What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

There was something soothing about hitting an object with a bat. Bolt had never done it before, but when he'd looked for something to vent himself on, this had come up. Baseball was an old, old sport that had gone through a thousand and one changes. Through it all the central concept had stayed the same. The ball was thrown, you hit it with a bat. It was more surprising that the facility had this sort of thing. He'd thought it was all mech and piloting stuff, but here it was.

"Wow, you're really out of it." Lilly's voice came from the side as Bolt hit another ball.

The young man looked up. "Hmm?" He made an inquiring noise.

"Been here like thirty minutes and you didn't even look up." The girl leaned against the cage that kept the balls from flying everywhere. "What's this by the way?"

"Old sport. I don't play it, but sometimes you just wanna hit something." Bolt suited words to action by hitting the next ball hard. Something rang as the ball hit a target of some sort. "Did something stupid and this is a safe way to vent."

Lilly looked a bit worried while looking at him. "Darlin' sweety, you're far smarter than me. What would you do that's stupid?" She asked.

"Had a great mech design, spent a lot of virtual money on it, and then realized midway that it'd be a only you could really pilot." The young man snorted. "Stupid in many ways. Now I'm running the mistakes through my head a thousand times and need to distract myself."

The expert candidate rolled her eyes and let herself into the practice area as she laughed a moment. "Ok, heh, that's enough then. We're going out. Half the pilots here are raving about a noodle bar, and I wanted to see it."

He was half tempted to deny the outing, but he had to acknowledge that his current actions weren't exactly helpful. They did have some local credits issued by the MTA. Nothing like a fortune, but more than enough to pay for a meal, especially since transportation was free.

A few minutes later they were at the bar in question. It was a large and gaudy thing. Three stories high with so many banners and flying decorations around it that it was practically an air hazard. It was absurdly busy too, but Lilly and Bolt got a place at a counter soon after entering. The young man found it a bit claustrophobic frankly. So many people he didn't know, and so much noise. Thankfully there were a lot of sound bafflers in place so it wasn't horribly loud. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. Lilly was practically vibrating though, and she stared at the center of the building were a fighting pit was setup with such intensity that he was surprised something wasn't burning up.

Bolt ignored that in place of trying to decide what noodles to get through the digital menu in the table. The MTA had given them access to a food printer that he'd set to mostly just spit out a generic blend of nutritional stuff. It had better options, but he'd not explored them out of disinterest. Here, he assumed that the noodles were part of the experience. So he needed to find something good in the menu. The medium spicy chicken ramen sounded decent? He had no idea what it meant, but the picture looked interesting.

"Want me to order for you?" The young man asked as it occurred to him that Lilly likely couldn't read the menu.

"Sure!" Lilly bounced and then cheered as some fighters took to the ring with staves. "I can sort of parse words now, but I think I started too late to make it natural. Get a headache trying to do it too long. You wouldn't believe the looks I get when I say that."

"I would." Bolt muttered as a flash of anger went through him.

The MTA officials were always calm and professional, but there was pleasant professionalism and 'I look down on you' professionalism. They all had the latter towards him. He knew for a fact that if Lilly was very vocal about being his fiancé they'd have already thrown him home with a credit or two for his time.

Ordering the noodles had them arriving in a minute or two, sliding along the bar without visible means of propulsion along with some water glasses. Hot and steaming, and loaded with various vegetables, it was like nothing Bolt had ever seen before, and the scent made his nose twitch. He spent a long moment staring before tentatively trying something.

It burned horribly.

"Shit." Bolt breathed out and then watched as Lilly grabbed hers and took a big mouthful before he could warn her.

"Emmmmm!" The young woman made a little shriek as he face went red. "What did you order?!" She got out after a second of gagging.

"Just the medium spicy chicken stuff!" Bolt shot back and grabbed some water.

"Ow ow!" Lilly looked almost as red as her face as she grabbed at her own water glass.

"Get the Soothing Milk." A voice advised from the side, and Bolt immediately found the item on the menu and ordered it.

