211: Chapter 211 Fire Control and Blade Sealing: The Swarm Needs to Get Its Teeth!

sentry ship arrival countdown, day 76.

Pangu Laboratory, Level B2, morning.

Academician Li Zhengyang returned to the test bench from the weapon adaptation area, carrying a freshly refilled cup of hot water. The cup had been replaced.

The threads on the lid of his old thermos had been worn smooth from him tightening it too much.

Liu Huaqiang had found him a new one from somewhere; it was military green, with "Longguo Academy of Sciences 2024 Outstanding Individual" printed on the side.

"Academician Qian, I've compiled the characteristic spectrum of that batch of false echoes from yesterday."

Academician Li Zhengyang placed a printed copy on the edge of Academician Qian Zhenhua's workstation.

"The screening logic for the entangled state verification nodes is fine, but I've discovered a boundary case: if the target itself carries a quantum interference source and actively emits pseudo-entangled state signals, your verification nodes could potentially be deceived."

Academician Qian Zhenhua took the printout and read it from the first line to the last.

"What is the upper limit for the fidelity of the pseudo-entangled state signals?"

"Theoretically 87%. True quantum entangled state fidelity is above 99%, so there's a 12-point difference."

"Then add a fidelity threshold to the verification nodes; anything below 95% is to be judged as false."

"Wouldn't 95% be too aggressive? What if the radar's own entangled state fidelity drops to 96% or 97% due to distance attenuation..."

"It won't. The equivalent fidelity of the chain-relay navigation particles is 99.93% at a distance of three million kilometers."

Academician Qian Zhenhua put down the printout.

"These are the physical parameters hard-coded into Chief Engineer Su's technical framework; the attenuation won't drop below 95%."

Academician Li Zhengyang unscrewed the new cup and took a sip.

"Alright, 95%."

Su Che listened to their conversation from the main console and wrote the fidelity threshold parameters into the verification nodes of the fire control scheduling framework.

After making the changes, he ran a set of targeted simulations, injecting pseudo-entangled state interference sources.

All twenty pseudo-targets were filtered out before firing.

Zero false positives.

Su Che archived the logs and switched to the next test scenario.

"Academician Zhang Weide, have you tested the resource competition between flight control and fire control when the Xuannü fires simultaneously during large-angle orbital maneuvers?"

Academician Zhang Weide leaned out from behind the Pangu Quantum Computer terminal.

"I haven't. Flight control and fire control use different computing power partitions on the same Sub-nanometer chip. Under normal circumstances, they don't interfere with each other, but during large-angle maneuvers, the flight control's attitude calculation consumes more computing power, which might squeeze the fire control partition."

"Run a set."

Academician Zhang Weide connected the flight control simulation environment to the fire control simulator and set up an extreme scenario.

Three hundred Xuannü executed 180-degree flip maneuvers simultaneously, conducting full-domain strikes against three thousand targets during the maneuvers.

Flight control and fire control competed for computing power simultaneously.

The results came out: the fire control's target allocation latency increased from 10 milliseconds to 23 milliseconds.

"23 milliseconds." Academician Zhang Weide pushed the data to the public big screen. "The fire control allocation cycle has more than doubled."

Su Che looked at the number.

23 milliseconds wasn't fatal, but in high-speed combat, the extra 13 milliseconds meant the target would have moved a significant distance, causing hit deviation to accumulate.

"Make the chip's computing power partitions dynamic." Su Che added a piece of logic to the fire control framework. "During flight control peaks, the fire control will proactively yield 5% of its partition to flight control and run at a lower frequency, reclaiming it immediately after the maneuver is complete."

"How much will fire control accuracy drop during the downclocking?"

"The allocation latency will be around 15 milliseconds—5 milliseconds more than the normal state, but 8 milliseconds less than the 23 we just saw."

Academician Zhang Weide wrote a version of the flight control side adaptation code for dynamic partitioning and re-ran the simulation.

The latency stabilized between 14 and 16 milliseconds.

"Acceptable." Academician Zhang Weide sealed the data.

Zhao Mingyuan called out from his workstation.

"The Cognitive Graph side needs to cooperate too. During large-angle maneuvers, tactical deduction can temporarily lower the decision depth, compressing it from 17 layers to 12. The saved computing power can also be yielded to flight control."

"Will the false positive rate increase if we drop to 12 layers?"

"It will increase by 0.1 percentage points, from 0.4% to 0.5%. That's half a unit out of three hundred making a mistake."

Su Che didn't hesitate.

"That works. Maneuvering is a short-term action, a matter of seconds. A 0.5% false positive rate is manageable."

Zhao Mingyuan added the automatic layer-reduction logic for maneuver mode to the Cognitive Graph.

The changes from the three lines were merged, and another full-scale stress test was run.

Three hundred Xuannü, simultaneously engaging three thousand targets during 180-degree flip maneuvers.

Hit rate: 98.7%.

It was 0.3% lower than the normal 99%, but considering they were firing in the most extreme flight attitude, this number was impeccable.

...

sentry ship arrival countdown, day 75.

Level B2, afternoon.

Academician Sun Qiwen was carrying his enamel mug and almost collided with Wen Bo when coming out of the U-shaped array area.

Wen Bo was holding a sample of stealth film couriered from Kaitian Base, walking with his head down toward the weapon adaptation area.

