The Mech Touch

Chapter 2054 New Risk Factor

Ves first turned his attention to Miles. "As our resident aerial mech specialist, what do you think about the flight characteristics of our mech?"

"It is pretty bad, in my opinion." The former Tovar admitted. "I don't prefer immobile mechs, so its hard for me to like it. I do recognize that the tradeoffs are probably worth it. Looking at the mech right now.. I can very much believe it can deny an entire area around it. Let alone enemies, it is probably more effective against friendlies!"

That was a very oblique indictment against his design choices. Ves supposed he did overdo it with regard to the strength of the Doom Guard's glow.

Even so, he abided by his decisions! With the addition of an off switch, the users of the Doom Guard were able to employ its full might on demand! Whenever they didn't need it, they could just turn it off and put the mech in a corner or something.

After quizzing Miles, Ves went down the line and asked for the opinions of the others.

"The mech is rather extreme. I still can't believe it's possible to design a machine that can break people's minds."

"Are you sure this mech is even legal? It has to break some of the MTA's rules, I think! If it didn't come with the ability to turn off its glow, then it's really difficult to argue that it is safe for the market!"

Ves listened to each and everyone of them before promptly throwing most of their feedback out of his head. Their comments were largely superfluous. He either already thought about their arguments or didn't think they were important enough for him to pay attention to them. They were mostly Apprentices after all. What could they say about his design that Ves didn't already know?

Of course, Ves still had to bear a polite smile on his face and respond with some nice-sounding platitudes. As their superior and mentor, he had to make sure he acted in a way that brought the best out of them. If he pretended to care about their input, they would have the illusion that their voices mattered, thereby raising their motivation for the next design projects!

Since it didn't cost Ves much by playing nice, he might as well put some effort into his act!

When he came to the two Larkinson seeds, they looked as if they had just watched an entire horror drama!

His face faltered a bit. On second thought, perhaps it would have been better to keep them away. Unlike a hopeful and positive mech like the Bright Warrior, the Doom Guard genuinely held the potential to threaten people's sanity!

Nonetheless, this was an important test for them as well. Ves wanted to see which one of the adolescents held up better under the pressure.

After inspecting them carefully, he judged that Maikel was a bit more enthusiastic about the Doom Guard than Zanthar. Ves had already noticed that the former admired him and his work considerably greater than his fellow seed.

Of course, that didn't mean Maikel was suited to follow in Ves' footsteps.

"The mech is very effective." Maikel commented. "I think it will sell very well once people see it in action. I think everyone needs proof before they are willing to invest in this machine."

"That's a very insightful point." Ves smiled. "That has been the case of several of my products. Sure, the reputation my mech company and I have built up has generated a lot of trust, but my products are so weird that the mech community doesn't know what to do with them at first. I'll take this issue into account."

Zanthar couldn't fall behind either. "I think the usefulness of this mech shouldn't be constrained to operations in space! You could easily design a landbound variant of this mech that is optimized for ground battles and capture an entirely different segment of the market!"

Both Ves and Gloriana looked at each other and laughed.

"Why are you laughing, teacher?"

"A landbound mech is not equivalent to a spaceborn mech with its flight systems ripped off. Conversely, a spaceborn mech is very different from a landbound or aerial mech. Atmospheric combat imposes very different demands than space combat. We would have to revise many more systems than you think in order to develop a landbound variant of the Doom Guard."

"It would still be possible, right? I mean, you already did it before when you derived the Peaceful Soldier from the Desolate Soldier!" Zanthar insisted.

Ves shook his head. "It took almost as much effort as designing a brand new mech to develop that landbound variant. What I'm trying to say is that you have to make a very careful consideration whether the time and effort you put into a variant is worth it. While that doesn't discount what you say, right now I am more interested in designing new mechs than retreading my existing ones."

He had to move forward. He didn't gain as much as a mech designer when he worked with familiar concepts. A true creator always pushed their boundaries and pursued the unknown!

Did that mean that Ves would never design a landbound variant of his Doom Guard design? Not necessarily. It depended on many factors, most pertinently the pent-up demand for this kind of machine.

What was usually the case was that the mech community usually didn't wait for the original mech designers to develop the variant.

Instead, some savvy colleagues and competitors would just licence the recently-published design and develop their own variants!

Most of the time, these opportunists consisted of low-ranking mech designers.

Why would a high-ranking mech designer borrow someone else's work when they were more than capable enough to innovate something on their own? There was rarely a good reason to license another design and subsequently pass off a considerable chunk of profit to the original mech designer!

While the low-ranking mech designers engaged in developing variants fulfilled a very important niche in the mech industry, they often butchered the essence of the base model to varying degrees.

