The Mech Touch

If Ves presented a mech concept like the Eye Project in any other place, his fellow mech designers would probably laugh at him and his ideas!

It sounded incredibly crazy that a relatively ordinary marksman mech with no expensive frills and modules could outperform the competition by relying on a single metaphysical trait.

However, none of his fellow Journeymen in the Design Department doubted whether Ves could pull off this simple but profound mech concept.

This was because each of them had become thoroughly familiar with his amazing inventions!

Design spirits played a key role in almost every Larkinson mech. Even newcomers such as Cormaunt Hempkamp understood what design spirits were capable of when utilized in the right circumstances.

Iconic mechs such as the Transcendent Punisher and the Valkyrie Redeemer would never have been able to rise above mediocrity and become so powerful and beloved without the help of their design spirits.

Even the ones that did not really convey any powerful abilities such as the Solemn Guardian played a useful role by their presence alone.

As far as design spirits went, Vulcan had yet to prove himself in this context. Ves had never seriously considered using his own incarnation in this manner before!

Ves had always considered Vulcan to be a patron spirit for craftsmen, artisans and other makers.

The Creation Association led by Director Samandra Avikon had done well in spreading the totems of Vulcan around various workshops, factories and other places.

Of course, the Creation Association also gained a rather ugly reputation for being a cult and propagating a scam.

However, those who were willing and able to pay at least 1 MTA credit to receive Vulcan's blessing occasionally made a lot of progress. The Creation Association built up quite a sizable cult following by offering over the years!

Ves was fine with letting Vulcan serve in this capacity until recently. The changes to the System along with his growing desire to develop a useful ranged mech model led him to this point.

Aside from utilizing Vulcan as the Eye Project's design spirit, Ves did not intend to add anything too special to the mech design.

"That's odd." Gloriana said as her expression grew puzzled. "You usually do your best to make your designs as unique and distinctive as possible. I don't see that here. Sure, the focus on maximizing its offensive power is an extreme approach, but it is not as if sniper mechs are a rarity on the mech market. Why is your draft design so… dull?"

He wasn't surprised by her remark. 

"I do admit that my proposal deviates from my usual work, but that is because this mech is designed to sell." Ves calmly replied. "Adding Vulcan is already enough to make it strong. The only other way I can make it stronger and more distinctive is to add powerful tech to the mech design, but that will make the product more expensive. That is not what I want to accomplish. I'm not looking to maximize the profits from selling this new mech. I'm trying to maximize its sales volume. Do you understand the difference?"

His wife slowly nodded. "You want to make another product like the Desolate Soldier. You want to introduce a product line that is cheap, affordable and easy to fit into the mech rosters of many customers."

"Exactly!" Ves grinned. "The Desolate Soldier is a good example. While it has been a while since I have targeted the middle and lower segments of the mech market, this is where the Eye Project should belong. There is no need for the Eye Project to become the strongest ranged mechs that we put for sale because customers will not be buying it for its raw firepower. Instead, they will seek to acquire it because it can give them crucial intelligence about the weak points of their targets. No matter whether buyers only purchase a single copy or an entire batch, my Eye Project will always find a way to make itself useful."

His goal was to turn the Eye Project into an irresistible temptation.

Normally, the LMC tended to target the upper end of the mech market. Most of its products offered excellent value and performance, but the downside to them was that their prices were also high!

What Ves sought to accomplish this time was to sell a new mech that performed well at a bargain-worthy price!

Perhaps the LMC might not be able to earn a huge amount of MTA credits from positioning his Eye Project this way, but this was the best way for his company to put out as many copies of this mech as possible!

Ves already looked forward to all of the spiritual feedback that Vulcan would be able to harvest from so many mech pilots.

The only serious concern was that exposing Vulcan to all kinds of messy thoughts from so many different mech pilots might skew its growth trajectory.

Ves did not forget that Vulcan's main purpose was to assist him in design and development-related activities. It would be a shame for the design spirit to cater his abilities to mech pilots as opposed to creators.

He needed to pay a lot of attention to this once the Eye Project began to get sold in large numbers.

"Besides, the Eye Project is not entirely good because of its analytical glow." Ves gestured towards the primary weapon of the design. "I plan to pair the Eye Project with a luminar crystal rifle that is optimized for long-ranged combat. I only plan to equip it with a laser beam attack phase crystal to lower the cost. There is no need to add additional crystals to the mix. If our customers want to make use of a more powerful mech equipped with luminar crystal weapons, then they can buy our more premium offerings."

