The Mech Touch

Since the amount of tournaments he could apply to was still overwhelmingly great, Ves knew that he had to take additional measures to narrow down his choices.

First, he needed to list out his own strengths and weaknesses.

"My basics are solid, but my knowledge base is probably a bit too basic compared to all of the talented Journeymen who studied at much more impressive mech universities than I. My best trait is my extensive practical and hands-on experience with fabricating mechs. I'm pretty sure that there are no other Journeymen in Chance Bay that can exceed my success when it comes to producing masterwork mechs!"

Not even his wife or the other Larkinson mech designers had him beat in this area. Gloriana might possess the same number of masterwork certificates as him, but he created an additional unregistered masterwork mech in the form of the Devil Tiger.

His mech affinity had improved so many times that his feel and intimacy towards mechs were unnaturally high compared to his rivals.

In more concrete terms, he was able to design more efficiently, detect a lot more flaws in his work, manipulate materials to a better degree and output higher-quality mechs at a much greater consistency.

However, Ves did not believe he could rely solely on these advantages to win any given design tournament. He had to bring more to the table to defeat those who possessed their own strong points!

"I'll have to rely on my design philosophy to make the difference."

He specialized in man-machine symbiosis, which at a basic level increased the fit between mech and mech pilot.

His mechs performed better because their mech pilots grew closer to them. This allowed the latter to utilize the capabilities of the former to a better degree.

This was a decently good advantage in tournament settings. The reason for that was that mech pilots who piloted newly-made competition mechs never utilized them to the fullest extent.

If Ves was able to design a mech that accelerated this adaptation process, then his entry would be able to perform better solely on the basis of indirectly improving the performance of the mech pilot!

This was the root of his design philosophy and an element that was constant in each of his work. No matter if it was the Everchanger which took a year to develop or some random competition mech that he had cobbled together from loose parts in less than a day, both of them worked in a similar fashion!

In addition to that, design spirits could convey even greater advantages to his works!

"Both Larkinsons and non-Larkinsons can deliver better performances with my mechs."

The advantage of allowing his own Larkinson mech pilots to pilot his mechs was that they were already familiar with this phenomenon and needed no time to adapt.

Living mechs were also helpful for those who became exposed to them for the first time. Third-party mech pilots had already reacted to their first experiences with piloting LMC mechs with delight, and that led to significant boosts in morale and effective performance.

Ves already knew that he would probably be able to score high in competitions where the mech pilots acted as judges!

"If I can join a contest that is similar to the design duel that I managed to win back on Prosperous Hill VI, then I'm confident that I can enter the top 3!"

He searched the list of tournaments for several minutes but failed to find any that judged the competition mechs in this manner.

It turned out that relying on the subjective opinions of mech pilots was considered too fuzzy to determine the best competition mechs. Any judgment that was even slightly controversial often attracted a great amount of contention!

Deciding the winners via score systems with well-defined rules or through achieving the most victories in mech duels were much simpler and more decisive! The losers hardly had any openings to complain about after the fact.

"If that's the case, then it doesn't matter who gets to pilot my mechs. Whether they are piloted by my own people or neutral third parties, there is little distinction."

He preferred to use his own Larkinson mech pilots, but the danger with that was that their skills might not keep up against the champions of other Journeymen.

The general Larkinson mech pilots were decently well-trained and often possessed a good amount of battle experience.

Yet Ves was not blind to the fact that there were even better-trained mech pilots out there. Many of them received superior augments and graduated from much better mech academies. The performance of the MTA mech pilots in the Larkinson Clan made it clear how enormous the gap could be. The difference could be massive!

Therefore, taking part in tournaments where the tournament organizers provided the mech pilots was generally better for mech designers with shallower backgrounds like Ves. He just had to trust these strangers to judge every work fairly.

"The chance that they will do so is high since they are operating in MTA territory. Who would ever dare to cheat in this highly-monitored environment?"

Chance Bay was not only a money-making paradise, but also a way for the MTA to showcase their vision of an ideal society to the pioneers. In particular, anything that had to do with mechs needed to proceed strictly according to the rules.

With that reassurance, Ves began to look at tournaments that supplied their own mech pilots. He figured that exposing his living mechs directly to other parties might allow him to win over his first new business partners in the Red Ocean.

One short contest called the High Tide Tournament was scheduled to start tomorrow. It was a fairly generic tournament that did not impose any strange conditions.

"That's also the problem. It's a bit too free form."

Contestants were free to choose the mech type of their competition entries. They had 12 hours to design and build a complete mech from scratch. They not only had access to a wide selection of materials, but were also allowed to produce their mechs with the superfabs provided by Hysphalin Industries, the organizers of this particular contest, who also happened to make and sell these fantastic production machines.

Superfabs were similar to the autoforges that Ves had once worked with. Both of them made production a lot faster and more convenient, but superfabs were leagues ahead in terms of performance and sophistication.

As an amalgamation of high technology, superfabs were usually first-class machines that represented the pinnacle of fabrication technology. They were fast, consistent, extremely energy hungry and amazingly expensive and difficult to build.

Only materializers were faster and more consistent, but left no room for human intervention.

