The Mech Touch novel Chapter 6870

Chapter 6870 Dragon Queen’s Art

The Red Association needed a bit of time to produce and ship the Dracoloids, the Omega Threshers and the E-MULES ordered by the Premier Branch.

However, the mechers still had a few dozen copies of each model on hand within the Bluejay Fleet and other nearby RA strongholds.

The Saint Commander easily managed to persuade the mechers to transfer those readily available copies to the Larkinson Clan.

It didn't really matter to her whether they were 'used' products.

She believed it was more important to familiarize the mech pilots in the Premier Branch with the new stopgap models as quickly as possible.

Ves supported her decision, though he mostly wanted to get his hands on the first-class multipurpose mechs himself. He had already read their spec sheets many times and studied their design schematics in detail.

He became fascinated with the foreign high-end design principles and the intricate integration of shield link and energy link modules in the mech designs.

Support link technology originally introduced by the Web Mistress was one of the biggest game changers that set the mechs and warships of the RA and RF apart from other human powers.

Their continued ability to maintain this monopoly was one of the main reasons why they managed to stay on top of human civilization.

Now, the mechers and the fleeters had begun to loosen up on this restriction out of desperation more than anything else.

As long as the native aliens continued to take over more human territories, the old hegemons cared less about protecting their own monopolies.

Ves actually felt a little bad about taking advantage of the tragedies unfolding across the more vulnerable parts of human space. The Larkinson Clan's adoption of shield link technology and energy link technology indirectly came at the cost of a huge amount of red human lives.

"So these are our new mechs." He said as he looked up at the three machines that had been delivered to Diandi Base.

"That is correct." Casella Ingvar nodded. "I will be piloting all three models over the course of the day in order to completely familiarize myself with their strengths and weaknesses."

"Now that we can observe the first-class mechs with our own eyes, they appear so much more powerful." Gloriana said with genuine appreciation in her voice. "The mechers have all designed them to a higher standard that we have ever applied to ourselves. Their mech designers have mastered their skills to a higher level and they also have much greater processing power at their disposal. The degree of optimization of these machines are sublime. Production with materializers may cause these copies to be deficient in terms of life and craftsmanship, but they are so uniform in their technical perfection that it is a dream to observe them at this distance."

The Association lived and breathed mechs. It would be stupid if the mechers failed to maintain their superiority in this industry.

While mech designers like Ves developed innovative design applications that not even the mechers could replicate, the latter not only had access to far more trade secrets, but also mastered them to a much greater degree!

This caused the mechs designed by the RA to convey a completely different feel. The three first-class mechs dripped with refinement and professionalism. The mechers certainly knew how to convey the impression of superiority without making it too explicit.

It was enough to shame mech designers such as Ves and Gloriana. They had tried so hard to push their own products to the top of the industry, yet they were still far away from reaching the impossibly high standards attained by the RA over many years.

"Let's take a closer look, shall we?" Ves proposed as he already began to move forward. "I have been looking forward to examining the Dracoloid. This first-class mech speaks to me in a way the others don't. Ever since I first examined this mech model in detail, I had a notion that the Dragon Queen has a few things in common with me. Both of us don't pay too much attention to the prevailing status quo and like to push our own interpretation of mechs."

Gloriana hummed as she floated off the air and approached the iconic dragon head of the Dracoloid mech. "Hm, I can see that. Her love for dragons is clearly impressed in the detailed artistry and design of this head. It is far more than a mechanism for biting enemies and swallowing up any loose transphasic alloys. This level of detail goes far beyond function. The more you look at it, the more you become taken in by the horror and the might of what appears to be a real dragon. There is even a whole layer of redundant articulation here that can make the eyes and parts of the jaw more menacing than normal."

None of it was strictly essential from a functional standpoint, but these additions made the Dracoloid appear so much more alive and organic.

The Dragon Queen had clearly applied this level of articulation onto many mechs. Her methods were not only highly refined, but also incredibly efficient. She only needed to install a few minor mechanisms to massively make the dragon head more vivid.

This was probably the female Master Mech Designer's way of making her work alive from her perspective.

The only real dragon mechs were ones that convincingly sold the illusion that they were actual fire-breathing reptilian menaces.

That design principle resonated with Ves. Even though he had never met her or talked to her in person, he already felt as if he was already receiving a lecture from the Master Mech Designer with her product as a medium.

This was a level of communication that people outside of the mech designer profession could never comprehend.

Ves lovingly rubbed the smooth exterior of the Dracoloid's armor plating. Even if the mech was not alive according to his own paradigms, he could still feel how much care and attention the Dragon Queen put into its design.

When Ves finally began to examine the more functional parts of the mech, he noted that the integration of shield link technology imposed a heavy burden onto the mech design.

The Dracoloid was rather small and slender compared to other multipurpose mechs, so the shield link array and essential supporting systems took up a lot of capacity.

This was why the mech relied so much on its compact short-barreled gauss guns for sustained damage. Although they all consumed energy in order to launch their projectiles at a fairly high rate of fire, they did not expend as much energy as pure energy weapons.

That meant that the kinetic weapons imposed a relatively lower burden onto the energy reserves of the Dracoloid.

He could attempt to replicate the unique augmented flamethrower weapon, or he could replace it with another weapon system that synergized better with Casella's Command FIeld.

"Not good enough." Ves shook his head in disappointment.

Trying to design an alternative to the Dracoloid for the sole purpose of putting his own spin on the concept was not a good enough justification.

The Premier Fleet would not gain all that much if his alternate design did not perform any better than the original Dracoloid model.

Sure, the fact that his mech enjoyed all of the advantages of a seventh generation living mech may make it more attractive to his clan, but he would also be trading away the strong advantages of the highly developed design philosophies incorporated into the Dracoloid design.

Maintaining parity was probably the best case scenario.

If he wanted to develop a true replacement for the Dracoloid, then Ves needed to take a step further and come up with truly powerful design applications.

Innovation was key. It was the best way to break parity and develop a truly superior product.

Ves could either wait for enough time to pass for new technologies to become available, or he could invest his time in R&D and hope that he developed a new innovation by himself.

The former sounded like a lazy way to outcompete the Dragon Queen. He would essentially be taking advantage of her inattentiveness to develop a superior product.

He wanted to do better than that. The more he desired to design his own version of the Dracoloid concept, the closer he came to receiving inspiration that could drive him into action.

He did not try his best to grasp this ephemeral feeling.

He hesitated.

It was too premature for him to think about designing a first-class multipurpose mech that could replace the Dracoloid model.

The Premier Fleet first needed to make use of it before learning what worked and did not work in practice.

Only then could Ves design a new mech that addressed the unmet demands of his troops.