The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1692

Chapter 1692 The Fourth Aspec

"What a disgrace!"

Gloriana's face turned ugly as she viewed a popular local broadcast during their breakfast period. The narrator lampooned the recent participation of the Adonis Colossus in the Battle of Bentheim.

From its mech pilot's lack of battle awareness to his penchant of relying on the Lasponge system to bail himself out of a difficult situation, the eye-catching mech was catching attention for all the wrong reasons.

What was worse was that the mech pilot in question seemed oblivious to how much ridicule he attracted!

Not only did he livestream all of his battles, the media eagerly played along and used his mech and his antics as comic relief!

It was completely unlike the heroic rise that Ves and Gloriana anticipated! Even though they knew that Vincent was not exactly competent, it was out of their expectations for him to fumble so badly!

"Not every mech pilot lives up to their potential. We are merely responsible for providing a product. It???s up to the customer to decide on how to make use of them. For all we know, our customers might enjoy using our mechs as target practice." Ves stoically remarked as he took another bite of his slow-cooked beef pie.

That did not sit well with Gloriana! She abhorred inefficiency and waste, and that was exactly what Vincent Ricklin was doing!

"This idiot! If he intended to misuse our mech to this degree, I would have never taken part in its design process!"

"Miaow!"

Clixie angrily hissed at the projection. She detested anyone her owner hated!

"Calm down, Gloriana. I expected that something like this might happen, though not to this extent. The way we designed the mech certainly hasn't encouraged him to fight more seriously. The mech mainly draws out his vanity and desire to show off. He's definitely succeeding in that from all of the attention he has drawn."

She followed his advice and took some time to regain her composure.

"Why do pilots like Vincent exist?"

"Hm?"

She gestured at the projection of the Adonis Colossus. "The Hegemony would never tolerate incompetence to this degree! How could he even graduate as a mech pilot in the first place?"

"The Bright Republic needs as many mech pilots as possible. With all of the wars we've been through, manpower is a constant concern for our state. While we have plenty of premier mech academies who hold their cadets to high standards, many more are simply concerned with pumping out as many people who can at least make a mech move without tripping on its feet." Ves plainly answered.

"That sounds alien to me." Gloriana frowned. "It's different in the Hegemony. Our mech academies are very demanding. The instructors would never allow mech cadets to graduate if they are inclined to waste or misuse a mech!"

"This is because second-rate states hold their mech pilots to a stricter standard. Your state is able to invest a lot more resources into the training of its mech pilots. With the budgets of your mech academies, it's a lot easier to ensure the quality of each of their graduates. In addition, their admission standards are higher. From what I've heard, they don't even accept potentates with E or D-grade genetic aptitudes."

"That's because they're not capable of making use of all of the functions of our mechs. We don't bother with designing frontline mechs that caters specifically to unskilled or untalented mech pilots."

This reflected their different circumstances. A third-rate state generally tended to pursue quantity over quality. Two cheap mechs was almost always stronger than one expensive mech.

With the limited money and resources at their disposal, a third-rate state almost always chose to field as many mechs as it could afford. They made much more use of their manpower, not even neglecting the mech pilots who were only able to make use of simplified mechs!

In contrast, a second-rate state always took advantage of its abundant resources and capital. Not only that, but the quality of their manpower was also a lot higher due to the excellent training environment.

For this reason, second-rate states pursued the elite route, and aimed to make every mech and mech pilot count.

While this was very costly, the greatest benefit of this was that the second-rate states preserved their manpower, which was arguably their scarcest resource.

All of those low-aptitude potentates didn't sit on their thumbs, though. The Friday Coalition and Hexadric Hegemony ordinarily enrolled them into part-time training programs to allow them to gain basic proficiency in the piloting profession.

If some day war broke out and the state suffered a lot of casualties, then these reserves of low-quality mech pilots would eventually be activated.

There were a lot of D and E-grade aptitude mech pilots as well as those who did badly in training. In times of desperation, they could do a lot to reverse a defeat.

It was just that second-class mechs were too expensive to activate them casually.

One of the reasons why no one believed the Komodo War would end anytime soon was that both sides involved were still holding this option in reserve.

In any case, Gloriana had only ever interacted with highly trained and highly competent mech pilots in her life. Even among Hexers, she often designed mechs for some of the best standard mech pilots in her state!

"Designing a mech for someone who isn't as dedicated to the piloting profession has been a very novel experience for me." Gloriana sarcastically stated as if she blamed Ves for this unfortunate experience. "Sometimes, I wonder why I'm even staying in the Bright Republic."

"This is my home. It's where I grew up. My design style is steeped in Brighter tradition. Sure, not every mech pilot is up to standard, but trying to design mechs for them is an interesting challenge."

Unfortunately, Gloriana didn't see it that way. She looked at him with disgust before turning aside her head.

It wasn't until they finished breakfast and moved to the Mech Nursery that her resentment faded.

"I can't wait for you to start designing second-class mechs. Your talents are wasted on third-class mechs. The Bright Republic and the Ylvaine Protectorate don't deserve your mechs."