Chapter 187: Power Armor
Owen named the enhanced Teutonic Knights “Limit Warriors,” and they lived up to the name, each one as strong as a monster. After all, Teutonic Knights were already the peak of human strength, and after the Tyrant Enhancement, they broke through their limits. Although they couldn’t reach the Legendary realm, ordinary high-ranking Battle Qi Knights were no match for them.
The successful modification of the Limit Warriors greatly encouraged Owen. Therefore, he entrusted the enhancement of the remaining nine Teutonic Knights to Flame Empress and eagerly dragged Bryan into the power armor project.
In fact, Owen already had the conditions to manufacture power armor. If practicality and mass production were not considered, with the puppet intelligent core and energy core, and his mastery of puppetry and alchemy, crafting a set of power armor was not difficult at all. At most, it wouldn’t be as good as the genuine version, but it would have all the necessary functions.
The problem is that a mature piece of equipment requires more than just being high-end. Practicality and popularity are the most important, so the inability to mass-produce is the biggest problem.
What’s more, a single high-quality piece is time-consuming and labor-intensive, requiring Owen’s full participation and a large amount of Progress Value, making the cost-effectiveness too low.
Therefore, Owen’s next research direction was not to create the best power armor, but to create the most suitable power armor. At least the Gremlins and Flame Empress should be able to produce it independently, maybe with the addition of Bryan. As long as he didn’t need to be involved.
The simplest solution is mechanical power armor, similar to the Marines in StarCraft.
However, considering that the Teutonic Knights who use power armor all possess excellent martial skills, purely mechanical power armor is not suitable. It cannot bring out the advantages of the Teutonic Knights’ combat techniques and agility. Therefore, Owen planned to imitate the electronic muscle bundle technology of the Space Marine power armor.
Owen had similar technology, otherwise, how did the Ninjutsu Assassin come about?
The Ninjutsu Assassin puppet itself was Owen’s test of new technology. It used human imitation technology, so the metal skeleton and the artificial muscles throughout its body completely imitated the human body structure.
These artificial muscles could be modified to become electronic muscle bundles, providing additional power.
But after testing, Owen found that he was naive. Although the muscle bundles on the puppet were similar in principle to the electronic muscle bundles used by Space Marines, the gap in materials and processing technology was measured in millennia.
In other words, the power was not enough to drive the heavy external armor of a Space Marine, which was equivalent to an armored vehicle.
After discovering this, Owen originally planned to make a hybrid power armor, which was to add a layer of mechanical power system outside the electronic muscle bundle, and then the external armor.
Then he remembered that the users were enhanced Teutonic Knights, a group of monsters with strength measured in tons, and decisively abandoned this troublesome choice.
For these monsters, electronic muscle bundles were just auxiliary power equipment, not necessities.
Then Owen planned to make a prototype first and improve it later. As a result, as soon as he went deeper into the research, he encountered another problem, which was how to connect the artificial muscles with the user so that the artificial muscles could perfectly imitate the user’s movements.
Space Marines used the black carapace, a technology implanted under the skin, to achieve this, but Owen couldn’t do it.
This technology was beyond his capabilities because the nerve bundles extending from the black carapace could perfectly fuse with the user’s nervous system. Therefore, despite the heavy armor of Space Marines, their agility and responsiveness were very high, something Owen couldn’t achieve at all.
Flame Empress was already very proficient in biotechnology, but she also lacked this ability and even the relevant technical reserves. Therefore, although Owen wouldn’t be starting from scratch, he would still face countless difficulties if he wanted to research it.
At this time, Owen wanted to give up on electronic muscle bundles and switch to researching mechanical power armor. However, Flame Empress timely came up with a new modification plan, which was to add an intelligent core.
The intelligent core could capture and collect the user’s movements, forming a new power operation mode, making the power armor’s movements smoother and smoother.
Although it was a bit troublesome, it had to be said that it was the best solution at present.
After solving these problems, a basic prototype was ready, and Owen decided to manufacture it.
Flame Empress took over Owen’s multi-functional workbench through the spiritualized crystal ball. After the alloy frame was welded, six high-precision mechanical arms, like the legs of a spider, quickly weaved artificial muscle fibers on the frame, fixing the electronic muscle bundles on it.
After the muscle bundles were fixed, a modified mechanical spine was installed on the back of the power muscle suit to connect all the electronic muscle bundles.
The first Teutonic Knight who completed the enhancement wore the power muscle suit prototype. As it was activated, under the stimulation of electric current, the electronic muscle bundles immediately contracted and wriggled. Due to various problems, the contraction force was so strong that the enhanced Teutonic Knight’s face turned red. If it were an ordinary person, their intestines would probably be squeezed out.
A series of tests followed, and Owen’s brows never relaxed.
The insufficient power of the electronic muscle bundles was only for heavy armor. In fact, the contraction force generated by this thing under electronic stimulation was terrifyingly strong.
This was both an advantage and a disadvantage. Due to insufficient control, it could only react through motion capture. The problem was that before the power operation template was formed, losing control was completely normal.
Even the enhanced Teutonic Knight was bruised and purple all over after the test, all caused by the out-of-control electronic muscle bundles. If an ordinary person were to test it, it would be over from the start, and they would be either burned or buried, saving the trouble of rescue.
Fortunately, Flame Empress took over the intelligent core, speeding up the formation of the power operation template, which reduced the number of times it lost control, making it possible to proceed to the next step.
The external armor that had been forged long ago was fixed on the exposed alloy frame of the power muscle suit under the control of the mechanical arms, distributing the weight to the whole body. After equipping the 20mm caliber bolter and chainsaw sword, the knock-off version of the Space Marine was finally formed.
The entire power armor was about 2.5 meters tall, with an alloy frame lining, electronic muscle bundle power, and composite external armor, weighing about half a ton.
Such heavy equipment had a very small energy demand. One energy core could maintain daily needs, and three could meet the needs of prolonged fierce battles. After all, the energy core could automatically recover energy, unless the battle was so fierce that it required the use of three energy cores, without giving it time to recover.
This was mainly because the entire armor didn’t have much additional equipment and functions, and the electronic muscle bundle didn’t consume much energy, serving more as auxiliary power.
But the fact that the entire set of equipment couldn’t be mass-produced was what gave Owen a headache, giving him the illusion that his efforts were in vain.
However, Bryan and Flame Empress gave Owen a surprise. They bypassed the many difficulties of this prototype and designed a set of mechanical power armor. Although it was bulky and slow, and had many shortcomings, it could be mass-produced.
Well, although he felt a bit frustrated, wasn’t this the reason why he looked for subordinates?
Owen named the armor powered by electronic muscle bundles “Limit Armor” because only Limit Warriors could equip it.
The purely mechanical power armor was named “Iron Fist” and was used by Teutonic Knights.
Thus, the territory had two types of power armor: precision crafted and mass-produced.
