Chapter 2167 Cat“s Paw In six months to a year, the Ves planned to renew the Larkinson Clan's entire fleet. He wanted to get rid of the third-class light carriers and other flimsy vessels that weren't robust enough to withstand the rigors of inter-sector space travel. While his current fleet was already powerful enough to roam through the lesser states of the Komodo Star Sector, as soon as it bumped into a decently powerful Fridayman fleet, it would likely collapse at the first blow! So long as this vulnerability remained, Ves had no confidence in crossing over to Vicious Mountain or Majestic Teal. Right now, the Larkinson Clan managed to maintain its existence by sheltering under the formidable umbrella of the Hexadric Hegemony. Though powerful, the influence of the Hexers rapidly declined outside of their home star sectors. The second-rate states of other star sectors had no reason to pay attention to the deterrence of those man-haters. Therefore, Ves was prepared to invest substantially in his fleet and build up its strength to the point where it could roam securely through neutral states regardless of their strength! As long as the Larkinsons did not provoke a powerful second-rate rate, Ves believed his fleet should be strong enough to fend off any other aggressors. The greater the price of attacking the Larkinson Fleet, the less challengers it would face! Just acquiring a tough vessel wasn't enough. Aside from relying on spaceborn mechs to fend off attackers, Ves also wanted to add some heavy firepower to the mix. The Cat's Paw Project aimed to design a new Larkinson-exclusive mech that would perfectly address this need for the upcoming decade. The budget for the mech design was very generous. He wanted something that wouldn't become outdated in a couple of years like the Bright Warriors, so he wanted to design a powerful premier second-class heavy mech. The current market price of the Doom Guard was around 2 million hex credits. This was a typical price for an expensive third-class mech. The estimated market price of the Blessed Squire was 200 million hex credits. The price disparity between a third-class mech and a second-class mech was very considerable! For a mech that Ves planned to utilize as the main defenses of his extremely important factory ship and combat carriers, he planned to grit his teeth and allocate most of the LMC's current profits towards their production. Ves set an upper limit of 600 million hex credits as the production cost of his upcoming heavy artillery mech! This was a hefty amount of money that Ves felt very helpless about. Just five second-class heavy artillery mechs already cost as much as a single combat carrier! It sounded ridiculous, but neither he nor Gloriana wanted to settle for less! First, heavy mechs were already typically four times more expensive on average than a medium mech. If they adhered to the same budget as that of the Blessed Squire, then their efforts would just yield a very hollow and fragile mech design whose bark was stronger than its bite. This was unacceptable. If Ves and Gloriana set out to design a heavy mech, then they wanted to do it properly, and that required a lot of money! Second, it was not as if all of that money went to waste. When a mech absorbed so much funding, a qualitative transformation took place. Premier mech designs performed significantly better than premium mechs, especially if their expanded budgets concentrated on enhancing just a couple of aspects! Though any heavy mech required at least a considerable amount of armor to keep them together, Ves already decided to spend the bulk of the budget on enhancing the offensive capabilities of the Cat's Paw design. This did not apply to the weapon systems, which the mech design hosted a considerable amount of them, but also the support systems meant to keep them working at their best conditions. The energy weapons needed a strong and stable supply of power. The heat generated from the weapons also had to be shunted from the mech to the ship. The standalone sensors and targeting systems had to be good enough to allow the mech to keep hitting its targets if the ship it was on suddenly stopped supplying the necessary targeting data. All in all, the fact that the heavy mechs were solely designed to be stationed in bunkers meant that Ves could readily forgo other priorities, such as the mobility of the mech! Ves waved his hand, causing a fairly basic sketch of the design he had in mind to appear. "This mech will be designed according to Hexer standards because the ships we are in the process of acquiring are also designed and built by Hexers. This means that the mech will feature six legs that are designed to be anchored into the standardized slots built into the interior of the bunkers." The hefty mech resembled a centaur mech of sorts. The lower body consisted of a fairly heavy base surrounded by six legs. Individually, those legs were thick, but not very strong. At the very least, their mechanical power was not up to par compared to proper landbound mechs. Since this heavy artillery mech spent most of its time in a bunker, there was no need to allocate too much capacity in increasing its movement speed. The legs were also specifically designed to maximize heat transfer. The last thing Ves wanted to see was the mechs falling silent because they grew too hot to sustain their fire! This was something allowed by the rules set by the Big Two. Sadly, Ves couldn't apply the same solution to the power supply. The MTA and CFA specifically forbid anyone from connecting the heavy mech directly to the power network of a ship! Such a design choice would allow a heavy mech to output damage similar to the damage of a warship, and that was absolutely taboo! Therefore, despite the inefficiency, Ves had no choice but to play by the rules and make his Cat's