The Mech Touch

The sandman invasion did not come at a good time. Ves knew that the commencement of the next mech generation could happen at any day now.

He idly stroked Lucky’s back as his cat had crawled onto his lap. "I highly doubt the MTA will delay the onset of the next mech generation because of a minor conflict in a single frontier star sector. Don’t you think so, buddy?"

"Meow."

"It matters! One of my greatest fears is that I’ll spend months designing a ballistic rifleman mech, only for the transition to happen halfway! What am I supposed to do with my project now that its core components are outdated?!"

"Meow meow."

"Replacing lastgen components with currentgen components is not as easy as you make it sound! A lot of changes and updates take place across almost every area related to mechs! While the major increase in the performance of laser weapons is rumored to take the crown, that doesn’t mean the other components won’t see a lot of smaller revisions!"

Every component, from power reactors, mech engines, cockpits, artificial musculature systems and more would receive some attention. This often came in the form of new standards, updated technologies, the introduction of new materials and so on. The changes were so comprehensive that trying to slot them in the place where their lastgen equivalent used to rest was not a good idea!

In effect, if Ves wanted to update an ongoing design project with newer components, he might as well scrap his entire project and begin from scratch!

If there was one thing Ves hated a lot, it was wasting his time!

"Goddammit! Can’t the sandman at least delay their invasion until after the MTA announced the start of the next mech generation? Why can’t they give me a break!"

Of course, considering the possible mastermind behind the massive sandman invasion, Ves suspected that it was no coincidence that the aliens inconvenienced him so much.

Ves didn’t believe that Sigrund organized a massive invasion just to screw around with him. However, the sentient alien AI probably derived a lot of schadenfreude out of the events he put into motion!

The result of these unfortunate circumstances was that Ves faced a devilish dilemma.

He decided to summon Gavin to his stateroom to discuss his options.

"You called, boss?"

"Yeah. It’s about the imminent future."

He briefly described the situation he faced as a mech designer who was about to get swept up in this crisis. Since Gavin knew the score as well as Ves, he quickly started thinking.

"Now that you put it that way, it’s not that easy to make a choice." He frowned. "Everyone already knew that the sandman invasion kept growing more severe, but everyone in the way expected the Big Two to neutralize the threat before they inflicted too much damage."

"Well, that prediction sure didn’t pan out." Ves responded dryly. "How have the mech markets of the states under threat reacted to these events?"

"Not good. The mech markets of the states that comprise the first four lines of defense are undergoing a massive upheaval. Sales of melee mechs and laser mechs have plummeted! Prices have sunk to rock bottom in order to empty inventories as fast as possible. The demand for mechs armed with ballistic and kinetic weaponry has ballooned to such an extent that customers are even buying up low-quality variants designed by struggling Novices in order to bolster their effective strength as fast as possible!"

Gavin passed on a couple of industry articles to Ves. The situation was worse than he feared. Not only did the demand evaporate for mechs that fared poorly against the sandman threat, a lot of outfits were even trying to sell their existing mechs on the second-hand market!

This massive dumping phenomenon further devalued melee mechs!

"The market for melee mechs is practically dead for the duration of this crisis. As for mechs armed with laser weapons, the sale of new mechs have plummeted, but the existing ones aren’t entirely useless. Most outfits have replaced the primary armament of laser rifleman mechs with ballistic weapons. A lot of manufacturing facilities are cranking out spare ballistic and kinetic rifles as fast as possible!"

Ves nodded in understanding. "That’s the advantage of humanoid mechs. Since most laser rifleman mechs in the Bright Republic wield rifles, their owners can simply take them away and place ballistic rifles in their place."

It was not quite as simple as it sounded. Due to the strong emphasis on specialization, a laser rifleman mech inevitably performed worse when they wielded a ballistic or kinetic rifle. The added weight, the redundant energy reserves, the recoil, the lack of capacity to carry ammunition, the unoptimized targeting systems and more all posed a negative influence to laser mechs that forcibly made use of ballistic weapons.

Even if their owners invested some money into modifying their old machines to improve their handling of ballistic weapons, this was still a half-baked solution! A mech frame optimized for laser weapons would never be as good in wielding ballistic weaponry as a mech designed to handle them from the start!

"Market demand for ballistic rifleman mechs, kinetic rifleman mechs and various frontline mechs armed with the same weapon types have skyrocketed!" Gavin gushed. "You can’t believe how much of a premium they command now. Prices of most mech models have risen by as much as fifty percent! Mech companies who have lost a lot of sales now that most of their mech catalog has become irrelevant are at least able to keep themselves afloat by retooling all of their production lines to produce the mechs that everyone wants! Unfortunately..."

Both of their faces fell.

"The LMC is not included in that group." Ves morosely observed. "Our mech catalog only consists of three mech models. The Blackbeak is a landbound knight mech. The Crystal Lord is a landbound laser rifleman mech. The Aurora Titan is a super-medium space knight."

None of these mech models fared well against the sandmen! It would be practically criminal to deploy Blackbeaks and Aurora Titans against the alien threat.

