The Mech Touch novel Chapter 95

The next day brought the hundred surviving mech designers back to the arena complex. This time, the arena fields had been separated, which meant that the second round no longer took place on a mass battlefield.

Ves had a good talk with Dietrich last night about how he should go about designing a mech for a swordsman. Though Dietrich did not specialize in this area, many of his subordinates did and he was a wealth of practical knowledge.

"Good morning Ves." Patricia greeted him once she spotted him. "Are you ready for the second round?"

"The successive duels are always tricky. It’ll be a struggle, but I’m confident I can make it."

Only a hundred of the best designers who came all the way to Leemar survived up to now. Those who made it this far were not soft persimmons. No matter who he faced, he had a tough fight on his hands. While he did not guarantee he could win every duel, he still wanted to stand out.

After opening the day with a brief performance from some musicians, the announcer explained the rules for the second round.

"In the first test, we’ve tested our designers on whether they could deliver a working product on time. The second round revolves around efficiency and longevity. A mech designer must deliver a product that does the job as long as possible with the least amount of cost."

The projection changed into a list of available base parts. They were the same outdated junk they’ve used in the previous round, but now they had a price tag on them. The number varied widely according to their quality.

"The first major challenge is to design a mech that costs no more than a thousand points in six hours. If you happened to worry about not being able to reach this height, then don’t be. I can assure you that you will wish the limit is higher."

Those who reached this stage were all capable of designing a decent mech in that time. A six hour design time was rather short, but for Ves who used the QuickForge system to design a mech under three hours, it was an eternity.

"The finished mechs will then have to duel four random opponents in a standard duel environment, with a two-hour interval between each fight. The mech designer is only allowed to use the QuickForge system to make as much repairs as possible. If you can’t finish your repairs in that time, then tough luck, because many repairmen have faced the same situations during wartime."

These four consecutive duels tested a designer in multiple ways. First, they had to design a mech in a way that made it easy to repair if it incurred any damage. Second, they had to deal with a wide variety of possible damage and allocate their limited time to repairing the most essential parts.

This could get pretty brutal by the time the fourth duel was about to be held. Also, many times a mech sustained so much damage it could not fight on, which straight-up brought the mech designer and pilot out of contention.

In this case, the pilot had to make their own judgement on how to fight. Taking risks meant fights could finish quickly, but it also left them open to heavy damage that wasn’t easy to repair. They also had the option to forfeit a duel at anytime in order to avoid accumulating damage when facing a losing proposition. Yet giving up too often dragged down the ranking. Only the top 25 qualified for the third round.

When Ves approached his now-familiar QuickForge system, he went over the design templates he had in mind. The last time he designed the Unicorn, he did so with the expectation that it would be compatible to any pilot.

This time was different. He knew the pilot. He read his profile. He watched him fight. Cadet Lovejoy fancied himself as a swordsman, so Ves should design a mech that revolves primarily around the use of a single sword.

Swordsmen mechs different substantially from the standard knight type. Whereas knights benefited from a substantial amount of armor along with a trusty shield, a swordsman had less mass in order to speed up its reaction.

In a tactical sense, knights acted as door stoppers. They excelled at defensive engagements where the enemy had to go past the knight in order to complete their objectives. Swordsmen fared worse in head-on clashes, but they performed well when used as a flanker or as a follow-up.

A swordsman mech was built around its sword. Ves read up on the basics. A swordsman mech relied on a combination of mechanical power along with momentum in order to deliver fast or heavy strikes. The mech needed to be heavy enough to add a lot of mass to a committed strike, but it also had to be flexible enough to maneuver like a duelist trying to get the upper hand.

"There’s too many things to take note of when trying to design a swordsman mech." Ves concluded as he started to get a headache on how many balls he had to juggle. "I can’t design a mech as heavy as a Caesar Augustus, and neither can I make it as light as an Octagon."

He had to leave familiar territory and design a new mech from a different mold. It had to be another rushed design, though the generous margin of six hours should leave him with a decent mech this time.

First, he constructed a mental image again. With his frequent practice, he became more proficient in getting in the right mood. He hardly needed more than a minute to reach a state of sharpened mental focus.

The profile Ves received painted Lovejoy as a talkative but diligent cadet. He practiced a lot but became frustrated when his climb up the ranking stagnated. He reached a ceiling where he could not progress fast enough.

"He probably bumped against the people who benefited from genetic boosts." Ves guessed to himself. If he ended up in a situation like that, he’d tear his hair out until he became bald.

While the pilot could not improve, the mech could make all the difference. Ves thought back on the conversation he had with Patricia yesterday. Either the mech had to accommodate the pilot, or the pilot had to adjust to the mech.