The Mech Touch

Once Ves and Gloriana finally finished the evaluation of the first variant, they turned their attention to the second variant.

Whereas the Tovar Design Team sought to broaden the scope of the Aurora Titan, the Ylvaine Design Team instead stuck to the original identity of the super-medium space knight.

The mech looked a bit larger and heavier than before. Its armor layout featured significant changes as many plating sections had been thickened to offer even more protection!

Evidently, the second design team wasn't afraid of increasing the total mass of the Aurora Titan despite the detrimental effects to its mobility!

This was a very risky choice considering that Ves already designed the original Aurora Titan to the maximum acceptable limit to him! Making the mech any heavier would cause it to lose too much mobility for it to be worthwhile to field!

"We replaced and added a few more components to expand the mass limit of the mech." Oscar DiMartin explained. "Even though you told us you want to keep the changes to the minimum, we decided that it would do our variant some good if we replaced some older components with some of the newer equivalents corresponding to the new mech generation."

Though he was a decade older than Ves, the Ylvainan still addressed the Journeymen with utmost deference, because that was what they deserved!

Though the second design team's decision sounded a little presumptuous, at least they were able to make good use out of the new components.

Overall, the variant they designed increased many of the parameters of the base model without sacrificing too much in return.

The most significant price they paid was making the mech vastly more expensive as Ves would have to license a bunch of new components in order to gain the right to incorporate them in the updated version of the Aurora Titan.

"Your team completely disregarded frugality in upgrading the Aurora Titan." Ves ascertained. "It's like you guys acted that you have an unlimited bank account at your disposal. While I admit that it is barely acceptable in this case, you should really pay more attention to cost and efficiency next time."

Ves was willing to squander quite a lot of money if it helped Jannzi become more relevant in battle and increase her odds of advancement.

"I see you have opted to keep the mobility of the mech as even as possible while taking advantage of the expanded limits by augmenting its defense. Why have you opted to strengthen its advantages as opposed to shoring up its weaknesses."

"Ah, we failed to solicit Miss Jannzi Larkinson's opinions, but we thought that a space knight specialist such as her would always appreciate any changes that enhanced the primary function of her mech. We considered the option of expanding the mech's mobility, but the gains aren't significant enough to make the mech more useful. It will always be a fairly slow and sluggish mech."

"It doesn't matter how fast a snail can move. It can never outpace a rabbit." Gloriana remarked. "That said, I understand the other side of the argument as well. The Aurora Titan is really too slow."

Ves didn't object to this decision. The Aurora Titan had always been based around the concept of extreme defense. While it was less versatile and applicable than conventional space knights, he never intended it to be used in a normal fashion.

"This variant improves upon most of the primary functions of the original design." He said. "When mech designers receive an assignment to upgrade a mech, they should always assume the client or end user wishes to maintain the identity of the older version. This is the safest and most straightforward approach you can take when it isn't possible or convenient to solicit feedback from the relevant people."

"We thought so as well, sir." Oscar said. "We had faith in your design concept. Since you deliberately designed the Aurora Titan to be so skewed towards defense at the cost of offense and mobility, we should honor your intentions and do our best to retain your original design choices."

Ves twitched his mouth. The second design team mostly consisted of Ylvainans, who possessed an extremely high devotion towards the 'Bright Martyr'.

In their eyes, Ves was never wrong! Each of his designs were holy products blessed by the Great Prophet himself!

"As good as you think I am, I'm not a match for a Senior or Master." He told them. "My mechs are far from the ideal that Gloriana and I like them to be. There is always a way to improve our mechs. We can even reconsider some of our design choices in light of new possibilities or an expanded vision."

He wasn't sure whether the Ylvainans accepted his message or not. Their admiring eyes towards him hadn't fluctuated at all as he tried to steer them towards a heavier mindset.

Oh, well. At least two out of six of the mech designers of the second design team were not as deluded.

"Mayer Torto, Merrill Truman, what do you think about our work?"

The two sole non-Ylvainans in the second design team had been standing back for separate reasons.

Mayer Torto might be a brilliant graduate of an elite design university, but he was just a Novice Mech Designer right now.

As for Merrill Truman, though she possessed a lot more life experience, her unclean background made it difficult for her to fit in with her more orthodox colleagues.

Mayer, the youngest of the two, spoke first.

"I haven't been able to be of much use in this instance. I still need to catch up and improve my foundation. My specialty hasn't been of much use either. Your mechs lack an enhanced command, communication and control system that is customary in military mech designs."

Ves nodded in acknowledgement. "Most of my mechs are aimed towards private sector usage. In general, most outfits don't have any heavy demands in this area. Communication is rudimentary and coordination is haphazard at best. It's overkill to add advanced communication systems to our mechs."

