The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3945

3945 /7079

Chapter 3945 Adjusted Timeframes

Minidrives were expensive additions to any mech. Ves could foresee many scenarios where a miniaturized warp drive could make the Firestarter Project a lot more useful, but the rationale wasn't as strong as with the C-Man Project.

The C-Man Project's case was stronger because Vincent wanted to turn it into a pure melee mech. This meant that it could not function at its full potential if it wasn't at point-blank range with its targets.

This imposed a heavy limitation on its use and made it all the more important for the proposed expert brawler mech to be good at moving around.

The need for rapid traversal was much less for ranged mechs. As long as the ranges weren't extreme, it was perfectly viable for ranged mechs of many different varieties to inflict effective damage against distant targets.

However, that did not mean that it was useless to equip the Firestarter Project with a combat drive.

Venerable Isobel could perform all kinds of tactical and strategic maneuvers as long as her effective range gained an enormous boost. Whether on or off the battlefield, it was much easier for her Firestarter Project to be at the right place at the right time!

"I can see how a minidrive can be useful." Isobel's eyes lit up as Ves shared a few thoughts about this subject. "I never dared to imagine this before, but now that we have left with a lot of phasewater in our reserves…"

Ves grinned. "We are no longer in a position where minidrives are unavailable or way past our budgets. We can choose to incorporate minidrives on many mechs. Of course, we don't intend to equip them on all of our machines, but there is a strong case for adding them to all new and existing expert mechs as external backpack modules. This way, we can add them to the machines when needed and leave them out when long-ranged, ultra-fast mobility is not necessary."

After thinking about this matter further, he figured that it was best to employ minidrives as external modules for every compatible mech in his lineup.

He might even acquire a standardized model that was universal for every expert mech. This way, the logistics of procuring and maintaining the minidrives became a lot simpler. There was no need to overcomplicate this feature any further than necessary.

He could apply the same treatment to the Phaser fish-whale organs as well, if they could even be utilized in conjunction with mechs.

After he finished exploring the possibilities of adding warp capabilities to the Firestarter Project, he bid goodbye to Venerable Isobel and departed from her recovery room.

Now that he had finished checking up on the new expert candidates and expert pilots of the Larkinson Clan, he decided to check up on a couple of other ongoing projects taking place within the Dragon's Den.

He met with Dr. Perris who was supervising the growth of an important bioconstruct over at the Scarlet Garden Department.

"Patriarch, welcome back to the Scarlet Garden." The Lifer biomech designer rose from her chair and greeted. "Are you here to inspect the Titan-3 Project?"

Ves nodded. "That is one of my goals for today, yes. Bring me to wherever it is being cultivated. I want to see how close it is to maturity."

"Very well. Please follow me to the main cultivation chamber."

They entered a large hall that was slightly dimmed. Various bots and other machines tended to several enormous pools filled with different mineral and nutrient-rich solutions.

When Ves took a closer look at a couple of the pools, he spotted that several white fleshy limbs were submerged inside of them. The liquids were just opaque enough for Ves to get a good glimpse of their enormous shapes.

He took a deep breath. "Impressive. Their sizes should already be close to what I envisioned. It's a shame that we haven't been able to finish the meat suit in time for the Purgatory Campaign. I think the Everchanger can actually brawl against the fish-whales if it was equipped with this organic wargear."

Dr. Perris looked regretful. "We feel the same way, but the production of large organic products cannot be rushed. This is especially the case for the Titan-3 Project which possesses considerably more mass than biomechs."

This was the biggest downside of biotechnology. It just took too much time to complete the growth process. Dr. Perris and the other biotech experts had already implemented many measures to accelerate the growth of the Titan-3 Project, but it was hard for them to implement more extreme measures without compromising the health and longevity of the meat suit.

These were all old and familiar problems to Ves, so he did not blame the Scarlet Garden or express any frustration.

He still felt peeved that the completion of the Titan-3 Project came at a time when he planned for the Larkinson Clan and the Golden Skull Alliance to lay low for a couple of years.

While it was not impossible for detachments of Larkinson mech troops to go out and complete various missions, the chances that the Everchanger would end up in a major battle like before should not be high.

"Since there aren't any immediate opportunities to see the Titan-3 Project in action, we should change our goals and adjust our approach towards it." Dr. Perris suggested. "Instead of growing it with the expectation of putting it to use in battle, we can use it as a prototype and a platform to test our attempts of combining conventional mechs with biotechnology."

Ves looked at the eager biomech designer. "The cost of doing all of this shouldn't be low. The budget of the Titan-3 Project is already considerable. It's hard to justify all of the money, resources and effort put into it, only for us to use it as a testbed."

"Money shouldn't be a problem now that we have obtained large quantities of phasewater, sir. I think it is worth it to perform further research in combining the organic tissue we have harvested from the Titania with the fish-whale organs that Task Force Fisherman has retrieved from Purgatory into an even stronger mounted wargear model. If the Everchanger can pilot an upgraded version of the meat suit with warp travel capabilities, it can single-handedly pose an enormous threat towards hostile fleets."

Dr. Perris had put a lot of thought in how to justify the additional resources put in this ongoing project. She painted an attractive picture of the meat suit's potential.

Ves looked at the limbs that were close to reaching the point where they could be grafted together into a single whole.

"Well, since we are about to undergo a years-long period of upgrades, expansion and reconstruction, it makes sense for us to iterate on the Titan-3 Project further. I don't want us to proceed with introducing a rushed product only for it to fail and fall apart in front of an actual opponent."