The Mech Touch

Chapter 6199  Return of the Swarm Project

Jovy Armalon and Vector Loban feared that Ves might have cold feet about the plan to introduce Carmine mechs a lot sooner than originally planned.

Those fears turned out to be unfounded as Ves agreed to rush the development of Carmine mechs despite the obvious risks.

This was the courage that the mechers expected from a renowned and highly successful innovator like Ves. He would have never been able to make so many useful contributions to human civilization if he lacked the willingness to tackle dangerous challenges.

He was much like a mech pilot in this regard. Many people secretly wondered how great Ves could have become if he possessed the right genetic aptitude for mechs.

Of course, nobody wanted to trade away his abundant contributions as a mech designer. Human society was far better off if Ves remained a mech designer as opposed to a mech pilot.

In any case, now that they passed this hurdle, they soon began to discuss the specifics of the Carmine mechs.

"Speaking from my limited experience, first-class mechs, second-class mechs and third-class mechs are completely different products." Ves started. "If we want to complete a Carmine mech in each class as soon as possible, then it is best to start with a central and highly adaptable mech concept and divide it into three different subconcepts for every tech level. However, it is very difficult to keep all of the separate designs similar enough to each other while simultaneously making them efficient at their respective price levels."

Both Jovy and Vector were mech designers at the same level as Ves, so they understood the argument quite well.

"Does that mean that you prefer to design completely separate mechs for each of the three tech levels?"

"Not quite, Jovy. I am merely stating that if we go for this expedient approach, the results will be less than perfect. However, if your goal is not to release the most powerful and polished Carmine mech designs, but to release a bunch of highly accessible products in an accelerated time frame, then we can go for this approach depending on what else you require."

"The initial product must be simple and cost-effective, but also highly modular and adaptable." Vector stated. "We project that your first Carmine mech models will be met with great enthusiasm. Many people will seek to get their hands on an early model and form a Blood Pact with the machine straight away. If they are not patient enough to undergo extensive training to become a halfway decent auxiliary combatant, then they will inevitably blunder on the battlefield. If we want to prevent this disaster, then we must simplify the first available Carmine mechs to the point where it takes greater effort to make a mistake."

"So you want a frontline mech."

"Yes, but one that can be transformed and made more powerful later on, Ves. You can do this by not only making the base models highly upgradeable, but also implementing a high degree of modularity. Your Carmine mechs must become an open platform that possesses a low barrier of entry to third party participation."

That sounded a bit familiar to Ves. "That sounds similar to what I have done with the Fey Fianna line. In order to make my drone mechs more useful, I have encouraged the rise of third-party developers who are incentivized to design all sorts of useful fey models for the Fey Fianna platform."

"We know. We want you to apply this approach to the entirety of your Carmine mechs as opposed to just a single core feature. You already have experience with designing modular and highly malleable mechs such as the Bright Warrior, so this should not be an insurmountable challenge to you. You can count on our assistance to solve any technical problems in this regard. The priority is to give early adopters an easy way forward once they survive the initial fighting and improve their skills."

That was understandable. A lot of mech enthusiasts who wanted to pilot a 'real' mech as soon as possible would eventually outgrow their initial Carmine mechs, especially if they were designed to function as frontline mechs with higher automation and simplified controls.

A lot of customers would grow terribly upset at Ves for permanently locking them to Carmine mechs that were very difficult and expensive to upgrade!

If Ves was able to lower the barrier to altering the configuration and upgrading the Carmine mech in advance, then that would save others a lot of trouble when they wanted to make any changes to their machines in the future.

"Ah. I see. You want to kill multiple birds with a single stone, right?" Ves began to smirk. "If my Carmine mech models turn into bestsellers, then that will produce a lot of Carmine pilots who will eventually grow dissatisfied with the limitations of their basic frontline mechs. They will demand lots of upgrades and customizations that can only be met by mech designers. This will create a groundswell of employment for grassroots mech designers and small boutiques. Most customers won't be able to afford the services of a high-ranking mech designer, so a lot of people will turn to Novice Mech Designers and Apprentice Mech Designers."

"Turning your Carmine mech models into open platforms will provide a range of benefits to you." Jovy shared his opinion with Ves. "It will reduce the pressure to design Carmine mechs based on different mech archetypes and concepts. It will also allow you to shift the responsibility of providing aftermarket services to third-party mech designers and mech companies as much as possible. If Carmine mechs truly become as wildly popular as we think, then the demand for these custom services will explode accordingly. Your invention has the potential to create a thriving new subgroup within the mech industry."

That reminded Ves of another trend.

"Ah. I see. You want to kill multiple birds with a single stone, right?" Ves began to smirk. "If my Carmine mech models turn into bestsellers, then that will produce a lot of Carmine pilots who will eventually grow dissatisfied with the limitations of their basic frontline mechs. They will demand lots of upgrades and customizations that can only be met by mech designers. This will create a groundswell of employment for grassroots mech designers and small boutiques. Most customers won't be able to afford the services of a high-ranking mech designer, so a lot of people will turn to Novice Mech Designers and Apprentice Mech Designers."

