The Mech Touch

The soldiers of the Hex Army had already developed a close familiarity with the mech models fielded by the military branches of the Friday Coalition.

The Hexers even developed a personal familiarity of the traits of the Master Mech Designers that defined the characteristics of the mechs they were tasked with defeating.

The Fridaymen did the same. They even went as far as dedicating entire research teams led by honored and respected Masters to develop an effective counter against the ubiquitous glows of the Hexer mech models that were designed by Ves!

Though those research teams never managed to develop a universal counter, the researchers gained a lot of understanding of living mechs and came up with limited solutions.

One of the more general lessons the Fridaymen had learned after fighting off so many Valkyrie Redeemers was that it was better to take them out at a distance than to allow these thunderous marauder mechs to complete their attack runs!

This was why the Sundered Phalanx, the Blue Cavalry and many other Fridaymen military organizations put a greater emphasis on ranged combat during the last decade.

The expert rifleman mechs known as the Arma Tensar and the Fila Tensar were beneficiaries of this change in policies!

In order to emphasize the threat of these special pair of expert mechs, Ves went over all of their known strong points.

"The Tensars are not only strong due to how their expert pilots can link and share resources with each other. Their individual technical design and specifications are also formidable in their own right. Take a look at their rifles. Though we do not possess the full technical specifications of the current rifle models, the Hexers already developed a thorough understanding of the chief developer."

He pointed towards one of the men standing in the row of Master Mech Designers in the service of the Gauge Dynasty.

"Master Johnny Bates is perhaps one of the most hated mech designers within the Hex Army. The reason for that is because he is an energy weapon specialist and responsible for leading the design projects of many ranged mechs that have gone on to down Hexer mechs in droves."

Master Mech Designers came in all shapes and sizes, but if they had a few things in common, it was that they were always extremely clever and good at innovating in their own field.

"At over 250 years old, Master Bates has not only mastered his craft to a high degree, but developed a lot of mechs across different mech generations." Ves explained with obvious respect in his tone. "His specialty lies in the design of Multi-Ray Energy Weapon Systems."

"What does that mean, sir?" Venerable Vincent asked. "Doesn't that sound like a rifle that can switch from firing laser beams to positron beams and back? We already have those weapons. In fact, our rifles come with six different firing modes!"

Ves shook his head. "I personally designed the luminar crystal rifles that you have mentioned. My work is not the same as the weapons designed by Master Bates. They are based on radically different design principles and tech bases. To summarize the essence of his work as simply as possible, he is capable of designing energy weapons that are capable of firing two beam types at once. Whereas most dual-type rifles can only switch from one energy beam to another, the rifles designed by this Fridayman Master can fire both of them at once at pretty much full power!"

His explanation was met with mixed reactions. Half of the Larkinson expert pilots looked confused. The others looked intrigued, but Ves had the sense that they also struggled to understand the implications of his description.

Ves sighed. "Take a look at these clips."

He inputted a command that briefly changed the simulated setting to a recording of one of the major battles of the Komodo War.

The Sundered Phalanx along with the Blue Cavalry had gone out in force and deployed a massive mech army against one of the fortified star systems at the border of the Hexadric Hegemony.

Millions of mechs collided against each other in many different parts of space!

What was notable was that the ranged mechs of the Sundered Phalanx packed a considerably greater punch than that of the Blue Cavalry! The former managed to mow down the Valkyrie mechs and other Hexer mechs with visibly greater ease!

Part of that was because the Gauge Dynasty was wealthier and could afford to raise the quality of its military mech models.

However, another part of it was because numerous ranged mech models fielded by the Sundered Phalanx were deliberately designed to excel in short, high-impact battles rather than long, drawn-out engagements.

Though the rifleman mechs in question frequently ran out of juice and had to return to their motherships in order to replenish their energy cells, their performance when they were on the battlefield was quite impressive!

Armed with energy rifles that essentially fired a laser beam and a positron beam at the same time from the same muzzle, the damage output from these weapons was not simple!

Initially, the mechs got struck by a high concentration of electromagnetic waves. Though there was virtually force behind the blows, the extreme transfer of thermal energy could melt almost any metal the beam came in contact with in an instant!

Immediately afterwards, a thin but deadly stream of positrons arrived afterwards and essentially annihilated matter when it came into contact with substances that contained electrons. This process not only weakened materials directly, but also released a huge amount of heat at the impact site!

Generally speaking, energy weapons fired either laser beams or positron beams because it was much more efficient to specialize in a single firing mode.

There was no obvious rationale to develop a weapon that could fire both at once. It made the weapon a lot more costly, complicated and finicky, which was indeed one of the biggest complaints of the products developed by Master Bates.

However, the fact that the man successfully realized his design philosophy and became one of the most prestigious mech designers of the Gauge Dynasty, his odd ideas about energy weapons had proven to be truly effective!

