?Chapter 6404 Nebulous Luck Factor


    Lord Richard Brownstone continued his attempt to sell his weapon system to an enormous audience.


    He knew that his gauss weapons were the less essential parts of the Yellow Jackets, so he needed to do his best to emphasize their value.


    "The Onager System is meticulously designed with the support of the Red Association to form a cost-effective solution when employed on arge scale. The weapon system can amodate a wide variety of projectiles made from many differentbinations of alloys. This allows every state or regional organization to producerge quantities of rounds with different effects with the lowest per unit cost."


    This was highly relevant to third-rate states and organizations. They tended to have the greatest poption of people. They also had selective ess to a great amount of low-grade resources.


    The Onager System was so flexible and adaptable in terms of ammunitionpatibility that every state or group should be able to produce a huge amount of kic projectiles that offer good performance at a very low cost.


    It was somewhat relevant to second-raters and first-raters, as they may opt to choose specialized rounds that were very effective but could only be produced by locally sourced exotics and hypers.


    "Furthermore, the Onager System is also designed with the mostmon needs of the Red War in mind. The weapon system is designed to allow the Yellow Jackets tounch attacks against targets with superior defenses. Whether they are tasked with fighting against alien phasefighter or warships, the Onager modr gauss guns allow the Yellow Jackets to inflict damage that surpasses the average offensive level of a mech of this price range. This will make them more useful on the battlefield and allow them to make effective contributions at a lower cost."


    In other words, the Yellow Jackets equipped with these gauss guns should ideally fulfill the fire support role.


    The Yellow Jackets were not suitable for close-range brawling and dogfighting. They did not have the uracy and precision to fight for longer either.


    They were best employed at mid-range, where they could get close enough to wear down the transphasic energy shields that protected the hulls of enemy warships, but far enough to evade the approach of enemy phasefighters.


    While the Yellow Jackets could fulfill other roles by equipping different support modules, their most direct and simplestbat roles required them to upy a good position and fire their Onagers until they emptied their ammunition reserves.


    More and more mechmanders and so on began to warm up to the Onager System. The designers had truly put a lot of thought in pairing it up with the Yellow Jacket


    design.


    Although the power of these guns were modest, they were better than the peashooters that most budget mechs carried, especially the more outdated ones!


    "The Onager System is designed to serve as the standard weapon solution of all three editions of the Yellow Jackets." Richard Brownstone repeated. "It is the only weapon system that the Yellow Jackets are highly optimized to make use of. Their base models possess limited energy capacities, and cannot sustain the operation of one or multiple energy weapons for too long, especially if there is a desire to attain the same damage levels as the gauss guns of the Onager System. Thetter are less demanding on the energy reserves, but are also limited by the quantity of ammunition that a Yellow Jacket can carry. The ammunition capacity of the Carmine mechs is rtively modest if there is a desire to retain their good mobility characteristics. If you feel it necessary, you can mountrger and more massive ammunition canisters onto the Yellow Jackets, but this will impose greater penalties to their mobility."


    The Onager System consisted of rather hefty gauss guns. They were not designed tounch small and light projectiles, but ratherrger ones that could pack a punch. That imposed a burden on the Yellow Jackets as the mech frames were supposed to remain rtively light.


    There was no good solution to this problematic issue. The best way to resolve the contradiction was to employ dimensional technology to store a lot of hefty rounds in a different space.


    However, only the more expensive first-ss mechs tended to enjoy this luxury. It was impossible to supply this luxury to the Yellow Jackets on arge scale!N?v(el)B\\jnn


    Soon enough, Lord Richard Brownstone graduallypleted his presentation on the kic weapon system that he had designed for the Carmine mechs.


    "As a final feature of the Onager System, the Yellow Jackets are designed to assist in the aiming of the gauss guns. We only rmend our clients to activate this function when the Carmine mech pilots are stillcking in training. If they are fielded without possessing enough skill and experience in handling ranged weapons at the mech scale, then it is better to rely on the help of the living mechs to control the weapons to aim and fire at hostile targets."


    This was a dangerous feature, but one that could also save lives one day.


    The reality of the situation was that the Red Offensive was a life-and-death crisis to red humanity.


    Most people may not act like it, but they could feel the tension growing in human-upied space.


    There maye a time where lots of norms had to be conscripted for war. Whatever training they received in bootcamp would not be enough to give them good aim. was better to let the living mech lend a hand even if it was a risky proposition.


    Not everyone approved of this additional ''feature, but they were fine with it so long as it could be switched off. It was a fundamental principle that only humans should pull the trigger of a weapon.


    Once Richard finally concluded his presentation, he made a short bow before the next-tost speaker strode forward.


