The Mech Touch

He and every other participant stood behind the Master in the background as the latter addressed every listener.

"Welcome, everyone." The gray-haired man spoke in a dignified but lecturing tone. "Today, the Davute University of Technology is pleased to host an event that brings some of the best Journeyman Mech Designers of our colonial state together in friendly competition. Both young and old mech designers are eligible to demonstrate their work and put them to the test in real physical combat."

A lot of people perked up when they heard that. Scoring the competition mechs by throwing them into fights was much more interesting than relying on abstract numerical scores or subjecting them to a high number of simulated AI-driven matches.

"Each of you must be curious why our school has decided to organize a tournament themed around designing pairs of mechs." Master Elroy smiled. "Here in the DUT, we prepare our mech design students to become a part of a rich and vibrant mech community. No mech designer works in isolation. The mechs they design by themselves are rarely employed by themselves. Instead, they are often fielded in multiple numbers and alongside mechs based on other models as well. The true strength of mechs does not lie in their superior mechanical forms or the properties they rely upon to amplify the capabilities of their pilots, but the synergies they can attain when fighting alongside complementary machines."

Ves and many other mech designers nodded in agreement. This was a truth that every mech designer learned. Whether they comprehended this concept during their studies or became enlightened to it after they started their careers, it was undeniable that mechs worked best when they varied their configurations and relied on teamwork and cooperation to produce astounding results!

Master Elroy continued his speech.

"The Twin Weapons Tournament is by no means an attempt to fully reproduce the intricate connections that enable weaker mech forces to defeat stronger opponents. It is nonetheless set up in a manner that encourages the participating mech designers to spend more effort on co-dependence rather than individual strength. If our contestants do not take my words by heart and choose to design two separate and individual mechs, then they will miss the point of this tournament."

Ves and Juliet both understood the underlying message. It might not be possible for every pair of mech designers to collaborate with each other on a closer level, but they at least needed to coordinate their work in order to stand any chance of making it through the later rounds!

Once Master Elroy completed his opening statement, he started to address the more practical topics.

"Let me proceed with explaining the rules of this tournament. The event lasts three days in total. Our teams of mech designers have two days to design their competition mechs. We will subsequently assign mech pilots from a pool of roughly equal mech pilots lent to us by the Federal Military of Davute. I will not divulge any further on the mech pilots, but rest assured that their skills are almost uniform and that they do not possess any overly specialized abilities or piloting styles. Every pair of competition mechs will be put in a single-elimination bracket where only the undefeated shall win the entire tournament. Every mech shall be repaired after every match, so their battle damage will not make an impact in any subsequent matches."

The rules concerning the mech pilots did not surprise anyone as the descriptions published beforehand already mentioned that this would happen.

Ves found it to be a fairer if less certain process than being assigned mech pilots in advance.

A single-elimination bracket was an unforgiving method of filtering the better mechs from the worser ones. A single mistake or counter had the potential to doom a promising team of mech designers!

Though Ves did not exactly feel comfortable with this, he knew that his work could not afford to falter even once if he wanted to fulfill his goals.

"As the combat phase will only commence two days later, I shall explain the most relevant rules of the design phase. Once the pairs of mech designers have taken their places, they are granted 48 hours to work in full view of our remote and in-person audience. Our contestants are not only expected to design both a melee mech and a ranged mech at once, but to fabricate them in rapid speed with the help of our advanced Superfabs."

That did not sound much different from the previous tournaments that Ves participated in. The only deviation was the fact that Ves and every other Journeyman had to work in pairs.

Master Elroy began to smile a bit more as he came up to the most interesting part of his announcement.

"Now, I shall begin to state the design parameters that every team must abide by in order to submit a valid pair of competition entries. We will transfer a detailed technical document that fully lists out the restrictions and requirements that we have set, but I shall explain the most important ones. We have selected a narrow selection of materials that our teams can use to design and fabricate their mechs, a number of which has rarely been employed in mechs before."

"None of the materials are strong or particularly valuable, but each of them are native to the Red Ocean. The Journeymen are expected to familiarize themselves with the resources at their disposal and draw out their greatest strengths. As the materials are not difficult to work with, the advanced superfabs that the teams can use to fabricate their competition entries can complete their tasks in a handful of hours."

This was also good news to Ves. He did not want to allocate an entire day on fabricating the mech parts and assembling them into place. The more time that he and Juliet could devote to their design work, the better!

