What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

To Bolt's mild entertainment, the designing station was right in the little pavilion. It was actually part of an entire system that could be adjusted. Basically a smart room that could become whatever they needed. It answered more than a few questions. They'd left it at park like settings just because it was casually novel and relaxing for all of them. It was just a background though. The designing was the important part, and everyone wanted to do it already.

"Here's the parts we have available." Gary began with a swish of his hand, and an entire list filled up a wall. "Exotics over here." He made another list.

"I'm compatible with the highlighted." Delicee noted while highlighting a significant portion of the parts, all business now that they were designing. "I'm unfamiliar with second rate design though. Too big for my usual tricks."

"Join the club. I'm mostly lost there." Bolt muttered as he tried to get an idea of what was available before closing his eyes and taking a breath.

"Going up a level in tech isn't something we can remedy quickly. I can select things if you like. I'm not going to be able to apply my specialty without my usual supplies so I'll have the time." Gary offered.

Bolt opened his eyes and shook his head. "No first, we need to go over the exotics together. You need specific exotics?"

"I can use chemicals, but they're not potent enough for real mech operations. Home had entire mountains of exotics that ate heat. Hence me needing this even at Second Rate." Gary fluffed his hood in emphasis.

"Understandable, I tried doing that with my own mech and hit that problem. I think I can bring it up. You'll see the issue immediately I think." Bolt brought up Undertaker. "One of my works. Third Rate, so sorry about that." While he wasn't ashamed of his work, it was decidedly low tech.

"Don't apologize. Designing with limited resources is an artform in itself. I actually love way you do forms." Delicee tapped and all of the sudden all of Bolts designs were displayed. "You have the soul of an artist. Actually, that needs reciprocation, here." He tapped and everyone's designs filled up the rest of the space.

The young designer took a moment to look over them. This was actually very interesting. Delicee's work was all space mechs, for what little that meant for multipurpose First Rate mechs. They were studded with stars and all had ranged weapons of various sorts. There was even a little video on each of them showing notable feats. Most of it wasn't as understandable as he'd like.

Gary's were easier to understand. Those were basically walking icicles or mountains. He favored very heavy mechs, and there wasn't a single freeze ray to his mild disappointment. Most of them actually didn't have any obvious frost effects at all.

"Huh. You designed your works to deal with cold rather than project it. I expected more weapons." Bolt observed after a few minutes.

"The exotics I work with can do offensive work. Most of my early designs were just to make the mechs function in the cold. I advanced when I figured out how it applied to other areas in mech designs." Gary tapped at the blueprint of Ghoul. "Yours is harder to pin down. A novice would say it's you having cannibal mechs."

"I'm never going to live that down." Bolt said with a sigh.

"Oh, don't feel bad. It's splashy and spectacularly risque! We can tell your specialty is actually quite subtle. I'd say the Cerberus has the clearest display of that. You haven't made a mech since you hit journeyman though have you?" Delicee asked with mild amusement. "None of these have that signature heft that Journeyman work has."

"I made one, but that's for my wife. She's an expert and it's not in the databases here yet." Bolt replied and ignored why that was the case.

That of all things he'd said got mild looks of surprise, and then a bit of flipping as the other designers looked for information. Delicee was the one to say something after the information was brought up. He'd found a video of her ascension. Someone had edited it very well. It looked far more dramatic than Bolt remembered, and he had no idea where they'd gotten the music. His fellow designer had a different idea about it.

"I am absolutely in love." Delicee declared once it finished. "That skill? That absolute showmanship? Oh to design for her. I don't even care that it'd be a Third Rate. If I could see her in a First Rate? Oh I'd die happy."

"Putting aside the inappropriate declarations, we'd probably be best served to let him do as much designing as possible. I remember my first real mech after journeyman and how much I needed to feel things out." Gary noted.

The other designer nodded. "Yes, you haven't flexed at all. You need to, and the Rim Guardians can foot the bill!"

