The Mech Touch

Gloriana was delusional if she thought that they could design a standard mech that could fight against expert mechs in a cost-effective manner.

How many mech designers attempted such a feat?

While there were instances where large amounts of regular mechs managed to overcome expert mechs, the circumstances were always special.

First, the attacking side had to bring a lot of mechs. These mechs also had to be fairly good. They needed to be tough enough to slow down the expert mech's attempts at taking them down. They also had to possess enough firepower to wear down the expert mech's defenses.

Even with these conditions, the expert pilot could always decide to run away. It was very hard to hinder an expert mech's flight. Even the slower mech types such as defensive knights always exhibited above-average mobility due to the immense amount of investment poured into their development.

At the level of expert pilots, mobility was an essential life-saver!

Otherwise, wouldn't it be easy for one side to carpet bomb the coordinates of an expert mech with a couple of hundred artillery mechs?

While it was a bit cold-hearted, if the Hexers or Fridaymen could sacrifice two or three elite mech companies to take down an expert mech, they would take the trade everytime!

This was because a properly-employed expert mech could easily demolish thousands of mechs during a long campaign!

Not only that, but expert pilots also brought a lot of other value to the table. Their presence boosted the morale of their own side and intimidated any enemy in sight. They were invaluable trainers and contributed to a state's prestige.

It was due to their strategic value that research on countering them had never stopped. It was unfortunate that no one had ever come up with a silver bullet that could end their tyranny on the battlefield.

Ves did not have much hope of developing something effective either. From a purely technical standpoint, expert mechs were already cheat-like existences. Their insane build quality meant that they were always bridge mechs by default. Expert pilots were so skilled that it was foolish to expect them to fumble.

Only an insanely huge disparity in numbers could overcome this disparity, but that was not really a solution.

His only choice was to target expert mechs from a different angle. Gloriana clearly had hopes that he could employ his specialty to attack the spiritual qualities of an expert mech.

Was it possible for Ves to come up with a method to disturb the resonance between an expert mech and an expert pilot?

If he could accomplish this amazing feat, then much of the power of the combination would be lost.

An expert mech that leveraged the power of resonance was often invincible against standard mechs.

An expert mech that lost the power of resonance was merely a single super-high quality mech!

However, was it easy to accomplish this seemingly-simple feat?

No!

Expert pilots were incredibly strong in will and spirit. The combination of the two produced a near-tangible force that was incredibly difficult to interfere.

If that wasn't enough, these expert pilots combined their force of wills with their expert mechs.

Even the minds of regular mech pilots became as hard as armor plating once they interfaced with a mech! The melding of man and machine resulted in a combination that leveraged the sentient mind of a living human with the immense processing power of a mech.

Only immensely powerful spiritual entities such as the dark gods and the Temple Protector of the Ruined Temple had managed to overcome this protection!

Glows worked in a similar fashion. They were able to circumvent the protection afforded by the man-machine connection, but their ability to cause direct harm to mech pilots was limited.

Against expert pilots, they basically exerted no influence at all as the interaction was too indirect! Demigods were easily capable of shrugging off both positive and negative glows.

In short, Gloriana's theory was a complete non-starter. Even if Ves designed a mech that was directly capable of channeling the Superior Mother onto an enemy, even she would have a headache trying to defeat one of the most mentally-resilient combinations on the battlefield!

Ves did not entertain his wife's delusions any further. He figured he should just try and find a different way to hinder expert mechs. As for defeating them? No way! That goal was way too far away!

"Let's move on with planning our other projects." He said briskly. "So far, we have come up with two possible projects. For the third one, I want to design a light skirmisher, one that is suitable for the Larkinson Clan. Venerable Tusa has been complaining to me for a long time that we haven't developed a light mech. I think it is time to make up for this oversight."

His wife fell silent for a few moments.

"He's right. We have been remiss in this. However, before you bring up a suggestion, let me make a proposal. Didn't we publish the Ferocious Piranha a short time ago? Instead of coming with an entirely new mech concept, we can save a considerable amount of time and effort by uplifting it into a second-class mech."

"This.."

To be honest, Ves hadn't thought about adapting the Ferocious Piranha.

While second-class mechs were indeed very different from third-class mechs, the concept for the spaceborn light mech was quite good. It utilized the glow of the Doom Guard in an offensive manner without any of the self-harming aspects that plagued the striker mech.

If the clan could pilot a large number of second-class Ferocious Piranhas, then these mechs would be able to terrorize large groups of enemies! Just like the Doom Guard, the light skirmishers that propagated the rapidly-cycling glows of Zeigra and Lufa were simply too intolerable to any but the most firm-minded elites!

This was an incredibly potent ability on the battlefield. The Larkinson Clan simply had to adopt the second-class version of this mech as soon as possible!

