The Mech Touch

Master Teresa Norville managed to captivate most of the crowd with her brief but incredibly useful explanation of what her research group managed to uncover about archetech.

The Red Association still retained much of the strengths of the Mech Trade Association that it had separated from. It employed many of the best human researchers and benefited from amply funding and resources to conduct their studies.

Not even a new and original tech base such as archetech could withhold its secrets from the hungry researchers of the Red Association.

Perhaps the native aliens of the Red Ocean always struggled a lot in their attempts to reverse engineer archetech, but that was because their starting points were just lower.

Humanity possessed a much more robust and developed scientific community. It also mastered a lot of high technology and other advanced knowledge. It could use its existing base to easily implement a lot of easy solutions on archetech that the aliens had never managed to conceive.

As Master Norville continued to detail the many advancements that the Red Association's researchers had successfully applied, it became clear that the mechers were closer to adapting archetech into mechs than expected.

She even unveiled a relatively simple first-class multipurpose mech design that was completely made out of archetech in front of her audience!

A lot of people immediately tried to decipher the design as much as their own expertise allowed. It became clear that the vast majority of them couldn't understand it at all. This was because all of the design schematics portrayed large amounts of metal blocks that were somehow pushed together into the vague form of a humanoid machine!

Even the joints and other moving parts looked almost completely alien due to their complete lack of circuitry, power lines, communication lines and traditional structural sub-components.

The only parts that vaguely looked familiar and understandable were the ones that archetech could not fully replicate. The neural interface as well as an extremely potent power reactor were mostly conventional, though they utilized relatively inert archemetal as structural reinforcement.

"This is the experimental design of a working prototype 'archemech', to use the colloquial term for a mech that is not only predominantly integrated with archemetal, but also functions almost entirely through archetech. In order to fit this definition, the entire frame, barring a number of unavoidable exceptions, is completely controlled and powered by electronic resonance."

What an amazing design. Even though it was clearly designed to be as barebones as possible due to the relative lack of modules and weapon systems, it already looked more advanced than the typical mech utilized by first-rate states!

A mech designed with a completely different tech base truly tested the analytical capabilities of mech designers. Many of the professionals in the crowd tried their best to decipher and understand the projected machine.

It was easy enough to figure out what the more obvious blocks of metal were supposed to do. Engines were engines, limbs were limbs and sensors were sensors. Just because they were made out of other materials such as crystal or archemetal did not mean that they suddenly had to look or behave completely differently.

However, the fact that archemetal could perform the role of a lot of conventional components meant that the design offered far less details than Ves would have liked.

Sure, archemetal also boasted intricate internal structures that substituted the role of circuitry, but the charm of this material was that it contained many functions that were solely generated by combining different combinations of exotics together in specific ways.

What was so brilliant about archemetal was that programming its functions did not necessarily require the exact same type of materials to make it do anything specific. It could take a large range of exotics, dynamically combine them together and still produce the same effects, such as releasing a bolt of electricity or making a part glow at a precise luminosity.

All of this meant was that archetech became fiendishly hard to decipher and figure out if one was not already an expert in their workings.

No matter whether it was a young 30-year old Journeyman or a 300-year old Master, none of them could fully understand how the archemech worked just by studying its design for a long time!

The only way to realistically analyze its workings was to fabricate the archemech and test its individual capabilities, either as a whole, or by isolating its specific parts.

All of these boring data gathering activities took a lot of time as well as a lot of expertise. The Larkinson Clan did not possess a research institute that could tackle this kind of experimental study, which was a major shortcoming now that he thought about it. The clan had never really put too much effort into deciphering most alien technologies it came across.

"Compared to an equivalent first-class mech designed with conventional technological principles, this experimental archemech possesses clear advantages and disadvantages. The archemech is considerably denser as its internal volume is being utilized at a considerably higher proportion. It can withstand much more damage to its internals as much of it is as resilient as the external plating. The mobility of the mech has suffered, but that can partially be mitigated by integrating the archemetal with phasewater."

Essentially, an archemech was much more of a solid construct of metal than a more conventional mech. It made a lot of sense for it to become a lot heavier and sluggish compared to a machine of the same size.

"According to our preliminary investigations, an archemech can maintain its combat effectiveness 3 times longer on average. Its chance of surviving a typical battle where it would otherwise lose functionality is 65 percent higher, although this percentage is significantly lower when the opposing force consists of warships. What is especially important is that the chances that the mech pilot can survive an encounter increases by 187 percent, even when accounting for cockpit ejections and attempted interceptions."

Now that truly caused all of the gathered attendees to take note of this experimental archemech concept!

