The Mech Touch

5729 Cost-Saving Measure

The explanation provided by Dr. Czilia Avoqee successfully won her audience after she initially scared them away from purchasing her product.

The stealth field fey may be fragile, finicky, energy hungry and prone to failure in many conditions, but so what?

As long as a mech force properly accounted for all of these weaknesses and took measures to minimize exposure to them, the stealth field fey could still be utilized to secretly sneak over a bunch of mechs and other stuff!

Technology was all about recognizing limitations and working around them. Ves shouldn't be so surprised at this because third-raters and second-raters often had to work around them in their daily lives.

Even first-raters weren't exempt from the boundaries imposed by their physical reality.

They just had it a lot better because they could spend astronomical sums of money to obtain extremely inefficient but somehow effective enough solutions for most of their problems!

In any case, the stealth field fey presented so many useful possibilities in or outside a battlefield that even the Larkinson Clan wanted to obtain a generous quantity of them! They could make life a lot easier for its mech legions. The high price tags did not pose much of a hindrance to the increasingly wealthier Larkinsons.

It was as if the stealth field fey were specifically designed to meet the needs of the Larkinson Clan!

Of course, Ves was far from the only person who was willing to splurge on these useful solutions. Numerous leaders among the audience also made the same consideration.

Unlike stealth mechs, the stealth field fey was able to hide the presence of mechs that ordinarily weren't equipped with active cloaking systems. This was incredibly useful as it opened up the possibility of discreetly sneaking in scout mechs, hacking mechs, melee mechs and more without letting them get intercepted in advance.

The only issue was that it would be difficult for the covert mech unit to successfully reach their destination if their targets actively moved in space.

Ballistic travel was most conducive for stealth because the mechs mostly remained cold as they coasted through space.

If their target kept moving, the covert mech unit had to move as well, and that was problematic as the stealth field fey needed to compensate for a lot more activity.

The greater the variables, the greater the probability of exposing flaws.

That did not depress the enthusiasm for Ves and everyone else who saw great promise in this tech.

Despite the experimental nature of this product, its capabilities were just too useful to set aside and forget about its existence.

The ongoing war did not allow for red humanity to take its time to properly test out all of its inew innovations. As long as a new tech was useful enough, it was better to put it to use despite the lack of exhaustive tests.

Besides, there was no guarantee that alien sensors would remain ineffective against the form of stealth employed by this product.

Stealth technology always got overtaken by advancements in sensor technology. Perhaps it might only take a few years before the aliens wised up and made sure to equip their warships with technological updates that rendered the stealth field fey ineffective.

If that was the case, then it was better to take advantage of the momentary effectiveness of the stealth field fey while they lasted!

As Dr. Avoqee completed her frank and factual presentation of her product, Ves chose to ask a few questions.

"I think I am speaking on behalf of many interested parties when I say that we appreciate your candor." He said as he continued to float above everyone's heads. "As exhaustive as your explanation may be, there are still many points of uncertainty. For example, is it possible for your stealth field fey to successfully bring an expert mech or an ace mech in close proximity to an unsuspecting alien fleet?"

"Not in a reliable manner." The woman decisively shook his head. "One of our failed tests happened to center around this scenario. High-ranking mechs are much more powerful and produce exponentially greater emissions when active. We do not have the technology to compensate for their domain completely shut down."

Many people frowned when they heard that. Ves was no exception.

"If that is the case, then the inactive expert mechs will turn into sitting ducks. Much of the reasons why the aliens are struggling to defeat our champions is because our high-

ranking mechs are not only a lot tougher, but are also capable of evading a lot of powerful attacks. Even if they get hit, their resonance shields can mitigate a lot of incoming damage. Keeping them off-line negates all of these advantages. They can only rely on their armor systems to withstand enough damage and buy time for the machine to activate in a hurry."

That was not ideal, particularly for relatively thin and fragile expert mechs such as the Dark Zephyr.

The way Ves saw it, stealth field fey should only be paired with relatively expendable mechs and mech pilots. They needed to be strong enough to complete their missions without making it too painful to lose them all of a sudden.

If it was not absolutely necessary, there was no reason to assign a precious expert mech for these risky duties.

"Will Heq-Lock Integrated Technologies continue to support the stealth field fey and update it with new technologies in order to retain its effectiveness over time."

"We are committed to preserving the longevity of the stealth field fey as long as it remains profitable." Dr. Avoqee responded in a decisive tone. "We have excellent scientists and developers in our employ, and we have access to a large database of high-end technologies. We are confident that we can continue to iterate on the fey and ensure that it will stay relevant as our adversaries continue to make their own advancements."