"I'd rather we all work together. My teamwork still needs improvement." Bolt muttered as he switched the blueprint layers on Gary's mechs and flipped through them. "Hmm. I can see why you're going to have trouble here. I don't recognize half the materials on in your mechs."

"Local resources. You never realize how much you depend on them until you move halfway across the galaxy." Gary sounded more than a little frustrated.

Bolt felt irritated himself, but he couldn't actually address the issue. The list of materials they had access to with this challenge was expansive and unfamiliar to him as well. "Ug. Delicee, can you help identify something that will work with his style? I refuse to have someone here do substandard work, and I need to review everything to see what I can contribute. Give me thirty."

He was actually pretty appreciative of the way the other man jumped on it. Both of his companions for this had egos, but it felt as if they were also willing to work with others too. The low stakes and purpose of the group probably helped a lot there. Bolt could see their brilliance based on their designs, so it meant a lot that they were willing to just, well be nice and try to work with him. He was going to do his best here just because of that.

Thirty minutes was nothing in the grand scheme of things. It most certainly wasn't enough to get himself up to speed technically. Second Rate was an entirely different paradigm of technology. Bolt would need to learn parts and costs from the ground up if he wanted to make a mech from that type. It wasn't his purpose here though. He was going to try to flex other parts of his specialty. All he needed to do was get a handle on the other designer's specialties. Class Ones were supposed to be really good with others right? He just had to be careful not to 'eat' the others. (Which he suspected was just making sure they made sure their work wasn't overridden by his, hopefully.)

"Found something usable of sorts." Delicee said after the time was up.

"This isn't optimal, but I can work with it." Gary agreed as he brought up the exotic component specifications.

The exotic was almost a liquid in that it flowed like a liquid sometimes. It could change from a solid, to a liquid, to what amounted to flowing shattered glass in a second. When it changed phases it stored or released energy depending on the phase. The stuff was barely controllable, but had some use in mechs when appropriately leashed. Called Flowing Ice, it was nasty nasty stuff in the wild and subsequently rather expensive as a Second Rate compound.

"All right, so my thought was we do a heavy. That's something yer very good with Gary." Bolt nodded at the heavies on display. "That's not something Delicee is good with, but he can do the weapons. Most of your stuff does orbital shots so you can do something long range." He gestured to a video of an a laser changing direction mid-flight.

"That is a good basis, but there's the problem of applying our specialties together." Gary noted.

"I can smooth over most of them I think." Bolt offered. "The tricky part is we need to coordinate. I have some understanding of your work and will need you to walk me through the mindset some. That's the whole unification thing I put in that description."

The other designers were smart enough to understand he was keeping some things close to his chest. At the same time they didn't seem to mind. If anything they seemed both amused and eager to get started. He felt the same way. They weren't competing per-say, but he wanted to sort of show off some. They likely felt the same way.

 

[lost star]

Second Rate mechs were different than Third Rate. By necessity Third Rate mechs were best described as mechs designed to work with the bare minimum of resources. They had a very narrow focus, a limited space, and were extremely frugal in exotics. Second Rates were typically able to handle at least two roles, could fly for a few minutes, and could work in space, all in the same design. They also cost more. Really, the best way to describe it was a standard Second Rate mech cost and worked like an expert mech from a Third Rate nation.

This was a base and generic comparison. It assumed the designers and pilots were the same. There were bottom of the barrel Second Rate Mechs that could only trade three to one. There were high quality Second Rate mechs that could utterly trounce any number of Third Rate mechs. Pilots would alter the equations dramatically as well, and this was typically more culture and practice than training. Second Rate nations liked to boast they had the best training, but experience and attitude mattered more than anything else. It was a known fact that you could train up Third Rate pilots and they'd perform identically to Second Rate. It just took some time and you needed to have pilots with good potential. (Third rates used D and higher. Second needed Cs. First Rates didn't bother with anything below B.)

