Since phasewater and prime materials would probably become the two key materials that would allow humanity to elevate their tech to a new height of power, gaining access to them became incredibly vital!
Ves aspired to empower his clan with both transphasic mechs and prime mechs. Either types of mechs were powerful in their own ways. They granted the Larkinson Clan and the rest of humanity for that matter hope of defeating the numerically superior native aliens of the Red Ocean.
He even believed that mastery of both phasewater and prime materials may be the only hope for red humanity to resist the arrival of hostile and overwhelmingly powerful aliens from Messier 87!
Although this little experiment did not immediately produce a readily usable batch of prime materials, Ves still saw a lot of hope in the initial results.