The Mech Touch



None of the weapons integrated in his hybrid mech were particularly powerful so far, and that was a deliberate design choice on his part.

Ves wanted his hybrid mech to leverage its versatility and massed firepower to overwhelm the opposition.

The general idea was that his hybrid mech would throw everything it had at a target mech all at once and see what worked!

Even if a particular weapon system proved ineffective against a specific enemy, using it still exerted a lot of pressure onto the target mech's defensive systems, so it was not completely useless.

In no way should his hybrid mech ever be put in a situation where none of its weapon systems could harm the opposing machine!

No matter whether it was a blazingly fast light skirmisher or an indomitable knight mech, the versatile arsenal of his hybrid mech should always have an effective solution at hand!

This was one of the defining strengths of the hybrid mech archetype. The mech type traded away the possibility to wield a singular powerful weapon in order to mount multiple smaller ones.

Of course, this also highlighted its weaknesses. There was always a dilemma involved with configuring the weapons loadout of a hybrid mech.

The general rule was that the greater the quantity of weapon systems, the weaker and more constrained they became.

No hybrid mech could completely escape this dilemma.

This also applied to first-class multipurpose mechs, which many people equated to hybrid mechs on steroids!

The reason why multipurpose mechs became mainstream at the first-class level was because relying on single weapon systems did more harm than good at that level.

Mech combat at this height operated by substantially different rules. The ordinary paradigms that were valid in third-class and second-class combat no longer applied anymore. Extreme miniaturization along with the abundant use of high-grade exotics and high technologies allowed many mech designers to avoid a lot of tradeoffs and simply have it all as long as they could afford the exorbitant prices!

Naturally, the hybrid mech that Ves was working on did not come close to matching the standards of first-class multipurpose mechs.

This was physically impossible given the rather poor tech and relatively weak materials at his disposal.

Ves even had to fall back to his dormant third-class mech design expertise in order to reduce the load that various design elements exerted onto his mech design!

For example, the compact integrated chest-mounted luminar crystal weapons were able to fire highly efficient laser beams without too much fuss because Ves fell back to outdated third-class luminar crystal technology!

Although it pained Ves a lot to go back in time and recreate luminar crystals that looked more at home in the original iteration of the Crystal Lord rather than the upgraded second-class version of this mech line.

It was as if he was a nouveau riche entrepreneur who lived in a mansion, only to go back to living in a rotten shack for whatever reason!

Nonetheless, a mansion and a rotten shack both served their purposes. The latter made more sense in specific circumstances.

In the case of the Twin Weapons Tournament, Ves needed a variation of luminar crystal guns that were compact, low-powered and easy to design and fabricate.

It didn't matter that the luminar crystals he designed for his hybrid mech used a mix of third-class and second-class elements. They were the right tool for the job and that was what mattered the most.

Their burst damage was weak, but Ves believed that their sustained damage was not negligible. It could deal consistent and fairly precise damage onto slower mechs at longer ranges.

Better yet, the luminar crystal guns did not drain the energy reserves of his hybrid mech too much.

This made it possible for his hybrid mech to kite slower melee mechs over time. Sure, winning a match by running circles around clumsy mechs that did not possess the capacity to retaliate was one of the more pathetic ways to win a mech match, but a win was still a win.

What Ves found the most important was that the integrated luminar crystal weapons possessed enough power and precision to deal serious internal damage to a mech as long as the laser beams struck the frontal weak points of enemy machines.

If not for the existence of these weak points, Ves doubted whether he would have bothered to add these relatively lackluster integrated luminar crystal weapons to his mech design.

After completing this weapon module, he worked on the final weapon system.

As a humanoid mech, the hybrid mech was able to wield one or several handheld weapons.

Ves had considered many different possibilities, but eventually settled for a shotgun.

He had to admit that he was partially inspired by the Mars when he determined the weapon configuration of his competition mech.

There was no way to copy the full experience of piloting an absolute powerhouse ace mech like the Mars. It was packed full of so much advanced technologies and extremely valuable materials that its effective firepower could easily match that of a warship!

Ves did not even see his current mech design as a derivative or a little brother to the Mars. That would be an insult to the masterwork ace mech and strip his current work of its own identity.

The real reason why he opted to pair his hybrid mech with a shotgun was because it truly made the most sense under the circumstances.

His mech design already covered closer ranges with its flamethrower and longer ranges with its integrated luminar crystal weapons.

A shotgun rounded out this weapon selection by offering a versatile and fairly powerful weapon that was most effective at medium ranges.

Of course, Ves utilized the term medium range in the context of the arena space inside Spencer Hall. The internal space of this structure was not cramped, but it was hardly the largest mech arena on Davute VII.

A shotgun configured in the right way should pose a decent threat towards light mechs as well as other mechs as long as they exposed their weak points.

