lost star
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Entertaining, but no.
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GrindStone
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Plebe mentality, real enjoyers always appreciate the classics.
M034
New
lost star
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They didn't just focus on Ghoul of course. They did all the mechs. It was both good practice and helpful for them all. As eager as they were, it took time to learn how others did things. Bolt especially had issues. He sympathized with Lilly a bit more now. He knew they were average students from their college. As time passed he could see their limitations compared it him. Sometimes those limits frustrated him. He made sure to identify those times and kill the building pride fast. Over time he learned to appreciate the different viewpoints, and the added eyes and hands were worth all the problems.
Of the revisions, Zombie was the hardest to do overall. Pushing him up from a one to five star was hard. Doing it incrementally was hard and expensive parts wise. The only reason they were even able to do it was the wealth Bolt had in game and the fact that older parts were really cheap. The tricky thing was that his gimmick was only really legitimate at one star due to the limited and primitive parts. Past that a one shot missile didn't matter nearly as effecively.
What they ended up doing, and it was just a bit hilarious in retrospect, was changing out the head payload for each star. Low level, it was just explosives. High level, it became a sort of mix of everything that fragmented and caused chaos. It became less a finisher and more a disruption that was best used at a critical moment. They also ended up putting most of the sensors in the shoulder and making the head completely expendable as a five star. It was a bit awkward to pilot in that regard, but it worked well enough to function. Especially because Zombie was a borderline frontline mech at all levels.
The ugly looking mech appeared to be clumsy and hard to pilot on the surface, but the truth of it was that he was actually a pretty durable and deceptively easy melee mech to use. Basically a shield-knight in zombie form. They'd specifically leaned into that and his affordability as his main real benefit. Functionally he was still pretty wasted as anything more than fodder, but just having a durable and cheap body that could take a hit and keep going was sometimes all you needed.
Ghoul had the most revisions due to it being Lilly's main choice for most tasks. They removed the acid and made the jaws viable as an attack method. Past two stars, her claws and hands had a specifically revised design that made them able to get into the armor seams on a mech and pry open the armor with a single smooth motion. It required precision and skill, but it was a distinctly different sort of attack that set her outside your standard skirmisher. They also changed her internal structure so that she could run on all fours, and pounce on things without actually damaging herself. Finally her bite was now a viable attack. She was faster and more durable at five stars, but pretty similar in function across all levels. Light Skirmishers had narrow applications and few pilots frankly. It was a useful, but extremely high skill level niche.
The Drowned Man was the least changed. Upgrading and downgrading his designs to fit various stars was fairly easy. What wasn't easy was the fact his fog generator wasn't exactly being updated anymore. Modern sensors could peer through it with relative ease. They didn't have a fix for that from the company, or the knowledge to do it themselves. The most they could do was update what they could and leave the generator for later with a small note to revise if they got a good substitute. Ando had some fun fixing the armor on it at least. The semi-stealth alloy was an interesting thing to work with and took some finesse to layer with other armors. At five stars he was mostly a swordsman with a small gimmick in his mist. Respectable but unremarkable aside from that. (Not all of them could be utterly unique.)
Undertaker was something Dai took a personal offense to in contrast. The designer ended up completely redoing the gun and the ammo in a long frustrated fit. From the outside it looked the same, but even the four star design had a good twenty percent more range and area coverage. It also sent out significantly more mist, because he'd added a sort of grapeshot mist bombs that launched with the shells. Downgrading it turned out to be the hardest task, since the jamming and communication protocols just didn't scale down tech wise. They ended up having to remove that for the two and one star models which frankly made the mech a less than useful cannoneer at those levels. The five stars was a surprisingly capable support mech for small teams though.
The Bloody Berserker was probably the most commercially viable of Bolt's creations. It was also a mech he'd rushed to create. Bolt had done some serious mistakes while making it. The armor for instance. It had been so bad that on his first pass Ando had both decreased the cost and increased the durability in one swoop. The twin generators had to be redone completely as well. Bolt's work on the power distribution had been very hasty and required some dedicated work from everyone to make it properly functional in all edge cases. Finally the boosters actually caused damage to the mech. The damage itself was small, but it did add to the repair bill at the end of the day and could be potentially catastrophic if ignored. Wu spent an entire day fixing that issue while retaining the deadly acceleration the mech needed to be a threat.
Appearance wise, Berserker looked exactly the same after the revisions. Internally there were a lot of changes. They'd chopped off about five percent of the cost, it was slightly easier to repair, and the boosters were no longer damaging. It also lacked a serious flaw that hadn't come up in the game. The Bloody Berserker's runtime was actually pretty shitty. The dual generators guzzled twice the fuel a single generator would. This sounded obvious, but generators scaled up very well. A single instead of two smaller ones was far more efficient. Heavies weren't exactly known for endurance either. Fixing that had required a mix of letting one generator idle when not in actual combat, and expanding the fuel storage. This required some creative part shuffling, but they managed it. (They also left in and actually enhanced the steam burst that happened when the armor dropped.)
Berserker also held up surprisingly well when you downgraded it. The top speed took the largest hit, but the rest was really just it's base design. A one star Bloody Berserker was still a very deadly and durable close ranged monster with very heavy and dangerous axes. It was just pretty slow and sluggish at that level. That did make it rather useless in the niche it was designed for, but one star mechs were based off old, low performance designs in the first place.
Amusingly, over time the largest arguments were over the appearance of the mechs rather than anything else. Marketability was one area that Bolt knew he was absolutely horrible at. Inside the game, the appearance was a fun novelty. Outside the game, the undead aesthetic was decidedly less acceptable. Bolt wanted to keep it anyway. If his family every built the mechs outside the game, it'd be for niche users that wanted those specific mechs. Bolt didn't anticipate there being any other buyers really. In the end there was a small compromise where they simply had different looks available. It required a few minutes adjusting the profile and outer armor for all the mechs but was ultimately just a day's worth of work for all of them.
The largest accomplishment was the conclusion of the only six star Mech Bolt planned on. Ghoul's final version had a central processor that used nanomachines and a refinery to process mech parts. Her main sensors could identify components that that processor would use, and then she could eat them. She would then use those materials to repair herself or give herself more fuel.
