The conference regretfully didn’t reach a satisfactory conclusion. Even though many showed support for the combat jet’s capability, they had reservations because they felt the Hope still hadn’t had a full grasp over the technologies that would be involved in the jet’s creation. Granted, if forced, the jets could be made, but it would require extra resources. But in the end, the contribution-result ratio wouldn’t be worth it.
The one point everyone agreed upon though was that sooner or later this combat jet would have to be built. It was necessary to fill the high-mobility and long-ranged combat engine blind spot that was created by the creator’s particle. When both sides had access to the technology of the creator’s particle, the turn of the battle was going to be decided by skirmishes among combat jets because the main ship would be out of reach, shielded against long-ranged assault.
According to Bo Li’s data, it would take at least 1 whole year to finish building one combat jet, and this was not to mention the toll that it would take on the Hope’s resource stockpile. To take an example, if the current shuttle was akin to an early dual-vane propeller aircraft, the Space Combat Jet Prototype 003 would be a B2 bomber!
After much back and forth, the agreed upon plan was to build a prototype craft within the next year, and using it as the basic replica, adjust accordingly until the Hope could produce one of these crafts monthly. This was the fastest way to give the Hope an air force fleet.
"…Personally, I’m in favor of your proposal."
After the conference, Yao Yuan waved Bo Li over to join him for tea… He knew tea was the girl’s favorite, so he personally steeped a pot for that afternoon.
"It goes without saying that the jet pilots have to be extremely qualified. To that end, I intended to restrict the pilot seat for Homo Evolutis or Virus X survivors. To ensure their total safety, I have no reservation assigning an exorbitant amount of resources to this project."
Yao Yuan sighed. "But sadly, the Hope isn’t an isolate expeditionary troop but a home for all remaining human survivors. We not only have to take care of military but also civil affairs. There are updates, renewals, and repairs happening concurrently all over the Hope. We are incredibly understaffed, so it is simply impossible to requisition material or human resources over to build expensive combat jets at the moment. So, Bo Li, I hope you can quickly revise your blueprint to one that we can afford to mass-produce with our current resource levels."
Bo Li sipped her tea quietly, her hands spinning the cup lightly in her palm. She then asked faintly, "Okay… then what features are you willing to lose or downgrade?"
"…We probably can lose the miniature Gaussian cannons. After all, the purpose of these combat jets is to combat other jets, so we would have no need for heavy artillery. In terms of speed, 340 kilometers per second is a bit too fast. The pilot might not even be able to support such an accelerator. Furthermore, maintaining such high speeds would exhaust a great amount of energy, and that would hurt our prospects in drawn out battles, so it is my personal opinion that 100 kilometers per second is more than enough."
Yao Yuan caught himself and laughed. He moved to tousle Bo Li’s hair and reprimanded leniently, "Wait, you’re the designer, you wouldn’t need to worry about these things. Leave them to the engineers, or was that a purposeful entrapment? Either way, I want to apologize again. I’m the one who wanted a high-performance combat jet and told you to start designing one. But in the end, I’m also the one who rejected it, I’m sorry."
Bo Li slapped his hand away and finished her tea. Setting it down haughtily, she said, "That’s all, right? I have to return to the lab. You can reach me there if you need anything." Then she stood up to leave.
Suddenly remembering, Yao Yuan added, "Wait, how goes the project to arm the Black Star Troopers?"
After the battle in the junkyard and entering the 4th revolution, Yao Yuan had been meaning to upgrade the troopers’ arms. They needed better combat suits, better Gaussian weapons, and more weapon variety that could be used in close-quarters combat or for special purposes, like taking down electromagnetic shields.
Turning around, Bo Li replied, "The combat spacesuit you’ve asked for proved to be a challenging project. After all, the main purpose of a spacesuit was to survive in space, and it has nothing to do with combat. So I need more time to come up with a design that could fulfill both purposes. I’m hoping for an exoskeleton-esque body armor technology within the alien books, but we’ve not come across such technology so far. What we have is technology for electromagnetically welded metal plating, but even with those, we need more time for analysis and experiments.
"In terms of weaponry, testing on long-ranged weapons has been completed. I’ll send the reports alongside those on the Gaussian rifles. For close-ranged weapons, we have produced a magnetized saw-blade with 34,000 nanosheet gouging per second. It could easily slice through all currently known materials, including diamond. It also comes with an anti-magnetism structure, so it can theoretically slice through electromagnetic shield. The details will be in the reports I’ll send you. Is that all? I have no time for this verbal game."
Impatience was clearly written on Bo Li’s face.
Yao Yuan smiled awkwardly as he asked, "Are you free during New Years? I would like to invite you to a ball…"
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