The Mech Touch

Just as Ves expected and Ansel anticipated, the bombastic release of the Dawnbreaker and its variants sucked up all of the attention for the remainder of the week!

While Ves and his design team were still in the process of finalizing the designs of the Militant Soldier and Peaceful Soldier, the entire Ansel alumni network spared no effort to promote and publicize their new standard bearers!

The power and influence of the Ansel alumni network turned out to be quite dreadful!

Not only did many Ansel mech designers leverage their close connections to the media, they also pooled a considerable amount of production capacity to output as many Breaker mechs as possible during this initial period of exposure!

It seemed that one of the reason why the LMC could no longer expand its production capacity was because Ansel already secured agreements with many third-party manufacturers.

With the formal release of the Breaker product line, those production facilities immediately went to work!

Thousands of Dawnbreakers and Duskbreakers quickly entered the market.

The highly-anticipated Sandbreaker weapon system also made a huge splash in the mech community!

The mechs soon earned a lot of praise from authoritative mech reviewers. It was hard not to fall in love with these high-performing mechs!

Not only did they offer excellent performance at their price points, they also incorporated most of the lessons of the Sand War into their designs.

Almost every mech design released earlier in the Sand War mainly assumed that the sandmen would predominantly attack the Bright Republic in their basic fleet configuration.

While this assumption wasn't entirely wrong, the latest developments at the front showed that there was still a role for more expensive and resilient mechs.

Now that Starfighters took on the role of cannon fodder, the lives of professional mech pilots had to be preserved as best as possible.

The Starfighter Corps wasn't able to resist the sandmen by itself! 

Starfighter pilots lacked the fortitude to endure arduous battles while their flimsy spacecraft shattered too easily against more formidable sandman fleets!

For these reasons, the true strength of the Bright Republic always rested on its mechs!

Though Ves had earned a lot of acclaim for his Soldier product line, so far he hadn't strayed from designing a cheap, affordable and disposable mech!

Even the Militant Soldier, which was at least twice as expensive as its base model, was still a relatively affordable midrange mech design!

A significant gap in performance existed between the Militant Soldier and the Novabreaker designs. Although there was a significant cost difference as well, the Mech Corps generally did not pay attention to the price!

It would have been a slightly different story if Ves had not rejected one of the suggestions of the Ministry of Defense.

The Worthy Soldier would have been able to upstage the Novabreaker, Ves was sure. As a military variant geared towards elites, he was confident that it could surpass the Novabreaker in might due to its excellent materials!

Even if Ves wasn't as good as the Seniors in their specialties, relying on more expensive exotics was the most direct way to surpass an excellent design!

Unfortunately, Ves refused to invest his time in the Worthy Soldier. If he could turn back the clock, he still would have made the same decision.

"I don't have enough time." He whispered.

Once he published the Militant Soldier and Peaceful Soldier designs, he had no further intentions to expand the Soldier product line.

With one base model, four commercial variants and one custom mech in the form of the Resentful Soldier, Ves was incredibly tired of working on the same concepts for the last couple of months.

Deep within his heart, his burning passion urged him to discover new ideas and innovate new solutions!

This was the heart of a true mech designer!

While Ves was very proud of what he achieved with his Soldier product line, he was not the sort of mech designer who enjoyed retreading his old successes.

Halting too long after a single success was no different from stagnating. If Ves wanted to keep his passion alive, he needed to get back in the saddle and pursue new challenges.

His overarching goal wasn't to earn a lot of money or earn a lot of acclaim from designing a single successful mech design!

No, he set his sights much higher! If he wanted to make any progress towards fulfilling his ambitions, then he had to resist as many comforts as possible!

While Ves greeted the release of the Breaker product line with confident acceptance, the LMC adopted an entirely different reaction!

Everyone in the LMC knew that the good times might not last much longer! Even though their Soldier product line was still indispensable in the battlefield, it couldn't fulfill every role!

At the very least, Ves had no good answer to the demand of an excellent midrange spaceborn rifleman mech.

During a morning meeting between Ves, Raymond, Gavin and Calsie, the four discussed the impact of the Breaker line to the LMC.

"The Ansel mech designers and their new works are in the limelight right now." Gavin reported. "It's incredibly difficult to insert any mention of the Desolate Soldier or Prideful Soldier in the local media."

"This only applies to the Bright Republic, right?" Ves proposed.

"Correct. Ansel is always highly oriented towards the Bright Republic. Both the Dawnbreaker and the Duskbreaker are clearly designed to conform to Brighter tradition. However, that doesn't mean that Ansel doesn't have any foreign presence. Various players in states like the Reinald Republic have already signalled their intentions to order batches running in the thousands!"

Just because Ansel was kind of stuck up didn't mean that it only had eyes for the Bright Republic. Senior Mech Designers generally enjoyed a considerable amount of success in other markets.

Many mech buyers didn't actually pay too much attention to the origin or background of the mech designers. They simply wanted to obtain a mech that best fulfilled their needs.

Who cared if the designer of their chosen mech came from the Bright Republic or the Reinald Republic?

They only wanted the best!

While Ves oriented the LMC towards foreign markets much sooner than normal, pretty much every Senior already expanded their reach long ago. Their rank and reputation alone was enough to allow them access into any open market that did not reject foreign competition.

