Chapter 586
After Captain Orfan and Avid Serpent finished exchanging insults with each other, they both entered their assigned workshops along with their followers .
Sponsored Content
As soon as they entered, they commanded the massive mech-sized doors to shut . There was no reason to let their opponents gawk at their progress .
"Alright, what's up with you, Mr . Larkinson?" Captain Orfan asked . She hadn't missed his exchange with their rival mech designer .
"Well, this isn't going to be a walk in the park for me . " Ves answered as he started searching the man's biography on the galactic net . "I don't know where Avid Serpent has found him, but she picked a good mech designer at the Apprentice-level . The only way she could top her choice was if she accepted the help of a direct disciple of a Master Mech Designer . "
Such august figures shouldn't be mucking about in the Harkensen System . They had better things to do with their time than interact with the low-end mechs favored by mercenaries and pirates .
His brief search on Gabriel Creta turned up a lot of pages that confirmed his status . The man was a seasoned mech designer who ran a successful mech business that offered a complete line of mech models in its catalog .
In terms of business, Creta was far ahead of Ves . The man built up his company step-by-step, never ceasing to develop new mech models to round out his company's existing products .
"Is there anything I should know about this fellow?"
Ves thought about it . Though the man ran a larger business than him, the evaluation of his designs showed that his skills hadn't grown as fast . "Mr . Creta is older, but his Master hadn't taught him much . In that regard, we're on a similar level . His specialty is something that we have to be wary of . Though I'm not certain yet of his strengths, he will doubtlessly excel at working with melee mechs . In particular, he should be extremely good at maximizing the force application of his mechs . "
Captain Orfan scratched her head . "Can you translate that into normal words?"
"It basically means his mechs hit really hard and their movements will be really powerful . Both the arms and legs are going to be really strong by the time he is done with them . Force application entails more than that, but you don't need to know that . "
It would be a joke if a vaunted Master's specialty only resulted in stronger arms and legs . That was a massive oversimplification of what a supreme insight into force application could do for a mech designer .
Sponsored Content
Fortunately, Ves was fairly certain that Mr . Creta shouldn't have mastered the more abstruse uses of force application . That went well beyond the ability of an Apprentice Mech Designer . This was also why Ves didn't bother to elaborate the concept .
"So this is the mech we have to fix up?" Chief Haine asked as she stepped towards the spearman mech placed in the center of the workshop . "Man, it looks as if the Reinaldans fished it out of a junkyard . "
"That's because you're right . This is a rejected piece of scrap that the arena operators planned to recycle at a later date . "
Ves already studied the design of the spearman mech in detail . It was an old Reinaldan design called the INSF-8088-CS Pointed Sentinel .
Designed by Ophidian-Wheelax Industries, the mech was a typical low-cost design whose only purpose was to earn a quick buck . OWI was a small player in the Reinaldan mech market, and it had only reached the status of medium mech manufacturer after merging two smaller mech manufacturers .
The Pointed Sentinel was in fact a collaboration between the two joint lead designers of OWI . The pair somehow avoided most of the pitfalls of collaborate design work and managed to fuse both of their strengths into a single harmonious design . The Pointed Sentinel possessed little flaws and performed adequately at its price point of 40 million marks or around 20 million bright credits .
However, this description already hinted at its fatal flaw . While the design possessed various strengths and weaknesses, the former was very nuanced . Put in a different way, the design didn't excel in anything . It was a bog-standard spearman mech design with mediocre specs and nothing special to write home about .
Ves suspected that this may have been a result of two lead designers trying to push their own conflicting vision for the design . Of neither of them agreed to put one or the other in charge, both of them had to make constant compromises in order to finish the design .
The final result of the Pointed Sentinel showed that putting two mech designers in charge of the same design led to overly conservative design choices . It received a small amount of criticism that mentioned this shortcoming when the design first came out .
The only reason why the design hadn't received more criticism was because the Ophidian-Wheelax Industries was an obscure player in the mech market . Up to now, they never broke through their shackles and experienced any growth . This already showcased their overall level of competence .
Sponsored Content
To be honest, Ves didn't really put the Pointed Sentinel in his eyes . Compared to the mech designs he worked with before such as the Inheritor, Hellcat and Akkara designs, the Pointed Sentinel was a throwback to his earlier career . It lacked the complexity and optimization of more successful mech models .
Ves briefly explained all of this to Captain Orfan . "To be honest, the Pointed Sentinel can't keep up with your level of skill . You'll constantly be fighting for control and push your machine past its limits . Compared to the mech you're used to piloting, the Pointed Sentinel's speed, flexibility and reaction time are only half as good . "
"So it's literally a piece of junk . "
"It . . has its limitations . " He conceded . "The only upside is that Avid Serpent's axeman mech falls into the same category as well . They are both meant to be affordable mechs that is supposed to deliver a good price-to-performance ratio . In that, they succeeded, in a sense . It's a decent mech to buy when you only have 40 million credits to spend when it first came out . "
Both designs have depreciated over the years, though . Though they were both currentgen mechs, thousands of designs have popped up that directly competed against them in the same market segment .