Two glasses of white liquid slid over and Bolt grabbed one before downing it. The burning stopped immediately and he sighed before resting his head on the table. Beside him Lilly punched his shoulder weakly.

"It can be a bit overwhelming if you aren't expecting it." The same voice advised and Bolt looked up to see a bald man with a few dots on his forehead.

In retrospect, he was used to bland and filling stuff. Even medium spice was a big shock to someone completely unused to things like that. It was still good, but ow.

"Next time go with mild." Lilly muttered feebly before slurping some more noodles. "Or get the milk too."

"Hah, the burn is part of the fun. Namaste," the man gave a nod of his head. "Forgive me for interrupting your date I presume? I assumed you could use the aid."

"It's fine." Bolt waved him off.

"Is date, but Bolt dummy." The young woman seemed to be slowly perking up as she spoke in short clipped sentences. "New people fun. New food fun. Next time Bolt be less dummy. Namaste too."

"Yes, next time." The young man agreed and slowly tried to parse through his food. Wasting food was anathema, so he would endure it. Lilly seemed of like mind, even if she also seemed to be enjoying it now.

"I hope then that your next date is more pleasant. If you need I could advise more romantic settings, or places with less spice." The man indicated the bowls with amusement.

Lilly shrugged and began to chug the broth. "I can handle it!" She declared with a small burp before stealing Bolt's milk. "Easy!" She chugged that too.

Bolt order two more glasses. "I don't think she'd be interested in something without fighting." He pointed to the arena where two different men had taken their place to beat each other with sticks.

"Oh, a fighting girl then? Want to put on a show for her?" The man they were speaking with asked with a sudden eager grin.

The mech designer restrained a laugh. "If you want me to use the thing like a club and try to bum rush you sure. I know some dirty fighting, Lilly's the real fighter." He gestured to his fiancé.

Lilly flexed an arm. She had some good muscle on her frame, but she was still a tiny girl, and the man's face did show his mild surprise. He gave Bolt a look.

"Flex an arm for me if you would?" The man asked.

Bolt did as requested. It had to be said that the flex was impressive in his opinion. He was not a small man by any measure but he had also worked hard and had a physique to match that effort. Which was probably why Lilly was giggling at the looks the young man was getting.

"And you do not fight? It feels almost like a cosmic irony there." The man shook his head with a small smile. "But if you'll pardon my saying it, you are quite the pair of Yin and Yang. I wish you great fortune in your future. Though before then, if the little lady if the fight, could I ask her for a spar?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" Lilly set down the bowl and immediately bounced off her seat towards the arena.

The man watched her go for a moment before turning to Bolt. "She, ah does know that you have to get the staves from there first right?" He asked as he pointed to the very prominent area with the sparring weapons right next to them.

"Give it a moment." Bolt advised.

She did indeed figure it out after a moment. She also didn't do that well against the man. Expert candidate or no, he was very good at staff fighting. While Lilly was surprisingly skilled as well she simply didn't have the reach comparatively. Not that either of them cared. They had fun, and even more fun when Bolt was somehow roped into playing along too. The bruises hurt, but it did clear his mind.

 

[Golgotha]

This is not a man bound by sunken cost fallacy.
It's almost a defining characteristic that when an idea isn't working, he drops it and tries something else

 

[lost star]

They were approaching the one month mark now. The time when the officials had said the testing should end. There were already signs that the MTA would extend it. Nothing obvious, but the officials did have uncomfortable looks occasionally. It was absolutely impossible for the MTA to be pressured by any third rate nation they were in, but subtle bribes for the local officials? That was quite possible. The MTA would even go along with things if it would further their interests.

Bolt could do absolutely nothing to prevent this. So he ignored it. Lilly did as well. There was a fire in her eyes that showed she hated it, but she was very aware of their positions.

The young man focused on himself and Iron Spirit instead. Playing games while waiting for the time to run out was the least suspicious thing he could do at the moment. Once they officially extended the time he expected to be bribed with something to keep him quiet and he could change his patterns. He'd take that bribe without comment, but that was because he was a Rat. Bitter acceptance was part and parcel of survival.

