[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 428: Prestige Mech

Ves only needed to witness a single battle to understand the characteristics of the Hellcat design.
Even though its design appeared to be a little scattered, in actual fact it prioritized one capability above all others.

"The entire frame is built to deliver a devastating collision attack."

The schematics and material composition prioritized sturdiness and shock resistance. It insured that even if the hybrid knight built up a lot of speed, it wouldn't fall apart as soon as it collided with another mech. Even the shield that looked a little small for a knight hid a surprising amount of resilience.

The additional weapon systems facilitated this mode of combat. They were meant to soften up the enemy and disrupt them from meeting the Hellcats in a prepared formation.

"That's why these Hellcats don't carry much ammunition around. They're only designed to deliver one big whallop before they close in with their shields and sabers."

Still, for a highly advanced mech that incorporated many ingenuities, its design was also surprisingly one-dimensional. Its strengths were evident, but that only magnified its weaknesses.

The biggest and most egregious fault spoke for itself. "The Hellcat is too heavy."

Spaceborn mechs relied on speed and acceleration to move around in the vast void of space and to dodge most of the attacks fired in their direction. An exception existed for knights, but usually mech designers exerted their utmost to minimizing their weight.

The less they weighed, the easier it was to change their direction on the fly.

Right now, the Hellcat resembled a transport ship in its movement characteristics. It weighed a lot and though it possessed a larger flight system compared to other medium mechs, the increase in propulsion force couldn't keep up.

"This mech is as heavy as a Caesar Augustus."

The same weight on a landbound mech like the Caesar Augustus played to its advantages. Locomotion on land demanded much less of a mech. The weight might slow it down, but it also added weight to its movements and allow it to anchor itself into place whenever it received a mighty impact.

In space, this weight came with much more downsides. The amount of time needed to adjust the Hellcat's inertia was at least twice as long as a conventional space knight. This difference was quite massive when it came to fast-paced battles such as smaller skirmishes in space.

Essentially, this meant that the Hellcat excelled in larger battles where they faced company-sized forces and more. "It's not a duelist mech, that's for sure."

The second major downside to the Hellcat design was its lack of staying power. Every part in its design cranked up as much power as they could possibly unleash without degrading their longevity by too much. Even with light and careful use of this mech, it would eventually by itself within a decade.

The Hellcat simply demanded too much out of itself.

Naturally, the upside to this was that the mech pilots could be assured of the best performance possible whenever they committed to the battle. Before that, they needed to carefully conserve their Hellcats in order to prevent them from running out of steam before the decisive moment came.

Mechs designed to stay in reserve and exert their full power in a single maneuver had always existed, but they never went to such extremes. The mech industry had a moniker for mechs like that.

"A prestige mech. It's the parade horse of the regiment."

What Ves meant by that was that the Hellcat served a dual purpose. It broke through stalemates and reversed unfavorable situations not only through its objective performance characteristics, but also through shaping everyone's perceptions.