The Mech Touch novel Chapter 243

To clarify Gavin’s question, Ves thought about his competitors. Some mech designers made a career out of their ability to develop fantastic designs but turned out to be awful businessmen. They didn’t know how to run a business or hire someone trustworthy that did.

In contrast, the more business-savy mech designers made the most out of their limited means. Even if their designs lacked a spark, as long as they marketed their product correctly, they ended up presiding over a vast consortium of production facilities.

Right now, Gavin hinted that Ves leaned towards the former while having ambitions for the latter. While the two did not fundamentally conflict with each other, the market might not think so.

"It’s a great-looking design, fantastic even." He explained. "It fits right in with the display models you designed for the Vintage Festival. Yet most of the designs we see on the battlefield are predominantly plain. If they have any decorations at all, it’s usually the unit emblem and whatever personal crest the pilot is using."

Ves had to admit that his runaway creativity prompted him to go overboard in adding art to his design. As he looked at the projected schematic, he felt that it would be a huge shame to diminish that aspect. The draft he drew up already matched up with the images in his mind.

"It’s an artsy design, there’s no way around it. Maybe it will scare some people away, but making great-looking designs has always been an interest to me. A good design should have an iconic look."

This aspect had always been present, but his increased creativity practically forced the matter out in the open. Ves felt the downsides to upgrading his major Attributes to suddenly. Sometimes he couldn’t help himself from acting on his impulses.

"So are you marketing your product as a battle mech or a show mech?"

"Definitely a battle mech. With the specs it carries, it’s a waste to use it as a decorative ornament."

"Hm, if you’re determined to go this route, then you should make some adjustments to your strategy."

Gavin proceeded to outline his suggestions. "You can have the best of both worlds. You don’t have to choose between selling out or maintaining your artistic integrity. Simply stick a gold label to your current design. You can associate the silver label to your dumbed-down mass-market variant."

"I see." The idea had a lot of merit and solved the dilemma Ves was beginning to develop. He could accept toning down the detail on his silver label variant if he could retain them in the gold label base model. "I like the sound of it. Simplifying the design will also make it easier for the mech technicians to fabricate the parts."

"You’ll also elevate the gold label version into a desired product with this strategy." Gavin pointed out. "The extravagant appearance of your mech will turn into a boon since it will only be rarely seen. Anyone who buys your gold label product will feel privileged for owning it, just like with your other limited edition mechs."

"So it’s basically taking advantage of perceptual contrast."

"Exactly so. It’s like evaluating a pile of dung. A small mound is ugly and smelly, but people will prefer it if their only alternative is an even larger mountain of dung."

Everyone laughed at Gavin’s words. Ves shook his head. "They’re both dung, so I don’t think that analogy works in this case."

"You get the idea. By the way, why did you use a bird theme on your landbound mech? Shouldn’t you be designing an aerial mech instead?"

"Uh, oops." Ves sheepishly let out and scratched the back of his head. "I didn’t think about that incongruity. I’ll probably design an aerial variant once the base model achieves some success. For now, it’s not important that my mech can’t fly. It’s merely decorative, anyway."

Many designers incorporate mythical beasts as themes for their mechs. It wouldn’t be to odd to come up with an eagle mech or a dragon mech as landbound mechs, for example.

Calsie and Gavin didn’t have much else to say about his design, while Carlos lacked too much experience. Only his chief technician possessed the background to dig deeper into the feasibility of his design.

"There are two more aspects about your design that look sketchy. The specs suggest you’re aiming to keep the weight down so that you can enhance its mobility. Don’t you think you’ve gone too far? The most basic job of a knight is to endure attacks before they go through and hit more vulnerable mechs. Depriving your design of the maximum affordable protection makes your knight suboptimal for that specific role."

Ves had thought about that issue. "You aren’t wrong. I deliberately set out to design an offensive knight with a decent amount of mobility and agility. I think the tradeoff is worth it in this case because the quality of the Veltrex armor system will be able to compensate for the lack of thickness."

"Do you realize how unusual it is to publish an offensive knight design? The use of defensive knights is standard doctrine. When someone is seeking to procure a knight, they always default to designs that excel in defense. Gavin, what’s the ratio in the current market?"

"It’s about four to one in favor of defensive knights. That means offensive knights only take up twenty percent of the market share for knights."

Ves saw an upside to that observation. "That also means that the market for offensive knights is a lot less crowded. I’ve done my market research. Defensive knights are easy to design so they’re crowding out the market. It’s a lot more challenging to design an offensive knight and it can’t be done without a high quality armor system."

They argued a bit more about the feasibility of his design, but Ves had already set his course. Nothing Cyril said could change his mind.

It was not as if Ves set out to ignore the wisdom of his advisors. He simply wanted to do something new. After all his work on the Caesar Augustus and its variants, Ves preferred to enhance his catalog with something lighter.