Engi stared at the notification in front of him until it disappeared. Daniel had sent him a message, it was a simple hey! but he had recieved a message. Unfortunately the notification gave him a huge headache. He could read the message, it stayed in a system group called chat logs. But unfortunately he could respond. The area where his response should have gone was greyed out. He had no way to tell his friend that he was alive.
Engi sighed several times before he exited out of the screen. Perhaps Daniel could see that he eas alive, but he had no way to confirm it. He did not give the chat box any further thought as he turned to table in front of him. On the table A new rifle he was designing was spread all over in several pieces.
He had spoken in depth with Esabel last night and had come across an interest fact. Schematic were in fact a trap. A schematic could be used to mass produce something, if you used the spot for a schematic the time it would take to create the item was significantly reduced, but that was it's only function. If he had used the schematic option to create his invisibility cloak it would have truly been a waste as it was a one time item.
Instead he was working on creation through his own design. He had designed this rifle on paper and was currently trying to build it. The rifle was a mixture of a regular assault rifle and a sniper rifle. The low amount of damage that a regular assault rifle could do, for him at least, was not worth the loss of maneuverability of a pistol. It also did not have the fire power of a sniper rifle.
Both weapons of course had their own flaws. A pistol was highly maneuverable, but its fire power and range were lacking. A sniper rifle had amazing damage, range, and accuracy. and yet it had few bullets and its maneuverability were both minuscule. The assault rifle had tried to meet the two weapons in the middle, creating a more maneuverable rifle, that had more shot capacity, but had sacrificed range, accuracy, and damage.
It was impossible to have a weapon that excelled at everything, to gain a high ability in one area you would have to give up something in another area. For high power you would have to give up capacity. For manueaveravility you would have to give up range and accuracy.
The problem the assault rifle had was there was no true middle ground, by trying to be decent at everything. it had truly given up to much. If a pistol had a 4 in capacity and maneuverability it haf a 1 in power and accuracy. The opposite was true with the sniper. The assault rifle on the other hand a 2 in everything. Making the total score of a pistol and a sniper rifle a 10, where as an assault rifle was an 8.
These numbers were of course just based on the average weapon in its class. A sniper rifle made by a master mechanic with the best materials could easily score a 12 or 13. This applied to the pistol as well. Where as a top of the line assault rifle would still only manage to score an 11 at most. This was the problem with trying to be decent at everything.
He did not have the best materials available, nor was he a master mechanic. He was an apprentice, a good one, but still an apprentice. Regardless of this, he had the help of Alexander, his AI had done countless calculations and the two of them had come together to create an assault rifle that was not any worse than a regular pistol or sniper rifle in score. Based on their calculations the score would be a 10, if they had better materials or formations they could have improved it even further.
The assault rifle they had designed was much like the m4 from back on earth. It had a retractable butt, which improved the maneuverability of the weapon considerably. Based on their calculations it had increased from a 2 to a 3.
The formations for firepower and capacity were already above the level the two had access to. so this was something that they could not fix at this point in time. Unfortunately this meant that the scores for those two would have to stay at a 2. But this did not mean that the weapon could not be improved. He had added an grenade launcher attachment to the bottom of the rifle. The attachment unfortunately added weight to the rifle, decreasing the score for maneuverability by .5 but it increased the damage potential of the weapon by 1.
The final modification he had done on the rifle was to add a small scope to the weapon. This scope was connected to Alexander. The AI would then make the calculations and show a pinpoint of where the shot would land before the trigger was even squeezed. This increased the accuracy, at least for him by a .5. the final score they had graded this weapon at was a 10.
This of course was just a score for him. The scope would only work with his AI. If the weapon were to be mass produced it would be given a score of 9.5. which was a rather decent assault rifle. Engi sighed in contentment as he finished putting together his rifle.