Fortunately the game was still welcoming and his new puzzle was enough to occupy himself. In making his previous, still unnamed mech, he'd bought more than a few things. His budget was therefore very tight. Doubly so if he wanted to make a new five star mech.

He could and would though. This was a matter of pride. He just had to be careful with the design in general. He only had like three days, but he could slap together something viable in that time. He wasn't going to sleep well during that time anyway. Might as well try to be productive.

First he wanted to actually see how his mechs were being used. This was easier than it would have been in reality thankfully. Since it was a game, there were a lot of clips from various viewpoints. Even analysis. To his surprise there was even a tournament using his mechs! Sure it was a tiny thing, but it had commentary and a lot of talking. The entire thing was surprisingly educational. It was one thing to speak of theory, it was another to see it implemented. Even considering the game limitations the behavior of his mechs surprised him.

The Undead Legion worked because of the Drowned Man, no question about it. Functionally, the mist created a fortification of sorts. Using that and the Undertaker the horde would turtle up and slowly move towards the battlefield. It had two big flaws and one minor one. A faster group could kite until the Legion made a mistake, and a more durable group could just barrel in as a group and take out what they could quickly. The most notable counter was what amounted to a shield charge with guns behind the shields. Simple and effective. High winds also just blew away the mist.

From a design perspective, the first issue of kiting could be solved by a Ghoul and an Undertaker being piloted better. The Undertaker's ammo was practically designed to handle fast mechs, and the aim didn't need to be that good. The second was more an issue. If the shields were heavy enough The Drowned Men couldn't deal with them, and if they couldn't deal with that they would be forced to move, which would frequently disrupt the mist. He couldn't do anything about the third issue so he was forced to ignore it.

Theorizing then, he needed a mech that could deal with a shieldwall and heavy enemies that could force a Drowned Man to retreat. That wasn't that daunting of a task really. The key thing to do was make it fit the rest of the theme. It was a game after all, people were gravitating to the designs because they were 'undead mechs' basically. They'd even have some he didn't make painted in zombie colors to fit in with the Undead Legion. Fun triumphed over function in this game.

Bolt wasn't going to push himself on weapons this time. Shield killers were axes. Heavy cannons and the like could deal with them too, but if a cannon took it's time to fire at the shield, it was doing it's job. An axe could be used again and again, and melee weapons were supposed to deal with one enemy after another in rapid succession.

Typically you did axe and shield though. Bolt decided to do two axes. There was a variant of knight that traded offense for defense. He was going to push that trade to the extreme.

This was a berserker. Once it saw the enemy he would know only one path. Forward. Ever forward. Two axes, boosters that faced mostly forward, no retreat, no surrender. A Bloody Berserker to fit with the undead bit.

Now this sort of thing was not unknown. There were plenty of mechs that were meant for pure offense. So how did Bolt set this one apart?

Two ways. One was that Bolt knew down in his bones how mechs died. He'd seen it all. Junk mechs were made of dead mechs. He knew how they broke down, what killed them, and what they survived as intimately as he could. Bloody Berserker was going to be designed from the ground up with damage control in mind. This was going to be a mech that could take an obscene amount of damage.

His second idea was tricky and only usable in game really, but this mech was going to be able to shed his armor. He'd start as a heavy, and when the armor plates were damaged enough, he'd drop them, becoming a medium. This was not a tactic used for mechs for a variety of reasons. He'd have to do some very careful and clever design configurations to get it to work, and would need an extensive amount of body reinforcement, which he was doing already so it fit.

Skeleton to start with. The basis for mechs and so important that introductory textbooks began with them. You could go with many paths, but Bolt went with a stocky and reinforced build.

After this, synthetic muscles. Carefully placed and tied to the 'bones.' There were more than needed, both for redundancy sake and for later. Electrical wires, sensory nodes, and so on were next. These were long lines of cabling, typically done on automatic based off what he knew of mechs. Often they were the first place manufacturers cut corners in as well. It was trivially easy to thread wires fast and not correctly, and then have say an entire leg go dead from a bullet in the calf. Shear force of habit had Bolt making them easy to repair even if it didn't matter in the game. Proper placement and excessive redundancy made the mech even more durable.

