The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1649

Chapter 1649 Designing for Value

All of the intensive design work on the Adonis Colossus distracted them a bit from the Deliverer.

The latter design project received much less attention as Ves and Gloriana both became engrossed by combining their different views on Vincent's masculinity in their design project.

They also enjoyed the relative freedom of choice they enjoyed by the mech's excellent capacity.

"Most second-class mechs are like this." She lectured to him. "From what I've noticed from my time of working with you, cost, material capacity and tech are far greater constraints in third-class mech designs. While our Adonis Colossus is not a second-class mech, its relatively high budget significantly closes the distance."

Ves recognized her point. "I guess why I'm a bit more reluctant to work on the Deliverer project. Its budget is much more constrained since I plan to make it cost as much as the Blackbeak when I initially released it. Focusing everything on offense and neglecting every other priority has turned it into a very challenging design."

"Second-class mechs are so much more diverse and offer so many more capabilities and systems because they have the room to implement them all. When you can stuff many of the things you want in a second-class mech design, you need to adopt a different approach to design a successful mech."

"Instead of pursuing efficiency, you instead try to amplify their value." Ves recited one of her past lessons.

"Exactly! You can stuff all kinds of systems and modules in a second-class mech, but that doesn't mean the end product is useful. There are many clever mech designers in the Hegemony and other second-class mech markets who mix and match complementary systems until they achieve an outcome that is more than the sum of its parts! Only such mechs are worthy to be sold on the market!"

In a way, there wasn't necessarily a difference between maximizing efficiency and amplifying the value of a mech.

However, the implications of the two approaches lead to different outlooks on how to design a good mech.

Maximizing efficiency emphasized being as sparing as possible. A mech had to fulfill its primary functions with the least amount of waste. Anything that did not contribute this had to be left out as much as possible!

In a third-class mech market, this design approach covered almost every commercial mech. The only exemptions were super-expensive custom mechs and expert mechs. Every other mech below a certain cost had to be good in what it did without carrying any deadweight.

For this reason, the Bright Repubic's mech market generally did not go wild with gimmicks. Many mech designers left them out entirely and preferred to strengthen the fundamental aspects of mechs as much as possible!

This contrasted significantly when a mech designer wanted to design a mech for second-class mech markets. _{ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm}

The improved tech and materials on hand as well as the vastly higher budgets at a mech designer's disposal opened up so many new possibilities.

The key to designing a good second-class mech was to avoid getting lost by countless options and form a clear idea on what a mech had to accomplish. Starting with a basic mech type and mech concept, the mech designer's next step was to enhance their initial idea by adding various modules to augment its capabilities.

For example, a second-class light skirmisher could be turned into a more elusive machine by adding modules that boosted its acceleration to a ridiculous degree in short bursts!

Another mech designer might want to turn the light skirmisher into a more rounded mech by adding a small shoulder-mounted retractable gun barrel onto its shoulder. This allowed the mech to handle threats from afar and up close!

"Designing for value is an approach that emphasizes synergy, coordination and coherence." Gloriana explained. "We happen to have a lot of new generation component designs at our fingertips due to your association with the government. We should take full advantage of the broad catalog to see how we can enhance the performance of the Adonis Colossus in a targeted and deliberate manner."

In other words, they should make use of the spare capacity to add a couple of fitting gimmicks to their mech design.

Ves studied their current so far. Right now, they already integrated the shoulder-mounted missile launcher and wrist-mounted nail drivers into the structure of the mech. Neither of the two systems demanded too much accommodation and were pretty much self-contained.

That left plenty of spare capacity, some of which they already apportioned for additional ammunition and energy cells. The powerful flight system that enabled the Adonis Colossus inevitably consumed considerably more energy, though not to the point where it was too inefficient to bother.

As Gloriana warned, the sheer amount of choices available momentarily overwhelmed Ves. "I rarely faced a situation where I have the luxury to add extra modules without paying a heavy price. I'm actually uncomfortable with this situation. My design instincts tell me it's better to use up the extra capacity on strengthening the core function of the mech such as extra armor plating or even more energy and ammunition to increase the deployment time of the mech."

The latter was a very practical choice to Ves. While it sounded boring, it might make a difference as Vincent would be able to last at least twice as long on the battlefield without worrying about his mech running dry.

His girlfriend didn't see it that way, though.

"The battles against the sandmen don't necessarily last very long. Most of them turn out to be short-lasting high-intensity confrontations that result in a lot of casualties. It's more important for the Adonis Colossus to achieve the greatest within thirty minutes than trying to keep up its battle effectiveness while most battles have already ended by this time."

"I get it. The marginal value of adding more energy and ammunition is small past a certain point. Depending on the circumstances, we can achieve greater improvement by devoting the spare capacity toward other modules. However, the question still remains what we should improve."