The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1110

A week passed by as both Ves and Professor Ventag adjusted the Aurora Titan’s design. They worked away as many flaws as possible without compromising the strengths of the mech.

When it came time to fabricate the second prototype for testing, Ves begged off the opportunity to do it himself.

"I trust in your company’s capabilities."

"Oh? That’s quite different from last time, Ves. Why the change of heart?"

"I am used to doing everything myself." Ves replied over the comm. "However, after seeing how competent your subordinates are, I think they can do an excellent job in my stead. The difference in quality won’t be very noticeable."

"That is true. I hardly ever bother with fabricating a mech by myself. My employees have gotten very good at fabricating even my most complicated designs due to focused efforts on enhancing their capabilities. This is something that every mech company can accomplish over time as long as you keep nurturing your mech technicians."

The professor raised a good point. At this time, Ves would never trust his mech technicians as much as the professor did his own. The LMC’s mech technicians were still rather basic in their qualifications. Learning how to fabricate an entirely new mech design took way too long. They would need to fabricate at least dozens of Aurora Titans in order for them to pass through the steepest part of the learning curve.

Aside from not wanting to bother with redundant work, Ves also had two other reasons to leave the matter in someone else’s hands.

First, he already observed the effect of the Aurora Titan’s underdeveloped X-Factor. Its strength was so strong that the test pilot already noticed its presence from the start.

Ves did not wish to attract more attention to this aspect of his design than he liked. The testing facility would doubtlessly be scratching their heads trying to disassemble and reassemble the Aurora Titan over and over again if they encountered the same phenomenon yet again.

By letting others be responsible for fabricating the prototype, the X-Factor of the mech would still be present, but in a substantially weaker form. It shouldn’t be strong enough to attract any alarm.

Ves figured the incident with the prototype mostly had to do with the fact that Ves fabricated the prototype personally by hand. As his Spirituality increased in strength, its effects gained in strength as well. Any mech designed and handcrafted by Ves gained a lot more value than before!

In general, this was good news, because his gold label mechs and any custom mechs he developed became even more fantastic compared to their bronze and silver label counterparts. Even the latter two editions also rode along as the more potent X-Factor of the design meant that even if others mass produced his mechs, they would still retain a good amount of spiritual strength.

It was like diluting a cup of wine. In order to retain its alcohol content even after dumping some water in the cup, it was best to start with a stronger wine.

Aside from his concerns on the prototype’s X-Factor, Ves also had a second reason to remain in Cloudy Curtain.

He simply didn’t want to travel to Bentheim again. After seeing how close the planet was about to blow during his last visit, Ves couldn’t wait to get out as fast as possible! Why would he possibly return and expose himself to the same risks as last time?

Even though Bentheim remained oddly quiet during the past few weeks since his departure from the planet, Ves still didn’t want to take the risk of getting caught up in a terrorist attack!

They moved on to discuss the marketing of the Aurora Titan. The closer they came to publishing the design, the more they began to shift their attention towards prepping it for the market.

So far, the initial tests showed that the Aurora Titan held a lot of promise. The challenge was in trying to convince the market to appreciate the value it could bring to a spaceborn mech force.

Marketing the mech was crucial to the mech design’s commercial success. While neither Ves or Professor Ventag would bleed if the Aurora Titan flopped in the market, it wasn’t in their nature to give up before a fight.

This was why both of them pooled together a substantial amount of money into the Aurora Titan’s marketing budget. The LMC together with Bollinger Mech Trade would focus on marketing the Aurora Titan in Bentheim. NORA Consolidated would try to market the mech model in the rest of the Bright Republic and the star sector.

These two marketing campaigns required a lot of funding to take hold. If the Aurora Titan didn’t sell more than a thousand mechs per year, then both companies would lose more money than they earned from its sales due to all of the money wasted on ad campaigns and other marketing activities.

"Where do you think NORA Consolidated spends most of its money?" The professor suddenly asked.

"Research?"

Ves knew that a Senior Mech Designer often engaged in expensive research in an attempt to advance their design philosophies. They needed to perform many different experiments, many of which involved the use of very high-end materials.

Advancing to Master was the ultimate dream of every Senior Mech Designer. Without devoting a sufficient amount of time and money into their research, they would never be able to come close to join the ranks of vaunted Masters in their profession!

Yet surprisingly, the professor shook his head. "It’s actually marketing."

While Ves had an inkling that the professor might say that due to the current topic of discussion, the answer still surprised him a lot!

"How much do mech companies actually spend on marketing?"

The Senior elaborated on the issue of marketing. "Right now, you’re still an Apprentice, so you have always treated the competition as numerous but formless. Yet will that last? When you advance to Journeyman, you no longer compete with kids anymore. The moment you lift yourself up is the moment you and your company enters the big leagues. Not only will you be competing in a much less crowded arena, your competitors are as capable if not better than you. Even if you believe that marketing is a waste of money, what about your competitors?"

Ves knew that the nature of an arms race was that both sides had to one-up each other in order to remain viable in the race. The moment a participant stopped competing, they would quickly fall out of consideration.

While Ves became increasingly more dour, he knew that Professor Ventag had given him a very necessary dose of reality.

No mech company could do without marketing! Not if they wished to continue to grow!

A marketing campaign was like a mech regiment meant to be employed in the war for market share. In this analogy, the side which fielded the best and most numerous mechs gained the upper hand against a less-well funded mech regiment.

If Ves continued to remain as miserly with regards to marketing as before, his company’s marketing activities would only be as strong as the Flagrant Vandals.

In an equal battle, the Flagrant Vandals would definitely lose out against the Hostland Warriors or the Spiral Shockers!

The Mech Corps invested a lot of money into maintaining the strength of their mech regiments. Mech companies were similar in that they spent huge amounts of money into their marketing activities.

Whether it was the military or a private mech company, both of them were required to fight their own battles.

A mech company like the LMC would always need to fight against someone in the market in order to secure some market share.

Ves ended the call shortly afterwards in order to digest the lessons he received.

The professor was also a teacher, after all, so he always imparted the information that Ves needed to know the most. _{freewёbn૦νeɭ.com}

"I’ll be glad if the Aurora Titan sells a hundred copies at the start. Yet with all of this money being spent on marketing, the Aurora Titan needs to sell a lot more copies in order for our companies to break even!"

This was quite an expensive gamble!