"No phasewater will be made available. It is impossible to incorporate any transphasic components in the competition mechs."

No one looked surprised when they heard this rule. Phasewater technology was still relatively new to humanity. The key ingredient was too expensive to squander in a mech design tournament, and any powerful transphasic weapons employed by the competition mechs might possible be able to produce accidents as their attacks punched through the arena's protective measures and hit the crowd!

"The competition mechs are only confined to landbound mechs." The mobility-oriented Master explained. "It is permissible to equip them with boosters. They are not allowed to be equipped with serious flight systems. The arenas do not offer sufficient space for high-mobility maneuvers. It is also more compelling to test the cooperation between mechs that need to move more deliberately."

Juliet immediately frowned. This was a substantial handicap to her work! Flight systems played a huge role in her design philosophy and work approach, so being prohibited from using them in any of her competition mechs seriously limited her options!

Ves reassuringly patted her back. "It will be okay. Boosters can also be powerful in the right situations."

Master Elroy began to look amused as he announced the next set of rules.

"That is not all, ladies and gentlemen. In order to further throw off our mech designers and prevent them from falling into existing routines, we have added a number of other restrictions. The first one is that at least one out of the two competition mechs designed by our teams must be a light mech. To be more precise, their total mass must remain below the threshold of a second-class light mech as defined by the Mech Trade Association. It is up to the teams to decide whether they wish to turn their melee entry or ranged entry into a light mech."

Ves almost jerked his body. This was a massive limitation!

He looked around and saw that more than a few mech designers looked upset or dismayed. They did not have much experience with light mechs, or simply did not possess a design philosophy that plays well with these fast but fragile machines.

At least the participating Journeymen could decide which one they could design as a light mech.

Ves and Juliet exchange glances again.

The latter clearly looked more relieved. As a mobility specialist, Juliet possessed much greater depth and experience in designing light mechs. Her design philosophy should truly be able to play a useful role during the design phase!

"The second abnormal rule is that both of the competition mechs designed by the teams must include an artificial weak point on the frontal surface of their frames."

"What?!?"

Projections of example mechs featuring this deliberate weak point emerged into view, allowing everyone to clearly understand what the Master Mech Designer meant with those words.

"As you can see, these generic humanoid and beast mechs incorporate panels that appear to be made out of fragile glass. These panels are placed on their upper chests and must possess either a circular, oval or square shape. Their total area must be 2 square meters or more, though we do not recommend making it larger than necessary. Internal components must be easily accessible to any opponent that easily manages to breach this fragile material."

Ves frowned. This was a tricky rule! He had never heard of any mech design tournament that toyed with the participants by imposing such an arbitrary and atypical rule.

No mech designer would ever introduce such a heavy and deliberate weak point on their serious mech designs!

Though Ves was thrown off-balance by this weird requirement, he eventually managed to calm down and figure out whether this demand affected his existing ideas.

He could already tell that beast mechs possessed an inherent advantage in this tournament because their weak points wouldn't be readily accessible as long as they walked on all fours.

Then again, humanoid mechs weren't helpless either. Their ability to hold external equipment with their articulating hands easily allowed them to hold thick and sturdy physical shields that could manually close the weak points on their chests.

All in all, the additional requirements generally made mechs more fragile and vulnerable against damage. This should shorten the matches that would take place during the combat phase.

Ves had already looked around and counted the number of teams that he would be competing against.

A total of 71 teams ultimately took part in the Twin Weapons Tournament, which meant that numerous rounds of matches must be held in order to go through the single-elimination bracket format.

All in all, Ves felt a bit annoyed more than anything else. The competition mechs that he would have to design with Juliet would end up coming to life as partially crippled and deformed living mechs.

Ves did not want to design overly flawed mechs, even if they only served a limited purpose, but the tournament organizers left him with little choice.

He sighed.

"It will be hellishly difficult for us to design a pair of mechs that won't instantly crumble because their frontal weak points are so easy to target. Maybe I will need to design a variation of the Battle Skirt System in order to add additional protection."

Master Elroy smirked as he mentioned another restriction.

"Oh, I should also state that while energy shield generators are permitted to be used, their potency and energy consumption will undergo heavy alterations. They will not perform as strong as normal, and they will rapidly deplete what little energy reserves the competition mechs are allowed to have when they begin their matches."

"..."