I just remembered something else for anyone who may read this for the discussion on routing.
If the router at 192.168.170.254 had in its route table an entry on how to route traffic to the 192.168.0.0 network, the static route entered into the laptop would be totally unnecessary and redundant. The reason one configures a default gateway is it is the gateway of last resort. Meaning all traffic which the particular device knows via IP and subnet that it is not on the same network as it will forward the network traffic to this default gateway with the understanding the default gateway will know how and where to send the network traffic. The only time one would configure a static route on a host device is when there are multiple gateways connected to the same network the host is on and the default gateway does not have a route table entry for the destination network the host is trying to reach.
You would normally configure any static routes on the router for a particular network as this static route would be beneficial for all hosts sitting on a network connected to this router. In your above scenario if there was another gateway on the 192.168.170.0 network which is not your default router at .254, you would maybe configure a static route on the host device to tell it how to reach a different network accessible from a different gateway/router. But again, if you configure the static route on the default gateway/router to point to this other gateway, it will allow all hosts on the 192.168.170.0 to be able to reach that outside network.
In a small network, adding static routes to a router is no big deal. A few static routes entered and managed on a router or set of routers is no big deal. But when you start growing a network or have a large enterprise network, managing routes via manually entering them as static route entries on every router on that network is not only futile but impossible. This is why routing protocols were created to allow network administrators to configure routers to communicate their route tables with each other. Look at the Internet and all those network address spaces out there. Can you imagine the nightmare in having the task to keep all the routing tables for all the routers connected on the Internet in sync with each other. It's impossible to throw enough man power to manually manage this. That's why BGP (border gateway protocol) exists and is used with all the ISP routers connected on the Internet.
If the router at 192.168.170.254 had in its route table an entry on how to route traffic to the 192.168.0.0 network, the static route entered into the laptop would be totally unnecessary and redundant. The reason one configures a default gateway is it is the gateway of last resort. Meaning all traffic which the particular device knows via IP and subnet that it is not on the same network as it will forward the network traffic to this default gateway with the understanding the default gateway will know how and where to send the network traffic. The only time one would configure a static route on a host device is when there are multiple gateways connected to the same network the host is on and the default gateway does not have a route table entry for the destination network the host is trying to reach.
You would normally configure any static routes on the router for a particular network as this static route would be beneficial for all hosts sitting on a network connected to this router. In your above scenario if there was another gateway on the 192.168.170.0 network which is not your default router at .254, you would maybe configure a static route on the host device to tell it how to reach a different network accessible from a different gateway/router. But again, if you configure the static route on the default gateway/router to point to this other gateway, it will allow all hosts on the 192.168.170.0 to be able to reach that outside network.
In a small network, adding static routes to a router is no big deal. A few static routes entered and managed on a router or set of routers is no big deal. But when you start growing a network or have a large enterprise network, managing routes via manually entering them as static route entries on every router on that network is not only futile but impossible. This is why routing protocols were created to allow network administrators to configure routers to communicate their route tables with each other. Look at the Internet and all those network address spaces out there. Can you imagine the nightmare in having the task to keep all the routing tables for all the routers connected on the Internet in sync with each other. It's impossible to throw enough man power to manually manage this. That's why BGP (border gateway protocol) exists and is used with all the ISP routers connected on the Internet.