The Mech Touch

Now that Ves had arrived in the Bortele System, the preparations for the upcoming product reveal picked up steam.

The Living Mech Corporation and the Larkinson Clan had already fabricated numerous batches of Fey Fiannas by now. The feedback from test pilots and the Larkinsons who chose to embrace them all had glowing words for the impressive new drone mech.

Ves spent much of the first day after his arrival in the star system to query the mech pilots who managed to spend enough time with the Fey Fiannas to share their thoughts about their new machines.

"I always struggled to maintain control over multiple spurs in the past. That burden is a thing of the past now that I have piloted this mech. These fey are so much more impressive. They are smarter and actively try to anticipate my needs. It is much easier to trust them to act by themselves. The mech itself also helps me manage the fey better. I think I can handle one or two more fey before I reach my limit!"

"This mech can save a lot of lives. The camouflage capabilities of these mechs aren't too strong, but unless we are fighting against the more technologically superior races like the puelmers, the false emissions of the fey should fool most aliens into thinking that we have brought several times more mechs than in reality. The only issue I have with your machine is that we will need to add several more cargo ships to our fleet in order to replace all of the fey that will easily get shot down over the course of several battles. The durability of their cheapest edition is not that great."

"The power of the Elite Edition of your new drone mech is good. Its transphasic defenses can handle a large amount of punishment short of suffering a direct hit from a warship. I like the modularity of the armor system, but the plates are too thin for this to matter much. The camouflage systems are relatively decent, but if our enemies start to employ specialized scanners that counter the underlying tech, the decoys will become exposed."

"I like many of the strengths of my new Fey Fianna, but it doesn't hit as hard as I have hoped. Maybe it is because I only have access to the pauper version of this mech, but the fey that is mounted with the hyper gauss cannon simply doesn't hit as hard as the gauss guns wielded by other mechs. This is despite the fact that there aren't any great differences in caliber! The ammunition reserves of this ranged weapon fey are also tiny. It is mandatory for us to bring support mechs along that carry additional stocks of gauss rounds."

"The energy weapon fey is much better than the kinetic weapon fey. I do not see a reason why anyone would want to make use of the latter. I have only heard about these alien luminar crystal guns, but now that I have access to them, they are so much better than I expected. Those fiery beams are more powerful and efficient than I have ever seen from a weapon this small! What is even better is that I can choose between three different beam types, of which one of them happens to be remarkably good at draining energy shields. Forget about the other fey. I just want to pair my drone mech with four energy weapon fey and keep blasting warships from a safe distance."

"I don't know why you have bothered to add these melee weapon feys. Sticking swords and spears onto these small spurs doesn't necessarily make them useful. The mass of the fey is too small. They can hardly build up enough momentum to penetrate through armor or quickly drain energy shields. Their maneuverability and durability also leaves a lot to be desired. I can only say that they are better than nothing. A skilled drone operator should be able to make adequate use out of them, but this is an uphill battle from the start."

The opinions given by all of these test users were varied and exposed many strengths and shortcomings of the Fey Fianna.

Ves particularly paid attention to all of the critique. He knew that his Fey Fianna was still far from perfection. He already thought about many of the problems during the months he spent on designing this mech, but there was only so much he could do to solve all of these issues.

The focus of much of the criticism centered around the fey. They had many strengths. From their ability to camouflage themselves to the enhancements brought by hyper technology to the design spirits directly boosting the performance of hyper technology, the fey earned a lot of praise.

However, the lack of specialists working on the mech design caused many of its technical aspects to fall behind.

The Larkinson Clan still lacked a dedicated kinetic weapon specialist, so the gauss cannon technology utilized in the corresponding fey could only be described as average.

It did not matter if the integration of hyper technology and E-technology was better than average. If the technological foundation of the gauss cannon was only mediocre, it was unable to match the performance of the market leaders!

Fortunately, this was not a fatal problem.

"The gauss cannons may be simple, but that means that they are also cheaper and less difficult to maintain." Ves smiled.

He had gone through great lengths to keep the Standard Edition of the Fey Fianna as economical as possible.

Though the mech still ended up fairly costly in the end, it was still an affordable machine considering all of the advantages it possessed.

What was important was that it was not too costly to purchase spare fey. Their cost had to be contained as much as possible in order to make it less painful for forces to sacrifice a lot of fey in order to accomplish an important objective.

It should always be better to sacrifice a lot of fey rather than mechs piloted by actual humans!

