The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

6032 Expert Mech Policy Revision

Ves originally wanted to bring up the topic of designing counters against alien phasefighters and anti-mech warships.

He quickly set this matter aside because his wife brought up a much more interesting topic of discussion.

Expert mechs!

His wife had already made a lot of preparations in advance. This allowed her to get ready to take action as soon as there was demand for new and upgrade expert mechs.

"There is no need for you to concern yourself too much over the development of low-tier expert mechs." Gloriana said as she projected a few of her draft designs. "Now that our clan has nurtured a large and growing batch of high-ranking mech pilots, our policy towards newly emerged expert mechs should correspondingly adjust."

"Are you talking about…"

"Instead of going all-out and design the most powerful low- tier expert mechs that they can handle, it is better if I tone down the initial designs and make the expert pilots less dependent on excessively powerful machines. It will be much more conducive to their growth if they need to struggle and prove themselves in order to earn upgrades for their machines. By starting out with a relatively basic expert mech and letting them work for their upgrades on an incremental basis, I believe that we can achieve a much better fit between man and machine in the long run."

Ves had already contemplated this change in development strategy as well. It was much more economical and a much more rational use of tand resources.

As Ves observed the drafts that Gloriana had made for the latest batch of Larkinson expert pilots, he could truly tell that they were very basic and generic compared to their last high-

end design projects.

If the Larkinson pilot broke through while using a Ferocious Piranha, then Gloriana was prepared to design a personalized expert mech version of the slight skirmisher.

If the pilot utilized a Fey Fianna, then Gloriana would simply design a personalized expert mech interpretation of the smech concept!

By working with existing successful mech concepts, Gloriana did not have to spend a lot of ton research and thought experiments. The formulas had already proved their viability, so Gloriana could skip straight to more important design choices.

While Gloriana planned to add a few unique features to every low-tier expert mech based on the selection of compatible resonating exotics, she did not intend to be too extravagant and load any experimental tech onto the machines.

"Do you wantto design Ultimate Modules for these low-

tier expert mechs?" Ves offered. "It will take tand effort, but even if they are not as good as the Dark Wind Module, I can still bestow the new machines with their own trump cards."

The idea sounded tempting, but Gloriana shook her head.

"No. It is important to limit the scope of investment in our low-tier expert mechs. The latest expert pilots are new to their powers and are still at a stage where they are trying to discover the best ways for them to contribute to a battle. We cannot and should not make decisions for them in advance by granting them mechs that are already loaded with many abilities. This should be a more iterative process that takes place over a span of multiple decades."

She made a lot of sense. The Larkinson Clan was no longer short on expert pilots, and it had also exhausted the initial supply of 500 general cultivation elixirs.

The new generation of expert pilots therefore needed to struggle hard and rely on their own efforts to gradually develop their combat system and grow their resonance strength.

If any of the new expert pilots was particularly talented or possessed an eye-catching ability, then Ves might decide to invest a lot more resources into speeding up their growth.

Otherwise, he was fine with letting the expert pilots temper themselves in the normal fashion. It took a lot of tand effort to design high-quality expert mechs. This treatment should only be reserved for more powerful high-ranking mech pilots.

In that case, Ves was fine with leaving Ultimate Modules out of low-tier expert mechs. This might make the low-tier expert pilots weaker and less able to affect the battlefield, but it gave them much more room for growth since they needed to struggle a lot more during the early stages.

This was both an economical and practical approach towards developing expert pilots. The biggest problem was that it took a lot more tto achieve good results, but Ves could live with it as he could rely on the earlier generation of expert pilots to enhance the Larkinson Clan's high-end combat power.

Gloriana quickly outlined her overall policy towards the development of expert pilots.

New expert pilots would only receive a low-tier expert mech with basic functions and no Ultimate Modules. The machines would also start out with transphasic parts, but their phasewater content should be fairly modest at the start.

Once the expert pilots reached the middle stage of their growth, they should already earn a lot of iterative upgrades for their expert mechs. At that time, the machines should also receive their Ultimate Modules and raise their phasewater content.

"High-tier expert pilots deserve much better treatment." Gloriana calmly stated even as she continued to pet Hekkel's back. "Each of them are either ace pilot candidates or are fairly close to becoming one. Their combat power has also grown to a point where they have often outgrown their old machines. The Hex Army and many other mech militaries usually decide to bestow powerful new high-tier expert mechs to these valued pilots. After all, each of them has the potential to advance to ace pilot in the future. It is always a good idea to provide more lavish treatment to these powerful pilots. Not only will their combat power skyrocket, but they are also more likely to remain loyal to their states."

Any state or organization that was stupid enough to neglect the treatment of high-tier expert pilots would always regret it when their talents decided to defect to another employer!

