The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7110

Chapter 7110: The Western and Eastern Continents

After Ves and Aurelia had met with dozens of VIP delegations, they finally called it quits and left the reception hall.

They had already met the representatives of the most important groups. Those that arrived late for one reason or another had no one to blame but themselves if they missed out on greeting Ves and the birthday girl.

The Microplanet was divided into 5 continents, each of which were placed in a simple grid.

Everyone arrived on the northern continent. This was the place where guests arrived and went through mandatory security checks before they could proceed any further.

It also hosted a large exhibition hall. It presented many different copies of LMC mechs, both older ones that harkened back to its beginning in the Komodo Star Sector to the most up to date commercial models published by Ves or Ketis.

Although the Larkinsons did not show off their exclusive mech models, they still presented selective pieces of footage of famed machines like the Dark Zephyr Mark III and the Amaranto Mark III in action.

The exhibition hall provided guests an excellent way to deepen their familiarity of the unique kind of mechs that the Larkinsons contributed to society.

Those that wanted to do more than admire stationary mechs had to move elsewhere, though.

The western continent was almost completely dominated by a simulated war zone.

Here, the Larkinsons along with a number of cooperative partners prepared hundreds of LMC mechs as well as first-class mechs sold by other mech companies.

Mech pilots could apply to book a time slot where they could take the mechs out for a spin and fight a variety of different second-class or first-class opponents.

The most notable aspect of the war zone was that it was filled with simulated opponents.

Phasefighters zipped through canyons while mutated voribugs crawled through a jungle.

Mechs had to be careful and on their guard in order to fend off clever ambushes and repel attacks from numerically superior swarms.

Of course, none of the fighting was real. The cost would be far too great, and the risk of suffering heavy injuries was also unacceptable.

The war zone instead relied upon cutting-edge RA combat simulation technologies.

The mechs had all been modified with advanced damage tracking. If they detected they incurred a hit that would cause them to get crippled, then the appropriate parts would shut down without incurring any permanent damage.

The simulated alien opponents all looked and behaved realistically enough. Each of them were modeled after their counterparts in reality. Advancements in physical projection technology also enabled them to gain more substance and manipulate the environment as if they possessed real mass and strength.

This extensive realspace field simulation system was not that revolutionary, actually.

It instead provided mech pilots with a great experience by combining the strengths of many small and narrow technologies together.

Since this occasion was supposed to be a birthday party, mech cadets received special priority.

This was one of the few occasions where they could pilot real combat mechs that behaved and fought differently than the training mechs that they mostly used unless they were in their last years at the mech academy.

Just as expected, the western continent proved to be a particularly popular destination. People grew fascinated at the sight of living mechs such as the Valkyrie Redeemer IV fighting against highly realistic simulated enemies.

Many people had already seen phasefighters and mutated voribugs in combat by watching the live footage and archival combat footage posted on the galactic net, but this was a different experience.

The phasefighters appeared much more powerful and difficult to handle in reality. Their azure energy shields kept absorbing hit after hit when most machines would have succumbed from the damage already.

Veteran mech pilots led small teams of mech cadets in mock engagements. The guidance of the former helped the latter avoid a few mistakes that would have caused them to get knocked out sooner, but that did not always help them get defeated by their difficult opponents.

Either they got abused by fast-moving phasefighters, or they got overwhelmed by swarms of voribugs who surrounded them from all sides!

Not even a full squad of veteran mech pilots could guarantee success in every combat scenario.

The simulated battles in the war zone therefore proved surprisingly educational to the audience that were able to observe the engagements from safe and elevated vantage points.

"I never understood how challenging it was for our boys to defeat the native aliens, let alone the voribugs. Our enemies seem so weak and easy to defeat given how our mechs often gain the upper hand in battle, but I understand now that our mech pilots always have to work hard and brave great danger in order to succeed."

"The gap in skill and experience between the veterans and ungraduated cadets may be large, but both groups are making use of the same mechs. This shows that training certainly matters, but what is also interesting is that good mechs alone are hardly enough to guarantee victory. It is the soldiers that can turn mechs into the guardians of humanity. Perhaps we should invest more into the training of our own troops."

"Have you noticed how the mech cadets perform noticeably better when they are piloting those second-class LMC mechs? Their simplicity may be a contributing factor, but the fact that these mechs are ’alive’ by a given definition of the word should also be a factor. If this performance difference is truly persistent, then we may be able to rush the graduation of older mech cadets and have them pilot living mechs to compensate for their shortcomings."

Many insightful discussions took place on the western continent.

Meanwhile, a growing number of eager mech cadets lined up at the queue while the children below the age of 10 looked on with stars in their eyes.

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