Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 117: Materials Science and Alchemy

Compared with offensive laser cannons, defensive laser cannons have much smaller power, mass and volume.

The overall structure of a laser cannon is similar to a telescope, with an external lens barrel and sophisticated optical devices inside.

The diameter of a precision laser cannon's lens can reach up to 10 centimeters, and its length can reach several meters. However, the maximum diameter of a defense laser cannon's lens is only 1.5 centimeters, and its length is only about 30 centimeters.

Its strengths are also completely different from offensive laser cannons.

Offensive laser cannons have a very small divergence angle, allowing them to strike targets at greater distances. Defensive laser cannons, on the other hand, have targets closer, having already passed through the electromagnetic cannon's defense circle and are only tens or even hundreds of meters from the spacecraft, so their divergence angle requirements are less stringent.

Its maximum attack range is only a few hundred kilometers. Beyond this distance, it will lose its lethality due to the divergence of the light beam.

It also has low power and low lethality. After all, its targets are just tiny projectiles, so it doesn't really need to be that big.

Despite its poor performance in other aspects, its activation time and duration are far higher than those of offensive laser cannons.

It doesn't even require charging time, and can be activated instantly. At the same time, because the overall power consumption is low and there's no need for much heat dissipation, it can be used for extended periods of time, up to several hours in a row. This is much more efficient than offensive laser cannons that need to be activated for dozens of seconds and then rest for dozens of seconds.

This is also customized based on its tactical needs.

After all, in the interstellar battlefield, the number of electromagnetic cannon projectiles may be extremely large, and there are a large number of interception targets that need it to intercept.

If the startup speed is too slow, the high-speed electromagnetic cannon projectile may hit the hull before it starts. If the duration is too short, how can we stop the electromagnetic cannon projectiles that are everywhere in the sky?

Taking all these requirements into consideration, the offensive laser cannon and the defensive laser cannon have completely different shapes and performances.

After a long period of continuous iteration and research, the defensive laser cannon has now been initially perfected and has practical significance.

Therefore, Li Qingsong has mastered all four weapons: offensive electromagnetic cannon, defensive electromagnetic cannon, offensive laser cannon, and defensive laser cannon.

In addition, the high-speed radar has undergone three rounds of optimization, and its reliability and stability have been greatly improved, while its size and weight have been greatly reduced. It seems that Li Qingsong has all the requirements for building a truly "modern" warship.

But Li Qingsong knew that it was not enough.

There's one crucial component missing.

High-speed bogie.

In the interstellar battlefield, both offensive and defensive weapons have extremely high requirements for accuracy and reaction speed.

It is possible that a spaceship passes in front of our side at high speed, and the time window for attack is only a few tenths of a second or even a few milliseconds.

It is also possible that a projectile suddenly appears and flies towards you at high speed, and the interception window is only a few milliseconds.

The radar has detected it and the defensive weapons have the ability to hit it. What else is missing?
Aiming accuracy and reaction speed.

The muzzle of an offensive or defensive weapon must complete the corresponding turn in a very short time, from aiming in other directions to aiming at the target, and then be fired immediately.

Reaction speed must be extremely fast, and the moment a warning is received, the enemy must steer immediately. Steering accuracy must be extremely high; even the slightest deviation will result in a missed target. For a projectile 50 kilometers away—a very close distance for interstellar battlefields and projectile speeds—a deviation of one ten-thousandth of a degree in the aiming angle of a defensive electromagnetic or laser cannon would, after 50 kilometers, increase the error to approximately 8.7 centimeters.

An electromagnetic cannon projectile, even a heavy electromagnetic cannon projectile with a mass of 5 grams, is usually no larger than 1 cm in size.

An error of 8.7 cm is a huge difference.

After a simple calculation, Li Qingsong confirmed that in order to accurately aim at a target 50 kilometers away, the accuracy of the electromagnetic gun or laser cannon must reach one hundred thousandth of a degree.

It can be confirmed that in interstellar battlefields, laser cannons and electromagnetic cannons must be in motion at all times and must constantly change their aiming positions, possibly changing their directions dozens of times in a second.

The spacecraft may be in violent maneuvers, transfers, vibrations, or shaking at all times. In this case, the muzzle moves dozens of times per second, and the accuracy of each movement must be as high as one hundred thousandth of a degree. This places extremely high demands on accuracy and speed.

Even Li Qingsong is not sure he can do it now.

This technology has also been under development for decades.

At the beginning, Li Qingsong used the most advanced materials and the most sophisticated equipment he could find, but he could only move the muzzle once per second and achieve an accuracy of one hundredth of a degree, while still being completely stationary.

This performance is actually high enough, but it is still far from the actual combat requirements.

Li Qingsong could only mobilize a large amount of manpower, material resources, energy and brainpower to carry out continuous iterative research on this technology, just like he did with several other key technologies.

After spending a long time and raising his technical level to the limit, Li Qingsong could only increase the accuracy by about a hundred times, which still did not meet the requirements of actual combat.

After reviewing the entire research process, Li Qingsong finally determined that there was only one way to break through the existing precision limit.

Develop tougher, less abrasive materials while further advancing metalworking technology.

Improving metalworking technology is easy; it's just a matter of grinding it out. But developing new materials is fraught with uncertainty.

After engaging in material research for so long, Li Qingsong increasingly feels that the development of new materials is actually no different in essence from what ancient humans called alchemy.

Throwing some inexplicable things into the alchemy furnace, only God knows what will be produced in the end.

The same is true for materials research.

Using a variety of raw materials, through a variety of processing methods, heating, freezing, stirring, standing, chemical treatment, etc., what kind of material can be finally produced and what kind of properties it will have, only God knows.

Existing theories of chemistry, physics, and materials science are still too backward, and it is impossible to develop suitable materials through theoretical calculations alone.

In that case... I can only use my ultimate move.

Following the rough guidance at the theoretical level, Li Qingsong directly established 500,000 material research teams, with two clones in each team. Each team tried a new formula and directly adopted a brute force approach to carry out this materials research.

(End of this chapter)