Ves realized the potential of this future market. The difficult part was that outside of making use of official variants and modification kits by the LMC and other reputable mech companies, mech designers had to design upgraded Carmine mechs on an individual basis!

"You want my work to create new employment opportunities for low-ranking mech designers." Ves guessed. "Given what you told me earlier about the changes in both market and industry trends, a lot of smaller independents will be squeezed out of the business. It should be good for them to be able to practice their craft by designing customized variants of my early Carmine mechs."

The Survivalist did not deny this motivation. "The Age of Mechs was a golden age for mech designers, but particularly low-ranking mech designers. The stable market conditions created by the Mech Trade Association has created enough room for capable young mech designers to achieve success as independent entrepreneurs. You are the ultimate example of one. The mech community has long relied on these favorable conditions to maintain enough upward mobility within our profession."

"I suppose that has changed now that we have entered the Age of Dawn."

"We may very well return to the stability and prosperity that we enjoyed during the Age of Mechs, but… the current trend is leading us in a different direction. Since we are moving towards greater consolidation in our sector, we are working towards providing alternate business development opportunities to all of these low-ranking mech designers. We have confidence that your initial Carmine mechs can become a part of our solution."

Ves had no objections to this plan. He would benefit massively from it as the additional third party participation would increase the overall value and desirability of his Carmine mechs.

If people knew that they would not remain stuck with the base model but could easily approach one of many independent mech workshops in order to upgrade their machine to their liking, then that would remove a major impediment towards early adoption!

Of course, Ves did not intend to give up on designing more sophisticated Carmine mechs at a later date, but all of that took precious time that was in short supply.

The three mech designers moved on to thinking about what sort of Carmine mech concept they should use as the initial starting point.

"You look as if you already have a plan." Jovy guessed.

"I do. I already thought about what I wanted to design for the third-class market. Although it is expressly targeted towards third-raters, I think its advantages should also appeal to second-raters and even first-raters."

Ves began to pull a pair of draft designs that he had buried deep in the memory banks of his cranial implant.

It was a set of two mech designs, both of which were supposed to work in concert.

"I call it the Swarm Project. It is a concept I came up with some time ago, but placed it on hold because I intended to design my first Carmine mech later on. Now that our plans have changed, I might as well pull them out of the closet again. As you can see, it is based on the assumption that the majority of the people who will form a Blood Pact with the 'subordinate mech' are essentially incompetent in terms of piloting skill and battlefield awareness. Without lengthy training, it is reckless to the extreme to dump them onto the battlefield and expect them to know what to do. These amateurs need a guiding hand, hence why the subordinate mechs must be led by specialized command mechs that are expressly designed to coordinate the frontline mechs they are assigned to supervise."

The two mech designs couldn't look any more difficult.

The commander model looked like a proper command-oriented mech. It was capable of fighting like a rifleman mech, but the design placed a lot of emphasis on the command and control modules mounted on the back.

It did not take much guessing to assume that this model was not a Carmine mech and had to be piloted by a professional mech pilot.

An interesting quirk was that Ves had designed it with an alternating black and yellow-striped color scheme.

The true Carmine mech was the subordinate model. It was a frontline mech that shared the same color scheme, but possessed a much more simplified design. Its frame possessed an insectoid shape rather than humanoid shape. By imitating the appearance of a wasp but with optional hardpoints instead of 3 pairs of legs, the subordinate model could adopt a range of modular configurations, all based on what people wanted to slot into the limb sockets.

The default loadout that Ves had in mind was to slot a pair of ranged weapons into the forward modular arm sockets. There was no need to make use of articulating arms as that would increase the cost and piloting difficulty of the subordinate machine.

Sure, it was incredibly limiting for Carmine pilots to control a wasp mech that lacked actual limbs, but it didn't matter so long as it fought in aerial or space environments!

If anyone wanted to pilot the subordinate mech on land, then they could simply slot one but more preferably two modular leg parts into the bottom four sockets.

"I can recognize the inherent versatility of this Carmine mech." Jovy commented with interest." By using an insectile form as opposed to a humanoid form, it becomes much easier to treat the limbs as optional components. There is no mandatory requirement that the mech should come with a pair of arms and a pair of legs. There is also room for a third set of 'limbs', thereby opening up more room for easy customization."

As long as a large enough variety of socketable weapons and other gadgets became available, Carmine mech pilots would have the freedom to slot whatever they wanted into these modular sockets.

From physical shields to melee weapons, the modular mech platform could fulfill multiple different roles!

The only caveat was that it had to conform to the insectile shape of the subordinate mech model.

The insistence on sticking to an unorthodox insectile frame for the subordinate model would probably disgust a lot of potential customers, but Ves did not care.

He had great confidence in the potential of this product. If wannabe Carmine mech pilots desired to control a proper humanoid mech so badly, then they could wait until Ves designed such a mech at a later date.