The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4527

The trade deal that Ves forged with Vice Director Goetha was awfully vague.

Ves had made concrete promises to augment a number of weapons of the Infinite Gear in exchange for lots of data and information related to drone mech solutions.

It was basically a starter pack that was tailored to get the Larkinson Clan up to speed with drone-carrying mechs.

The breadth of knowledge was impressive. The Lehrer Foundation was willing to provide useful information related to almost every aspect of combat drones, from configuring their AIs to designing compact weapon systems that were powerful enough to be effective against mechs.

There were many pros and cons to drone-carrying mechs.

Normally, Ves didn't think they were worth all of the downsides, but the Lehrer Foundation invested so much time, manpower and resources into them that they had elevated this unusual mech type to an impressive height!

Vice Director Goetha had been prepared to address every possible doubt.

"If you question the reason for why drone mechs should exist, then I advise you to look at our fleet's performance during the last battle. Our combat drones have proved to be particularly effective at cutting down the alien small craft. The enemy starfighters are especially vulnerable to flanking attacks, so our combat drones tried to encircle them whenever possible. It is much easier to surround a hostile force with a larger amount of lighter units as opposed to a smaller amount of heavier units."

Ves could see that this could be useful in many different cases, but combat drones were not a panacea against every possible type of enemy.

"These combat drones of yours are certainly effective and all, but their firepower is too light to pose a threat against alien warships. I would rather stick to traditional mechs as their larger caliber weapons at least won't bounce away from the thick hull plating of enemy vessels."

"That is what other mech types are for." The vice director retorted. "We have no illusions about the universality of our drone mech solutions. Be that as it may, we have developed specialized combat drones that are explicitly designed for sieging or swarming large constructs such as warships and space stations."

No matter what, Ves wanted it all, but the Lehrer Foundation was a lot more reluctant to share their accumulation of drones armed with heavy weapons.

Ves only managed to gain a few concessions when he addressed the demands of the Lehrer Foundation.

"You guys are getting a lot more augmented ace-mech grade weapons than my other trading partners. The nature of your Infinite Gear makes it difficult to upgrade just one weapon. It is better to upgrade a wider range of weapons so that it will retain its penetration advantage when it changes in configuration. Considering how much work I am willing to do for your foundation, I think I deserve a lot of extras."

In the end, Ves promised to apply his blessed weapon methods to four individual weapons of the Infinite Gear.

"A mech sword, a mech lance, a mech rifle and a mech cannon, huh?" Ves thoughtfully said. "That is certainly a decent range, but your greatest modular mech should have more weapon loadouts. Don't you want me to augment them as well? It is not as if you have to pay actual money or phasewater when sharing your foundation's research with my clan."

Vice Director Goetha responded with a strained smile. "I am not allowed to make any further concessions. As much as I am in favor of securing additional commitments from you, my superiors have imposed strict rules on how much proprietary research I can exchange with a third party. The scope of our current transaction is still within my discretion. If we trade anything further, I will have to send this matter up the hierarchy, which means that it can take months if not years before we can agree to a definite trade agreement."

"Annoying, but understandable. Your headquarters will certainly want to have a say in this matter." Ves remarked.

"That is true, but I cannot wait for my superiors to make up their minds. They will demand hard proof in the form of empirical data generated by systematic experiments. They won't take us at our word."

"And you do?"

"I have witnessed the might of your blessed weapons first-hand. You have saved my life and that of every other member of our fleet. That is all of the proof I need." Goetha said.

"So if I want to approach your foundation for additional research, I just have to bring additional proof, is that correct?"

"It is not so simple, Patriarch Larkinson. Research drops in value the more it becomes available. It is not true that it is costless for us to share our research. If we give away too much of our work, we will only be fueling the rise of our competitors."

Both sides were ultimately happy with their deal. They didn't actually make any painful concessions as neither of them exchanged any scarce resources such as phasewater.

The Lehrer Foundation could make as many copies of its drone research as it wanted.

Ves on the other hand only gave up a bit of time and effort to bless four ace mech-grade weapons.

In truth, Ves believed that he was definitely getting the upper hand in all of these trade deals.

Phasewater and drone research all sounded nice, but they were not as pivotal to his work and ambitions as getting in touch with many different high-end mech weapons.

Being able to touch and study the impressive weapons of the Royal Jeem and the Infinite Gear would expose him to a whole new world of high-end mech design!

The best Master Mech Designers associated with the Boojay Family and the Lehrer Foundation had invested their best design solutions to these products. The spear of the Royal Jeem and the eclectic collection of weapons of the Infinite Gear all represented the apex of second-class mech design!

In fact, the tech and material composition of those weapons were so high that they were more at home among first-class products.

Ves deeply wanted to tear apart those weapons to figure out all of their design nuances.

He also wanted to examine their spiritual properties. Each ace mech weapon had mutated from their initial states after undergoing long-term willpower baptism from different ace pilots.

Ves had already taken a close glance at the Thunderer Mark II. If he could make observations on the weapons of several other ace mechs, he could conduct focused research on the phenomenon of willpower baptism and possibly figure out a way to replicate the effects through his own methods.

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