The Mech Touch

In the end, Ves vaguely understood the gist of Mr. Hempkamp's theoretical model, but he had no idea at all how to accomplish it on a technological level.

He had no choice but to trust the optimistic neural interface specialist's plan and hope it would work out. It might take years for Hempkamp to achieve a breakthrough in his research, but once he managed to get over the most difficult threshold, the results should definitely be promising!

In contrast to Hempkamp's ambitious layout, Miles and Merrill did not embark on any wild ideas.

The main reason for that was because they were still at the earliest stage of a Journeyman Mech Designer. Although they had managed to formulate the initial forms of their design philosophies, they still had a long way to go before they could design mechs at a satisfactory level.

"Neither of us have any good design applications at the moment." Miles Tovar told Ves during a meeting. "As far as my own specialty goes, Juliet is much better at designing flight systems and integrating them into mechs. While my own focus is different, it is impossible for me to outperform a mech designer that has advanced to Journeyman a lot earlier."

Juliet not only enjoyed a considerable head start, but also possessed considerably greater talent than Miles.

If nothing out of the ordinary happened, the latter would never be able to close the gap!

Miles was clever enough to understand this reality. Perhaps a more ambitious, confident or unwilling individual would try to fight against this fate, but the former member of the Tovar Family was an Erudite rather than a Brave.

Merrill should have had a brighter future as she was younger. However, her low profile along with her lack of enterprising spirit meant that her progress shouldn't be too fast either.

As Ves kept asking questions about their ideas and ambitions, he became disappointed by the lack of energy in their replies.

"It is understandable for the two of you to take a backseat and allow our more experienced mech designers to take the lead, but don't forget that you must pay attention to your own development. I don't want to raise any useless people in the Design Department."

Miles felt the need to defend his position. "We understand that, sir. We do not intend to stay back forever. It is just that the projects we are working on are too important to the clan. Our skills are not up to par so many of our contributions will only drag down the quality and performance of our upcoming mech designs. I intend to spend a few years polishing my skills and learning from better mech designers such as you before I am willing to take on greater responsibilities."

Ves furrowed his brows. "What about you, Merrill?"

"I intend to do the same." The woman softly replied. "My learning needs are greater than average, so I must invest much more of my time on studying textbooks. Only when I have broadened and deepened my knowledge base can I begin to operate properly."

He understood what she meant. Merrill O'Brian was the only rational mech designer in the Design Department. She possessed the rare ability to imitate other design philosophies, and she even demonstrated her progress in imitating Ves' work!

Of course, her imitation works were still too shallow to be of use to the Larkinson Clan, so she needed to invest a lot of time and effort to shore up this aspect.

In addition to realizing her advantages as a rational mech designer, Merrill also had to work on her own design philosophy.

Her focus on mechanical systems meant that she needed to spend a lot of time on studying advanced textbooks related to mechanics. On top of that, she had to design a lot of mechs with a focus on designing more efficient mechanical layouts.

Merrill would have probably been able to keep pace with the likes of Ketis or Juliet if she focused her available time and energy on just one of these pursuits.

However, the fact that she chose to do double duty meant that her progress in both pursuits would inevitably proceed at a slower pace.

If Merril had an opportunity to advance to Senior when she became 75 years old, then now she might not be able to achieve this breakthrough until she was 125 years old or higher!

This was a massive gap in time and would most definitely cause her to fall behind the majority of her peers in the Larkinson Clan!

Ves needed to remind himself that people like Miles and Merrill weren't bad at their jobs. Their rate of progression was fairly normal within the mech industry. It wasn't always the case that those who broke through early and displayed brilliant talent were guaranteed to realize their design philosophies.

There were too many stories about tortoises outspeeding hares.

The main reason why the mech industry tended to pay more attention to hares was because they were generally more promising, but that didn't mean that other mech designers were all worthless.

Ves could only wait in the long run to see whether Miles and Merrill would be able to succeed despite their slower pace. Their lifespans were finite and they only had so many years to realize their ambitions.

"I hope the two of you will remain productive and don't neglect your assignments while you are working in the Design Department." He eventually said. "Do you have any questions or encountered any issues in your projects?"

Miles raised his hand. "Yes. I don't entirely feel comfortable working on the Ghost Project. I can understand your intention of putting me under your wing and allowing me to leverage my specialty to a mech that suits my work, but as I have mentioned earlier I do not entirely feel competent enough to undertake this responsibility."

