The Mech Touch

?Chapter 6474 HALM

Mech designers communicated best when they practiced their profession.

Although it was kind of weird for a cat and a human Master to talk about mech designs, the two were immediately able to get into sync with each other.

Part of it was because they already collaborated with each other in the past. Another part of it was that both of them had confirmed that their goals were at least partially aligned.

As mech designers who still stayed true to the original principles and values of their profession, there was no obvious discrepancy between the two. Their perspectives and knowledge base may differ substantially, but the beauty of designing mechs together was that their contributions were often additive.

Since Veronica was the lead designer of this new Carmine mech design project, she naturally took the lead by specifying the starting parameters of her proposal.

"I have been thinking about designing a very straightforward adaptation of the Yellow Jacket design, but I do not think it is suitable here." She said. "For one, the Yellow Jacket is optimized to counter alien strike craft and warships. They can still fight decently well enough against the mechs that the people of the Milky Way will most often fight against, but they are not too great at this job. I also think that it will be harder to convince all red humans to pilot a wasp mech. It is still better to stick to a humanoid mech."

The Cyborg Cat laid out her arguments while simultaneously using her claw to expertly sketch the outline of a humanoid mech in the projected interface.

Master Willix thoughtfully stared at the rudimentary draft design. There were many variations of humanoid mechs. The one sketched by Veronica was especially adapted for simplicity and ease of use.

"I see that you have chosen to design a modular or semi-modular mech." Veronica nodded. "I don't believe in one-size-fits-all approaches. The Milky Way is huge. Humans hailing from different states and star sectors can have vastly different preferences for mechs. One state may be crazy about swordsman mechs, and will prefer configurations that enhance flexibility and striking power. Another state may be filled with people who are avid marksmen. They prefer to pilot machines that are agile and very precise in their movements. Instead of trying to cater to all of them with a single design, its best to add sockets to our Carmine mechs so that the customer can decide what to choose."

This was not the first modular mech platform that she had designed in her career. She borrowed many lessons from the last iteration of the Bright Warrior design and readily applied them to her new project.

Naturally, Master Willix could clearly deduce from the sketches that Veronica knew what she was doing. There was no need for the older mech designer to hold a lecture on this subject.

In the interest of saving time and reducing the cost burden, Ves tried not to go overboard on the modularity. She intended to keep the head and torso consistent, but add modularity to the arms, legs, flight system and optional backpack elements.

This was the most basic way to design a modular mech, but it was a tried and tested formula that worked particularly well for low budget options.

Her design so far immediately told Master Willix that she wanted the base model to be fairly economical, but not as cheap as her Yellow Jacket design.

After all, original humanity was not as shabby as red humanity. The humans were the overlords of the Milky Way. They possessed abundant access to low to mid-grade exotics. Such materials were so widely available that it should be easy to churn out billions of Carmine mechs.

The economic and industrial development of human civilization in the Milky Way was also much higher.

The occupied star systems in the galactic heartland and the galactic center were so highly developed that there was hardly any room for cost-effective expansion anymore!

There were a huge amount of mech manufacturing complexes. Many of them should easily be able to retool their production lines to fabricate Carmine mechs at huge volumes.

There was only one hindrance, though.

"The Carmine System of a Carmine mech is largely organic or biomechanical in construction, correct?" Master Willix asked.

"That is right." Ves said. "This is another reason why I don't think the Yellow Jacket designs are suitable for this market. Back in the Red Ocean, the Red Association has the industrial capacity and the willingness to centralize the mass production of Biodomes that function as oversized organic cockpit systems. We cannot expect the MTA to do the same. We can only leave it up to the local production companies to grow the organic components of the Carmine Systems themselves. Their quality and performance may fluctuate, which can lead to danger or outright failure, but there is no other choice. I can only hope that the mech community will be able to figure out a solution that most parties can agree upon."

The Carmine System was almost just as sensitive as neural interfaces in this regard. Only trusted manufacturers should be allowed to produce them, but Ves had no way to enforce this rule.

In order to minimize the varishlar onerated by inconcictancies she tried to chrink

and minimize the footprint of the Carmine System of her new design as much as possible.

This was the exact opposite of what she attempted to do with the Yellow Jacket series. "You have made the most appropriate design choice." Master Willix opined. "Too many humans in the Milky Way have a strong rejection towards biotechnology outside the medical field. As long as the performance is not heavily impacted, shrinking the Carmine System will lead to less complications and less issues related to field repairs." The Cyborg Cat continued to sketch out her proposed vision for her Carmine mechs. She did not draw out a single machine. Instead, she showcased the modularity of the new design by depicting other possible variations.

In order to account for a wide variety of mech archetypes, combat doctrines and preferred fighting approaches, Veronica tried to settle for a middle ground whenever

possible.