Visually the process was a bit gross. She'd eat something, and then seemingly 'drool' out a compound that would fix her wounds when the mech spread it over her body. It was not a pretty thing to witness. It also didn't guarantee an indefinite operational capacity or repair ability. The repairs would be the equivalent to patches, and anything that hit the skeleton or vital points wasn't possible to repair. It still doubled her theoretical deployment time.
In addition to the survivability, Ghouls claws and teeth were significantly better than even the five star version. Iterating on the claws effects had given them a good understanding of how to make it lethal to other mechs and they could use some trace exotics to further enhance the damage at six stars. Iron Spirit had a bit of trouble simulating that sort of thing, but it managed. Ghoul could rip a mech's armor off in a second, then use her bite to theoretically both take out a mech and refuel herself with one pounce. This made her a light, fast, long living mech that could live behind enemy lines for a very long time.
For giggles, Bolt named the thing Dowery and then added a little red lily-shaped adornment on her head as the finishing touch. He then sent the concluded product to Lilly in Iron Spirit to get it tested. While that was going on, he and the others did the finishing touches on a set of plans for the big contest.
They could not bring in their own designs. They would actually have outside communications blocked off while in the testing area. What they could do was memorize a few possible designs. This contest would be a series of battles in a series of prepared battlefields. It would all be live, and they'd have to repair the mech between bouts. The battlefields themselves would be chosen at random out of a series of one hundred of them around the planet. To further complicate things, there would be additional events or changes to each arena to keep things interesting for the pilots and audience.
It was not going to be easy or quick. Lilly seemed very enthusiastic though. (Also she loved Ghoul's newest form.)
Bolt in his haste did make on very, very minor mistake in his perpetrations. He'd listed Dowery as a public mech. It was a mistake he wouldn't catch for awhile.
Of the revisions, Zombie was the hardest to do overall. Pushing him up from a one to five star was hard. Doing it incrementally was hard and expensive parts wise. The only reason they were even able to do it was the wealth Bolt had in game and the fact that older parts were really cheap. The tricky thing was that his gimmick was only really legitimate at one star due to the limited and primitive parts. Past that a one shot missile didn't matter nearly as effecively.
What they ended up doing, and it was just a bit hilarious in retrospect, was changing out the head payload for each star. Low level, it was just explosives. High level, it became a sort of mix of everything that fragmented and caused chaos. It became less a finisher and more a disruption that was best used at a critical moment. They also ended up putting most of the sensors in the shoulder and making the head completely expendable as a five star. It was a bit awkward to pilot in that regard, but it worked well enough to function. Especially because Zombie was a borderline frontline mech at all levels.
The ugly looking mech appeared to be clumsy and hard to pilot on the surface, but the truth of it was that he was actually a pretty durable and deceptively easy melee mech to use. Basically a shield-knight in zombie form. They'd specifically leaned into that and his affordability as his main real benefit. Functionally he was still pretty wasted as anything more than fodder, but just having a durable and cheap body that could take a hit and keep going was sometimes all you needed.
Ghoul had the most revisions due to it being Lilly's main choice for most tasks. They removed the acid and made the jaws viable as an attack method. Past two stars, her claws and hands had a specifically revised design that made them able to get into the armor seams on a mech and pry open the armor with a single smooth motion. It required precision and skill, but it was a distinctly different sort of attack that set her outside your standard skirmisher. They also changed her internal structure so that she could run on all fours, and pounce on things without actually damaging herself. Finally her bite was now a viable attack. She was faster and more durable at five stars, but pretty similar in function across all levels. Light Skirmishers had narrow applications and few pilots frankly. It was a useful, but extremely high skill level niche.
The Drowned Man was the least changed. Upgrading and downgrading his designs to fit various stars was fairly easy. What wasn't easy was the fact his fog generator wasn't exactly being updated anymore. Modern sensors could peer through it with relative ease. They didn't have a fix for that from the company, or the knowledge to do it themselves. The most they could do was update what they could and leave the generator for later with a small note to revise if they got a good substitute. Ando had some fun fixing the armor on it at least. The semi-stealth alloy was an interesting thing to work with and took some finesse to layer with other armors. At five stars he was mostly a swordsman with a small gimmick in his mist. Respectable but unremarkable aside from that. (Not all of them could be utterly unique.)
Undertaker was something Dai took a personal offense to in contrast. The designer ended up completely redoing the gun and the ammo in a long frustrated fit. From the outside it looked the same, but even the four star design had a good twenty percent more range and area coverage. It also sent out significantly more mist, because he'd added a sort of grapeshot mist bombs that launched with the shells. Downgrading it turned out to be the hardest task, since the jamming and communication protocols just didn't scale down tech wise. They ended up having to remove that for the two and one star models which frankly made the mech a less than useful cannoneer at those levels. The five stars was a surprisingly capable support mech for small teams though.
The Bloody Berserker was probably the most commercially viable of Bolt's creations. It was also a mech he'd rushed to create. Bolt had done some serious mistakes while making it. The armor for instance. It had been so bad that on his first pass Ando had both decreased the cost and increased the durability in one swoop. The twin generators had to be redone completely as well. Bolt's work on the power distribution had been very hasty and required some dedicated work from everyone to make it properly functional in all edge cases. Finally the boosters actually caused damage to the mech. The damage itself was small, but it did add to the repair bill at the end of the day and could be potentially catastrophic if ignored. Wu spent an entire day fixing that issue while retaining the deadly acceleration the mech needed to be a threat.
Appearance wise, Berserker looked exactly the same after the revisions. Internally there were a lot of changes. They'd chopped off about five percent of the cost, it was slightly easier to repair, and the boosters were no longer damaging. It also lacked a serious flaw that hadn't come up in the game. The Bloody Berserker's runtime was actually pretty shitty. The dual generators guzzled twice the fuel a single generator would. This sounded obvious, but generators scaled up very well. A single instead of two smaller ones was far more efficient. Heavies weren't exactly known for endurance either. Fixing that had required a mix of letting one generator idle when not in actual combat, and expanding the fuel storage. This required some creative part shuffling, but they managed it. (They also left in and actually enhanced the steam burst that happened when the armor dropped.)
