The Mech Touch novel Chapter 5563

Chapter 5563 The Resurgence of Phyiscal Projectile Weapons

The Oclis Zemo was an unusual second-class mech.

Back when Ves was still a humble third-class mech designer, he regularly came in touch with ballistic weapons.

In a society where laser beam weapons and many more advanced weapon technologies became available, the demand for the most basic ballistic weapons had never faded.

This was because more advanced weapon systems usually imposed greater requirements. These could range from needing to master more advanced knowledge, the use of higher grades of materials and the necessity of having access to a much stronger power source.

It was human nature to chase after the most expensive and powerful toys, but not everyone had the opportunity or the capital to handle them. In a cosmos where scarcity was a universal phenomenon, the ordinary masses could only dream of piloting the most advanced mechs or wielding the most destructive weapons.

Ballistic weapons as well as certain types of artillery weapons were extremely common in battles between small and unsophisticated forces.

Even the weakest and most destitute alien races had little choice but to resort to more primitive weapon systems to defend their homes!

Based on firing lots of simple chemically propelled bullets or shells, ballistic weapons had many compelling advances. They were cheap, low-tech, did not expend a lot of energy on use, easy to mass produce and actually quite versatile.

However, their disadvantages were also clear. They were heavy, cumbersome, took up a lot of capacity and needed to reserve even more space for ammunition!

When it came to mechs and starships, space always came at a premium. All of the space occupied by the propellant needed to launch bullets at distant targets was so wasteful thaty this was the primary reason why most ballistic weapons fell out of favor in second-class and third-class combat.

Ballistic weapons also had another major shortcoming.

Compared to gauss weapons that relied on generating a lot of electromagnetic force to propel solid alloy rounds with much greater power, most conventional ballistic weapons were unable to generate high enough muzzle velocities to guarantee accurate fire in space combat.

Energy beam weapons were much superior in this regard!

This was why the Oclis Zemo seemed like an oddball to many of the people viewing the third challenge match.

Ballistic weapons were not the only kind of armaments that could produce rapid-fire damage output. Specialized laser cannons and hybrid energy pulse cannons could be used for intercepting missiles just as well.

The latter two weapon systems were also a lot more accurate at longer ranges!

The reason why the Oclis Zemo was classified as a striker mech rather than a special sub-type of rifleman mech was because its rotary cannons were too inaccurate at longer ranges!

In space combat where the distances between enemies could easily range from tens to hundreds of kilometers, the muzzle velocities of most ballistic weapons were so slow that it was impossible for them to hit anything aside from large stationary objects such as space stations.

The Oclis Zemo's effective range was too limited.

Yet so long as people could look beyond this shortcoming, the Oclis Zemo possessed certain advantages that made it a lot more compelling than normal.

Its twin rotary cannons not only fired quickly, but also struck with great force. Every bullet was impregnated with a small quantity of cheap, low-grade earth hyper material.

This was the kind of material that could easily be dug out of a random planet or asteroid after a casual search.

Though the properties of this hyper material was nothing special, a solid hyper round was always able to carry a lot of E energy than an insubstantial energy beam!

Solid projectiles were also able to contain E energy in a more concentrated and directed fashion, enabling them to produce more powerful and sophisticated effects!

During the Phasewater Generation, the general consensus of the mech industry was that energy weapons possessed a decisive advantage.

The existence and the effects of phasewater was powerful, but the exotic itself was too scarce to be squandered on consumable goods such as projectiles.

Firing a transphasic rotary cannon that was fed by actual transphasic bullets was no different from throwing away a huge fortune!

Though energy weapons could not produce such a powerful transphasic effect, they were much more sustainable as they did not throw out any actual phasewater.

The Hyper Generation suddenly reversed this trend.

Phasewater still remained as scarce and prohibitively expensive as ever, but the same was not the case for all of the new hyper materials that emerged!

Higher grades of hyper materials were still relatively scarce due to how troublesome it was to produce them, but lower grades of hyper materials had become incredibly common nowadays!

That made the latter incredibly suitable to be used for consumable products such as ammunition. _{frёeweɓηovel.coɱ}

Master Acze Redmond practically designed the Oclis Zemo since the start of the Hyper Generation by relying on this exact premise!

"Ballistic weapons are making a comeback in second-class combat." The Master Mech Designer boldly stated to Ves as the match continued to unfold. "Do you hear all of that noise? People will begin to encounter it much more often. There are far more low-grade hyper materials in the Red Ocean than we can ever use up. We can integrate all kinds of them into our projectiles to improve the physical damage output of our mechs. Energy weapons simply cannot compare."

The Hyper Generation was like a dream come true for Master Redmond. He happened to specialize in the development of rapid-fire weapons, but such weapons never really gained enough traction in the past.

In the previous age, mech-on-mech combat often centered around penetrating armor. It was much easier for single heavy attacks to punch through layers of armor than a stream of smaller projectiles.

While this reality hadn't changed, the introduction of hyper technology could transform every existing tech!

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