[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 157: Stealth Armor

Ves began to design his variant in earnest. First, he began with his usual ritual of focusing a desired image into an intent. He only had the Dogged One in mind, so his practiced mind easily slipped into his desired state.

As a habit, Ves started with the weapon first. The Tryops came with a fairly excellent laser rifle that had already been integrated in the base model's targeting systems. It came with two default modes, one meant for power and precision and another one for close-to-medium range strafing.

While the laser rifle adequately fulfilled both roles, the mech itself fared poorly on the latter front. Ves had to consider whether he wanted to keep this shooting mode. Just because the mech fared poorly at closer ranges didn't mean that the rapid-fire mode had no use.

Yet when he envisioned the Dogged One, he imagined a complete dedication to the crossbow. Even if the weapon only excelled in one single aspect, the Dogged One always made it work by choosing the right battles.

"Limitations shapes behavior. Rifleman mechs always let the enemy come to them. They can choose to engage or retreat at will."

Ves kept his goal of designing a training mech in mind when he chose to remove the rapid-fire mode. While its absence might not make his model very popular, it nevertheless enhanced its focus. Mech pilots promoted their mastery faster if they dedicated their training to a single aspect rather than flitting around between different styles.

He proceeded to extensively overhaul the laser rifle. He wanted to turn it into a compact laser cannon in a way. The weapon should be extremely precise at medium-to-long ranges and its laser beam should cripple any mech when it struck a weak point.

He tore out many redundant and outdated components. In their place, he quickly designed a couple of revised components made of different alloys that improved the rifle's maximum power and heat emission. Ves had to make sure the weapon wouldn't melt when it fired a couple of shots, though he estimated the weapon could only handle five shots at a time before it required an extensive cooldown.

"Five shots isn't much for a normal rifle." He thought. If anyone else heard that Ves wanted to redesign a rifle that could only shoot this much in a single encounter, they'd call him crazy. "Once they see it in action, they'll see why it doesn't matter."

By converting the rifle into a high-powered compact laser cannon, Ves completely transcended the 2-star domain. He borrowed heavily from the insights gleaned from Dr. Kawasaki's research notes. Studying the forbidden material had taught him much on how to make gamma lasers workable, though he lacked the foundation to design a graser rifle from scratch.

Furthermore, he also borrowed some design elements from the Caesar Augustus' wrist laser cannons. The weapon system employed an extremely compact arrangement that allowed the hybrid knight to fire off a substantial amount of firepower, though its accuracy left much to be desired. The practical example allowed Ves to slim down his rifle design to a reasonable size.

Compared to the jumbo-sized laser cannons, his own version still looked like a regular rifle. It only massed a little bit more than the base model. By sacrificing the rapid-fire mode, Ves freed up sufficient space to soup up its precision mode to a ludicrous level.

It only took one-and-a-half days to complete the redesign, but Ves wasn't done. He spent four more days subjecting the weapon to a large variety of tests.

He uncovered a large amount of flaws. His implementation of borrowed knowledge had been awfully rough, which indicated that he hadn't fully mastered the theories behind these elements.

Ves expected something like this to happen, so he simply shrugged and plugged the holes whenever he encountered them. Through this constant iterative process of testing and fixing, the rifle gained a more refined appearance, though it also boasted significantly more mass.