While the players were busy looting, Lin Miao was still at the Stone Ridge Mountain Office.
It’s not that he doesn’t care, but losing a few players is something Lin Miao can accept.
The original garage has been transformed into a small workshop, and Lin Miao has added many electronic devices to it, making it look quite professional.
Lin Miao looked at the 3D model on the computer, which seemed to be a bit different from the batch made before, so he asked,
"Is this a new design?"
"Yeah." Mantou removed her protective goggles and put down the arc welder, saying, "That old guy seems to have changed lately, paying particular attention to this for some reason."
Since the day they had a chat, her dad came back and seemed like a different person, not only started being interested in the game, asking her to help register an account, but also frequently inquiring about her exoskeleton design.
Although Mantou was somewhat discontent, in terms of professional technical depth, her dad could easily outdo her.
Even in networking, her dad far surpassed her; anything he didn’t understand, he could find someone to inquire about.
Mantou extended her pinky and clasped her thumb over the first knuckle, "Well, he gave a tiny suggestion on the modular design, just a tiny bit."
"There’s actually a gun and ammunition design, and it’s 5.8mm caliber, Night City doesn’t have anything ."
Lin Miao was somewhat surprised, the exoskeleton arm protection on the design drawing was more secure compared to the original MT-1, but also more inconvenient, so to facilitate usage and aiming, the gun was fixed to the arm, with the electric trigger on the inner side of the palm.
Aiming might be somewhat troublesome, but the prosthetic eye system in the game world can somewhat mitigate this disadvantage, or one could use an auxiliary aiming visor separately, though that’s not something Lin Miao can handle now.
The loading system is on the leg, with a laser docking module for the magazine, simply straightening and pressing downward will automatically reload, though this greatly increases the battery demand, and the bullets would spray like water.
To address the agility issue caused by the excessive weight of the equipment, electric wheels were installed at the feet and arms to enhance mobility. Night City has similar prosthetics, though this elevates the exoskeleton.
Compared to the previous crudeness, this setup finally resembles a war weapon, though the cost has risen to 30,000. Of course, if Lin Miao can resolve the production lines for guns, ammo, and electronic components, the price will surely drop substantially.
"No way around it? Our industry for this caliber of bullets is quite mature, the design is bound to go in this direction."
Mantou quickly realized her slip and hastily corrected, "Ah no, I meant the armor-piercing ability of the 5.8mm caliber bullets is somewhat better than the conventional 5.56 or 5.45, aren’t those prosthetics quite sturdy? I thought these bullets might be more suitable."
This was actually directed by her dad, who had heard it from others. Both father and daughter didn’t know much about gun design, but someone did.
Gun design has always started with the bullet, designing the barrel and gas system based on it, and then expanding other components on this basis.
Thanks to certain country’s persecution complex, the cheap propellant 5.8mm caliber steel shell bullet was born.
It’s designed for confronting worldwide assaults, main forces annihilation, production facilities totally wiped, overseas supply chains severed, using basic equipment to produce ordinary bullets, quite effective against soldiers equipped with body armor.
They practically don’t consider anyone outside the four hooligans as real people; after all, you can’t expect the people of Curryland or talking bushes to have everyone equipped with a bulletproof vest. Those people possibly can’t even have a proper army lunch today, let alone distribute protective gear.
To a certain extent, it fits Lin Miao’s current needs well, plenty of steel, and propellant is cheap.
Moreover, a unique ammo caliber offers the benefit of single-source supply; those who buy this equipment can only come to Lin Miao for follow-up ammunition, can’t go to another company, since other companies won’t establish a separate production line to waste resources to supply someone else’s civilian equipment.
The only problem is Lin Miao doesn’t yet have the conditions to produce this equipment, he can’t resort to using a CNC machine to produce bullet casings, can he?
Even if using CNC machinery for milling would also take time.
And he almost exposed himself in front of Mantou.
How could he know about ’whether our 5.8mm bullet industry is mature or not’?
In fact, Lin Miao hasn’t exposed himself as GM in a while, maintaining the persona is quite challenging, slip-ups are hard to cover up.
"This improvement skip is too large; we can take it step by step, first produce the prototype and see. After all, the original MT-1 can still sell for a long period, launching new products during this time will squeeze the sales space of old products, which is detrimental to the office’s development."
"Moreover, this equipment is more suited for battlefield vehicles compared to gang street wars, and it’s not yet the time to go head-to-head with those companies."
Recently, Lin Miao specifically sought out the power armor exoskeleton combat videos of those companies; truly, except for not flying, those things practically resemble Gundam and Iron Man.
Ripping through several centimeters thick reinforced concrete like tearing paper, with high agility, in comparison, the combat prowess of city mercenaries and gangs is practically a slaughter.