The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1856

Chapter 1856 Design Challenges

Just like several other problems Ves encountered, he eventually solved the Lancer problem by resorting to superior materials.

After deciding on this approach, Ves and Gloriana worked for days to plan this solution out. They explored countless proportions and settled for one that tripled the proportion of Amris in the alloy formula.

They then applied this modified Breyer alloy in various places in both the base platform and the internal and external structural braces that was specific to the lancer configuration.

The most drastic implementation of modified Breyer alloy lay in the arms of the mech. Meant to hold the lance, they incorporated a bunch of elements that beefed them up and secured an effective grip on the weapon.

The lance itself was not just a very sharp and long metal stick. Its shape became more complex as its design was tailored to maximize the grip and transfer of momentum.

All of these adjustments coincided in a lancer configuration that was able to match or exceed the offensive power of a traditional lancer mech!

The defense of the lancer configuration was weaker than that of the other melee configurations. Capacity that could have been utilized to bulk up the mech was instead allocated to modified Breyer alloy that mainly served to bleed away the recoil of a collision.

Fortunately, it worked. The rudimentary simulations that Ves performed all indicated that the lancer configuration could indeed shrug off the impact of a powerful collision!

The mech did not fare as well as the other configurations in terms of absorbing hits, though. It was still substantially better than the rifleman mech configuration on this front, but it fell far short of the swordsman mech and space knight configurations.

The amount of work needed to make the lancer configuration viable and effective was incredible. Ves had to revise the time table for the project several times to accommodate for the sheer design burden the lancer configuration presented.

Fortunately, the other configurations did not present them with so many insurmountable challenges.

The space knight configuration needed to gain at least some shock-absorbing protection, but not as much as the lancer mech. Designing it was a simple manner of finding every possible opportunity to pile more armor onto the base platform.

The swordsman mech configuration was a bit more delicate. While it still needed a decent amount of protection, it also had to retain a sufficient amount of mobility.

The most important aspect of a swordsman mech was its ability to apply force and its range motion. More advanced swordsman mechs featured an incredibly exaggerated range of motion of all of its limbs. Even their torsos were able to rotate 180 or even 360 degrees in order to make the mech launch attacks at surprising angles!

This was not an option this time due to all of the compromises imposed by the modular mech platform approach. It wasn't that big of a deal anyway since only the most skilled and dedicated swordsman mech pilots made effective use of those advanced features.

What Ves aimed for was not a mech that won its duels and battles through skill, finesse and technique. Instead, he wanted to take full advantage of the high defense afforded by the use of Breyer alloy to turn the swordsman mech configuration into brawler!

Its mech pilots had to muster as much courage as possible and dive their mechs head-first into an enemy!

No matter how many hits they absorbed, the best way of winning battle was by trading blows!

Instead of trying to parry and block enemy attacks, the swordsman mech configuration should just take the hits and seek to launch as many blows as possible!

Certainly, his swordsman mech configuration to fight in a more conservative fashion if the mech pilot was skilled enough. Ves just wanted to lower the skill ceiling of this configuration in order to accommodate less focused or skilled mech pilots.

"That said, the skill floor of this configuration should still be fairly high."

Swordsman mechs were regarded as offensive powerhouses that had the potential to reverse any disadvantageous situations! As long as a skilled and talented mech pilot drew out the full potential of a sword-wielding mech, it was not impossible for it to defeat an entire mech company!

Ves wanted to preserve this capacity for his swordsman mech configuration, so he made sure to leave as much room as possible for skill expression without compromising its primary properties.

Compared to the melee configurations, the ranged configuration was an entirely separate beast.

Every mech designer had to switch their mindsets before they began working on the rifleman mech configuration.

To be honest, it wasn't very difficult to design a decent rifleman mech. Ves designed several ranged mechs over the course of his short career, and he exchanged a large amount of skills related to laser and ballistic rifles.

He possessed an extensive theoretical grasp towards both types of weapons. He managed to make use of this advantage to design the broad strokes of a rifleman mech that could wield either weapon when the situation called for a specific choice.

The problematic aspect about this configuration was that ballistic rifles and laser rifles imposed different demands on a mech.

It wasn't particularly problematic to throw a rifle with a self-contained magazine or battery to random humanoid mech.

As long as that mech possessed articulating hands that could grip the rifle, it could easily fire the weapon until it ran dry.

Yet why didn't mech forces deploy spare rifles to their melee mechs?

There were several reasons behind this pattern of behavior.

First, it wasn't worth it for third-class mechs. The capacity of the rifles wasn't much if the mech didn't allocate any capacity towards replenishing their energy or ammunition.

Second, melee mechs were built differently from ranged mechs. Just like how humans undergoing archery training developed different physiques from humans undergoing swordsmanship training, a melee mech would have to weaken its primary function in order to strengthen its secondary function.

Since specialization was the established doctrine in third-class mech design, most mech designers simply opted to leave it out entirely. At best, they would just pair their swordsman mechs and knight mechs with backup pistols that hardly burdened their frames.

Ranged mechs needed extensive accommodations to strengthen their functions to a competitive level. From designing their arms and upper structure to increase their accuracy and precision as much as possible, to devoting a substantial amount of capacity towards stuffing as much ammunition, energy cells of heatsinks as a mech designer could get away with, pretty much the entire frame had to be dedicated towards ranged combat!

This was also the reason why most ranged mechs didn't bother carrying anything more than a pitiful knife as a final resort. A typical melee mech could just overpower a ranged mech wielding a sword by leveraging their abundant amount of physical strength!

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