The Mech Touch

Ves already developed several solutions that enabled multiple mechs to exert far greater power as a whole than if they were by themselves.

The problem was that they were both exclusive to the Larkinson Clan.

There was no need for Ves to extol the power of his battle networks. They had turned around many battles. They fully deserved to be recognized as the trump cards of both the Larkinson Clan and the Glory Seekers.

This was why Ves found it unacceptable to spread them outside of his control. People could do as much damage as a weapon of mass destruction if they managed to reproduce a battle network.

After all, unleashing a death wave in the middle of a crowded city would most definitely cause the deaths of millions of people!

Few if any of the defenses that protected these innocent civilians from orbital bombardment could pose a hindrance to such a weird attack method!

Though Ves could no longer rule out the possibility that particularly clever mech designers and cultivation scientists might be able to imitate his battle networks, at least he would not be culpable for the crimes of others.

Battle networks were unsuitable for the swarm mechs that he had in mind. They required excellent trust and coordination between the participating mech pilots.

This was why Ves had only granted them to mech legions that embodied these traits the most. It was way too much to expect poorly trained third-raters to match the standards of a Swordmaiden of a Penitent Sister.

The second solution that Ves briefly thought about was the Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem. This was a more generalized method to increase the combat power of larger quantities of living mechs.

However, Ves had not even tested this new E-technology application in reality. The Larkinson Edition of the Fey Fianna had only just begun to be produced by the Spirit of Bentheim.

It would take months after the new drone mechs had been produced for their new mech pilots to master their operation and explore their more advanced capabilities.

"Even if the Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem has proven its value, I don't intend to surrender this trump card so easily."

A trump card could only be regarded as one if it was a rare and powerful advantage. The Larkinson Clan needed to retain as many of them as possible in order to keep their enemies on their toes.

The Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem was also far too deep and complicated for the target audience of his hypothetical swarm mechs. It took a lot of time, effort and appreciation of living mechs to gain control over the pseudo-domain generated by a large group of living mechs.

Ves was proud of the mech ecosystem that he devised recently because it was incredibly comprehensive. It could reproduce almost anything related to E energy manipulation.

There was no need to add all of these complicating possibilities to a bunch of low-end mechs.

It had been a long time since Ves had any close contact with low-quality third-class mech pilots.

He still remembered the scum struggling to do what they could while piloting the most awful junk mechs early on in his career. Though he hated the experience of trying to keep the ramshackle machines of Walter's Whalers together, it had been an unforgettable learning experience that still resonated to him to this day.

In any case, Ves still remembered that mech pilots of this caliber possessed much different priorities and concerns than their superior counterparts.

Mechs should be as simple and solid as possible. They had to be cheap, cost-effective and easy to repair. Needless complexity always resulted in more breakdowns and inefficiencies.

Third-class mech pilots could only handle so much. Their training and their hardware simply couldn't handle anything too complex at one time.

Perhaps the more elite military mech pilots could handle greater challenges, but they were not the target audience that Ves had in mind.

"Maybe I should design a simplified version of the Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem." Ves considered.

That solved multiple problems at the same time.

Ves did not need to work from scratch to develop a design solution that was incredibly difficult and time-consuming for him to perfect. He could just copy his existing mech ecosystem and strip it down until he was only left with the bare essentials.

He could also automate certain processes and embed them into the simplified mech ecosystem in order to make it easier for mech pilots to employ them in battle.

Ves had deliberately designed the Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem to be an open-ended sandbox where any mech pilot could leverage E Energy in their own little ways.

The idea behind this was that there would always be geniuses among them who could devise a lot of inventive and fantastic methods. As long as they passed on their solutions, the Larkinson Army would soon amass a collection of best practices that enabled everyone to make versatile use of the Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem!

Ves had no need to retain this versatile and open-ended nature for the mech ecosystem for the masses.

He could straightforwardly adapt a handful of those best practices and implement them into his swarm mechs as fixed abilities.

Sure, his swarm mechs would deprive their mech pilots the option to develop their own E energy abilities, but it was not really necessary for people at their level.

After he collected his thoughts and created a few draft designs, he had locked in his vision for a pair of co-dependent mechs.

This was the first project of its kind where Ves intended to design two completely separate mechs that nonetheless shared an inseparable relationship with each other.

"The Swarm Project will allow me to prove whether it is possible to design multi-spirit mechs across multiple mechs."