Bolt was actually getting a demonstration of that disparity here. Delicee was a designer from a First Rate nation. He had an implant that would take Bolt a decade of saving up MTA credits to afford. Using that allowed the man to create a mech and upload it to the designer they had in seconds.

Gary still found plenty of things to fix and adjust. Delicee's focus had been mostly space mechs, and he was too used to First Rate mechs. This again showed an implants power. The blueprint flickered repeatedly as the two bounced ideas back and forth using their implants. Some trends emerged. Delicee loved to add more stuff. Gary was more restrained and very typically had to remove things to make the overall mech work.

Amusingly, that left Bolt to do a lot of the form factor and make the big decisions. He was thankful that he could still be useful here. He changed the outside appearance and design, made decisions on where they were going, and also did point out a few things here and there too. Their implants helped with designs and calculations, it didn't always catch mistakes. (GIGO still applied.)

Their target was a few simulated super beasts in a simulated jungle. It was a noted flex of technological might. The Rim Guardians were spending who knows how much resources to give them a small and inconsequential contest. Bolt still found it entertaining and less stressful than the other things he'd encountered in the trip.

Their mech was a heavy. Since Bolt wasn't the lead, he didn't go with his usual themes. Their initial thought was to go for a cold giant monster instead. A thing from outer space, icy and malevolent. It looked like a horror monster. (Delicee loved it, Gary was repeatedly rolling his eyes under the hood every time the flamboyant designer added another detail.)

This decision was mostly because Gary loved using thick armor with high power generators. His default mode to using his specialty was using endothermic reactions to cool the mech and give him more leeway in other matters. It was not a visible or flashy way of working. It did give his mechs the ability to run at surprisingly high output for significant periods of time. Heat management was core to a mech and his specialty lent itself very well to that.

Delicee worked on the rifle they'd decided to integrate with the system. It was a relatively thick thing that used the heavy's output to support it. It wasn't a particularly novel weapon, but the 'elephant gun' was likely going to be able to down nearly anything if it hit, and he could easily make it hit.

It was also boring and really didn't show off his specialty at all. The designer wasn't complaining, but Bolt certainly didn't like it. He wanted more than just functional!

Bolt stared at the design as it formed and took a step back as he thought on it. Then he reviewed his teammate's works again. They barely noticed, still focused on other things. He looked at the details of everyone's previous design and then frowned. "Delicee, mind verifying a few calcs?" He wrote out a few equations.

The numbers made the designer pause in consideration. "What in the world?" He asked. "You managed to pick that up?"

"Gary. Got some for you too." Bolt wrote out more theoretical propositions.

"No." The designer immediately said after a single glance.

"Damnit, I wanted to make a black hole gun." The young designer said.

"You wouldn't believe how many people want to do something similar." Delicee brought up a few videos of the attempts. "Really, the largest problem is that it's only possible to do at First Rate. Anything lower than that is just sort of cost prohibitive at best."

"I wouldn't say we can't here." Bolt hummed to himself and sketched out few designs. "The physics feel like their possible with some work. And I'm sure if we combine our specialties we could do it. Just gotta figure out the exact angle."

Delicee and Gary looked at Bolt as he worked and then seemed to exchange messages between them. Then the First Rater nodded. "Would this help?" He projected a few math concepts detailing space and time combined with gravity onto their shared display. The equations were rather dizzying to behold but Bolt managed to get the general concept even if a lot of it was beyond his ability to calculate with just his mind.

"Curvature is good I think. Sorry, I need to bring up a calculator ta really read this." Bolt replied as he started to get into the idea. "We need to build up the gravity sheer. Then sort of pull in? Endokinetics is mostly pulling in heat anyway."

"That's a simplified way of putting it." Gary commented dryly. "I'd need some physical connections. I think... Yeah I see where you're going with that." He observed before creating a sketch of a device that would pull in heat.

"Let's make a chain here with that. Ball and chain isn't really a mech weapon normally, but we do the ball like this." Bolt changed the object into a ball and then added the chain before attaching it to the mech.

