The Mech Touch

After studying the performance of both expert mechs and the standard mechs that confronted them, Ves gained a much better idea on how to balance out the Fearless Project's performance parameters.

Of course, he could not derive all of his conclusions from the Battle of Fordilla Zentra alone. This battle may be representative of the galactic rim, but the caliber of opponents in the Red Ocean was considerably higher!

"There's also aliens to consider!"

It was difficult to account for alien forces. There were so many different species that all fought according to vastly different paradigms. They also relied on warships to wage war.

Against enemies like these, it was best to either run away from them as fast as possible! If that wasn't possible, then the Larkinson Army needed to bring as much firepower to bear as possible in order to pound alien warships into scrap!

Ves shook his head. "I'll consider them later. There shouldn't be too many alien warfleets roaming around in conquered territory."

Human enemies were much more numerous and threatening to the Larkinson Clan. If his people couldn't even survive against human aggressors, then it was useless to think about defending against alien threats!

He conducted further research into combat between expert mechs and standard mechs.

He mainly sought out recent footage of such confrontations that had taken place in the Red Ocean.

Even though the dwarf galaxy had only opened up relatively recently, the friction between different pioneering organizations had already produced many different clashes!

The mechs involved in these battles were clearly superior than that of the mechs employed in the Fordilla Zentra. The heartland-level mechs all incorporated superior parts and materials that granted them a comprehensive advantage against rim-level mechs.

Though the Larkinson Clan already obtained limited access to superior tech and resources during its productive stay in Vulit, Ves knew he still needed to close the gap by raising the design budget of his Fearless Project.

After a bit of wrangling, he decided to aim high and set a generous figure.

"The Fearless Project won't be a pushover if it has an average production cost of around 4 MTA credits."

This made the Fearless Project substantially more expensive than the Bright Warrior. Its latest iteration had a design budget of 500 million hex credits, which was roughly equivalent to 2.6 MTA credits.

By spending more money on the Fearless Project and completely dedicating it to ranged combat against expert mechs, Ves hoped that this ambitious design project would truly become a permanent staple in the Larkinson Army's mech roster.

He glanced at the loose sketch of his rifleman mech's contours and decided to fatten it up a little.

"A little extra armor will force enemy expert mechs to consume more energy and effort to eliminate them." He determined.

Just because any expert mech could easily slice, crush or shoot apart standard mechs didn't mean that it was useless to bolster the defenses of the latter!

The tougher the target, the more an expert mech had to put serious effort into destroying the annoying flies!

Over the course of a battle, this not only left the expert mech with less resources to defeat other expert mechs, but also kept more of the standard mechs alive since they couldn't be destroyed as quickly!

To that end, Ves began to sketch out an armor scheme that uniquely suited the needs of the Fearless Project.

He bolstered its frontal armor to a substantial degree and did not hesitate to sacrifice its side and rear armor to stay within his mass limit.

The rationale for amping up its frontal armor was simple. The rifleman mechs would mostly be engaging their targets from a respectable distance. This meant that it was unlikely for the rifleman mechs to get attacked from the flanks.

Even if there were other attackers harassing the Fearless Project from different angles, there should be friendly Larkinson machines around in order to handle those threats.

"I can't account for every scenario, but a typical confrontation against an enemy expert mech is not that complicated."

Would the Fearless Project mechs still get destroyed by a single attack from an expert mech? Probably. At the very least, they would certainly get crippled after eating a powerful resonance-empowered blow.

Yet expert pilots weren't able to unleash resonance-empowered attacks without limit! It took quite a lot of mental strain to form true resonance with an expert mech, so even they would get exhausted if they had to launch the same powerful attacks against a thousand sturdy machines!

"Of course, melee expert mechs can just circle around a Fearless Project mech and easily take it out from the side."

That still took a bit of time and effort though, which meant the Fearless Project's radical armor scheme still served its purpose.

As Ves sketched out this change, he began to place a bit more emphasis on the chest and cockpit area of his draft design. He concentrated the most armor in that area in order to make sure that the mech pilot had a higher chance of staying alive!

"I can stomach the loss of these mechs, but broken lives cannot never be put back together!"

If an expert mech not only wanted to destroy the Fearless Project mechs but also slaughter their pilots, then this powerful foe would have to expend significantly more time and energy than usual.

As long as the expert pilot wasn't stupid and consumed by irrationality, he or she shouldn't waste so much extra effort on killing the people controlling the Fearless Project mechs.

Anyone who did do so would just give the Battle Criers a greater advantage by slowing down their loss rate!

As Ves continued to beef up the armor of his draft design, it did not escape his notice that his mech became more sluggish and less maneuverable.

Typical rifleman mechs tended to be maneuverable enough to become dogfighters. They needed to be light and maneuverable enough to reposition quickly and maneuver around enemies at varying distances.

The Fearless Project gave up this capability due to all of the additional armor plating installed on its front.