"My wife and I believe in you." Ves told the man. "You have worked in our clan since the beginning. We know what you are capable of and we possess a good understanding of your limits. The work assignments that we have prepared for you are supposed to be difficult, but not to the point of overwhelming you. I don't intend you to play a nominal role in this design project. I expect you to provide material help in finding the right low-profile flight system and integrate it properly into our upcoming expert stealth mech."

Miles did not look confident. "Those are daunting tasks, sir. First, flight systems developed for stealth mechs and at the expert mech level no less are rare and difficult to understand. I am having a hard time communicating with the development companies that are familiar to our clan because of this reason. Second, I do not understand stealth technology well enough to understand what is needed to integrate a special flight system to a stealth mech and ensure that it will not leak out any emissions when active."</>

"Neither of these problems should be insurmountable to you." Ves replied. "The first issue that you have mentioned can be remedied easily enough by taking a crash course. If you can't find the necessary information in our extensive internal library, then come to me and I will obtain the necessary textbooks from an external channel. As for the second issue, there is no need for you to bear all of the burdens by yourself. I will be taking care of all of the stealth tech stuff. The main reason I want you to be involved is because you can provide material help in making it easier for the Ghost Project to remain stealthy while moving quickly."

One of the greatest challenges to designing the Ghost Project or any flight capable stealth mech for that matter was to retain its invisibility while on the move!

It was fairly easy for a stealth mech or stealth vessel to sneak up to an enemy when it was coasting along in space on a ballistic course, but the situations in reality didn't always work out that way.

There were many times where stealth mechs needed to take a turn, navigate through a winding tunnel or take a detour in order to avoid a closely monitored zone.

This was where stealth mechs tended to slip up the most!

Every mech weighed a lot of tons. In order for such a large and heavy machine to navigate properly in space, they needed to be equipped with flight systems that were powerful enough to push them in different directions.

This was not a trivial exertion!

If a single human in a mobile space suit attempted to change the course of a drifting mech by pushing against its frame, it would take a lot of time to gradually change the angle of flight of the machine!

This was obviously impractical in the field, so stealth mechs needed to exert far more power in order to maneuver in space.

That was where the dilemma came into play. Every mech designer working on a stealth mech project had to make a difficult choice.

The mech designer could opt to prioritize stealth over mobility. The stealth mechs that followed this approach were excellent at infiltration, but were too slow to make enough contributions in battle!

The reason why this was the case was because the slower stealth mechs did not have as many chances to screw up and show any imperfections while they were active. It became exponentially more difficult to hide their traces as long as they kept moving faster!f𝘳𝐞𝑒𝚠𝑒𝚋no𝘃eƖ.co𝘮

This was why there was also another category of stealth mechs that put a much greater emphasis on mobility. Such stealth mechs were much more practical in active battle situations, but their chances of infiltrating enemy positions outside of battle were too low since it was harder to blend into a calm environment.

However, stealth mechs actually didn't need to hide themselves flawlessly when they operated on an active battlefield.

No matter whether they fought in space or on land, a typical battlefield was filled with lots of messy emissions such as energy beams and jamming signals!

As long as a stealth mech did not release any strong emissions that were obviously inconsistent with all of the background energies, it could readily sneak up to an enemy mech formation unnoticed and assassinate a key machine!

Once the stealth mech had done the deed, it would probably expose its traces, but as long as it was able to maintain its stealth systems, it could quickly retreat and move to safety before its position was bombarded by a furious volley of counterattacks!

Generally, stealth mechs either leaned in one or the other direction.

There were many confident and ambitious mech designers that tried to have it both ways, but few of them truly succeeded.

Most stealth mech designs that tried to take the middle approach ended up too mediocre to outperform competing products.

Ves was not arrogant enough to believe a bunch of Journeymen could break this paradigm.

Given the needs of his clan, he had firmly decided to position the Ghost Project as a battlefield prowler.

He wanted Venerable Zimro Belson to become good at assassinating enemy expert mechs or equivalent opponents!

This was why it was crucial to ensure that the Ghost Project scored well enough in terms of mobility.

Most powerful enemies that the Ghost Project would be tasked with eliminating tended to be fast and powerful.

It would be a dream for the Ghost Project to assassinate targets such as the Tensars if it could not even close the gap!

Ves patted Miles' shoulder. "Don't give up before we have properly started. I am counting on you to do your part in turning the Ghost Project into a battlefield stalker. I am confident enough in my ability to make it stealthy enough, but I need your help in ensuring that it possesses the mobility to be at the right place at the right time."

"I will try... sir."