The Mech Touch

Throughout the entire announcement, Gloriana did not speak a single word.

Usually, Ves and his partner jointly handled these matters. They were used to sharing power and responsibilities on an equal basis whenever they were on duty.

In practice, Ves handled more responsibilities on some days while Gloriana took charge on other days. It mostly depended on what mood they were in and how preoccupied they were.

Yet no matter who took the lead, Ves and Gloriana basically supported each other's decisions by default. Even if they didn't agree with something, as long as the issue was small enough, it wasn't worth kicking up a fuss.

Now, this dynamic would no longer hold. The insertion of a third Journeyman meant that it became a lot harder to keep everyone aligned. This was especially when two of them were antagonistic towards each other.

To be honest, this situation was anything but ideal to Ves. If he didn't manage the situation properly, then the next six months might end up in disaster!

However, as Ves laid his eyes on Juliet, he believed it was worth the risks to integrate her into the Design Department. The benefits she brought were too great for him to pass up. He just had to placate his wife and find some way to prove that her concerns were unfounded.

For now though, he had to address their goals for the current design round.

He raised his hand, summoning a projected list.

"As I've stated earlier, we will be starting six new design projects. For the next couple of weeks, you will be put on exploration duty. Depending on the nature of your assigned project, you will have to gather as much relevant information as possible. We need you to explore which criteria and requirements we must set, which tech and components we should use and so on. For our Larkinson mechs, I need you to interview our mech pilots and find out what they wish to see in their mechs."

Performing market research was essential to designing the right mech. It didn't matter how good his mech was if it did not conform to the needs of his fighting forces.

After explaining these basic matters, Ves moved on to explaining the focus of the six mech design projects.

"Three projects will be oriented around designing Hexer mechs for the Hex Army. The other three projects are centered around designing commercial mechs or mechs that are exclusive to the Larkinson Clan."

Someone couldn't help but raise his hands.

"Yes, Mr. Ringer?"

"How many commercial mechs will we design this time?"

"Just one."

"Isn't that rather small?" Moltar Ringer frowned. "Why aren't we designing any commercial mechs this time? Shouldn't we focus on increasing our revenue?"

Due to his poor and debt-laden background, the former Reinaldan citizen was very sensitive towards money. One of the reasons why he loved the Larkinson Clan was because it excelled in earning lots of money!

Ves sent a disapproving glare at the eager assistant. "In fact, I'm not certain yet whether we will publicly release the mech with commercial potential. It is an uplift of one of our recent third-class mech designs, but its value and utility is on a whole other level when it becomes a second-class design."

He did not want to disrupt the mech market too much! Even with his rising prestige, Ves knew that competing against second-class mech companies was a lot more dangerous than competing against third-class mech companies.

Even if the LMC stole half the market share of the latter, what could they do? Aside from performing some small tricks, those inconsequential mech companies could never affect the LMC's dominant market position in many foreign states!

It was different once the LMC stepped in a second-class mech market. The competitors there were not inferior to the Larkinson Clan. In fact, many of them were far more powerful by virtue of their strong physical presence!

The LMC was foreign to every state. In every second-class state, its subsidiaries had to keep their heads down and avoid attracting too much attention from the local tyrants.

If the domestic mech industry of a given state all joined hands, the LMC would definitely lose its foothold!

For now, Ves did not feel that the LMC and his clan were strong enough to set up a strong foundation in those powerful foreign states. There was not that much sense in selling a powerful second-class LMC mech at this time.

Since his assistants were all curious about this potential commercial mech, Ves simply decided to unveil it first.

He waved his arm, causing the projection of a very familiar mech design to dominate the design lab.

"That's the Ferocious Piranha!"

Ves grinned. "I'm sure you can guess it already. One of the projects will be centered around translating our successful Ferocious Piranha design to second-class standards. In the interests of saving time and effort, we will be borrowing heavily on the data we have generated when designing the original version."

"Who will lead the project, sir?"

"As the Ferocious Piranha is a light skirmisher that relies heavily on its flight system to perform its role, it is most appropriate to hand over this project to Juliet."

Everyone switched their gaze towards Juliet, who Ves had referred to on a first name basis in order to bring her closer. To her credit, she did not exhibit any nervous tension.

The lack of any hostile action from Gloriana made Juliet feel more secure about joining the Design Department. Though she still didn't feel very comfortable here, it was enough to avoid the other Hexer as much as possible.

She knew what to do now. She took a step forward.

"While I have not taken part in the development of the original design project, the patriarch.. Ves.. has filled me in. I possess a different understanding of light mechs. In my eyes, the Ferocious Piranha Mark I is an adequate light skirmisher design with some very interesting properties. However, when you leave out its glow, its performance characteristics still have room for improvement. These openings will grow larger when we translate the mech concept to a second-class design, so there is room to add some extra modules to the mech depending on the budget."

