The Mech Touch

　　In fact, the Polymath was powerful, period. Her influence among both mech insiders and outsiders was massive and even a casual innovation from her was enough to impact the lives of almost any human.

　　Ves was envious of her influence! She was such a great figure that she could complete a lot of initiatives without fearing as much pushback from other individuals and organizations.

　　In contrast, Ves had to pay attention to his moves and constantly make sure he did not catch too much attention.

　　"It would be really nice if I am sitting at the top of the hierarchy for a change."

　　"Meow?" Lucky raised his head when he noticed that Ves had teleported back.

　　"I don't mean the clan. I mean all of human civilization. We wouldn't be embroiled in as many mundane problems if I was an actual bigshot."

　　His gem cat sprung from the table and circled around while sniffing with his electronic nose. Lucky eventually became satisfied when he spotted that nothing was amiss aside from a slightly odd smell due to spending time in a different environment.

　　"Meow meow."

　　"That's good to hear. For a moment, I was afraid the MTA secretly implanted my body with a biological parasite that covertly tracks my thoughts and movements and discreetly transmits the collected data at certain intervals when there is lots of activity around me to disguise the outgoing signal. There's no way the mechers would stoop so low to keep track of an ordinary mech designer."

　　"Meowww…"

　　"Alright, enough joking around. What was I doing before I left?"

　　It was difficult for him to return to his routine duties after concluding a life-changing meeting with an actual Star Designer.

　　He not only had a lot to think about, but also had to resist the urge to share the news to his wife and his fellow Larkinsons.

　　It was pointless to tell them about his amazing meeting. Not only would they not believe in anything he claimed, he would also violate his promise to keep the meeting a secret!

　　He felt quite frustrated about this. Though the meeting with the Polymath did not go over a lot of topics, just being able to speak with her was an immense honor!

　　The Golden Skull Alliance did not sit still. The expeditionary fleet had finished loading all of the goods that could be bought on short notice and quickly lined up in front of the nearest Lagrange point to transition out of the star system.

　　Soon enough, the Larkinsons and their allies quietly left the Davute System in order to begin their true expedition through the new frontier.

　　They did not plan to venture anywhere exciting in the first few stops. Many of the star systems closest to Davute had already been settled by a variety of colonizing powers. Many of them banded their forces together in order to patrol their surroundings and repel any pirates or alien marauders that might threaten the flow of goods passing through their territories.

　　Human occupation became increasingly more scarce once the expeditionary fleet traveled beyond this range. This would be the point where the Golden Skull Alliance truly braved the dangers of the Krakatoa Middle Zone.

　　In the meantime, Ves finally pushed down his excitement and focused his attention on his more immediate duties.

　　A string of mech design projects reached completion in quick succession. Many mech pilots became excited once they learned that their mech legions had access to new options, though most of them would soon be disappointed when they heard the clan wouldn't be adding too many new machines to the mech roster.

　　It couldn't be helped. Resources were still fairly limited and the Larkinson vessels didn't have much spare capacity left to accommodate mechs. Without adding new hulls to the fleet, there was no realistic way for the Larkinson Army to begin fielding lots of Stingrippers and Rigid Spines.

　　Still, the Larkinsons would rather have the completed designs on hand than not. As soon as the Larkinsons fought an arduous battle and lost a bunch of older mechs, the clan could finally replenish the losses with the new models.

　　"So this is what you can do when you truly put your efforts towards defense." Ves commented as he viewed the mech that one of the new Journeymen of the Larkinson Clan had fabricated by herself. "When I contributed to your design, I had concerns about the lack of distinguishing features of your Solid Project, but now I think that it truly doesn't need anything more. Excelling at defense is already enough of a success."

　　The medium defensive space knight designed for the Living Sentinels might not carry the most inspiring codename, but it definitely delivered in terms of performance.

　　As a defense-oriented machine designed by the Larkinson Clan's first defensive specialist, the Solid Project embodied the look of a space knight a lot better than the Bright Warrior!

　　While the Bright Warrior in its heaviest and most substantial space knight configuration had long cemented itself as the backbone of the Larkinson Army, it did not change the fact that it was still full of compromises.

　　In order to make sure the Bright Warrior could also perform decently well in its offensive mech configurations, its base platform contained a lot of design elements that were not as robust as they could be. They had to be lighter in order to make the mech faster or more flexible.

　　That wasn't the case with the Solid Project. Sara Voiken, who led and designed much of the defensive space knight, did not make any compromises.

　　The mech was never meant to be a good duelist or attacker. It was so weighed down by armor and heavy materials that its mobility was almost dreadful.

　　When Ves looked at the machine that Sara Voiken had just fabricated, he saw that the flight system was not as large and powerful as it could have been. The lead designer opted to use a weaker flight system model because the mech could better utilize its capacity for other priorities.

