The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2004

Chapter 2004 Good Boy

In the Hex Army, knight mechs played a supportive function. Aside from providing a mobile bulwark that provided some much-needed protection for offensive mechs piloted by women, they also offered an array of support services.

In line with the general Hexer preference for shock attacks, the knight mechs piloted by the boys accompanying the superior gender usually offered various defensive or utility benefits.

Direct defensive boosts entailed measures which directly improved the defense of surrounding mechs such as projecting a radial shield, emitting an anti-energy particle cloud or launching deployable cover.

Indirect defensive features comprised of features such as powerful directional scanning arrays that could defeat most ECM measures or putting up a stealth field.

One detail that Ves already knew was that the Hex Army actually didn't exhibit an endless variety of mech models. Unlike the Friday Coalition which adopted different doctrines and battle traditions for every partner, every mech division and every mech regiment, the Hex Army only used around less than a couple of hundred mech models for its entire lineup!

A hundred sounded a lot to a single mech force like the Living Sentinels, but the Hex Army comprised millions of mechs, each of which fought across a battleline stretching an innumerable amount of light-years!

For such a huge and critical mech military to exhibit so little diversity, especially considering that many mech models were merely variants of each other, was staggering to Ves! As someone who was used to the high degree of autonomy adopted by the mech regiments of the Mech Corps, he simply couldn't imagine what it would be like for the regimental commanders to lack the ability to choose their own mech models!

"The Hex Army adopts the same mechs throughout its entire lineup for good reasons, Ves." Gloriana told him. "We don't ascribe to the belief that we need a million different mech models to confuse our enemy or throw them off-guard. We believe in the might of our superiority! We press our attack with the only mechs that are necessary to break through enemy lines!"

The Hex Army's mech regiments mostly adopted the same set of mech models depending on their overall role. Assault regiments fielded one common pool of mech models while scout regiment fielded another common pool of mech models!

The advantages of this were obvious. Using the exact same mech models across thousands of different units meant that it was a lot easier for the Hex Army's logistical services to supply the same spare parts and replacement mechs. The economies of scale increased the efficiency of these efforts by a very significant margin over the Friday Coalition's own logistical operations!

From a design standpoint, Ves was aware that the mech models adopted by the Hex Army all represented the culmination of the best Hexer mech designers. The matriarchs only accepted the best, and the designs that met their approval were constantly being iterated and improved upon by dedicated teams of Masters and Seniors!

Instead of spreading the expertise of many Masters and Seniors across tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of different mech models, pouring all of their attention to less than five-hundred mechs resulted in highly-optimized mechs that performed admirably on the battlefield!

That said, the lack of variety also led to a number of disadvantages. The Fridaymen probably analyzed each and every mech model to death and figured all of their weak points.

Though it wasn't easy to exploit the weak points of highly-optimized mechs, the lack of surprises offered by the Hex Army really hampered some of its operations!

Ves realized the Hex Army was too predictable!

Of course, there were other organizations like DIVA who specialized in subterfuge and special operations, but the main Hexer force was a huge and powerful exobeast who only knew how to charge in one direction: forward!

In contrast, the various military organizations of the Friday Coalition were scattered because they were divided among the six partners. The Gauge Dynasty's Sundered Phalanx adopted a completely different set of mechs from the Carnegie Group's Fortune Legion.

Together with the fact that their mech regiments were highly individualized, the Friday Coalition often managed to surprise the rigid Hex Army with its new and unexpected mech models.

That said, the performance of those new mech models were inconsistent, and even the best Fridayman mechs couldn't compare to the Hexer mechs in terms of optimization.

Which approach was right and which approach was wrong?

Ves couldn't answer such a huge and profound question. As a mech designer, he vastly preferred the diversity model adopted by the Bright Republic and the Friday Coalition. These states offered many mech designers the opportunity to distinguish themselves by expressing their design abilities to the fullest extent. This was also the mainstream approach chosen by many states.

However, the Hex Army chose a different path, and it wasn't in his place to challenge this decision. All Ves could do was to accept this reality and figure out a way for his mech to best slot into this paradigm.

Right now, Ves noticed a clear need that the Hex Army's current lineup failed to address.

"The Hex Army already has an energy resupply mech, though." Gloriana said. She manipulated the projector with her mind, causing it to display a 'fat' support mech. "The Good Boy 77S is the predominant landbound energy resupply mech. It's a heavy mech, but doesn't feature a lot of armor for its weight class. While slow, vulnerable and defenseless, it carries a huge amount of high-density energy cells. It can supply an entire mech squad if necessary!"

"...'Good Boy'?"

Gloriana blinked. "What's wrong with that? It's called that way because every female Hexer pilot is appreciative of the energy resupply it offers. They always thank the mech by calling it a good boy, hence it adopted this name."

"..."

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