The Mech Touch

its!

Five billion credits! Ves could fabricate over two-hundred Marc Antony Mark II ’s with that much money! Most of that money had been spent on fabricating the Olympian ’s highly sophisticated armor system which consisted of various layers of exotic alloys.

”That is why this entire unit are taking the wrong approach.
Mechs are meant to be used.
How many hexapod beasts are running around in the underground world? How hard will it be to make up for the loss of an Olympian? What I ’m telling you is that everyone is making a mistake by deifying the heavy knights. ”

Ves pressed on.
”A high-class mech like the Ajaxes are ordinarily built to last several campaigns.
It ’s hopeful if you think you can keep these big mechs intact, but they ’ll be facing extremely hostile conditions on Groening IV.
Currently, the Ajax Olympians aren ’t optimized to withstand the incredible amount of abuse for forty days straight. ”

”What are you suggesting, then? ”

”Treat the heavy mechs as disposable tools.
I know several ways of increasing their power and speed.
It won ’t take too much time for me to come up with a modified design that won ’t take too much time to implement. ”

This shook D ’Amato ’s mind.
As a young officer who aspired to be an engineer, he had always been taught to eschew short-term gains in favor of maximizing stability, reliability and longevity.
Ships always cost vastly more than mechs, so everyone expected them to last decades.
Ves suddenly introduced a different perspective that went directly counter to what he learned.

”What kind of performance boost are you expecting then? And how long will the models last? ”

”I can easily boost its performance by twenty percent.
This performance will slowly degrade over time, but the first measurable drop won ’t happen in months under normal conditions.
Heavy combat will accelerate this breakdown, but even I ’ll make sure they ’ll last the entire forty day window. ”

What Ves proposed frankly astounded the ensign.
It took a lot of effort for him to get a grip on the radical suggestion, but once he thought it over, he thought it might have some merit.

”I can accept that the expedition will increase their odds of success if the Olympians gain a short-term boost.
However, it won ’t be easy to cover the loss of two heavy mechs.
I ’m not so sure that Lord Kaine will allow such a travesty to happen. ”

Ves started to smirk.
”It seems to me that Lord Kaine is gambling everything on a single throw of the dice.
It ’s impossible to succeed every time.
Besides, it ’s not like the mechs are worthless if they have drawn their last breaths.
As long as you can salvage the wrecks, you can recycle most of the exotics used in their construction. ”

He eventually convinced D ’Amato of the merits of his plan, but he was merely the gatekeeper.
A decision of this magnitude went above Felicity Kaine ’s head.
Only Jeremiah Kaine himself could give the green light on this plan.

When the ensign notified Lord Kaine directly, they waited for hours before they received a simple reply.

”Show me a design. ”

Ves took that message as an encouraging sign.
While he hadn ’t received definite approval to mess around with the Olympians, he finally pried open the door.

In addition, his radical suggestion bypassed Captain Kaine and Chief Ramirez.
While he did no favors by going over their heads, he also wouldn ’t have to deal with their irrational obstinance.

Once he got the okay, he immediately went to work.
Due to the fact that he ’d likely be letting the mech technicians do most of the work, he didn ’t spend too much effort on nurturing the X-Factor.

After all, he intended to produce a variant of a variant of another design.
Not only that, he also planned to modify existing mechs that already possessed an identity of its own.
Ves did not wish to spend an excessive amount of time on fostering an X-Factor that would only end up stillborn when he finished he finally laid down his tools.

”It ’s better to focus on the hardware this time. ”

Ves unintentionally drew on Master Olson ’s teachings, but in the opposite direction this time.
Her extensive lecture on battle mechatronics obsessed on how to prolong the service life of a mech.

Put simply, he intended to invert these methods in order to squeeze out every bit of latent potential out of the Ajax Olympians.

Many of these methods involved tweaking the performance of a design so that it flattened out.
This lowered the maximum capacity of its systems but prevented them from being strained by short but excessive bursts of power.

A normal mech designer striving to build up a solid reputation always designed mechs that were intended to last.
No one wanted to acquire a mech that only promised to perform up to spec for a year.
Even heavy knights meant to take a beating incorporated many excessive buffers and failsafes in order to prevent a premature breakdown.

By going in reverse, Ves insured that the mechs would be able to exert much more power.
While the excessive stresses reduced the effective lifetime of the mechs in question, the sacrifice was worth it if Ves insured the models maintained their peak performance during the mission.

He chuckled a bit to himself.
”I don ’t think my master thought I ’d apply her teachings in this fashion.
She ’s probably slap me to death if she can see what I ’ve cooked up. ”

He spent a fruitful week whipping up a hasty but effective design.
He kept it fairly simple and avoided any major redesigns.
Instead, he tore out a lot of duplicate components that raised the Olympian ’s redundancy but only really came into being at the end of the model ’s life cycle.

Certainly, Ves risked condemnation for reducing the redundancy of a mech that sorely needed it.
Therefore, he tested the design himself and gathered the data to back up his decision.

Once he freed up some space, Ves started to rearrange the internal architecture.
He increased its capacity to deliver a higher performance by widening some channels, bulking up the artificial muscles, adding in some amplifiers and tweaking the programming of some of the components.

He ended up with an Ajax on steroids.