The Mech Touch novel Chapter 856

Word of Ves designing a peculiar breakdown-proof mech spread around the camp. Many Vandals expressed various opinions about what they heard even without Ves showing them the draft design.

"Did you hear about the new design?"

"I heard it’s a huge failure of a light mech. What is Mr. Larkinson thinking? Whoever heard about a four-legged frontline mech? On top of that, it’s as slow as a turtle but as fragile as a bedsheet!"

"Enduring Protector? How can it endure anything? It’s awful in close combat and bad at long-ranged combat. Forget about protecting anything else, it can’t even protect itself!"

"Well, I heard that it’s particularly good at not breaking down in the middle of a battle."

"So what? A couple of lasers hitting our mechs will destroy this new toy far faster than the breakdown effect ever could!"

Obviously, opinions abounded. Ves had to admit that the Enduring Protector did not make a stellar impression upon the Vandal mech pilots. If Ves listed the estimated parameters on a spec sheet, it would have been in contention for the worst light mech in the galaxy!

Yet Ves paid little attention to the criticism, especially when it didn’t offer any way to improve his mech. While the criticisms all had a point, it was human nature for people to complain. They wanted perfection but always got something far short of such an impossible standard.

He knew what he wanted to design. The Vandals now knew as well. They expressed opinions. Ves gathered them all up and tried to see if anyone pointed any valuable nuggets.

Besides the small but meaningful feedback from the mech pilots assigned to rifleman mechs, Ves hadn’t obtained anything particularly useful. Frankly, the peanut gallery didn’t know what they were talking about.

Still, the overwhelming doubt he received from the men caused him to doubt his work as well. Did he go astray somehow? Had he made a bad design choice?

"Compared to normal mechs, the Enduring Protector is an awful mech. Yet how much better can a mech be if they have to work next to the very source of the breakdown effect? I can scarcely imagine anyone coming up with substantially a better mech design than mine, especially in field conditions."

The last qualifier was an important one. Every force seeking to plunder the Starlight Megalodon only brought a limited amount of expertise, equipment and supplies. The Flagrant Swordmaidens should be better off than the pirates, but the Vesians should be even better prepared.

Ves frowned a little bit at the thought of the Vesians. What little glimpse the Vandals gained from their long-ranged sensors in the previous star system showed that their biggest rival came in even greater numbers.

In a stroke of luck and happenstance, they suffered significant damage from the ambush attempt by the Church of Haatumak. However, the backstabbing cultists underestimated the trump cards of a fully-fledged military unit and hadn’t taken into account the possibility that the Vesians fielded an expert pilot who single-handedly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat!

"We’ll definitely encounter that Vesian expert pilot on the ground." He murmured.

The question was whether the Vesian expert pilot chose to deploy in the so-called red zone that ranged a hundred kilometers from the Starlight Megalodon. If so, then the expert pilot would have to give up all the advantages of a powerful expert mech because these kinds of machines simply couldn’t withstand the breakdown effect.

"If there’s anything good about the weird conditions on Aeon Corona VII, it’s managed to put everyone on an even starting line. The forces who came better prepared will have an edge over the forces who neglected logistics."

The Flagrant Swordmaidens already struggled trying to stay afloat. How much worse could it be for their rivals? Ves didn’t believe that scum like the Caged and the Red Tongs brought a lot of mech designers and exobiologists to their expedition.

Besides soliciting the mech pilots for feedback, Ves also approached a mech designer. He didn’t approach Mayra due to political considerations, but he didn’t see the harm in showing off his draft design to Ketis.

The Swordmaiden mech designer puzzled over the Enduring Protector. "I heard about how bad your design is, but I know what you’re like. You never design anything bad. Still, I can’t help but feel it’s awful."

Ves smiled at her. "Do you think you can do better under the circumstances?"

"Heck no!" She playfully stretched out her tongue. "I really don’t envy you and Mayra for trying to design a decent mech that doesn’t malfunction under all of that spacetime distortion."

"It’s easy to throw shade on other people’s designs, but when it’s your turn to produce something better, you’ll realize it’s far harder than it sounds." He said.

While the public did have a right to express any opinion they wanted, a mech designer shouldn’t necessarily value every voice. Ves knew that some mech designers listened to every piece of feedback and tried to please all of them, to the point of losing their own design style.

You couldn’t please everybody.

Not every opinion was valuable.

You shouldn’t lose your vision.

Ves knew exactly what kind of mech he wanted to design, and he remained confident even in the face of negative feedback. As far as he was concerned, he only needed to stay on the good side of a single client. As long as Captain Byrd didn’t pull the plug on his design project, he didn’t have to pay so much attention to the crowd, unlike if he wanted to design a mech for the market.

Any mech designer who wanted to publish a design for the mech market depended heavily on good PR. A flood of negative opinions could spoil the commercial success of any design regardless of its technical merits.