As for the Crystal Lord, while Ves knew it was possible for them to wield ballistic weapons in a pinch, they were far too costly and performed far too poorly in this case. There was no way the LMC could justify their continued production!

In short, the LMC had fallen into a very severe crisis due to the lack of diversity in their mech catalog! All this time, Ves had refrained from expanding the catalog, figuring that it was a futile effort to do so while the onset of the next mech generation would instantly devalue his outdated work.

Gavin sighed and tried to reassure his boss. "It’s not your fault. You made a good decision based on your predictions of the future. No one could have accounted for a black swan event to upend the entire mech market and turn our successful products into liabilities. The LMC is not the only mech company which has been burned by their exposure to the swings in the market."

"I know, Benny, but I should have prepared the LMC better. If I didn’t take the time to go on this tour, then I might have designed a mech or two that could have saved my mech company from irrelevance."

Even though he said that, Ves did not regret going on this tour. He had harvested an immense amount of gains, most of which he would have never been able to obtain if he immediately returned home after he finished his pilgrimage to Centerpoint.

Though the LMC had landed in hot water due to the near-complete drop in demand for their products, the news was not all that bad. Gavin had already been in touch with Calsie and the top management of the company.

"The executives you put in charge of the LMC aren’t running around like headless chickens. Once they analyzed the changing market trends, they immediately came up with a couple of solutions. The one that Calsie is pursuing right now is to cease production of all of our current mech models. Instead, she’s in the process of acquiring a production license of a ballistic rifleman mech design."

The solution surprised Ves a little, though he quickly nodded. "Since the LMC doesn’t have any mech that can sell well in our current catalog, the best way to remedy this deficiency is to license another design!"

According to Gavin, Calsie and the relevant staff began to shop around for a ballistic rifleman mech model that made use of materials or components that the LMC was already familiar with. The greater the fit, the easier the Mech Nursery would be able to adjust to the changes and scale up the production of the licensed mechs!

"I want to be involved in the selection of the license." Ves insisted. "Send all the relevant information to my terminal. I’ll go over it when I have time."

Once he received the documents, Gavin made another remark.

"Pursuing this solution only serves as a temporary stopgap. It won’t be good for the LMC to rely on a borrowed design. We have to do our best to return to producing our own mechs after a few months. The longer we stall, the more our company will lose its hard-earned reputation in the market."

Ves adopted a pensive face. "I know how important it is for us to retain our reputation. But this also where I’m faced with a dilemma."

He had two choices.

His first option was to begin designing a ballistic mech design immediately. Obviously, this risked getting his work getting devalued as soon as the mech community transitioned to the new mech generation.

His second option was to bet that the next mech generation arrived very soon and hold back from designing any mech until that happened. It might take a week, a month, a year or even more!

This was because the MTA constantly tweaked the package of standards, technologies and component licenses that made up the new generation. Until the powerful organization made up its mind, it would hold back from starting the great switch.

Both Ves and Gavin racked their brains for the right solution. Ves restlessly stroked Lucky’s back while Gavin paced back and forth across the deck.

Eventually, Gavin halted and turned back to his boss.

"Why do you want to delay? What is the argument that is holding you back from starting your new design project this instant?"

"You know the answer. I don’t want to spend my valuable time on designing a mech that will take an immediate hit in profitability during or shortly after the design period."

"Is this the time to chase after profits?"

"What are you getting at, Benny?"

"The Komodo Star Sector is under attack. The Bright Republic is under attack. This isn’t the time to be greedy, Ves! There is a time and place to pursue maximum profits but this is war! Not only that, but our enemy isn’t the Vesians this time. It’s a larger, greater alien threat that has to be fought in a different way from what we are used to! Under such difficult circumstances, who cares whether your mech is lastgen or currentgen!? The LMC’s profit margin doesn’t matter anymore! As long as we can break even and survive the following years, that’s already a win in my book!"

Though Ves had been taken aback by Gavin’s strident tone, he soon became swayed. "You’re right. I was being too greedy for my own good. Even if I design a mech that will become devalued in a couple of months, it’s still worth the effort. As long as I can design something good, the LMC will be able to contribute to the war effort. Not only will we be able to stay relevant, if our new mech model does well in battle, we can continue to grow our reputation."

"Once the crisis is over, we can reap the benefits! If there is one thing you are good at, boss, it’s designing mechs that are reliable, stable and incredibly pleasant to pilot! The more mechs we place in the hands of our customers, the more they’ll become our lifelong customers!"

The arguments presented by Gavin gave the LMC a way out of the crisis. Rather than attempting to maximize revenue or profits, the company should instead focus on building up its reputation and expanding its market reach!

Ves no longer obsessed over his need to incorporate the latest technologies in his mech designs. He belatedly realized that he had fallen into the trap of tech envy.

As a mech designer, he was very immersed in technology. It was very difficult for him to resist the urge to utilize the latest and most effective solutions.

However, mech buyers didn’t necessarily adopt the same perspective.

During these difficult times, they merely wanted something that worked and didn’t fall apart after a couple of uses. While they were willing to pay for quality, they were willing to settle for something they could immediately get their hands on that worked!