Just as with the other weapon systems, Ves dove into the design of the shotgun and altered it to fit his vision.

Shotguns were fairly low-tech in nature as their basic working principles had roughly remained the same for many millennia.

Certainly, human technology made a lot of different advances that Ves could apply to the weapon. From loading it with smart ammunition to making it so that it could fire a plasma spray, there were many different ways to spice up the weapon.

Ves had neither the time nor the inclination to add all of those fancy functions to a simple weapon.

"A basic lightweight option will do the job."

The hybrid mech already carried a lot of different stuff that weighed it down and reduced its available capacity. Equipping it with an oversized shotgun might allow it to blast through thicker armor, but its ability to maneuver quickly in the arena would take too much of a hit as a response.

Ves constantly had to remind himself that he wanted to design an offensive shock unit, not a defensive bulwark. It was fine to sacrifice a bit of firepower in order to make his mech more flighty and nimble.

As such, he first made the shotgun lighter and replaced sturdy and robust materials with more lightweight alternatives. He also removed a few redundant options to shrink it even further.

Though the durability of the weapon took a substantial hit due to his design choices, it turned into a product of beauty.

"The ammunition is a little limited but its firepower makes up for it." Ves determined.

One of the downsides of a shotgun was that its shells were quite bulky and hefty. That was partially where it got its power from. If he wanted to be more frugal about it, he would have equipped his hybrid mech with a lightweight submachine gun, but that did not quite fit his vision for his hybrid mech.

"A submachine gun is an excellent complement to a harasser-style ranged mech, but it doesn't have the shock value of a shotgun."

This was a concept that Ves found important for his competition mechs. He did not want them to win their matches by whittling down their targets in battles of attrition.

Lighter and more offense-oriented mechs were too fragile and lacking in capacity to excel in this mode of combat.

What he wanted to see instead was his competition mechs take over the offensive rhythm of the match from the start and keep overwhelming their targets with attack after attack!

This was a risky approach as his mechs would definitely fare much worse as long as they were put on the defensive, but this was a price that he was willing to pay.

"With this many weapons, the chances that my mech will be forced to go on the defensive is slim."

A defensive pair of mechs could still outlast his own pair of machines, but the existence of those weak points should make a turtle strategy a lot less effective.

No matter whether the opposing mechs defended from their front or rears, they should always have at least one vulnerable side!

"Should I add more weapons to my hybrid mech?" Ves wondered. "I actually have a bit of time to spare."

He was just too fast compared to his previous self half a year ago. One of the main reasons why he was able to design his mech so quickly was because his artificial cyborg leg actually possessed a smaller copy of his own brain!

This not only allowed him to process data faster, but also made it a lot easier for him to split his attention and work on separate problems at the same time!

Ves tallied the current weapon loadout of his hybrid mech.

Shoulder-mounted missile launchers. Wrist-mounted flamethrowers. Chest-mounted integrated luminar crystal guns. Handheld shotgun.

"Hahaha! There is so much!"

There shouldn't be another competition in the Twin Weapons Tournament that could match the quantity of weapon systems of his mech design!

If not for the restriction that the ranged mech was not allowed to wield a melee weapon that was greater than a knife, then Ves would have felt tempted to equip his mech with a simple axe.

His eyes suddenly lit up. "Wait a minute. A throwing axe can also be classified as a ranged weapon!"

As long as it was obviously designed to the thrown, Ves should be able to get away with adding it to his design.

Although the addition of one or more throwing axes would significantly weigh down his hybrid mech, Ves didn't care all that much.

His machine just had to throw them all out at the start in order to unload its excess weight as quickly as possible!

He quickly called up the rulebook and skimmed through the documents at a rapid pace.

None of the rules explicitly prohibited the use of throwing weapons.

His grin widened as he imagined his hybrid mech armed with a bandolier of throwing axes.

"Hahahahaha! It's viable!"

He decided to go all-in on this crazy and unconventional idea.

The throwing axes he designed were extremely simple and only featured basic alterations to make them more aerodynamic and stable during 'flight'.

Ves wished that he could spend weeks on testing and optimizing the design of these handheld projectile weapons, but there was not much he could do in this regard.

He deliberately made the axes fairly hefty and thick so that they could definitely inflict significant damage upon a solid hit.

Their flight speeds weren't the best and they could easily be dodged by a fairly maneuverable opponent, but that was fine. The throwing axes could serve as distractions or a means to cut off the escape route of enemy mechs.

In order to prevent the opposition from throwing the axes back, Ves designed a mechanism where the shaft automatically separated from the axehead several seconds after getting thrown. This was a fairly simple mechanical solution and did not take much time to integrate in the weapon design.

This meant that only the axe heads should remain after they had been thrown. It was possible to throw them back, but doing so was so difficult and awkward that most enemies simply wouldn't bother.