The Mech Touch

Chapter 6503 Simplified Objectives

Ves paused for a time. He mulled over Gloriana's response and found that she had raised a good point.

He was already stretching his capabilities by setting a goal of designing a training mech and combat mech in a single package.

Since he had made such a difficult demand right at the start, the last thing he should do was to add another major complication.

High modularity was a demand that always added a huge amount of complexity to a mech design. The overall performance of the entire package dropped the more a mech designer wanted to branch out and add new possibilities.

Trying to tack on this burden to a Carmine mech design that was already troublesome to design was indeed pure hubris as Gloriana described.

The proposal she made therefore sounded quite reasonable. Ves did not like it that her suggestion massively reduced the scope and usability of the resulting end product, but his wife presented additional arguments to back up her position.

"Ves." She said as she turned around and pinned him with a judgmental stare. "You are trying to do too much at once. Carmine mechs are new, so no one is demanding you to cater to everyone's needs right at the start. Learn how to walk before you learn how to run. It is much more sensible for you to incrementally expand the lineup of Carmine mechs with basic and familiar options over time. Cover the basic mech archetypes first. according to the needs of the customers as well as our society. Considering that there are many people who aspire to become 'part-time Carmine mech pilots' such as Aurelia, it is best to satisfy their needs first. For these civilians who are not expected to devote all of their time to polishing and perfecting their piloting skills, you need to give them a machine that they can easily learn and master."

The two started to form the same brain wave. Now that Gloriana espoused her own thinking on the subject, Ves easily picked up the arguments that she had not yet voiced. "Of course!" He almost jumped to his feet! "You are right that I shouldn't aim so high at the start. Right now, a lot of civilians want to pilot a Carmine mech, but are unwilling to commit the life of a full-time soldier. It may be better to train them as reserves that can form a planetary militia if the planet they are on is under attack by the native aliens. Given the needs of the Red War, we don't need to provide an abundant supply of Carmine mechs that cover every mech archetype such as light skirmishers or heavy artillery mechs. It is best to keep it simple. Rifleman mechs are an ideal choice for a Carmine mech meant for reserve duty."

"It is the sort of Carmine mech that I would want my firstborn daughter to pilot." Gloriana nodded in agreement. "Piloting melee mechs is more demanding to civilians who lack the mindset of a warrior. I am not concerned about letting Andraste pilot a swordsman mech because she is skilled with swords and possesses a fighter's mindset.

Aurelia is lacking in this aspect despite being older. Even if we arrange her to practice her swordsmanship, being able to execute sword techniques in a training ground is one thing, trying to utilize them in combat against other mechs or deadly alien opponents is another thing! It is far too easy for inadequately trained and insufficiently tempered mech pilots to make mistakes or lose their courage far too easily. They will break too soon and cause a rout that can quickly go out of control."

As a mech designer who had fought enemies up close in a number of battles, Ves understood quite well how fearsome it was to confront opponents at point-blank range.

While it was important to possess good fighting skills, mentality also played an outsized

role.

The braver the mech pilot, the greater the probability of overpowering an adversary and winning the bout.

Mech pilots needed to suppress their instinctive fear of putting themselves in a lot of harm by putting their machines in front of dangerous enemies.

They needed to keep enough of their cool to maintain a bit of situational awareness and prevent themselves from getting ambushed from another direction.

If necessary, melee mech pilots might be asked to charge straight at a formidable enemy warship that was bristling with gun turrets that could swat them down in a flood of unrelenting firepower!

Not just anyone could fulfill these risky missions. This was not an age where peasants could be conscripted into shabby armies and be sent to the frontlines so that they could die in droves.

In contrast, ranged mech pilots had it much easier. Even though they also had to bear risks whenever they entered the battlefield, they usually weren't the priority targets. Rifleman mech units usually maintained a healthy distance from the enemy. It was much easier for them to maintain their situational awareness, and their ranged armaments also allowed them to make moderately effective contributions without letting them get too close to the enemy.

By maintaining their distance from the enemy at all times, it was also much easier for rifleman mechs to disengage from the battlefield and retreat in good order. This should be an incredibly attractive condition to many part-time mech pilots who lacked the courage to persist in the battlefield.

Ves rubbed his hairless chin in thought. "As far as most people are concerned, it is considerably easier to train their marksmanship as opposed to swordsmanship. Many civilians already undergo basic training in the operation of firearms as they are useful for self-defense purposes. It will be difficult for them to master more advanced operations such as firing while performing dynamic maneuvers or landing consistent hits at longer ranges, but it is not necessary to master these skills in order to turn these part-time Carmine mech pilots combat effective. If we truly need to rely on a large amount of conscripts to help win our battles, it is not possible for them to perform advanced or

dangerous maneuvers."

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that the decision to design a premium Carmine mech that focused solely on mid-range ranged combat was the best choice he could make at this junction in time.