That was a powerful guarantee and reassured a lot of customers. None of them wanted to buy a product that was bound to lose its effectiveness after just a few years. Ves just hoped that Heq-Lock and its Terran backers were willing to keep their word.

"May I ask why Heq-Lock has chosen to implement its adapted stealth technology in a fey as opposed to a purpose-

built mech? Are there any special advantages that have turned my Fey Fianna line into a more suitable platform than a proprietary mech design?"

The woman smiled up at him as she offered her response.

"One of the requirements to maintain an active stealth field is to perform a large amount of directed calculations and apply the results with as little lag time as possible. It is exponentially more difficult to cloak an entire field of space as opposed to the fixed dimensions of a single stealth mech. It may not be obvious to the casual observer, but the most expensive and energy intensive component of our fey is not its specialized stealth field emitters, but its proprietary AI core."

The projected schematic zoomed in to highlight the relatively large AI core installed in the center of the fey.

She was right. The AI core looked way out of proportion of the rest of the fey. It was too large and expensive for what was supposed to be a relatively small combat object.

The maximum processing power contained in this core was common in high-end hybrid mechs or even corvettes!

Ves realized now that it was indeed the main reason why the cost of the stealth field fey was so excessive. Active stealth technology was incredibly data-intensive to maintain. It was not like throwing a cloak of invisibility over a mech and calling it a day. It took a lot of active reactions to precisely dampen or counteract the emissions released by mech or object.

Even the slightest flaws or delays in calculations could produce artifacts that looked like faint shimmers.

These flaws were barely noticeable most of the time, but a sharp enough sensor could still detect the momentary activity and come to the conclusion that a stealth unit was in the area.

This was a catastrophic result!

Powerful AI cores were therefore needed to perform lots of accurate calculations fast enough to keep the stealth field completely even.

Ves understood now why this variation of stealth technology fit so well with his Fey Fianna.

"Let me guess. The effectiveness of your AI cores has increased by a significant enough margin when they are integrated in a living fey, am I correct?"

Czilia Avoqee nodded. "That appears to be the case, professor. I have spoken to other developers in the preceding hours and they have also noticed similar patterns. Our stealth field fey is one of the few creations that is purposely designed to derive extensive advantages from this unexplainable effect. As long as the living fey possesses elevated judgment and processing capabilities, we can effectively employ a more affordable AI core to perform the calculations of a higher grade of AI core. We will lose this advantage if we implement our stealth technology in our own mech designs."

That was interesting. Ves had not been aware of this effect. The living mechs that he designed so far generally did not rely all that much on powerful processing capabilities in order to fulfill their role.

The Phobos was probably the most dependent on number crunching in order to maintain its highly effective stealth system, but Ves remembered that he had splurged on an AI core that was way more powerful than the expert stealth mech actually needed. He would rather equip the powerful machine with additional processing power in case it was needed one day.

"These stealth field fey are high-tech products. They shouldn't be easy to produce." Ves remarked. "Will Heq-Lock Integrated Technologies be able to produce enough of them to meet customer demand?"

The lead engineer's expression remained impassive. "I am responsible for production operations, so I cannot supply you with a detailed answer. It is my understanding that our factory is able to meet a modest level of demand. If we can produce enough stealth field fey to fulfill all of our orders, then we can employ another factory, but not much more."

"What is the limit?"

"The current version of the stealth field fey is heavily reliant on a number of rare exotics and hypers that are relatively limited in supply. For example, a hyper material with the negation attribute is still rare and difficult to find in the new frontier. The limited availability of raw materials will constrain production to a lower ceiling than what we consider ideal. We are trying our best to locate more sources of rare materials, but humanity's territories in the Red Ocean can only yield oso much."

"I understand."

The industrial capacity of a civilization was highly dependent on territory. The aliens would find it much easier to mass produce the stealth field fey because they had much more abundant access to the necessary materials in their enormous turf.

Ves asked a few more questions about the stealth field fey and generally became satisfied with what he heard. Dr. Avoqee was not a careless engineer and accounted for many concerns in advance.

"Since the production of your stealth field fey is so limited, can you give our Larkinson Clan a priority on orders? We would like to order a batch of thousand units to begin with. Is that acceptable?"

The woman nodded. "That should not be an issue, though I must warn you that it will take time to complete your order."

There were plenty of ways for the Larkinsons to make use of these handy stealth field fey.

While the Larkinson Clan already possessed existing stealth capabilities of its own, they were mostly confined to specialized units belonging to the Black Cats.

Outside of the Phobos, the Larkinsons did not really have access to a combat unit that could employ active stealth to sneak close to a powerful enemy!

The addition of so many stealth field fey should relieve this shortcoming. It helped that the fey weren't all that big and could easily be stored.

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