Chapter 839: Golden Eagle

The Armed Transport Ship is the lowest-value item among the batch of projects about to be harvested next.

The prototype of the Armed Transport Ship was the Hope experimental spaceship, which Sun Cheng designed himself and was later modified by his Decepticon engineers.

Back then, he piloted this ship to successfully send his first batch of Decepticons to Mars, where he established a new base.

After returning from Mars, the Hope was taken by Sun Cheng's Decepticon engineers to collect various data.

After all, it was the first space-faring ship produced by the base itself; although the ship model was small, the Decepticon engineers he had already trained began to redesign the Hope to develop more new models.

Eventually, based on the Hope, the prototype of an armed transport ship was born.

Sun Cheng arrived inside a low mountain more than twenty kilometers away from the Base No. 2 control center; in the huge, almost hollowed-out Jichang, a dozen ships that could hardly be recognized as the Hope were docked there.

He subconsciously looked up toward the top of the mountain interior; huge alloy plates replaced the mountaintop, and once opened, these ships with vertical take-off and landing capabilities could take off directly from the Jichang inside the mountain at will.

Seemingly having received news of his arrival in advance, a young Decepticon engineer hurried over.

His name was Magnifying Glass; as one can tell from this strange name, it did not come from Sun Cheng, but was given to him by his teacher, Hephaestus.

"Commander, welcome to inspect the Jichang!"

Magnifying Glass was one of the assistants to Hephaestus, who had now been promoted to Senior Engineer; back when he was just a Worker, he followed Hephaestus and participated in the modification and manufacture of several warships and submarines.

Because of this experience, later, after obtaining the construction technology for the Explorer-class Cargo Spaceship, Sun Cheng transferred Hephaestus, who possessed experience in large ship design and construction, to serve as the main person in charge of the Explorer-class Cargo Spaceship production project.

Magnifying Glass, as his assistant, also followed Hephaestus to participate in the construction of the Explorer-class Cargo Spaceship for a period of time.

It wasn't until Sun Cheng proposed the Hope experimental spaceship project that Magnifying Glass was sent by Hephaestus to be responsible for helping him carry out the optimization design and was in charge of building the Hope.

Afterward, Magnifying Glass did not return to Hephaestus's team.

This young Decepticon engineer was also ambitious; he seemed to see huge development potential in the Hope experimental spaceship.

After the Hope experimental spaceship was completed, during a period when Sun Cheng was in a good mood, he took the initiative to propose establishing a separate project to continue perfecting the Hope.

At the time, he was about to head to Mars and did not refuse Magnifying Glass's proposal.

Unexpectedly, this guy used the resources obtained from the project to manufacture the first batch of three Armed Transport Ships, which had weapon systems installed and the transport cabin fully optimized.

A few months ago, when the Replica Warriors invaded Trindade Island, although the three Armed Transport Ships arrived at the Black Market for support at the last moment.

But the special shape of the transport ships and a series of improvement plans did indeed move Sun Cheng.

Consequently, Magnifying Glass, who originally still needed to fly the banner of perfecting the Hope to apply for resources from the base, was officially appointed as the main person in charge of the 'Armed Transport Ship' project.

With the assistance of a group of Decepticon Workers and Technical Officers, this guy used the past nearly half a year to carry out a series of comprehensive modifications and upgrades to the 'Armed Transport Ship' from beginning to end.

Only then did the dozen brand-new sharp weapons currently in the Jichang, which could no longer be seen as the Hope, come to be.

Finally, the finished product of the 'Armed Transport Ship' project was officially given the name 'Golden Eagle'.

Mimicking the armed transport aircraft and normal transport aircraft schemes developed from the old American military transport planes, there were two different models, I and II.

The official name of Type I should be 'Golden Eagle Fighter', which was thoroughly modified into a combat spaceship.

It is 27.7 meters long, has a wingspan of 33.4 meters, is 16.4 meters high, the ship's empty weight reached 94.2 tons, and the maximum take-off weight is about 179 tons.

A normal Decepticon Warrior could pilot such a fighter very well, but in outer space flight conditions, it requires two Decepticon Warriors to operate simultaneously.

It carries one 120mm caliber Plasma Cannon, two rocket launcher pods, and eight sets of Missile Launchers, and can carry a maximum of over ninety tons of missiles and other ammunition.

On the premise of possessing nuclear weapons in the future, the Golden Eagle Fighter could even be used as a launch vehicle for Nuclear Warheads.

When Magnifying Glass designed this fighter, he was clearly referencing some design concepts of fighter jets, fighter-bombers, and bombers on Earth.

However, unlike those military aircraft on Earth that cannot break through the atmosphere, it can conduct combat in outer space.

It was designed as a short-range escort unit for the future transport fleet; at least the escort from Earth to Mars is no problem, but for further distances, the propulsion system would need to be further upgraded.

The official name of Type II should be 'Golden Eagle Armed Transport Ship', which is more focused on transport.

It is 55.3 meters long, has a wingspan of 59.6 meters, is 21.8 meters high, the ship's empty weight reached 196.2 tons, and the maximum take-off weight is about 579 tons.

The weapon system on the ship was streamlined into two rocket launcher pods and four sets of Missile Launchers, which can ensure at a minimum that it does not have no ability to fight back when encountering sudden situations.

Because it is more complex than the 'Golden Eagle Fighter', the 'Golden Eagle Armed Transport Ship' requires at least two normal Decepticon Warriors to be responsible for piloting, and in outer space flight conditions, at least three Decepticon Warriors are needed.

And this finalized 'Golden Eagle Armed Transport Ship' can transport up to 60 Decepticon Warriors or more than three hundred tons of supplies in its internal cabin space at the same time.

Compared to the three prototype ships that appeared on Trindade Island back then, there is no doubt that this current Golden Eagle Type II is the only one that can truly be called an armed transport ship.

"Not a bad design!"

Shooting two blue rays from his eyes, Sun Cheng nodded with satisfaction after scanning the two types of Golden Eagle ships in the Jichang for a while.

His gaze lingered especially long on the Type I Golden Eagle Fighter; his current transformation form had not yet been determined after changing to a New Body.

The Golden Eagle Fighter did fit Sun Cheng's aesthetic; after transforming, Cybertronians fully master all the capabilities of a certain military weapon or transport equipment.

Therefore, he had not yet easily decided to scan the Golden Eagle Fighter to use it as his current transformation form.

After all, although transforming into a Golden Eagle Fighter would bring an astonishing transformation to his speed, and even he himself could fly across planets more easily after transforming in the future.

But according to Sun Cheng's research on Cybertronians over the past few years, in the Golden Eagle form, the Spark within him would likely struggle to handle the consumption of such cross-planet flight.

Conservatively estimated, in the Golden Eagle form, he would not be able to fly to Mars at all before shutting down due to the energy in his Spark being exhausted.

However, the time left for Sun Cheng to consider probably won't be much.

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