It was for this reason that many first-class mech designers who valued craftsmanship and hands-on experience still preferred to work with the supposedly 'inferior' superfabs.

Ves had never worked with a superfab before, but he could easily brush up on them by spending a day on simulation training.

"I'll be working with superfabs a lot, so I better get familiar with them as soon as possible."

The tech might be new but the functions were the same. Ves did not think it would be difficult for him to adapt to this advanced production machine.

Ves turned his attention back to the remaining conditions of the High Tide Tournament.

The scoring system was a little special. The tournament provided its own mech pilots who needed to fight against three random opponents. The performance of the competition mechs were scored regardless of whether they won or lost.

After every bout, the Hysphalin Industries made sure to rapidly repair the damaged machines so they could quickly complete their subsequent rounds.

At the end, the worst score of a competition mech was disregarded. Only its two best performances were taken into consideration. By summing up these numerical scores, a clear ranking would emerge that quickly determined the ultimate winners of the High Tide Tournament.

"Sounds simple enough. It's a good format for a competition that only lasts a single day."

Ves decided to sign up for it because it was a good first opportunity for him to experience what it was like to take part in these kinds of spectacles.

He was also reasonably confident in his own abilities. Trying to design and fabricate a complete mech in just 12 hours was incredibly stressful, but Ves believed that rushing out designs and mechs was one of his strong points!

"I'm the opposite of Gloriana in this regard!"

The prize pool was relatively sparse and concentrated at the top, though.

Only the top 3 won meaningful prizes.

The first-place contestant was eligible to receive 5 second-class combat carriers.

The second-place winner could only earn 2 combat carriers.

The third-place winner had to make do with just 1 combat carrier.

As for the fourth-place winner and lower, Ves didn't even take these consolation prizes seriously!

"Reaching the top 3 when up to 100 second-class Journeymen can compete is difficult!"

What was worse was that the maximum age limit was set at 100 years old!

People who were almost three times as old as Ves might not be more talented, but they would definitely have a wealth of experience and knowledge to rely upon!

Ves signed up anyway. There were no better alternatives available at that time. There were still lots of other tournaments he could apply for, but the duration, tournament format and requirements didn't suit his needs.

"The High Tide Tournament only lasts a single day. After I rest on the day after that, I'll be ready to compete in another tournament!"

Once he gained experience in competing in a short and basic tournament, he believed he would be ready to tackle a more interesting event.

He filtered the list in order to see what interesting competitions started a short time after the High Tide Tournament.

A five-day contest immediately stood out to Ves. The so-called Wild Brawl Bowl was a rather grungy tournament organized by the Wild Fighter Association, which was basically a club for enthusiastic melee mech pilots.

Due to this organization's obvious interest in melee mechs, the participating journeymen were only limited to designing landbound medium melee mechs.

Whether the competition mechs wielded swords or axes, it didn't matter as long as they didn't carry any ranged weapons!

Contestants had 3 days to design and produce their mechs with the help of superfabs. This was quite a generous time limit compared to the other competitions that Ves had participated in the past.

Of particular note was that the design budget was fairly low and the quality of materials provided by the tournament weren't the best.

This fit with the theme of the Wild Brawl Bowl, which was supposed to showcase messy battles between melee mechs with clear weaknesses in construction!

"It also helps in saving costs." Ves muttered.

Just like the previous tournament, the Wild Brawl Bowl provided its own mech pilots. After every fight, any battle damage would be rapidly repaired as long as the competition mech was eligible to fight another round.

What was different this time was that the competition mechs had to go through a single elimination bracket.

The first round featured 32 competition mechs. Each of them would fight a single duel, eliminating the losers right away. This went on up to the fifth round where the finalists determined the final ranking.

The prize pool was a lot more impressive for this five-day tournament.

First place received a brand-new second-class fleet carrier!

Second place received 5 second-class combat carriers.

Third place received 4 combat carriers.

This went on until the sixth place only received a single combat carrier.

Ves was incredibly attracted to the top prize. A fleet carrier was an incredible treasure. He already had plenty of mechs and personnel on hand to make full use of such a useful capital ship.

Even if he failed to reach first place, he would still be happy if he ended up in the top 3!

"The participation requirements are also much more favorable this time!"

Only second-class Journeymen up to 50 years old were allowed to participate, which already cut out a lot of capable rivals!

There was only one complication, though. The number of contestants that could sign up for the Wild Brawl Bowl was not 32 mech designers, but 64!

"It's a team tournament!"

Two Journeymen had to sign up as a team and collaborate on a single competition mech.

This presented a lot more interesting variables and helped to spice up the Wild Brawl Bowl.

Ves didn't mind working together with someone else. In fact, he found it quite interesting to take part in a team design tournament!

He just needed to find a suitable partner. He first contacted his wife.

"Hey Gloriana, there's this event called the Wild Brawl Bowl—"

"I SAID NO, VES! AND WHAT KIND OF STUPID CONTEST IS THIS WILD BRAWL BOWL, ANYWAY?! THIS EVENT IS COMPLETELY BENEATH MY STATION!"

Well, his wife had certainly made her opinion clear.

There was only one other Journeymen in the clan that he thought was suitable for him to partner up for this occasion.

"Hey Ketis, want to do something fun together?"