The Mech Touch

w the tampered neural interface were all rush jobs that Ves had hastily completed due to a perpetual lack of time and capability.
This left way too many shortcomings into his final products.

”I have no choice in the matter. ” He sighed.

Ves recognized that the situation compelled him to these dire straits.
His current woes reiterated his desire to gain more autonomy over his own life.
Even if Major Verle was correct in that everyone was someone else ’s pawn, working under someone ’s thumb really grated on him.
The sooner he jumped off the chessboard, the sooner he stopped ending up in situations beyond his control.

Ves spent a half-hour in total to skim through all of the data.
Most of it consisted of irrelevant or incomprehensible observations, and he couldn ’t figure out if his changes had actually stuck or not.
At the very least, he concluded that no major problems had occurred despite his inexpert handling of the code.

”Ketis? ”

”Good morning to you too, Ves. ” She grumbled.

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”It ’s fine.
I know what you ’re like. ”

After a bit of chit-chat, Ves turned towards her own development.
”Did you do as I suggested earlier? ”

”You mean to talk with the mech pilot of that swordsman mech we visited before? I did, but the Vandal didn ’t want to tell me much.
I think it ’s because I ’m a Swordmaiden, so he didn ’t want to give away his secrets. ”

He had overlooked that possibility.
The Vandal mech pilot did nothing wrong, and Ves should have passed on some instructions or the like.
Well, it may have been an irresponsible suggestion from the start.

”You ’ll get the opportunity to interview your fellow Swordmaidens when you return to their midst.
Just remember to do it.
You really need to understand their quirks and their idiosyncrasies to design your own mechs in the future that fit with your intended clients. ”

”Isn ’t that part of marketing? ” She asked.

”Yup.
What I ’ve just described is marketing research in a nutshell.
I can ’t just design a random mech and dump it onto the market.
Well, I can do that if I really want to, but I shouldn ’t expect it to pay for itself because it won ’t sell that much.
The mech market is immense.
Even in the Komodo Star Sector, a lot of mechs change hands all the time.
The competition is so big that you simply can ’t afford to go your own way.
Mech designers have to adopt the mentality of putting their customers at the center of their vision.
Without an existing base of customers to appeal to, who is going to buy your mechs? ”

”I don ’t see how that matters to me.
I ’m just a pirate designer and I don ’t care at all about the mech market in the frontier.
Can ’t I just do my own thing? ”

Ves shook his head.
”Just because you ’ve read it in a marketing textbook doesn ’t mean the theories can ’t be applied in non-commercial settings.
Every form of labor a mech designer performs is intertwined with a transaction of some sorts.
Would Mayra be so highly valued by Lydia ’s Swordmaidens if she only designs and fabricates spearman mechs? ”

”Of course not! That ’s stupid! ”

”That ’s because she knows her customers, which in this case is the outfit she is a part of.
Just because she is a member of the outfit doesn ’t mean that all of the marketing theories are invalid.
In fact, they matter even more so, because designing mechs that are a poor fit to the Swordmaidens directly affects her safety. ”

”Okay..
I get what you ’re telling me.
You don ’t want me to design the mechs I ’ve imagined in my mind? ”

”Not exactly.
If you have a strong belief that a mech you formed from your own insights and experience, then you can go ahead and design it.
Just make sure that it ’s attractive enough that someone wants to pilot it.
It sounds stupid, but many mech designers who just started business actually neglect finding out if the market has any appetite for their products! ”

Not every mech designer was cut out to be an entrepreneur.
Mech designers cared about designing great mechs, while businessmen wanted to earn as much profit as possible.
These priorities differed from each other, but an independent mech designer constantly needed to pay equal attention to both.

”The biggest mech manufacturers won ’t hesitate to spend millions of K-coins just to understand their target segment a little better. ”

”Really? It costs that much to interview a couple of mech pilots? ”

”They do more than a simple interview. ” Ves replied dryly.
”There ’s a whole science behind it, but you don ’t need to know the details.
Once you get to my level and own your own business, you can ask for a report and have your underlings or an external marketing agency do the heavy lifting. ”

”Here you go again. ” She rolled her eyes.
”You always state that I ’m destined to start my own mech company or something. ”

”That ’s because I believe you are meant for greater things.
I have the utmost amount of confidence in your abilities. ”

She didn ’t know how to reply to that.
What Ves said was so ludicrous she didn ’t even consider it a realistic possibility.

Ves did not mind.
As long as she remained confident, she had the potential to outgrow the Swordmaidens.
However, if she ever took that step, then she sorely needed to become familiar with the fundamentals of running a business.

If Ves did not bring up the necessity to design her mechs with an eye to her customers, she might make a misstep at some point.

Ketis eventually showed signs that she comprehended his point.

”I guess if you think about it, even if designing the mech of your dreams is fun, it ’s not a game.
Sometimes you have to design mechs you don ’t like to pay the bills. ” She remarked in an uncharacteristic display of wisdom.
”Mayra often receives commissions to design mechs for our friends, and she sometimes comes back complaining about how she hates the way they fight and how she needed to adapt that into her commissioned designs.
Some of them are real scumbags who… ”

As Ves listened to her rambling, he felt a bit more at ease.
The unsettling sensation in the depth of his heart had subsided by a tiny bit.
Surprised, Ves turned his concentration inward and found to his surprise that his design philosophy actually regained a small amount of brightness!