The Mech Touch

During the journey to the Zin Alpha System, Ves spent a decent amount of time on his studies. He caught up on the miscellaneous literature he collected recently and also bought a few textbooks on bestial mechs and smart metal mechs.

Though he already possessed passing familiarity in both subjects, Ves took the time to refresh what he knew and began with the basics.

Bestial mechs encompassed an entire subgenre of mechs. Mostly prominent in landbound mech warfare, mechs shaped like centaurs, spiders, wolves and other animals offered distinct advantages compared to humanoid mechs.

First and foremost was that mechs that relied on four limbs to move possessed superior stability and mobility. Humanoid mechs relied on two powerful legs to move, but it took quite a lot of effort in keeping them upright and in balance.

"Bestial mechs are just better at moving in a fast-paced, chaotic battlefield."

They offered superior mobility in the same weight class in almost every case. Not only that, but four limbs offered a lot of redundancy in case a battle became a drawn-out affair.

A humanoid mech could be rendered combat ineffective with the least amount of effort by dealing a pinpoint strike on one of their legs.

To do the same on a bestial mech required taking out at least two limbs. Even if their limbs were lighter than that of a humanoid mech's leg, destroying just one of them still left a typical bestial mech with a decent amount of mobility, hardly affecting its speed at all.

The only complication was that mech designers initially struggled to come up with the best configurations for bestial mechs. Eventually, some customs had emerged.

First, a bestial melee mech such as a tiger mech fought primarily using their limbs. A lot of mechanical power would be devoted to the limbs in order to facilitate a powerful leap that could quickly and efficiently allow a tiger mech to put a lot of momentum behind its attacks.

Even at a standstill, a bestial mech was incredibly formidable because its powerful limbs enabled the mech pilot to make rapid changes in direction with rapid dashes and leaps.

The only downside to such an active form of battle was that bestial melee mechs needed a lot of individual room to maneuver in order to bring out their best strength.

Such mechs were quite unsuited to fighting in formation or in tight ranks. Mobility formed the key to their offense as they relied heavily on momentum to deal strong, crushing attacks.

This did not mean that bestial mechs were limited to claw or leaping attacks. Plenty of mech designers managed to mount gun barrels to a classic bestial mech, mostly onto its flanks or inside its head.

Gun barrels mounted to the flanks usually weren't fully turreted because such mechanisms took way too much space. Therefore, most bestial ranged mechs mounted them in a limited swivel arrangement that allowed for only limited angle adjustments.

Simply speaking, such mechs could only fire forwards, leaving them heavily vulnerable to sudden flank or rear attacks.

Bestial mechs didn't fare too well in defense either. While such mechs could present a smaller and tighter profile against ranged attacks, they did not have the option to make use of shields. Although their frontal armor would always be better armored, it was still an awkward arrangement unless a force deployed a turtle mech or something that looked similarly ridiculous.

Yet the biggest shortcoming of bestial mechs was their inherent inflexibility. Although specialized humanoid mechs could be rather inflexible as well, at the very least their forms allowed for some ingenuity when necessary.

Not so for bestial mechs.

They were stuck with the weapon loadout baked into their designs. A melee tiger mech could not exchange its claws for a laser rifle when assailed by aerial mechs! At the very least, a humanoid swordsman mech or knight mech could resort to such a solution if they had access to spare laser rifles!

In short, bestial mechs were basically more specialized mechs that fulfilled a particular role better than most humanoid mechs.

Yet they were also not very popular in the Komodo Star Sector, which usually did not look down on specialized mechs.

There was a very basic reason for that.

"Humanoid mechs are easy to learn but hard to master. Bestial mechs are hard to learn and harder to master."

It took additional talent, training or effort to make a mech pilot proficient in piloting such mechs. Because they adopted a form divergent from the human body, mech pilots needed to become accustomed to taking advantage of the bestial form.

"That isn't always easy."

The standard of training in the Komodo Star Sector was fairly low compared to more prosperous star sectors. Many mech academies lacked the time or resources to properly train their mech cadets in the operation of a bestial mech.

The case may be different in more prosperous states and star sectors, but close to the frontier the humanoid supremacy movement reigned supreme by virtue of its ease and convenience.

"Naturally, not every state is blindly sticking to humanoid mechs. Bestial mechs are still interesting to some." He muttered.

Ves wanted to visit those states in person in order to find out first hand why specific organizations decided to make widespread use of bestial mechs.

Naturally, by that he specifically focused on the use of classic bestial mechs such as tiger mechs, wolf mechs and the like.

Mechs that combined the advantages of humanoid arms with a bestial lower body such as centaur mechs or most spider-legged mechs didn't count. They operated much more like humanoid mechs, but incorporated some of the mobility advantages of bestial mechs.

Ves determined an important rule. "A true classical bestial mechs sacrifices humanoid flexibility for raw bestial power."

This was a philosophical principle that many hardcore bestial mech designers abided by. They rejected the ubiquity of humanoid mechs and turned to the animal kingdom to achieve greater mechanical performance.

