The Mech Touch

A contest.

That sounded interesting.

Ves had a decent amount of experience with contests and competitions. He competed in them on occasion whenever it suited him. He derived a certain sense of enjoyment from showing off his design skills in public. He also found it fun to whip up a mech design in a matter of days if not hours.

Contests and competitions were generally reserved for journeymen and lower.

Once mech designers advanced to the rank of Senior, they usually lost their hot-blooded demeanor.

Having reached the upper ranks of the mech designer hierarchy, Seniors usually worked on more important affairs that could have significant consequences for a major mech company or an entire state.

How could such an esteemed figure possibly waste his time on a childish tournament?

After all, mech design tournaments mainly served to simulate the real competitive design process!

From a certain perspective, Ves had chosen to participate in the hardest 'mech design tournament1 of all, which was participating in the galactic mech market of the Red Ocean!

The Fey Fianna was his competition mech entry. He relied upon it to defeat the other 'competition mechs' in the form of the top models on the market such as the Sparrow Storm Mark XII.

The winner of this 'tournament' would be the one to become the market leader!

Of course, a real-life mech design tournament was not rigid. SKL Mech Industries and other mech companies all had the power to contest the outcome and present their own works in the future that could threaten the Fey Fianna's dominance!

This was the charm of competing in the market. Nothing was static and the winners could be overtaken at any time. The conditions weren't fair either as other contestants could be older, cooperate together or take advantage of superior access to tech, resources and useful connections.

The pressure Ves had to endure in order to compete in the greatest contest imaginable was far greater than what he experienced during his tournament participations!

After all, the stakes were far higher this time!

This was why Ves completely felt that it was pointless for him to sign up for any mech design tournaments these days.

It was literally child's play to a mech designer of his caliber.

That did not mean that he thought that mech design contests had become redundant to others.

He still saw how it could stimulate and reward more junior mech designers.

Ves just felt a bit unaccustomed to the fact that he turned from a participant into an organizer!

"Tell me more, Alexa."

The former Terran mech designer did so. "The contest we intend to launch will not take the form of a tournament where mech designers must design their fey on the spot. Our goal is to kick-start the formation of a vibrant and active community of third-party fey designers. This is why we are simply asking for anyone who possesses the necessary skills to sign up on the LMC's galactic net portal and design their own fey based on the licenses that can be obtained at a discount. They can design their own fey and submit them to us within the next six months. After that, we will evaluate the entries and award the top to with prizes up to 10,000 MTA credits."

"The top prize is only 10,000 MTA credits?"

"That is correct. We believe it to be an appropriate sum for winning first place. Second place and third place will earn 5000 MTA credits and 1000 MTA credits respectfully."

That used to be a massive sum for the Larkinson Clan just several years ago. Nowadays, Ves just considered it to be pocket money.

"We can do more with this, Alexa. We have just received a huge infusion of cash from granting so many licenses to mech companies and mech designers. Why don't we jack up the top prize to 100,000 MTA credits or even a million MTA credits? That will definitely encourage the formation of a lot of third-party fey models!"

Strangely enough, both Gavin and Alexa shook their heads.

"A higher prize pool will distort the competition." The personal assistant explained. "Many Seniors and maybe even Masters will get tempted by the opportunity to win a large amount of money by doing relatively little work. While it is true that they can design better fey than Apprentices and Journeymen, the issue is that they are too good to rely on designing fey. These esteemed mech designers are already highly successful and often run their own businesses already. Instead of wasting their time on designing fey for another competitor, their time is much better spent on designing a new mech platform that is also open to third-party contributions."

That... made a lot of sense. Seniors and Masters valued their reputation too much to design variants of products that belonged to other unrelated mech designers.

A large pot of gold might tempt a few of them into participating in this contest, but once it was over, they would go straight back to working on their own original mech designs!

If the goal was to foster a sustainable market for third-party fey, then what the LMC truly needed to do was to attract the Apprentices and possibly Journeymen who were much more likely to keep updating their fey designs in order to maintain their income!

"I understand." Ves said. "You should disallow the participation of mech designers who rank higher than Journeyman if that is the case."

Alexa nodded. "We have already added that to the rules, but it is still a good idea to keep the costs at a proportionate level. The higher the cash prizes, the greater the chance that Journeymen will enlist the aid of large development companies that can mobilize thousands if not tens of thousands of R&D personnel. The competition will devolve into a contest of who has the greatest backing."

"I see. I guess you have already considered all of these scenarios. I guess it is not necessary for me to intervene, then." Ves rubbed his hairless chin. "Do I need to announce this contest later today?"

