The Mech Touch

During the time William Urbesh underwent examinations, Ves and Gloriana turned their attention to other matters.

The day after the experiment, they returned to the design lab in order to design a custom revision of the Aurora Titan.

The variants developed by the two design teams gave Ves a lot of ideas and decent solutions.

Naturally, neither Ves nor Gloriana intended to borrow from them wholesale. The quality of the revision would only drop if they blindly took over the work of Novices and Apprentices.

When the pair settled down in a private design office, they began to plan out their own changes.

"This revision is not meant to renew the Aurora Titan line." Ves explained. "Instead, it's solely meant to upgrade a single copy, the one that my cousin Jannzi Larkinson has adopted."

"Does that mean you intend to fabricate a brand new Aurora Titan?"

Ves shook his head. "No. Jannzi cares a lot about her unique mech and developed a very strong bond with the machine. It's vitally important for her progression that she can maintain her bond with the Shield Of Samar. We can do so by ensuring sufficient continuity between the old version of this mech and the new version of the mech. She has to pilot the 'same' mech, essentially."

Not only did the Shield of Samar accrue some history and forge a bond with its mech pilot, it also carried the Ardent Wish!

Both of them were priceless qualities which couldn't be replaced!

Though Ves set a simple-sounding condition, Gloriana immediately recognized a problem.

"Modifying an existing mech inherently changes its properties. How many alterations can we get away with before the Shield of Samar is no longer the 'same' mech?"

"That's a good question."

He became stumped by this question.

How much could he change while still making sure the Shield of Samar still retained its identity as an Aurora Titan mech?

Ves knew from various modifications done to his mechs that they possessed a decent amount of tolerance towards these kinds of changes.

For example, the LMC was aware that some mech designer once swapped out many of the parts of the Blackbeak and converted it into a rifleman mech.

These changes, though drastic, still retained at least some portion of its X-Factor, thereby retaining its connection to the Black Phoenix, the Blackbeak's long-standing design spirit!

Maintaining the design spirit's connection with the mech was an essential requirement. Without its bond with Qilanxo, the Shield of Samar would never be able to work so well with Jannzi!

This clued Ves into the answer of this complicated question.

"The heart and essence of the Aurora Titan model has to be retained." He guessed. "What I mean by that is that the character, vision and concept should remain the same. If you think about it, an Aurora Titan is still an Aurora Titan if you strip out its armor system and replace it with something with similar or better properties. However, it's an entirely different story if you replace it with an uncompressed armor system that is vastly inferior."

"The former change retains or improves the defensive character of the Aurora Titan, while the latter change removes that to a large extent." Gloriana followed his logic.

"Correct. As the lead designer of the LMC, I've observed many different files on LMC mechs that have been modified by their owners over the course of their uses. The amount of Desolate Soldiers that have been modified far beyond their factory configuration and specs probably amount to more than 100.000 units!"

This was an incredible amount of modified mechs, enough for the LMC to harvest a huge amount of data and study it through countless angles.

One of the results of these studies was that an LMC mech had a range of tolerance towards modification and alteration. Smaller changes didn't affect its intrinsic character at all, but once they grew more significant, the glows of the mechs started to decrease.

This detrimental change reflected the increasingly smaller relation with the altered mechs and its original design spirit.

Once a mech changed beyond recognition, it no longer bore any direct relation to its original model! It had transformed into an entirely different mech that belonged to its own unique model!

After Ves summarized these observations to Gloriana, his girlfriend slowly nodded in understanding.

"I get it. To put it simply, the upgraded Shield of Samar has to be able to do what the old version of the mech can do. It doesn't matter if its performance drops a little bit! As long as its performance isn't absolutely terrible in an important aspect, it will still retain its original character! However..."

"However…?"

"Some variants are drastically different from the base model, but they're still part of the same product line. Take the Peaceful Soldier for example. It's designed to operate on land as opposed to the Desolate Soldier which is mainly a spaceborn mech. Are they still related to each other?"

"They are." Ves definitely said. "I think this is because of my specialty that I'm able to stretch the Desolate Soldier's identity to this extent in the Peaceful Soldier. If you or any other mech designer developed a variant like the Peaceful Soldier on your own, you would definitely damage its spiritual foundation!"

Though this sounded like a very pedantic issue, in truth it was extremely important for Ves and Gloriana to set these matters straight. Even though they hadn't managed to come up with a solid answer, they at least knew what to watch out for. If they proceeded to modify the Aurora Titan design without becoming aware of the potential pitfalls, then they might ruin the Shield of Samar as a result!

Fortunately, Ves possessed more than enough confidence in his ability and restraint.

"Let's look at the two variants." He gestured towards the projected works of the two design teams.

