The Mech Touch

When Ves chose to design a lancer mech for the High Tide Tournament, he knew he would be riding a powerful shuttle that was barely under control.

If he made just a single mistake, his ride could instantly crash into a structure!

"I certainly haven't made things easy for myself." He muttered.

However, the added pressure on his shoulders motivated him to work harder. He became determined to turn his unusual interpretation for a competition mech into a success!

This was not an easy task. Lancer mechs possessed clear strengths but also a number of very obvious shortcomings.

Aside from their difficulty to nail down fast and elusive light mechs, their fighting style was also too monotonous. They usually weren't good at anything else outside of launching devastating charges.

The main reason for that was because of the configuration of their mech frames. Due to all of the armoring, cushioning and compensation systems loaded onto their physical forms, there was hardly any space for design elements that increased their agility, their reaction speeds and other traits relevant to close-ranged brawling.

What this meant in practice was that lancer mechs usually got their butts kicked by offensive mechs such as light skirmishers, swordsman mechs or spearman mechs!

As long as the opposition was able to dodge or mitigate a charge, their superior dueling capabilities allowed them to quickly dismantle a lumbering lancer mech that had lost its momentum!

For these reasons, Ves was very clear about the win condition of his lancer mech.

"First, it has to hit its opponent. Second, it has to make sure this hit is damaging enough to finish the deed."

If he specialized in designing lancer mechs, he could probably implement numerous clever systems and solutions that could straightforwardly improve these aspects.

The big problem he faced at the moment was that he didn't possess any relevant technological advantages that could amplify the performance of a lancer mech!

Ves never really minded this absence before, but ever since he worked alongside Ketis, he understood how powerful a relevant specialty could strengthen a mech design in so many ways.

Ves was certain his competitors were in the process of translating their advantages into mech designs with increased battle power, so Ves could not remain behind!

"The solution is to leverage my own specialty into a more effective mech design."

He already planned to do so by turning his lancer mech into a living machine that should interface a lot better with its mech pilot. Yet Ves found it difficult to imagine that these added features could deliver a significant boost in effective performance.

He knew quite well that the greatest advantage of living mechs was that they grew over time and adapted themselves better to their mech pilots. All of this required months or years of continuous use, something which was obviously impossible to realize in a mech design tournament that only lasted a single day!

Ves had to leverage his design philosophy in a different way in order to provide his competition mech with an immediate combat boost.

"I have to implement the right glow." He concluded.

Aside from making a third order living mech, which was virtually impossible for him to do in this challenging setting, only glows were able to make the difference.

The support of the right design spirit not only helped put the mech pilot into a better mindset, but could manipulate various other variables that could shift the course of a battle.

Ves briefly ran his thoughts through all of his available design spirits.

The most obvious option would be to employ the Superior Mother. The Valkyrie Redeemer already proved that it was able to make good use of the female ancestral spirit's death aspect.

Yet was it truly the best solution in this context?

He had serious doubts about that. On one hand, the mech pilots in the Red Ocean shouldn't be familiar with his glows. When subjected to a new and sudden mental influence, they should definitely become affected, enough for a lancer mech to take advantage of a short opening!

However, there were two reasons why Ves did not have much confidence that this would work this time.

"The mech pilots employed by a company as powerful as Hysphalin Industries shouldn't be too shabby. Their mental resilience might not match up against the military mech pilots of powerful states, but they shouldn't be much worse."

Any negative mental pressure could already impose a significant burden to their performance, but frankly speaking Ves was not sure if it was enough to make a crucial difference.

Rather than gambling on his competition mech's ability to mess with the mind of an opponent, Ves would rather resort to the more reliable option of boosting the performance of his own mech pilot.

As long as the pilot trusted the lancer mech, then he or she would surely fight more effectively.

Ves just had to pick the right glow for this situation.

First, he ruled out the Golden Cat. Technically, he could convince her to temporarily help out a stranger, but it was not the best use of her capabilities. She worked so much better with other Larkinson mech pilots.

More generic design spirits such as the Solemn Guardian, Qilanxo, the Illustrious One or Bravo weren't suitable either. Each of them were quite helpful in their own ways, but none of them provided any solid and concrete benefits to lancer mechs.

Part of this was because the glow of his competition mech wouldn't be that strong. Though Ves had improved his ability to design living mechs by a lot since he initially broke through to Journeymen, there was only so much he could do for a mech that he had to rush to completion in just 12 hours.

The spiritual foundation of such a hastily-developed mech simply couldn't match up against a project that Ves had been working on for several months.

"What glow is strong enough to make a real difference under all of these limitations?"

