The Mecha. War machines of the year 3311. All are
devastating, most are utilized, but as with all equipment, some are under
appreciated or maligned. In the days to come, I’ll be discussing the later as
an attempt to help give the production facilities an idea of what the community
of mech pilots and clans want or look for so that they can hopefully install
some redesigns and bring these beasts back to their former (or new) glory.
The Buchis is one such mecha. Touted as “the mecha of
the warrior”, the Buchis is part of the 60 Ton weight class that as a whole
gets a lot of grief from the community.
Many complaints with the Buchis range from low
precision, low dodge, low speed, and no real specialization. This is a niode
mecha that can get wiped by similar crystal mechas of a slightly greater level.
James Waddington is considered a master by many at
taking little used mechas and turning them into formidable opponents with a
little jerry-rigging of their modular equipment set up. This brings us to one
very major flaw with this “mecha of the warrior”. You need modular equipment
slots to work with.
All the way at the top of its upgrade scale, the best
you can hope for is two cockpit slots, three chassis slots, three engine slots,
and thankfully five shield slots, since you won’t be outrunning or dodging
anything any time soon.
While the Society of Cogwerk Planets have given a go
at improving this venerable line, giving it some trample capabilities and
protection against the same, and also finally replacing its main cannons which
had a very difficult kickback issue to deal with, they still fell very short at
making this a workable mech at any level other than the level you can get one
at.
James is also quick to point out that the Buchis has
no job specialization. There is literally nothing that the Buchis can do that
another similar leveled mecha can’t do better. When putting together Spec
formations for one of the many events, this is a huge issue and will cause the
Buchis to sit in the garage, collecting dust.
Improvements that have been mentioned are more cockpit
and/or chassis slots. Not having decent Precision on a mech that specializes in
projectile and laser is just baffling. Possibly give it some native auto repair
to compensate for how easily they get tagged or even possibly a stabilization
option like anchors to help eliminate kickback and add to accuracy.
So designers, engineers, draftsmen, please consider
taking a Buchis model into your labs. Play with the medialization, or even
introduce a strain of the Gorax virus to it to see if there’s a way to get this
model out of the garage and off the sales floor into the hands of some excited
pilots.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way and the first to
produce a viable Buchis class mecha will invariably find themselves a much
richer and affluent Craftsman for their efforts.
