The Mech Touch

With the GAIA production lines and the ELKINE-centered mech workshops, the HHX-6963 was arguably the best factory ship in the Komodo Star Sector!

"I hate to burst your bubble, Ves, but the Masters I know of can easily crush the HHX-6963 with their own means." Gloriana said. "Even Master Olson's Titanium Garden is able to output an insane amount of high-quality mechs a day if she so chooses."

Ves briefly slumped. "You're right. Compared to assets of actual Masters, our little factory ship is not that impressive. I'm certain we beat every Journeyman in this regard. I think even Seniors will have difficulty obtaining something just as good."

It was difficult to make direct comparisons because he didn't know that many mech companies or mech designers who operated a fully-fledged factory ship.

Many high-ranking mech designers were usually based in fixed locations just like Ves had been in the past. Unless a devastating conflict like the Sand War or the Komodo War threatened to sweep over their manufacturing complexes, it wasn't necessary to acquire a mobile production facility.

Most Journeymen and Seniors made do with modestly-sized mobile supply frigates. They just needed to have a single well-equipped mech workshop at their disposal in order to break up the monotony of lengthy space journeys.

At the very least, factory ships weren't needed in most portions of civilized space. Despite that, Ves went ahead with investing in one of them. His choice made a lot more sense if his expeditionary fleet reached the Red Ocean. The HHX-6963 would easily be able to pay for herself once she began to pump out mechs that could be sold for an inflated price!

"Well, let's wrap up this tour." Ves suggested. "The production halls and the mech workshops are the heart of this ship."

They continued to tour some other sections. For example, they paid a brief visit to the design labs. There were multiple of them this time. There was enough room for hundreds of assistant mech designers. In fact, Ves could even choose to modify the interior and cannibalize the surrounding compartments to host up to a thousand mech designers!

Of course, that was far too exaggerated. The factory ship was mainly a vessel oriented towards the production of mechs. It was much more appropriate to acquire a dedicated research vessel and move all design activities there. With exceptional lab equipment, specialized departments dedicated to other research fields, an AI core that was specialized in mech design rather than starship operation and ample prototype testing facilities, the LMC's Design Department should be able to design much higher quality mechs!

However, that was a matter for later. Ves wanted to acquire several other capital ship types first before he was ready to add a dedicated research vessel to his expeditionary fleet. For now, the design labs aboard the HHX-6963 were already good enough.

Captain Vraken continued to lead the group downwards. She briefly showed them around the 37th deck, which she informally called the secondary command deck.

The combat information center was almost just as impressive as the bridge. Aside from offering a commanding officer to direct the entire fleet in battle, it also offered a lot of sensor, targeting and coordination and other forms of support to mech pilots.

The grand captain briefly explained how useful it was to man these stations.

"When battles increase in scope, it becomes harder and harder to coordinate individual units. Even your mech commanders will find it difficult to utilize the mechs at their disposal to the fullest. Command centers like these can offer broad support to every unit or more selective support to a small quantity of mechs. In fact, this CIC is made to offer support to every single artillery mech that is stationed in one of this vessel's bunkers. This way, the mech pilot can focus on aiming and shooting while an operator can handle the bigger picture."

Ves could imagine how this would be useful. He knew mech pilots well enough that they were prone to tunnel vision. When they became overly-focused in battle, their situational awareness dropped.

While mech pilots received plenty of training to remedy this behavior, it was a lot easier if someone was there to take over this burden.

This was not a new idea. Pairing mech pilots with their own assistants frequently led to better results, but the requirements were quite burdensome. The mech needed to establish a direct and reliable communication channel to a command center. The connection also needed to be secure. If an enemy managed to hack the channel, then a lot of crucial data would fall into the wrong hands!

In any case, these problems were not concerning in the case of bunker mechs. Since the artillery mechs assigned to the bunkers were still aboard a ship, it was very easy to establish solid and secure communications lines from the bunkers and the command centers.

It was nearly impossible for external enemies to tap or break these lines!

"This is a useful function, but I think it's not as relevant to our current circumstances." Ves remarked.

"Oh? How so, Mr. Larkinson? Your mech pilots, though good, are still limited by their attention span."

"I'm not arguing that, but I think you'll find that the Transcendent Punisher model is already connected to an operator that is greater than you can imagine. There is hardly any need for a second assistant."

The tour continued onwards. The 38th deck housed a lot of the guts of the factory ship. The group had to board another lifter platform in order to travel all the way to the stern of the vessel.

They had to pass through another guarded checkpoint in order to enter a huge compartment.

"Welcome to the primary engineering bay." Captain Vraken led them to one of the four huge and powerful power reactors in the compartment. "The 38th deck houses 12 capital-grade power reactors in total, of which 4 are situated here. In addition, there are 4 additional secondary reactors located in the secondary engineering bay at the 17th deck. However, the latter are mainly backups and should only be activated when the ship needs to draw more power or if the primary reactors have failed."