Berserker also held up surprisingly well when you downgraded it. The top speed took the largest hit, but the rest was really just it's base design. A one star Bloody Berserker was still a very deadly and durable close ranged monster with very heavy and dangerous axes. It was just pretty slow and sluggish at that level. That did make it rather useless in the niche it was designed for, but one star mechs were based off old, low performance designs in the first place.
Amusingly, over time the largest arguments were over the appearance of the mechs rather than anything else. Marketability was one area that Bolt knew he was absolutely horrible at. Inside the game, the appearance was a fun novelty. Outside the game, the undead aesthetic was decidedly less acceptable. Bolt wanted to keep it anyway. If his family every built the mechs outside the game, it'd be for niche users that wanted those specific mechs. Bolt didn't anticipate there being any other buyers really. In the end there was a small compromise where they simply had different looks available. It required a few minutes adjusting the profile and outer armor for all the mechs but was ultimately just a day's worth of work for all of them.
The largest accomplishment was the conclusion of the only six star Mech Bolt planned on. Ghoul's final version had a central processor that used nanomachines and a refinery to process mech parts. Her main sensors could identify components that that processor would use, and then she could eat them. She would then use those materials to repair herself or give herself more fuel.
Visually the process was a bit gross. She'd eat something, and then seemingly 'drool' out a compound that would fix her wounds when the mech spread it over her body. It was not a pretty thing to witness. It also didn't guarantee an indefinite operational capacity or repair ability. The repairs would be the equivalent to patches, and anything that hit the skeleton or vital points wasn't possible to repair. It still doubled her theoretical deployment time.
In addition to the survivability, Ghouls claws and teeth were significantly better than even the five star version. Iterating on the claws effects had given them a good understanding of how to make it lethal to other mechs and they could use some trace exotics to further enhance the damage at six stars. Iron Spirit had a bit of trouble simulating that sort of thing, but it managed. Ghoul could rip a mech's armor off in a second, then use her bite to theoretically both take out a mech and refuel herself with one pounce. This made her a light, fast, long living mech that could live behind enemy lines for a very long time.
For giggles, Bolt named the thing Dowery and then added a little red lily-shaped adornment on her head as the finishing touch. He then sent the concluded product to Lilly in Iron Spirit to get it tested. While that was going on, he and the others did the finishing touches on a set of plans for the big contest.
They could not bring in their own designs. They would actually have outside communications blocked off while in the testing area. What they could do was memorize a few possible designs. This contest would be a series of battles in a series of prepared battlefields. It would all be live, and they'd have to repair the mech between bouts. The battlefields themselves would be chosen at random out of a series of one hundred of them around the planet. To further complicate things, there would be additional events or changes to each arena to keep things interesting for the pilots and audience.
It was not going to be easy or quick. Lilly seemed very enthusiastic though. (Also she loved Ghoul's newest form.)
Bolt in his haste did make on very, very minor mistake in his perpetrations. He'd listed Dowery as a public mech. It was a mistake he wouldn't catch for awhile.
Wolfjob
Not too sore, are you?
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Guess who's sleeping on the couch for the next year lmao
Evaunit02mark1
Here for the finer things in life
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I mean lily might not like people get to play with her toy in game, but tell me she doesn't have bragging rights for days.
"Oh your hubby got you a ring with a shiny rock on it? Mine designed a mech that lets me literally eat people I don't like. Get on my level bitch."
GrindStone
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Announcing your incoming marriage via mech sale is a pretty chad move.
BismuthBorealis
Making the rounds.
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There was never any mention of him making it, just that it worked in the undead legion playstyle, and since it only showed up in that one interlude I assume it's a mech someone else made based on rhe zombie and drowned man to fit the theme, rather than one of his.
lost star
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Correct. It was just something someone added to fit the theme and fill a niche.
M035
New
lost star
Connoisseur.
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He'd underestimated the entire thing. Bolt had known from his team that the contest was considered a big deal. He'd even acknowledged that. He had not expected crowds, cameras, and cheering upon entry though. It was more than a little overwhelming. To be fair, the others seemed equally overwhelmed. Lilly was hiding behind him, the other designers were clumped together, and for some reason he was in front of it all.
"Pilot Lilly, pilot Lilly, do you have a moment to answer a few questions?" A woman walked up to Bolt with a grin and something hovering behind her.
Bolt stared at her in absolute confusion. "Huh?"
"How does it feel to be considered the dark horse contender?" The reporter asked immediately. "You have been winning an inordinate amount of contests these past few months. Any plans for the rewards? Any comments for your growing fanbase? Is there a reason you're with your design team right at the start? Some sort of comradery?" She continued with a bounce.
Behind him Lilly began to snicker into his back. Bolt finally managed to reboot his brain at this point and answered. "You have me confused. I'm not Lilly." He muttered.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry!" The reporter gave a bow. "This is the entry for the team, and you very much look the part. Are you a bodyguard then?" She asked. "If so I must commend your work. We've not managed to get a picture or even a description of the pilot at all! The public demands to know!"
How the hell had she managed that?! Bolt tried to turn around to ask the young woman, but she managed to keep right out of line of sight of him and the reporter. He felt his eyebrow twitch.
"Oh, is that them?" The reporter bounced around and Lilly shifted so that she was at his side instead. "Ah, you must be one the designers! I have the descriptions of our proud college graduates, so Bolt was it?"
The three college students looked absolutely entertained as the pilot grinned and held her boyfriend's arm, while also staying silent. The slight blush and wide eyes made her look either shy or scared, and the reporter stopped pressing due to the time starting to tick down and their need to get into the contest area quickly. The team managed to get into the design area before the contest officially started, but it was a bit tight.
Only once they were secured did the three graduates start laughing loudly. Bolt heaved a sigh and found a seat himself. Lilly giggled as she sat opposite him.
"How?" He asked the girl.
"Apparently they don't expect the tiny girl to be the big bad pilot." Lilly replied with a shrug. "After that first contest I mostly just went in and did the piloting stuff before leaving. I think I met a few of the pilots, but in retrospect well..." She trailed off and shrugged again.
"I'm more entertained by someone calling well him Lilly." Ando gestured emphatically at Bolt.
"Yes, he's a very delicate flower." The delicate flower in question said with a nod.