"Quite a lot of bestial mech designers are purists." He discovered. "They chose one animal shape and specialize in it for the rest of their careers."

There were wolf mech fanatics, tiger mech fanatics, turtle mech fanatics, hawk mech fanatics, space squid mech fanatics and so on. The variety was endless and they showed up in every possible environment.

The mechs these specialized mech designers came up with did indeed offer an impressive level of performance. It was just that most mech pilots unused to bestial mechs needed extensive training before they could become proficient in their use.

"Everything has a price. Bestial mechs offer greater performance, but unless they're piloted by mech pilots familiar with these types of mechs, they're no better than the humanoid mechs they are trying to replace."

To someone like Ves who mostly planned to stick with humanoid mechs, the mech industry advised that he should only dabble in only a single type of bestial mech at most.

"It's like studying a minor." He realized. "It's meant to broaden my perspective and understand what bestial mech designers have to deal with on a daily basis."

Since the System wanted him to design at least one bestial mech, Ves needed to make a selection. Which classical bestial mech shape should he adopt as his customary beast shape?

He quickly turned his head to Lucky, who comfortably lounged on his bed at the moment.

"Meow?"

"Hehe." He grinned. "Out of every possible animal, I'm most familiar with cats!"

"Meow.."

Tiger mechs were basically cat mechs in a sense. They were predominantly melee mechs that greatly emphasized ambushes and leap attacks. They tended to be fairly heavier than most other mech types as they relied greatly on a combination of mass and mobility to power their devastating collisions.

They possessed pronounced downsides as well. Aside from the common disadvantages it shared with all bestial mechs, they also imposed very high demands on their mechanical integrity.

"All of those leaping and collision attacks put an incredible amount of strain on the frame of the mech. The shock it has to endure is of a much greater magnitude than that of a typical swordsman mech or knight mech. The biggest challenge of a tiger mech is not defeating its opponent, its doing so while preventing its frame from falling apart!"

Both the mech and mech pilot needed to step up in this regard. The mech pilot needed to become familiar with the common techniques developed specifically for tiger mechs and needed to avoid pushing the mech's parameters past their limits.

The most frequent mistake an inexperienced mech pilot could make was to make a bad collision or fall, where their tiger might snap off a limb or incur massive impact damage to parts that couldn't absorb that much shock.

As for the tiger mech itself, it needed to be designed with mechanical integrity as its highest priority!

No bestial mech designer neglected their study into mechanics, battle mechatronics and other related fields in order to insure the most robust mechanical structure possible for their designs!

"Maybe this is why I'm tasked with designing a bestial mech. They not only place a higher emphasis on mechanics, but this field is also applied in very different ways."

The System very deliberately pointed him to bestial mechs as a way to improve. Although he did not always like the System's decisions, he had to admit that its lessons had always been poignant and useful.

Still, that left him to shift his mind towards the other field he was studying, which was smart metal technology.

Ves shook his head at what he learned. "Really now. Smart metal may be used here and there, but they are not very common among third-class mechs. Just like polarizing systems, they're mostly not worth it below a certain tech level and budget."

Smart metal technology really started kicking into gear with second-class mechs. The reason why should be clear.

"Smart metal is really just a huge bunch of tiny nanomachines or equivalent."

A bunch of tiny machines tied together on a microscopic level to form a single flexible, morphable piece of armor plating would never be able to match the sheer durability of solid armor plating.

Ves already witnessed this in action during his latest Mastery experience where Axelar witnessed a mech arena match that featured one such mechs. Even the Terrans hadn't been able to make a smart metal mech that overpowered a typical first-class multipurpose mech.

Smart metal technology offered a lot of versatility, no one doubted that. Yet it cost a lot and delivered less performance.

"What is the price of flexibility?"

The ability to change a mech's shape or to repair gaps in the armor on the fly sounded useful. More advanced smart metal mechs could even replace broken limbs or core components by siphoning smart metal away from their less crucial parts.

Yet it became clear to Ves that smart metal tech had yet to reach maturity. It was an expensive, wasteful solution desperately looking for a problem in order to justify its existence.

Aside from abnormal, niche circumstances, smart metal mechs mostly amounted to novelties. Enemies unused to facing smart metal mechs might be startled, but once they became more ubiquitous they would learn to overpower them with brute force.

"That's the biggest downside to smart metal technology." He concluded. "It's very adaptable against light damage, but can't shield a mech from annihilation from a single, powerful burst."

Ves thought back on his intention to design a smart metal bestial mech. The problem was that if he decided to develop a tiger mech, it put such a huge strain on shock absorption and structural resilience that implementing smart metal technology did not make sense!

"Bestial mechs are by nature inflexible mech types that focus on raw performance. Smart metal tech adds flexibility at the cost of a significant amount of performance. Combining the two will negate each other's strengths while amplifying their weaknesses!"

Was it really a good idea for him to design a smart metal tiger mech? All signs so far pointed to no!