[He turns the camera so it now shows the interior of the machine, which is pitch black with built up soot.]

Aside from being incredibly inefficient compared to sources such as magic or ceruleum, it's filthy. Look at this, it's ruining the very machine it's supposed to be powering!

[He returns the camera to it's original position and sets it down, he may be complaining about it, but he was still going to work regardless.]

Yes, that's what I'm doing. The problem is that within a day or two it will have to be disassembled again to be cleaned. It's a poor use of manpower, and that much exposure to the coal dust isn't good for anyone.

That would certainly explain quite a bit. I'm working on a few adjustments, should having it capable of doing more with less fuel, while also recycling power from its own locomotion. If you've blueprints of the entire machine I might be able to make more coordinated adjustments.

[He was not an engineer technically but he had a closer relationship with battlemech than he ever wanted. That and basic training gave him a fair advantage in that regard.

It was information worth sharing however, even without ceruleum as a power source, he knew alternatives. A good core could go a long way.]

As for your fuel dilemma, I would say your first problem is trying to find something to "burn". Finding an appropriate fuel source, arranging proper extraction, and trying to refine it for use would require a lot of resources. Something more akin to a battery however would only require finding something that could hold a charge. I've seen magic users throwing around lightning, it's not ideal having people charge such things, but it would be a far more efficient and clean solution.

So it's a prototype then.

[That made far more sense. He looked over the blueprints. Solid design, but suffered from the same roadblock as some of this ideas. A foreign power source... and perhaps a few other things. He understood the base of it though.

He goes to try and draw in some modifications, only to find the device sort of... draws up what he was thinking. Unaware of his second magic type, he chocked it up as some quirk of the device. He wasn't going to complain, and simply sent the revised blueprints back. In one, it would show the entirety of his idea for the fuel overhaul, where power would be cycled back to the "core". The other, more simplified and less exact, would show a fraction of that. With no core to store the power, the recycled power would be put to use immediately and thus inexactly, which was not ideal, but should ease on fuel intake.]

Here, what do you think of this? I should be able to utilize the machines own generated heat and friction to help offset the need for fuel to start off. If we can find a battery to serve as a core, then I could potentially make the machines self-sufficient. The cores would only need to be replaced when they become unstable and can no longer properly hold a charge.