The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1097

Due to the importance of the armor system to the Aurora Titan design, Ves deliberated carefully on his choices before he settled on the Pisaro armor system.

As for the selection of other component designs, Ves did not trouble himself so much over it. The Aurora Titan was basically a super-sized medium space knight so he generally picked components designed specifically for this mech type.

The other components he selected mainly emphasized practicality, defense and endurance. Sadly, Ves hadn’t been able to make his mech as energy efficient as his previous original designs.

"There’s a huge difference in energy expenditure between landbound mechs and spaceborn mechs."

The flight systems of spaceborn mechs expended such vast amounts of energy that hardly any spaceborn mech deployed for more than an entire day. Carriers and motherships served a vital purpose in providing a readily-accessible resupply point for spaceborn mechs to exchange their spent energy cells.

While Ves could increase the deployment time by making use of more efficient but more trouble fuel cells, they were much less practical in use. Since his vision for the Aurora Titan design also emphasized practicality, then he shouldn’t make it more difficult to supply the mech.

"The polarizing module already uses up a lot of energy when employed. If I want the Aurora Titan to last long enough, then I need to make some savings in the flight system."

Each mech type required their own special type of flight systems. Just like each bird possessed a different wing shape, certain flight systems worked better with lighter mechs or heavier mechs.

In general, flight systems designed for space knights tended to be more robust and more armored, but only relative to other flight systems. There were limits to how much armor the wing-shaped flight systems could carry before all of the materials began to impede flight.

After browsing through many different flight systems, Ves eventually settled on a rather eccentric flight system called the Luminant Orca.

When Ves added the Luminant Orca flight system to his unfinished design, the Aurora Titan instantly acquired a radiant appearance.

The Luminant Orca was big. It took up a lot of real estate when in use, but folded back inwards when it didn’t need to accelerate very fast. This meant that the Aurora Titan could fly with marginally acceptable acceleration despite its ungainly mass by spreading its wings. It also meant that it could fold its wing components into a more compact shape when it held a relatively static position while enduring lots of incoming fire.

"It’s a flight system made for space knights!"

This extra functionality came at a cost. First, the extra complexity meant that the flight system was a bit harder and more cumbersome to maintain. When unfolded, the Luminant Orca took up a lot of space, which made it easier to hit.

Yet despite the light show it emitted during active use, the flight system exhibited a decent amount of energy efficiency. It did so by optimizing its use in relatively low acceleration.

Plainly said, the Luminant Orca would never be able to win any speed awards. It came with a hard cap on acceleration in order to optimize its energy efficiently.

To put it in even simpler terms, the flight system was permanently stuck in one gear. While it couldn’t shift to different gears that worked better under different conditions, its performance was very good in the gear it was stuck in. The flight system thereby served as a great complement to the Aurora Titan, which never put too much demands on mobility.

The Aurora Titan design revolved around four core parts. Its armor system, its flight system and its polarizing module all defined the core functionality of his design. The only tech he added from his own end was the addition of alien crystal technology.

In order to kick the Aurora Titan’s ability to withstand energy damage by another notch, he sprinkled eight medium-sized light crystals around the frame of the mech. The front, back and sides of the mechs all became covered by these modest-sized crystals capable of absorbing a limited degree of lasers only to shoot back a powerful light beam.

Due to the decision to incorporate smaller but more numerous crystals, the Aurora Titan enjoyed coverage in almost every direction. This saved the cumbersome mech from rotating all the way around if lasers began to strike it from the rear.

"Still, the wider coverage comes at the expense of damage-absorbing capacity."

Ves didn’t care too much about that as the basic functionality of the smaller crystals provided a sufficient amount of functionality.

"Unlike the Crystal Lord, the Aurora Titan isn’t designed to retaliate with ranged attacks. The crystals are only there as a gimmick."

To be honest, Ves incorporated the alien crystals despite the expense they added and the complications they introduced into the design due to following his artistic sense. He wanted to convey some of the aesthetics of a Sacred God with their god crystals embedded into their hides.

Even though Sacred Gods used very different crystals from those included in his Crystal Lord and Aurora Titan designs, their appearances resembled each other. It helped that Qilanxo’s spiritual fragment liked it as well! With the support of the fragment, Ves indulged his artistic fancy by going through with incorporating this gimmick into his mech.

It may not have been the most prodent design choice he made during this design project, but sometimes it was worth following his heart rather than adhering to logic!

"Thematically, the crystals mesh well with the vision for my Aurora Titan design. It’s just that I’m making it harder on myself with their inclusion."

Each additional system that Ves included into his mech added more and more complexity, to the detriment of the mech’s integrity. This was also the main reason why third-class mechs predominantly specialized in highly-focused mech types that mainly employed a single weapon system.

Hybrid mechs were often more trouble than they were worth! Ves possessed a good understanding of this belief as he once started off with the bloated Caesar Augustus design.

"The inclusion of the polarizing module and the alien crystals into the Aurora Titan design is kind of similar to turning it into a hybrid mech design."

Some of the rules and limitations of hybrid mechs applied to the Aurora Titan design. The inclusion of these extra features imposed more requirements on his design’s internal architecture, taking up valuable real estate that could have been used to strengthen its structure and increase its redundancy and compartmentalization.