The Mech Touch

The LMC went into overdrive to prepare for the upcoming product reveal. The Doom Guard was a mech that put a new spin on striker mechs.

Though its nature as a double-edged sword was rather troublesome, Ves hoped that his audience would clearly determine that the benefits outweighed the costs.

Due to time constraints, Ves spent most of his time after fabricating the first production model back in the design lab to drag the Hexer mech design project to the finish line.

After spending so much time in the Cinach System, Ves felt a little restless! Staying too long in a single place didn't satisfy his itch for exploration at all. How was he supposed to gain inspiration for new mech designs if he didn't experience new sights?

His MTA merit account also hadn't moved for a while. That was really bad for his ambitions.

Due to the stronger-than-anticipated glow of the Doom Guard, Ves suggested a number of alterations and additions to the upcoming product reveal.

"We have reached out to more outfits and specific individuals. So far, the majority has accepted our invitation." Gavin dutifully reported as he glanced at his data pad. "We have also contacted the authorities of Cinach VI and received permission to hold our expanded demonstration in space. We have to hold it further away from the planet, though."

"That's fine. Are there any costs?"

"Nothing beyond the usual. While we are paying the outfits a nominal fee for their cooperation, they haven't demanded anything else except for the right to buy the first batch of our new product at a slight discount."

"That's a reasonable demand. I don't really care who gets to buy my mech first. As long as they get sold at all, I'm happy." Ves smiled.

These kinds of arrangements aren't unusual. The more successful mercenary commanders like Commander Cinnabar tended to be rather business savvy. Mechs and starships were expensive to procure and maintain. Regular work barely made ends meet for most of them, so the leaders of private outfits often had to find whatever bargains they could uncover.

A rather common business activity was to cooperate with a mech company in order to obtain privileged access to new mechs.

If the new product turned out to be excellent, then the outfit would be eager to make use of it, especially when they paid a bit less for it than the recommended market price!

Of course, there was also the risk that the new product received a lukewarm welcome or outright flopped on the market. The outfit essentially obtained an overpriced and underperforming mech!

This was why outfits always exhibited a lot of care in selecting who they cooperated with. The greater the reputation of the mech company and mech designer, the easier it was for them to find willing participants for their product reveal!

In that, Ves and the LMC possessed an immense advantage! Not only was he backed by the Hexers, his modest mech catalog was already filled with remarkable mech designs!

With the LMC already hyping up their upcoming product as its next big mech model, a lot of mech insiders began to pay attention.

The combination of Ves Larkinson and Gloriana Wodin had already made a name for itself in the mech community!

"By the way, Benny, what is the price the Marketing Department has set for the bronze label Doom Guard?"

"2 million hex credits. In the Sentinel Kingdom, the model will be priced at 22 million sents."

These price levels were roughly equivalent to 70 million pre-inflation bright credits. Of course, this figure was many times bigger if Ves didn't add the word 'pre-inflation'. These days, the currency was pretty much worthless.

The point was that the Doom Guard was priced significantly higher than his older premium mechs such as the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord. Ves also noted that its price level also exceeded the price tags of comparable striker mech models!

"We're taking quite a risk." He asked with concern.

Gavin smiled. "It makes too much sense to hike the price. Just like your other mechs, their technical performance might not exceed that of the competition, but the unique value that you have added to them is unrivaled! Every mech designer's specialty deserves to receive a premium. Isn't that the custom in the mech market? Yours happens to be rather difficult to price. There are a lot of arguments in favor of hiking it further or tamping it down. Right now, we believe the potential utility of the Doom Guard is worthy of being priced at 2.2 million hex credits, but.."

"It will be an even more difficult sell to the market." Ves concluded.

The greater the premium of his product, the harder it was to justify its purchase. Mech buyers would have to be really sure to spend 2.2 million hex credits on a Doom Guard as opposed to 1.8 million hex credits on a competing model!

This was especially relevant to bulk buyers as the price differences could easily mean that they would obtain more mechs for the same amount of money!

Even so, Ves quickly came around at the price his company had settled upon. He didn't need to read the elaborate market research reports that justified this decision.

"How many states will we sell the Doom Guard at launch?"

"Over twenty, with dozens to follow quickly after." Gavin replied. "It's not easy to begin product immediately. In order to ensure there aren't any leaks, we haven't dared to expose the existence of the Doom Guard outside of our clan. The most we have been able to do was to order our foreign partners and subsidiaries to stock up on materials and prepare a lot of production capacity starting from the date of the product reveal. After that, the production facilities in some states can begin production immediately while the other sites have to wait for administrative or legal reasons."

There wasn't any way to change this. Some states were just more difficult to conduct business than others. There was no point for Ves to get angry about something uncontrollable.

"What are the initial sales projections?"

