Chapter 286: High Cost
In the pitch-black universe, the sleek Peregrine Falcon was moving freely at high speed at 3000 kilometers per second.
Behind it, the tail flames from several nuclear fusion engines flickered with blue light.
But in the blink of an eye, a silver streak of light streaked through deep space and instantly reached the hybrid power engine group at the tail of the Peregrine Falcon.
Immediately after, this Peregrine Falcon with rust-red paint turned into a ball of intense flames while navigating at high speed.
Several seconds later, accompanied by systemic damage, the nuclear fusion engines of the Peregrine Falcon could no longer withstand the harsh environment inside the spaceship and exploded.
The originally pitch-black universe was illuminated in that instant by the explosion of this spaceship, as if it were lit up, making the surrounding existences appear white.
At the test bench, Fan Ren had already seen this scene through the surveillance equipment. He vaguely guessed the result, but suppressed an expression of joy on his face.
He was waiting for the feedback information received from A’dai. All experimental results must respect science, concluding with real test data, rather than visual observation or his personal feelings.
“Boss, at a distance of 5000 kilometers, target ship relative movement speed 3000 kilometers per second, turret tracking speed zero, our electromagnetic railgun accurately hit the target.”
“Nice!”
Even with Fan Ren’s usually steady personality, upon hearing A’dai’s feedback data, he couldn’t help but fully reveal the excitement he had been holding back, and excitedly swung his arm vigorously.
“Ammunition flight process 0.167 seconds. During this process, the target ship moved 501 kilometers. Under the action of gravitons, the ammunition deviated from the straight trajectory in a micro-curve throughout the process, perfectly hitting the target ship.”
“That’s it. Super-eating Ore can act on gravitons. Under its action, relying on the target ship’s gravity characteristics received by the built-in chip of the ammunition for continuous locking, using gravitational attraction to offset the trajectory—this is the launch procedure for the new long-range ammunition.”
Fan Ren’s face couldn’t suppress the excited expression. This was because the ammunition he developed this time was truly the first of its kind in the Galactic Alliance, unique and unparalleled.
The successful development of this ammunition would completely solve the issue of insufficient range of the electromagnetic railgun due to its straight trajectory and flight speed.
After this, human civilization would become the first civilization in the Galactic Alliance to possess ultra-long-range electromagnetic railgun ammunition.
From now on, whether it was the Punisher or the Young Dragon that had always lacked presence, after being equipped with this ammunition, its effective range would completely surpass the 2000 kilometer effective range of traditional attack missiles.
The ineffective battle damage from chasing the Hans Civilization’s expeditionary force during that interception battle decades ago would surely no longer occur in future cosmic tug-of-war battles.
Fan Ren pondered these factors in his mind, but then his brows furrowed again.
It was just a bit expensive to produce.
As the most expensive ore per unit on the starfield market today, super-eating ore’s selling price had a huge difference compared to ordinary silver-like super metal ore.
Just from the difference that super-eating ore is priced per gram, while silver-like super metal is calculated per ton, one could see the massive price gap.
For a detailed precise calculation, taking the ammunition size used by the 800 mm caliber electromagnetic railgun on a battleship as an example, each round of this long-range ammunition cost 10 star coins to produce.
As a comparison, firing one round of ammunition was equivalent to the price of 100,000 tons of silver-like super metal.
Fan Ren couldn’t help but imagine in his mind tens of thousands of Punishers, at a distance of 5000 kilometers, under the dumbfounded gazes of the enemy, firing their main cannons in unison in a spectacular scene, which would inevitably end with countless jaw-dropping explosions and fireworks.
But…
What was fired out were real, hard-earned star coins.
One round of ammunition cost 10 star coins. The Punisher has 8 main cannons, so the cost of 10,000 Punishers firing a salvo would be 800,000 star coins.
And in weapon systems, the electromagnetic railgun, renowned for its fastest single-unit rate of fire, obviously couldn’t achieve one-shot kills.
After all, current ships are mostly built with modular designs, with each system existing independently.
Moreover, to ensure the normal use of ship cannons in extreme environments, taking battleships as an example, generally, the number of main cannons on a battleship is around 5-8.
Even if one shot destroys one cannon or even multiple cannons under concentrated fire, the remaining turrets can still operate normally.
In multiple rounds of attacks, the funds consumed just by ammunition would be an astronomical figure.
This is also why, with tracking capability, Fan Ren designed the effective range of the long-range ammunition to be controlled at 5000 kilometers.
Because once exceeding this distance, the required super-eating ore would double in quantity for every thousand kilometers.
Clearly, this was an extremely low cost-performance ratio, and a prohibitively expensive price that conventional fleets could not bear.
“Boss, mass production?”
A’dai saw him fall silent and felt somewhat puzzled. Wasn’t the successful development of this long-range ammunition something worth being excited about?
Upon hearing this, Fan Ren put away those thoughts, nodded, and gritted his teeth: “First produce a small batch, initially based on meeting the needs of our battleships firing 100 rounds each.”
As soon as he finished speaking, A’dai’s feedback came instantly.
“Yes, total procurement required is 80 million star coins worth of super-eating ore. The built-in chips for the ammunition can basically be ignored. Boss, confirm? If confirmed, I’ll place the order with Deputy Leader Jin.”
Hearing his question, Fan Ren felt a toothache. In recent years, with the successful sales of warp engines on the starfield market, the Fox Pirate Group’s account indeed had a relatively substantial amount of funds.
Around 10 billion star coins.
And now, just the cost for ammunition for one electromagnetic railgun had consumed nearly one-tenth of this fund.
He could already imagine Jin Qiaoying’s helpless expression when this bill reached her desk.
Thinking of that woman who had regained the radiant and spirited demeanor from the early days of Xinghai Technology, Fan Ren couldn’t help but show a warm smile on his face.
In these years, with Jin Qiaoying’s joining, under the mutual cooperation where A’dai led industrial construction, Jin Qiaoying handled economy and trade, and Li Jian managed the Azure Phoenix Legion, the originally directionless hidden base had developed prosperously.
Now, it wasn’t just the warp engines that had succeeded on the starfield market.
Their efficient nuclear fusion solution had also secured substantial orders.
Precisely because of this, the hidden base today was markedly different from when they first arrived a few years ago.
Taking the Azure Phoenix Legion of the combat department as an example, the number of battleships in service under its command had reached 10,000, and all ships within the legion had completed the installation of warp engines.
In the upcoming period, these warships would continue to undergo batch upgrades to their nuclear fusion engines, which had relatively backward conversion rates.
All of this was inseparable from Jin Qiaoying’s successful arrangement of economy and trade affairs in an orderly manner.