Some design philosophies were more resilient to this treatment than others. Normally, the unique strengths of the base model would mostly be retained in a variant as long as the mech designer didn't mess with the portions beyond their understanding.

The problem was that this was very difficult to accomplish when a mech designer's specialty encompassed the entire mech!

Many Class I design philosophies were prone to this when an ignorant mech designer bulled through a design.

For various reasons, his own design philosophy was even more sensitive than this! His mech designs were always prone to spiritual pollution imparted by the careless, chaotic thoughts of his competitors.

As a result, the entire mech industry soon learned that trying to design a worthwhile variant of his products was an exercise in futility!

Certainly, if someone wanted to design a landbound variant of the Doom Guard, they could go ahead as long as they bought the appropriate license.

They would just have to accept that whatever they came up with would likely not possess the glows that made them so unique!

Certainly, there was a possibility that a high-ranking mech designer with their own specialty could simply compensate by adding their own strengths to the variant, but what was the point?

Those Journeymen and Seniors were better off designing their own landbound mechs! At least their work aligned perfectly with their design philosophies!

This was also why Ves didn't even think about designing variants of other people's products these days.

In the best-case scenario, it would be like collaborating with another mech designer, but in sequence rather than at the same time.

In practice, without the active input of the original mech designer, Ves would certainly screw something up that weakened the unique strengths of the base model.

This was also why Ves and Gloriana often worked on their mech design projects at the same time rather in rotation. The latter was arguably more efficient, but both of them wouldn't be able to achieve synergy if that was the case!

"Are we done now, Ves?" Gloriana impatiently asked as he fell into his usual spirals of thought. "I want to take a very long rest now. I've been staying awake for three days straight!"

"Oh. Sure. I'll make sure to wrap this mech up so that it can be handed over to the MTA for validation."

His girlfriend picked up her cat and tiredly walked out of the mech workshop. The rest soon followed suit.

Ves lingered a bit longer in order to make sure it was being properly stored in a specialized container before being loaded onto a transport.

"Head straight to the MTA branch in downtown Torze!" He yelled to the transport vessel as it was about to take off under heavy escort. "Also, don't bump into anything along the way!"

There was no chance the transport vessel would do something as idiotic as crashing into something. Ves was just a bit frayed due to all of the pressure he endured over the past three days.

One advantage about designing a mech on Cinach VI was that the planet possessed an extensive infrastructure around its primary industry. The MTA set up an extensive branch that was capable of validating thousands of mech designs a day and certifying even more through an expedited process!

Of course, Bentheim offered even better facilities before it got drowned in sand, but that wasn't relevant at this time.

Ves eventually exited the mech workshop and returned to his temporary abode.

No more action took place that night. Gloriana had already fallen asleep by the time he slipped into bed.

Besides, Ves hadn't been very good lately, so she wouldn't have been receptive to his advances anyway.

He frowned as he laid his head on his pillow.

"There's something wrong about this arrangement. I need to act like a man and assert myself!"

"Meow?"

Lucky, who curled up on a pillow next to him, curiously poked his head at his owner.

"I mean it! Us men have rights too, you know!"

"Meow."

Lucky curled his body around. His tail flicked disdainfully at Ves!

"Whatever."

The next morning, Ves caught up with Gavin and discussed the upcoming product release.

"Will you go ahead with holding a reveal event?"

Ves nodded. "My mech needs as much publicity as possible. It's an.. unusual product that requires a bit of clarification in order to catch fire in the market. I'm afraid that the initial reaction to my Doom Guard design will be less than possible due to preventable misunderstandings. We have to make sure to convey the message that it is designed to harm enemies, not friendlies!"

Though Gavin hadn't attended the fabrication session in person, he already heard what was in store.

"I've already instructed the Marketing Department to tweak their messaging to take this complication into account. However, you can't compensate for stupid. There will doubtless be customers who flip that switch at the wrong time and cause a lot of harm around themselves."

Ves shrugged. "That's their fault, not mine."

"The public might not see it that way." Gavin carefully warned.

"Come on!" Ves threw up his hands! "Mechs are giant war machines capable of killing hundreds of people and demolishing an entire street in a matter of minutes! People, especially those who work with mechs on a daily basis, should know better!"

"It's different this time, boss. The mech community is already familiar with all of the risks and dangers associated with mechs. What you have just done is introducing a new and unfamiliar risk factor. Don't underestimate the amount of people who don't read the documentation and subsequently trip over themselves!"

Ves looked incredulously at his assistant? Were people really that stupid?

He recalled all of the pirates he encountered in the frontier.

"Perhaps you're right."