    Jovy Armalon addressed the crowd with his characteristic smile. "My name is Jovy Armalon. As a Senior Mech Designer of the Red Association, I was responsible for designing the armor system among other aspects of the Yellow Jacket designs. As can be seen by the segmented armor ting of the Carmine mechs on disy, we have developed the Scotara Hyper Semi-Modr Armor System to fit the physical defensive needs of this range of machines."


    A new ovey highlighted the armor ting and listed out a few key properties. "Simr to the Onager System, the Scotara Armor is an umbre term that epasses a range of armor ting forms that consists ofmonly avable exotics and hypers. We have especiallyposed the forms to produce armor ting out of different materials that is roughly consistent at the same tech level, and are therefore interchangeable. The forms take into ount the mostmonly avable materials of notable effectiveness in the Red Ocean Union, the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact. All of this ensures that it is easy to mass producerge amounts of armor ting in vastly different regions but still attain a high degree of consistency and uniformity. This should depress the cost of production to a very low level, thereby making the Yellow Jackets more cost-effective."


    The defensive properties of the Scotara Armor was actually not that impressive. It was only rtively good as far as budget mechs were concerned.


    What was really great about this armor system was that it did not impose a heavy burden on the industrial capacity of many different states and organizations. This was quite important because the armor system was often the most expensive system of a mech. The Yellow Jacket was no exception in this regard, so even a modest cost saving in the armor system could benefit red humanity a lot in the long run! Much of Jovy''s exnation sounded rtively standard and mundane. The Scotara Armor truly did not offer any other significant advantages aside from cost savings. This mostly sounded interesting torge states that intended to mass produce the Yellow Jackets on arge scale, but it was not as relevant to other parties.


    Many people who decided to order a batch of Yellow Jackets already decided to task their mech designers to rece this inferior armor system with a more superior one


    based on more premium alloys.


    There were also other potential customers who decided to wait a few months for other brilliant mech designers to publish variants that addressed this particr shorings. Before Jovy could convince everyone that the Scotara Armor had no other advantages, he briefly surprised them by mentioning one nebulous advantage.


    "I have applied my expertise in manipting probabilities in the design of the Scotara Armor. With the help of hyper materials, the armor ting of the Yellow Jackets are imbued with a certain luck factor that helps them withstand attacks that should


    otherwise cripple or destroy them entirely."


    That caused more than a few people to look confused.


    "It is difficult to define and describe this luck factor in precise terms as we have not been able to test its effects on the three Yellow Jacket models for an adequate amount of time." Jovy honestly admitted. "However, our brief testing so far has shown that there is roughly 2 percent that a serious oue can be converted into a mild oue. Let me exin what this means. Of the 100 attacks that are powerful enough to eliminate a Yellow Jacket, 98 of them will proceed to do so without anyplications. Only 2 attacks will inexplicably deflect or lose power, as if a freak ident has urred."


    That was actually quite impressive! Jovy''s design philosophy had already advanced to the point of interfering with reality to this extent!


    Unfortunately, it was not strong enough to impress the crowd!


    Who would want to bet their lives and their future careers on this measly 2 percent


    chance of avoiding a fatal blow?


    They would rather invest in a new armor system that may be a little more expensive or troublesome, but would also offer solid benefits such as 5 or 10 percent more damage


    resistance!


    Jovy continued to smile as he had yet to share the most important point.


    "This luck factor is not a static property. I have not been able to test this hypothesis, but


    I have a certain degree of confidence that the luck factor of a living mech can grow more powerful over time. My expectations are that it bes more effective at deflecting weaker attacks, and may even protect against arger variety of cmities." This luck factor was a nebulous concept even for a weirdo like Ves. He really couldn''t understand how Jovy could bend and manipte probabilities as if he could turn everything random into deliberate oues.


    People had little choice but to take Jovy''s word that this luck factor was a real feature


    and not a figment of his imagination.


    Still, if the Scotara Armor truly possessed a bit of luck, then that could y a significant role in mitigating casualties in the Red War.


    Of the hundreds of millions of Carmine mechs that would be at the frontlines in theing years, the Scotara Armor''s inconsistent but highly effective performance may cause a couple of million of them to survive fatal blows and live to tell the tale!


    Ves found it rather regrettable that Jovy was not able to work at his best in the Swarm


    Project.


    The Survivalist''s design philosophy tended to work best on weapons and other elements that were inherently random to begin with. The Yellow Jackets did not harbor that much instability as a rule.


    There was only one aspect about the Carmine mechs that could be described as unstable, but Ves intended to introduce that after Jovy had finished his speech. "The Scotara Armor''s semi-modr design makes it easier to rece broken or worn tes with mass-produced recement ting from other sources. This may lead to small but escting inconsistencies over time, but is also good for restoring the immediatebat effectiveness of spent Carmine mechs."