　　As far as its defenses went, the Solid Project excelled in three forms of protection.

　　The most obvious one was its armor system. The Solid Project carried thick layers that were especially prominent in front. Its side and rear armor layers were less impressive, but they were still thick enough to fend off a fair amount of ranged attacks.

　　What was special about the Solid Project's armor system was that it was extremely well-designed. Sara Voiken was the defensive specialist that Ves valued more than the other three recently-joined Journeymen, and she did not disappoint in this aspect.

　　Not only did she design an armor scheme and layout that was flat out superior to anything that Ves or Gloriana could come up with, the armor system was also where Sara applied her design philosophy.

　　As a result, the Solid Project's resistance against kinetic attacks should be a lot higher!

　　Sara Voiken's specialty in physical negation not only allowed the defensive space knight to incur less damage when struck by solid weapons or projectiles, the mech also mitigated a part of the displacement force that typically tried to push it back.

　　While there were many implications to this useful effect, the most relevant one was that the enemy could not easily push the Solid Project out of position.

　　The Living Sentinels adopted defensive mech doctrines that did not call for a lot of movement. Their mechs merely had to stick to relative static coordinates and intercept whatever threats sought to destroy the vulnerable ships of the Larkinson fleet.

　　Sara's ability to weaken Newton's third law of motion was absolutely precious in the right circumstances.

　　Whether it was preventing attacking melee mechs from disrupting the battle line to further weakening the effective damage that physical projectiles dealt, any enemy that employed physical weapons of any sort would find the Solid Project mechs to be a lot more difficult to overcome!

　　"It's too bad your mech doesn't possess any enhanced defenses against heat and energy weapons." Ves remarked. "A lot of forces use energy weapons in space. They're much more effective at range and they don't require ships to reserve a lot of cargo space for ammunition."

　　Sara acknowledged his words. "My Solid Project still fares better against the vast majority of melee mechs. Even those that wield penetrating weapons will find it considerably more difficult to pierce through the armor of my space knights."

　　To be honest, the Solid Project's ability to resist energy attacks was not poor. The mech still possessed a lot of buffer on account of its thick armor and thick frame. Laser and positron weapons would need to fire repeatedly in order to burn through all of that matter!

　　Ves shifted his attention to the tower shield, which was the second defensive element of the Solid Project.

　　Tower shields were fairly simple in nature, but Sara Voiken refined it as best she could by adding additional elements. The shield contained extra components that stabilized and strengthened the mech's grip on it. The design of this equipment also contained a notch.

　　It was as if a large version of Lucky took a bite out of the side of the tower shield.

　　"I cooperated extensively with my brother Dulo to make sure his Rigid Spine mechs can seamlessly operate alongside my Solid Project mechs." Sara said as she saw that Ves was studying the notch. "The opening is situated at shoulder height to allow the spearman mechs to wield their weapons in an overhand grip. With the right handling, the Rigid Spines will be able to use the notch as a fulcrum to adjust the angle of attack. The notch is carefully designed to accommodate this usage."

　　"That will certainly be handy."

　　The result of all of this was that the Living Sentinels could form a simple two-layer line formation.

　　The Solid Projects in front could form a seamless wall with their thick and broad tower shields.

　　The Rigid Spines could hover close behind the space knights and attack at forward targets without exposing any excessive gaps in the defensive line.

　　Of course, this formation was a lot more effective on land than in space. The Living Sentinels needed to put a lot of thought on how to arrange its mechs in order to prevent enemy forces from trying to attack this rigid formation from above or below.

　　The capstone to the Solid Project's defensive capabilities was its shield generator.

　　A shield generator was an expensive piece of equipment, even for second-class mechs. It not only raised the cost of the Solid Project but also forced the design to accommodate a lot of energy cells. This came at the expense of additional armor or other useful modules.

　　It was worth it, though. What made the Solid Project's shield generator a bit special was that it could be projected just far enough to encompass a Rigid Spine mech that was positioned closely to the rear!

　　The Solid Project could therefore better shield the Rigid Spines against incidental and concentrated attacks!

　　What was even better was that Sara Voiken chose to integrate a shield generator that was more effective at blocking energy attacks than physical attacks. This provided the Solid Project with slightly better protection against the weapon type it was most vulnerable against.

　　With all of these superior defensive measures, the Solid Project outright blew the Bright Warrior out of the water when it came to withstanding attacks.

　　Naturally, the Solid Project was also significantly more expensive to fabricate, but the costs remained controllable.

　　After all, the Living Sentinels who would soon make use of the Solid Project were not elites. It was wasteful to provide them with more expensive machines when their mech pilots would incredibly find it more difficult to make the best use of their features.

　　For that reason, the Solid Project was designed to be simpler and easier to pilot than many of the other mechs utilized by the Larkinson Clan. Practically any mech pilot could make decent use of this defensive space knight!