The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

Ves did not know whether the Wodin Dynasty intended to found a colony in the Red Ocean. If they ever wanted to do so, then they already had a ready-made colony ship at hand in the form of the Indigo Tremor!

"There are better colony ships that can serve as the administrative and industrial center of a new colony, but the defenses of a headquarters based around the Indigo Tremor's hull is hard to surpass." Vivian explained.

"While that's true, once she is anchored on the ground, she's a sitting duck. As long as the Hexers lose orbital supremacy, it's hard to withstand sustained bombardment."

"You'd be surprised. There are surface-to-orbit weapons that can threaten any enemy ship that hovers too closely to a planet and there are other defensive measures that can stall an enemy attack. Besides, the main purpose of this defensive center isn't to resist major invasions. The landed fleet carrier mainly has to cover the growing settlement in its weakest period against raids and other opportunistic attacks."

"What happens to the Indigo Tremor once the colony doesn't need her anymore?"

"It depends." Vivian responded. "While it is very difficult to do so, it is possible to reconfigure her into a starship and bring her back into space. She's too heavy to lift herself up, but a fleet of specialized tugboats can provide sufficient assistance in this regard. If this solution is not available, then her owners can always disassemble her entire hull, move the parts into space and reassemble the Indigo Tremor without requiring to fabricate all of her expensive parts from scratch."

Though these measures sounded quite troublesome, it was better than acquiring a brand-new fleet carrier from scratch.

Aside from this extra purpose, the Indigo Tremor didn't possess any remarkable functions.

"Mind you, these schematics are not complete." Vivian warned. "I am missing plenty of details as the ship diagram does not point out how the Hexer plan to fill their compartments. Still, from my understanding of fleet carriers, the Indigo Tremor is mostly a dedicated fleet carrier with a modest emphasis towards defense."

"I see. She has two FTL drives, right?"

"Correct, but it puts an immense strain on them to engage in FTL travel one after another without any extensive breaks in between. She's a bit worse than our upcoming factory ship in this regard."

Just because a starship was theoretically capable of activating one FTL drive after another on an alternating basis to avoid realspace did not mean it could continue forever.

FTL drives were complicated, finicky devices. The larger the ship, the more complicated they were. While they were built to exacting and robust standards, there were too many elements that could go wrong, especially when the engineers only had a few days to service these enormous beasts.

This was one of the reasons why Ves prized the addition of a third heavy-duty FTL drive to his factory ship.

By alternating between three FTL drives, the inactive ones received enough downtime to ensure they remained in good condition. Even if one of them fizzed out and required a month-long reconstruction, the factory ship could still rely on the remaining drives to remain elusive to any enemies waiting in realspace!

After Vivian finished giving her opinion on the Indigo Tremor, Ves brought up the new changes and upgrades to his upcoming factory ship.

"These upgrades are quite generous!" She noted with surprise.

"How so?" Ves looked puzzled. "The Hexers gave us an additional budget of 800 billion hex credits, but a significant portion of it is already spent if we accept the recommended upgrades."

"Much of these upgrades consist of proprietary hardware and materials. We're talking about military-grade solutions. The Hexers are offering you some the best of what they have to offer. While they are probably withholding plenty of sophisticated tech that they do not want to leak to their enemies, their list of choices contain many powerful functions that are even better than what my father has used back in our home state!"

The Hexers were quite sincere if they made so much tech available to them. Vivian pointed out some very useful functions such as specialized anti-stealth detectors and advanced autonomous repair bots.

Of course, all of this tech did not come for free. The Hexers charged a pretty penny for all of these goodies. The Hegemony was waging a war, after all. The state couldn't afford to waste too much money.

Ves looked at Vivian with an expectant expression. "Please help me upgrade the design of the factory ship. Aside from the 800 billion hex credits that the Hexers have rewarded us with, I'm willing to throw in 400 billion hex credits out of our own pockets."

"That is a lot of money! Is the Larkinson Clan able to spend that much? I recall that you plan to acquire at least six more capital ships. If you commit this much money, we might have to delay our other acquisitions."

Ves did not look concerned.

"It's fine. The finances of our Larkinson Clan will be a little tight after spending so much money, but we will soon release a bunch of mech models that will relieve this pressure. Besides, I don't think we will have to delay too much. The Wodin Dynasty has promised to extend favorable loans to us so that we can hurry up with ordering other capital ships."

This was quite a useful favor! While the Larkinson Clan could apply for loans elsewhere, its supposed ally would probably offer the most favorable terms.

Even if the Wodin Dynasty wasn't capable of lending him trillions of credits on short notice, his in-laws could act as a middleman to other Hexer institutions that were more than capable of transferring so much funds.

A long as the Wodins abided by their promise, Ves should be able to borrow enough money to fund the construction of several capital ships at a time!

That was a topic for another day. For now, he cared more about investing in his factory ship. Having observed several different capital ships, he became a bit worried about the size of his future flagship.

