The Mech Touch novel Chapter 852

After two days of working on his vision of his third original design, Ves finally started nailed down the overall vision for his third original mech design.

He still retained the mech’s short but wide cylindrical torso and its four, thick spider-like legs. Instead of calling it a trash can mech or a barstool mech, he now regarded it as a crawler mech.

"It sounds much more elegant to call it a crawler-type frontline mech than calling it a trash can on legs."

The main trait of crawler mechs was that they sacrificed mobility for stability. They weren’t designed to run as fast as humanoid mechs or most bestial mechs. What they excelled at the most was managing a mech’s center of gravity and navigating through extremely rugged terrain.

However, most mechs that adopted crawler legs tended to be heavy mechs. Their incredibly heavy weight and inability to move fast without allocating a ludicrous amount of power to its engines made them a good match for crawler legs.

For light mechs that relied heavily on mobility to fulfill their roles and evade any incoming attacks, they would never resort to something as silly as crawler legs that needlessly dragged down their mobility.

Did light mechs need the additional stability afforded by crawler legs? No!

"However, the equation is completely different if the weight of the mech is multiplied by six."

Regardless of the configuration of the legs, the light mech would never be able to move fast enough to sprint. The only way for Ves to accomplish such extreme mobility would be if he designed an extreme mech that basically amounted to an engine on legs.

Such a mech would be able to move quickly even under Aeon Corona VII’s crushing gravity. However, the limited amount of energy cells and lack of room for any other features turned it into a short-lasting sprinter that couldn’t do anything else.

Therefore, Ves firmly settled on the crawler type as his light mech would be able to take maximum advantage of the extra stability. As for the impact on speed, Ves didn’t expect it to be much slower.

Slowly, the mech in his vision changed from a creepy crawler to something that resembled a turtle in shape. It moved as fast as a turtle and shared its overall shape sans the head. The only difference was that the mech he envisioned lacked the toughness of a turtle shell but gained some laser cannons in return.

"Did I inadvertently design a bestial mech?"

Besides the omission of a head, the shape did indeed resemble that of a turtle. The other major difference was that the legs of his so-called turtle mech was a lot longer and thinner.

"It doesn’t actually resemble a turtle or share much of its traits except for its general body shape, so technically it’s not a bestial mech."

Ves did not draw upon existing animal shapes to envision his mech, so in his perspective it was still a frontline mech rather than a bestial mech.

This distinction mattered a lot because mech pilots approached frontline mechs and bestial mechs with different mindsets.

Bestial mechs took advantage of the shape of animals or exobeasts to empower it with advanced movement options and unconventional attack methods.

The bestial supremacy movement claimed that predator animals possessed an undeniable advantage in melee combat. It was much easier for them to leverage their mobility to add weight to their attacks.

However, the humanoid supremacy movement contended that mech pilots adjusted much easier if they piloted human mechs. Besides, humanoid mechs possessed a lot more flexibility and could easily switch weapon loadouts when the situation called for it. Yet it was also undeniable that it was difficult to empower their melee attacks without depending on specific fighting styles.

The weird breakdown-proof mech that Ves envisioned ultimately fell outside of bestial and humanoid mechs. It belonged to a third category called frontline mechs.

"Frontline mechs are mechs solely designed for battle."

They represented the essence of mechs at their purest form as machines geared for unending battle. They were cheap to mass produce and required much less training to master than piloting humanoid mechs.

In the early days of the Age of Mechs, everyone believed that frontline mechs represented the future direction of mech design. That was because their designs were extraordinarily efficient for their cost. They exemplified the belief that quantity trumped quality.

Yet history had a way of turning expectations upside-down.

Two reasons emerged that explained why frontline mechs failed to become the dominant mech type.

First, as mechs that emphasized quantity over quality, mech pilots generally hated piloting them. Only the poorest mech pilots with the worst genetic aptitudes preferred to pilot these weak but simple mechs.

Talented mech pilots needed better mechs to fully showcase their combat ability!

Cases where a group of four high-quality mechs defeated more than a hundred frontline mechs through waging guerilla war sometimes appeared on the news. In addition, the existence of expert mechs and expert pilots almost completely subverted the idea that quantity mattered the most!

The second reason was that mech pilots generally weren’t as abundant as everyone thought. Only a small portion of the population possessed the right genetic aptitude to pilot mechs, and only a fraction of those possessed the grit and mindset to set foot on the battlefield.

As disgraceful as it sounded, a majority of potentates actually consisted of cowards. They were willing to go along with the training in order to take advantage of the status afforded to potentates. Yet when it came to risking their lives, they turned into crybabies who would faint at the sight of blood.

Therefore, the pool of mech pilots in any state or region only possessed a limited depth. If a mech military foisted all of their available mech pilots with cheap, disposable mechs, then their manpower would run out sooner or later while achieving a disappointing amount of impact on the battlefield.

"The ultimate bottleneck a mech military has to contend with is manpower. There are so many mech pilots to go around. It makes more sense to make the most out of the limited pool of manpower by pairing them with better quality mechs that last longer on the battlefield."

These two reasons basically restricted the rise and overwhelming dominance of frontline mechs. Still, the frontline mech supremacy movement still held out hope for the future. These fanatics predict that they enjoyed the last laugh.

This was because frontline mechs became a lot more viable in two different scenarios. First, when automation advanced to such an extent where AI mech pilots performed better than human mech pilots.