The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5636 Combat Warp System

It went without saying that the composition of the main design team could have an enormous influence on the outcome of a design project.

Right now, Ves and Gloriana were more than cognizant about the fact that the current design team of the Dark Zephyr III was a bit… unorthodox to say the least.

Ves and Gloriana's design philosophies both improved the expert mech in unusual and holistic ways. Neither of them focused on improving any basic properties, so there was a lot of room for mech designers with Class II-IV design philosophies.

They already chose to keep Ketis in the mix in order to upgrade the familiar double knives of the expert light skirmisher.

They thought about equipping the Dark Zephyr with an axe in order to help the machine break through obstacles faster, but they eventually chose to improve its original armaments instead.

"I think Ketis might find it interesting to apply stormblade technology to the Dark Zephyr Mark III Project." Ves shared his opinion. "This should not only increase its effectiveness against transphasic energy shields that Tusa isn't willing or able to bypass, but it can also produce an EMP effect that can speed up the process of disabling large warships."

The recently recruited Adrien Marceau had the capacity to upgrade the mobility of the Dark Zephyr. His design philosophy centered around granting mechs the capacity to engage in warp travel in the middle of combat.

The few mechs that he had managed to design so far all exhibit extreme maneuverability over short distances. The light mechs were equipped with remarkable transphasic flight systems that were fairly bad at travel over long distances but excelled at short-range maneuvering!

"Adrien Marceau's prior work is interesting." Gloriana said. "His co-

developed Combat Warp System has plenty of shortcomings. It is energy-

hungry, inefficient and has a low warp factor. More generic transphasic flight systems can allow mechs to traverse longer distances considerably faster at a lower cost. Is it truly a wise choice to sacrifice the Dark Zephyr's long-range traversal ability in exchange for superior performance at shorter distances?"

Ves shrugged his shoulders. "There are pros and cons to both options. I believe that integrating the Adrien's Combat Warp System into the Dark Zephyr leads to a better fit. Don't forget that a light skirmisher is already really fast in general. The already high acceleration of the Dark Zephyr will partially compensate for the limited warp factor, thereby making it so that Tusa doesn't have to wait for an eternity to reach the opposite side of the battlefield."

Gloriana frowned. "The Dark Zephyr will have to spend considerably more time to close the distance to the enemy. This can give the opposing side up to a few more minutes of grace. That is more time for them to attack our mechs without being assailed by a powerful expert mech at close range."

"That is true, but I think the benefits more than make up for this shortcoming. The Combat Warp System promises to generate warp bubbles almost instantly, allowing the Dark Zephyr to quickly change direction and transverse short distances in an unpredictable manner. The warp bubbles are also stronger and a bit more resistant against warp interdictors and space suppressors."

Ves liked this combat-oriented design application a lot because it enabled the Dark Zephyr to strengthen its best qualities even further!

The Dark Zephyr had made a name for being the most elusive and difficult-

to-hit mech in the Larkinson Army. Combined with the living expert mech's resonance abilities, a lot of enemies had wasted their firepower in vain when they sought to wear down the defenses of this untouchable machine!

However, the Dark Zephyr was not completely able to ignore the vast amount of gun batteries that a bunch of enemy warships could bring to bear.

The expert light skirmisher's ability to fool the sensor systems of enemy vessels became a lot less effective at closer ranges.

In addition, the greater the concentration of fire, the harder it became for the Dark Zephyr to dodge every attack!

The Combat Warp System promised to make it a lot easier for Tusa's expert mech to counteract saturation fire by drastically increasing the living mech's maximum evasion range!

"The Dark Zephyr will become the ultimate duelist and guerrilla fighter if we go through with this adaptation." Ves eagerly said. "He can outmaneuver any high-ranking mech or phasefighter in a dogfight, and he can also approach heavily-armed warships with greater confidence. So far, there is only one expert mech in our clan that can pursue ultimate maneuverability. I think this capacity perfectly matches the current character of Tusa's mech."

Gloriana did not disagree with that assessment, but this was not a choice that they could make lightly.

"I hope that Venerable Tusa will be able to advance to ace pilot soon, because the Mark III will not be able to supply enough energy to maintain the activity of the Combat Warp System for long. Each fast displacement attempt will consume a large amount of energy. It is still difficult for us to expand the energy reserves of a light mech since there is so little space for additional energy cells."

"We should just trust Venerable Tusa to manage his energy reserves. He's not an idiot. Every light mech specialist is proficient in managing the limited resources at his or her disposal. The Combat Warp System doesn't have to be used to its full potential all of the time."

After they figured out how Adrien Marceau's contribution would alter the characteristics of the Dark Zephyr, they needed to find another candidate to fill the fifth and last slot in the main design team.

This was a difficult consideration.

"We can choose to amplify the Dark Zephyr's strengths or mitigate the expert mech's obvious vulnerabilities." Gloriana said. "The Mark III's defenses will not be high if we proceed according to our current plan. I would have been inclined to add Sara Voiken or Beatrice Hendrix to the design team if they were still available."