As Ves continued to read all of the feedback and watch a lot of footage of where his Fey Fianna was being trialed, he gained a better understanding of his product.

Alexa Streon arrived at the branch headquarters of the Larkinson Clan and entered the design lab where Ves had made his home.

"You've returned. What is your impression of Bortele III?"

"It is a busy planet." The young woman responded. "I enjoy the atmosphere, though I miss some of the amenities that are common on Terran planets. I have done what you have asked and scoped out the competition of the Fey Fianna. Drone mechs are not popular in this part of space, so I do not think that you need to fear too much from them. If they were truly good, then they would have been sold in greater numbers. You shouldn't underestimate them, though. They perform well as long as the conditions are favorable enough."

"Oh?" Ves turned away from the projected footage and gazed directly at his new disciple. "Let's hear it, then. Which drone mechs have caught your attention?"

Alexa activated a projection that showed several variations of a drone mech that took quantity to another level.

"This is the Sparrow Storm Mark XII, which is the latest version in a long line of drone mechs sold by SKL Mech Industries."

"I am familiar with it." Ves spoke. "I came across it during my research on drone mechs. It is a sickle mech, so it is bound to attract a lot of customers."

"That is correct. SKL Mech Industries has earned this popularity. A surprisingly high number of the mech company's products can be found within the top 10 rankings of their respective subcategories."

SKL Mech Industries was not an average mech company. It was a giant and had dominated much of the mech markets across human space for several centuries.

It had a lot of excellent Master Mech Designers working for it, of which the best of them owned varying proportions of shares in the highly lucrative company.

SKL's products were present in practically every region and every segment. The company did not know how to hold back and pursued an aggressive product strategy that compelled it to design mechs for practically every possible occasion!

As such, its brand awareness was almost 100 percent because it was almost impossible not to find one of the mechs that carried its famous brand name in ; mech market.

SKL was so obsessed with maximizing its market presence that it maintained a strong presence in first-class, second-class as well as third-class mech markets!

The most ridiculous part about SKL was that it not only split its attention across a huge amount of different markets, but also managed to do extremely well for the most part!

SKL earned massive profits by maintaining many dominant mech lines that had captured at least 10 percent if not 25 percent of their respective markets!

These well-established mech lines became so common that the mech community regarded them as mainstream mech models.

This meant that the SKL mech models in question had become the standards of which all other competitors had to compare against!

SKL mechs were usually called sickle mechs due to how often people had to mention them. That was reflective of how many of them were in use at all times.

"SKL Mech Industries is a Terran mech company in origin, so I know more about it than most." Alexa spoke. "On the surface, the Sulie Ancient Clan only owns 29 percent of SKL's stock, while 19 highly reputable Terran Master Mech Designers own the remainder. The latter are independents who have produced enough successes to become a partner of this trans-galactic enterprise. Those that are unable or unwilling to design mechs for the company anymore must transfer their shares to another Master Mech Designer that is willing to take over responsibility."

"This is a clever scheme." Ves admiringly said. "The famous mech company does not belong to any individual mech designer. It is able to bring together multiple top mech designers. SKL can offer them an excellent way for their work to reach as many customers as possible, all without needing to do all of the long and tedious groundwork. These excellent mech designers can also collaborate with each other whenever they want, making it easier for them to design superior works that can beat the prevailing competition."

This was a monstrous mech company that was never known to be soft-hearted. Though it never employed any dirty tactics, it did not need to resort to those measures in the first place. It employed so many good mech designers that it could compete against the best in the mech market fair and square!

A lot of other mech designers hated SKL more than anything else for that reason. No matter how hard the smaller players tried to design inventive products that possessed their own appeal, it was far too difficult for their works to overcome the dominant position of the market leader!

The only mercy was that sickle mechs were usually sold at high price premiums.

This made it so that many competitors could still keep their business alive by charging less for their own products.

However, SKL did not care, as its huge brand loyalty always ensured that it would sell enough copies even if their customers had to pay more!

The quality, reliability and extensive support for their products were always guaranteed.

The profits earned by SKL were insane because of that. The high prices combined with the huge economies of scale due to the high production volumes of its dominant products meant that the enormous mech company also happened to be one of the most profitable of its kind!

It was not without reason that Alexa mentioned this giant to Ves. The Sparrow Storm Mark XII was a mech line that many of his potential customers woulc think of when they learned about the Fey Fianna.