The Mech Touch novel Chapter 869

"Still, not any act of mech design will do. There has to be a sense of weight with the design. Any mech design that puts people’s lives at stake is a design with weight."

The key to transforming a mech designer’s design philosophy was not so much designing as much mechs as possible. While Ves derived some satisfaction when he completed the design of a virtual mech, eventually it felt too fake for him. How could something fake ever match up to something real?

Seeing his mech perform on the virtual battle arena simply couldn’t beat the raw sensations running through his body when he saw actual battle footage of his mechs in battle.

All those mech pilots piloting his Marc Antony, Blackbeak and Crystal Lord designs right now trusted in their mechs and their designer to do them justice.

Ves had been away from his company for a long time, so he didn’t know the exact number of copies of his designs in circulation right now. The figure definitely surpassed tens of thousands of mechs, which was a mind-boggling number to Ves yet was considered peanuts by large mech manufacturers.

Still, it basically meant that Ves indirectly influenced the lives of tens of thousands of mechs in the Komodo Star Sector. The designs he developed and the mechs his company produced changed the course of history in this region of space. However small his influence might be, he had already left his mark!

A sense of pride welled up in his heart. Ves knew his designs achieved moderate commercial success. Plenty of buyers opted to purchase his mechs over the many alternatives in the market. Even if the market shares of his mech models didn’t seem impressive, at least a number of people valued them. How could he not feel satisfied?

The Enduring Protector he developed may never see the light of day in civilized space, but this design was just as impactful as his other two original designs. Even if only twelve or so copies existed at most, even if it would never be put to use outside of this planet, even if it would only be used for a month or so, its use was anything but trivial!

"Whatever happens at the Starlight Megalodon has the potential to steer history in different directions. Depending on what we can recover from the crashed battleship, perhaps even the course of the war will shift!"

This might be why Ves felt so affected by his accomplishments today. He could design a hundred virtual mechs and still not gain as much as completing this singular momentous design.

"Fostering a design philosophy requires a mech designer to turn it from something imaginary into something real. How can a mech designer drag their design philosophies into the right direction when they stick to playing with fake designs?"

Without reaching a state where Ves had developed his Intelligence and Spirituality to this extent, he may not have witnessed this transformation as it happened.

That said, all the other jobs had their own merits.

Playing with virtual mechs allowed him to accumulate practical experience as well as earn him some DP.

Fabricating mechs in person prevented him from growing out of touch of his own designs and increased his appreciation of the construction of mechs.

Repairing, tuning and modifying mechs brought him even closer to the essence of mechs as fallible machines. What might work out in the design schematic may not be such a good idea in reality as battle damage and wear and tear rapidly degraded the performance of various fancy features.

Mech designers needed to do more than lock themselves up in a lab all day and cook up various designs without ever seeing them for real.

This was also the main reason why a stint in a design studio wasn’t such an ideal job. Mech designers ought to consider the job of designing mechs day in day out to be heaven, but reality proved otherwise.

Design studios pumped out too many designs, many of which ended up collecting dust in some forgotten database. Only one in fifty or one in a hundred design variants may be licensed out to mech manufacturers and be put into production.

In any case, Ves enjoyed a very different position from the mech designers who slaved away in the employ of those slave-driving design studios. Even though he only designed three original mech designs so far, he felt as if he only needed to design a couple more mech designs with the same level of impact to precipitate his nascent design philosophy!

"More is not necessarily better."

The theory he heard so long ago about purposefully building up a proper foundation by designing many different mechs did not fit with his current understanding of the advancement process. Quantity could never match up to quality. A hundred fake designs never weighed as substantial as a single real design.

"Some mech designers take forty years to advance to Journeyman. Others only take a couple of years at most. The vast majority however never find an opportunity to advance."

Much of the latter likely never possessed the minimum level of spirituality required to form a nascent design philosophy and foster it until it became something real.

These differences illustrated the inherent unfairness of his profession.

An impulse compelled Ves to immediately seek out Ketis and lecture her of what he learned. Yet he quickly shook his head and dismissed the notion. The mech industry didn’t go into too much detail about these rules, and it was probably for a good reason.

"A lesson learned by yourself is much more pertinent than a lesson taught by someone else. Sometimes, experience is the best teacher."

Ves had already lectured her on the basics anyway, back when he didn’t entirely understand them himself. It was easy to state the rules existed. It was harder to actually start believing them without experiencing their relevance in their own lives.

In any case, Ves considered himself to have taken an enormous stride towards advancing to Journeyman now. He felt almost ready to take the biggest step and solidify his design philosophy.

At that point, he became set upon his path. His design philosophy would no longer be as malleable to outside changes as before. They only way for it to change was by evolving it to greater heights.

Ves considered his design philosophy and felt that for all of its flaws and restrictions, it fit his aspirations pretty well. He felt no regrets if the current incarnation of his design philosophy stuck with him for the rest of his life.