Vientiane Throne of Civilization

Chapter 1911 Addition and Subtraction

After making appropriate compromises in the design adjustments, the research and development progress began to improve significantly.

On a new day, at the test field of the Grassland Military Region, Zhou Xu looked at the Ripper mech standing in front of him while listening to Qin Fen's report.

In fact, the person in charge of this project was Sorin, but he was not good at talking and was not good at doing these kinds of work. Therefore, the relevant reporting work basically fell to Qin Fen, who was his working partner.

"This Ripper mech is a prototype that has been modified and improved based on the original. All tests have been carried out, and so far there are no problems."

"Next, we will conduct the final demonstration. Once Your Majesty has reviewed it and found no issues, please sign off on it, and we will contact the military factory to set up a production line and begin production."

Basically, unless it's a surprise inspection, by the time they get to the stage where they want Zhou Xu to come and verify the results, the mechs have definitely undergone multiple tests to confirm that everything is correct; otherwise, they wouldn't dare let Zhou Xu come.

Standing next to Zhou Xu, Qin Fen waved to the dwarf pilot next to the mecha. The dwarf pilot immediately understood and nimbly climbed into the cockpit of the Ripper mecha.

After several adjustments, the cockpit was finally able to accommodate the dwarf pilots. The interior space wasn't particularly spacious, but at least it didn't hinder their normal operations.

Dwarves also have a certain talent for driving machines.

Through repeated tests, the dwarf pilot had long since become proficient in operating the Ripper mech.

The test site is the same one used to test the steam tanks. The Ripper mech can handle almost any terrain with ease.

After a brief lap, the dwarf driver began testing the weapons while moving.

The combination of a circular saw and mechanical claws, along with the mobility of the Ripper mech, is more than enough for an assault soldier on the battlefield in this era.

By the third lap, the dwarf pilot had begun testing the Ripper mech's limits, showcasing various extreme maneuvers such as serpentine maneuvers and drifting around corners.

This extreme flexibility and maneuverability is also what makes the goblin mech so formidable.

Unexpectedly, just as the dwarf driver was performing another extreme drift around a corner, an unexpected situation suddenly occurred.

At that moment, Zhou Xu, who was watching from the sidelines, only heard a loud bang as the foot structure of the Ripper mech suddenly exploded during its drift.

The explosion caused the Ripper mech, which was drifting through a corner at its limit, to lose its balance and tumble away amidst screams!

Qin Fen's eyelids twitched at the sight.

Without needing to say more, the surrounding staff, seeing this, quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and went over to check the situation.

During the testing of military equipment and weapons, unexpected situations are common, even routine, which has enabled the staff to master first aid skills.

But today's unexpected turn of events clearly came at an inopportune time...

"Um, that one."

Qin Fen quickly organized his thoughts.

"As I just said, for convenience, this mech is a modification of an existing one. It's not a new mech, and we conducted a lot of testing during the modification process."

"As I reported to you before, the goblin's equipment has some issues with durability and stability in order to reduce manufacturing costs. In multiple high-intensity tests, some parts of this mech have most likely reached their limits."

"But don't worry, this is just a minor issue. As long as we improve the materials and processes, the problems with durability and stability can be solved directly. That's what we were planning to do anyway. It's a small problem that can be easily solved with sufficient manufacturing funding."

Zhou Xu didn't doubt Qin Fen's words. Besides, this was indeed something that had been discussed before.

The goblins' equipment is of poor quality because they lack internal resources and try to cut costs.

In a way, this is actually a skill.

If you provide sufficient resources and funding, there will be no problem in manufacturing the product; that's normal. If you have plenty of money, anyone can do it.

But if you can still create something in a resource-scarce situation, and that thing can perform its intended function, that is a skill.

This is something that not everyone can do.

From this perspective, goblins are truly gifted when it comes to cost reduction.

In Zhou Xu's view, this talent is of great use!
As mentioned before, dwarfs make things with high-quality materials that are durable.

Therefore, dwarves can easily make things very expensive to manufacture.

At this point, some people might think, isn't durability a good thing? As long as the equipment quality is good enough, a higher cost isn't unacceptable, right?
That's true, but the problem is that technological equipment is rapidly updated and replaced with the times, especially during periods of rapid technological growth, when the efficiency of these updates becomes even higher.

If the dwarves consistently set such high production costs, their losses will increase significantly each time the equipment is upgraded.

Zhou Xu, who was aware of this, always told them to control costs.

But no matter how hard the dwarves tried, the cost didn't decrease much.

The dwarves strive to create perfect equipment, while the goblins are exceptionally talented at cutting costs and creating equipment that scores around 60%.

Under this premise, Zhou Xu wanted a piece of equipment with a score of around 80.

These two things alone would give him a headache.

But what if we put them together?

Once a piece of equipment is developed, the goblins will reduce the cost to 60% before it is given to dwarves and human researchers for appropriate enhancement and upgrades.

If you can't do subtraction, then you can at least do simple addition, right?
What he needs to do is to strictly control the funding and the upper limit.

"I'll be leaving the capital for a while now. I hope that when I return, you'll have solved this problem perfectly."

After a period of time, the situation in the new district has gradually stabilized.

There are two important things to do next: first, to make contact with the elves there, and second, to confirm the exact location of his next inheritance site.

According to intelligence, the elves over there are quite powerful. Although their Great Zhou also has elves and can try to get closer to them, there's no guarantee that things won't go wrong. At the same time, the next generation of successors also needs to be taken seriously.

Out of caution, Zhou Xu felt it would be safer to make the trip himself.

He is about to depart and has so much to do that he simply doesn't have time to linger here.

(End of this chapter)