"Well, enough of that." Bolt told everyone. "Do we have information on the battles?"
That sobered the graduates up, and they began to bring up the computers and interfaces the contest area had provided. There was a lot. Bolt actually didn't know what sort of fabricator they were using, but it looked fancy. This was essentially their workplace for roughly the next week. It even had cots for them, good ones!
Speaking of that, he looked over the specs for it while his teammates worked on the rest. He didn't expect to have to maintain it, but all fabricators had a 'stupid' and 'actual' interface. They weren't named that way, but that was what his family called them. The stupid interface was very technically for easy and general jobs, and it wasn't something he ever liked to use.
"We have the details on the hundred, but that doesn't help much. What does is that we have our first match. The pilot favors lancers, and it's in a forest. We each have a tower that will fire mortars at flares as they appear on the battlefield." Dai said to the room.
"That seems a bit boring." Lilly observed.
"It's the first match of twenty person bracket. I think they want to ease people into things." Dai explained and brought up the matching brackets. "Tricky part is we have two days to make the mechs and two hours between matches to adjust and repair until the finales, where we get three. There's some additional rules, but that's what's relevant for us."
Bolt sucked in some air. "That's rough." They had six matches, and that sort of repair pattern was brutal.
"What would our plan for the mech be?" Ando asked the only really relevant question.
They had prepared some for this. The problem was they needed a generalist of sorts. What would work in this one match wouldn't necessarily work in the rest. To be doubly problematic, they had a serious worry about being countered.
"Lilly's a bit more famous than I realized. Ya'll know what videos they have of her?" Bolt asked. "We're going to leverage her versatility."
The pilot in question looked very amused as she watched the debate. Wu and Ando brought up a few videos attributed to her. After a minute or two it became very apparent what was most commonly brought up.
"They really like the acrobatics." Dai stated his observation.
"It is fun moving." Lilly confirmed. "Ain't like I can't do slow, just a lotta designers preferred that."
"Light and mediums are easiest to do." Ando said clinically as he examined the data. "Most people will think you prefer that sort of thing as well, so they'll default to that if they could. High movement, high skill."
"Bit silly there. Some slow mechs are very hard to pilot right. It's twitch reaction versus judgement." Lilly gave her opinion as to that.
"Care for a shield knight then?" Bolt asked.
"Give me something for ranged harassers and I'll shine."
Endurance, one versus one, uncertain terrain? It was meant to simulate war just a bit, but wars weren't clean and simple one on ones. They were messy things. Bolt had seen wars. This was something you could game with something you wouldn't use in reality.
This was going to be a duelist mech. Their preliminary design had been a light, but based on the circumstances they shifted it to a medium. A bit heavier, and not vulnerable to wide area attacks. Adding a shield. That was the outline.
As always, the big part was in the details. This wasn't going to be a conventional shield mech. Those frequently had body covering heavy shields that had to be practically fixed in place. They were meant to take big hits and stay stable.
"Grab one of the smaller shields from the weapons list." Bolt ordered as he made the preliminary sketches. "Ando, think you can handle that? Be sure to make it usable as a weapon."
"I can, but might I question the weapon part?" The designer asked as he brought up the appropriate specs.
"Use every part of yer mech to fight." Lilly chimed in as she kicked her legs.
Bolt nodded. "You wouldn't believe the mechs I've seen win because they just jabbed a hand into the opponent. Saw a swordsman downed because it ignored a rifleman just jabbing the severed hand into the head and then pulling the sidearm." He explained.
"What sort of contest was that?" Dai asked curiously.
"Contest?" Bolt paused in his designing and decided to explain. "No, was scavenging, a pair o' pilots were fighting over the loot and the fight ended when the riflemen shot the guy in the gut a few times. The swordman had to eject and I ended up getting a nice payout from the parts left."
"Heh, the guy actually survived?" Lilly asked over the silence of the others.
"Yep. Can't say he was happy about it. Not sure how long a walk it was back." Bolt responded.
"I only have more questions, and this isn't the time." Dai eventually answered for all of them.
Bemused Bolt continued. "Dai, get a sword going. Rapier style if you could. Wu, we're going to need short burst boosters and the legs to be working for that." He highlighted the areas.
Both mech designers nodded and began to work on the requested areas.
"Theme wise..." Bolt hummed to himself in thought.
"Why do you insist on theme if you don't mind answering?" Ando asked curiously.
"It helps get me in the mindset. Also there's something about focusing hard on a personality of sorts. Lilly can tell when there's nothing there. Really strange." Bolt gave Lilly a small smirk. "I've actually seen a bit of that elsewhere. There's another designer, a Ves Larkinson that does it better and that's what clued me into there being something more than just raw misplaced feeling. I haven't seen it in other mechs, so it's some strange technique of sorts. You sorta focus and align the mech to the ideal and you get a sort of presence. You'll see after we build it. I think I've made strides in refining the style and it's actually something you can feel." He had a few suspicions that this would confirm.
"Can say he's tellin' the truth there." Lilly chimed it.
"We are willing to take your word for it." The armor designer said with a hint of skepticism. "Do you need us doing it too?"
"Don't think so. I just need to do the overall design and fix it into my head." Bolt muttered. "Now theme. Honorable duelist?"
"We do need another weapon before that I think." Dai said. "Ranged harassers with this would not be fun." He tapped on the sword blueprint for emphasis.
Bolt fully understood that. He did the preliminary sketches anyway. A duelist, with a long red ribbon coming out of the helmet that trailed behind him. Sword and shield. Not particularly mobile, but agile. Deadly, with a lethal thrust when needed.
No need to be complicated here. This wasn't the time. Missiles weren't typically hard counters, but they'd mess up most other mechs that wanted to play keep away. They'd have to reload after every round, which could be a bit time consuming, but he could manage that.
This was going to be a guy with flourishes. A bit flashy, but good at his job. A valiant fighter and entertainer. Also one who could recover quickly, because they did not have much time to repair this guy after each round! Hopefully the shield would help some, and there was no rule they couldn't make spare parts in the time they had.
Bolt's eyes narrowed at the design. Easy to repair was fine. Everything looked good there. The missiles though, those felt unpleasant in some way. They were there as a ranged option alone. Endurance wasn't a problem here was it thought? He switched the standard multi-missile launcher to a four missile launcher. Four large projectiles was not a lot. There was a reason most launchers shot a cluster.
