Work proceeded slowly but steadily. While nobody understood the principles behind the lithic mech parts, that didn't stop them from figuring them out step by step.
One of the biggest breakthroughs they accomplished was when a couple of mech designers managed to get the cockpit systems online. While the screens were full of gibberish alien symbols, the interface at least gave the software specialist a lot of areas to explore.
The small amount of gains they obtained from the cockpit interface gave the other mech designers a better idea of what they were dealing with. It turned out that the lithic mechs weren't not so different from human mechs after all.
"It's as if some alien race saw humans playing around with mechs and tried to make their own version of it by using their own tech base." The software specialist said. "They probably obtained some human mechs and plagiarized their design elements to come up with these mechs."