The Mech Touch

Given that Calabast had just sent Ves a series of proposals on how to upgrade the Blinding Banshee, he decided to go on a little tour.

Calabast guided him to different departments and went into a bit more detail on the performance of the various systems.

"The strongest aspect of the Blinding Banshee is not her observation capabilities, but her ECM capabilities." She explained to Ves. "That is what she is named for. Her ability to scramble and disrupt enemy sensor and targeting systems across a wider area is good. Our ECM systems can severely degrade the coordination and observation capabilities of inferior enemies, causing them to lose up to 30 percent of their battle effectiveness depending on the circumstances."

That was quite a huge difference! It could easily double or triple the winning chances of the expeditionary fleet!

"The effect shouldn't be as exaggerated in most cases I imagine."

"Most modern military ships and mechs are equipped with measures that can mitigate our efforts. Biological creatures are also less affected by our solutions." Calabast admitted. "Power, distance and tech disparity are the major factors that determine the effectiveness of our ECM capabilities. We cannot control for distance, but we can still upgrade the power supply and other tech in order to bridge the various gaps. As long as we are able to close the technological gap, we will be able to save hundreds if not thousands of lives in a future battle."

This was not an empty boast. Ves recalled that the Blinding Banshee's sudden hacking and ECM measures had played a key role in tipping the balance in the Golden Skull Alliance's favor during the Battle of Fordilla Zentra.

The various dwarven capital ships and mech units lost contact with each other while their ability to keep track of developments across the battlefield diminished.

Although the Blinding Banshee's sabotage had become a lot more effective than usual due to smuggling Secret Agent Lucky aboard the enemy flagship, the vessel still managed to prove her value in a battle!

Thinking about how extensively the Blinding Banshee was able to toy with enemy forces at the time suddenly gave Ves a burst of inspiration.

He halted as he thought about starting a substantially different mech design project than his previous works.

ECM mechs were one of the more common auxiliary mechs in larger battles. They could play a variety of useful roles such as cutting off the communications of nearby mech units and preventing ranged mechs from gaining accurate targeting data.

While the Blinding Banshee reduced the demand for such mechs, the former was just a single vessel. She was too fragile for the Larkinsons to bring her closer to the frontlines of any engagement.

In these kinds of situations, a mech closer to the combat units could provide a lot of utility. It was the same kind of argument that justified the addition of the Light Hunter and Signal Bearer models to the Larkinson Army.

"You're thinking about designing a new mech, aren't you? Learning about our ECM capabilities must have set you off." Calabast observantly remarked.

He gave her a rueful smile in response. "You know me too well. Since you're the expert in this field, let me ask you this. What is a good ECM mech?"

"That depends." She replied as she crossed her arms. "There is no single ECM mech configuration that excels in any situation. There are models that perform decently well in a variety of functions. There are models that specialize in blocking communication signals. There are models that can scramble many short-ranged sensor systems. There are even mechs that are best suited to negate the enemy's ECM measures. Before you decide what your ECM mech design should excel at, you should first define its purpose and role on the battlefield."

Ves had been rather sudden about his intentions to design an ECM mech. Starting a new mech design project was a process in itself. Before the Design Department seriously committed to starting a new project, the mech designers had to make sure they did all of their homework!

Trying to come up with a new mech concept related to a specialty that Ves hadn't seriously played around with was quite premature!

"I may know about mechs, but I haven't studied this specialized mech type in depth." He plainly admitted to Calabast. "Help me out here. Give me suggestions. Since our upcoming design round revolves around commercial mech designs, I want to come up with a good ECM mech concept that can achieve a high sales volume."

"That is going to be a challenge." The spymaster said as she led Ves to one of her offices aboard the espionage ship.

Once they entered a private compartment where they could discuss matters behind closed doors, Calabast activated her desk terminal and projected a few examples of existing ECM mech models.

"This is a selection of second-class mech models that are commonly sold in Davute and other markets. As far as I know, each of them are popular because they offer the highest performance at acceptable prices. They're not the most-efficient mech models, but customers can count on them to do their jobs without fail. Specific models also come with highly desirable advantages granted by their mech designers, who are often teams of Masters."

Calabast presented a handful of mainstream mech models that had recently been released in the Red Ocean. Not only were they designed with local materials and production limitations in mind, they also benefited from the specialties of two to five collaboration Master Mech Designers!

Such amazing mechs comprise the dominant products in any mech market, not just the one for ECM mechs.

Under ordinary circumstances, Ves didn't need to think about competing with these huge sellers directly. Master Mech Designers never completely crowded out the mech market. They often priced their mechs higher in order to reflect their value and effectiveness, so mechs that offered inferior performance still had a place as long as they weren't overpriced.

