The Mech Touch Chapter 202 Vision

Chapter 202: Vision

Ves had seen a lot of knight designs in his ch career. Besides studying the classics, he also had hands-on experience with a couple of different models.

The Caesar Augustus bore no introduction. The overstuffed hybrid knight tried to to everything at once and made a decent attempt at it by virtue of its excellent armor system. Ves captured so of the majesty of this ambitious design with the Marc Antony, but the cheap HRF armor plating hobbled the core purpose of a knight, which was to be a defensive bulwark.

"It's rather decent design for its price range."

For a design that utilized uncompressed armor, the Marc Antony Mark II functioned well enough to those who couldn't afford anything better. Its cheap composition ant that replacing broken armor plating should be cheap and easy.

"The greatest strength of the Mark II is its cost-effectiveness."

That wasn't always a good thing. It basically ant that the Mark II had no other distinguishing features that allowed Ves to set a premium on his product. He had keep his prices low in order to sustain the handful of sales he made each month.

Competing on price always ended up as a race to the bottom.

The current circumstances in which he had to gradually decrease the price on his ch reflected this reality. Though so of the bla also lay on the generational gap, it couldn't be concealed that the Marc Antony series lacked a distinguishing feature that it excelled at. A jack of all trades was a master of none.

The second knight he had an intimate relationship with was the Hoplite and the Young Blood he derived from the classic model. The spear-wielding knight possessed a number of interesting innovations that he partially incorporated in his sword-wielding variant.

Both models emphasized the offensive nature of a knight. While they fulfilled the defensive role well, they excelled at keeping up with an offensive push as they possessed a bit more mobility than usual.

"An offensive knight is harder to design than a defensive knight."

Both had their own strengths, but an offensive knight had to fulfill multiple criteria. It had to maintain a high level of defense while simultaneously possess a higher level of mobility. Since ch designers usually had to decide between speed and armor, striking the right balance could be challenging.

"It's an interesting one, and one that fits my interests."

Ves had never aid to design the fastest ch, nor the sturdiest one. He knew of ch designers who dedicated their entire lives to pursuing one extre.

Raul ndoza, known as 'The Armorer', had beco an inspiration to every ch designer for relentlessly developing the best-protected chs in the galaxy. Ves read his biography when he studied at Rittersberg and knew that while he faced many temptations to branch out in other paths, he stuck to his creed and continued to focus on armor and armor alone.

Another model that struck him deeply was the Ajax Olympian. The massive heavy knights possessed a boundless amount of strength and sturdiness that allowed them to resist the monstrous Kaius.

His intimate work on studying its design and tweaking it for greater performance gave him an inside look in the mind of a knight designer. Though he couldn't apply all the lessons he learned from a heavy knight to a dium knight design, so aspects remained common to every weight class.

However, there was one more knight that struck a very profound image to Ves. His ancestor's customized ch the Valiant had been through a lot and outlived the death of its pilot. Whenever Ves thought back on the ancient knight, he could practically taste the history radiating off its fra.

Of all the chs he had seen in his life, only the Valiant showed him a possible way forward. Beyond its exquisite design and rugged durability, the knight developed an extrely potent X-Factor by virtue of its hallowed history.

"I want to design a ch like that."

He wanted to design a ch that beca increasingly more compatible with its pilot. Those who bonded with such machines gained increasingly more substantial benefits the longer they used it. Ves hoped to embody the ideals of the Living ch Corporation with such products.

"It's not going to be easy bringing this dream to life."

Ves activated his terminal and wrote a quick list of demands.

First, it had to be durable. Its internal architecture should be robust enough to keep going even under the most hellish circumstances.

More importantly, Ves had to invest in a good quality armor system composed of compressed alloys. A lot of different formulas and armor systems existed on the market, but only a few would be appropriate for his purposes. The resources required to form the armor plating should be abundantly available in the Bright Republic.

Secondly, his ch had to possess a decent amount of mobility. Ves did not plan to experint with gimmicks this ti. Overcomplicated gadgets often introduced vulnerabilities in the core design, and with his skills he couldn't guarantee he'd catch them all.

No, Ves simply planned to balance the weight of the fra with a strong engine and efficient artificial musculature. Master Olson happened to be an expert in this field, so he hoped to pick up sothing good in Leemar.

"Offensive knights are characterized by their ability to leverage their aggression into shock attacks."

In that regard, his intended design should barely be able to et that standard if Ves managed to get his hands on the right components. Besides getting his hands on a powerful engine model, he also had to trim the armor sche to keep down its bulk.

"It's going to be hard to accomplish all of these wishes without breaking the bank."

Cheaper components generally perford worse than more expensive ones. However, the market only cared about how well the final design fulfilled its purpose at a given price level.

