The Mech Touch

The Steelwing Project and the Mauler Project put Ves into a dilemma.

He could see the logic behind this pair of bestial mechs. Alone, they were powerful when they were in their element.

The avian mech of the pair excelled in battles where it had plenty of room to perform its attack runs. Just like lancer mechs, it excelled at building up momentum in order to deliver a strong impact on a less mobile target. While the Steelwing Project had to take care not to build up too much speed and crash itself against solid surfaces, it was an excellent mech for tearing apart lighter and weaker mechs, particularly those with ranged loadouts!

The tiger mech on the other hand was too slow to perform repeated charging attacks. Instead, it was much more suited to fight standing battles where it could take advantage of its superior mechanical bulk and strength.

The Mauler Project's powerful limbs were not only able to deliver powerful blunt impacts, but could also tear through layers of armor through its sharp and vicious claws!

Ves could easily envision the Mauler Project tearing through ranks of melee mechs. Compared to humanoid machines such as knight mechs or swordsman mechs, the Mauler Project could probably overpower all of them in frontal combat!

This was because the tiger project possessed four 'weapons' while a typical humanoid mech could only leverage two at most!

For example, in a duel between a tiger mech and a swordsman mech, the former only needed to utilize one or two front paws to block the latter's sword.

This allowed the tiger mech to bring forth its rear limbs to tear apart the exposed lower half of the swordsman mech!

A tiger mech with sufficient armor could also disregard the attacks of its opponents and pounce on an enemy humanoid mech!

Once a mech like the Mauler Project was able to grapple with a humanoid mech, it could use its claws to dig in and squeeze its captive prey.

If this wasn't enough to destroy its opponent, then it could use its powerful jaws to bite and tear through the defenseless torso of the trapped machine! Tiger mechs were notorious for chewing off many mechs like actual beasts. A lot of mech pilots died when the teeth of bestial mechs penetrated through the shell of their cockpits and tore apart their vulnerable bodies without mercy!

When it came to tiger mechs, the bigger and heavier they became, the more unreasonable it was to fight them in battle.

As mechs based on the form of a predator animal, tiger mechs possessed less flexibility than humanoid mechs but made up for it with greater force and power.

The Mauler Project was particularly large and heavy compared to ordinary tiger mechs! Tifi Coslone showed a lot of ambition and confidence in her draft design as she did not hesitate to pursue this mech concept to its extreme!

The result was a tiger mech with dimensions that were just below the limit where it could no longer occupy a standard mech slot aboard a carrier vessel.

This caused the tiger mech to become just as bulky as the Transcendent Punisher!

Of course, even if the two shared the same mass, their design directions were completely different.

The Transcendent Punisher put a lot of emphasis on maximizing the firepower and the persistence of its heavy cannons.

The Mauler Project channeled much of its capacity to strengthening and reinforcing its powerful limbs.

This turned the heavy tiger mech into one of the most formidable second-class melee mechs that Ves had seen!

Not even other notable melee mechs such as the Rigid Spine or the Second Sword could defeat it in a head-on clash. The Mauler Project was so mighty and resilient that it could power through any exquisite technique or precise attack and batter its target with unrelenting physical blows.

Only a mech that was just as heavy and armored as the Mauler Project could endure the onslaught!

For example, the Iron Crusher model of the dwarven Forgehammer Mech Regiment could withstand the initial blows and strike back hard by swinging its heavy maul.

Yet even then, the Mauler Project would probably gain the upper hand. The Iron Crusher may be able to deliver even more powerful blows due to the advantages of leverage, but it was too easy for a heavy tiger mech to disarm the hammer-wielding machine or just grapple with it to trap its arms!

The more Ves imagined the Mauler Project's performance in different scenarios, the more he became amazed by this mech concept.

Although he Steelwing Project was also powerful in the right situation, the Mauler Project was definitely the bigger and better brother of the two bestial mech designs.

Ves gained a new appreciation for Janassa and Tifi. Previously, the two Journeymen did not make any prominent achievements. While their specialties were useful, they were less universal than Sara Voiken's defensive specialty.

Now, he realized that he had missed a crucial detail.

The pair were naturally predisposed towards designing bestial mechs, especially melee-oriented ones!

Tiger mechs, centaur mechs, spider mechs and many other forms of bestial mechs relied a lot on physical and mechanical strength to defeat their foes.

With Janassa and Tifi's design solutions, they could magnify this crucial property, thereby producing bestial mechs that could overpower their opponents by an even greater margin!

Of course, that didn't mean that other bestial mech designs were any worse. There were all kinds of mech designers in the industry, and those that chose to design bestial mechs all had their own reasons to be confident about the combat power of their products.

Still, as far as the Larkinson Clan was concerned, Janassa and Tifi were by far the best mech designers to tackle bestial mech design projects!

