The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4847

"A hybrid mech?"

Juliet Stameros wasn't stupid. She was a Journeyman just like Ves and deeply understood the technical challenges involved with designing a hybrid mech.

These were mechs that did not easily fit into a single category. They deviated from other humanoid mechs in that they could not replicate the human experience.

Conventional humanoid mechs such as swordsman mechs and rifleman mechs fought in a manner that closely mirrored how normal infantry soldiers fought.

Ves had recently taken part in such a battle himself, so he fully understood how much more difficult it was to design a hybrid mech that performed fluidly enough in less than two days.

"We will be making this a lot more difficult for ourselves if we design a hybrid mech for this competition." Juliet said with a frown. "Hybrid mechs are offensive mechs that normally do not stand out in terms of mobility. They are faster than knight mechs but slower than rifleman mechs. We can make them faster by lowering their armor content, but it will be difficult to make them any faster without compromising their integrated weapon loadouts." _{freeweɓnovel.cøm}

Hybrid mechs were offensive mechs by nature. Taking away their weapons invalidated his selection for this mech type. This was not a price that Ves wanted to pay in order to squeeze out a marginal amount of speed from this mech.

Ves and Juliet rapidly sketched out a couple of crude draft designs. They performed a few hasty calculations in order to get a rough estimate of the technical parameters of their competition mechs.

This ate away 20 minutes of their precious time, but they had no other choice. They needed to verify that their plan was viable before they invested the rest of their allotted time on realizing their desired mechs.

"The light skirmisher should easily be doable." Juliet confidently said. "It is partially based on the Ferocious Piranha as there is not much of a reason to deviate from a winning formula that we are already familiar with. The only major deviations are the lack of a flight system and other changes to account for landbound operations. The light mech will not have the greatest top speed, but should have excellent evasion characteristics, especially in conjunction with its powerful but short-lasting boosters. It is only armed with twin knives and a backup pistol but that should be more than sufficient for its needs."

Ves studied the proposed light mech. He felt that its armor might be a little too inadequate than he was comfortable with, but it was not as if thicker armor would make that much of a difference.

There was a part of Ves that did not entirely feel good about this proposal. It took a moment for him to realize the reason why he felt restless.

Juliet did not add anything exciting to the technical design and configuration of the light skirmisher. She did not go out of her way to add an experimental feature or stray too far out of her comfort zone. She approached the tournament with the mindset of sticking to what she was good at and trying to make it as solid as possible in the little time they had to complete their work.

She did not do anything wrong per se, but she did not adopt a champion's mindset to this challenge.

He inwardly shook his head. Juliet had not progressed as far as Ves and did not have any notably brilliant innovations to her name. There was no reason to fault her for trying to design a competition mech that was within her means and no further.

In fact, it was not necessarily a bad idea for their team to make sure that at least one of their mechs turned into a known quantity. Its relatively conventional configuration could balance out the extreme design choices that Ves had made for the hybrid mech.

Juliet closely studied the draft design that Ves had sketched.

"It is as I thought. You went for a slimmed-down medium hybrid mech that is weighed down with numerous offensive armaments. While I admit that it should likely be fast enough to rely on evasion to avoid a great deal of damage, it is ultimately not a light mech."

"I am aware of that." He responded. "The reason why I slimmed down the armor to this extent is to add a bastardized version of the Battle Skirt System that we created for the Maiden of Adversity design. I think it achieves the best of both worlds. The modular and adjustable armor plating will not offer as much protection as a solid physical shield, but it can be adapted to better guard against different kinds of opposition. What is even more important is that it can gradually shed its broken plates and reduce the total mass of the hybrid mech on a gradual basis. The final advantage is that it can offer physical protection without occupying any of the limbs."

Juliet looked troubled again. "That sounds good in theory, but it is difficult to realize it with the limited tech and materials that we have to work with. The amount of effort you need to design a version of the Battle Skirt System that is specifically adapted to your hybrid mech can take several hours. What if you fixate too much on this optional feature and neglect the fundamentals of what should already be a complicated hybrid mech?"

He sighed. "Just trust me, okay? I can do it. I know I can. I have the skills and the cognitive abilities to design this hybrid mech within the allotted time. I wouldn't propose a mech design like this if I thought I would be short of time."

They discussed the issue a bit more but Ves remained adamant that he could make it work despite Juliet's legitimate doubts.

"This is a challenge that is beyond the level of a Journeyman Mech Designer." Juliet pointed out. "You will need to push yourself beyond your limits in order to complete your extensive wish list."

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