The Mech Touch

Two projections appeared into view. Each of them displayed a mech that bore close resemblance to each other.

There were differences, though. Perhaps a layman might mistake them as identical, but there were many interesting divergences in the eyes of a trained professional.

Both Ves and Gloriana acted as the judges of this unofficial competition.

The two design teams of the LMC had been tasked with developing a minor revision to the Aurora Titan design that incorporated some specific upgrades.

This was one of the ways Ves came up with to upgrade Jannzi's Shield of Samar without spending an excessive amount of time on this chore.

It wasn't as if Ves intended to neglect her. He simply thought that it wasn't necessary for him to be involved in every step of the way. Since he spent some effort into forming some design teams, he might as well make use of their capabilities.

The results met his expectations. While none of his subordinate mech designers were as good as him or Gloriana, they hadn't been told to design a completely new mech from scratch. Working around the framework of an existing design was much more convenient as they didn't have to take so many variables into account.

By issuing this assignment to them, Ves not only saved a lot of time, but also tested their individual strengths.

"What do you think, Gloriana?" He asked.

His girlfriend inspected the efforts of the Novices and Apprentices thoroughly by manipulating the projections and zooming in on many specific sections of the wireframe model of their work.

"They're both a little rough, but that is a given considering their level of skill and the amount of time you gave them. The best I can say about them is that they are both decent enough to be used as a base for further refinement. I believe that is one of your intentions."

He nodded. "Both of these designs have incorporated solutions that I can adopt in the final version of the minor revision."

To upgrade Jannzi's mech, Ves intended to adopt the implementations from both designs, picking and choosing whichever one was better. If there weren't any solutions that satisfied him, then he could always skip it or develop his own solution.

In that regard, the designs produced by their respective teams already met his standard. It didn't matter if their implementation was lacking as long as the fundamentals were correct.

He still had to provide some feedback and judge which one was better. One of the reasons for setting up multiple design teams was to foster friendly competition between his subordinates.

As long as it didn't go too far, then the desire to upstage their rivals would push his mech designers to deliver better results!

"Let's begin with the variant designed by the first design team." He gestured at the slightly smaller of the two projected mechs.

The first design team consisted of five Kinner mech pilots. While they had one less mech designer, they all shared a common background and mindset while retaining their own identities.

In other words, they were much like the Larkinsons in how well they cooperated with each other. Over the past months, they formed an increasingly cohesive team where each mech designer did their own part.

The variant they submitted to Ves reflected the design philosophies adopted by the Tovars. It was a mech that not only fulfilled his demands, but also expanded on the concept of the base model.

"I see that this mech is a bit more mobile than what we are used to seeing in an Aurora Titan." He remarked.

Miles Tovar stepped forward and nodded. As the leader of the first design team, he cleared every decision.

"Over the course of our design work, we decided to pay a visit to the Avatars to see Jannzi Larkinson and the Shield of Samar in action. We saw that she was spending a fair amount of time walking around with her mech. Though the Aurora Titan is technically a landbound mech, with the vastly-upgraded power reactor you've given us, we can strengthen our variant to such an extent that we can divert more power to its mobility."

"The Aurora Titan is primarily a spaceborn mech." Ves reminded them. "I did not optimize it for landbound combat at all. While it is capable of participating in a battle on land, that should only be reserved as a last resort."

Miles already had an argument ready. "This distinction is less strict when it comes to second-class mechs, right? Miss Jannzi is also almost certain to become an expert pilot one day. This means her future mech will be so powerful that it shouldn't be much of a problem to pilot her mech in multiple different environments. Just as how Venerable Ghanso's Glittering Comet can fly in space as well as in the air, we think that Jannzi may be better served if she gains some practice with piloting her mech on land."

"I see that you have focused mostly on making the Aurora Titan viable on land as opposed to in the air." Ves pointed out.

"The mech is simply too heavy." Miles shrugged. "We discussed how to add aerial capability to the Aurora Titan, but it's simply too inefficient because its flight system doesn't scale that well with increased power. Putting too much stress on them will increase the risk of catastrophic failure, and that is something we can never approve."

For this reason, the Tovars decided to focus on adapting the Aurora Titan for land combat while retaining all of its spaceborn combat capabilities at the same time.

They did so through implementing various solutions. First, they made the flight system detachable so that its wing structure wouldn't get in the way when they weren't needed.

Second, they strengthened the legs and mech engine in order to increase the mobility and weight-bearing capacity of the Aurora Titan.

As a spaceborn mech, Ves initially placed little emphasis on its legs. It only had to be strong enough for the mech to move in and out of the mech stables of a ship under standard gravity conditions.

That wasn't enough to make the mech viable in landbound combat, so the Tovars spent a significant amount of effort in strengthening their variant's legs.

All in all, they succeeded in what they set out to do. Much of this had to do with Pachtold Tovar, who specialized in mechanical locomotion, and Gilbert Tovar, who was good in mass optimization.