Gavin grimaced. "It's very difficult to estimate the initial interest in the Doom Guard. While we have conducted studies, personally I wouldn't put much stock in the results. Compared to other striker mechs, our product is too innovative and different. While that is good in our perspective, it remains to be seen whether the rest of the market adopts our viewpoint as well. Marketing will play a vital role in convincing potential customers that our new mech model truly stands above the rest!"

It didn't need to be said that the much-anticipated product reveal event would play the most pivotal role in shaping market perception. The LMC already invited a huge amount of press to attend the Doom Guard's introduction to the public. This time, Ves would be presenting his new mech design to journalists whose reach spanned across the star sector and beyond!

Ves recognized that this would be his best opportunity to take advantage of free publicity. Not only did high-profile announcements draw a lot of attention, but it was also under his control!

Every aspect about the upcoming product reveal event was meticulously planned or controlled. While it wasn't possible to exert complete control over every single variable, Ves was already satisfied with how thorough his staff had accounted for every conceivable possibility.

Even hecklers and party poopers had been taken into consideration!

He grinned. "I hope someone comes to challenge me. It's always more fun this way!"

Sadly, his people predicted that no one in the Sentinel Kingdom would have the guts to heckle him this time. With the Penitent Sisters literally looming over him, many people had the illusion that criticizing him was the same as criticizing the Hexers!

No sane citizen of the Sentinel Kingdom possessed the courage to attack their patron state!

Of course, this didn't count if the heckler was a Hexer or a citizen of another second-rate state. While the Cinach System held little attraction to second-raters, it was still considered a possible transit point to the Nyxian Gap, so it sometimes attracted some powerful figures.

After he concluded his daily briefing with Gavin, he spent some time to follow up on the preparations of the upcoming announcement.

Sometime later, he visited the mech workshop. Gloriana was already there to supervise the work performed by their assistant mech designers.

After fabricating the first production copy, Ves had the bright idea of commanding his assistant mech designers to produce the next copies.

The Apprentices hadn't expected it. They reluctantly began to operate the production machines with only a single example to guide their efforts!

Only Ketis and Miles were exempted from this responsibility. Both of them not only possessed a lot of practical experience, their time was also better spent on designing their own mechs.

"How are the assistants doing?" Ves asked.

"Their fabrication and assembly skills could use a lot of work." Gloriana mildly replied. Her lips quivered as if she tried her best not to show her displeasure! "It doesn't help that they're operating my own personal production equipment. While they are more powerful and more precise than any other machine they have worked with, they can barely maintain control over their processes."

"They will eventually have to learn how to operate this grade of machinery. They'll get better once they get used to the expanded capabilities."

His girlfriend snorted. "They are still apes pounding their fists at buttons in my eyes!"

To Ves, the performance of the assistants wasn't as bad as Gloriana described. Sure, they lost a bit of control every now and then, but at least they didn't outright spark a calamity or something. The amount of rejected parts they produced hadn't exceeded to the level where he needed to show concern.

"The Doom Guard is a fairly easy mech to produce, all considered." Ves noted. "It is large and contains a lot of parts, but most of them are fairly simple in nature. The only piece of equipment that is truly challenging to fabricate is the Enison Spreader. The flamethrower is the most sophisticated aspect of our mech, and it isn't even that bad compared to some of the other components I've added to my mechs."

"The mech may not be hard to produce, but its glow is proving to be a real challenge to work around with! Just look at how much they are quivering!" Gloriana swept her arm at the assistant!

Nothing was wrong when the mech designers were just churning out parts. It was the assembly process that proved to be a challenge.

The more the mech reached completion, the greater its glow! Even in a dormant state, the mech always exuded a sense of intimidation and terror that was very difficult for anyone to endure!

Mech pilots trained to endure stress and the threat of death already exhibited a lot of difficulties with the Doom Guard's glow. Pure civilians such as mech technicians and mech designers fared much worse in comparison!

What was even worse was that the off switch didn't work until the assembly of the mech had already reached an advanced stage!

"I see that the assistants have already found ways to mitigate the damage." Ves noted.

Mech designers were not only creators, but also problem solvers.

When the design teams discovered that the glow became less intense over a distance, they largely switched to operating the machinery from a very healthy distance. The further, the better! They also increased their reliance on bots and automation as a consequence.

On top of that, they also maintained a rotation schedule, ensuring that no one worked on the mechs long enough!

While all of these solutions looked reasonable to Ves, he nonetheless disapproved of some of the practices.

"Every mech deserves to be worked on by humans." He remarked. "I dislike relying too much on automation. You can already tell the glow of this copy is weaker than the one we made with our own hands."

"That's not a bad thing, Ves. I think this level is already adequate for bronze label mechs."

That was true. The glow of the first copy was still a bit too intense for most people! Toning it down even further was not necessarily bad!