[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 430: Mech Lineup

This was extremely hard to accomplish on a light mech which needed to devote a substantial amount of internal volume to its flight system.

"How much progress have you accomplished in decreasing the size of the Inheritor's flight system?" Velten asked from the side.

"We accomplished a little bit more in that area. The Mech Corps recently released new formulas for alloys and composite materials. I've selected the formulas that are most compatible to the Inheritor's flight system and tried to simulate what would happen if we substitute the old formulas with the new ones. Most outcomes didn't come out in our favor, but I've tasked my team to tweak the design in order to provide a better fit for the new formulas. These results look more promising, as you can see on this projection."

Ves paid a lot of attention on this particular topic. He lacked first-hand experience in working with actual flight systems. Working with outdated flight systems for virtual mechs didn't count in his eyes.

He noticed that every other mech designer paid a lot of attention as well. In a way, this was a valuable opportunity for the Apprentices to listen in to the insights of a Journeyman Mech Designer.

As Ves learned more about the development process of the Inheritor, he found out that the current state of the Inheritor was in a very good place. Its relative lack of complexity made it easier to tweak some of its elements without throwing everything else into chaos.

Of course, the mech designers faced many limitations as well. They weren't allowed to exceed the Inheritor's mass and volume, no matter how much of an improvement they achieved. This truly frustrated the designers who worked on the Inheritor because they accumulated a list of over a hundred easy changes they could implement if only the Vandals relaxed the restrictions.

"To sum up my report, I truly believe it will benefit the Vandals if we can convince Colonel Lowenfield to agree to a two-point-five percent increase in mass and three-point-seven percent increase in volume for the Inheritor design. There are so many new innovations just waiting to be implemented."

Professor Velten nodded gently. "I will take your words under advisement in my next meeting with the colonel."

In other words, nothing would change and the status quo persisted. The Journeyman must have realized it as well and looked deflated as he returned to his seat.

Another Journeyman went up to report on the work done on the Akkara line of heavy landbound mechs.

The 6th Flagrant Vandals predominantly used Vesian mechs, which was very unusual for a mech regiment of the Republic. They didn't buy these mechs from the market and neither did they fabricate them in-house.

Instead, they stole the brand-new machines by raiding mech manufacturers or scavenged damaged ones from battles. The Vandals had become so adept at sourcing mechs in this manner that they stopped ordering mechs from the Mech Corps entirely.

There was only one downside. They couldn't get their hands on any heavy mechs.

Only a proper military force fielded heavy mechs. To the Vandals, they could only obtain Vesian heavy mechs by raiding military bases or attack proper Vesian mech regiments.

The Vandals would be crazy to do so. The losses they'd sustain in any single assault wouldn't make up for the acquisition of a couple of heavy mechs.

So, as burdensome as it sounded, the Vandals had to continue to develop their own heavy mech design.

"We've finally solved the air intake issue for cycling the heat build-up. It turns out that the filters we placed to protect the mechanisms aren't coping too well when it comes to moisture in the air."