A lot of publicity apanied the release of every new original mech design. Throughout the gxy, millions of different mech models appeared on the market each day. How would consumers be able to make sense of the deluge in new designs?


    In practice, due to resource limits, license limits, and regtory restrictions, most mech modelspeted solely in the state it originated from. While this cut away most of thepetition, it still left Ves with thousands ofpeting designs that fought over the limited attention span of their potential buyers.


    This time, Ves wouldn’t be able to enjoy the advantage of making his debut. Fortunately, the LMC of today was a lot bigger than when he published the ckbeak design. Back then, he still based hispany back at his old, cramped workshop.


    Right now, the LMC not only owned three production system, it also expanded its payroll by several times. Many problems that seemed difficult to Ves to solve by himself could easily be handed off to the right departments in thepany.


    Gavin was his contact person in the Marketing Department, which had been tasked with the challenge of making the Crystal Lord a sess. Even before Vespleted his design, the Marketing Department alreadyid out the groundwork for the uing release.


    "The MTA will be done with the validation of the Crystal Lord in two weeks or so. How soon can you arrange a press conference to introduce ourtest product line to the Republic?"


    Gavin quickly referenced a data pad. "We are working with all hands on deck right now. In principle, we can hold the press conference at any time, but we’re still having trouble with inviting a sufficient amount of publications. Some of these news and media empires are really tough customers."


    People interested in buying mechs rarely browsed the public catalog and sorted through the huge number of avable models. They researched what they wanted on the gctic and listened to advice from sources of authority.


    News portals and mech portals formed a particrly powerful influences that could collectively make or break a new mech model. The key to making the market aware of his new product was to push it to the public consciousness through abination of promotion and news coverage.


    "Now that I’ve published my design, your progress in this area should go much faster, am I right?"


    "That’s right! It always helps to have a concrete example to show off!" Gavin eagerly nodded. "I do have to say it’s a really smart idea for you to add such an attention-grabbing gimmick to yourtest product. That already makes the Crystal Lord ten times better in terms of marketability."


    "Added to that, its premium price point and its simrities to the ckbeak line should also help with giving the Crystal Lord a boost."


    Gavin looked a bit more hesitant at that. "The close rtions between the ckbeak and the Crystal Lord will definitely be an asset, considering that your first design is already so prominent. In the right circumstances, we can definitely enable the Crystal Lord to piggyback off the reputation of the ckbeak. It’s only..."


    "The price?"


    "Yes. The price. Even for your vaunted goldbel masterpieces, charging 90 million credits is price gouging even to me. Everyone in the Marketing Department is sceptical whether you can get the Crystal Lord to take off with such a greedy price point."


    Ves shook his head. "I don’t agree. You have to be aware that the Mech Corps will call up the second wave of mech designers very soon. The number of goldbel Crystal Lords on the market will definitely be a fraction of the goldbel ckbeaks currently in existence, and those already have a very magnanimous resale value."


    "That resale value trended upwards over time. It’s something that happened organically. You can’t prematurely dere that your next product will instantly be worth the same."


    "It’s a high price, but I think it’s more than fair considering what it brings to the table. The Crystal Lord is packed with value. In my opinion, the high price also serves as a symbol of its worth. If I charge any less, then the market won’t take my product as seriously."


    "They might not think so highly of the Crystal Lord, but at least they can afford a copy." Gavin retorted.


    "If they want a more affordable copy, they can set their sights to the silver and bronzebel Crystal Lords. Sure, their chest crystals will only be half the size, but it still retains much of the capabilities of the goldbel version."


    "Even if they’re a little cheaper, it still won’t be easy to push them into the hands of our customers. Only you would think that there are buyers ready to snap up rifleman mechs valued at 65 and 75 million credits."


    "Leaving the gimmicks aside, charging such a price is still reasonable if you think about how I’ve integrated a substantial amount ofpressed armor into its design. Most other armored rifleman mechs are only partially d with the same kind of armor!"


    "Alright, enough!" Gavin sighed and rubbed his eyes. "You don’t need to convince me of the appeal of your new design. I just wanted to make you aware that most of the market will react the same as me when they first get to know our new product."


    "I’m sure that you already have a n to address those issues." Ves pointedly stated. He already let the Marketing Department know of the overall specs of his design as soon as hepleted his draft design. If they hadn’t figured out how to ovee these issues, then what was Ves paying them for? "All I need to know is is your overall strategy. Do you have anything solid?"


    "Well, the Crystal Lord is actually a great product for the spoiled brats segment. Think about it. The models are all expensive high-spec machines with cook gimmicks that make it a natural hit among the rich kids that wants to pilot something distinct."


