The Mech Touch novel Chapter 383

Ves derived a fair amount of the technology used in his design from studying the remains of the crystal builders. His design’s appearance and hunched posture faintly echoed the long dead race’s appearance. It was clear that the design formed something of an homage to the alien race.

He did not do so because he worshipped the aliens, but because he wanted to please the crystal golem. The spirit inside his head had always nudged his design choices in this direction, and Ves found it best to accommodate its wishes in order to maximize the chances of strengthening the X-Factor of his design.

A thrilling sense of anticipation ran through his body as he thought about the end product. Besides its specs and its technical aspects, his design also excelled in the spiritual sense. It could in fact be one of its strongest point.

Ves couldn’t wait to complete his design and experience its X-Factor in full force.

"The Blackbeak may be better put together as a mech, but its X-Factor simply can’t compare against this rifleman mech design."

Still, the success of his design in terms of X-Factor depended on the mood of the crystal golem. Ves attempted to please it in any way he could without setting back the performance of his mech.

As for the Festive Cloud Generator, Ves decided to integrate it into the head of his design. He hesitated on the exact appearance of the head, but in the end chose to imitate the crystal builder’s strange head shape.

Just like the alien race which inspired this mech, Ves designed the head to be a roughly humanoid shape but without any defined eyes, ears, nostrils or mouths. Instead, he spread a random amount of pin-shaped holes throughout the front, sides and back of the head. He only filled a couple of them with sensors, leaving the rest of the holes plugged at the very end.

The head looked unsettling, and added to the threatening nature of his rifleman mech. Due to the strange shape of the head, Ves found it to be the perfect outlet for the Festive Cloud Generator. He integrated the module inside the neck and connected it to the holes in the head via dedicated channels.

As for the color of the vapor, Ves decided to use the same understated brownish color as the exterior coating for his mech.

"My Blackbeak either releases black or red phoenix flames, depending on the edition."

In order to add some flair to those who requested it, Ves added in a soul blue shade as an alternative. This would turn the head into some kind of horrific entity that resembled a skeleton that came back to life. Ves thought this would give his design a much better visual impact compared to vapor dyed in earthen tones.

"I don’t think many people will go for this option though." Ves considered. "Rifleman mech pilots aren’t eager to call out attention for themselves. If the heads of their mechs suddenly burn in bright blue, they’re liable to attract a lot more enemy fire."

The Blackbeak could afford to be focused on by enemy mechs, but his rifleman mech fared poorly if put in the center of attention. Even though both mechs shared the same same armor system, one had been designed as a damage sponge and the other had been designed to dish out the damage.

After adding in the cloud generator, Ves essentially finished iterating his design. After this, he would no longer add new features and functionalities to his mech. From now on, he would proceed to optimize his design and smooth out its flaws until he ended up with a polished rifleman mech that wouldn’t shame itself on the battlefield.

"I’m almost finished!" He celebrated to himself, though the only one who heard his words was a bored Lucky who lounged around above his head. "Getting these laser crystals to work is a bit of a pain, but it’s well worth the effort."

These gimmicks did not change the game entirely, but they provided a substantial amount of benefits, so long as Ves could actually turn them into reality. That was still in question, as Ves had never fabricated crystals up to this scale.

The hardest part was already over. After completing his rough and polished design, Ves no longer needed to strain his mind on making difficult design choices. All that remained was correcting any inefficiencies that Ves had inadvertently introduced in the design.

Ves proceeded to throw his design in a large number of elaborate simulations. Through the use of complicated mathematical models, Ves crunched the numbers and tested whether the armor coverage contained any hidden weaknesses or how many times the laser rifle could fire in quick succession before it malfunctioned or blew up.

All of this was relatively boring work. Any results the simulations spat out prompted Ves to make minor tweaks such as thickening a plate of armor by a couple of millimeters or shifting one component to the left by a similar margin. This was precision that entailed a lot of repetition.

"The bigger design teams have dedicated analysts to process these simulations."

It was a waste of time for mech designers to concern themselves with this kind of work. While it demanded a high understanding of mathematics and physics, it also involved relatively little design judgement, so the work didn’t have to be done by a mech designer.

"If I work alone, I can finish a decently optimized design in a little over three months. If I have an entire team to back me up, I can either shorten the time by half, or get much more work done in the same amount of time."

The tedium of taking care of every single detail brought a great burden to Ves, and it would only get worse over time. As his designs grew more complex, the amount of details that needed to be taken care of increased as well. Eventually, it was a lot more efficient to offl-load the less essential tasks to assistants.

"They don’t need to be as good as me in terms of design ability or mathematical understanding. They only have to be good at their assigned task."

Many larger mech companies as well as the state-backed militaries relied on the works of design teams. The work of a single person always took longer to complete. The lack of involvement of others also made the mechs designed by a single person very insular in nature.

This meant that such mechs possessed very pronounced strengths and weaknesses. This didn’t sound so bad, but sometimes a mech designer was so myopic that he overlooked a critical weakness in his design that would instantly plummet its value once revealed.

Ves was not so conceited to think he could keep track of everything, including the things he didn’t know.

"It seems like it’s inevitable for the LMC to become more professional."

Ves would always treat the LMC as his own personal kingdom. He merely considered the act of expanding his design team akin to hiring a couple of court wizards. As long as Ves kept a tight leash on them, they would be unable to pose a threat to him and his kingdom.