The Mech Touch

The discussion entered into full swing. Numerous mech designers shared their insights and brought up many good points.

Just as Ves hoped, the mood in the conference room quickly turned casual as people spoke freely with each other.

That was not to say that everything became rowdy and that people started yelling or talking over each other.

Each of them were Journeymen. They had already taken the first step of transcending their mortal limitations. Though their changes in personality weren't as drastic as with expert pilots, they were anything but dummies!

Even the newest batch of Journeymen began to get comfortable during the evaluation meeting. While Miles Tovar, Merrill O'Brian and Cormaunt Hempkamp never forgot that they were the smallest and least accomplished among the group of Journeymen, they did not feel ostracized in any way.

Everyone here recognized that they had all become close colleagues and collaborators to each other. It was inevitable for everyone to work together for months or years at a time. None of the Journeymen possessed useless design philosophies.

After all, who knew whether a project leader needed to borrow the expertise of a more obscure Journeyman? It was in their interest to warm up to each other and plant the seeds of cooperation early.

The Journeymen did not spend time fooling around. Their time was precious and each of them had a lot of work to do due to the aftermath of Operation Saturday Market. The expert mechs of the Larkinson Clan weren't getting fixed by themselves!

The Battle of Pima Prime was the first time that the mechs that the Design Department designed exclusively for the Larkinson Clan fought against a serious opponent in reality.

Though the Sundered Phalanx probably wasn't the strongest mech military in the Magair Middle Zone, it was definitely up to standard when it came to professionalism, training, funding, technological advancement and so on. The fact that the Larkinson Army fought directly against the Gaugers made it easy to contrast their performance against each other.

"In general, our mech legions all managed to gain the upper hand against the Sundered Phalanx's mech divisions." Janassa Pellier provided her input. "In my opinion, our melee mechs have performed particularly well. Even our most basic mech models have shown that they can hold their own against most enemy mechs, while our more advanced ones all achieved higher kill ratios."

Tifi Coslone agreed with her close friend and collaborator. "The Lucid Rage model that I worked on has attained a lot of results in the last battle. The Avatars of Myth made excellent use of its ability to capture and wrench away the handheld weapons of the opposing mechs. The Lucid Rage fully unveiled the high upper limit of its potential when it was piloted by champions such as Lanie Larkinson. She managed to disarm so many enemy mechs that she could arm several mech companies with the weapons she relieved from her opponents."

Ves grinned. He had worked extensively on the Lucid Rage as well.

"The Lucid Rage has proven to be an excellent machine in exerting enough pressure and influence onto skilled mech pilots. Each of them have displayed excellent fighting skills that they have recently attained after training with this unique melee mech. Its glow dynamic along with pairing it with weapons that are much more complex than a simple sword or spear is just what our melee mech pilots need to break the stagnation of their improvement."

His wife partially agreed with him. "The Lucid Rage functions well as a training mech. Its focus on training the mentality of its mech pilots and helping them polish their weapon skills has most assuredly made a difference to its pilots. However, that doesn't change its fundamental shortcomings. As an offensive melee mech, it is particularly difficult to get started, which means it can only be fielded in relatively small numbers. Another shortcoming is that the Lucid Rage still has trouble with taking down heavily-armored opponents. Even Lanie no longer bothered with trying to defeat the Modal Firmaments of the Pima Defender Mech Division due to the fact that the plasma torches have to spend too much time and energy to burn through so much armor plating."

"The Lucid Rage was never designed to dismantle hostile defensive mechs." Tifi spoke up again. "The Redaxe which I have also designed in collaboration with Ves and Sara are the designated shield and armor breaking units of the Avatars of Myth. The two mech models complement each other and are able to make up for each other's shortcomings. While I agree that we cannot rely on the Lucid Rage model to defeat every opponent, it can play a great role in any mech body when operating alongside other mech models."

Ketis nodded in support. "The Swordmaidens have developed an interest in the Lucid Rage as well after witnessing how much the pilots of this new model have advanced their combat acumen."

That surprised Ves. "Does that mean the Swordmaidens will begin to field mechs that aren't equipped with bladed weapons?"

"Nope." Ketis immediately responded. "It's important for the Swordmaidens to wield their swords as much as possible in battle. Each life-and-death struggle is another opportunity for them to exceed their existing levels of swordsmanship. There is no way a Swordmaiden is willing to give up on that chance just so that they can deepen their mastery in tonfas. These exotic weapons are good training tools, but they are not the sort of weapons that my fellow Swordmaidens want to specialize in. They just want to employ the Lucid Rage as the grown up version of a training mech."

"I see." Ves thought for a moment. "The Lucid Rage is currently the exclusive model of the Avatars of Myth, and I don't see any reason to change that if the Swordmaidens aren't willing to commit to it. We are also short on mech capacity so we cannot accommodate additional mechs that are solely present for training purposes. Try and see if your Swordmaidens can get what they need from piloting virtual versions of the Lucid Rage within the MSTS. If that doesn't work, then maybe the Avatars can offer to lend their Lucid Rages to the Swordmaidens."

