[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 444: Stairs

No one appreciated a light mech except for light mech enthusiasts. It took a special kind of mech pilot to truly enjoy the rush of speed, even if it meant sacrificing a lot of personal protection.

The reason why Ves stuck to a medium weight class for his Crystal Lord design was because he did not wish to narrow its potential audience any further. An overly narrow mech design might not face much competition in its niche, but it would also be destined to obscurity.

The main issue at play with the light skirmisher archetype was that its effectiveness drastically different on land, air and space.

Light melee mechs saw the most use in landbound mech combat. Combat took place in smaller areas and mechs on land moved slower and their weapons exhibited many restrictions in range. This allowed light mechs to approach their landbound prey with ease by taking advantage of the natural cover of the terrain.

Spaceborn combat stripped most of those advantages. Terrain on land was often complex, while space was literally and empty void. Light mechs would be as bare as as they were born if they flew through this completely open space as they approached their targets.

The effectiveness of this mode of combat could be imagined.

Granted, many battles in space occurred in slightly more complex environment. Only rarely would two enemy forces meet in the middle of empty space. Most of the time, a mobile force attacked a static position, such as a mine or a space station. These fixed features afforded light mechs with sparse but effective cover.

Nevertheless, it would usually be the defenders taking advantage of available cover. This protected them from ranged fire and forced the attacking force to enter their kill zones.

Reading through the summaries of the various battles the 6th Flagrant Vandals had fought, most Inheritors met their end in this way. "Shot down in the process of closing the distance."

It was an ignoble end to any mech. Sometimes, the Vandals were obligated to attack a well-defended position. They possessed a number of knights that could absorb a decent amount of blows, the Hellcat being the most prominent one, but a charge needed to be supplemented by as many mech frames as possible in order to spread the incoming fire.

In these cases, the mech commander in charge of the assault would always accompany the knights with a horde of Inheritors. Despite being one of the most fragile punching bags in space, the Vandals evidently had no qualms in employing them as cannon fodder.

When Ves met with Laida again during lunch and told her his conclusions, she shook her head in sadness.

"It's horrendous." She spoke with a whisper. "The longer I stay in the Inheritor design team, the more I realize that none of them care. The only mech designer who still cares a bit is the temp from Rittersberg and myself, but we are growing number every day. It's hard to prioritize decency when we are faced with constant demands to increase its cost-effectiveness."

"I thought your design team isn't making much progress these past few years."

"That's not exactly right. It's true that we haven't been able to increase the Inheritor's performance parameters, but we did manage to shave off ten percent of its manufacturing cost in that time. Most of our efforts are spent on achieving as much cost savings as possible as opposed to actually improving the design in battle."

That sounded really crazy to Ves. The Vandals spent an enormous amount of money and resources keeping everything running. He could certainly understand if they needed to be frugal with their spending, but cheapening an already barebone mech design even further was basically starving their own hunting dogs.