The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1754

Chapter 1754 Impervious

Though Kravon and the Selzer made a very powerful impression on the Echo Spears, Ves knew that his newly-converted battle bots weren't as invincible as they appeared.

Just like expert mechs, superior mechs could easily be overwhelmed by a mob of inferior mechs!

Quality only went so far in reducing the quantity disparity.

Fortunately, the mechs built by Aisling happened to be expensive custom mechs even by the wealthy standards of the Friday Coalition.

Not only did they feature numerous systems, their base performance parameters were also far superior to any third-class mech!

In terms of battle capability, all of the four machines performed better or on par to a third-class expert mech!

Of course, in an actual battle, the expert mech was liable to win any battle against a superior standard mech.

The difference in skill between an expert pilot and an ordinary mech pilot was too big!

Even when piloting lesser machines, any expert pilot from the Bright Republic could definitely run rings around a Coalition mech unless the mech type matchup was too unfavorable.

What all of this meant was that the four mechs of the Scarlet Rose were very much capable of defeating the 170 spaceborn mechs of the Echo Spears!

"It's too bad I can't field mechs." Ves regretfully muttered. "I can only make do with improvised battle bots."

As hard as he worked, his conversion efforts were still rather crude. Compared to battle bots designed to operate autonomously from the ground up, the four machines weren't capable of bringing out more than half of their potential.

Almost all of the strength currently exerted by the battle bots relied solely on its superior quality. The disparity in materials and tech resulted in an undeniable firepower advantage that Ves had to employ to the best effect.

When Ves initially observed the Echo Spears, he had to make a very important choice.

What should he target first?

He first considered directing the Kravon and Selzer against the 170 mechs deployed by the enemy mercenary corps.

The spaceborn mechs consisted of a balanced arrangement of rifleman mechs screened by a large number of melee mechs.

As suggested by their name, the Echo Spears appeared to have a preference of spear-wielding mechs. Ves spotted a powerful subformation of thirty-or-so lancer mechs that could definitely inflict a lot of damage when they managed to complete their charge.

Ves did not fear the ranged mechs. Regardless of whether they were armed with ballistic, kinetic or laser weapons, the budget mechs didn't bring enough firepower to take down the Scarlet Rose or his battle bots in a brief amount of time!

What Ves truly feared was the melee mechs. While the ranged mechs needed a lot of time to penetrate the armor of his assets, the melee mechs were much more variable in this regard.

As long as dozens of melee mechs mobbed the Kravon and Selzer from all sides, his ranged battle bots would definitely lose battle effectiveness!

He only had two melee battle bots to screen his ranged assets.

The Paravin, the space knight, featured exceptional defense, but was rather mediocre in fending off melee mechs, especially without a mech pilot skilled in swordsmanship in control.

The Fliskin, the light skirmisher, was in an even worse position! The high-speed melee combat that a light mech excelled in was heavily dependent on the judgement and battle sense of a skilled mech pilot.

His cousin Raella happened to be very deadly when piloting landbound light skirmishers! Even if she piloted lighter and cheaper mechs, she often came on top in her duels by relying on her excellent skills!

"A light mech scales even more with piloting skill."

The skill expression of this weight class was very high! This meant that while excellent mech pilots were capable of achieving astounding results, bad mech pilots were liable to trash their machines!

The problem that Ves faced right now was that the Fliskin didn't even have a bad mech pilot.

It didn't have any mech pilot at all!

The rudimentary AI controlling its basic operations wasn't customized for the Fliskin at all. Without customizing its programming to the parameters of the mech, the skirmisher mech would only perform as well as a typical bot.

Perhaps the Fliskin could still rely on its superior performance to crush three or four mechs at once, but once the Echo Spears threw over a dozen mechs at it, the pilotless light skirmisher would quickly expose its shortcomings!

"I can't let any of the Echo Spears get close!" Ves concluded.

As long as the Echo Spears were willing to absorb some losses and bull through the firepower that he brought to bear with his battle bots, they could definitely overwhelm his bots and ship!

This was why he directed the Kravon and the Selzer on the enemy ships rather than mechs.

He wanted to discourage the Echo Spears from pursuing him any further!

His goal wasn't to defeat the Echo Spears or kill Commander Quint. Ves could care less about these Zonan mercenaries.

What he truly wanted was to get away!

To achieve this goal, it was enough to force the Echo Spears into a retreat. As long as they gave up the chase, the Scarlet Rose's FTL drive would finish cycling and allow him to jump away from this star system!

"What better way than to distress a mercenary corps than by attacking their ships?" He grinned.

Every seasoned outfit was always prepared to lose some mechs over the course of an intensive battle.

While it was a bit more painful to lose their mech pilots, as long as they ejected fast enough, the loss of life would probably be bearable even if the Echo Spears lost half of their spaceborn mechs.

Were the mercenaries willing to sacrifice so many mechs to complete this mission?

Ordinarily, no, but this was different! The Coalition Reserve Corps issued this mission itself, and as a mighty arm of a powerful second-rate state, it was not short on money!

The CRC could definitely compensate all of the material losses suffered by the Echo Spears and issue a rich reward on top of this princely sum!

The 170 mechs in space wouldn't be able to last long in space on their own. In this lifeless star system, it would definitely take at least a couple of days to rescue the stranded mechs. _{frёeωebɳovel.com}