The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3705

Chapter 3705 Minidrive Variations

As Ves and Professor Benedict Cortez examined the phasewater that they collected from their defeated opponents, both of them were considerably happy with how much they managed to obtain.

Although phasewater was supposed to be fairly prevalent in the Red Ocean, it was still a high-grade exotic that was difficult to obtain in greater quantities.

"Have you ever wondered how phasewater can appear in the cosmos?" Professor Benedict asked.

"Yeah. Plenty of times." Ves replied. "From what I learned, there doesn't appear to be a lot of rules concerning how they are formed. They can appear in space where there is not a drop of water in the vicinity. They can also appear underneath the immense oceans of heavy gravity planets. It really is inexplicable."

"Exotics do not make sense by definition. They are abnormal materials that are infused with greater energy than we can detect on the surface. For such a light material, it is highly unusual for phasewater to contain so much power. I advise you not to delve too deeply into the nature of exotic materials. Only material scientists have the necessary background and prerequisite knowledge to perform these studies. For mech designers such as ourselves, it is much more useful to generate new and better ideas on how to harness the existing properties of phasewater."

He was right. There were lots of mysteries in the multiverse. Except for maybe the Polymath, there was no other single individual who could possibly investigate every single unknown phenomenon.

Mech designers were engineers by nature, and that meant that they were mostly in the business of developing new products.

Of course, the good ones also performed a lot of original research, but they only did so in order to push their mech designs to a higher level.

Both of them began to direct their thoughts to the more immediate applications of phasewater.

"We could theoretically use the phasewater we have plundered from the pakklatons to make 83 minidrives." Ves remarked. "They say it takes at least 50 grams of phasewater to make a single minidrive to work, right?"

"It is more complicated than that, Ves. There are actually two types of minidrives. There is the miniaturized warp drive that can enable a mech to traverse distances in-system at a rapid rate. They excel in combat situations as they can quickly enable melee mechs to approach an enemy fleet and they can also allow mech forces to make unprecedentedly fast tactical movements in space combat. They are already starting to be used in battles involving first-class forces."

Professor Benedict activated a projection that displayed a battle between a first-class pioneering fleet and a group of nunser warships.

Though first-class mech forces were generally a lot more powerful than the Larkinson Army, the ones in the footage brilliantly displayed how miniaturized warp drives changed the game for the human forces.

While the two forces initially took potshots at each other at extreme range, hundreds of human mechs appeared at the flank of the nunser fleet without warning!

Upon showing up, the first-class multipurpose mechs instantly unleashed all of their ranged weapons at the adjacent alien vessels. They also activated all of their boosters in order to close the distance as fast as possible.

While the deadly nunser warships ought to possess more than enough firepower to repel the human mechs, the problem was that much of the weapons of the centaur-like aliens were pointed towards the distant pioneering fleet!

It took time for the nunsers to reorient their ships and vessels. In the meantime, their warships could only make use of only some primary weapons and lots of secondary weapons to repel the human mechs.

While a few mechs succumbed from focused fire, the other mechs managed to make it through by relying on their excellent shield generators and armor systems as a buffer.

Once the mechs finally got close, they employed their deadly melee capabilities to tear apart the alien ships with impunity!

While the nunser vessels possessed plenty of means to repel infantry-level boarding parties, they weren't designed to cope with mechs at all! Not even other ships could help out as their powerful anti-ship weapons were liable to deal more damage to the friendly ships than onto the mechs that were wreaking havoc inside!

Once the raiding first-class mechs managed to destroy a few nunser warships through this method, they jumped out and quickly split up in order to threaten many more alien vessels at a time!

Although the nunsers did possess shielding technology, it was considerably weaker than the human equivalent. The mechs possessed enough firepower to blow a hole in the shield cover.

Combined with the long-ranged fire support from the artillery mechs of the main human fleet, the nunser warships did not stand a chance!

"Impressive." Ves gasped. "Although the nunser fleet doesn't look all that big, it's incredibly inspiring to see how those mechs made short work of those warships."

The human fleet could have overcome the nunser fleet if it fought in a conventional manner, but the victory wouldn't be as smooth.

"Scenarios such as this are already taking place in the Red Ocean." Benedict said. "Mechs equipped with early-generation miniaturized warp drives are not practical enough to be used to travel to other star systems. A journey of weeks can take many months. It is much more efficient to board a simple combat carrier that can make the trip without relying on phasewater. The real utility of this type of minidrive is to enable mechs to perform long-distance tactical maneuvers on the battlefield. They are already starting to be called combat drives for that reason."

The combat drive was the cheapest faster-than-light device that mech designers could mount onto mechs. They were derived from traditional warp drives that aliens had already mastered for eons.

It did not take much of a stretch to figure out that the native alien races must have come up with minidrives themselves. The Big Two merely stole the small drives and reverse-engineered them so that they grasped the tech as well!

Professor Benedict waved his hand, causing another projection to appear. "Miniaturized FTL drives are more interesting. They make creative use of phasewater to massively lower the requirements to operate an FTL drive. With enough phasewater, a mech can enter FTL travel without relying on a ship and reach another star system in around the same amount of time."

The sights of the MTA's first-class multipurpose mechs exiting from one star system only to appear in another star system tens of light-years away was impressive in a different manner.

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