"The first variant developed by the Tovar Design Team opted to broaden the Aurora Titan's scope, while the second variant designed by the Ylvaine Design Team went for the opposite approach."

"The first design team didn't bother asking what Jannzi wanted to see in an upgraded version of her mech." She noted. "It's a pity. Their work is quite comprehensive. Their variant has actually succeeded in adding landbound capabilities to the Aurora Titan."

"It wouldn't be the Aurora Titan as we know it, though." Ves spoke. "Such a drastic change alters the fundamental character of the Aurora Titan. While I can still work with that, it's not something Jannzi particularly desires. She should be focusing her utmost on breaking through to expert pilot, and that means she needs to push herself and her mech to the limits and beyond."

This meant that the mech had to complement Jannzi existing strengths and priorities. The second variant was much more in line with her intentions.

Ves didn't make the mistake the first design team made. He already approached Jannzi in private and recorded her preferences.

Overall, Jannzi didn't have a very large wish list. The single most demand she posed was that the defense of the Shield of Samar should be as high as possible!

As long as the Shield of Samar could take an enormous beating, Jannzi would have nothing to complain about! It didn't matter if the mech was still garbage in terms on offense and mobility. To her, the entire point of the Aurora Titan model was to provide absolute defense!

"The second variant is therefore much more in line with Jannzi's demands." Gloriana concluded. She amplified the projection and studied its internal structure in greater detail. "It's a decent starting point, all considered."

"Don't discount the first variant. It contains some adaptations that are also helpful, especially when it comes to the supplemental components."

Both variants improved upon the base model by replacing some of the stock lastgen components with new generation equivalents released within the last half year.

Updating outdated components with newer versions was one of the simplest and most straightforward ways of improving a mech design.

Naturally, both Ves and Gloriana did not want to miss out on this advantage. However, there was more to an upgrade than just putting in better parts.

"It's been years since you've designed the original Aurora Titan with Professor Ventag." Gloriana noted.

"True. I've improved since then, but that doesn't mean the base model is flawed. Collaborating with a Senior has done much to improve its overall quality. There aren't many design choices I need to revisit even if I'm older and better now. The only opportunities to introduce meaningful changes will come when we replace the original components with newer ones."

After forming a general direction, they drafted some suggested changes in their own revision. They referenced the two variants and browsed the MTA's enormous library of component licenses for interesting goodies.

It didn't take long for them to form a draft that bore some resemblance to the second variant.

Just like the second design team, the pair opted to deepen the core strengths of the Aurora Titan model.

Of course, their version had much more promise. Not only did Ves and Gloriana expect to make significant improvements to the integrity of the mech, they also made much better use out of the armor system based on Breyer alloy.

In fact, now that Gloriana started working on the Aurora Titan, she wanted to make even more changes!

Ves blocked her from doing so, though. "I know you can't resist the urge to implement some fixes, but we don't have the time to need to go that far. This is supposed to be a minor revision, not a major revision. I'll let you have free reign when it's time for me to design the Aurora Titan Mark II."

Though Gloriana looked disappointed, she gave in to his demand. "Fine. I expect to make my mark on the next iteration of this line. Professor Ventag may have made a lot of contributions to the original design, but he's no longer necessary now that you have me! Unlike him, I can help you upgrade its class so that it can fully participate in battles between second-class mechs!"

She was right in that, though Ves felt there was more than a bit of selfishness in her request. The Aurora Titan, despite its impractical nature and its modest success, was one of his favorite mech designs. He considered it a step above the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord mainly because it was his first design with an A-graded X-Factor!

Due to all of the sentiment he formed for this mech design, Ves planned and drafted the upgraded version of the Shield of Samar with a lot more care and affection than normal.

Both Qilano and Jannzi Larkinson's fortunes were tied to this design! Ves had a responsibility to do right by them and make Jannzi's personal mech as fitting as possible given the limitations at play.

Soon enough, the pair finished their draft and settled all of the significant design choices. Compared to the base model, the upgraded variant possessed so much defense that it performed no worse than the Paravin in this aspect!

Did Jannzi need this much defense? Probably not. It made the upgraded mech very awesome though, and it fully conformed to the Aurora Titan's character!

As a super-medium space knight, the mech vastly overperformed in all of the specs that mattered in terms of defense! Not a single third-class mech could match its ridiculous ability to resist damage!

Of course, this did not come without a cost. Aside from all of the new generation licenses the LMC had to pay out of its cash reserves, Ves also had to supply at least a container's worth of Breyer alloy!

How fast could his 'production loop' spit out the necessary amount of Breyer alloy?

This might take some time, especially since the Shield of Samar took its defensive role to an even greater extreme!

"Well, let's design this as fast as possible so we can move on to our next project." He said.

He really wanted to start the Larkinson mech design project as quickly as possible!