The Mech Touch

The firepower of the Sentry Project, now named the Amaranto, did not disappoint!

Ves, Gloriana, Juliet and Ketis did everything they could to maximize the firepower of their first expert rifleman mech design. They gave up so many useful features and gave up the opportunity to strengthen many different parameters in order to specialize it to the extreme.

Despite its stronger-than-average resonance shield, it was poorly suited for mid-range flanking and skirmishing action. Its flight system and other mobility systems were solely meant for positioning and repositioning, not dodging and weaving through enemy attacks. Just because it was able to move faster than a heavy mech didn't mean it could dogfight!

Its defenses were also rather lackluster. Due to the scarcity in Unending alloy, Ves was forced to resort to a more generic expert mech-grade armor system that was relatively light, coped well with heat, stable and dampened vibrations. All of these design choices were meant to increase the Amaranto's offensive actions first and defensive needs second.

"All of it was worth it, though." Ves grinned.

After Venerable Stark fired her first dramatic fully-charge laser beam, the remaining tests became a lot more routine.

This was just a familiarization session for the expert pilot and an initial technical review for the Design Department.

The more data the mech designers gathered on the Amranto's performance, the more they were able to revise their models and accurately map out the expert rifleman mech's actual performance as opposed to making educated guesses based on dubious calculations.

This was not something that could be completed in a single session. The Amaranto was unprecedentedly powerful, but that also made it exceptionally lethal. If the expert mech ever suffered an accident and inadvertently unleashed its full-powered attack on one of the vessels of the Larkinson fleet, then that would have been an absolute tragedy that could have easily been prevented if the Larkinsons implemented additional precautions!

Stress testing could come later. The masterwork expert mech was in their complete control so they could deploy it anytime the fleet was not travelling through FTL.

In fact, if the expert pilots didn't mind the limited maneuvering space and heavy firepower limitations, they could even train in a landbound environment in the large biomes aboard the Discentibus and the Dragon's Den.

The Amaranto no longer fired any full-powered shots. Instead, it stuck with the laser beam but began to vary its attack in different ways.

The masterwork expert mech fired its weapon at various disposable target bots at once by splitting the laser beam.

It fired its weapon in a rapid staccato pattern as it intercepted over a hundred different dummy missiles.

It fired moderate resonance-empowered laser beams that looked deceptively weak but could easily burn a hole through any typical second-class mech.

As the Amaranto slowly churned through its energy reserves, Venerable Stark already looked a bit exhausted.

Ves had been paying attention to the piloting telemetry when the red-coated expert mech unleashed its initial attack. Several indicators dropped by quite a margin, signifying that such extreme attacks took a lot out of Venerable Stark. She probably wasn't able to fire too many ship-killing laser beams in quick succession before she exhausted herself.

He expected something like this to occur. The pattern was not that much different from before when Venerable Stark was still stuck with the Bright Beam Prime. The Design Department deliberately reused the same approach of her prime mech to her current machine.

"The Aramanto can't fire too many times against powerful opponents, but it doesn't have to do so." Ves remarked with a smile on his face. "As one of our trump cards against enemy expert mechs, a singularly powerful attack launched at the most inopportune time can either instantly take down an enemy expert mech or at least break open its defenses."

Launching a lot of weaker attacks was not as effective against powerful and well-protected mechs. The resonance shields and high-quality armor systems of most expert mechs were expressly designed to minimize the threat posed by lots of conventional mechs. This was what allowed these expert mechs to sow terror on a large-scale battlefield!

The best way to penetrate the armor of these resilient expert mechs was by moving as far away from the attack profile of conventional mechs as possible. This was why the Amaranto excelled so much at single target, single shot attack power.

It was like a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of unsuspecting enemy expert mechs. The weapon only needed to drop down once in order to claim another head!

"I'm glad its performance against regular opponents is decent as well." Gloriana commented. "It won't be as good as Brutus' upcoming expert mech in this area, but it can offer plenty of support when it doesn't need to guard against powerful opponents."

The luminar crystal rifle designed by Ves was optimized for maximum firepower, but energy weapons were much more adaptable than their physical counterparts. Just dialing down the power setting and making a few other adjustments was enough to turn it into a rapid-fire turret.

Of course, since the mech and rifle wasn't designed for these firing modes, the overall power and fire rate would never be as good as a more appropriate weapon model.

Ves contemplated whether he should develop a second luminar crystal rifle that could give Venerable Stark an additional choice, but he soon gave up on that. He doubted that his subsequent weapon would be able to reach masterwork quality. Handing over an inferior weapon would only diminish the Amaranto's splendor.

"There are hardly any battles where too much firepower is a detriment." He figured. "If the firepower of the Amaranto is wasted against mechs, then it should just point its muzzle at the enemy starships instead."

According to the measurements of the full-powered laser beam attack, the Amaranto was capable of burning straight through multiple layers of thick hull plating.