"Dai, Wu. Change of plans." Bolt highlighted the back. "I'm putting four tubes here. Make large missiles for them. Area of effect, and as disrupting as possible."
"That's an interesting choice." Dai said as he looked at the part. "I can pack a lot into that amount of space, but the payload will have to be special to make it worth." He frowned at it. "This will take some time."
"It's why I'm putting you on that. I can handle the rest." Bolt paused. "I'm going to have the fabricator start printing out the parts we know we'll be using." He sent a few orders to that machine. "We don't have that much time, so let's get going!"
With great enthusiasm, the designers all got to work.
"Pilot Lilly, pilot Lilly, do you have a moment to answer a few questions?" A woman walked up to Bolt with a grin and something hovering behind her.
Bolt stared at her in absolute confusion. "Huh?"
"How does it feel to be considered the dark horse contender?" The reporter asked immediately. "You have been winning an inordinate amount of contests these past few months. Any plans for the rewards? Any comments for your growing fanbase? Is there a reason you're with your design team right at the start? Some sort of comradery?" She continued with a bounce.
Behind him Lilly began to snicker into his back. Bolt finally managed to reboot his brain at this point and answered. "You have me confused. I'm not Lilly." He muttered.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry!" The reporter gave a bow. "This is the entry for the team, and you very much look the part. Are you a bodyguard then?" She asked. "If so I must commend your work. We've not managed to get a picture or even a description of the pilot at all! The public demands to know!"
How the hell had she managed that?! Bolt tried to turn around to ask the young woman, but she managed to keep right out of line of sight of him and the reporter. He felt his eyebrow twitch.
"Oh, is that them?" The reporter bounced around and Lilly shifted so that she was at his side instead. "Ah, you must be one the designers! I have the descriptions of our proud college graduates, so Bolt was it?"
The three college students looked absolutely entertained as the pilot grinned and held her boyfriend's arm, while also staying silent. The slight blush and wide eyes made her look either shy or scared, and the reporter stopped pressing due to the time starting to tick down and their need to get into the contest area quickly. The team managed to get into the design area before the contest officially started, but it was a bit tight.
Only once they were secured did the three graduates start laughing loudly. Bolt heaved a sigh and found a seat himself. Lilly giggled as she sat opposite him.
"How?" He asked the girl.
"Apparently they don't expect the tiny girl to be the big bad pilot." Lilly replied with a shrug. "After that first contest I mostly just went in and did the piloting stuff before leaving. I think I met a few of the pilots, but in retrospect well..." She trailed off and shrugged again.
"I'm more entertained by someone calling well him Lilly." Ando gestured emphatically at Bolt.
"Yes, he's a very delicate flower." The delicate flower in question said with a nod.
"Well, enough of that." Bolt told everyone. "Do we have information on the battles?"
That sobered the graduates up, and they began to bring up the computers and interfaces the contest area had provided. There was a lot. Bolt actually didn't know what sort of fabricator they were using, but it looked fancy. This was essentially their workplace for roughly the next week. It even had cots for them, good ones!
Speaking of that, he looked over the specs for it while his teammates worked on the rest. He didn't expect to have to maintain it, but all fabricators had a 'stupid' and 'actual' interface. They weren't named that way, but that was what his family called them. The stupid interface was very technically for easy and general jobs, and it wasn't something he ever liked to use.
"We have the details on the hundred, but that doesn't help much. What does is that we have our first match. The pilot favors lancers, and it's in a forest. We each have a tower that will fire mortars at flares as they appear on the battlefield." Dai said to the room.
"That seems a bit boring." Lilly observed.
"It's the first match of twenty person bracket. I think they want to ease people into things." Dai explained and brought up the matching brackets. "Tricky part is we have two days to make the mechs and two hours between matches to adjust and repair until the finales, where we get three. There's some additional rules, but that's what's relevant for us."
Bolt sucked in some air. "That's rough." They had six matches, and that sort of repair pattern was brutal.
"What would our plan for the mech be?" Ando asked the only really relevant question.
They had prepared some for this. The problem was they needed a generalist of sorts. What would work in this one match wouldn't necessarily work in the rest. To be doubly problematic, they had a serious worry about being countered.
"Lilly's a bit more famous than I realized. Ya'll know what videos they have of her?" Bolt asked. "We're going to leverage her versatility."
The pilot in question looked very amused as she watched the debate. Wu and Ando brought up a few videos attributed to her. After a minute or two it became very apparent what was most commonly brought up.
"They really like the acrobatics." Dai stated his observation.
"It is fun moving." Lilly confirmed. "Ain't like I can't do slow, just a lotta designers preferred that."
"Light and mediums are easiest to do." Ando said clinically as he examined the data. "Most people will think you prefer that sort of thing as well, so they'll default to that if they could. High movement, high skill."
"Bit silly there. Some slow mechs are very hard to pilot right. It's twitch reaction versus judgement." Lilly gave her opinion as to that.
"Care for a shield knight then?" Bolt asked.
"Give me something for ranged harassers and I'll shine."
Endurance, one versus one, uncertain terrain? It was meant to simulate war just a bit, but wars weren't clean and simple one on ones. They were messy things. Bolt had seen wars. This was something you could game with something you wouldn't use in reality.
This was going to be a duelist mech. Their preliminary design had been a light, but based on the circumstances they shifted it to a medium. A bit heavier, and not vulnerable to wide area attacks. Adding a shield. That was the outline.
As always, the big part was in the details. This wasn't going to be a conventional shield mech. Those frequently had body covering heavy shields that had to be practically fixed in place. They were meant to take big hits and stay stable.
"Grab one of the smaller shields from the weapons list." Bolt ordered as he made the preliminary sketches. "Ando, think you can handle that? Be sure to make it usable as a weapon."
"I can, but might I question the weapon part?" The designer asked as he brought up the appropriate specs.
"Use every part of yer mech to fight." Lilly chimed in as she kicked her legs.
Bolt nodded. "You wouldn't believe the mechs I've seen win because they just jabbed a hand into the opponent. Saw a swordsman downed because it ignored a rifleman just jabbing the severed hand into the head and then pulling the sidearm." He explained.
