Chapter Eighty-Three – Cat of All Trades

Chapter Eighty-Three – Cat of All Trades

“The future of mechanized warfare is not walking mechanized vehicles. It will never be walking mechanized vehicles.

Legs will never trump tracks! You fucking pissants!”

–WarLightning Forums, 2028

***

I think, before you start spending points on a new mech, you should decide what you’re looking for in a new vehicle.

I frowned at that. “What do you mean?” I asked. Wasn’t I just looking for a bigger, better version of my last mech?

Generally speaking, most weapons can be divided into two broad categories. The specialized and the general-use. A handgun is a general-use weapon. It can use different ammunition and it’s almost always good to have on hand. A marksman’s rifle isn’t as useful in most situations, being too heavy and cumbersome to use, however, in its specific niche-use, it is far better to have than a normal handgun or even a more common sort of rifle.

“Alright,” I said with a slow nod. I could see where she was going with this. “And my previous mech was… what, a sniper rifle?”

Somewhat. Thinking in strict binaries won’t be good for you, think of it more as a sliding scale between the two extremes. The Nyanzerfaust is a decent all-around platform with a very specialized main weapon and secondary armaments that had lots of versatility. I would say that it leaned more towards the ‘Cat of all trades’ side of things.

“Was that a pun?” I asked.

I am the final arbitrator for what is funny.

I groaned and rubbed at my face. “Sure, whatever. Just get to your point.”

My point is, do you expect to use the Nyanzerfaust again in the future?

“Yeah,” I said after thinking about it for just a second. I was a bit attached to it, and it wasn’t that fucked up.

In that case, it might serve as a decent platform for general use. If you purchase another platform that can do everything the Nyanzerfaust does, but better, then you’ll never need it again. Seeing as how that might be wasteful, why not instead purchase something more specialized?

That sounded… not too bad. “So a sniper mech? Maybe a melee mech? Maybe something way tankier, so that I can take on big fuckers without worrying when I get chewed on?”

That would be three separate specialisations. How about all of them?

“Isn’t that just generalizing again?”

No. I mean why not purchase multiple mechanized platforms and a unit to transport them to the location where you want to use them? A carrier of decent size could ensure that you either have an arsenal of platforms available, or you could buy a single highly modular frame and switch out its specializations as you go.

I leaned up against one of my new garage’s walls as I thought about it. A fuck-huge flying carrier that transported a half-dozen mechs like my current one, all ready to be deployed and with different sets of weapons to fuck enemies up in new and refreshing ways sounded awesome as hell.

Having one mech that could switch out guns and shit on the fly… also sounded pretty awesome. “Okay… both sounds kinda cool,” I admitted.

I would suggest the carrier option.

“Why?” I asked.

The increased modularity is worth it, in the long run. The cost of the vehicle to carry mechanized units might be somewhat steep, assuming you want something armed and armoured and comfortable, but once you have such a vehicle, you can continuously upgrade your arsenal by buying new and improved mechanized vehicles. Those not in use can be stored here. It also gives you the potential to carry large amounts of materials to a site, or ever smaller combat or scout drones.

I was nodding along by the time she was halfways through. “Okay, but I need to see what this carrier thing will look like. And it needs to fit in here.” I gestured vaguely at the entire parking garage. If I was gonna have something like that, I’d want it to be parkable at my place.

Certainly. Let’s get you some options across a range of prices. There’s a holographic projector in the mechanical bay that we can use.

There was a smaller projector inserted into one of the workbenches. It looked like the kind of thing meant to display parts or schematics, but as I got closer and my Augs connected with the garage’s interface, the little projector came to life.

A swirl of lights later, and there was a hovercraft on display.

Seeing as how you have both a Class I Armoured Assault Vehicles, and a Class I Mechanised Warfare Platform Flight Systems catalogue, I will limit purchases to items that don’t require any new catalogue unlocks.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Thanks,” I said as I leaned in closer.