That didn't mean it was capable of drilling through big or heavily-armored vessels such as the Graveyard or the Indigo Tremor. Both ships were clad with thick armor that only capital ships could bear. While the former was just a big wall, the latter was designed with military standards in mind, which meant she had to carry enough armor to resist long-ranged harassment from several powerful ranged expert mechs.

Therefore, the Amaranto wasn't necessarily a vessel that was capable of crippling a capital ship on its own. Even with several targeted shots, at most it was able to damage an important module or two. That was far from enough to take down a typical fleet carrier since they possessed plenty of redundancies.

The Cross Clan's Antonio Cross was especially good at dealing with enemy expert mech fire. Though her mech capacity was disappointingly low for a capital ship, she was not only highly self-sufficient, but also possessed a clever hull plating arrangement that increased her redundancy factor and compartmentalization factor to an excellent degree.

That didn't mean that a much larger but more fragile fleet carrier like the Hemmington Cross was easy to cripple. Her sheer bulk and size automatically granted her a lot of buffer. Her density was lower, but there were so many compartments that a typical penetrating attack was unlikely to drill all the way to the most deeply-nested sections where all of the power generators and armored bridges were typically situated.

"The Amaranto is fair game against anything smaller and lighter, though. Most sub-capital ships should not be able to remain operational when struck a couple of times."

Ves already estimated that the Amaranto was sufficiently capable enough to cripple the sub-capital support ships of the Larkinson fleet. The various cargo haulers, mech repair vessels, tugging vessels and so on boasted thin hull plating and lightly-reinforced structures in order to lower their costs.

This made them prime targets for any mech that could precisely locate their critical modules such as their propulsion systems, power generator or FTL drives and punch through all of the hull materials in between!

"What makes the Amaranto particularly suitable to assassinate starships is if it can employ its Beam Bending resonance ability!"

The Amaranto came with two key resonating materials, which each bestowed the mech with two different resonance abilities.

The expert mech already demonstrated the Overcharge ability bestowed by integrating Electricium in its power reactor and energy transmission system. This was just a straightforward power boost that was primarily responsible for scaling up the Amaranto's full-powered attack to a ridiculous level.

Ves had no intentions of testing out the Beam Bending resonance ability granted by the Opticonium incorporated in the luminar crystal rifle. This was a strategic advantage that Ves did not want to show off in front of too many people. He would have to arrange a suitable test site in order to properly test how much Venerable Stark and the Amaranto were able to curve the beam attack.

The more the beam was able to bend, the easier it was for the masterwork expert mech to target the weak points of both mechs and starships!

In the most ideal case, this Beam Bending effect would not only allow the Aramanto to take out a combat carrier, but also immobilize a capital ship by crippling her normally-inaccessible propulsion system!

The existence of the Amaranto was so significant that it opened a lot more strategic options for the Larkinson Army. The expeditionary fleet had much less to fear against large enemy fleets!

Gloriana eventually wanted to move on to the final phase of the testing session. "Alright, we've gained a good idea on the Amaranto's firepower. Before its power runs out, I want to test its accuracy."

Ves smirked and switched to another communication channel. "Tusa! You're up now! Go and build up some speed. You'll need it soon. Oh, and make sure to keep your Dark Zephyr within the designated zone."

The expert pilot in question cursed for a moment, but did as he was instructed.

While the Dark Zephyr began to accelerate in a circle, the Amaranto patiently waited. The red-coated mech still exuded a reddish glow due to all of the power it had expended. Its crystalline rifle was an especially eye-catching element. All of the different energies coursing through its crystal components had caused it to light up like a rainbow dancing in a nightclub.

The masterwork expert mech presented a notable contrast to the Dark Zephyr. Whereas the latter was coated in black which psychologically made it a lot harder to track in the dark of space, the Amaranto not only created a light show, but also possessed a substantial energy signature as not even its luminar crystals were able to absorb all of the excess heat that its weapon had generated!

All of this meant that most targeting systems would have a much easier time at locking in the Amaranto than the Dark Zephyr.

"The Amaranto definitely needs to rest behind a solid barrier." Ves noted. "We can't afford to expose its entire frame to an enemy force."

Gloriana grinned. "That won't be a problem. When we finish the Shield of Samar, the two expert mechs will be able to pair together. Won't it be great if we can transform it into a masterwork as well? It will be the perfect combination!"

Ves rolled his eyes. That was an extremely unlikely possibility considering they needed to build on top of an existing mech. The inability to start from scratch meant that the upgraded revision would always contain some flaws that would detract from its overall quality. This was a huge handicap that made the challenge of building a masterwork expert mech even more impossible!

At this time, the Dark Zephyr built up a sufficient amount of speed relative to the Amaranto. Venerable Tusa had even opted to resonate his expert mech and activate its Perception Distortion ability on his own accord!

The Dark Zephyr became a lot harder to pin down because its visual coordinates did not match its actual coordinates.

Without the help of a few hundred ranged mechs saturing an entire area with ordnance, it was impossible to guess where the Dark Zephyr was located!

Venerable Stark did not exhibit any doubt, though. Even though she was no longer in her prime condition, she was determined to land at least one hit against the elusive expert light mech!

"Begin!"