In fact, he already had an answer in his heart. He just avoided it because he didn't really like it. He was desperately trying to come up with alternatives in order to evade this obvious solution.

I was too bad he failed in his attempt.

"Trisk might help a mech pilot perform better when moving quickly, but this is too vague of a boost." Ves muttered as he thought about employing the new avian design spirit.

The young speed-oriented design spirit was also too young and underdeveloped for Ves to have confidence in her ability.

He planned to solve that when he designed the second light mech for the Flagrant Vandals, but that would take a couple of months.

For now, he had to opt for a more reliable solution.

In the end, he reluctantly turned his attention back to the only design spirit that possessed a much higher reliability in boosting effective combat performance.

"Ylvaine…" He hissed.

He hated to be reminded about it, but what the so-called Living Prophet told him before he died still rang clear.

James Ylvaine claimed that Ves would definitely design an Ylvainan lancer mech in the future.

At the time, Ves did not see why he would ever do so. The Transcendent Punisher concept showed that the Ylvainans could become the best ranged specialists of the Larkinson Clan. Their ability to borrow Ylvaine's guidance provided them with unparalleled accuracy and judgment, thereby ensuring that each of their attacks landed in the right places!

Though Ves still thought that the Eye of Ylvaine should become a ranged mech legion, the idea of adding lancer mechs to its mech roster sounded increasingly more compelling over time.

Ever since James initially planted the idea in his mind, Ves simply couldn't ignore the great potential of such a lancer mech.

As a mech designer, he knew that the effectiveness of a lancer mech was actually quite variable. Even against slower and more heavily armored mechs, these powerful charging machines could still botch their singular attack attempts if they happened to drive their lances through the wrong sections of opposing mechs!

Every mech design was different from each other. They featured varied armor layouts and possessed different damage mitigation properties.

For example, a mech that might not feature the thickest armor may possess a high degree of redundancy and compartmentalization. Even if a spear was driving straight through its abdomen, the damaged mech would still retain enough functionality to launch counterattacks!

There were also many instances where lancer mechs inflicted glancing blows. For example, instead of striking the torso and destroying a number of critical systems, a lancer mech might drive its spear through an arm or a leg.

While a mech certainly lost a lot of strength if it lost a limb, it was not necessarily down for the count!

Lancer mechs weren't the only ones who had to pay close attention to where they landed their strikes.

Ranged mechs could down a target a lot faster if they struck the weak points. If that wasn't possible, then they should at least be able to gain the upper hand by ensuring that none of heir attacks missed and that every blow avoided the strongest and most resilient surfaces of their opponents.

It didn't matter if a ranged mech misplaced their hits. They could easily fire their weapons multiple times, so they just had to adjust their aim and make sure the next pull of the trigger dealt more effective damage!

"Lancer mechs rarely enjoy second chances." Ves muttered.

They invested most of their efforts on their first and sometimes only charge.

Perhaps lancer mechs were able to perform subsequent charges in actual battlefields, but in an arena setting there were a lot more constraints!

All of this meant that Ves had to maximize the success rate of its initial charge, and there was no better design spirit for the job than Ylvaine!

Of course, there was no way that the mech pilot provided by Hysphalin System would be a faithful believer of the Great Prophet, but this was not an insurmountable problem. Ves just had to negotiate a quick deal with the intelligent design spirit.

With no better option available to him at the moment, Ves had no choice but to settle for Ylaine as his competition mech's principal design spirit. The only other way he could settle for a different design spirit was if he abandoned his intention to design a lancer mech.

"That's not acceptable."

Ves didn't think he could design a stronger mech for this specific tournament. A lancer mech was a risky choice, but also a powerful one as long as it was able to succeed in its charge attacks!

Once he embraced this design direction, he began to work with gusto. He no longer entertained any doubts and became fully invested in developing a lancer mech that received guidance from a predictive design spirit.

He browsed the component library and selected a number of appropriate parts. He paid special attention to maintaining a delicate relation between acceleration, defense, impact power and agility.

He had to make a lot of painful tradeoffs in order to increase the ability for his lancer mech to build up momentum in a short amount of time. However, that didn't mean that he was willing to design a mech that wasn't even able to shift its direction while building up a charge!

Since the High Tide Tournament allowed the contestants to design either a landbound or aerial mech, his lancer mech had to possess a flight system as well.

"Otherwise, how can my competition mech possibly win against a mech that is hovering above its head?"

Although the addition of a flight system took up a lot of capacity, the increase in thrust provided a lot of advantages to a lancer mech.

Ves had to make a careful selection of flight systems.

"It doesn't have to be efficient or long-lasting. As long as it can give my lancer mech a powerful shove forward, that is all I need!"