For the selection of both, he slightly emphasized raw power over efficiency.
Normally, he prioritized the latter, but a bodyguard mech wasn't meant to slog it out in a hostile battlefield for days. Most battles of this nature were opportunistic, hit-and-run attacks.
Whether the assault had failed or succeeded, the assailants never stuck around for long. There was no advantage to be gained by entering into a battle of attrition. Reinforcements could arrive at any moment!
For this reason, Ves picked out premium power reactor and mech engine models out of the catalog. Both of them came with fancy names and high material costs if Ves ever wanted to reproduce them, but their performance was very stellar.
"As long as a battle doesn't drag on for more than thirty minutes, the Transcendant Messenger can overpower practically any standard mech!"
The selection of the artificial musculature system not only affected a mech's mobility, but also their mechanical strength. Both of these factors determined the amount of damage a mech could inflict with a melee weapon.
For this reason, Ves and Ketis both sought out an artificial musculature system that was marked by strength. However, this strength came at the cost of flexibility, agility and reaction speed.
"It's fine." Ves told Ketis. "A hero mech simply can't wield its weapon in the same way a swordsman mech does. They split their power between their melee weapon and ranged weapon and employ them both in combination."
If everything else was equal, a hero mech could never match a rifleman mech in marksmanship and a swordsman mech in swordsmanship. They were never designed to fight on their opponent's terms!
If faced with a rifleman mech, it would best for the hero mech to use its prodigious mobility to charge closer and force the enemy mech into a close-quarters brawl.
If faced with a swordsman mech, the hero mech should instead maintain distance and kite the other mech while peppering it with a constant barrage of premium explosive shells.
In practice, Ves didn't envision this scenario happening all the time. Sometimes, the sheer difference in quality was more than make up for the hero mech's shortcomings!
Ves still reserved most of his budget towards the armor system. The Transcendent Messenger was supposed to be a high-mobility, high-impact mech.
On the surface, both priorities contradicted each other.
A high-mobility mech was best paired with a lighter armor system. They should be as thin as weight-efficient as possible to minimize their impact on a mech's speed, acceleration and agility.
A high-impact mech on the other hand was best served with heavier and more robust armor systems. As long as the mech had the time and space to build up a charge, the heavier armor would serve the mech well in absorbing and negating the damage it incurred upon impact.
Heavier armor also meant that any collisions that ensued would have a higher chance of destabilizing the opponent's mech instead of the hero mech!
Think about it. How ridiculous would it be if a light skirmisher attempted to collide against a heavy knight? The smaller mech would bounce right off the larger and heavier mech's shield!
Due to the high performance of the mech engine he selected, Ves opted to go for a heavier armor system.
After a bit of searching, he eventually settled on an armor system designed for medium striker mechs.
Striker mechs were regarded as close-combat ranged mechs. They were meant to counter quick and agile light mechs with wide-area weapons such as shotguns and flamethrowers.
Their armor was fairly heavy, but not to the point of matching that of a defensive medium knight.
From all the parts they selected so far, Ves estimated that the Transcendent Messenger's total mass should be equivalent to that of the Blackbeak. This was in line with his criteria as both of them bore some resemblance in their mech concepts.
At least when it came to their melee capabilities, they were both designed to close in to the enemy and use their frightening momentum to deliver a powerful impact upon arrival!
Ves didn't face any difficult choices after he made this selection. While the cockpit, sensors, energy cells and other components were just as important to the hero mech, any decent model would do the job.
On her part, Ketis had already settled for the saber model and various internal auxiliary components meant to strengthen the mech's ability to exert force.
Once they completed their shopping list, Ves nodded in satisfaction. "That's it for our selection. Now, we have to piece them all together in a coherent design."
Ketis and petted Lucky's head. "I can't wait to turn this mech into a saber maniac."
They had a long couple of months ahead of them. Ves hoped that the inherent complexity of hero mechs wouldn't pose too much of a hindrance.