The biggest gamechanger to Ves was not just the transition from second-class mechs to first-class mechs, but access to more exclusive high technologies.
The foremost high technology that Ves had always been greedy for was support link technology!
Also called linking technology, it was a sophisticated way to transfer energy from one machine to another.
Ves had witnessed it in action several times. He had seen CFA warships link their defenses together to withstand the strongest blows with their combined strengths.
He had also seen the MTA's first-class multipurpose mechs confront alien warships head-on without fear for their overwhelming firepower.
While energy link technology and shield link technology was subject to a lot of constraints that imposed limits on what they could do, they were still essential to develop mechs that could compete at the highest level!
A first-class mech force with access to support link technology could easily overwhelm a first-class mech force that lacked this high-end tech!
For a long time, Ves never thought about incorporating this useful tech in any of his mechs. Only the top first-class powers possessed the wealth, resources, manpower and infrastructure to make widespread use of this tech.
It would definitely be a struggle for the Larkinson Clan to implement support link technology into all of its future first-class mechs in the short term. The demands were too high. Ves would have to barter for assistance from the mechers or other first-class powers in order to incorporate this tech in his own products in a shorter time frame.
"If the time has come to go on an expedition, my mechs cannot deploy on the battlefield without the protection bestowed by shield link technology! The attrition rate will become too high if my mechs can be picked off one by one!"
The battles against the wheednar and yurzen raiding fleets had already taught him that even weaker opponents could make his forces bleed. Mechs were simply too small and easy to pick off. Shield link technology could make it a lot harder for the aliens to inflict serious casualties.
"I don't have to worry about this right away. I need to study and become proficient in all of the science that leads up to shield link technology before I can even think about applying it onto my own machines."
That was the troublesome part about first-class mech design. Unless Ves was able to obtain a suitable enlightenment fruit, the only way to get started on all of this powerful tech was to spend a lot of time on studying!
"This is why I need to cut back on my projects for the time being."
He decided to set aside the Elephant Project for the future. He also chose to postpone his work on an experimental transphasic field ECM mech that he had high hopes for. While it might help a lot in countering the phasewater tech employed by aliens, Ves was not sure whether he could turn this into a practical product in a reasonable timeframe.
This still left him with way too many projects that he could not easily dismiss.
The most crucial ones were the expert mech design projects.
The Dawn Star Project that revolved around upgrading his grandfather's Carmine mech was nonnegotiable. Ves had already made decent progress on it through his incarnations.
However, due to confidentiality as well as other reasons, he didn't have any collaborators who shared the burden of designing it, which meant that Ves still had a huge amount of work ahead of him if he wanted to deliver a proper high-tier expert mech.
Even his wife was limited by how much assistance she could provide by implementing her god body solution on the metallic components of the upgraded version of Venerable Benjamin's current machine.
Other than that, Ves needed to do all of the heavy lifting himself.
"Still, it will be worth it. This expert mech out of all of my other ones will encapsulate my design philosophy the most. Not even the Everchanger can compare to it due to the absence of the Carmine System!"
That caused him to contemplate whether he should offer to integrate his other Larkinson expert mechs with their own Carmine Systems when it was time to update their designs.
"There is no point in thinking about this now."
Ves at least needed to upgrade them into quasi-first-class mechs in the next five years, but he still had plenty of time to tackle these projects.
Aside from the Dawn Star Project, the Bloodripper Project and the Jupiter Project also demanded his attention.
Fortunately for him, his wife had taken charge of both expert mech design projects.
She had become especially attached to the Jupiter Project.
Designed for General Ark Larkinson, this was a genuine high-tier expert mech design whose scope easily matched or exceeded that of the Mars Project!
Ves did not have to worry too much about the progress of the Jupiter Project since his wife had obviously fallen in love with it. She was especially ecstatic about implementing all kinds of newer and more updated tech that they previously weren't able to incorporate in the initial version of Patriarch Reginald's machine.
That left a bunch of standard mech projects.
Although he was officially involved in the design of the Storm Sword Project, it belonged to Ketis for the most part. His only job was to make the mech alive and to connect it to Respa. That was the extent of his contribution. He was more than happy to leave the rest to Ketis and her other collaborators.
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