Delicee's eyebrows raised. "Your math is completely wrong, but it might be possible." He acknowledged with some surprise.

"We're going to throw black holes!" Bolt declared with amusement.

Gary sighed as he kept running numbers. "Calcs are saying we aren't. We need just a bit more pull for it to work as a weapon." He pointed out with clear disappointment.

"Put them on screen?" Bolt asked and then winced at the equations provided and the clearly highlighted defect they had. "So it won't pull in enough?"

"There's a threshold that we have to hit to make it viable." Delicee observed with a sigh of his own. "Pity. I could do this with Fist Rate materials, but that'd defeat the point."

"Other problems too. Power requirements are higher than a ball and chain can support. The chain will also break if it does work. It will also be explosive enough that we need reinforcement over everything, which might cause issues." Gary did sound disappointed as he listed the trouble.

The young designer eyeballed the device and ran through a few mental estimates. "I think I can get it to work. I'd need to physically assemble it and we'd need to switch it to a very large mace-like design. We're going to need some Third Rate efficiency in the design too. Strip out everything but support for this weapon."

"You think you can make it by hand?" Gary asked incredulously before shaking his head. "Well why not? It's easy enough to test." He tapped at something and a door opened up.

"Hmm?" Delicee made an inquiring noise.

"It's a known thing sometimes. Some specialties are like that in Second and Third Ranks." Gary replied with a small shrug as they walked through the door.

"Ah, and Bolt here is an omni-disciplinary Type One so he can do that." The First Rate observed. "You're actually fortunate there. First Rate designers have more exotic specialties, but that's partially because you have so many options it's impossible for even an enhanced designer to learn them all. You on the other hand can start broad and narrow down as you advance if you need to."

"That's interesting to know. They don't advertise that do they?" Bolt asked and got a laugh in return.

Through that door were their parts, already made. Bolt was mildly surprised. Even knowing that they could make parts instantly it was still a bit shocking to see how quickly the parts had been made. That did make it easier for him though. All he needed to do was assemble them all together and focus. The only complication was he needed to borrow Gary's gloves because several parts were freezing due to exotics.

Well that and he wasn't sure how much 'psionics' he should display. All he really wanted to do was add a bit more strength to the pull. The goal was basically have the ball draw in everything it could with artificial gravity. Then the when the ball impacted something it would release the accumulated matter and energy. They'd obviously need to workshop the idea, but that was the general thought process behind the concept.

Bolt just decided to focus and let things fall where they would in making it. He wasn't even sure he could do what he wanted. This was pushing his abilities in an admittedly strange direction. It was experimenting quite a bit really. Which was honestly fine here.

The assembly itself only took a few minutes. With the parts already made it was just slotting them into the proper area and having it welded or bolted into place. He didn't even have to tweak much. Just a few wires here and there, and adding more insulation. Soon he had a rather ominous looking mace. He and Delicee had been a bit enthusiastic in making it look deadly.

"It shouldn't have that much of a change in throughput based on what you did, but I can almost feel that it will work now." Delicee observed once he was finished. "Huh. There is something to making it yourself. I learned something today!" He clapped his hands theatrically.

"Proof is in startup, not in feelings." Gary pointed out.

"Out of the room first." Bolt ordered everyone, and they seemed bemused at the order.

Outside they started up the camera and then started up the device in the ball. With an almost ominous hiss that was audible through the camera, the ball went dark as the gravitational effect activated. All three designers stared at it with glee. There was something special about knowing you'd successfully made a dangerous weapon.

"We're going to have to revamp the rest of the mech to use this aren't we?" Bolt mused as he stared at the active weapon. A weapon like this was more explosive ordinance attached to a stick than a mace.

No one minded the added work. Redesigning the mech to handle the new weapon required some significant reinforcement. True to Bolt's words they had to strip most of the typical functions a Second Rate would have. This mech would do one thing very well. It would crush things with the hammer.

This did necessitate they drop the monster appearance and switch it to something else. They ended up doing something a bit silly with it.