"What sort of contest was that?" Dai asked curiously.
"Contest?" Bolt paused in his designing and decided to explain. "No, was scavenging, a pair o' pilots were fighting over the loot and the fight ended when the riflemen shot the guy in the gut a few times. The swordman had to eject and I ended up getting a nice payout from the parts left."
"Heh, the guy actually survived?" Lilly asked over the silence of the others.
"Yep. Can't say he was happy about it. Not sure how long a walk it was back." Bolt responded.
"I only have more questions, and this isn't the time." Dai eventually answered for all of them.
Bemused Bolt continued. "Dai, get a sword going. Rapier style if you could. Wu, we're going to need short burst boosters and the legs to be working for that." He highlighted the areas.
Both mech designers nodded and began to work on the requested areas.
"Theme wise..." Bolt hummed to himself in thought.
"Why do you insist on theme if you don't mind answering?" Ando asked curiously.
"It helps get me in the mindset. Also there's something about focusing hard on a personality of sorts. Lilly can tell when there's nothing there. Really strange." Bolt gave Lilly a small smirk. "I've actually seen a bit of that elsewhere. There's another designer, a Ves Larkinson that does it better and that's what clued me into there being something more than just raw misplaced feeling. I haven't seen it in other mechs, so it's some strange technique of sorts. You sorta focus and align the mech to the ideal and you get a sort of presence. You'll see after we build it. I think I've made strides in refining the style and it's actually something you can feel." He had a few suspicions that this would confirm.
"Can say he's tellin' the truth there." Lilly chimed it.
"We are willing to take your word for it." The armor designer said with a hint of skepticism. "Do you need us doing it too?"
"Don't think so. I just need to do the overall design and fix it into my head." Bolt muttered. "Now theme. Honorable duelist?"
"We do need another weapon before that I think." Dai said. "Ranged harassers with this would not be fun." He tapped on the sword blueprint for emphasis.
Bolt fully understood that. He did the preliminary sketches anyway. A duelist, with a long red ribbon coming out of the helmet that trailed behind him. Sword and shield. Not particularly mobile, but agile. Deadly, with a lethal thrust when needed.
No need to be complicated here. This wasn't the time. Missiles weren't typically hard counters, but they'd mess up most other mechs that wanted to play keep away. They'd have to reload after every round, which could be a bit time consuming, but he could manage that.
This was going to be a guy with flourishes. A bit flashy, but good at his job. A valiant fighter and entertainer. Also one who could recover quickly, because they did not have much time to repair this guy after each round! Hopefully the shield would help some, and there was no rule they couldn't make spare parts in the time they had.
Bolt's eyes narrowed at the design. Easy to repair was fine. Everything looked good there. The missiles though, those felt unpleasant in some way. They were there as a ranged option alone. Endurance wasn't a problem here was it thought? He switched the standard multi-missile launcher to a four missile launcher. Four large projectiles was not a lot. There was a reason most launchers shot a cluster.
"Dai, Wu. Change of plans." Bolt highlighted the back. "I'm putting four tubes here. Make large missiles for them. Area of effect, and as disrupting as possible."
"That's an interesting choice." Dai said as he looked at the part. "I can pack a lot into that amount of space, but the payload will have to be special to make it worth." He frowned at it. "This will take some time."
"It's why I'm putting you on that. I can handle the rest." Bolt paused. "I'm going to have the fabricator start printing out the parts we know we'll be using." He sent a few orders to that machine. "We don't have that much time, so let's get going!"
With great enthusiasm, the designers all got to work.
GrindStone
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Hit me just about the moment I woke up, y'know despite the whole psychic imprint on machines I haven't gotten the vibe of there being 'machine spirits'.
xgodxsendx
Know what you're doing yet?
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Edward Hathaway mech Assassin mech with eagle eyes covered by a metal hood which is detachable a swashbuckler sword four reloadable flintlock guns realativly cheap with a surprise wristblade light mech main thing is deflection or redirection of hits or evading hits entirely
GrindStone
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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I really thought we were going to get it too.
M036
New
lost star
Connoisseur.
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There was a rather large problem with mech contests. It was one that various organizations had been attempting to work around for a long time. Designing a mech both took time, and was very boring. The most commonly used process was have the design happen before the actual start of the tournament. People could see the designs and debate for an hour or two and then see the mechs fight. A tournament would still take a full day plus to happen then, but it'd be an actual event rather than a series of brief battles broken up by extensive waiting.
It was for this reason that the reporter had asked the question about Lilly entering the contest area in the beginning. Lilly actually had very little to do for the next two days. She didn't seem that broken up about it though. Bolt honestly couldn't spare that much attention to her to be certain. He was technically doing two things at once. One getting the base blueprint done, and two, getting the parts made once they'd confirmed what was certain in the blueprint. It was admittedly a bit of a juggling act, but doing it right would give them all the time they needed.
"We're using these for the payload." Dai held up a red ball the size of his palm midway through the first day. "This is about as small as the fabricator can get and retain detail."
"What is it?" Lilly asked from the side.
"A sort of gel." Wu explained as she took the ball and squeezed it. "Completely inert until it's primed, it will then dissolve and expand into a cloud of superheated gas after a few seconds."
"It won't go through armor, but it lasts a second or two, and will do some very good heat damage." Dai took the ball back and set it to the side. "We fill the missiles with it, have them explode in the air to scatter these and then the timer goes off. There's some really exotic stuff in the weapons catalog if you know where to look."
"Interesting. I can work with that." Lilly nodded and glanced at the ball on the table warily. "That's not dangerous right?"
"Without the priming signal it's just a squishy ball." Wu said dismissively.
"Put it in the live munitions area anyway." Bolt ordered absentmindedly as he continued to work out the details. "Are you done with the design then?" While he asked that question Lilly promptly grabbed the ball and moved it like the thing was a live round.
Dai and Wu shook their heads before Wu answered. "We still need the missile design finalized. Are you certain of the back mount?"
"I'll be adding some rough detailing, but you can fabricate them once you do so." Bolt highlighted the dimensions needed for the weapon to fit into the launcher.