While this was a bit convoluted, spreading around the power reactors ensured that no single attack or accident was able to disable the entire factory ship.

Decentralizing power generation also ensured that several different sections of the ship retained access to power even if power couldn't be transferred across the entire hull.

"These are hungry bastards." Ves frowned.

"Capital-grade power reactors generate much more energy than smaller models." Captain Vraken noted. "In fact, this specific model is optimized for maximum output in order to support the needs of a lot of power-hungry ship systems. They are ideal for supporting shield generators. The tradeoff is that this power reactor can only run on very high-quality reactor fuel that is not that easy to obtain."

"What happens if we run out of this specific type of reactor fuel?" Gloriana curiously asked.

"It is unlikely that we will be dead in the water. There are secondary and even tertiary power reactors that are much less picky. While these backup power generators aren't powerful enough to run the HHX-6963 normally, they are enough to keep us alive while tentatively enabling both sub-light travel and FTL travel."

"Basically, if we ever end up with a mostly-empty tank, we can still limp our way to safety." Ves summed up the explanation.

"We can also siphon power from other starships or transplant their power reactors if necessary. In fact, if you have enough resources at hand, you might even be able to make some less demanding power reactors yourself."

There were many possible solutions to solve this problem. They just had to be creative and resourceful enough.

Of course, the best solution of all was to never end up in this situation in the first place.

"How much reactor fuel can we stock up on?" Ves asked.

"A lot." The captain answered. "One of the advantages of the type of reactor fuel that these primary reactors consume is that it is very dense in energy. A standard container filled with this substance is enough to support a capital-grade power reactor for months. I suggest you take the opportunity to stock up on several years worth of reactor fuel along the way to the first beyonder gate."

"Why didn't anyone tell me that? Let's place an order right away then. Our clan has plenty of money now that one of our latest products has gone viral."

Daria-Maria shook her head. "Don't be too hasty. Let us travel past a few more star sectors before we shop for fuel. Right now, the Komodo War has vastly increased the regional consumption of many categories of reactor fuels. Even the prices in Vicious Mountain and Majestic Teal have risen. You can save up to 50 percent of your money if you stock up on reactor fuel in a peaceful star sector."

"Oh. Okay, we'll do that then. I don't want to waste billions of hex credits when I still have a lot of expert mechs and capital ships on my shopping list."

After they inspected some of the power reactors, the captain showed them to the largest FTL drive that Ves had ever seen.

Although Ves was aware that the FTL drive of the Starlight Megalodon was even larger, he never got to see it in person.

This was different. A huge block of metal that was about the size of an office building loomed in front of him. It took an FTL drive of at least this size to enable superluminal travel for a 2 kilometer long capital ship!

Several chief engineers and other engineers were already crawling over it. They even opened some hatches in order to access the vast interior.

"Aside from the AI core, the three FTL drives installed on this vessel are the most technically advanced ship components we currency possess."

"That's a bold claim, captain." Ves looked impressed.

"Look at all of these highly-trained professionals." She waved her arms at the milling teams of engineers. "Even the ones dispatched by our state cannot claim to understand the entire operation of this drive. There are too many principles and applications of high technology that are simply beyond what any Hexer can understand. Not even your impressive ELKINEs are as advanced as a capital-grade FTL drive."

"That's also why they cost so much." Ves sighed.

Many capital ships made do with just a single FTL drive. While they were able to accommodate more, it cost hundreds of billions of hex credits to add an additional one. Aside from offering more speed and more guarantees against failure, the addition didn't actually make the huge vessels more productive.

Some people believed it was better to save up all of that money for a second capital ship instead.

However, as long as finances weren't too tight, it was still better to have at least a second FTL drive on hand. What Ves had done by adding a third one to the factory ship was very unusual!

Still, he believed it was worth it. He had forgone many other possible upgrades to acquire some extra assurance that his factory ship would never falter.

"There is not as much differentiation in FTL drive models. This one along with the other two are merely standard for 2-kilometer long capital ships." The captain highlighted. "While they are highly reliable, they don't excel in terms of range, cycling speed, reliability and longevity. Still, don't look down on them for these reasons. As long as your engineers take excellent care of them, they can easily last a century."

"It's a shame we couldn't add any of the long-range FTL drive models." Ves sighed.

"Our state needs them more than you. Besides, long-ranged variants are at least several times to ten times more expensive than standard models. They are mostly reserved for fleet carriers built for deep strike purposes."

This was another resource that states kept for themselves. They were so difficult and expensive to build that they never ended up in the hands of private clients.

"Well, I can always dream."