CHAPTER 560: CHAPTER 458 MODIFICATION OF THE WEATHER CONTROLLER

Comparing the results from two trials, it’s clear that the Weather Controller is useful, but its utility isn’t very apparent in the current environment.

The trial results indicate that the Weather Controller performs best in stages where the temperature is relatively low. Once the temperature rises, the effectiveness of the Weather Controller declines correspondingly.

The optimal usage curve when combined with chemical agents, however, requires the ambient temperature to be at least above freezing. The irreconcilable divide between the two indeed poses a dilemma.

Although it’s not impossible to initially use the Weather Controller to irradiate the target area and then spray chemical agents once the temperature rises to maximize its effect, this still isn’t an efficient approach.

In other words, it isn’t a method that can take effect quickly.

According to Chen Xin’s conception, the Weather Controller should be able to quickly change the weather within a certain area, rapidly forming precipitation and strong winds, thereby affecting the dust in the current atmosphere.

However, given the current situation, the Weather Controller can only elevate the temperature of a localized area in a short period.

While controlling the temperature is tantamount to controlling the weather, in an environment colder than minus hundred degrees, the water vapor in the air has already condensed into ice and fallen, making the air as dry as a desert.

Under such circumstances, if local warming is to induce rain or snowfall, it must at least maintain this temperature to melt and evaporate ground snow so that the air humidity reaches saturation for precipitation to occur.

However, this would inevitably require prolonged use of the Weather Controller to irradiate the targeted area.

But the Weather Controller is not a searchlight or a heater that can stay on for a long time. Each activation consumes as much electricity as half of the current power usage of the Lucia Capital.

Long-term operation, even with Chen Xin and the team’s isotope generator, poses a significant challenge to manage such a large energy consumption.

Moreover, the critical issue is that the immense power consumption and generated electromagnetic waves place a heavy burden on the machine itself.

During the last trial, there were no problems due to the brief activation period, but this time the extended operation clearly revealed some component overload conditions.

Although currently there are no issues, extending the operation a bit more is still manageable, but no one can guarantee that problems won’t arise.

Even though a few damaged components in such a massive machine may not affect overall operation, no one wants anything to go wrong.

Consequently, after completing this trial, the staff proposed limiting the Weather Controller’s usage time to avoid prolonged operation.

In reality, under pre-disaster conditions, brief irradiation to increase the temperature by a few degrees would achieve the purpose, without needing prolonged exposure to raise the target area’s temperature above zero degrees.

Hence, following this trial, the staff needs to conduct further inspections on the entire Weather Controller and replace several fragile components, while considering how to further improve this machine based on data from the two trials.

This time, Chen Xin delegated the improvement tasks entirely to the staff, while he focused on how to miniaturize the currently massive Weather Controller so it could be mounted on a Mobile Base.

Through these two trials, Chen Xin has already grasped the limits of the Weather Controller.

Based on the current data, when the machine’s irradiation range is minimized, the projection distance can reach fifty kilometers, affecting approximately a circular area with a five-kilometer radius.

This area seems large, but from the actual results, it amounts to creating localized rainfall.

Of course, the Weather Controller’s projection range can be adjusted to expand the affected area, but overall, it’s merely extending a small range to a certain extent.

If the machine only has such performance, it certainly cannot meet Chen Xin’s needs, nor can it fulfill the current environmental requirements for weather modification.

Therefore, enhancing the Weather Controller’s performance and broadening its impact is what needs to be done now.

As for miniaturizing it, so it can be installed on the Mobile Base to affect weather in more areas, that’s a further task.

For now, upgrading the machine’s performance is assigned to the staff, while miniaturization is Chen Xin’s personal task.

Generally speaking, the Weather Controller can be seen as a large microwave emitter. Its substantial size is mainly due to the need to convert electricity into electromagnetic waves, which was as small as Suyia’s technology allowed.

In fact, even with current technology, the machine can be made smaller, but overall it still cannot be miniaturized enough to fit on a Mobile Base.

With humanity’s present technology, even before the disaster, achieving this would take decades according to Flame Country’s research speed.

The critical factor is that to affect a sufficiently large area, the machine’s power must be high, and the simplest way is to build a large one.

Building a large one is easy, but miniaturizing it while maintaining sufficient power is difficult.

The myriad factors involved likely require an overall boost in technological levels to enable miniaturization.

Nonetheless, for Chen Xin, it’s relatively straightforward. Everything is entrusted to the omnipotent system; as long as he invests enough survival points, the system will satisfy him.

If Chen Xin were willing to spend survival points, he could even miniaturize the Weather Controller to a pocket size.

Of course, the cost would be astronomical, surpassing even the expense of upgrading the Weather Controller to a planet modification unit.

Chen Xin naturally wouldn’t consider such an option. Even if he intends to spend survival points for miniaturization, he wouldn’t do so recklessly.

Given the current situation, to reduce the Weather Controller’s size, the enormous original power supply structure must be removed first.

Suyia’s originally constructed nuclear power plant has been replaced by the isotope generator, which doesn’t require the cumbersome power supply structure originally intended for the nuclear plant.

Therefore, this part can be omitted.

The remaining parts still require structural and material optimization. The previous optimization and upgrade was just a preliminary step, and this will be a further optimization.