The Lucid Rage model had amply proved its value on the battlefield, but Ves wanted to find out whether it could play an even greater role as a training mech.

Of all of the mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan, the Swordmaidens and the Heavensworders were definitely the most avid melee combat specialists. If training with the Lucid Rage mechs allowed many of them to improve their effective combat power over time, then that indicated that the tonfa-wielding model should be used as more than a specialized mech for the most elite melee mech pilots.

"I am tempted to design a bladed variant of the Lucid Rage." Ketis remarked. "It's a surprisingly good concept, but the limitations of its damage types are also clear."

"I would advise against that." Gloriana replied. "This might not work out that well considering that the tonfas are designed to be gripped in multiple ways. That will be a lot harder to do if some of the grips have turned sharp."

"You're right."

Once they were done with putting the spotlight on the Lucid Rage model, the evaluation meeting soon turned to another prominent new mech model.

The focus shifted to the Maiden of Adversity, the armored skirt-wearing hero mech that the Penitent Sisters, the Glory Seekers and most notably the Hex Army adopted on a larger scale!

Gloriana beamed with pride and satisfaction as soon as the central projection began to show different footage of the fantastic looking mech model in action.

"I don't think there is any doubt that the Maiden of Adversity is the best performing model among the ones that we have introduced in the past few years. Despite the fact there are high requirements to piloting it, it is considerably more versatile and practical than the Lucid Rage that we have just discussed. Not only is it armed with an energy rifle that can allow it to fight effectively at range, it is not bad at all at closer ranges. Its Battle Skirt System makes it so that it can fight as if it is constantly fighting alongside a knight mech."

It was hard for the other mech designers to refute this argument. The fact that the Hex Army had already produced thousands of copies of this robust but also feminine mech model was already a mark of success in itself.

The excellent performance of the Maiden of Adversity in the hands of three distinctly different mech forces during the Battle of Pima Prime fully vindicated the trust put into this product!

"The more elite and skilled Hexers finally have a high-end alternative to the living mechs that they can pilot in battle." Gloriana continued in a gushing tone. "Previously, they had nothing better to pilot than the Valkyrie Redeemer and its many variants, but now that they have a mech that is much better equipped to fight standing battles, their ability to compete against the Fridaymen and other enemies have significantly improved."

Ves felt pleased when he heard this news. Though his involvement in this particular design project wasn't much, he still derived satisfaction from hearing that one of the iconic new products of his clan achieved critical success.

"Gloriana, Juliet, the two of you know the Hexers the best. Do you think the Hex Army will adopt the new Maiden mech line in greater numbers than the Valkyrie mech line?"

"I can already guarantee you that the popularity of the Maiden of Adversity will likely surpass that of the Valkyrie Redeemer because of these reasons." His wife confidently stated. "It doesn't matter if it takes a more diverse skill set to draw out its full potential. The Hexers will invest as much time and effort as needed to qualify for piloting this new mech. It is just too useful for this mech to be able to deploy its own sniper shield when exchanging fire against ranged opponents or to be able to duel against an enemy melee mech with at least 50 percent extra armor."

Her argument encapsulated the key reason that allowed the Maiden of Adversity to stand out from the competition. Hero mechs traditionally fell short in terms of defensive power, but by utilizing a smart modular armor system that could dynamically shift into the most appropriate configurations in the middle of a battle, the Maiden of Adversity gained a lot of defensive buffer while limiting the increase to its bulk and mass!

Though this was not necessarily a brand-new concept that had never been designed before, what made the Maiden of Adversity different was its glow as well as its feminine aesthetics.

Female mech pilots just loved to pilot it! Every Hexer mech pilot that got lucky enough to be assigned to a copy became so motivated that they easily exceeded their personal records.

Of course, no one cared about whether the Maiden of Adversity had the same effect on male mech pilots.

Still, as much as the Maiden of Adversity had made a powerful statement during the Battle of Pima Prime, there were multiple reasons why it was difficult to expand the new model's usage.

"It's too bad that the production cost of this machine is too high." Gloriana sighed in regret. "Depending on the variant, it can cost up to twice as much to produce a Maiden of Adversity as opposed to a comparable hero mech. The Hex Federation will have to bleed a lot of money to field their latest favorite living mech model on a larger scale."

"The Maiden of Adversity is a better fit for our clan for that reason." Ves responded. "We are limited by the amount of mechs that we can carry and deploy into battle. It is better for us to invest in fewer but stronger mechs so that we can maximize the mech capacity of all of our carrier vessels. I think we should design more mechs along this approach. Cost is not as important as combat effectiveness."

Ves already came up with a few interesting ideas. The Sundered Phalanx's rich variety of mech concepts and specialties had already given him a lot of inspiration that he was eager to explore in a future design round.