However, the Red Ocean's mech market was anything but normal right now. The concentration of elite mech designers, the difficulty in procuring resources and the lack of stability in most regions led to abnormal conditions that made it much more difficult for younger mech designers to start their own businesses in the new frontier!

Just the fact that most independent mech designers simply weren't able to buy the majority of resources needed to produce mechs had stifled the ecosystem at the bottom of the mech industry!

Ambitious Apprentices and Journeymen had little choice but to join a larger organization in order to practice their craft. Without any connections and backing, it was far too difficult for them to get started!

Ves had already taken these challenges into account when he planned out his commercial mech design projects. He was confident that his design philosophy and the promise of actively fostering the growth of mech pilots might be enough to get his foot in the door.

However, the market for ECM mechs was not as easy to enter compared to the market for ordinary combat mechs.

For one, Ves wasn't specialized in this field. None of the lead designers in the Design Department excelled in ECM systems either!

While Ves recalled that a few assistant mech designers had chosen to excel in this area, he wasn't sure about involving them to a significant degree.

At the very least, he and his fellow Journeymen needed to do the heavy lifting.

Ves and Calabast spent a bit of time on swapping their opinions on the mainstream mech models that were popular in the Red Ocean.

Calabast brought a particular line of ECM mechs to his attention.

"The Xaxu Specter line sold by Tiamon Dynamics is often used as the reference that all ECM mechs should be measured against in Krakatoa. It's a collection of highly similar mechs sold by a large mech company called Tiamon Dynamics."

Ves already utilized his implant to call up basic information on the mech company and its lead designer.

Tiamon Dynamics was led by a single Master Mech Designer called Parian Hao.

Interestingly enough, Parian Hao was not a man or a woman anymore. Their exact gender was unclear, but that did not change the fact that they excelled at designing certain types of mechs!

Though Ves had never heard of them, Master Hao had already developed a notable reputation in the old galaxy and was quickly making a name for themselves in the new frontier.

Having sold off all of their assets in the old galaxy, Master Hao decisively moved their entire mech company and as many willing personnel as they could gather over to the Karlach System in the Red Ocean.

The Karlach System was a port system that was located in a different part of the Krakatoa Middle Zone. It was founded by a different group of pioneering organizations and directly competed against the Davute System.

According to their record, Master Parian Hao specialty was Signal Fidelity Amplification.

Ves wasn't sure what that exactly meant. From the brief description he read, he found out that Master Hao's best products were their communication mechs. 

The communication mechs sold by Tiamon Dynamics were so good at communication that they were able to keep their channels online even if they were deployed on highly active and confusing planets!

They were essential products for any mech force that sought to explore dangerous planets and hazardous star fields.

While there were starships that could do better in this regard, it was quite impressive for small and compact communication mechs to be able to keep talking to each other under a variety of difficult circumstances.

Calabast did not highlight these particular offerings of Tiamon Dynamics, though.

She instead directed his attention to the Xaxu Specter line of ECM mechs.

The reading material on these mechs was surprisingly large.

"The Xaxu Specter models designed in collaboration with Master Parian Hao and Master Rievan Miller come in over fifty different current variants." Calabast revealed. "They all revolve around the same idea of an ECM mech that is good at maintaining friendly communications while simultaneously interfering with enemy communications. The variants just appeal to customers with slightly different needs."

That was an understatement. Ves was completely dazzled by the sheer amount of variants that Master Hao and Master Miller published around a single base model!

There were variants that specialized in different functions. One excelled in jamming at short range. Another excelled breaking enemy stealth systems.

There were also variants that differed by the environment they were meant to operate. There were Xaxu Specter variants that were optimized for spaceborn, aerial and landbound deployment. The pair of Masters had even released variants that operated best on heavy gravity planets and in amphibian environments!

If that wasn't enough, each of these specialized variants were further differentiated by their price categories. There were models that were priced for the mid-ranged market, the premium market and the super-luxury premier market!

The latter category was special as customers could directly approach Tiamon Dynamics to design customized variants of their ultra luxury purchases!

Stars practically spun in front of his eyes as Ves briefly became overwhelmed by Tiamon Dynamic's expansive market approach.

The mech company did not care at all about the fact that it sold fifty different versions of the same base model!

Its manufacturing complexes could easily switch from producing one variant to another variant. The different Xaxu Specter variants were mostly the same anyway. The Masters had taken great care in keeping as many components identical as possible.

The way that Tiamon Dynamics conducted business was a noteworthy example to Ves. While he wasn't sure if he wanted his Living Mech Corporation to adopt a similar business model, he could certainly recognize the merits to offering so many choices to a customer base.

Once Ves got over the sheer amount of variants developed by Hao, Miller and their humongous design teams, he studied the most normal and balanced Xaxu Specter variant in greater detail.