Even though the limitation of sticking to a rifleman mech archetype denied a lot of potential customers the satisfaction of piloting the machines of their choice, Ves could not satisfy everyone all at once.

It was better to do one job well than many jobs poorly.

As Ves began to visualize how such a Carmine mech would look like, he roughly imagined a rifleman mech made of premium materials and enough adaptability to accommodate a moderate range of Carmine mech pilots.

Once a Carmine mech cadet had graduated from the mech academy or a qualified training program, he should be able to convert his 'training mech' into one of several standard configurations of rifleman mechs, and many more unofficial conversion options created by third-party mech designers!

"By forgoing melee options first, you can be assured that you can design a good rifleman Carmine mech" Gloriana commented. "It is a luxury to service every comprehensive need during the early stages of your Carmine revolution. Focusing on rifleman mechs will most likely satisfy the immediate demands of at least half of your potential customer base. It is not that the other mech archetypes are unimportant, but their priority is not as high, so you can take care of them later. In fact, it is better to delegate the design of a Carmine space knight and a Carmine light skirmisher to other design teams or even other mech companies. You only need to provide the base templates, which should at least come in the form of a basic ranged option and a basic melee option."

"I see. You make another good point. I do feel bothered with the lack of time. I still want to design conventional mechs as well. There are many ideas that are simply not suited to be turned into Carmine mechs. I should develop a couple of good templates that other mech designers can adopt and alter to suit their own specializations."

He understood where Gloriana was going. It was impossible for Ves to devote so much time and attention to designing the Carmine version of a spearman mech or whatever. As long as he and his design team already released a swordsman Carmine mech or whatever, a third-party mech designer could easily design a variant that was optimized for wielding spears or axes.

What mattered now was that Ves set the standards by developing those two initial

Carmine mech designs.

His wife made another remark.

"By the way, Ves, the terminology you have used is inconsistent. You mention 'rifleman Carmine mechs' in one instance, and 'Carmine light skirmisher' in another instance. If you want to be consistent, you should have referred to the latter as a 'light skirmisher Carmine mech; but this is awkward to use in practice as we normally do not attach the word 'mech' after 'light skirmisher'. Whatever the case, I suggest you simply place the word 'Carmine' in front of the mech archetype in order to remain consistent. So instead of using the phrase 'rifleman Carmine mech, it is much more convenient for everyone if you use the phrase 'Carmine rifleman mech'. The latter also rolls much easier off the

tongue."

Ves scratched his head for a moment. "You are right. To be honest, I never thought so much ahead that I would bump into this issue. Anyway, I agree that I should stick to designing two basic Carmine mechs that can serve as templates for many different Carmine versions of other mech archetypes."

"You should consider who you should put in charge of those projects." Gloriana said. "You

may be able to do it, but your workload is already heavy. It is better to put your trust in your colleagues and let them take the initiative, My Design Department isn't as small and haphazardly organized as it was in the past. We have hired many competent Journeyman Mech Designers, and while not all of them can adequately design first-class mechs that can meet the demand of first-raters, we can compensate for this by adding one or two first-class mech designers to the design team."

"Since you raised this subject, I suppose you already have a number of candidates in mind." Ves made a guess.

Gloriana impishly grinned. "That is correct. For the Carmine training and combat rifleman mech combination, I would like to put Harry Kaikkonen in charge. He is the most competent ranged weapon specialist in the Design Department. So far, he did not receive too many opportunities to stand out, but I believe he is competent enough to

lead this project."

"Are you confident enough in his work to let Aurelia pilot a Carmine rifleman mech of his

design?"

"Yes. As long as he has not made any major errors, I have no problem with this decision" Gloriana said. "Not that we will allow our precious daughter to remain bonded to a mass production model. Both of us must upgrade and customize her machine so that it best reflects her strengths and adequately compensates for her weaknesses. In fact, our daughter should not be the only person to receive this treatment. I am interested in designing a custom Carmine rifleman mech for myself."

"Wait. You... want to become a Carmine mech pilot?"

Ves became stunned at her revelation. He never seriously thought that his wife, who couldn't even hurt a fly, actually wanted to pilot a Carmine mech herself!

As far as he knew, Gloriana had always thought that fighting in the mud was beneath a

woman of her station.

"Do not form any misunderstandings. His wife narrowed her eyes. "I am purely interested in piloting a Carmine mech for two reasons. First, I want to be able to defend

myself as a last resort. Our clan has a penchant for getting embroiled in conflicts, and I

am tired of lacking any sort of agency in any dangerous situations. Second, I am a mech designer. If I want to comprehend the authentic piloting experience as closely as possible, I will have to experience it first-hand. The Carmine System may not be completely identical to the neural interface, but there should be enough similarities to derive a large amount of useful lessons. You should design a Carmine mech for yourself

as well."

"I already thought about it. My idea for my own Carmine mech is not that simple, though. I will probably design it at a later date because I need it to work with my phase

lord physique..."