Their respective specialties was one of the main reasons why the first design team opted to choose this route.

Overall, Ves approved of their initiative and ingenuity. He wanted his design team to be more than just a bunch of forgettable design bots.

"It can work on land." Gloriana admitted. "The question is whether these changes are worth giving up other changes and if this version of the Aurora Titan stays true to your vision."

Aside from Gloriana, pretty much every mech designer was unable to design a worthy variant of his mechs. The moment other people started deviating from his original vision, they damaged the spiritual foundation of the mech. It also didn't help that they didn't adopt the right approach and often polluted the X-Factor of the base model with scattered thoughts!

Ves had already taught the two design teams to center their minds and minimize their mental distractions whenever they engaged in their work.

While that wasn't enough to keep his mech designs pure after they got their hands on them, at least they didn't leave such a big spiritual mess behind.

He once explained to Gloriana that he sometimes imagined that he was a cleaning bot assigned to a public lavatory.

Every time, some kid or hooligan 'misjudged' their aim and left some 'collateral damage' behind. Ves had to go out and clean up all of the 'debris'.

If he didn't do so, then the variants would always lose their spiritual qualities that his works were known for! This was one of the main reasons why many of his fellow colleagues cursed him for adopting such a difficult and abstruse design philosophy. The inability to take advantage of his work was one of the biggest reasons his mechs hadn't proliferated as widely as mechs designed by other mech designers!

Of course, the upside to this was that Ves maintained a very high control over his brand of mechs. At the very least, Ves didn't have to worry too much about ignorant competitors butchering his original works.

In any case, every mech designer he added to his design teams knew better. At the very least, Ves told them to be more diligent in their aim so that they wouldn't deviate from his intentions too much.

Though the variants produced by the design teams definitely had problems, at least they were salvageable to an extent.

The variant developed by the first design team was a bit worse off in this regard, though.

"Your work is admirable, and your ideas have merit, but I'm not so sure if branching out is wise." He said.

He recalled his original inspiration for the Aurora Titan. He designed the mech after an unforgettable Mastery experience where he witnessed the apotheosis of Venerable Eloise Pelican and subsequently saw her evoke the rare state of Unity of Man and Machine with an aged and worn-out Valiant Warden mech!

Ves semi-purposefully designed the Aurora Titan to be a machine that could evoke this heroic feat one day.

He wasn't sure whether broadening the scope of the Shield of Samar would hinder Jannzi from reaching this state.

Once Ves pointed out some other aspects and finished with his feedback, Gloriana expressed her own views.

"From a technical standpoint, I'm not very comfortable with some of the design choices your team has made." She pointed at several shaky aspects of the variant.

"Look at these sections. They're all weaker than they need to be because you're trying to reconcile both spaceborn and landbound requirements in a single mech. While it's true that it is not that big of a deal to expand the range of environments a second-class mech can operate, this only applies to the upper end of our mechs. If the tech and materials aren't good enough, if the parts are too large to fit too many options in a frame, then the end product will always have shortcomings in both."

"The spaceborn combat capabilities of your variant has dipped." Ves observed.

"We knew this would happen, but we think we kept the drop in performance within an acceptable range." Miles said. "Losing 5 to 10 percent in spaceborn combat performance to make the Aurora Titan viable on land is an acceptable tradeoff in our eyes."

"What is acceptable and what is not acceptable is different to everyone." Gloriana emphasized. "I will tell you now that this price is way too much in my eyes! You might not care, but have you ever asked us or Jannzi Larkinson whether we approve of this price?"

"Uhh.. we have been remiss in that."

Neither Ves nor Gloriana looked amused.

"These kinds of changes are significant enough that you have a responsibility to solicit the feedback of the people who are directly affected by your decisions! At the very least, you should notify Jannzi in advance so that she has an opportunity to lodge an objection!"

The Tovars looked suitably chastised, which at least showed they knew their faults.

Ves understood why they slipped up. The Tovars were born with silver spoons in their mouths and always benefited from a lot of privilege.

Their high background and status made it difficult for them to adopt a service mindset that was expected of a mech designer.

Mech designers existed to serve mech pilots. This was a basic principle of the mech industry, and one that Ves still agreed with despite his skepticism towards the MTA.

Though the changes the Tovars came up with looked fairly good in the perspective of a mech designer, the fact that they never took the interests of the end user in mind was a significant dereliction of their duty!

Gloriana found other faults with their variant. Though she held herself back, the Tovars still took some heavy blows.

"Okay, that's enough." Ves put his hand on her shoulder. "Their level isn't as high as ours. We can't expect them to do better on these fronts. It's already good enough that they managed to design a variant that works to this extent."

She shrugged off his hand. "They're not working hard enough! You did a lot better when you were still an Apprentice! If you can avoid these common mistakes, then so should they!"

Urgh. Ves shook his head. Gloriana was the same as ever!