The Mech Touch

Chapter 7405  Nacer Fleck

The Ascended Giants weren't the only ones who updated their active roster and prepared for the hard fight ahead.

The rest of the so-called Moloch Squadron received both reinforcements and supplies.

This was a powerful indicator that the Red Collective found it worthwhile to increase its overall investment into Ves.

One of the many disappointments of the previous campaign that had been cut short was the lack of effectiveness of many of the qi cultivators.

This was why the Moloch Squadron received a substantial boost in the form of two combat carriers filled with specialized support mechs.

Ves grew interested when he heard about the latest batch of mechs. He decided to inspect the new machines in person.

"What do you think, sir?" Formation Master Andrea Vos asked with a satisfied expression.

Both of them looked up at the rows of first-class mechs that had been designed according to a radically different set of criteria than most machines.

Even among support mechs, the new RC mechs followed a radically different set of rules and guidelines.

"They're support mechs, alright." Ves voiced his first impressions. "Their armaments are weak to non-existent. I don't even know why you guys are bothering with arming them in the first place."

"The mechs originally shouldn't have been armed at all. We originally designed them to fulfill a specialized purpose. Fighting could be left to combat mechs and other adjacent friendly units. However, the Voribug War has taught us that overspecialization can cause the downfall of units that lack the firepower to fend off even a single voribug. We have learned the hard way that when an overwhelming amount of cannon fodder has completely occupied the attention of our regular combat units, our support units must be able to fend for themselves. This is why the mech designers have hastily added a number of rudimentary armaments to these machines."

Ves truly felt that the addition of weapons made the overall design a little more discordant. The new support mechs would have been a lot more pure and simpler to operate if they dispensed with their armaments.

However, the growing threat of the mutated voribugs made this choice increasingly more unpalatable.

Their infamous swarming behavior and insane proliferation rate meant that they would only become more prevalent across the Red Ocean.

This included human-occupied space!

Already, more and more news articles mentioned the detection of voribugs that managed to hitchhike their way to the hinterland of human space by hiding inside the cracks of damaged starships returning from the front.

No border was unassailable!

No wall was impenetrable!

No amount of prevention could stop the infiltration of bugs!

When more adequate firepower was not immediately available, even humble support mechs needed to be able to hold their own against this constant threat.

Although their pitiful laser guns and kinetic sweepers posed very little threat against first-class or even second-class mechs, they were just right for eliminating cannon fodder bugs at low cost.

However, nobody cared about the offensive capabilities of support mechs. What truly mattered was their role as force multipliers. These machines existed to boost friendly mechs or suppress enemy mechs.

"Given their odd cylindrical shapes, I guess these machines are supposed to act as mobile formation anchors, am I right?" Ves made a guess.

The Farseer nodded and smiled. "I knew that you would be able to accurately gauge their purpose. You are correct, sir. The Nacer Fleck is the first generation model of a new line of support mechs. The tentative classification of this kind of machine is a flexible formation anchor support mech. It is basically a movable formation anchor that can flexibly enable the deployment of a large range of different spell arrays."

"I see." Ves said as his gaze critically studied the cylindrical construction. "These mechs appear to be modular or semi-modular. You can swap out different formation anchors depending on the situation. That is very convenient."

"Right. The Nacer Flecks are semi-modular in nature. It is possible to swap out one type of formation anchor for another type, but the switch can only be performed by a crew of mech technicians. The work is not difficult, but the process is fairly tedious due to the need to maintain near-perfect alignment. Even small deviations in fit and positioning can significantly weaken a spell array once deployed."

That sounded fairly troublesome, but only if you wanted to change formations in the middle of an ongoing engagement.

As long as the Moloch Squadron could prepare for an upcoming battle in advance, the mech technicians should have plenty of time to install the right formation anchors into the Nacer Flecks.

"I guess since flexible formation anchor support mechs exist, there should also be ones that are more static." Ves made another guess.

Andrea Vos looked mildly surprised that he managed to deduce the existence of this second category of mechs.

"That is also true. The Nacer Flecks are versatile formation anchor support mechs, but they are also a product of many compromises. The need to accommodate a wide range of spell arrays from offensive to utility means that they can not be overly biased towards any single function. This is why the RC is also in the process of developing fixed formation anchor support mechs. They are single-purpose machines that are entirely dedicated to deploying a single type or even just a single specific version of a spell array. By specializing them from the start of the design phase, they can produce vastly superior results compared to their more flexible counterparts. Of course, they also lose the capability to switch to other spell arrays."

It was a familiar game of tradeoffs. Ves could think of many reasons why the so-called fixed formation anchor support mechs delivered superior performance.