"Where are you rushing to?"

"Academician Li told me to go confirm the electromagnetic compatibility between the stealth layer and the fire control firing window. I need to see if the electromagnetic pulse during the instant of directed energy firing will pierce the frequency-hopping stealth control signals."

Academician Sun Qiwen stepped aside to let him pass.

Wen Bo entered the weapon adaptation area, stuck the stealth film sample onto the launch module casing, and connected the frequency-hopping control signal.

"Academician Li, fire a shot."

Academician Li Zhengyang adjusted the launch module to the lowest power simulation firing mode and pressed the fire button.

The electromagnetic pulse spread out from the launch chamber.

On the frequency-hopping control signal monitoring panel, the data flickered once, then stabilized.

Wen Bo stared at the monitoring panel.

"The pulse peak penetrated the second layer of the stealth layer's shielding, but was blocked at the third layer. The frequency-hopping signal was unaffected."

"What about at full power?"

"The electromagnetic pulse intensity at full power is four hundred times that of the simulation mode." Wen Bo peeled the stealth film off the casing and flipped it over. "The second layer shielding doesn't have a four-hundred-fold margin."

Academician Li Zhengyang turned to look at Su Che.

Su Che walked over from the main console.

"When the fire control firing command is issued, send a warning signal to the stealth system simultaneously. Have the stealth layer switch the second shielding layer to enhanced mode five milliseconds before firing, and restore it to normal after firing."

Wen Bo pulled out the vernier caliper from his waist and measured the thickness of the film.

"Enhanced mode requires extra power; it will consume an additional 0.3 joules per shot."

"Academician Sun?"

Academician Sun Qiwen responded.

"0.3 joules, we can take that from the margin of that solid-state supercapacitor. The 42-joule capacitor only uses 37 joules of its quota; the remaining 5 joules are enough for sixteen shots. After sixteen shots, the capacitor will be recharged in one cycle."

"It's decided."

Wen Bo pocketed the stealth film and left the weapon adaptation area.

Su Che added the logic for linking the fire warning to the stealth system in the fire control scheduling framework.

Another boundary condition was sealed.

...

sentry ship arrival countdown, day 74.

Level B2, 10:00 AM.

Su Che conducted a full-scale verification of all sub-modules of the quantum fire control specialized technology before finalization.

Quantum precision positioning, cross-domain target locking, multi-weapon collaborative fire control, distributed clustering, dynamic computing power partitioning, and firing-stealth linkage.

The six modules were connected in series and loaded into the main god ai's ultimate comprehensive fire control simulator.

The parameters were pushed to the limit.

Three hundred Xuannü, twelve White Emperor, and six Mingdi Interceptor in a multi-platform mixed formation.

Five thousand enemy heterogeneous targets, full-domain electromagnetic interference, pseudo-entangled state deception, formation maneuvering, and high-speed movement.

Run.

The fire control network topology map on the main screen was so dense that individual nodes couldn't be seen; it was just a sea of flowing light points.

Five thousand targets were allocated cleanly.

Not a single duplicate allocation.

Not a single oversight.

Not a single false target deceived the verification.

Simulation complete. Comprehensive hit rate: 99.3%.

Su Che encapsulated and packed the complete technical package, labeled it "Final Draft - Quantum Fire Control Specialization," and pushed it into the encrypted storage.

"Finalized."

Deep in his mind, a blue-and-white panel popped up.

[Ding! Main R&D mission "Only by Aiming Accurately Can You Strike Hard!" completed!]

[Quantum Fire Control specialized technology R&D verification passed!]

[Quantum precision positioning four-dimensional vector extraction accuracy reached picometer level; cross-domain target locking achieved zero duplication and zero omissions for five thousand targets; multi-weapon collaborative fire control dynamic scheduling achieved zero abnormal switching; multi-platform mixed formation comprehensive hit rate is 99.3%!]

[Every shot from the swarm hits exactly where it's aimed!]

[Mission Reward: 550,000 skill points!]

550,000 credited. Su Che closed the panel.

Liu Huaqiang walked out from the communications area with a pencil tucked behind his ear, his notebook turned to that page.

After the four characters for "Quantum Fire Control," he added a checkmark.

He closed the notebook and glanced at Su Che.

"What's next?"

Su Che stood up and walked in front of the monitoring wall.

The left side of the screen showed Kaitian Base, where the dual production lines of the new and old Zhulong were operating simultaneously. Mass-produced components for the Solar System version of the Xuannü were being pushed out from the output port in batches.

The right side of the screen showed the Near-Earth Orbit Base, where the 100,000-ton hull skeleton of the luan bird was floating quietly under the starlight.

The swarm had its brain, its teeth were sharpened, and its eyes had been installed.

Now it was time to stuff all of this into every Xuannü that came off the production line—three hundred in total, and not one could be missed.

Then, it would be time to install the luan bird's own fire control system.

The ultimate version of the directed energy weapons and the quantum fire control system needed to be installed on the ship.

Su Che turned around.

"Dean Liu, notify Zhou Dehai that the Xuannü mass production line is to fully switch to burning the upgraded technical package. Both Zhulong machines are to run at full capacity. Before the sentry ship arrives, all three hundred units must be ready."

He glanced at the corner of the main screen.

sentry ship arrival countdown, 74 days.

"Also, it's time to arm the luan bird."