She looked towards Ves, who paused before answering her implied question.

"We will set an exact budget for each project after we have completed our preliminary research. It has to be high enough to make it useful to our clan, though. I don't want to assign any budget mechs to our clansmen. They deserve better."

This meant that the Ferocious Piranha was definitely going to cost a lot compared to other second-class light skirmishers.

Ves moved on to announcing Juliet's second design projects.

"In addition to supervising the second-class version of the Ferocious Piranha, she is also responsible for designing a mech with a narrower focus. For various reasons that I won't explain to you, the Penitent Sisters require a new mech model that is geared towards resisting very powerful individual opponents."

He gave the word to Juliet again.

"We are still exploring the basic properties this mech must possess in order to fulfill this difficult goal." The Penitent Sister spoke. Despite her unconventional background, she possessed genuine leadership ability, which was good. "At the moment, I am inclined to design a rifleman mech that can combine its firepower with identical mechs. This mech must be fairly mobile but also possess sufficient protection to defend against area attacks."

They could have chosen to design a melee mech instead, yet Ves did not favor this plan. It was far too easy for a powerful mech to wipe out an entire mech company up close. While such a powerful opponent also posed a threat against distant targets, the attack power might not be as great.

Once Juliet finished outlining her thoughts on the Penitent Sister mech, Ves called up the projection of another familiar mech design.

It was the Bright Warrior design!

"I am sure you are familiar with this bridge mech design. While our clan has not deployed this model in greater numbers, the Avatars of Myth fought well with the few Bright Warriors they possessed. The model is also responsible for facilitating the rise of heroes such as Venerable Joshua. While there are various shortcomings to the Bright Warrior concept, it is worth it for us to reimagine it as a second-class mech design!"

"Will the armor system still be made out of Breyer alloy?"

Ves shook his head. "I have no plans to do so this time. While I have not finalized this decision, from a logistical viewpoint it is much more convenient to design an armor system that does not rely on any overly-scarce materials. In fact, every material we incorporate in our mech must be commonly available in many regions. This is how we can keep building them no matter where we travel."

This was a rather complicated matter. Not only did Ves have to account for the distribution and availability of lots of exotics, he also had to look ahead and adapt his work to the materials available in the Red Ocean.

Fortunately, this was what staff and assistants were for. He did not have to waste his time on performing this tedious but essential research.

"The Bright Warrior Mark II will be the true successor to the original version. I have no intentions to design another third-class Bright Warrior. The Mark II will largely adopt the same principles and design choices of the original. I doubt there will be any room for additional modules, but if there are opportunities, then we might be able to add some extra functionality."

Catherine Evenson raised her arm. "Sir, what is the purpose of the Bright Warrior Mark II? How long do we intend to keep it in our mech roster?"

Ves looked sharply at the former noble Sentinel. She understood the objective of this project right away.

"The Bright Warrior Mark II is another transitory mech. The Mark I has succeeded in its goal of serving as a bridge between third-class mechs and second-class mechs. Now, due to the shortage of clan-exclusive designs, the Mark II is intended to give as many of our mech pilots an opportunity to pilot a second-class LMC mech as possible. Once we complete its design with four different configurations, its modular nature ensures that our clan will effectively receive four powerful mech models at once. This will largely alleviate our critical lack of second-class LMC mechs!"

In other words, the Bright Warrior Mark II probably wouldn't last very long! Once the Design Department designed a comprehensive set of different mechs, the performance of the Mark II shouldn't be able to keep up with the Larkinson Clan anymore.

At that time, the clan might dump the Bright Warrior Mark II's to the Sentinels or simply recycle them to reuse all of the expensive materials used to make them. As much as Ves valued living mechs, it simply did not make sense to keep them around once they served their primary purpose. There was no way that Ves was willing to give them a second life by selling them to third-party clients.

If possible, there might be a case for passing them on to the Larkinson Family, but that depended heavily on whether his clan would still be in the Yeina Star Cluster!

After he introduced the Bright Warrior Mark II Project, he also moved on to detailing his second design project.

"I can't say much about the other project I'll be taking charge of. For now, it is meant to be an exploration of a Hexer mech that may be able to restrain the rampant Fridayman expert mechs on the battlefield. Don't put your hopes up, though. A lot of people have tried to figure out a way to counter expert mechs without relying on any of their own. None of these attempts succeeded as far as we are aware of. Even if an amazing solution exists, it's probably in the hands of the MTA."

Given how much the Mech Trade Association values high-ranking mech pilots, it made no sense for it to publicize a method that could easily take down their extraordinary mechs.

In fact, Ves had a hunch that if he somehow developed a killer mech against expert mechs, the MTA might come knocking on his doors to prohibit its deployment!