Following old Bell to the rear of the factory, Reno entered a warehouse.
Upon entering the warehouse, Reno saw a huge tarpaulin.
Old Bell gestured for Reno to come forward and pull down the tarpaulin.
Reno hesitated, but the encouraging look in old Bell's eyes urged him on.
He finally stepped forward and pulled down the tarpaulin. At the moment he saw what was underneath, Reno almost fell in love with the creation.
It was a mech shining with a silver sheen all over, standing about eight meters tall. Intricate patterns adorned its surface, making it look more like a piece of art than a killing machine. What surprised Reno the most was the pair of wings on its back.
"Silver Wing Angel," old Bell said.
"Its name?" Reno asked.
Old Bell nodded.
Reno walked over and looked at the mech, murmuring, "I've never seen this type of mech before. Silver Wing Angel, what a great name."
"That's not a model," old Bell replied.
"What?" Reno turned to him in surprise.
Old Bell looked at the Silver Wing Angel, a hint of melancholy in his eyes. "It's a personal mech."
"A personal mech? You mean..." Reno trailed off.
"Yes, not the kind of mass-produced mech models, but personalized mechs tailored to individual needs," old Bell answered.
The old man sighed and found a spot to sit down.
He waved to Reno, "Come here, young man, let me tell you about my past."
Reno approached and sat beside the old man, listening to his stories of the past.
It turned out that Bell, in his youth, was once a very famous mech pilot. Not only that, but he also had his own mech company. He was not only skilled in mech repair but also in mech design.
At an early stage, Bell believed that the development of mechs would inevitably move towards personalization and customization.
For this reason, he started researching mech personalization early on.
As everyone knows, a strategic transformation can have a profound and immense impact on a company.
A successful transformation can propel a company to great heights, while a failed one can lead to irreparable damage.
In terms of mech customization, Bell was one of the very few pioneers, venturing early into this path.
It must be admitted that Bell's research was quite effective. He had designed a system to customize mechs according to individual combat habits very early on. Once the market conditions were right, mass customization could be carried out quickly.
However, the military, the largest provider of mech orders, refused to experiment with this.
Losing military orders undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to Bell's company. Despite this setback, he didn't give up. Instead, he turned his attention to civilian mechs, hoping to carve out a niche there. After all, civilians were more receptive to personal customization.
But at this juncture, something happened that completely shattered Bell's plans and pushed his company to the brink of bankruptcy.
"What happened?" Reno asked.
Bell didn't speak, just sighed deeply.
He shook his head and said, "The company went bankrupt, all assets were sold off, and this Silver Wing Angel is the only customized piece left that wasn't used as collateral. Its previous owner didn't take it away but left it to me. I'm old now, can't operate mechs anymore, so it's been sitting here all this time."
His eyes moistened slightly, as if recalling some distant memories, and his voice became somber.
After a while, perhaps after regaining his composure, Bell said, "Ah, getting old makes people sentimental easily. There's nothing more to say about events so long ago. Anyway, this Silver Wing Angel is one of my collections. The person who originally customized this Silver Wing Angel was about your size. It should suit you. Go ahead, give it a try."
Reno was overjoyed and quickly climbed into the cockpit of the Silver Wing Angel.
As soon as he entered the cockpit, Reno immediately felt the difference in this Silver Wing Angel.
Traditional mech operation involved neural connections linking the pilot and the mech, with 148 neurons representing different parts of the human body. The pilot primarily controlled the mech by controlling their own body movements, which were accurately conveyed to the mech via neurons, resulting in swift mech actions.
Because of this, mech operation was actually quite simple, akin to controlling one's own body.
The real training for a pilot wasn't how to make the mech move, but how to adapt to it—operating a mech via neurons was a significant burden and required training and adaptation.
However, in this mech, the number of neurons had been reduced to fifty-six, while the cockpit, originally designed for controlling external weaponry, now had hundreds of additional control panels, leaving Reno feeling overwhelmed.
"The biggest difference between the Silver Wing Angel and regular mechs is that it doesn't use traditional neural connection technology; it combines neural connection with control array technology," Bell explained.
"Control array technology," Reno murmured.
He had heard of control array technology before.
It was a technology used in the early days of mechs, when neural connection technology wasn't as advanced as it is now. Larger mechs, ones slightly bigger than Iron Man's armor, were impossible for people to use. To solve this problem, manufacturers invented control array technology, which allowed control of large mechs through a large number of keyboard-like operations.
Honestly, it was a very complex technology.
The range of human movements could be broken down into thousands of sets of actions. While it was simple to apply for basic use, fully expressing it could be quite challenging. If there were movements humans couldn't perform, then the mech couldn't perform them either, even if the mech itself was capable. Due to the limitations of the pilot, such movements would be impossible to execute.
However, the Silver Wing Angel didn't have this problem with control array systems.
As long as the command was given, it could perform any action the human body could. With sufficient operating ability and corresponding mech flexibility, one could control the mech to do things like reaching around to touch their belly button while swinging a laser sword with the other hand, shooting fire from the chest, launching missiles from the legs, and finally turning their head to the back to lick their butt—all of which could be done in one second.
And this could be achieved with just one second.
"The last advantage is that it has a higher potential for performance," Bell continued.
The performance of a mech is limited by the pilot's physique.
The greatest benefit of the neural system is that it lowers the threshold for humans to control mechs, but it also lowers the upper limit of mech strength.
This is why space mechs cannot be used in near-Earth space, because once they get close to the ground, the strong gravity would crush the pilot directly.
But if a control array system is used, then this problem doesn't matter because the burden is no longer borne by the pilot, but by the mech itself.
More endurance, faster speed, more tactical and strategic options, more complex variations, and a broader scope for improvement—these are the strengths of this operating system.
"So that's how it is," Reno nodded. "But it also means you need to be proficient enough in the control array system to make use of these advantages. Otherwise, if you can't even perform basic operations, then all the advantages become meaningless. Even if you can perform basic operations, it might not be as good as the neural system. Just think, you might need to operate four or five keys just to swing your arm, while the neural system only needs one simple punch to solve the problem, and there's no comparison in terms of reaction speed between the two."
"That's true," Bell nodded. "The requirements of the control array system are very complex. In fact, it's more precise and has more room for improvement than the neural system. But it requires a long training period, and even if the training is completed, it's not a match for the neural system in the short term. It's not conducive to mass production and urgent needs, so it has been eliminated by the times. But my client proposed a combination of both systems."
By combining the two, reducing the number of neurons significantly while also reducing the number of keystrokes, a new operating system was formed.
This was not an easy task, but it was indeed quite creative.
According to old Bell, the person who originally made this request was a young man with extraordinary talent and gifts. Unfortunately, due to some reason, his physical condition was poor, and he could never adapt to becoming a mech pilot.
In this situation, he conceived the idea of combining the two systems and paid a large sum of money to Bell.
And Bell didn't disappoint him; he did manage to merge the two systems.
It's not as simple as adding one and one together.
When the old man combined the two systems, he thought he simplified the process, but he overlooked the fact that it raised the technical requirements for the pilot—few people could play rock-paper-scissors while throwing a punch.
The biggest failure of Bell's product was that its complexity surpassed that of the most primitive control array systems.
When the client tried out this mech, he eventually left disappointed.
He didn't take the mech with him, nor did he pay the remaining balance.
Bell, who had bet everything on this mech, suffered the final merciless blow.
As a result, he went bankrupt.