The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

With the sheer amount of choices available, Ves and the rest had to think very carefully on how to configure their personal Estrella Klavier-class vessel.

Capital ships generally weren't built to land on planets. It took too much effort to prevent the starship from crashing and it took even more effort to lift the vessel into orbit.

While it wasn't impossible by any stretch of the imagination, it was mostly a waste of space to add such a capability to such a heavy ship.

If Ves wanted to bring something down, it was much more efficient to rely on smaller ships.

For this reason, the Estrella Klavier-class factory ship did not feature any wings or other extraneous elements. Perhaps the only annoying part about the shape of her hull was that she was shaped like a somewhat stubby hexagonal-sided rod.

If viewed from the front or back, the factory ship was shaped exactly like a hexagon!

To be fair, the Estrella Klavier-class was hardly the only one who incorporated this arbitrary design choice. Many other long and narrow Hexer ships adopted the same shape.

Changing the shape was out of the question. Almost everything about the interior had been built around her specific dimensions. Ves would have to redesign the entire ship class from scratch if he wanted to adopt a more rounded shape!

"From a defensive angle, a Estrella Klavier-class starship is excellent when enemies approach from the front or rear. However, as soon as she shows her entire broadside to an enemy formation, she'll take an awful pounding due to all of the hull plating that is facing them at a perpendicular angle." Ophelia Kronon noted with a frown.

"The same principle applies to mechs." Gloriana nodded in understanding. "Though it's not always possible, its best to always incorporate oblique angles in a design."

A projectile hitting a 1 meter plate of armor at a straight angle only had to pierce through 1 meter of solid alloy.

A projectile hitting the same plate at a 60 degree angle effectively has to chew through 2 meters of solid alloy!

Of course, this was a gross simplification of what actually occurred in battle. Different weapon types interacted with armor in different ways. It was also extremely rare that a defender was able to present the best possible sloping armor towards an enemy, especially the attacks came from multiple angles!

While the downside of having six flat sides was big, featuring a more rounded cigar-like hull shape also had its downsides.

Commodore Abigail Evern shrugged. "The hexagon is a sacred geometric shape. It is superior to the circle. It represents order and the six phases of existence at its best!"

Ves directed an exasperated glance towards Gloriana and Calabast. Both of them looked apologetic.

"That is a legitimate argument in the Hegemony." Calabast carefully confirmed his suspicions.

They had no choice but to live with this shape. While the Hexers offered factory ship classes in other shapes and sizes, none of them suited his needs!

What he wanted was freedom of choice. If he was going to entrust his life, career, future and clan on this decision, then he wanted a ship that reflected his approach and his strengths!

He wanted a factory ship that could survive danger because he often liked to take risks.

He wanted a factory ship that could run away quickly because he sometimes attracted formidable enemies.

He wanted a factory ship that offered a lot of upgradeability because he was confident he could obtain better technology and materials in the future.

He wanted a factory ship that offered a lot of modular choices and unreserved space so he could stuff them with everything he needed to facilitate his goals.

Above all, he wanted a factory ship that gave him enough room to express his greatest strength, his design philosophy!

With that last desire in mind, Ves immediately began to add his touch to the ship design. He took control of the projection and called up a design interface. He began to modify the bow of the vessel and almost completely changed its V-shaped face into a much more complex cosmetic appearance.

It soon became clear what Ves wanted to add to the bow of the factory.

"Is that.. the Golden Cat's head?!"

Ves finished his sketch in rapid time. Though the shape still needed a lot more refinement, it was enough to give everyone in the conference room an idea on the distinctive shape of the bow!

The addition of the Golden Cat's head completely changed the impression of the factory ship! Whereas before she looked like the quintessential Hexer starship, now she acquired a very strong association to the Larkinson Clan!

"While this ostentatious addition looks impressive, I'm not sure the shipyard will agree to incorporate this addition." Calabast warned.

"It adds a lot of extra material to the bow. It will eat into our budget!"

"Every Larkinson Clan vessel must have style!" Ves declared. "Cost is no concern!"

"I like it!" Gloriana chirped as she ruffled Clixie's fur. "This will turn our factory ship into an iconic symbol of the Larkinson Clan. As soon as our name spreads, the distinct appearance of the Golden Cat will definitely make an impression wherever we go! Is this how you're going to add your glow to the factory ship?"

Ves grinned. "Correct! As I've stated earlier, I can't imbue a glow onto a ship that I did not design myself. However, as objects such as the new loyalty medallions and the statue of the Superior Mother have already showed, I can still add my glow to any other material object! Who says I can't instill my glow into the component of a machine rather than the entire whole!"

For a moment, Gloriana and the rest looked stunned!

This was a very simple but very profound statement!

Before, his glows had always been associated with entire mechs.

The only way to gain the Desolate Soldier's duty-inspiring glow was to obtain an intact, working copy of the mech.

The only way to benefit from the Doom Guard's fear-inducing glow was to purchase an expensive copy of the spaceborn striker mech.

There was no instance where only a portion of the mech could induce the glow!

