The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4442

"The original plasma sword is not the same as a semi-manned craft as the human head integrated into the body of the weapon did not gain any control over it. The semi-manned craft are different in that they are completely controlled by an alien head or other organic monstrosity. I believe that they should be specially cultivated for the job."

"I see."

Regardless of how the different alien species pulled it off, Ves still found the entire notion to be unnatural. It was a practice that stood against everything the mech industry and human society stood for. These 'semi-manned craft' needed to be destroyed!

While Ves experienced an intense emotional rejection towards this type of craft, Gloriana expressed interest towards them. She realized for the first time how useful it could be to encounter radically different forms of alien technology.

"I wonder how the aliens have managed to implement manned, semi-manned and unmanned craft. Manned craft should be the most reliable but also the most difficult and expensive option. Unmanned craft are most likely regarded as disposable units as it is difficult for them to perform well under heavy jamming. Semi-manned craft are probably seen as an improved version of the latter."

Ves manipulated his interface and called up additional feeds that showed a handful of the alien combat drones and starfighters from different pirate fleets.

They came in many different shapes and configurations.

For example, there was a small craft model that came in the form of a large black brick. The strange craft employed a strange method of propulsion that did not rely on thrusters to push it forward. This allowed it to maintain full armor coverage in every direction.

The only instant where it exposed its weak points was when it needed to open up the smallest holes possible so that its integrated energy weapons could open fire at its targets.

The flying brick craft were completely unmanned and could easily be stacked on top and alongside each other by the hundreds if not thousands!

Their completely geometric shapes meant that they took up a lot less hull space than any other small craft. When Ves took into account that they were all unmanned, their owners did not even have to reserve additional space, funding and other resources to support a large number of starfighter pilots!

Ves let out a dismissive snort. "These brick craft may be an easy and efficient way to field a lot of combat drones, but they aren't fighting against the usual kind of small craft they are accustomed to. Our mechs are an entirely different beast!"

Humanity's prohibition against the use of warships did not weaken its desire for greater strength and combat effectiveness.

As soon as the Age of Mechs came to be, the human race took away much of the resources that previously went into improving warships and allocated all of it into supercharging research and development of mechs!

Human civilization was still incredibly huge even after it had managed to limp out of the dark days of the Age of Conquest.

Four centuries of uninterrupted development had allowed humanity to elevate a special variation of small craft at an astounding pace. Each subsequent mech generation introduced a constant slew of industry-wide improvements.

All of these efforts enabled humanity to turn mechs into a much more mature weapon platform that came a lot closer to rivaling warships!

Tens of thousands of strange brick drones were flooding in numerous directions, but most of them were flying straight towards the mechs of the Santana Group!

Ves couldn't help but laugh when he saw that. "Good luck with that!"

The Santana Third Fleet primarily fielded hybrid mechs and heavy artillery mechs. Each of them opened fire at the incoming swarm of black brick craft with the many different guns at their disposal!

Immediately, the alien brick craft began to showcase their greatest merit, which was their strong all-round defense.

Their relatively thick armor plating in combination with their special propulsion method allowed the bricks to absorb incoming fire from one side.

Once the armor on this side had reached the end of its rope, the bricks simply flipped around and exposed an undamaged side towards the enemy.

Doing this several times in a row allowed the bricks to resist up to 6 times as much damage than normal!

While Ves found the design concept to be interesting, the combat drone had a lot of flaws!

"The propulsion method is too slow." Ves criticized. "Who cares whether it can fly forwards, backwards, downwards, upwards or sideways at the exact same rate of acceleration when it is always lagging behind?"

This was great for the ranged mechs of the Santana Group as they all felt free to fire their weapon systems as many times as possible!

"This is a dream scenario to the Many Guns Doctrine." Ves remarked as he saw the approaching bricks falling apart by the dozens with each passing seconds. The Santanas have the greatest firepower out of all of the mech forces. The brick craft are way over their heads if they think that spinning around can stop them from getting shredded into pieces."

His wife also directed her attention to this large swarm of unmanned craft.

"The unusual looking drones aren't completely useless, Ves. They have successfully attracted much of the firepower of the Santana mechs. Look at the alien warships that are behind the drone swarm. The larger threats have yet to be engulfed by too many attacks."

"The Santanas already have a solution for them. Warships are best left to more powerful mechs."

The Santana Group's decent collection of expert ranged mechs had already begun to open fire at the smaller warships heading in its direction.

Most of the alien warships, no matter whether they looked similar to human warships or radically different, seemed to rely more on transphasic energy shields than solid armor for protection.

It made sense as it was much cheaper and more economical to rely on energy-based defenses.

This appeared to be a universal technological application to the indigenous alien races as even the weirdest and most inhuman-looking warships boasted powerful energy shields.

The strangest warship heading in the direction of the Santana mechs was a biomechanical starfish-like ship that was shaped like a flexible starfish!

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