"It's almost as sluggish as a cannoneer mech."

Ves still wanted the Fearless Project to be a rifleman mech, though. It needed to retain enough maneuverability to reach its positions in a timely manner and also had to be able to retreat against most incoming enemy units.

He already knew what it was like to handle cannoneer mechs on the battlefield. The Eternal Redemption model possessed a lot of firepower but it required a lot of assistance in order to fulfill its job!

The Fearless Project shouldn't need too much babysitting in his opinion. They needed to complete their jobs without involving other precious mechs that were better off fighting against other units.

"The entire purpose of this mech is to unburden other mechs with the responsibility to fight against expert mechs. We can't keep throwing Bright Warriors, Ferocious Piranhas and Valkyrie Redeemers against these monstrous machines."

Each of those mech models were much better suited to fight against other mechs! None of them were optimized to fight against expert mechs quite like the Fearless Project.

Once Ves finished drafting the armor layout of his rifleman mech, he turned his attention to its offensive capabilities.

The luminar crystal rifle was the most important part about the Fearless Project. Without a weapon that was considerably more effective at dismantling resonance shields than the alternatives, it became a lot more difficult to turn this mech design into an expert mech killer!

As Ves sketched out the luminar crystal rifle, he quickly figured out that it needed at least two different firing modes.

"The luminar crystal rifle needs a rapid-fire mode to make it easier to track and hit maneuverable expert mechs. It becomes a lot harder to land a hit against an expert mech like the Dark Zephyr if the rifle's firing rate isn't fast enough!"

A faster firing rate was a lot more forgiving to the mech pilots. It made the price of a miss less severe while also making it easier to track a fast-moving opponent.

This was particularly useful for stripping expert mechs of their resonance shields.

However, what then?

Expert mechs did not solely rely on resonance shields to protect them against massed attacks. Their armor systems were also resilient against lots of ordinary fire!

The problem here was that weak, rapid-fire attacks were substantially less efficient at damaging armor. Harder defenses could easily bounce away weak attacks.

"The luminar crystal rifle needs to be able to switch its firing mode to a hard-hitting setting that can output substantially more powerful energy beams per salvo." Ves determined.

The hit rate of these shots might not be as high as before, but as long as they were powerful enough, a single successful strike could deal significant damage to an expert mech!

In addition, expert mechs without the protection of a resonance shield became vulnerable to crippling strikes.

While their torsos were usually heavily-protected, their flight systems and weapon systems were much more vulnerable to damage!

A viable way for the Fearless Project mechs to rapidly render an expert mech ineffective was to focus all of their fire on its flight system. Once its wings became clipped, the powerful machine could no longer utilize its excellent mobility to evade as many incoming attacks!

"It will become a lot easier for the Fearless Project mechs to concentrate their fire on other specific sections!"

Penetration power was key to this second firing mode. Ves therefore amped up the maximum firepower of the luminar crystal rifle until he could not go further without excessively burdening the Fearless Project.

The result of trying to combine these two potent firing modes in a single weapon was a new luminar crystal rifle that was larger and more massive than the model that the Larkinson mechs currently utilized!

Though this rifle model was also capable of inflicting heavy damage against other kinds of mechs, that was not the best use of its capabilities.

"The biggest downside to implementing all of these intensive firing modes is that this rifle model will consume a lot more energy!"

There was always a price for everything!

Though Ves tried to make sure his Fearless Project carried a respectable amount of energy cells, there was only so much a rifleman could accommodate.

Unless he was able to get his hands on superior energy cells, the Fearless Project would have a limited uptime per deployment. It might need to return to its mothership and replenish its energy reserves in order to continue participating in large and expansive engagement!

This was certainly not ideal, but as long as the Fearless Project mechs managed to fell at least one expert mech during a single deployment, then this was a worthy tradeoff!

When Ves took a good look at his current draft design, its oversized rifle clearly stood out. Even laymen would be able to recognize that this beefy rifleman mech packed a mean punch!

"Hm, now that I've designed a new luminar crystal rifle, I should start naming them instead of just settling for calling them by their serial number."

This would certainly not be the last time he came up with a new luminar crystal weapon for his mech designs.

After thinking about the role this weapon would play in battle, Ves initially wanted to call it by a name that would leave no question to its purpose.

"Expert Mech Killer."

"Meow." Lucky swished his tail as the cat looked skeptically at Ves.

"Yeah. That's a bit too blunt. What about Demigod Killer?"

"Meow."

"I agree. It actually sounds worse. What about… Saint Killer? That certainly rolls off the tongue a bit better."

"Meow meow."

"Well, I guess you're right. If I want to be hyperbolic, I might as well go all the way."

Ves decided to add a new database entry for his yet-to-be-designed luminar crystal rifle.

The name he decided to settle upon for this model?

"Godkiller Heavy Luminar Crystal Rifle."