However, he would rather retain the versatility of the flexible variant. The Moloch Squadron made the right choice by adding Nacer Flecks to its roster. This granted the Farseer and her fellow formation masters a lot of choice when it came to deploying their spell arrays.

"The Red Collective is constantly learning and evolving." The female formation master said in a philosophical tone. "Just as the Mech Trade Association struggled to raise the effectiveness of mechs during the early years of the Age of Mechs, our own organization faces similar circumstances. Many people have high expectations of qi cultivation, but we have barely left the starting line. In order to prove to everyone that our powers and abilities should be taken seriously, we are doing our best to develop effective solutions that can make a real difference on the battlefield. The hasty development of the Nacer Flecks is just one of many initiatives. We hope that they will make a substantial difference in the upcoming campaign."

Ves' expression grew sharper after hearing that. "Are you willing to stake your credibility on this claim?"

The Farseer turned and faced the tier 2 galactic citizen directly. "I am willing. I have not remained stagnant, and so have my colleagues. We have grown substantially since we have returned from the Rubarthan front. We have learned many lessons and adjusted many of our solutions. We have learned that it is critical to deploy our formation anchors onto the battlefield in a speedy manner. This is why we have resorted to support mechs and not shuttles to bring our formation anchors to the right coordinates. Only mechs are fast, responsive and adaptable enough to navigate a chaotic battlefield."

The Nacer Flecks still needed escort and protection before they deployed their formations, but they were indeed fairly tricky to eliminate if they focused on avoidance.

The Red Collective was truly serious about enhancing the power of qi cultivators.

Since their cultivations were still shallow and their methods lacked sophistication, then the only way to boost their power was to invest in their external equipment.

Formation masters happened to depend a lot more on tools and gadgets, so it was much easier to enhance their effectiveness by giving them lots of giant formation anchors!

The addition of 60 Nacer Flecks meant that the Farseer and her ilk could readily deploy useful spell arrays that could affect a substantial proportion of a battle in space.

"So what formations can you deploy most effectively with your new Nacer Flecks?" Ves inquired.

"As you already know, I am most proficient in scrying. With the help of my Astral Mirror and a sufficiently large spell array, I can help you spy and monitor enemies from a large distance. While I am not capable of spying across several light-years, it should be viable for me to spy on enemies that are a dozen or so light-hours away. In other words, I can give you a fairly accurate real-time glimpse of a chosen subject that is located on the other side of a star system."

That was not as big of a reach as Ves would have liked, but it was better than nothing.

"That may be useful when it comes to planning a raid on enemy strongholds." Ves surmised. "However, there is not much use for scrying when confronting known battle fleets. We have usually figured out their composition already. I am more interested in spell arrays that are more relevant in battle. What else can you do, Farseer?"

The female qi cultivator issued a calm response. "The Nacer Flecks can accommodate almost any spell arrays provided that we have loaded the corresponding formation anchors. Currently, we have brought a fairly complete range of formation anchor sets. They correspond to offensive, defensive, sealing, illusory and utility spell arrays. Their power is only moderate when deployed at their maximum ranges, but I can promise you that they will definitely be effective against most typical alien adversaries that we can expect to face on the battlefield."

"Can you be more specific? I can't get an accurate picture if you keep speaking about generalities."

"Certainly, sir. One example I can mention is that we can use the Nacer Flecks to deploy a sizable sealing spell array that can cut an enemy fleet in half. We can divide their strike craft and warships so that one half is unable to support the other half. This allows us to defeat them in detail or focus on capturing key targets. Another example is an offensive spell array that can generate a localized storm that is exceptionally effective at clearing out weaker targets such as voribugs. With the new flexible formation anchor support mechs, we should be able to maintain this offensive spell array for a substantial amount of time, though we can achieve much better results with fixed formation anchor support mechs."

That actually sounded really useful. The Red Collective had truly done a good job of trying to catch up to the realities of modern warfare.

The Farseer continued to intrigue Ves by explaining the effects of other spell arrays. Each of them could be deployed onto the battlefield so long as the mech technicians swapped in the right formation anchors into the Nacer Flecks.

While the time spent on completing this tedious step was not trivial, Ves knew that the new support mechs ultimately expanded the options of the Bluejay Fleet by a considerable degree.

It would be wasteful for him to ignore their value going forward. He and other leaders needed to get accustomed to a new reality where the deployment of powerful spell arrays became a fixed part of their planning.

Though Ves still maintained a certain degree of skepticism towards whether these new enhanced spell arrays could change the course of a battle, he still remained hopeful for the most part.

Ves not only believed in the power of the Nacer Flecks, but also started to think about designing his own take on formation anchor support mechs.

Sadly, this was not an easy job. He needed to learn a lot more about qi formations and figure out what he could bring to the table.

Was it possible to bring a qi formation to life?