The Larkinson Clan certainly couldn't neglect this issue either. Ves fully agreed with Gloriana's stance.

"So you intend to standardize the process of upgrading existing expert mechs to much more powerful high-tier expert mechs to any of our high-tier expert pilots, is that correct?"

Gloriana nodded. "Designing completely new high-tier expert mechs from scratch is the prevailing norm in the mech community, but that is not suitable for us as there is value in aged living mechs. Upgrading the existing machines of high- tier expert pilots should becour own standard. It is the right stage in their development trajectory to issue major reworks of the living mechs that the pilots are familiar with. This is also an excellent opportunity to convert the older expert mechs into archemechs."

"Oh? I thought you intended to design archemechs for all of our expert pilots? Why limit the benefit of this powerful alien tech to high-tier expert pilots and higher?"

"Because archetech introduces too many complications, Ves. I have already received a report from the maintenance crew responsible for servicing the Dark Zephyr Mark III that they are struggling to understand the basic theories needed to fulfill their responsibilities. If Tusa's mech ever incurs serious damage, the clan may be forced to ship the archemech back to my location so that I can perform repairs in person!"

There were many other complications associated with the use of actual archetech. A lot of common materials could not be used to produce replacement parts for the Dark Zephyr Mark III.

Even if there were a few suitable materials around, the workers over at the expeditionary fleet needed to use specialized fabrication machines to produce the right archemetal components, and that required a lot of study and comprehension!

The trouble was not too great for the tbeing as there was only a single archemech in the expeditionary fleet.

What about the future? What if 6 or 12 expert archemechs got stationed in the expeditionary fleet?

So long as archetech remained foreign to most people, the archemechs would always impose significant logistical burdens onto the forces they were attached to! Not even the Larkinson Clan could support too many of them at a time!

"Okay. Let's settle for your plan, then. I am okay with reserving archetech for our more powerful and proven expert pilots. They should be able to make much better use of its stronger and more advanced capabilities anyway."

His wife smiled and pecked his cheek. "I knew you would understand. I may revise this policy and supply expert archemechs to weaker expert pilots in the future. It depends on how quickly I can design a completely new archemech by myself. I am not satisfied with my mastery in this tech base. There is much greater depth that I have yet to explore and master. Only after doing that can I begin to develop my own adapted version of archetech."

This was bound to be a very long and tedious journey. Gloriana was not afraid that she would be lacking in opportunities to design archemechs.

After Ves expressed his agreement with Gloriana's plan, they finally shifted their attention to the coming upgrades to two familiar expert mechs.

"As part of my new policy, the Amaranto and the Riot are both due for major reworks." The female mech designer said. "After the Dark Zephyr, these two expert mechs most urgently require upgrades. I think it is best if I start to upgrade them into high-tier expert archemechs in the next half-year."

Ves raised his eyebrows when he heard that. "It took a lot of months to complete the development of the Dark Zephyr Mark III. Are you confident enough in your ability to complete two major upgrade projects on a concurrent basis on top of your other responsibilities? You still need to spend a decent amount of tto design those low-tier expert mechs, and you also need to help Master Benedict upgrade the Dark Zephyr into an ace mech."

Gloriana smirked and tapped her finger against the side of her head. "I am not as slow and incompetent as before. My advancement to Senior, my upgraded cranial implants and most importantly the lessons learned from the previous upgrade project have all increased my ability to handle these tasks much more efficiently than before. If necessary, I can delay the completion of the two upgrade projects by one or two months, but I believe that will not be necessary."

Since Gloriana sounded confident enough, Ves was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. She had done so many times whenever he made his wild claims in the past. It was only right for him to reciprocate.

"So what do you have in mind for the next versions of the Amaranto and the Riot? Both of them are originally my babies. I don't mind it if you want to take them over and put your own spin on their designs, but I hope that you won't trash the mech concepts that have worked out so well for their expert pilots."

"You have no need to worry about that, Ves. I have no intention of making radical changes to their configurations. I have already asked Venerable Stark and Venerable Orfan about their preferences. Both of them have completely becaccustomed to the configurations of their respective machines. What I seek to accomplish is to expand upon their existing expert mechs. By introducing new technologies and strengthening existing ones, I hope to lay an excellent foundation for the Amaranto and the Riot's eventual transformations into ace mechs."

In order to make her intentions clear to Ves, she activated a projection of a very rudimentary draft design of the Amaranto Mark III.

Ves' eyes immediately lit up when he saw Gloriana's vision for the massively improved Amaranto.

The original expert rifleman mech had always been characterized by extremely powerful attack power and very weak defenses.

The newer version not only employed multiple measures to enhance the firepower of the Amaranto to a higher level, but also made excellent strides to shore up the Amaranto's defenses!