That reminded Ves of something. "What is the response from the Ylvaine Protectorate?"

Calsie answered with a smirk. "Their initial impressions are lukewarm. While Ansel purposefully shipped a batch of Dawnbreakers and Duskbreakers to the Protectorate, most Ylvainans have flatly pushed them aside. According to the Ylvainains, compared to our Holy Soldiers, the Ansel mechs are completely faithless!"

The four of them laughed.

"It's understandable that Ansel failed to break into to the Ylvainan mech market." Raymond remarked. "While I haven't visited the state in person, I've read the internal reports to know that they have very strange tastes. Ansel has not made any effort to conform their products to the local circumstances."

Right now, the Holy Soldier enjoyed an invincible position in the Ylvaine Protectorate. Though the Dawnbreaker fulfilled a role that the cheaper and more inferior Holy Soldier couldn't match, not a single Ylvainan mech pilot preferred to pilot a mech without faith!

"From what I understand, the Ylvainans are already piloting midrange mechs designed by their own Seniors. The Ylvainans need to have a very good reason to resort to a foreign mech." Gavin added. "In fact, I've heard that there is another reason the Ylvainans have rejected the Dawnbreaker and Duskbreaker models."

"Oh?" Ves raised his eyebrow.

"It's in their names! Of all the possible ways the Ansel mech designers could name their products, making a reference to the motion of stars is one of the worst possible ways to appeal to the Ylvainans!"

Realization struck through Ves. He couldn't help but erupt into laughter.

"HAHAHAHAHA! Dawnbreaker! Duskbreaker! Novabreaker! They're all related to stars!"

This turned out to be an incredibly unfortunate coincidence.

Of course, Ves guessed that Ansel probably didn't care about the Protectorate mech market in the first place. It was fine for them to ignore strange mech markets that pose unusual demands.

Gavin stopped smiling when he said the next words. "Unfortunately, the same reason why the Ylvaine Protectorate has rejected the Breaker line is also the reason why the Star Faith Collective has embraced the new models! Preorders are already through the roof if my sources are accurate. While they haven't adopted the Dawnbreaker and Duskbreaker as extensively as the Ylvaine Protectorate has adopted the Holy Soldier, it's still a very lucrative opportunity."

Ves nodded in understanding. While the Duskbreaker was pretty affordable, the same could not be said for the Dawnbreaker. If Ansel wanted to upstage Ves, then they needed to make their sales figure as impressive as possible.

"How is the Novabreaker catching on in the Mech Corps?" He asked.

"There has been a lot of discussion about the Novabreaker at every level of the Mech Corps." Raymond answered. "I won't lie to you. A lot of mech pilots are looking forward to piloting the Novabreaker. Just its ability to safeguard the life of a mech pilot in event of getting hit by a heavy laser strike is enough to turn it into a highly desirable model!"

As a Larkinson elder, Raymond was frequently in touch with his grandson Tusa and the older generations of Larkinsons serving in the Mech Corps. This turned out to be an excellent boon for Ves, who lacked direct connections to the armed forces.

"Boss, can your Militant Soldier do the same?"

Ves shook his head. "No."

"Can't you just change it to make it so that it matches the Novabreaker in this quality?"

"Don't you think I've considered this option as well? I've rejected it because it does not conform to my vision of the Militant Soldier. It is principally a military version of the Desolate Soldier that shares the exact same glow as the base model. That way, the Mech Corps doesn't have to rely on third-party outfits to benefit from my glows."

"That.. sounds stupid."

Ves could only smile in response. "It's not worth it to delay the Militant Soldier project by at least a month. I have to throw away a lot of work and develop a way of matching the efforts of Professor Taphouse and Professor Miller without letting the total cost of my mech run out of control."

Raymond concurred with Ves. "While it's a shame, I think that Ves has made the right decision. The Desolate Soldier, Holy Soldier and Prideful Soldier have sold extremely well. They are the LMC's pride and joy. I think we can afford to suffer a couple of misses. In any case, I don't think the Militant Soldier will only exist in the archives. There is always a demand for our glows."

"Don't forget about the Peaceful Soldier." Calsie added in a hopeful tone. "The Planetary Guard has long been hankering for a landbound version that is suitable to be employed in a law enforcement capacity. With all the attention we're placing on the competition between the Militant Soldier and the Novabreaker, I think that some of you have forgotten that Ansel hasn't come up with an answer to this variant!"

That was true.

"Thank you for the reminder, Calsie. According to the reports I've read, the Planetary Guard organizations are salivating for the Peaceful Soldier model. I'm not about to disappoint them. I'm pretty proud of what Gloriana and I managed to accomplish within a limited amount of time."

As the discussion went on, it became clear to all of the participants that the Soldier product line was not about to fall into darkness anytime soon.

However, the magnificence of the Dawnbreaker and its variants was undeniable. In the long term, Ansel could ride the wave of momentum and gain even greater stature in the regional mech community.

If the LMC kept its head down and failed to attract any attention in the coming months, then the company and its products would slowly fade away from everyone's awareness.

While this was not a fatal consequence, Ves did not wish to see his Desolate Soldiers turn into background pieces!