This was a rather advanced and convoluted way to design living mechs, but as long as it worked out, Ves would successfully make more progress into realizing Master Huron's ultimate ambition!

"He will surely have to acknowledge that I am his best 'student' after I complete this project." Ves grinned.

It was too bad that Master Huron was one of the many mech designers who missed out on all of the excitement.

Ves devised many new ways to network mechs and mech pilots with each other, but felt rather hollow when he could not show them off to the original source of his inspiration.

"Maybe Veronica can show off my work to him one day." He thought.

In any case, once he gathered his notes and his draft designs into a mech proposal, he presented his case to Alexa.

She set aside her private research on living mechs and seriously analyzed the latest brainchild of her mentor.

"Well? What do you think, Alexa?"

"I am not the best mech designer to provide feedback for this proposal." The young woman responded. "I respect the craft of third-class mech design, but I have no personal experience in working on mechs of such limited strength. I am afraid that I am too far removed from the realities of the third-class mech industry that my judgment may mislead you into making decisions that are not optimal."

Ves smiled at her in reassurance. "Don't be afraid to say what you think. It takes a lot more than that to lead me in the wrong direction. I am asking for your feedback exactly because you do not think like all of the other mech designers who have experience in designing third-class mechs."

"Why are you thinking about embarking on a design project centered around a pair of third-class mechs, sir? Is it not better for you to focus your efforts on designing second-class mechs at the very least?"

"Oh, I do intend to design a second-class variant of these swarm mechs, but not right away. I want to prove this concept and deliver my first implementation of my idea to the target audience that needs my work the most. I normally don't really bother with third-class mechs anymore, but this idea is interesting enough for me to return to my roots."

"You are relying on many assumptions to make your swarm mechs work." Alexa cautioned. "The Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem needs to be a success. Enough mech pilots need to explore its usage and develop effective methods to utilize its potential. You will have to adapt your mech ecosystem into a much more simplified version that is more accessible. You must convince enough customers to make substantial investments on your new products, which by their very nature can only be sold in large batches."

"I am aware that my assumptions might not always match what happens in reality, but these are risks that I am willing to take." Ves calmly responded. "Besides, I can always adapt if there are any changes. I think it is definitely possible to develop my swarm mechs one way or another. I just have to put more effort into my work if there are any setbacks."

That sounded a bit reckless to Alexa, but considering that they were talking about third-class mechs, there was a lot more tolerance for errors.

First-class mech designers learned how to plan out their mech design projects as extensively as possible. Their time was precious, their workload was massive and the price of making a mistake with a first-class mech was much more expensive than if they made a similar mistake with a third-class mech!

Perhaps this was how her mentor developed such a sloppy and non-rigorous approach to mech design.

"If you are able to make this work, then... it may be possible for these unassuming third-class mechs to produce an outsized effect in battle." Alexa speculated. "I have witnessed a number of applications of E-technology that are class-independent. What I mean by that is that a third-class mech can become just as threatening as a first-class mech when employing a common solution. For example, if hundreds of your third-class mechs can produce battle network attacks comparable to the ones produced by the Valkyrie Redeemers, then your new work may grant the weakest mech pilots of red humanity the ability to disable the largest and most powerful alien battleships."

Ves had thought of that as well. "That is a bit of a stretch, Alexa. The Penitent Sisters and the Glory Seekers mainly borrow the power of Helena when they channel their iconic death energy wave attacks. The pilots of my swarm mechs will have to rely on themselves and their living mechs to launch any collective attacks."

"If that is the case, there is a chance that your swarm mechs will become powerful enough to dominate the third-class mech market at the lower end. The sales volume of these products will certainly be high, but I cannot imagine that the LMC will be able to earn any appreciable profits."

"This is not about profits. I don't care if I earn 1 MTA credit or 1 million MTA credits out of these products. I just want to prove a new mech concept and add more variety into my work. This is the best third-class mech concept that I have come up with in years. As long as this mech design project ends up successful, I can design a lot of other interesting codependent mechs that are much more extensively networked with each other than what I have previously accomplished."

There was still a lot of potential for networking in mech design. Ves had already applied this concept in many different ways, but he still felt that there was a lot more room to exploit it in different ways.

"How long do you expect to work on this mech design project?"

"Not long at all." Ves confidently replied. "Third-class mechs have very little complexity and should take much less time to design. It doesn't even matter if I have to design a dominant mech and a subordinate mech at the same time. They can share a lot of commonalities to make it easier to maintain both machines."