Decahedron

While Lucky prodded a clearly artificial object buried inside the asteroid, Ves began to test his initial graser rifle design in a simulation.

The simulated weapon immediately blew up in the hands of the mech.

"What?!"

Ves was sure he nailed the design. It should have spat out at least an anemic gamma laser beam. To blow up in the face of the simulated mech was out of the realm of possibilities.

Thinking that the environment may had played a role, Ves repeated the simulation in different environments. He shifted from space to terrestrial environments such as forests or ice-capped terrain.

The graser rifle continued to explode without fail.

"I thought I was so close!"

He underestimated the technical challenges involved with turning a concept of a weapon into reality. He derived the bulk of his work from the research notes. Evidently, he made a mistake at some point. Perhaps he derived too much from the research notes and failed to adjust them to his own design.