The Mech Touch

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As soon as he broke the bubble, his reputation would come crashing down!

For this reason and more, Ves reluctantly decided to commit to the Bright Republic and do his best to contribute to its defense in his own way.

”Of course, it would be nice if I could burnish my credentials, earn a lot of goodwill and most importantly sell a lot of mechs! ”

Currently, the LMC was poorly positioned to take advantage of this crisis.
As its lead designer, Ves bore responsibility for this failure, but also bore the responsibility to remedy its inadequacies.

”It all comes down to expanding my company ’s mech catalog! ” Ves told Lucky while patting his cat ’s head.
”I ’ve solved almost all of my problems in my life by designing mechs.
This is no different! ”

”Meow! ”

Lucky threw a dubious glance at Ves.

”I know I can do it! Even if the competition is immense, I ’m confident my work will be able to capture some market share! ”

This time, he intended to compete in a very competitive and highly-saturated market.
Rifleman mechs made up the biggest product category in the Bright Republic and elsewhere.
While laser rifleman mechs dominated in space, a fair amount of good ballistic rifleman mech models were already for sale.

Ves exhibited a lot of courage by attempting to intrude in this extremely busy market.
The difficulty of publishing a new mech design that stood out from the competition was ten times harder than attempting to establish a footing in more niche product categories such as offensive knight mechs.

”Let ’s get to work. ”

He leaned back in his chair and began to formulate a mech concept.
Along with catching up on the latest news, he also read plenty of market research reports.
He gained a pretty good picture on the kinds of mechs that appealed to the market in the coming months.

Ves started his latest mech design project by preparing logs and formal documentation.
Unlike the Devil Tiger project, his latest project was completely legitimate.

In order to satisfy the MTA ’s demands, he made sure to document his thought processes behind most of his design choices.
He only left out information that pertained directly to his trade secrets.

After filling in a number of administrative forms, he began to compose a short list of criteria for his next mech design.

-Cost-effective

-Specialized

-Rugged

-Easy to maintain and repair

-Low armor

-High mobility

-Medium endurance

-Low skill floor

The requirements he set for his next mech design all diverged remarkably from his previous mech designs.
This time, the list made it clear that he wasn ’t designing a premium mech this time!

”In fact, according to the market trends, sales of premium mechs will plummet! Mech owners can ’t afford to splurge lavishly on luxuries when their very homes and lives are at stake! ”

According to the impression that Ves had formed, he saw the need for a mech that resisted the invading sandmen as effectively as possible while still remaining affordable.
For his reason, he prioritized cost-efficiency and specialization.

”It ’s fine if my mech doesn ’t necessarily perform as well against other human targets. ” Ves rubbed his chin.
”By the time the crisis is over, my mech model will have served its purpose.
The LMC can retire it or put it on the backburner to focus on selling other mech models. ”

One key aspect about the current mech models in the market was that they mostly excelled at fighting other mechs.
They weren ’t necessarily optimized against the means of attack employed by the sandmen, and this was where Ves recognized a temporary hole in the market!

”If I can move quickly and publish a mech design that can do a better job at resisting the sandmen at a cheaper price, I can quickly capture a significant amount of market share! ”

The key here was that Ves had to move quickly! The Bright Republic alone possessed more than a thousand native Journeyman Mech Designers and more than a hundred native Senior Mech Designers.
At least half of them or more were probably working on their own solutions to the sandmen threat.

”That doesn ’t even count the low-ranking mech designers or the foreigners competing in the Bright Republic ’s mech market! ”

With everyone racing to publish the first mech designs that adequately addressed the problem, Ves mainly had to rely on speed in order to gain an edge over his competitors!

This was also why Ves emphasized a simple mech design.
Not only did he wanted to waste as little time in designing his mech as possible, he also wanted to make it easy to maintain and easy to repair.

”The latter has always been my strong point. ”

His extensive stint as head designer for the Flagrant Vandals and his recent progress made him very confident that he could design a mech that didn ’t take a highly-educated mech designer to service.

”With how desperate the coming war will be, standards will slip and a lot of mistakes will happen. ”

He witnessed varying levels of maintenance standards at various outfits.
Ves had to make sure that his next mech model didn ’t demand too much in terms of tolerances.
Even if mech technicians slipped up in repairing damaged components, his mechs should still be able to cope!

His mech had to be made of materials in abundant supply.
With the war increasingly encroaching into the Komodo Star Sector, a lot of resource extraction sites at the border states and other states in the vicinity no longer supplied a lot of raw materials that many industries took for granted.

”I have to be careful to make use of materials that won ’t become scarce once the sandman invasion reaches the doorstep of the Bright Republic. ”

The advantage of using locally-sourced materials in abundant supply was that Ves could easily drive down the price for his upcoming mech model.

”I have to resist the temptation of adding gimmicks and unnecessary luxuries to my mech design.
Anything superfluous will only detract from the cost-effectiveness of my latest product. ”

Rather than attempting to add more value, this time Ves prioritized reducing costs.
It was a completely different approach compared to his approach towards his premium mech designs!

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