Redundancy, damage mitigation, vital placement. That was Bolt's plan here. His creation would keep going long past where others would fall down. It was an undead berserker after all. It had to play the part right! The two axes weren't just for pure offense either. If the Berserker lost one, he could use the other!

The arms in particular took extra care and a more narrow function. Axes chopped, using the weight and leverage to hack. They were not as pretty or mobile as swords. They were work weapons, and Bolt optimized around that. There was a lot of optimization you could do when you only had chop down, diagonal, or sideways. Blocking these axes would just have you break rather than the mech.

For extra redundancy Bolt added two generators and several added energy cells. This required special power routing, but his lessons actually covered that. It wasn't exactly common, but it was a solved issue that didn't require extra work on his part. It just wasn't common. The reactors were in highly armored areas for a damned reason. Adding more than one increased cost, took up too much room, and you typically didn't need the extra power. It worked with his design though. This guy needed the extra power to move when his added armor was on, but with it off he'd only need one.

Boosters then. This would be special for this guy. They were going to be extremely specialized. Forward. That was all the Blood Berserker would be able to do. He could gain some altitude, and lose some if he wanted to, but he could only go forward. The designer did make it possible for him to spin using them if he needed to, but aside from that the boosters would only be designed for forward motion. As a consequence he was almost like a lancer mech, though his top speed would not match them. No one was going to run from this guy.

After this all was the big part that would bring most of the design together. Armor was two layers. The inner layer was more thin and hugged the muscles. For giggles Bolt made it look like muscles instead. When the outer layer was blown he'd look like a skinned man. (It fit the horror theme all right?) The outer layer looked simple from a distance. A rather stylized and thick knight's armor with red highlights. Parts of it could be blown off on command. The design when enough damage was done they'd be popped off and the mech would be lighter.

This was tricky to implement. Armor in mechs wasn't just worn like a person would. It was bolted to reinforced points. Making it easy to detach introduced flaws to it. Bolt did not have the skill or time to really make it impenetrable, so he did the next best thing. Made the armor heavy and thick. The outer layer was more akin to heavy blocks than standard armor. It would hopefully work as intended when in battle, but Bolt wasn't as confident as he liked. He'd was also preventing the mech from having any additions. The armor was taking up all the 'space.' That was an acceptable tradeoff in his mind.

In between all of that he added a few details here and there to make things pop. He tinted the coolant a red and had some of it routed between the layers for a cosmetic horror effect. When the armor was blown it'd look wet and bloody. There were hints of bone here and there, and the armor looked mean.

Finally weapons. These were the most important parts. These axes were personally made. Bolt wasn't good with more advanced stuff, but the tempered metal used for melee weapons was something he was quite familiar with. Making a pair of axes to both save money and make them special was just good sense! He could also stylize them a fair bit this way. He gave them a bit of a cruel look. These weren't just weapons of war, they were weapons to bite into an enemy. They lacked the specialized bits and bobs that a bought weapon would have, but it wasn't like he cared much. He made the edges red and gave them a dull glow. That was about it. They were functional.

One last finishing touch and then the Bloody Berserker was finished. The mech needed the cockpit adjusted. This was not something commonly done. The cockpit was typically a last thought, especially in the game. It just wasn't a part that got a lot of attention even with the fact that hitting it killed the pilot. Most mech pilots wouldn't target it directly even in game. It was extremely bad form to go after it. It was also always centered in the most armored place on the mech.

It said something that even Biter Rats back home didn't do that trick regularly. Mostly because they didn't want it to be done to them. You had to have spite and anger to do it. Bolt also knew it happened. Some people made it their go to action despite how it made them appear. He was very, very familiar with that. Rats knew some people paid for blood and meant real blood.

Bad memories aside, they'd actually developed a few tricks for that over time. One of them was the tomato cockpit, which was a fake cockpit that let mechs play dead. His parents had been involved in making that trick. He wasn't using that here though. He was instead doing the other tricks. The ones they did for mechs where you wanted the pilot to live, or in this case to make the mech last even longer in the game.

