerned about the upper limit of radiation energy. After all, this upper limit determines the upper limit of the attack that his spacecraft can withstand in a short period of time.

From this point of view, the strength of the radiation energy system is a good indicator for judging the performance of the phase ship.

The phase ship needs to have enough upper limit to fight in phase space, and there needs to be enough radiation energy dissipation to allow the phase ship to leave phase space and quickly discharge radiation when too much radiation energy is accumulated.

That's interesting.

If the phase ship controlled by Chen Ming is constantly repaired in the phase space, it seems that it can achieve some effects that make the enemy disgusted, and he can try it now.

However, he did not rush to bring up this matter. He decided to wait and see how the experiment went first.

However, before the experiment officially began, Chen Ming suddenly thought of something else.

He asked the director: "Can you arrange for two of my robots to go on board?"

The director immediately thought about it.

He knew that Chen Ming was a psychic and he also knew that Chen Ming could control all machines.

So in his opinion, Chen Ming's robot is like an avatar of his.

Such a being entering the phase space could surely bring back some additional intelligence data.

The director responded: "If you are not worried about the robot breaking down, of course you can, but you need to wait a moment. We need to know the data of your robot and make some corrections to the phase ship based on this data."

Chen Ming released the metal liquid and created two robots based on the locust armor around him.

"It's troublesome."

The director nodded, called over several researchers, and started obtaining various data of the robot.

Subsequently, some experimental data changes caused by the weight of the two spacecraft to be tested were corrected.

About half an hour later, the director brought Chen Ming the news that everything was ready.

Chen Ming’s two robots have been sent to two phase ships.

The escort-class phase ship looks ordinary, just an ordinary experimental ship.

But that destroyer-class phase ship is a little interesting.

Chen Ming could clearly see that this experimental ship was designed to be a transport ship.

It is true that phase ships have huge advantages in transportation, maneuverability and self-protection capabilities that no other ships have.

Once you enter the phase space, only enemies in the phase space can harm you.

Moreover, transport ships are indeed easier to develop than combat ships.

In the early stages of the experiment, it is indeed a more reasonable choice to use this type of research as the main focus.

Because the spacecraft had not been tidied, after Chen Ming's robot entered the spacecraft, he could see that the phase coils with special structures that occupied a considerable space inside the spacecraft were exposed in patches, as if there was a possibility of leakage of electricity at any time.

But it's not a big problem. The director and others are the main people researching the phase ship. If they don't think there is a problem, Chen Ming doesn't need to think about it either.

And the most important thing now is that the two phase ships have started operating.

A purple halo appeared on the exposed phase coil, which appeared at the interface between the phase space and the normal universe environment. It was somewhat similar to the color of hyperspace, but more transparent.

Soon, the two phase ships pulled the ship into the phase space with the coordinated effect of different devices.

For an instant.

Chen Ming received two pieces of news.

A piece of good news and a piece of bad news.

The good news is that Chen Ming's psychic power will not be blocked even if it enters the phase space, and he can still control the robot perfectly.

bad news.

It was the moment when Chen Ming just saw the phase space outside the spaceship, which was almost indistinguishable from the normal universe.

He felt a heavy pressure from the robot in the phase space, as if he was at the bottom of the sea.

Even though it was just a robot, the pressure was transmitted from the robot to Chen Ming and pressed hard on his brain.

However, after getting used to the pressure that the spirit stone gave him, this little pressure now was nothing to Chen Ming.

His expression remained unchanged, and he was even carefully sensing what was causing the entire phase space to exert such heavy pressure on him.

Finally, Chen Ming was somewhat surprised to find that in his consciousness space, the crack connected to the scarlet dimension had closed for some reason. He didn't believe that there was still a gap leaking the power of the dimension like before.

Chen Ming immediately temporarily cut off his control over the two robots in phase space.

At the moment the control was cut off, the pressure Chen Ming felt disappeared, and the rift in the scarlet dimension opened again, slowly giving Chen Ming psychic power.

Chen Ming reconnected to his robot, the rift in the scarlet dimension closed again, and he felt the pressure again.

That’s right, it is the phase space that suppresses the scarlet dimension.

