The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3440

Chapter 3440: BDX-35F-3

Most of the battles fought by the Larkinson Clan took place in space, and Ves didn't think this would change.

Sure, there was a lot of untapped wealth buried on different planets, but that didn't change the fact that his clan was based entirely in space. That meant that strengthening the Larkinson Army's ability to defend the fleet was paramount!

After analyzing the expeditionary fleet's previous engagement, Ves recognized that ranged combat was the foundation of space battles.

A good space-oriented mech force fielded an abundant amount of ranged mechs in order to gain the initiative, to deter enemies from approaching and to gain the option to deal damage to any part of the battlefield without too many hindrances.

The Eye of Ylvaine already shouldered much of the burden with the help of its Transcendent Punisher model. Though its armaments could use an update, its heavy firepower and the possibility to lay down accurate firepower at longer ranges had already saved the Larkinson Clan ever since it came into service.

If it was possible to do so, Ves would have gladly doubled or tripled the amount of Transcendent Punishers in service!

Unfortunately, their biggest shortcoming was the lack of bunkers in the Larkinson fleet. After getting rid of all of the clan's sub-capital ships, the amount of Transcendent Punishers that could still be used had dropped considerably!

This made Ves uncomfortable because he had gotten accustomed to relying on long-ranged artillery support to make his battles easier.

In order to make the Transcendent Punisher so good at its job, its design sacrificed many aspects, most notably a flight system that could allow it to deploy in space.

Sure, Ves could resort to alternative solutions such as employing heavy floater platforms, but they came with their own issues.

No, the Transcendent Punishers were best left in their bunkers. The heavy mechs not only enjoyed a defensive advantage, but could also obtain a degree of support from the ships they were stationed on. Taking them away from these cozy, purpose-built sites was inefficient.

While the Penitent Sisters also filled another ranged niche with the Eternal Redemptions, they were not flexible enough due to their low mobility. They were another form of artillery in his opinion. They excelled at fighting against heavily-armored targets but performed a lot poorer against lighter and more mobile opponents.

What the Larkinson Clan needed was a ranged mech that could keep up with the latter. Ves sought to develop a new mainstay that could achieve clear superiority at medium range.

Ves planned to design new spaceborn rifleman mech for that reason.

The main purpose for this new project was to replace the Bright Warrior in rifleman mech configuration. Its performance had to exceed the existing standard solution of the Larkinson Clan in every way.

"There's nothing wrong with the Bright Warrior, but it doesn't possess any distinct advantages either." He muttered.

Tactical flexibility was a great advantage, but sometimes Ves just wanted to whack his opponents with the biggest hammer. He needed to bestow greater firepower to the Larkinson Army, especially now that the expeditionary fleet had entered the Red Ocean.

Ves was willing to spend a lot to design a high-performance ranged mech. A Bright Warrior cost roughly 500 million hex credits to produce, though that price level was based on the cost of materials back in the galactic rim.

The actual production cost was likely a lot higher in the Red Ocean due to the inflated prices of many raw materials.

Even so, Ves did not intend to cheapen out with this project, especially considering that his fleet would be operating on extremely limited mech capacity for the foreseeable time.

He had to make each mech count, and that meant trying his best to strengthen them in many different ways.

Better weapons, better tech and better piloting support were all in the cards. What he needed to do was to combine these elements into a coherent package that was clearly superior to the existing solutions of the Larkinson Clan.

The biggest question was whether he should make it exclusive to a single mech legion or turn it into a more general ranged solution.

Ves preferred to do the latter, but that went contrary to his current plan. Sure, designing a single powerful rifleman mech would allow every mech legion to adopt the new solution, but it wouldn't be tailored to their unique strengths.

In the long run, this would leave Ves disappointed with his ranged mech, the same way he was disappointed with the Bright Warrior for being too general and unspecialized.

"I'll have to pick a single mech legion to focus upon." He decided.

He already came up with two candidates.

The Avatars of Myth could make good use of a powerful ranged solution. Commander Melkor had complained multiple times about getting outshined by the other mech legions. Giving them a powerful new mech model would do wonders in placating their demands.

"It doesn't have to be a ranged model, though."

Ves became more inclined to shift the Avatars of Myth towards an assault role. That meant providing this mech legion with armored, close-ranged mechs that could take a beating and deliver high impact.

A rifleman mech, especially armed with energy weapons, embodied the opposite of this concept.

The rifleman mech he had in mind would be fairly light, agile and armed with luminar crystal rifles that excelled at mid-ranged combat.

Their impact at the beginning of a battle might not be the best, but they could effectively wear down any massed enemy units as long as they could deal persistent damage.

Pairing this kind of rifleman mech might grant more flexibility to the Avatars of Myth, but it would also dilute their primary purpose.

Ves thought it was better to design this mech for another mech legion.

The Battle Criers came to mind. Much like the Avatars of Myth, they had struggled to find relevancy when the other mech legions outshone them. Yet when Ves came up with the idea of arming their Bright Warriors with luminar crystal rifles in order to fight against expert mechs, the loyal soldiers finally regained their drive.

Mechs with bold colorations were not unusual, but tended to attract a lot more attention. This could be good or bad depending on the circumstances. _{frёewebηovel.cѳm}

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