That was not the case, so their options had become a lot more limited as a result.

"Viktor MacMillan is a notable defensive specialist, but his specialization is mainly centered around energy shields. He definitely knows a thing or two about designing armor systems, but don't expect any miracles."

"I have already taken Mr. MacMillan into consideration. He is not a good choice for this design project. The addition of a pair of shoulder-mounted luminar crystal guns along with a Combat Warp System will already strain the limited energy output of the Dark Zephyr. If we add stormblade technology as well, then the expert light skirmisher will be even more constrained so long as it remains a quasi-first-class expert mech. We cannot justify the addition of a powerful azure energy shield generator. Evasion is the best form of defense for this machine."

His wife was right. Stronger defenses only increased the fault tolerance of the Dark Zephyr.

The addition of the Combat Warp System already increased the survival chances of the light mech, so there was no compelling reason to upgrade the expert mech's defenses in another way.

The Dark Zephyr was an offensive mech.

With that thought in mind, Ves and Gloriana ran through the other names on the list.

Ves quickly settled on a specific individual.

"Ariana Roux."

"The ECM specialist?"

Ves nodded. "Yes. The Dark Zephyr already utilizes ECM systems to make it harder for enemies to hit the expert mech. Its resonance abilities can produce related effects. I think we can complement this further by adding the work of Ariana Roux."

"Her design philosophy suggests that she is more suited to apply her work to dedicated auxiliary mechs as opposed to combat mechs."

"That is true, but I see no reason why her specialized ECM solutions are a poor fit for the Dark Zephyr. Tusa's expert mech is often the first machine to get close to an enemy fleet. Since the living machine is already there, he might as well help the rest of our forces by producing even greater interference at close range. Think of Saint Marissa Lewandowski."

Saint Marissa Lewandowski was one of the two ace pilots that continued to accompany the expeditionary fleet as part of the Golden Skull Alliance.

Her Jedda Sandivar was a powerful ace light skirmisher, but it truly showed its value when the ace pilot activated her Saint Kingdom and generated an obscuring and disruptive 'smoke' cloud that could blind any enemy in range!

The example set by the Adelaide Mercenary Company's ace pilot showed that light mechs could partially compensate for their lack of hard power with greater utility.

This made Ariana Roux an interesting choice. As a Journeyman selected by Alexa Streon, the new recruit's design philosophy was quite interesting to say the least.

Her Class VIII Design Philosophy was officially labeled as Automated Mass Computing Systems Exploitation.

In other words, mass hacking.

Ves had no idea why a talented mech designer chose to specialize in hacking of all fields.

The Larkinson Clan employed plenty of hackers and computer security experts. They were a necessity in an age where humans relied so much on advanced technology to get stuff done.

"Ariana Roux is good at designing auxiliary mechs." Gloriana analyzed as she recalled her previous works. "Her ECM modules can be quite effective, but only when they are large and extensive enough to take effect against enemies that have taken proper precautions against hacking. Only auxiliary mechs are able to dedicate enough energy and processor capacity to this demanding task. It will be a challenge to fit a more reduced version of her ECM systems into the Dark Zephyr without turning her contribution useless."

Ves nodded. "That is true, but we'll just have to buy the most advanced and efficient first-class processor chips to make up for this shortcoming as best we can. In any case, it takes less effort for the Dark Zephyr to transmit signals through heavy jamming at closer ranges. Additionally, it is well-known that alien computing systems are not as technologically advanced as modern human computing systems, so it takes less effort to compromise them as long as Ariana Roux knows how to hack the computers developed by different alien species."

"You do know that if the Dark Zephyr starts to engage in mass hacking, the expert mech will transmit a large quantity of signals to the surrounding enemy units, correct? This will counteract the mech's other ECM measures that are meant to make it harder for targeting systems to lock onto the machine."

"I haven't forgotten about that, but that is why Ariana Roux is such a good fit for this upgrade project. The Dark Zephyr Mark III is really fast and maneuverable, so what does it matter if enemies are able to track the expert mech's coordinates a lot better? It won't necessarily increase their hit rate! Aside from that, the transmission of signals will not compromise the effectiveness of the Untouchable resonance ability. The latter distorts perception, and the detection of electromagnetic waves falls in this scope."

"The two are not a good fit with each other, Ves. The resonance ability is mainly effective at longer ranges. Ariana Roux's hacking modules are primarily employed at closer ranges."

She was right, but that did not change Ves' considerations. "Once we can upgrade the Dark Zephyr into an ace mech, Venerable Tusa may be able to incapacitate an entire enemy fleet at once. Granted, this will only happen when he is fighting against the warships hailing from the lesser alien races, but there is always room for improvement."

There was a chance that Ariana Roux's contributions might not live up to its promise. If that was the case, then they could always boot her off the design team and put another lead designer in her place.

The total picture became clear now that they had settled on the initial design team for the Dark Zephyr Mark III Project.

Ves looked forward to upgrading his oldest expert mech into a highly maneuverable and highly disruptive mechanical terror!