"Good idea." Ves eventually nodded. "Let's add it to the list. We'll give it the same treatment as the Bright Warrior."

It was quite clever to look towards upgrading their existing products. They already fleshed out the concept and put it into a form that proved its value. Not only that, but during the design process, the people who took part in the project generated a lot of data. While most of it wasn't relevant, there were plenty of details that remained just as relevant regardless of the class of the mech.

Considering that Ves wanted to tackle six major projects at once, it was vital for him to find any opportunity to save time and effort.

The only point he wasn't sure about yet was whether he should publish the completed mech design.

The Ferocious Piranha should already be quite potent. Ves was afraid he might spark too many waves in the second-class mech market once he released this monster!

Yet… didn't he require more money? Acquiring capital ships wasn't cheap. He couldn't take the Hegemony's generosity for granted. With at least six more capital ships to go, Ves would have to earn trillions of hex credits in order to round out his expeditionary fleet!

Of course, the more, the better. His upcoming factory ship already became a lot more capable after its budget had been raised by 1.2 trillion hex credits!

Therefore, from a business standpoint, so what if he disrupted the second-class mech market? Money solved every problem!

That, and designing excellent mechs. So long as Ves focused his attention on these two aspects, nothing would be able to hinder his path!

Ves discussed some practical issues with Gloriana. A third-class light skirmisher featured so little capacity that they were always barebones without fail.

Once they translated it into a second-class mech design, they gained a bit of capacity, especially if its budget was high enough. By incorporating enough miniaturized components, they might be able to add one or two additional models or weapon systems.

Gloriana waved her hand. "We can explore these options in our own time. Right now, there are too many choices to count."

That was three mech design projects now. The pair was making good speed in filling out the available slots.

This time, Gloriana proposed another Hexer mech.

"I've been thinking about what you've managed to accomplish with your specialty. The properties of the glows of your mechs are remarkable. We have only scratched the surface of what is possible. Since we are turning mechs into gods, our products ought to be capable of doing more. We just have to be imaginative enough."

"What are you talking about, Gloriana?"

"Have you ever thought about using your specialty to establish communication channels?"

"Uhhh.."

Gloriana let out an exasperated sigh. She placed her hands on her hips. "Didn't you work on some way to bind people together? I don't entirely know what you've been doing with these networks, but I'm surprised you haven't paid attention to their most obvious application. Networks are inherently suited for communication. If used correctly, a communications network that is supported by a proto-god can probably circumvent all kinds of technological jamming! Perhaps it can even facilitate communication across star systems!"

He overlooked this angle!

Ves had already used the Larkinson Network in this capacity in the Nyxian Gap. However, so many other matters followed that he subconsciously neglected it. While Goldie had already demonstrated the capability to monitor the minds of other Larkinsons and communicate directly with him, Ves never considered the Larkinson Network to be a communications network!

To him, it was a measure to restrain traitors and a means of reinforcing loyalty.

Even if it was possible to open up viable means of communications through this spiritual network, Ves still wouldn't have considered it. Revealing the Larkinson Network to every clansmen would just expose one of his secrets. It was not worth it to draw so much attention to him once the spiritual network became common knowledge.

So far, most clansmen knew that there was something special going on, but as long as Ves didn't say too much, they could only hold their opinions to themselves.

"I think this is a genuinely good idea." Ves eventually replied. "It's just that implementing it on a wider scale requires a lot of research."

"We can refine this concept in the coming weeks. By then, you can tell me whether it is viable or not. I think our communications mech can help the Hex Army coordinate its units better."

Considering the supportive function of this mech, it was a given that it should be a male mech. Its specs didn't have to be high. It just needed to perform its primary function to the best of its abilities.

Therefore, from a technical aspect, the design of this communications mech shouldn't take much time to complete.

The only issue was that Ves had to work by himself to figure out a complete spiritual communications network.

He did not forget that his previous spiritual networks were all connected to humans. This was not a big problem if Ves personally supervised the formation of these bonds.

Yet this solution was untenable when it came to a mass-produced Hexer mech. It was a lot better if Ves managed to tie a spiritual network to the mechs themselves.

Normally, Ves would dismiss such a ridiculous idea. Spiritual networks could only be accessed by living entities. Dead objects weren't able to establish any connections to them because they did not possess any spirituality!

Or did they?

If Ves changed the object to a living mech, the story might be different. As long as the mechs possessed enough life, they should be eligible to form a connection with a spiritual network!

In fact, he didn't even need to design a new mech to test this theory out. He already had a network and some suitable mechs at hand!

What if Ves bound the most spiritually-developed mechs to the Larkinson Network?

What if he treated living mechs like the Quint and the Shield of Samar more like actual Larkinsons?