A good ch designer could take a crappy set of component licenses and easily cobble up a cheap but practical ch design.

A bad ch designer would always publish a deeply flawed ch design, even if he had access to the best components in the galaxy.

In fact, more expensive components always introduced a lot of complexity in the design. In addition, they required a higher proportion of rare and expensive exotics to deliver such extre performance.

Still, Ves hoped to design a knight for the premium segnt of the ch market. At the very least, it should be a knight that was able to compete in the sa price class as the current Caesar Augustus.

Ves set his price target at 60 million credits for the most basic silver label variant. Such a price corresponded nicely with other premium knight models on the market. In order to ensure a stable profit, Ves should aim to keep the cost of production at around 30 to 40 million credits.

All of these criteria sounded fine and dandy, but they amounted to nothing as long as Ves failed to form a coherent vision of his future product.

Over the past few months, Ves mulled over how to elevate his design with a powerful vision.

"My ch isn't the fastest, nor the most indestructible one. It simply endures. It will keep going when you least expect it to. Even if it has suffered grievous injuries, it will grow stronger with every rebirth."

Ves nad his first Mark I the Phoenix Cry. He did so because he already ford a hint of his ideal ch.

Central to the legend of the phoenix was its ability to be reborn after experiencing a nirvana. Similar to the phoenix, his first original ch design should beco more powerful or at least more potent in its X-Factor each ti it receives an overhaul.

If Ves could put this vision into reality, then he may be able to emulate the Valiant on a larger scale.

Such a bold ambition demanded not only a good design, but also a correspondingly powerful X-Factor.

"I'll have to test the limits of the X-Factor if I want it to acquire the properties I want. The X-Factor not only has to have room for growth, it also has to be tenacious enough so that others won't be able to wipe it away."

Until now, Ves ford a tentative theory that the X-Factor ca into being if the ch, the ch designer and the ch pilot shared a common mindset.

He always feared that once other people such as Carlos or a ch technician started performing repairs, the ch would lose its X-Factor's potency.

Now those fears were gone. After he completed the Groening mission, Ves ca away with more than an enhanced body. His mind also experienced a subtle transformation that Ves tentatively attributed to Jutland's heavenly flower. Though he hadn't tested his new strengths in an actual design process, he sohow knew that his ability to impart images had improved.

"Now that my mind is stronger, anything that I work on should have a more tenacious X-Factor. A random ch technician shouldn't be able to ruin my products if they replace a faulty screw or sothing."

Ves envisioned a hopeful future for his design where each of his chs grew from infancy into unique machines. Each experience added to the history of the ch in question. In addition, the longer a ch pilot stuck with the sa machine, the more the ch took on the ch pilot's traits.

He felt as if he beca the architect of sothing new and unknown. Though the risks were great, if he succeeded in this project, Ves expected he'd be able to take this concept and use it as the core of his nascent design philosophy.

Of course, the System also played a part in this process. While the System never taught him how work with the X-Factor directly, it was undeniable that it had put him onto this path.

His high ntal attributes ford the key to empowering the X-Factor. Ves even suspected the reason why most ch designers still remained clueless about it was because their level of concentration hadn't reached the minimum threshold for it to beco noticeable.

Even if they got their hands on the right theories and the correct techniques, without a correspondingly powerful mind, they'd simply be playing make-belief instead of accomplishing sothing real.

"My current concentration is higher than almost every other ch designer, but it's not enough for my purposes."

With an attribute score of 1.7, his concentration sufficiently enabled him to maintain three images at once, though they couldn't be too complex. Ves estimated that he required a much higher level of concentration in order to work with dynamic images that allowed for growth.

"I'll have to break the natural limit of the human mind in order to get to that point."

Ves already had a idea on what it ant to break the natural limit. Before the doctors of the CFA stabilized his body, he felt imnsely powerful and healthy. Though he lost so of that potency, his body had already cracked open a slit into the realm of the superhuman.

He knew that if he wanted to raise his concentration to an even higher level, he had to accumulate a lot of design points. In between his busy schedule of acquiring all of the elents to form an original design, he also had to test out so of his ideas by designing a couple of virtual chs.

"I can practice my design skills as well, so it won't be wasted ti."

After a couple of hours of quiet musing, Captain Silvestra sent him an alert. "We're about to transition into the Leemar System. Your orders, sir?"

"Head towards the inner system. Leemar II is our final destination. Once the local authorities know of my purpose, I'm sure they'll ready an appropriate berth for the Barracuda."

Ves had contacted Horatio to let him know he'd be coming. Master Olson's assistant gave Ves a knowing look when he requested the help of a doctor. In any case, Horatio offered his sympathies and promised to inform their master.

"Hopefully, we won't stay for too long. Once I'm done with my shopping, it's ti to go ho."

He looked forward to turning his Phoenix project into reality.