Department of Automation's Very Intelligent Neural Computer Interface: You know interns, right? The people who actually deal with the finer details of designs, whilst we come up with the (obviously more important) overarching ideas? Turns out, they weren't very good at their jobs. We know this now, since we've replaced them with something much better at it. The technology could be called CAD- Computer Aided Design, but we prefer the name DA VINCI. Same difference, really.
DA VINCI builds on our experience building ORACLE, but diverges by integrating human minds directly into the machine through upgraded CATs (with more pins, and an improved Electrogel formula (which we are calling Neurogel) to enhance the connection). This enables people to not only communicate mentally with the computer, but also with others attached to the same machine. The combined brainpower of several humans, augmented with the lightning-fast calculations provided by the computer, results in 'designers' of exceptional talent and intelligence.
Obviously they can't take over
our jobs, but unaugmented interns/lesser designers can certainly be replaced.
DA VINCI will be responsible for
implementing our designs. This means taking care of the fine details- the exact length of this part, the circumference of that part, the shape of this other part. It will also aid the DUC in finding optimal ways to synthesize their unusual concoctions, and suchlike and so forth.
One area where we are focusing DA VINCI's efforts is COMBAT Plating, and everything that uses it. First, we'll use DA VINCI to analyse COMBAT Plating, and figure out whether it needs to be as complex as it is, or whether it could be made simpler without significant performance losses. Next, we'll have it go over the manufacturing process, and see if there isn't some clever way of reducing the costs there. Then we'll have it analyse the construction of both Bear Armour and Grizzlies, and see if we can't cut down on Ore costs without impacting performance- such as by using a more intelligent structure which has a higher strength/weight ratio, or making parts that don't actually face such high stress out of cheaper metals. By combining all these efforts, we hope to reduce the cost of COMBAT-equipped units- even if it means DA VINCI can't be used for anything else this year.
However, if we have some spare time, we can also have it go over all our other designs to look for small flaws that can be fixed. We're not talking major increases in performance- obviously that would require our personal efforts-, but small changes like tweaking the shape of the Blizzard's wings, or adding/removing a beam from the Cataphract, should be possible, and result in minor performance boosts across the board.
We need to reduce the cost of COMBAT Plating. This is so important that I feel we should spend our design on it. The above proposal does so whilst also advancing our computer/cybernetics experience, and (slightly) improving other designs as well.
The Duelist Initiative (Using Research Credit) (2): FallacyofUrist, Happerry
DA VINCI (Using Research Credit): (1) NUKE9.13