"Will that still be the case for the mechs intended for your own mech pilots?" Mayer questioned. "From what I've learned, the mech pilots of your Larkinson Clan are mostly up to military standard. They have the discipline and training to perform advanced tactics and formations that most outfits eschew."

The young recruit actually had a very good point. When it came to commercial mech designs, it wasn't wrong for him to stick to his original stance, but if he designed a mech for his own people, he could do more.

"We'll talk later about this subject in private, Mayer. I'm interested to hear your thoughts. For now, let's resume our evaluation of your work."

The second variant may have succeeded in elevating the performance of the original Aurora Titan, but that was mostly due to the vastly improved armor plating and other replacements.

In other words, the Ylvaine Design Team forcibly elevated the performance of the mech by taking advantage of much better and much more expensive tech and materials.

There wasn't anything wrong with that. Ves resorted to this approach a couple of times as well.

The bigger issue was that the Second Design Team hadn't paid enough attention to refining their implementation. The sloppiness of their work not only reflected their limited design capabilities, but also a lack of attentiveness towards maximizing efficiency.

Ves already anticipated the former, but he was not as tolerant of the latter!

In fact, Gloriana had a bigger problem with regards to this issue!

"Your team has implemented too many changes! That's not a problem in itself, but each alteration results in a series of other shifts. Don't you realize how misaligned the mech has become due to the cascade of changes?" She complained.

"We thought we had it under control."

"It's not good enough! None of you see this mech the way we do! If you possess our depth, you wouldn't have been so eager to alter so many variables at the same time!"

"Don't fix it if it ain't broke." Ves spoke. "Some of the 'upgrades' your team has implemented only result in minor improvements in performance, yet the disruption they have caused to the alignments of other components is very significant. While I can tell you did your best in remedying the side effects, you should have reconsidered whether it was worthwhile to make these changes."

The Ylvaine Design Team possessed an abundance of enthusiasm, but lacked restraint.

Part of it was the fault of the team leader. Ves expected too much from Oscar DiMartin, who supposedly worked for several other Ylvainan mech designers in a team environment.

"We are not accustomed to performing our work with this degree of autonomy." The man explained. "We were faced with an abundance of choice and not a lot of guidance to focus our creative efforts."

That was a reasonable argument. Though Gloriana thought that they should have known better, Ves didn't think it was a big deal.

They could address all of these issues over time. Exposing these problems was part of the test. It was better for Ves and Gloriana to find out about them now than later when they were in the middle of a crucial project.

Overall, though the execution left a lot to be desired, Ves truly liked the second variant more. Instead of trying to alter his vision, the work of the Ylvaine Design Team stayed true to his original intentions.

Naturally, that didn't mean that Ves was ready to adopt it wholesale. Once the feedback session came to an end, he clapped in order to gather everyone's attention.

"Alright, I'm generally satisfied with your efforts. I'll be taking your variants and borrow from them as needed to design my own revision of the Aurora Titan design. Many of you have come up with at least some good ideas that I don't mind seeing in Jannzi's upgraded mech. I'll properly credit all of you for your contributions."

While the mech designers received a mix of praises and criticism, the latter cut the deepest.

Humans were always more sensitive towards attacks rather than compliments. While Ves had tried to be even in his feedback, his subordinate mech designers acted as if 95 percent of his words consisted of direct attacks!

Dealing with feedback in a mature fashion was a struggle for any creator. When they poured their entire hearts into a creation, it was natural to feel offended when some critic scorched their earnest efforts.

However, that was no excuse for them to ignore the value of negative feedback. Even if someone hurled tons of personal insults at them, as long as a critic had a point, it should never be discounted out of hand!

Of course, whether a mech designer actually decided to change course as a result of someone's complaints was another matter. Some issues concerned differences in style or differences in taste. A mech designer shouldn't be so eager in pleasing the loudest voices because they risked losing their way.

Fortunately, this problem was not acute as both Ves and Gloriana mainly stuck to pointing out mistakes that the lower-ranking mech designers absolutely should have avoided. Addressing them would definitely improve their design work!

Once they dismissed the design teams, Ves turned to Gloriana.

"So what do you think about our design teams so far?"

She frowned. "They're not as good as the design teams that I'm used to back at home."

"That's a given considering how junior they are. They're not as good as us or the mech designers from your home state. We have to make do with what we can get."

"You could have hired some actual Journeyman or Seniors, you know."

"I prefer to raise them from my own ranks." He reminded her. "Hiring more experienced mech designers will boost us in the short term, but it will hobble the LMC's Design Department in the long term. Be patient. Just give it some time. Perhaps some of them will make Journeyman one day!"

"In a century, maybe."

All in all, Ves was happy with what he got. He estimated he could finish his revision for the Aurora Titan in less than a week. This was enough time to overhaul the Shield of Samar so that Jannzi Larkinson would be ready for whatever the sandmen did next!