The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1956

Chapter 1956 Limited Capacity

Striker mechs predominantly served a defensive role in combat. They stacked up almost as much armor as knight mechs. Sometimes they carried a shield, but usually they didn't bother with one in favor of carrying a large and powerful area of effect weapon.

Shotguns and flamethrowers were the most basic and iconic weapons associated with striker mechs. Higher classes of striker mechs even wielded more advanced weapons such as gravity manipulators or high-powered heat projectors.

Though their mobility was almost as bad as knight mechs, as long as the enemy had to come to them, these mechs formed an effective deterrent against any melee mech.

Compared to more traditional ranged mechs, striker mechs were much more proficient in close-ranged combat. They traded punch and penetration for wide-area denial.

While they were fairly decent at attacking offensive melee mechs such as swordsman mechs or spearman mechs, they were far more suited at countering light mechs.

Compared to medium mechs, light mechs possessed much less armor. Compared to other mechs, their armor might as well be as fragile as skin!

In compensation, their mobility was the highest out of all of the weight classes. They survived on the battlefield despite their paper-thin armor by evading attacks and using their superior mobility to maneuver in complex environments.

Yet for all of their fancy flight maneuvers or footwork, if their opponent was able to blast an entire area with weapons fire, how could they possibly dodge?

Tougher mechs may be able to withstand the flames or shotgun pellets for a time, but light mechs didn't have that luxury most of the time!

Ves knew that striker mechs performed differently in space than on land.

On the ground, distances were much smaller. It was much easier for striker mechs to make an impact on the battlefield as light mechs didn't have as much room for maneuver.

However, Ves and Gloriana considered designing a striker mech for space combat. This was a lot more difficult as the larger distances and additional degrees of freedom made it much more harder to deny an area.

Once light mechs got close, they could approach an enemy from the front, left, right, rear, top or bottom!

Still, any melee mech still had to get close in order to make good on their threat. The closer they got, the easier it was to narrow down their angle of approach.

Even though striker mechs were too slow to chase after light mechs, that wasn't necessarily important. As long as they deterred a melee mech from moving close, they wouldn't be able to inflict any meaningful damage!

If this lasted long enough, then the defending side would surely be able to gain an advantage because their enemies were unable to leverage all of their mechs!

The mech concept that Gloriana proposed had to do all of this, and more.

Right now, Ves agreed with Gloriana that they needed to have a solution ready to resist masses of low-quality mechs.

Even if it wasn't possible to destroy them en masse right away, just pressuring them and blunting their momentum was enough to give his mech forces a much-needed reprieve!

For this reason, they started sketching a striker mech that started off with a flamethrower as its primary armament.

"We need to reserve plenty of capacity." Gloriana explained as she sketched out a large and armored tank on the rear of their draft design. "Landbound striker mechs usually operate in standard atmospheric conditions, so their flamethrowers can draw on plenty of oxygen in the air to feed their combustion reactions."

There was no air in space. That meant there wasn't any oxygen in space.

Under these conditions, how could someone start a fire in space?

The simplest answer was to bring your own oxidizing agent. It didn't necessarily have to be oxygen. While oxygen was rather cheap, there were denser and more efficient substances available.

The same went for the propellant. When they were laced with potent exotics, the energy they unleashed in the form of heat could reach extreme levels!

The only issue was that more effective substances cost a lot more money. Operating a striker mech could get very expensive as their propellants and oxidizing agents quickly ate in someone's budget.

However, this also gave their owners a lot of choice. If an outfit had to tighten their belts, then they could settle for cheap fuel and oxygen.

If the Avatars added a striker mech to their roster, then Commander Melkor would definitely invest millions of hex credits in enhancing its firepower!

Ves never designed a striker mech before. He had seen plenty of them in action, both on land and in space, and understood how they worked and how they were put together in theory.

It turned out that they were a lot more complex to design in practice.

It wasn't a matter of complexity. Striker mechs were very simple by nature. Just like knight mechs, they weren't required to perform any fancy moves. Third-class mechs also didn't contain a lot of extra functions.

The only problem was capacity.

"There's too little room!" Ves complained as he petted Lucky's back. _{fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm}

"Meow!"

He looked down at the cat lounging on his lap. "No matter how many exotics you eat, it all seems to disappear in your stomach. I can't say the same for our draft design."

Even if the propellant and oxidizing agent came in a compressed and compact state, striker mechs could go through their reserves at a frightening rate!

Compounding the capacity problem was the need to manage their heat. The flamethrowers and striker mechs themselves had to channel and contain an immense amount of heat.

Even if most of the energy was projected outwards, plenty of it still washed over the mech itself.

As mechs were unable to shunt away as much heat in space than on land, this could pose a very serious problem if the design of the mech did not sufficiently cope with its own heat!

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