"Getting some food." Lilly called out from the containment area. "Ya'll care what I get ya?"
"Noodles please!" Ando said back. "Also, Red Robin?"
Bolt looked at the name on the blueprint. "Does it not fit?" He'd given the helmet a beak like look, and the back missile launchers looked a bit feathery now.
"Let's use a predator at least. Red Crane." The young man said with a small chuckle.
"I did like the alliteration, but I suppose that works." Bolt changed the name and continued on the work.
"Call it Vermillion." Dai practically demanded.
"Seconded." Wu called out as she started up the fabricator.
"Fine, fine. We're not changing the name again though!" The lead designer altered the name again with a growl.
Vermillion, as they were calling it now, was going to be a solidly medium mech. It focused on short, agile movement, with a rapier sword and small shield as primary weapons. The secondary weapon would be a napalm-like area of denial missile. The primary design was done to be a good duelist, with a side function of ease of repair.
It was not a perfect mech. That was utterly impossible. It was actually deliberately flawed. It had absolutely no margin of error in endurance. It would last about an hour in operations. This meant they'd have to refuel it on each repair, which was added maintenance time. Bolt was gambling that the ease of repair would overcome that flaw. Ando had specifically used the space that usually held fuel or energy cells to design it so that they could drop and replace the armor in seconds.
Likewise the missiles were a deliberate choice. Four of them meant easy replacement. It gave Lilly very little margin of error. Four shots were practically nothing, even as large as these were.
Designing this all took most of a day. Bolt had to assume that a normal leader would have had one day on design and one on creation. He would be doing something different.
First was that they had prefabricated most of the standard components. The skeleton, most of the wiring, and the internal computers were all fairly consistent across designs. At home they had a wall filled with cables already made for instance. A contest might not have had them premade, but once you knew the voltage you could print them in mass. Lilly had actually helped a lot there just because they needed someone to move things around. It was probably considered grunt work that a pilot wouldn't do, but there wasn't any rules against it!
Second was that on day two they did do the assembly, but would be doing a partial one. Using the free time the prefabrication had given them, they'd do a skeleton structure and pre-check everything. Bolt's bad habit of revising a blueprint could actually be somewhat useful in that regard. Sometimes you had to see the thing implemented to know where the problems were.
As an added bonus, they could stick Lilly in the cockpit and get some additional feedback as to what to tweak. Little things, like adjusting the seat, changing the feedback, altering the sensors and such. According to the girl was was rather novel sensation wise. Something like running around without clothing, which made Wu flush.
Even with four hours of sleep and barely any time for necessities, they still ran very close to the time limit. Bolt was an old hand at mech assembly though, so he'd scheduled things just right. The last two hours were not frantic speeding. It was all finishing touches that were typically skipped. Getting the armor welded properly, making sure the computer acknowledged everything and was cleared of errors, testing the limbs and oiling the joints, being sure the coolant was already running, and so on. These things didn't stop a mech from functioning, but they did make a mech run better. (Bolt also had spare parts of the armor, and twelve missiles made for the future. The fabricator was running non-stop until the last second.)
Since Lilly was there she got some extra practice time as well. This was decidedly non-standard, but still quite welcome. This allowed them to identify a few things they could still further adjust and tune.
The end mech looked surprisingly valiant. While they had no time for actual decorations, it was trivial for the printer to add more than a few details while printing. The head looked vaguely avian like. There was a long red trailing ribbon that made it look like the mech had a red ponytail. The armor was sharp and angular. The back mounted missile launcher looked vaguely like folded up wings. Thematic and appropriate to the appearance.
"It looks predatory." Ando gave his observation. "Why do I feel that? It's not just the cosmetics." He sounded troubled as he spoke.
Now wasn't the time for that though. "We have just enough time to paint it." Bolt looked at the time remaining with mild amusement. "I'm giving it red with gold highlights."
"No seriously, what is that technique?" Dai asked out loud with narrowed eyes. "I built it and I still don't get it."
Bolt initiated the automated cranes and paint started to coat the mech while ignoring the question. He didn't have the answers for them. All he had was an additional clue. The paint was typically skipped as well. It was mostly corrosion resistance and a minor layer of protection against environmental damage. Contest mechs usually forewent it for a variety of reasons. Here he was going all out. It was almost like a taunt really.
"Heee. He's gonna be fun!" Lilly muttered from the side.
Ando immediately seemed to remember something at those words. He turned to her and gave a bow. "Thank you very much for helping. That was far beyond what a pilot would normally do."
"Yeah, what he said." Dai gave another bow, along with Wu.
The expert candidate gave a disdainful snort. "Of course they wouldn't. Most don't bother with designers. Dunno why ya'll stay separate like that. Bolt made me wings, and I'll never forget that."
"To be fair, this was a two day cramming session. If we did this in a month you'd be bored out of your skull after the first day." Bolt commented as the paint finished.
Lilly bounced over and jumped up to hug him around the neck. "I'd still visit you whenever, because you're my darling." She told him before letting go. "Now time to go out and strut my stuff!"
"Good luck." Bolt said warmly before turning to the others. "Go ahead and nap everyone." He ordered.
They were still going to be isolated after all. The format was very strict. They'd only be able to watch the match and that would happen after the opening ceremonies. They couldn't even run the fabricator. Everything was locked down now. Best to just catch up on their sleep while the ceremonies were running, watch the match, and then plan for that.
It was for this reason that the reporter had asked the question about Lilly entering the contest area in the beginning. Lilly actually had very little to do for the next two days. She didn't seem that broken up about it though. Bolt honestly couldn't spare that much attention to her to be certain. He was technically doing two things at once. One getting the base blueprint done, and two, getting the parts made once they'd confirmed what was certain in the blueprint. It was admittedly a bit of a juggling act, but doing it right would give them all the time they needed.
"We're using these for the payload." Dai held up a red ball the size of his palm midway through the first day. "This is about as small as the fabricator can get and retain detail."
"What is it?" Lilly asked from the side.
"A sort of gel." Wu explained as she took the ball and squeezed it. "Completely inert until it's primed, it will then dissolve and expand into a cloud of superheated gas after a few seconds."