That involved shifting the cockpit slightly out of the standard position, altering the armor around it some so that strikes would flow around it, and also obscuring the position by expanding the high armored area. All done together it made targeting the pilot even harder. On a whim Bolt even used the rest of his virtual money to get a really good inner chassis as well. One that had the reinforced defenses and all that. It was artificially cheap due to not being useful in the game, but it felt right. It settled into the design with a mental click that felt satisfyingly complete.

With that, he was finished.

 

[Luker number 5]

I have a feeling Lilly will love this one. Gotta go fast, murder zerker is good civ.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

I have a feeling Lilly will love this one. Gotta go fast, murder zerker is good civ.

Click to shrink...

Not to mention the fact that those thrusters that mean it can spin to change what direction 'forward' is? Those are going to be abused so damn hard by good and better pilots. You don't have to guess where Lily falls on that spectrum.

God, once again I'm wanting tomorrow's update now.

 

[Golgotha]

The spin to win axe cut is going to outright cleave through mechs.

 

[Simonbob]

This is a really bizare mech.

But, it leans really far into the theme, and does it well. Great for a game. I wonder how a good mech designer would see it? It's silly, but there's real skill in it's design. Then again, that's true for all his designs.


Wouldn't want it on the battlefield, though.

 

[Golgotha]

This is a really bizare mech.

But, it leans really far into the theme, and does it well. Great for a game. I wonder how a good mech designer would see it? It's silly, but there's real skill in it's design. Then again, that's true for all his designs.


Wouldn't want it on the battlefield, though.

Click to shrink...

I mean, it would be mission killed suicide in many cases. No ranged weapons? Even with its speed, something maneuverable enough might be able to just kite it.
But as part of the undead army, with mist cover, sensor sharing and anything too fast slimed by the undertakers?
It's going to burst through the mist at near unmatched speed and rip through the defensive lines like a scythe through wheat. Break the formations and leave them vulnerable to the horde. And presumably as it takes damage and drops armour, it's just going to get faster.

Normally, you wouldn't want to be the poor sod charging the lines to break them, but in this case the design makes you more likely to be safe inside the destroyed mech.

 

[Simonbob]

I mean, it would be mission killed suicide in many cases. No ranged weapons? Even with its speed, something maneuverable enough might be able to just kite it.
But as part of the undead army, with mist cover, sensor sharing and anything too fast slimed by the undertakers?
It's going to burst through the mist at near unmatched speed and rip through the defensive lines like a scythe through wheat. Break the formations and leave them vulnerable to the horde. And presumably as it takes damage and drops armour, it's just going to get faster.

Normally, you wouldn't want to be the poor sod charging the lines to break them, but in this case the design makes you more likely to be safe inside the destroyed mech.

Click to shrink...

Sure, it's a cool design.

It's just, well, heavy mechs are expensive, and this one's only sorta a heavy. It's going to be both expensive, hard to maintain, with those very specific armor elements, weird in setup with the limited boosters....


Hard to pilot well, hard to maintain, expensive, and weird. Not the best choice for a battlefield. Games, or colosseum mech, for a show? Sure. Worth it, for that kinda setup. General battle? Not so good.

 

[Emptiness]

Bolt continues to enable murder-hobo tendencies.

As he should.

 

[OZT]

A berserker mech that expects to eat a lot of damage is probably not the best concept for a five star mech. Iron Spirit is stupidly realistic when it comes to things like repair times and costs, so having a mech that is near guaranteed to have significant downtime in the most expensive category means that this is far from ideal even in the game.

 

[lost star]

A berserker mech that expects to eat a lot of damage is probably not the best concept for a five star mech. Iron Spirit is stupidly realistic when it comes to things like repair times and costs, so having a mech that is near guaranteed to have significant downtime in the most expensive category means that this is far from ideal even in the game.

Click to shrink...

Didn't know they did repair time too. That's understandable but how do they do it? I mean how do they measure the time if you know. Or if you know the vague chapter it's in I'll look it up.