This caused the modular Carmine mech to lean towards a balanced but rather

mediocre performance profile.

This meant that while her upcoming work could never excel in any area, it should not possess glaring weaknesses that should drag it down.

Neither Veronica nor Master Willix needed to point this out. They both understood

the implications.

The sketching continued for a while. The two only occasionally spoke as there was no

need to clarify the basics.

Once the Cyborg Cat had drawn the basic outlines and configurations for the

proposed MW Carmine mechs for all 3 tech levels, that was the point where she

allowed her passion to run free.

This was the point where Veronica intended to augment the basic foundation of her next Carmine mech design with her special sauce.

It was these unique additions that were supposed to define her next work, and not the

Carmine System!

As far as Veronica was concerned, the Carmine System should play the same role as a

neural interface.

Carmine Systems should be treated as part of a Carmine mech's basic foundation. What truly distinguished a machine was how it fought on the battlefield. Blood Pacts did not necessarily make any difference in this regard.

"Carmine mechs will be treated very differently in the Milky Way Galaxy." Veronica surmised. "In the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy, the Red Association is still able to exert strong control over the mech community. It is able to convince mech academies to

JJ.

RA is also able to enforce any instances of reckless piloting by Carmine mech pilots that vastly underestimated the training required to control their powerful machines. Here in the Milky Way, we cannot expect their counterparts from the Mech Trade Association to do the same."

This entire plan was clandestine and illegal to begin with. The Oblivion Plan also called for a Carmine mech that was specifically designed to spread turmoil, so the mechers should definitely not be happy to see this machine proliferate through the

galaxy!

"It will be difficult to arrange systematic training for new and aspiring Carmine mech pilots in the Milky Way." Master Willix agreed. "Too many civilians here have been isolated from the danger posed by mechs, so they will inevitably cause accidents as they inexpertly control their own Carmine mechs. The issue is time. It takes too much time for Carmine mech pilots to attain a level of competence that allows them to fight. effectively in actual battles."

Veronica's artificial eyes glowed as she grew more enthused. "That is why I want to massively reduce the need for 4 or 5 years of training and education on how to pilot a Carmine mech. I would never try to pull this off in the Red Ocean where I have to abide by all of the rules of the RA, but since we don't intend to make our new mech design conform to the many rules imposed by the MTA, I might as well take advantage of the situation and pursue an extreme in my design philosophy."

It was difficult to depict this intangible quality in the draft design, so Veronica settled

on writing annotations with her delicate foreclaw.

The Master Mech Designer quickly figured out what the Senior cat had in mind.

"You wish to enhance the autonomy of your Carmine mechs so that they can fight. more actively by themselves?"

"Yes!" Veronica grinned. "This is one of the special features of my MW Carmine mechs. I call them HALM: High Autonomy Living Mechs. They are preloaded with a basic but

solid set of piloting and fighting skills. They are also adaptable and learn really well. They can learn all of the relevant fighting skills from their Carmine mech pilots, and they can also learn from their own combat encounters. This may produce a circumstance where the Carmine mech is actually better at controlling its mech frame than its human pilot!"

This was a pretty radical and subversive proposal!

Master Willix clearly did not like it because it broke one of the central tenets of mech design, but she clearly understood the need for this design solution in this unique

context.

"If you are doing this for the purpose of quickly enhancing the combat effectiveness of Carmine mech controlled by undertrained and unqualified pilots, then this is an

eveneable decian choice" The older mach decimmer reluctantheaid "I fear the

consequences should too many of these HALM begin to grow into their power. What if these highly autonomous machines decide that there is no reason for them to be ordered around by humans?"

Veronica could only shrug at that. "I can't think or care so much. The two of us can implement numerous safeguards that should reduce this possibility from occurring or make it easier to shut them down if they go rogue. However, there is no other way to make these machines combat effective unless we convert them into outright Al-controlled battle bots."

That was unacceptable for obvious reasons. For better or worse, human mech pilots must still retain substantial control over their machines.

"If you wish to rely on the living Carmine mechs to execute maneuvers and launch

attacks against actual enemies, then you do not have to simplify their designs to this degree. Giving your machines greater freedom of movement can raise their ceiling on their combat effectiveness at the cost of making the learning curve steeper." The Master Mech Designer began to use her finger to draw small tweaks and

additions to the draft design.

All of her design choices were both thoughtful and elegant. Veronica just knew that

her new Carmine mechs would definitely be able to make more achievements on the battlefield due to these changes.

Master Willix even proposed to add extra limbs to the Carmine mech!

"Hm, I haven't thought about that." Veronica said. "This is the first time since the Devil Tiger that I am purposefully designing a living mech with much greater autonomy than the norm. It looks to me that we can exploit that in many ways."

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