"Is two kilometers too short?"

"Not necessarily." Vivian shook her head. "Your factory ship is rather long and narrow, but she features plenty of decks. Her mobility and defensive capabilities are above average compared to a more traditional industrial vessel of this type and she possesses ample production capacity. If you wish to increase the productivity of this vessel, then I highly advise you to upgrade her fabrication facilities. Of course, we will also have to upgrade her power reactors."

The two began to discuss how to spend their entire budget. While it would take at least several days for Vivian and her staff to revise the factory ship in conjunction with the Hexer shipwrights who were in charge of building the vessel, Ves only needed to convey his preferences. It would be up to the ship designers to incorporate as many of them in the ship design as possible given the financial and technical constraints.

Ves was often at the other end of this relationship. He found it quite nice to play the role of a client for once.

As he possessed a related engineering background, he was well-versed in how far he could go. From the moment Constance informed him that he could add something extra to his factory ship, he was already considering several possibilities.

After exchanging some of his ideas with Vivian, they eventually settled on a specific plan.

"Since your highest priority is upgrading the industrial capacity of your factory ship, then acquiring higher-end production equipment and upgrading her power reactors is of utmost importance. Of course, there are also many related systems that need to be upgraded in order to cope with the higher stresses."

Spending hundreds of billions of hex credits on these areas was extremely costly, but it was the only way to increase the factory ship's efficiency without expanding her size.

Ves wanted to expand the factory ship's production capacity because it played an important role in equipping his clan with Larkinson-exclusive mechs. It was also one of his strongest means of earning money in the Red Ocean.

This way, if his business empire in the Yeina Star Cluster ever collapsed for some reason, his clan would still be able to pay the bills by relying on selling mechs produced within the fleet!

When it came to upgrading the production facilities of his flagship, Ves split them up into two categories.

First, Ves wanted to expand his ship's mass-production capabilities. His ship should be able to output sophisticated and complicated second-class mechs at a faster pace than before.

This meant that it should be much less of a burden for his factory ship to churn out difficult mechs such as the monstrous Transcendent Punishers!

In order to increase the output of his factory ship even further, Ves also opted to invest in more compact machines that took up less overall space. After Vivian rearranged the interior of the production halls, they managed to squeeze in a bit more hardware!

"Twenty production lines is the limit." Vivian eventually spoke after she drafted a new layout. "While there is still some room to spare, it is not wise to occupy more space."

"It's enough." Ves replied. "Each additional production line will add more burdens to the rest of our fleet. We need additional cargo vessels to carry the raw materials needed to produce the mechs and we also have to reserve more space to store the finished products."

Increasing his factory ship's mass-production capabilities wasn't his only focus. He also wanted to increase his vessel's high-end fabrication capabilities. For this reason, he invested billions of credits to acquire some of Hegemony's best production equipment to outfit not one, but two luxurious mech workshops!

Though they weren't as extravagantly outfitted as Master Olson's personal mech workshop back on Leemar, Ves was pretty confident he could rely on them to fabricate his expert mechs. Aside from the inability to process materials that were as hard as Unending alloy, the 3D printers, forging machines, alloy compressor and other machines were very capable.

Plenty of Hexer Seniors and Masters utilized the same models that he had chosen! Ves wouldn't have to upgrade the equipment for a very long time!

Vivian frowned at the extravagant expenditures. Ves could have spent his money on many other useful upgrades.

"I don't quite understand why you insist on upgrading both mech workshops. If you need to fabricate an expert mech, then upgrading a single mech workshop is enough. It is unlikely that you will end up in the situation where you are required to fabricate multiple expert mechs in a hurry."

"You're right. It may be a bit overkill when you consider our current state. Only Gloriana and myself are able to make full use of such a powerful workshop, and we are often working closely together. However, I'm looking towards the future. Ten or twenty years from now, our clan will definitely welcome some new Journeymen. All of these emerging talents might wish to engage in their own projects."

What he didn't mention was that Ves was sick and tired of working with Gloriana's production equipment all of the time.

While the two mech workshops both contained identical Hexer hardware, Ves wanted to claim one of them for himself so that he could personalize it to his own tastes. He could precisely tweak the configuration of all of the production machines so that they were completely tuned to his methods!

As for Gloriana, she could add as many hexagons as she wanted in her own workshop as long as she left his man cave alone!

Though Vivian disapproved of his decision, she tried to work with it. He was the boss, and she was his subordinate.

"Since our factory ship possesses so many upgraded power reactors, we should make good use of it." She said, changing the topic. "We can add some heavy-duty shield generators to add some active defenses to the factory ship. In battle, those 20 production lines will have to be locked down. Since they aren't consuming any power, your factory ship will have a lot of excess to spare. Diverting this idle power into shield generators makes a lot of sense."

"That sounds like a good idea, though these shield generators aren't cheap."

He agreed with her recommendation anyway. Increasing the defense of his factory ship was always worthwhile!