The Mech Touch novel Chapter 83

His brain started churning hotter than ever before. The feeling of crisis hounding after his back was distinctly unpleasant. He had to figure a way to climb out of his own hole.

"There’s only two hours left. Before I do anything else, first I should see if Floyd is able to pull another fast one."

As Ves studied Floyd’s jury-rigged centaur mech, he found many minor errors. Instead of starting anew with a basic heavy frame, his opponent chose to forcefully increase his beast mech’s weight class by slapping a lot of parts together.

He understood why Floyd went in this direction. If he replaced the frame, he’d have to throw away at least a couple of hours of work. Evidently, he couldn’t bear to start over.

"Is he crazy?" Ves asked when he realized what Floyd did. In his perspective, it was better to use a frame built to withstand the stresses of a heavy mech than to forcefully reinforce a lighter frame. This ungodly centaur mech certainly had its faults. Compared to a purpose-built centaur mech, his chimera’s speed, power and integrity was awful.

Floyd wasn’t stupid. His mech might not be capable of chasing an opponent, but it possessed enough firepower to devastate anyone at range.

The missile launchers was also a source of anxiety. Floyd had left them empty. He’d probably chose the missile type at the very last second. With the variety of missiles available, Ves had no way of modifying his mech to withstand a specific missile type.

"Odds are, he’s going to resort to one of the three major types: high explosive, thermal, or kinetic. I doubt he’d pick something indirect like EMP or smoke particles."

If Ves could pin down the mix of damage types and optimal ranges of the launchers, he could work some additional armor.

"Hmm, I don’t think he’ll replace those missile launchers with other weapon types. His mech can’t withstand the weight or energy consumption of anything bigger."

This gave him an idea. He looked at his mech’s shoulder lasers and made some optimizations. He enhanced their accuracy and fire rate at the cost of impact. He even went to the trouble of incorporating an enhanced targeting system into the head, allowing it to track fast-moving projectiles. In the end, he turned them into decent anti-missile systems.

Ves spied on his opponent again and confirmed he didn’t change anything again. Floyd still tried to paper over the worst cracks of his hasty modifications. Besides the missile loadout, everything was set in stone.

"His design still stands a better chance than mine." He concluded after a minute of consideration, though with a narrow margin.

They chose to pursue different extremes. Ves designed a structurally sound mech with the time allotted to him. Floyd embraced the weird duel format and changed his design midway in order to counter his opponent’s efforts. While both had their strong points, Floyd took the lead by making his switch at an opportune moment. Ves had no time to change his fundamental design.

"I’ve got about an hour left. There should be something I can do."

He looked left and right but unfortunately he couldn’t steal anyone else’s ideas. The projection systems only made the workshops viewable to their owners and their opponents. Only the audience and the organizers were able to see everything, but they had no way of communicating their observations to participants.

"I need to think outside the box. I can’t just submit this design without taking advantage of the competition format."

He thought about his opponent’s mech. Its main damage dealer was its missiles. The laser rifle also posed a threat, but not too much due to the centaur mech’s insufficient energy and heat absorption capacities. As the mech gained a pair of humanoid arms, Ves also couldn’t rule out that Floyd added a melee weapon such as a spear at the last moment.

He considered his options again in light of this information. While a spear might make the centaur possess some bite at close range, it wasn’t enough to fend off a purpose-built melee mech. If his hunter successfully closed the distance, he’d bet his medium mech could beat the centaur mech eighty percent of the time.

"That centaur is slow as hell, and will probably fall apart if it tries to run. Does my mech even need a lot of speed?"

His mech already weighed a lot for a medium mech, so he gave up any strategies involving a dash. Instead, he considered the opposite. If he beefed up his mech’s armor and shields, then it stood a better chance of fending off the missile barrage.

"I don’t have a lot of leeway in adding more protection. Although..."

If Ves submitted his design in a blind duel, he’d never overburden his mech. Now that he saw what his opponent was working on, he could avoid the pitfall of choosing an overly specific loadout only to risk stumbling on a direct counter.

"I don’t need to stick to conventional limits. The best way to endure a missile bombardment is to put as much layers in between the missiles and the mech."

His memories provided him with some inspiration. He especially revisited the concept of modular armor. Naturally, he had no time to replace his mech’s armor with a modular system, nor did he wish to do so in the first place. Instead, he referred to the system’s premise.

"The goal of a modular armor system is to treat armor as a disposable product. When necessary, it’s better to discard a spent piece of armor in exchange for a reduction in weight."

He could apply this concept to a shield. He wanted to design an incredibly thick shield, one so heavy that it had to be supported by wheels or tracks if possible. Who cared if his mech slowed to a crawl. He’d bet it was still a bit faster than that rickety centaur mech on even terrain.

After regaining his spirit, Ves implemented his crazy idea in the hour that remained. Even if Floyd stopped his tinkering and puzzled out his intentions, there was nothing much his opponent could do to respond.

Ves obfuscated his work by designing only a small portion of his shield. Like a pre-assembled block, if he duplicated its shape, he could easily stack them together, though without alloy compression. Before he did so, his opponent laughed at its small and weak-looking shape.