The Mech Touch novel Chapter 574

If Ves had to describe the mech industry, he would equate it to a pyramid.

The massive trans-galactic corporations sat at the top. Their businesses spanned entire star sectors and copies of their supremely optimised mechs got sold by the trillions every day.

The next tier of companies consisted of trans-sector corporations. Their activities transcended the borders between star sectors, and they always took advantage of the different conditions of each star sector.

Further down the pyramid, there were the sector-wide, state-wide, system-wide and planet-based corporations. The lower their tiers, the more of them existed. Technically, the Living Mech Corporation could be counted as a sector-wide corporation, which gave his company a lot of prestige.

At the bottom-most tier, the MTA couldn’t even count how many independent mech workshops operated within all of human space. The base of the pyramid was doubtlessly incredibly wide.

Yet the top of the pyramid was rather fat as well. A lot of competition existed in each tier, and no single mech corporation held absolute sway over their markets unless a state had conferred a monopoly to them. All of this activity led to a very high level of friction.

Even with the MTA taking an active hand in regulating all of the mech businesses, their energy could only be spent on so many concerns. They shouldered a lot of responsibilities and generally didn’t bother with petty offenses. The association basically handed over responsibility of policing such matters to the local states.

Some states proved to be less diligent than others. Particularly in third-rate states, enforcement of all kinds of rules could be spotty or lax. This opened the door to all sorts of scummy business practices.

A basic way for a company to stiff a customer was to do a sub-par job. For example, instead of delivering a mech worth 40 million Reinaldan marks, they secretly cut some corners and delivered a mech that should actually be valued at 30 million marks instead.

Of course, any mech business that wanted to sell a first-hand mech that was fresh off the production line needed to send it to the MTA for certification. This provided some protection to consumers, but this limited activity didn’t cover the entire scope of the mech industry.

"Buying a first-hand mech is safe. Everything else is fraught with scams or rip offs."

If someone wanted to sell a second-hand mech, they could send it back to the MTA to certify it again for a fee.

Most didn’t want to pay for the fee or lacked the funds to cover the cost.

Cheapskates that wanted to have it all therefore tended to sell their second-hand mechs directly to buyers through various ways. Of course, without a stamp of approval from the MTA, buyers needed to rely on their own judgement to determine whether they bought the product they expected to receive.

Whiny stories about customers who thought they bought a thoroughbred only to receive mule was widespread on the galactic net. If Ves wanted to have a laugh, he could always visit the forums where scam victims vented their frustrations.

"The second-hand mech market is fraught with both risk and opportunity."

Sometimes, the seller screwed up. Either they needed to get rid of their mechs in a hurry, or they didn’t fully understand the value of the mechs they wanted to sell. Keen buyers could easily pick up a bargain if they watched the market closely. Some fallen mech designers even shifted their careers into full-time mech appraisers to speculate on second-hand mechs or advise other buyers into making a prudent purchase.

"The repair market is also surrounded with pitfalls."

Mechs suffered damage all the time. They were primarily built for battle, so it shouldn’t be any surprise for them to return in a less-than-pristine state. Mech technicians in the employ of smaller outfits only possessed the capacity to perform surface repairs. Anything deeper and more extensive required a full-fledged maintenance department or help from others.

Lots of mech repair businesses set up shop on each planet with a large concentration of mechs and mech pilots. One of the hallmarks of the repair industry was that it suffered from a rock-bottom reputation. Not only were they widely-known as scammers, the sector was also plagued by a lack of capability.

Those in charge of the repair work in these businesses mostly turned out to be retired chief technicians or failed mech designers. Neither of these two types of people possessed any remarkable capabilities compared to a successful mech designer such as Ves. Their prestige was low and their profit margins were even lower due to all of the competition.

The only reliable repair businesses only accepted fixed contracts from long-standing customers. Since the Vandals only visited the Harkensen System sporadically, they fell outside of their ideal customer base.

Ves shook his head and readied himself for a long research slog. "I’ll have to go dumpster diving."

He cast his sight on the larger businesses at first. Though they always charged more than their smaller counterparts, they at least had a reputation to uphold since their revenue was substantial and were responsible for employing thousands of mech technicians.

"The only problem is that their premium is too much."

Picking a larger company wasn’t necessarily a good deed. These companies ripped their customers off in more sophisticated ways. If a customer brought up any wrongdoing, the company could basically shrug them off without suffering any loss of business as long as it didn’t happen too often.

Many of these repair businesses also had deep ties to various organizations and influences, chief among them was the Reinaldan government. The risk of bumping into a spy or informer was too high for Ves to entrust them with fixing up the Vandal mechs. Even under supervision, there were too many ways for mech technicians to fudge a component or two.

"The smaller businesses aren’t any better either."