Many customers who thought they were clever attempted to disassemble a Desolate Soldier and tried to install some of the parts onto another mech.

Obviously, that didn't work. The less something resembled the design of an LMC mech, the weaker its glow. At some point, the differences grew so great that the spiritual connection broke entirely!

Therefore, no one ever thought about the possibility that Ves could add his glows to other mechs or vehicles by instilling it in just a smaller component!

"If you wanted to.." Gloriana speculated. "Couldn't you design some sort of.. I don't know.. a piloting chair.. that contains one of your proto-gods?"

The implication of this possibility was massive. Any mech technician could just remove the piloting chair from a random mech and install the one designed by Ves in order to bestow the mech with a glow!

The size of the object was irrelevant, mostly! As long as the creation was complex and sophisticated enough for Ves to instill at least some spiritual foundation, then it became a viable container of one of his glows!

"I can make it even smaller." Ves innocently shrugged. "The loyalty medallions are perhaps the smallest objects I've made that contain my glows."

"Their range is rather short and their effect is weak." Gloriana stated.

"That's correct. My specialty works best on mechs. If not, then at least something that resembles mechs. That's one of the reasons why I made sure the statue of the Superior Mother is as large as a mech."

He had added his glows to objects smaller than a mech. However, he hadn't done so on objects that were significantly larger.

Right now, the prow or forecastle of the Estrella Klavier-class ship had turned into a large cat head, one which Ves intended to design and build by himself!

Would its glow become more intense? Would the range of its glow reach the entire length of the factory ship? Ves didn't know the answers to these questions, and that excited him! He couldn't wait to test it out in a massive experiment!

However, not everyone was confident it was a good idea.

"A lot of materials are needed to construct this prow." Commodore Abigail Evern warned. "Factory ships like these are incredibly expensive because their exterior has to withstand a lot of attacks from second-class mechs. "You can probably build half a mech regiment with all of the alloys spent on this addition!"

Ves waved away her concern. "The cost is not a problem, and I already have a source of materials in mind."

Since recently, he decided to stockpile the Breyer alloy he steadily obtained from Cassandra Breyer. His main motivation for doing so was to strengthen the armor and structure of his future factory ship!

Because starships and especially capital ships were so big, the alloys used to prop them up and clad them with armor were actually inferior to the alloys utilized in mechs.

This was because the cost was way too prohibitive if ship armor used so many high-quality materials and exotics!

Instead of relying on quality, ship builders instead resort to quantity to strengthen the hull of a ship!

Even if the grade and quality of alloys was inferior, as long as the plate of armor was several meters thick, it offered far more effective protection without breaking the bank!

This vastly reduced the production cost of the ship. It also made it far easier and more affordable to repair or replace the armor plating once it sustained damage.

Therefore, using something as sturdy as Breyer alloy which was ordinarily fashioned in much thinner armor plating would make the bow of his future factory ship exceptionally resilient!

If Ves instilled the thick, decorative prow component with Goldie's glow, then his factory ship would truly become unique! Ves couldn't think of a better way to enhance the stature of the Larkinson Clan while at the same time demonstrating the formidable nature of his specialty!

However, empowering the prow with spirituality was different from designing a ship with spirituality.

"Don't expect too much from the glow of this giant cat head." Ves cautioned everyone. "One of the reasons why my mechs are so effective is because the glow not only influences the moods of people in the vicinity, but also makes the mech alive. The mech pilot is able to bond and operate the mech on a deeper level, and that is another source of strength that is often overlooked in recent times."

This was the original X-Factor that Ves pursued. Nowadays, he focused a lot more on expressing the power of his design spirits, but that didn't mean he lost sight of trying to align the mindsets of the mech, mech pilot and mech designer as much as possible!

What his remark actually conveyed was that the glow of the prow would only act on the ship like a source of emotional warmth. It would not be able to integrate with the entire ship and add mysterious effects to the vessel.

However, since that wasn't possible anyway, no one minded this deficiency. It was already good enough to add the glow that was strongly associated to the Larkinson Clan throughout several sections of the ship.

"So that is why you want so much unreserved space in the ship class!" Gloriana gasped in realization. "The prow isn't enough! You want to add more… more…"

"Totem." Ves generously supplied.

"You want to add more totems to our ship! Are you trying to transform it into a vessel of the Golden Cat by spreading her domain along the entire length of our factory ship?"

Ves chuckled. "I don't think it works that way. Even so, it will still be very useful to make sure to add enough totems to cover the ship. Even if the glow makes outsiders uncomfortable, I don't care. As long as it instills more kinship and loyalty in the crew of the factory ship, then that is worth the cost!"

The Golden Cat was his most important weapon and tool in shaping the Larkinson Clan! With her powerful, Larkinson-themed glow, Ves believed his most important ship of his fleet would be much better protected against malcontents and traitors!

In addition, Goldie's glow was also very useful in furthering the indoctrination of both outsiders and Larkinson clansmen.

If Ves could add totems to every ship of his expeditionary fleet, then how would others react when the entire Larkinson Clan arrived all at once?