[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 22: Craftsman's Pride

A mech's armor defined the machine's appearance. The changes made to the internals might not be visible to outsiders, but it affected the heart and soul of the mech. His experiences in muddling around with the Nero and making more focused modifications with the Nero Redividus taught him a lot about the design philosophy behind the Caesar Augustus.

Ves already knew that Jason wanted to cram as much goodies in his frame as possible. This adversely affected the mech's internal integrity as any damage that passed by its armor could spark a cascade of faults.

While Jason relied on National Aeromotives' excellent armor to mitigate this issue, Ves had to make do with Marlin Solution's budget-focused 1004-HRF 5th Generation. Despite his best efforts, the Marc Antony's armor only withstood about a third as much as the original armor in the worst locations. The best places only matched the original armor by 80%, which was already extremely generous.

With an armor scheme that only protected the Marc Antony's internals by an average of 50% of the base model, Ves wondered if he should vacate some unnecessary components in order to make room for more structural support.

The internals of a mech consisted of every component underneath a mech's outer shell.

The internal frame that acted as the skeleton of the Caesar Augustus was strong and thick. It needed to be, as it sometimes came under intense stress due to the weight it carried and the attacks it bore when the armor was penetrated.

The highly durable synthetic muscles that controlled its limbs also took a lot of space, as an abundance of power was required to move the CA-1's generous armor.

The components themselves varied in their requirements. The cockpit, engine and power reactor all took up most of the space in the torso, but other systems such as sensors and processors had plenty of space in the mech's otherwise useless head.

The pipes and cabling that connected the components together looked thin, but added up together they made up a significant and important portion of a mech's internal space.

The original Caesar Augustus' models came installed with some truly fine components. Even though the mech was now considered last generation, the quality of its numerous components allowed the mech to overcome most current generation frontline models as long as its energy lasted. However, this led to the CA-1's internal space becoming congested by cabling as all those components needed to be connected to the engines, power reactor, cockpit or more. It exceeded all the recommended safety margins Ves learned in college.

The mech only supported so much weight. The Caesar Augustus had been classified as a medium mech. Such mechs were the mainstays of battles, able to dodge slow attacks and tank the lighter ones. To retain the minimum amount of mobility required to pilot the mech in such a manner, Jason already stretched the Caesar Augustus to its maximum limits.

Any heavier and the mech would end up into an uncomfortable weight class beyond mediumweight but lighter than heavyweight. It was hardly able to dodge most attacks, but its armor couldn't endure against a sustained assault.

Ves mulled the difficult problem of solving the mech's internal structure while keeping his mech effective in performing its role.

"The Marc Antony is aggressive. As long as it's able to charge at the enemy and thump them in the opening moments, it's sufficient. Battles of attrition and extended engagements are not its specialties. The mech doesn't demand too much endurance."

His first internal modification was to make the painful decision to remove 15% of the mech's energy cells. This reduced the mech's ability to sustain a pitched battle, but it freed up quite a bit of space.