While the numbers mentioned by Master Norville should be taken with a huge grain of salt due to the impossibility of using a handful of numbers to calculate the parameters of an endless variety of combat scenarios, they could still be used as rough measures.

If the subordinate of the Xenotechnician hadn't been exaggerating too much, then an archemech could not only withstand a lot more damage and keep fighting, but its mech pilot also had a much higher chance of surviving!

Both of these factors were important to any serious mech force!

The increased resilience of an archemech made it a lot easier to win a battle. After all, if an enemy had to invest several times more firepower to take down a machine, then that meant that the archemechs had a lot more time to fulfill their objectives!

It also reduced the costs of maintaining a force of mechs over time as less machines needed to be replaced or restored at heavy cost.

However, what a lot of mechers truly cared about was the drastically higher survival rate of mech pilots.

The use of archemetal made a lot of previously necessary components obsolete and there was a lot more room to accommodate a stronger and sturdier cockpit.

Not only was it able to accommodate larger and stronger energy shield generators, but it could also integrate a lot more armor plating without reducing the performance of the archemech too much!

A lot of weapons of modest power and caliber simply wouldn't be able to threaten the life of a mech pilot as easily anymore. It took a lot of effort or a lot of numbers in order to quickly down the pilot as well as the archemech itself.

Even then, once the cockpit ejected and flew to the rear, it would become a lot harder to destroy or knock down on account of its resilient archemetal shell.

So long as archemechs could be rolled out on a wider scale, this trend could completely revolutionize the mech community!

Archemechs would gain a lot of resilience, allowing them to close the gap with warships to an extent.

However, the solution was not all that perfect. As much as archemetal could make a mech more resilient, they also became noticeably slower and less maneuverable due to their substantial increase in density.

Not only that, but the large primary gun batteries of typical alien warships could easily wipe out several archemechs with a single shot due to their immense power!

Master Teresa Norville was quite frank when it came to the shortcomings of this design.

"Archemechs remain experimental as they are not yet suitable to replace the use of conventional metallic mechs. Their lower mobility is a major weakness. Archemetal is currently difficult to produce with the use of materializers. It is better to utilize the hybrid production method employed by the arche. This is an approach that simulated the organic archeshell growth method of their own biologies. While this may be a tried and true method to the aliens, it is also slow and inefficient. We are currently working to develop a more industrialized production method, but it may take years to complete this project. The repair and maintenance of archemetal is also a great issue. Only mech technicians and engineers with a moderate degree of understanding of archemetal can effectively repair damaged archemechs."

All of that dampened the enthusiasm of some of the gathered mech designers, but not all. They were all clever enough that archemechs were not economical for low-tier mechs, but that they were still viable enough to shake up the market for high-end mechs!

Master Norville continued to mention a few other points where the RA's researchers and mech designers encountered more problems and shortcomings of archemechs.

It surprised Ves that she was being so frank about exposing the failures and the inability to make progress in all of these areas.

Then he realized what the Master was truly doing. She was trying to fish for specific solutions from her audience. She listed out all of the problems encountered by the research group and hoped that at least one of the attending guests just happened to possess a specialty that could play a role in solving a difficult technical problem!

Perhaps this was one of the correct ways to take advantage of a conference. An event like this sucked in a lot of smart and clever professionals that never met with each other under normal circumstances.

Compared to trying to solicit for help through a network or other channels, it was a lot easier to ask for help in person!

Ves even thought about adopting this approach himself. Master Norville's example taught him a lot on how he could potentially milk more benefits out of the people who chose to attend a session.

The underlying theme of this conference was mutual exchange. Norville clearly withheld a lot of useful knowledge about archetech and archemech. What she revealed was only the tip of the iceberg.

If Ves or any other attendee wanted to gain access to the good stuff, they had to offer valuable knowledge or assistance in return.

Ves inwardly sighed. Compared to all of the older and more established Masters in the crowd, he was not quite certain that his bargaining chips would suffice.

He thought that Master Norville might appreciate his full insights on luminar crystal technology, but then he remembered that he was already a senior contributor of restricted technology.

He had already traded away his knowledge on luminar crystal technology to the The Red Association in essence!

Ves would have to come up with new tech that the Association had yet to master for whatever reason. He looked down at his badge and spotted the two dots that visually identified his permissions.

"Why do I only have two dots?"

He had seen mech designers wearing badges that were adorned by 5, 6 or even 8 differently colored dots!

While Ves was not conceited enough to think he was just as knowledgeable as a centuries-old Master, he should at least be able to obtain permissions to take part in more varied sessions!