A mech design that failed to make a splash and quickly fell into obscurity obviously lacked a redeeming quality . They were too generic and too mediocre . A decent price-to-performance ratio wasn't enough to stand out in the market . It needed an advantage that was memorable in order to stand the test of time .
From the start, Ves had always designed his production models with an eye towards long-term appeal . No mech was perfect . While it was true that mech designers inevitably had to make compromises with their design choices, that only applied to situations where their means couldn't catch up to their vision .
For example, wanting to design a mech clad with compressed armor, but lacking an alloy compressor . In such a situation, a mech designer could only take a step back and design a mech with cheaper armor .
What the lead designers of OWI had done was to make too many compromises with the design of the Pointed Sentinel . Defaulting to the safest design choices all the time led to a safe but timid design that never attempted to challenge the competition .
No wonder this design failed from the start . From what Ves had gathered from the galactic net, the Pointed Sentinel barely sold at full price . OWI had to issue regular discounts and conclude various unfavorable deals in order to prevent their mechs from collecting dust in their inventories .
"I've piloted many crappy mechs in my career . " Captain Orfan said . "It's a long time ago since I last stepped into a cockpit of a mech as worthless as this . I'll have to shake off some of my rust . There's a simulator pod around here, right?"
Sponsored Content
"Ves jerked at the pod shoved to the side of the workshop . "It's over there . However, I don't suggest you grow too familiar with the Pointed Sentinel's level of performance . Even as we are going to repair your dueling mech, we'll also going to apply a whole host of upgrades . "
"How big of an upgrade are we talking about?"
"It depends, captain . I'll have to look at the materials the arena organizers are willing to part with to be sure . However, my most conservative estimate is that I can likely boost your Pointed Sentinel's performance by fifteen percent . "
Captain Orfan whistled at that figure . "Fifteen percent? That's a lot!"
"It's mainly because the Pointed Sentinel is an old and suboptimal design . Though I don't have enough time to remedy every issue, elevating its overall performance by fifteen percent while plugging most of the gaps shouldn't be too much of an issue . "
"Good luck, then!"
The mech captain turned out to be an impatient client . Ever since she laid her eyes on the simulator, she never wavered her gaze . She quickly brushed Ves off before he could list a couple of possible upgrade priorities and hopped into the simulator pod .
Ves sighed . "Can you at least answer my questions?"
"Don't worry about it, Ves . " Chief Haine stepped closer to him . "I'm familiar with Captain Orfan's preferences . I know what she wants in a mech . "
"Thank you . Can you briefly tell me about her piloting style?"
Haine put a finger on her lips . "I don't know how to describe it . For someone like Captain Orfan, her piloting style is a little chaotic . "
"How so?"
"Sometimes, I wonder whether she knows what she is doing . The captain isn't incapable foresight . She can plan and write out reports as well as any other mech captain . It's just that when she's on the battlefield, she directly throws out half of her burdens from her brains . Her intelligence basically halves when she fights . "
Ves frowned at that . Even if Chief Haine exaggerated her depiction of the mech captain, his personal experiences with the captain didn't allow him to disregard this description entirely .
"How did she ever get promoted to a mech captain then?"
The chief technician shrugged . "That's the Flagrant Vandals for you . We can't be too picky on who we decide to promote . I think that in the past, the brass wanted to promote champions who could fight well to serve as anchors for the mech companies under our command . Captain Orfan may be lacking in some manners, but she's truly one of our better landbound mech pilot . That alone deserves some respect . "
Ves inwardly rolled his eyes . "Respect . Yes . Anyway, you haven't described her piloting style in detail . Can you give me something to work with? I need concrete descriptions . "
"The captain is capable of being patient when she's on the hunt . Once she finds an opponent her subordinates can't easily solve, she explodes into action . She loves to pressure her opponents with high-intensity combat . Very aggressive, but also very much in control despite lacking much forethought . She's the kind of mech pilot that relies on her instincts rather than her mind to see her through a battle . "
"So she's a wild beast in battle, then . " Ves palmed his face . "These kind of mech pilots are some of the worst to work with as a mech designer or a mech technician . "
Ves had seen many of these kinds of mech pilots among the Vandals and Walter's Whalers . They usually didn't survive long enough to make it to the rank of captain, so it was very surprising for Rosa Orfan to succeed where many others have failed .
Mech pilots like Orfan exhibited strong battle instincts . This was an advantage in terms of high-speed combat where quick thinking could never catch up to pure instinct . However, the downside to relying on instincts was that the mech pilot never paid much attention to the status of their mechs . They outright ignored most of the information displayed in the control panels such as how much heat their mechs built up or how fast they depleted their energy cells .
Basically, they turned out to be some of the most abusive pilots to their own mechs .