Ves sent a mental command to the MSTS, causing it to conjure up a typical mech rifle developed by Master Bates.

"This is one of the mech weapons that the Hexers have managed to capture and analyze during the Komodo War. The newer rifle models utilized by the modern mech divisions at Pima Prime are considerably better than this model, but the principles should still be the same."

He waved his hand, causing the rifle to fire at a metal plate.

In order to make the effectiveness of this weapon clearer, Ves also called up a luminar crystal rifle and commanded it to fire a laser beam and a positron beam at the same spot.

What was notable was that firing the two beam types separately did not penetrate the metal plate as deeply as firing them simultaneously!

"The penetration factor of Master Bates' laser-positron dual-ray energy system is famed throughout the Komodo Star Sector." Ves explained. "You can think of it as the energy version of a two-stage projectile. The laser beam strikes first and heats up the targeted area, making it softer and more vulnerable. The positron beam strikes the same area immediately afterwards and exploits the weaknesses created by the first hit. The key that makes this work is that both beams are fired from the same barrel at the same type, which in practice means that they are guaranteed to strike at the exact same point unless the range is extreme. To put it into simpler terms, the rifle comes with a built-in combo attack!"

This was quite remarkable! If anyone else wanted to replicate the same feat, then they would have to employ multiple weapons and somehow have them strike at the exact same spot.

This was almost impossible to accomplish, even if a single mech wielded a rifle that had two weapon barrels that were closely aligned with each other!

The gathered expert pilots looked extremely impressed at this technology.

No Master Mech Designer was a pushover!

Even the ones with the most boring and unambitious design philosophies were able to stand out and excel in at least one aspect of mech design!

"While Master Bates has developed multiple different applications of his offense-oriented design philosophy, you will mostly encounter his SLPDR or 'Slipdream' energy weapon systems on numerous standard mechs and expert mechs fielded by the Sundered Phalanx. It is not entirely ubiquitous among the Gauger ranged mechs due to its higher costs, higher maintenance requirements and drastic energy drain, but it will certainly be the most troublesome weapon that we will face on the battlefield."

Out of all of the gathered expert mechs, the ones that specialized in ranged combat developed the greatest respect towards the Slipdream energy weapon system!

"How powerful are the Slipdream rifles compared to our luminar crystal rifles?" Venerable Stark asked.

"That's a good question. There are many variables that can affect the performance of different energy weapons, but assuming that everything else is the same, the Slipdream rifle can deal up to 50 percent more damage than any equivalent attack from a luminar crystal rifle. In fact, the problem is even worse with the Tensars. If both expert rifleman mechs whose pilots are completely linked through a specialized neural network are able to fire both of their powerful expert-grade Slipdream rifles at the exact same spot, the combo effect will effectively amplify the penetration factor by 200 percent! This is one of the greatest reasons why the Tensars can counter high-tier expert mechs. Even Unending alloy will not be able to remain unscathed when faced with so much concentrated heat and energy damage!"

Ves expressly issued this warning to Venerable Joshua and the others who were paired with expert mechs clad with Unending alloy. He did not want these pilots to develop blind faith in the defensive prowess of the Unending alloy armor systems of their respective battle partners!

"It is not all that bad, though. Slipstream rifles pack a powerful punch, but they sacrifice a lot in order to realize their abnormally high damage potential. Aside from the rapid energy consumption that I have mentioned before, it is also constrained to firing laser beams, positron beams or both at once. One of the biggest advantages of our own luminar crystal rifles is that they can output a lot of different damage types, which guarantees that you are bound to deal the most effective damage against the majority of opponents that you face."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that our luminar rifles are a lot more efficient and will last you a lot longer. Given the scale of the battle that we are about to fight, this will definitely be an advantage in itself. There is no way you can quickly defeat a mech force that encompasses over 140.000 mechs that is also backed up by a formidable orbital defense network. The rifleman mechs armed with Slipdream rifles will hit hard at the start but quickly run out of steam when the larger battle is just ramping up. All of our soldiers will need to pay attention to that and be prepared to launch a counterattack once the depleted enemy mechs have to replenish their energy cells."

"What about the Tensars? Will they exhaust themselves quickly as well?" Commander Casella Ingvar asked.

Ves shrugged. "I don't know, to be honest. It is hard to gather intelligence about the design and properties of expert mechs because the related information is not as widespread and much more carefully guarded than normal. In my opinion, the Gauge Dynasty has invested significantly in their development. Master Huron, Master Bates and the other lead designers should be well aware of the energy problem. It is likely that they have invested in much better energy cells and much more efficient heatsinks in order to extend the operation time. Don't expect to outlast them if that is what you intend to do. The Tensars can inflict a lot of damage before they need to retreat to their motherships."

All of this information caused the Larkinson expert pilots to develop even more vigilance towards this pair of unique expert mechs.

Ves hadn't even gone over the other strengths and advantages of the Arma Tensar and Fila Tensar!