The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1342

Now that he determined that he could be a lot more open about the applications of his design philosophy, he wanted to design something that could make a splash.

"Starting with my tiger mech is a good idea."

He did not intend to proliferate its design. Merely producing a single copy should be enough for him to complete both of his Upgrade Missions.

For this reason, he began to consider his upcoming design project as something more than a way to explore a couple of unfamiliar directions in mech design.

He saw it as a golden opportunity to perform a bold experiment.

An experiment related to the path of life.

The premise of his idea was simple. Rather than relegating his design spirits in the background and limit them to influencing the performance of a mech through the X-Factor, why not allow them to control a portion of a mech directly?

"It’s like automation, but on a different level!"

Every mech incorporated at least some form of automation. It was unavoidable as a single human mind couldn’t possibly control every single variable of a complex war machine.

Yet the automation that Ves had in mind went much further than that. With the design spirit acting in place of an AI or automated routine, he wanted to give it sole, tangible control over a limb!

"And maybe even more limbs!"

A tiger mech possessed five limbs.

Its front and rear limbs played an essential role in the locomotion of the machine. Ves did not intend to mess with the mech pilot’s control over those essential limbs.

He instead directed his attention to the often-neglected rear limb, the tail.

"Many mech designers even leave that out entirely."

Organic tigers used them as means of communication and a way to help them balance their bodies during maneuvers.

Mechs that adopted the body shape of tigers had no need for those functions. Mech designers could tweak the body structure of a tiger mech to make the balancing function of a tail redundant. As for the communication function, the signalling function of a tail only played a role in situations where there was very strong jamming or where any conventional communication attempts might signal the enemy as well.

Some mech designers even turned the tail of a tiger mech into a strong antenna that amplified their communication capabilities.

Nonetheless, most mech designers merely added tails to a tiger mech because that was what their customers expected. Seeing a tiger mech without a tail was a slightly jarring sight so some mech pilots. Even if it made the mech more expensive, they insisted on adding articulating tails to their mechs because they wouldn’t have the illusion of embodying a giant tiger machine without this cosmetic limb!

For his current design project, Ves planned to turn the tail of his tiger mech into a smart metal limb. Not only that, but he planned to give full rein of it over to the design spirit!

"It’ll be an autonomous tail controlled by an entity other than the mech pilot of the automated systems of the mech!" He exulted. "For the first time, my mechs can finally express themselves more directly! They’ll be able to influence reality without asking for permission from their mech pilots!"

He called it spiritual automation! Of course, he would refer to it as metaphysical automation in public if anyone asked.

He couldn’t wait to see what the mech community thought of this novel addition to his mechs. The new application he came up with was so crazy and radical that Ves couldn’t help but erupt in laughter!

"Hahahahaha!"

"Hahahahahahahahaha!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Meow?!"

Lucky, who was leisurely dozing off on his desk, suddenly jerked up his feet. After seeing his owner getting drunk off one of his insane ideas again, he decided it was best to go elsewhere for a while.

Who knew what craziness Ves might do next! Lucky wanted no part of his dumb schemes!

"Meow!"

As Lucky phased through the deck as fast as he could, Ves subsided from his laughter.

It was all well and good to exult in his ideas, but without putting them into action, it was wholly premature of him to rest on his laurels.

"I still have a lot of work to do in designing the mech." He stated, centering his focus away from his previous rush.

Though his earlier conduct was a little shameful, the outburst succeeded in invigorating his drive. With his passion fired up, he deeply wanted his next design project to succeed!

However, designing his mech was easier said than done. If he wanted to meet the demands of both his Upgrade Missions at once, then he had to turn at least thirty percent of his tiger mech into smart metal.

"Incorporating smart metal shock absorbers in a typical tiger mech will only net me five percent at most." He surmised. "It might be possible for me to double it if I tweak the design to maximize their use."

That still left him with twenty percent to go. He supposed he might be able to turn additional components or subcomponents of his tiger mech into smart metal.

"Certain sections of the limbs can be turned into smart metal as well." He thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "It’s best if I turn certain sections of armor into smart metal as well, but the cost of doing so is prohibitive for third-class mechs."

Smart metal used as armor had to be formed out of exceptional materials. Their license costs were also high, though Ves didn’t care since he planned to pirate the necessary licenses anyway.

"Even if I’m prepared to invest a lot of money in this project, it’s best to keep it as limited as possible."