Laser beam weapons did not pack the greatest punch, but they were efficient and struck at the speed of light. It also helped that their requirements were the lowest among energy weapon solutions.

Even so, the luminar crystal version of a laser beam weapon was both powerful and efficient, which would help a lot in making customers respect the firepower of the Eye Project.

No matter what, the LMC had a reputation to uphold. Even the more affordable products had to be desirable in terms of performance.

His only regret was that the Eye Project did not have the budget or capacity to include any notably powerful defensive or mobility solutions.

Adding them into the mix would not necessarily make the mech stronger in its chosen role while drastically increasing the price of the product.

"What price are you aiming for with this new marksman mech?" Gloriana asked.

"I want to keep the price as low as possible, but if I want to ensure that the Eye Project will perform according to my standards, then I probably won't go any lower than 1.1 MTA credits per copy."

For comparison, the Monster Slayer designed by Ketis generally sold for 1.4 MTA credits.

Gloriana furrowed her brows. "You are cutting it close, Ves. It will be a struggle for you to establish enough of a margin for the LMC to break even. It will be an even greater challenge for you to ensure that our mech company will be able to earn a modest profit from this product. If anything goes wrong throughout its sales run, the profitability of your Eye Project can quickly crater. Why not sell it for 1.2 or 1.3 MTA credits instead? Given the value proposition of this rifleman mech, there are still plenty of customers who will not hesitate to add at least one copy to their mech roster."

Ves shook his head. "I already thought about it, but increasing the price by just 0.1 MTA credits will make my product a lot less attractive. There are a lot of price-sensitive customers who will carefully weigh the decision to buy a good mech that costs 1.2 MTA credits but will not hesitate to snap up the same mech if it sells for 1.1 MTA credits instead."

In fact, it would have been even better if he could set the price at 1 MTA credit instead, but the configuration and quality standards that he had set for the Eye Project did not allow for this option.

Once Ves clarified his vision for the Eye Project, he invited several mech designers to collaborate with him on this commercial project.

"Not many of you possess specialties that are relevant to ranged mechs, particularly a marksman mech that should always be placed in the rear of a battle lineup. However, at least one of you possess a specialty that might be relevant to this project. Cormaunt, I'd like you to design a custom neural interface and other possible control systems for the Eye Project."

The latest Journeyman to join the Larkinson Clan blinked in surprise. "I would be honored to design this mech with you, sir. I'm not entirely certain what you expect from me. I have never worked on your tech before."

"That's no problem. You can leave that stuff to me." Ves replied. "I'm not asking much from you. Your main role is to enhance the data management and control aspects of the Eye Project. More specifically, I want you to make it so that the mech pilots can immediately act on the information provided by Vulcan during combat. I also want you to allow the Eye Project to convert the input from Vulcan into a digital format and be able to share this data to a command center or other friendly mechs."

"That sounds as if you want to turn your work into a scout mech."

"It would be helpful if the mech pilot of the Eye Project can easily share Vulcan's revelations to other friendly units." Ves said and nodded. "That will make it so that even one copy of my mech will provide an incredible amount of value to a mech force."

What Ves wanted to accomplish was to make the Eye Project so useful and indispensable that it would become popular among customers that normally weren't interested in living mechs.

There were still a lot of people who harbored a lot of fear, reluctance or skepticism towards the products sold by the LMC.

Ves wanted to turn the Eye Project into a force multiplier that could comprehensively elevate the combat effectiveness of an entire mech force through its observation capabilities.

By allowing it to point out the weak points of powerful mechs or important starships, those that made use of this information would definitely achieve greater success in their missions and encounters!

Other groups that did not make use of the Eye Project would fall behind, causing them to feel pressured to buy a copy of this useful mech themselves!

This would not only boost the sales of his new commercial mech even further, but also act as a 'gateway drug' that could introduce a lot of more customers to the wonderful world of living mechs!

"I will do my best to increase the utility of the Eye Project." Cormaunt promised. "Thank you for your trust in me. I have always been curious to see how I can tailor my neural interfaces to your esoteric design solutions. I think we can come up with many new possibilities by increasing the integration between material technology and immaterial phenomena."

"Those are my thoughts as well." Ves said. "Anyway, I am done with presenting my Eye Project. Do any of you wish to introduce any interesting new mech design projects, or shall we proceed with going over our upcoming expert mech designs?"

No one presented any promising ideas, but that was fine. There were already enough projects on the agenda even if most of them centered around upgrading existing mech designs or developing additional variant designs.

The previous battle exposed many shortcomings of their existing Larkinson mechs, and it was crucial for them to remedy the issues as much as possible.

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