The Suit-Maker 36 The Golden Boxer

So ridiculous that I had to know more about it. I did a search of The Golden Boxer and found to my slight surprise that it was a Chinese design. According to the description listed on Dive, The Golden Boxer was a Battlesuit that was originally design to introduce native Chinese clockwork designs to the world and a failed early attempt to kick start the clockwork industry in China. Dive did not list the designer but whoever he was, he must have taken inspiration from the Steambot.

The Golden Boxer is a big bulky construct similar in size to the Steambot and even its main weapons, its twin fists, were the same. The unnamed designer however did take pains to reinforce the arms of The Golden Boxer to make them larger, tougher and stronger. That was the reason why the arms were disproportionally large and he even shaped the fists to look like huge boxing gloves. Despite the strange look, the arms do work. According to Dive, the oversized arms not only increase the strength of the operator, they were also designed to withstand high impact. To accommodate the larger arms, the designer also increased the width of the legs for balance.

It made the suit look ridiculous but The Golden Boxer was a functional Clockwork Battlesuit. However just by looking at the specs, I knew that the unknown designer had made one huge mistake; The Golden Boxer is a slow moving exoskeleton Battlesuit.

Nowadays almost all modern Battlesuits are enclosed exoskeleton Battlesuits but back in the Clockwork Age, Battlesuits came in two basic design; the big enclosed Battlesuit like the Steambot, and the smaller exoskeleton Battlesuit like The Maid of Orléans. Or as most designers like to call them; the car and the motorcycle.

The big enclosed suit design requires a Battlesuit that was big enough for an operator to be place inside. This design covers the operator in steel much like a car and offered full protection to the operator. Such Battlesuits carries more weight so they are often slower. As such, designers often placed heavy armor on them for extra protection. The exoskeleton design goes the other way.

The design of the Battlesuit only partially covers the operator, leaving parts of the operator exposed much like the rider of a motorcycle. Of the two, the exoskeleton design was more common. In eras when resources were scarcer, it wasn't always economically viable to build giant Battlesuits like the Steambot so most designers instead build man-sized exoskeleton Battlesuits like the Maid of Orléans. This design is more dangerous to the operators but designers usually find ways to minimize the danger like making the Battlesuit faster, stealthier or smaller. The designer of The Golden Boxer did none of those things.

Seeing that the Dive had a promotional video of the Battlesuit in action, I decided to watch it. The video told me I was right in my a.s.sessment. The Golden Boxer was an offensive juggernaut. Once it got close enough, the arms of the Battlesuit were strong enough to punch through practically anything. One hit against a lightly armored opponent was all it needs. The problem was its inability to get close.

The Golden Boxer is a slow moving Battlesuit with no enhance speed or stealth capabilities. The designer placed a bulletproof gla.s.s to protect the head of the operator but that was about the only protection the operator had. The rest of the operator's body was open. The designer tried to negate the danger with the oversized arms.

From the video, the operator could put its oversized arms in front of the body of the Boxer like a shield and slowly plough forward. The oversized arms were able to withstand small arms fire pretty well but even from the video, I knew that wasn't a valid tactic on the battlefield. Opponents can just employ hit-and-run tactics against The Golden Boxer and heavy arms fire can damaged the arms severely, taking away the suit's best and only weapon.

No wonder the suit was considered a failure. Between its golden sheen and oversized arms, The Golden Boxer was nothing but a slow-moving eye-catching bullet magnet. No operator would want to be caught on the battlefield in that thing! Still, The Golden Boxer was perfect for me.

From the Dive records, there were only two variants of The Golden Boxer in the system and more importantly, it was free! Copyright laws are pretty strange but the standard ruling is that if the copyrights of a work isn't renewed after thirty years with the Solar Copyright Office, then the work enters the public domain and can be freely reproduced and incorporated into new works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, publisher or other business to whom the copyright has been a.s.signed but whoever owns the rights to The Golden Boxer didn't do that so the design of the Golden Boxer is now free for the public to use.

This is not that uncommon for obscure Clockwork designs. These Clockwork Battlesuits are about a hundred years old and most people had no use for them. The lack of variants was also a plus point for me. Considering the number of wannabes designers out there, having just two variants out there was an incredibly low number. For me, that's a good thing. It means I have less compet.i.tion and I could do what I want with the Battlesuit without having to worry if other designers had thought of the same thing I did. Just to be sure, I took a look at the two variants.

One of the designers just increase the chest armor of the Boxer. This variant works much like the original only with better protection of the operator as it's main selling point. It was a poor variant that almost no one looked at. Few people want a variant that was too similar to the original.

The second designer did better. He filed down the oversized arms and replaced the legs with that of a speeder clockwork design. He basically did a trade-off, making his variant faster but at the cost of the suit's offensive power. His variant could still do damage but without the oversized reinforced arms, his variant lack the one punch knockout power of the original. Neither variants sold particularly well but they did give me an idea of what to do.

I purchase The Golden Boxer for nothing and went to work.