"How much experience do you have with designing tiger mechs and other bestial mechs?" Ves asked the pair.

The two women briefly exchanged glances with each other. "A third of our mech designs are bestial mechs. Back when we were studying under Master Corenay, we had to explore diverging mech forms in order to study and comprehend how their mechanical structures are able to exert force. We learned a lot from designing those bestial mechs."

"Are you confident in your ability to design competitive bestial mechs?"

"Of course." Janassa replied with an unmistakable touch of pride in her tone. "We may not understand bestial mechs as best as those who dedicated their careers to them, but we are no slouches on this front. They are the best carriers of our design solutions."

"That doesn't mean we are weak at designing humanoid mechs either. Two-thirds of our mech designs are still humanoid." Tifi quickly added.

"Don't worry. I'm not forcing the two of you to design bestial mechs on an exclusive basis. There are many other melee mechs such as the upcoming C-Man that could use the strength boosts that only you can provide. I am just wondering whether we should make a more serious effort into expanding our mech roster with bestial mechs."

Gloriana whipped around her head. "Are you sure about that, Ves? The Steelwing Project and the Mauler Project look decent at first glance, but they possess serious flaws that heavily limit their effectiveness in battle. I do not have confidence that they can take the mech market by storm."

She was right. The Steelwing Project was fast but not flexible. Its defensive parameters were not great and their large silhouettes made it easier for ranged mechs to tear them apart from a distance.

The Mauler Project might be the king in melee combat, but it could only become a practice target when attacked from a distance! Its slow mobility and sluggish frame meant that it was impossible for it to catch up with ranged mechs that were faster and more agile!

While Ves understood that the Steelwing Project was supposed to compensate for the Mauler Project's flaws when they merged together, the resulting combination was still too wieldy and heavy to dogfight against agile rifleman mechs and harasser mechs!

The fast and agile Stingripper could slowly toy both of these formidable bestial mechs to death!

"We are aware of their vulnerabilities." Janassa said. "The Steelwing Project and the Mauler Project are not meant to excel in many different scenarios. They are quite simply designed to smash through powerful defenses and battle lines."

The combination of the two essentially formed an effective if somewhat rudimentary sieging system.

The Steelwing Project's purpose was to deliver the Mauler Project to a hard target in a timely manner. Once the combined mechs reached their destination, the avian mech would detach the tiger mech and guard the flanks against hostile threats.

Meanwhile, the tiger mechs could go to town. No matter whether they were facing mechs or starships, their undaunted power allowed them to crush through any barrier that stood in their way!

"The combination that you have come up with is powerful, but the requirements are a bit high." Ves said. "First, the thrust power of the Steelwing Project must be great enough in order to carry around a heavy mech fast enough. Second, the Mauler Project must be made out of lots of hardy materials in order to withstand a lot of attacks. Both mech models will definitely be expensive. Maybe too expensive. I'm afraid that their prices won't make them attractive enough to convince customers to adopt your two-mech system."

The art of designing a good commercial mech was not just about devising the most powerful mechs.

Their work also had to be as cost-effective as possible!

In this regard, Ves was afraid that Janassa and Tifi's mech proposals did not score well in the second criteria.

Ves continued to think about the possible market reaction while he decided what he should do with these suggestions.

A part of him wanted to convince Janassa and Tifi to set aside these mech concepts and come up with different ideas that had greater commercial potential.

However, it was not in his nature to deny his fellow mech designers the opportunity to explore their design philosophies and pursue less standard ideas.

Even though he didn't feel confident in the pair's ability to design profitable mechs, he was willing to give them a chance.

"Our clan doesn't have much experience with bestial mechs so far." Ves eventually said. "I think it will be helpful to its development if we start to make forays into designing them. The Steelwing Project and the Mauler Project might not be suitable for the market, but I think they could make for a good core of a new bestial mech legion."

Gloriana furrowed her brows. "There are major differences between mechs designed for the Larkinson Army and mechs designed for the market. You can't just decide to use these bestial mechs for a new mech legion if they fail to take off in the mech market."

"I know that. What I mean is that we can observe the performance of the two products once they are released. Once we figure out their strengths and weaknesses, we can design better versions for ourselves."

"That… sounds costly."

"It doesn't have to be. If the Steelwing Project and the Mauler Project become popular enough, they will surely be able to generate at least a modest amount of profit."

He did not expect too much from them, actually. They were bound to be luxury products due to their high price levels and limited usefulness.

Janassa and Tifi weren't stupid. They already took this into account. One of the reasons why they still went through with these proposals was because they were aware that the LMC's products always possessed additional advantages!

"Our mech designs need an extra edge in order to increase their popularity. They can become much more valuable if you pair them up with the right glows!"

"That's right." Ves nodded in agreement. "My specialty can't turn a bad mech into a great one in one go, but I can definitely turn a decent mech into a more attractive product!"