This was something Chen Ming had never expected.

The phase space and the scarlet dimension are actually related, and they are in a conflicting relationship. The phase space even suppresses the power of the scarlet dimension.

Of course, it is also possible that it is because there is only a crack in Chen Ming’s consciousness space, so it is suppressed.

However, it is certain that the phase space and the scarlet dimension are in conflict.

But why?
Why do the phase space and the scarlet dimension, two dimensions that have nothing to do with each other, conflict with each other?

Chen Ming only knew the most basic concepts of the scarlet dimension, and his understanding of phase space was limited to what the director had just told him.

He had no way of answering this question.

But both the scarlet dimension and the phase space are important to him.

The Crimson Dimension is a source of powerful psychic power and a repository for furthering his psychic effects.

Phase space is likely to become the main development direction of ships in the future. The basis of Chen Ming's ability is ships, and it is impossible to abandon the existence of phase space.

These two actually conflict with each other.

This is something wrong.

Chen Ming had to find a way to figure out the reason behind this.

But both of them are troublesome existences. Neither of them can be understood by Chen Ming in a short time.

All he could do was to change his plan slightly and increase the time he spent in the Ship Research Institute.

And then find a suitable time to try to enter the Scarlet Dimension for the second time.

The Scarlet Dimension is a dimension full of "knowledge". As long as you can enter it and come out alive, the knowledge related to psionic power and the Scarlet Dimension will naturally fill your consciousness.

As long as he could go in a few more times, Chen Ming would be able to figure out the reason for the conflict between Scarlet and Phase sooner or later.

Talk about it.

Chen Ming suddenly seemed to understand what the phase beast was.

As a creature of the phase space, the reason why the Phase Beast is looking for him is most likely related to his previous contact with the Scarlet Dimension.

Then he thought of the emotions contained in the phase beast's voice before.

Alertness, desire, curiosity, anger, fear.

These emotions are probably not all directed at him, but at his connection with the Scarlet Dimension.

What exactly does the Phase Beast want to do?
Fortunately, Chen Ming did not hear the sound of the Phase Beast now, otherwise he suspected that the Phase Beast would run to the Phase Research Institute soon.

He continued to look at the director beside him without changing his expression.

The director suddenly handed over a pair of lavender glasses and motioned for Chen Ming to put them on.

Chen Ming took the glasses and asked, "Have you ever conducted manned experiments before?"

"It was done, first with animals and then with humans."

"Anything unexpected?"

"No, everything is normal. I didn't feel any discomfort after entering. It was no different from being in a normal universe. The subsequent physical examination also showed no problems at all."

"That's it."

That pressure was indeed specifically aimed at the scarlet dimension in him, not at everyone equally.

interesting.

Chen Ming didn't say much, put on his glasses, and asked, "What's the use of these glasses?"

"Glasses made of phase resonant lenses can observe the special light signals emitted by the phase ship in the phase space through a specific resonant frequency. Look at the position of the phase ship just now."

Chen Ming turned his head and looked. At the location where the two phase ships disappeared, there were two dark purple light patterns like shadows existing in the void, marking the location of the phase ships.

Chen Ming raised his glasses and looked with his naked eyes.

The light pattern disappeared immediately.

He put down his glasses again, and light patterns appeared in his eyes.

The director next to him reminded: "These glasses and the phase ship can adjust different resonant frequency bands. Only when they match can we observe each other. This is used to deal with the moment when the enemy sees through our frequency band."

"The phase ship itself can also turn off the display of this mark at any time and completely hide itself."

Chen Ming looked at the tiny buttons on the edge of the glasses and pressed one of them at random, changing the frequency that the glasses could observe.

The marking light pattern of the phase ship in the distance disappeared again.

Chen Ming took off his glasses and carefully observed its structure.
However, just like the phase ship, he couldn't understand it.

Soon, the phase ship temporarily left the phase space and began to prepare for subsequent repeated experiments.

Chen Ming withdrew his gaze from the phase ship, looked at the director and asked, "Is the phase ship the only way to enter the phase space now?"

"If you're talking about ships and people, it's really only possible through phase ships."

“But the others are not necessarily so.”

"What else?"

(End of this chapter)