Paw mech self-sufficient in terms of power supply. At most, he could make it a little easier for the mech to replenish its spent energy cells. A very young assistant raised a hand to ask a question. "Pardon me, sir, but Cat's Paw is a weird name for a mech." "It's just a temporary code name. I will come up with a more dignified name when we complete this project." A powerful mech deserved a grand name. He did not want to embarrass the Larkinsons who were assigned to pilot the heaviest source of firepower to the Larkinson Fleet. Someone else asked another question. "Will this mech or a version of it be made available to the Hexers?" That was a clever question. Ves had already basically admitted that the Cat's Paw design would be designed according to Hexer technical standards. This coincidentally made them very similar to the heavy artillery mechs employed by the Hex Army! Gloriana paused for a moment before she offered a response. "This is a matter that is still under consideration. Heavy artillery mechs play a huge role in any mech military, and they are usually very advanced designs. We still need to prove to the Hegemony that we can design a heavy artillery mech that provides added value compared to what the Hex Army already fields." In other words, Ves and Gloriana intended to design the Cat's Paw mech for the Larkinson Clan first. Once DIVA and the Hexers saw how well this mech performed, the Miracle Couple didn't mind designing a militarized variant for the Hex Army! Of course, the premise of this rested on the ability for Ves and Gloriana to truly design a good heavy artillery mech. If the end product barely matched the performance levels of the Hex Army's existing heavy artillery mechs, then there was no compelling reason for the Hexers to adopt another model! Though Ves felt very confident he could come up with something ingenious enough, he needed to think hard on how to differentiate his heavy artillery mech. He still hadn't fully come up with a solid vision or formed an outline of its glow and triggered abilities. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂 These were all key to making his Cat's Paw design truly special. Once he answered a few more questions about the heavy artillery mech he intended to design, the discussion moved on to the minor projects. Surprisingly, Ves and Gloriana hadn't specified them at this point. "There are more mech designers in the LMC than my partner and I." Ves smiled. "We think it might be interesting to let you have a voice this time. Each of you have a couple of days to come up with a proposal for an interesting third-class mech for us to design. If your proposal is interesting enough, then Gloriana and I will adapt them and let you flesh it out into a design that is worthy of the LMC!" This was an amazing opportunity for the assistants! Each of their eyes lit up as they realized that they could actually present some of the works they dreamed about! "Don't disappoint us." Gloriana warned them all. "We are looking for practical, useful designs that either have great market appeal or can serve a useful purpose to the Larkinson Clan. Consider this a test as well as an opportunity. Those who have proposed excellent, workable mech designs will be rewarded with a handsome amount of merits." The assistants tempered their enthusiasm a bit after hearing that. The competition would doubtlessly be intense, and they also had to abide by many practical constraints. Even so, they already felt grateful for their employers for giving their proposals a chance. This was not always the case in other companies. Ves did this not to motivate his assistants or to earn their favor. He wanted to develop them and turn them into greater assets. While most assistants would probably work in this capacity for a considerable amount of time, he hoped that at least some of them would stand out in the coming years. Whether they advanced to Journeyman or not, Ves needed mech designers who could take charge of their projects! Since every mech designer attending this conference pledged their loyalty to the Larkinson Clan, Ves did not need to be afraid that his assistants would leave the LMC once they believed they had 'outgrown' their roles. This was one of the biggest reasons why mech companies were reluctant to invest too much in mech designers. They were simply too ambitious. Once they achieved a good measure of success and ability, many of them couldn't wait to start up their own mech company! Though Ves hadn't actually figured out what to do in case an assistant mech designer wanted to leave the LMC but remain a Larkinson clansman, he truly hoped to keep everyone together as long as possible. "Any further questions?" The assistants looked at each other for a while. Ketis raised her hand this time. "How much time do we spend on each project?" "That's something we haven't fully decided upon yet. For now, let us set aside four months for each of them, whether they are minor or major projects." With eighteen assistant mech designers working on every minor project, Ves refused to believe that they wouldn't be able to design a good mech in this span of time! Seeing that no one had any questions, Ves finally ended the meeting. "Alright, that's it for today. We will reconvene in a couple of days to discuss your ideas. Do your best to earn our approval!" Ves smiled proudly as the assistants already started to buzz and swap ideas. Soon enough, the LMC's Design Department would be working on six design projects at the same time! Even if only two of them centered around powerful second-class mech designs, that was still a considerable leap from before! Once Ves became accustomed to designing six mechs at a time, he might expand the LMC's design capacity once again, especially once Ketis and a couple of other notable talents advanced to Journeyman!