"It would help if you can direct attention to it. You do not need to go all out, or else it will attract the wrong sort of participants. Just a small mention is enough to arouse the interests of low-ranking mech designers who are struggling to break out of their mediocrity."

Every tournament and contest had a goal. This one was meant to build up a modest community of third-party fey designers.

As long as this initiative yielded the desired result, Ves and the Design Department no longer had to worry about designing lots of fey models for the purpose of expanding the versatility and use cases of the Fey Fianna line.

Due to the characteristics of a drone mech, the Fey Fianna vaguely worked in a similar manner to a modular mech platform.

Just like how the Bright Warrior could completely swap out its internal and external loadouts to function like a space knight or a rifleman mech, the Fey Fianna could take on completely different roles depending on the choice of fey!

In fact, the right kinds of drone mechs were much more suitable to the approach to modularity. Their spurs were entirely external and could easily be swapped out by different fey models.

Bright Warriors on the other hand had to return to their mothership and spend at least a few hours in the mech workshop to painstakingly replace the modular components attached to their mech frames. This was a cumbersome process that could not be completed during a short but intensive battle.

In any case, the Fey Fianna had a much better chance of overtaking the Sparrow Storm Mark XII if the market gained access to a large variety of useful fey!

"Oh, by the way, has there been any response from SKL?" Ves asked.

Gavin shook his head. "SKL has not released any statements, whether through official or unofficial channels. It is not in the nature of a large megacorporation to respond quickly to any external developments. The executives that run these companies prefer to remain silent and allow their subordinates to conduct thorough investigations. Once they have read the detailed reports, they will make decisions based on the will of their shareholders and their ongoing business strategies."

"That sounds like it will take a while."

"Don't be surprised if SKL will take multiple months to finally do something about a new upstart that is threatening to dethrone one of their cash cows. Even now, SKL still has far greater concerns on its mind."

"That is good." Ves smiled in relief.

He was afraid that SKL might feel unusually threatened, or that one of its mech designers felt the need to take this matter more seriously due to the involvement of a tier 3 galactic citizen.

The longer the SKL remained distracted and complacent, the better. The Fey Fianna needed precious time to dig into the market and win the hearts of a large number of customers.

If SKL suddenly released the Sparrow Storm Mark XIII that integrated hyper technology a lot better than its previous iteration, then the Fey Fianna's momentum would definitely slow down a lot!

Inertia and sunk costs were powerful forces. A lot of existing customers still had Sparrow Storm in their hands. If the cost of upgrading them to the XIII was way lower to replacing them all with Fey Fiannas, then many of them would probably stick to their familiar machines even if the works of Ves were objectively superior.

That reminded Ves of the challenge matches scheduled in the afternoon. His Fey Fiannas needed to deliver dominant performances in order to reinforce the image of superiority in everyone's minds!

"Alright, I am done with breakfast." Ves said as he rose from his seat. "Let's get ready for the big occasion."

The product reveal had become a multi-day spectacle. Many people who attended yesterday's presentation came again in order to try out the Fey Fianna.

Feedback from the people who took the Fey Fianna for a spin was overwhelmingly positive. A lot of mech pilots found it regrettable that they had to leave the cockpit far too soon.

As the hours passed by, Ves fulfilled several duties, from listening to user feedback in person to taking part in several interview sessions.

Of course, the clan had carefully selected the interviewers to ensure that none of the questioning touched on any difficult or controversial topics.

All of the marketing helped to raise the profile of the Fey Fianna and persuade more people to take an interest in the drone mech model.

It was a pity that one of the more traditional methods of evaluating a new mech model did not work anymore in the current day and age.

"Many mech commanders base their purchasing decisions on their experiences with piloting the virtual version of a mech model." Gavin explained to Ves. "The old simulation programs were never completely adequate, but they were realistic enough that most people can account for the minor differences. That has become completely different nowadays. Hyper technology and E-technology can't be broken down into a set of clear rules and formulas that can form the basis of a new physics model that can accurately simulate their performance."

Ves understood this problem quite well. "I bet that all of the companies involved in this business are having a hard time."

"This shortcoming has sparked a growing crisis in the use and popularity of simulation programs. None of the companies who develop them have yet to make any significant improvements that have closed the gap between simulation and reality. There is only one exception, but it is one that has yet to become widely available..."

"You're talking about our Mental Simulation Training System."

Gavin smiled and nodded. "Exactly. This special simulation program of yours has unexpectedly turned into an unexpected success. This is not the time to talk about competing in the market for mech simulation programs, but I think we can not only compete in this business, but potentially establish a monopoly over this entire sector! As long as your tier 3 galactic citizenship allows you to get away with it, I think it is worth it for you to make this attempt!"

What a bold idea!