"It won't go through armor, but it lasts a second or two, and will do some very good heat damage." Dai took the ball back and set it to the side. "We fill the missiles with it, have them explode in the air to scatter these and then the timer goes off. There's some really exotic stuff in the weapons catalog if you know where to look."
"Interesting. I can work with that." Lilly nodded and glanced at the ball on the table warily. "That's not dangerous right?"
"Without the priming signal it's just a squishy ball." Wu said dismissively.
"Put it in the live munitions area anyway." Bolt ordered absentmindedly as he continued to work out the details. "Are you done with the design then?" While he asked that question Lilly promptly grabbed the ball and moved it like the thing was a live round.
Dai and Wu shook their heads before Wu answered. "We still need the missile design finalized. Are you certain of the back mount?"
"I'll be adding some rough detailing, but you can fabricate them once you do so." Bolt highlighted the dimensions needed for the weapon to fit into the launcher.
"Getting some food." Lilly called out from the containment area. "Ya'll care what I get ya?"
"Noodles please!" Ando said back. "Also, Red Robin?"
Bolt looked at the name on the blueprint. "Does it not fit?" He'd given the helmet a beak like look, and the back missile launchers looked a bit feathery now.
"Let's use a predator at least. Red Crane." The young man said with a small chuckle.
"I did like the alliteration, but I suppose that works." Bolt changed the name and continued on the work.
"Call it Vermillion." Dai practically demanded.
"Seconded." Wu called out as she started up the fabricator.
"Fine, fine. We're not changing the name again though!" The lead designer altered the name again with a growl.
Vermillion, as they were calling it now, was going to be a solidly medium mech. It focused on short, agile movement, with a rapier sword and small shield as primary weapons. The secondary weapon would be a napalm-like area of denial missile. The primary design was done to be a good duelist, with a side function of ease of repair.
It was not a perfect mech. That was utterly impossible. It was actually deliberately flawed. It had absolutely no margin of error in endurance. It would last about an hour in operations. This meant they'd have to refuel it on each repair, which was added maintenance time. Bolt was gambling that the ease of repair would overcome that flaw. Ando had specifically used the space that usually held fuel or energy cells to design it so that they could drop and replace the armor in seconds.
Likewise the missiles were a deliberate choice. Four of them meant easy replacement. It gave Lilly very little margin of error. Four shots were practically nothing, even as large as these were.
Designing this all took most of a day. Bolt had to assume that a normal leader would have had one day on design and one on creation. He would be doing something different.
First was that they had prefabricated most of the standard components. The skeleton, most of the wiring, and the internal computers were all fairly consistent across designs. At home they had a wall filled with cables already made for instance. A contest might not have had them premade, but once you knew the voltage you could print them in mass. Lilly had actually helped a lot there just because they needed someone to move things around. It was probably considered grunt work that a pilot wouldn't do, but there wasn't any rules against it!
Second was that on day two they did do the assembly, but would be doing a partial one. Using the free time the prefabrication had given them, they'd do a skeleton structure and pre-check everything. Bolt's bad habit of revising a blueprint could actually be somewhat useful in that regard. Sometimes you had to see the thing implemented to know where the problems were.
As an added bonus, they could stick Lilly in the cockpit and get some additional feedback as to what to tweak. Little things, like adjusting the seat, changing the feedback, altering the sensors and such. According to the girl was was rather novel sensation wise. Something like running around without clothing, which made Wu flush.
Even with four hours of sleep and barely any time for necessities, they still ran very close to the time limit. Bolt was an old hand at mech assembly though, so he'd scheduled things just right. The last two hours were not frantic speeding. It was all finishing touches that were typically skipped. Getting the armor welded properly, making sure the computer acknowledged everything and was cleared of errors, testing the limbs and oiling the joints, being sure the coolant was already running, and so on. These things didn't stop a mech from functioning, but they did make a mech run better. (Bolt also had spare parts of the armor, and twelve missiles made for the future. The fabricator was running non-stop until the last second.)
Since Lilly was there she got some extra practice time as well. This was decidedly non-standard, but still quite welcome. This allowed them to identify a few things they could still further adjust and tune.
The end mech looked surprisingly valiant. While they had no time for actual decorations, it was trivial for the printer to add more than a few details while printing. The head looked vaguely avian like. There was a long red trailing ribbon that made it look like the mech had a red ponytail. The armor was sharp and angular. The back mounted missile launcher looked vaguely like folded up wings. Thematic and appropriate to the appearance.
"It looks predatory." Ando gave his observation. "Why do I feel that? It's not just the cosmetics." He sounded troubled as he spoke.
Now wasn't the time for that though. "We have just enough time to paint it." Bolt looked at the time remaining with mild amusement. "I'm giving it red with gold highlights."
"No seriously, what is that technique?" Dai asked out loud with narrowed eyes. "I built it and I still don't get it."
Bolt initiated the automated cranes and paint started to coat the mech while ignoring the question. He didn't have the answers for them. All he had was an additional clue. The paint was typically skipped as well. It was mostly corrosion resistance and a minor layer of protection against environmental damage. Contest mechs usually forewent it for a variety of reasons. Here he was going all out. It was almost like a taunt really.
"Heee. He's gonna be fun!" Lilly muttered from the side.
Ando immediately seemed to remember something at those words. He turned to her and gave a bow. "Thank you very much for helping. That was far beyond what a pilot would normally do."
"Yeah, what he said." Dai gave another bow, along with Wu.
The expert candidate gave a disdainful snort. "Of course they wouldn't. Most don't bother with designers. Dunno why ya'll stay separate like that. Bolt made me wings, and I'll never forget that."
"To be fair, this was a two day cramming session. If we did this in a month you'd be bored out of your skull after the first day." Bolt commented as the paint finished.
Lilly bounced over and jumped up to hug him around the neck. "I'd still visit you whenever, because you're my darling." She told him before letting go. "Now time to go out and strut my stuff!"
"Good luck." Bolt said warmly before turning to the others. "Go ahead and nap everyone." He ordered.
They were still going to be isolated after all. The format was very strict. They'd only be able to watch the match and that would happen after the opening ceremonies. They couldn't even run the fabricator. Everything was locked down now. Best to just catch up on their sleep while the ceremonies were running, watch the match, and then plan for that.
I read novels
I really do
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birb