    Ves curled down his mouth. "You mean people like Vincent Ricklin?"


    "Exactly so. Laser rifleman mechs are universally popr in the mech market. A lot of potentates default to piloting these kinds of mechs because that’s all they’ve trained for. We found out there’s a decently strong demand for premium rifleman mech models that’s expensive, easy to show off and easy to pilot."


    That caused Ves to nod and frown at the same time. "The Crystal Lord definitely fits the first two criteria. As for being easy to pilot, well, ording to the test pilots that put the prototype to the test, my design is definitely one of the more difficult rifleman mechs to pilot. I’ve always designed the Crystal Lord to meet the needs of professionals, not the so-called spoiled brats who shy away at the first sight of blood."


    He made many design choices that increased the performance of his mech at the cost of adding to the burden of the person in the cockpit.


    Mechs designed to be easy to pilot often took a lot of decisions out of the hands of their mech pilots, thereby simplifying the control interface to a manageable level.


    This might be eptable to the casual potentate that never piloted a mech out of simtions, but a skilled mech pilot that relied on his machine to stay alive demanded more control. Through his recent Mastery experience with Alven, Ves learned how important it was for him to be able to fine-tune every possible action made by his mech.


    Alven might be a religious nut, but his skill in piloting mechs was very real.


    The exnation came as unwee news to Gavin. As a norm and someone who never really bought into the mystique of mechs, he wasn’t aware of subtle but impactful details like this. "Oh. That is going to be a problem then. While I’m sure there are a couple of rich kids out there who know what they’re doing, I guess we can’t go through with our original ns."


    They continued their discussion for a bit. Ves emphasized that the Crystal Lord fared best when piloted by someone skilled. Just like with the ckbeak, the Crystal Lord was not a toy to be shown off to friends. Ves designed it to endure the rigors of war, and he was determined to see it thrive in theing battles.


    "Well, there’s one more group who this mech should appeal to." Gavin suddenly remembered something. "All of those gangs and mercenary corps that returned from the Glowing and received their rewards are still flush with money. Although many of them have already ced new orders, it’s impossible for them to run out of money soon. I bet there are a couple of mercenarymanders and gang leaders who are willing to spend a little extra to obtain a prestigious mech."


    That sounded like a much better target audience. Ves quickly nodded. "That’s the right approach. You can even approach the Whalers and sound them out if they are interested as well."


    After Ves became reassured that the Marketing Department was on the right track, he left them toplete their preparations while Ves returned underground. He couldn’t afford to ck off in what might be hisst month with the LMC.


    First, he began designing the bronze and silverbel variants of the Crystal Lords.


    With the ckbeak line, the differentbels mainly resulted in cosmetic differences. Principally, their performance should be equal, though in practice differences in familiarity, skill and equipment resulted in substantial differences in performance.


    Ves couldn’t do the same for the Crystal Lord, mainly due to the difficulty of synthesizing and activating the huge chest crystal. Fortunately, Ves already took into ount that he might have to downscale the chest crystal, so he easy modified the original design to amodate much smaller crystals without overhauling the entire schematic. It only took a couple more days for him to verify the soundness of his changes in the simtions.


    "I don’t have the time to fabricate a physical copy and test the bronze and silverbel variants for real."


    He decided to dump the problem on thep of the Production Department and let them fabricate the variants and bring them to the testing grounds on their own. If nothing surprising happened, both of his variants should be able to pass muster. In that case, the LMC could submit the designs to the MTA for certification before putting them into production.


    Due to his impending absence, Ves helplessly delegated a lot of the responsibility of bringing all threebels to the market to his subordinates. Inevitably, the board of directors would have a say in the decision making as well, though Ves nned to ram through a couple of new regtions that curbed their power even further.


    Lawyers in the service of the Larkinson Estate drew up much of the LMC’s articles of incorporation. In hindsight, Ves made a mistake by relying on these people to draw up the governance structure for hispany. Thewyers made sure that minority shareholders such as the Larkinsons retained a measure of power without being too obvious.


    "As much as they’re family, I can’t let them run the LMC in a way that runs counter to its mission."


    Ves did not rely on the the Administrative or Legal Department toe up with the amendments. Pretty much everyone who worked there reported to Jake, who in turn was a Larkinson loyalist through and through. Putting them in charge of this matter would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.


    Instead, he consulted an external corporatewyer based out of Bentheim behind the backs of his entirepany. With the help of the corporatewyer’s advice, they managed to formte some changes that patched the most egregious loopholes in the corporate charter.


    In this way, even if Ves wouldn’t be able to attend the board meetings, the rest of the board still wouldn’t be able to decide on things willy nilly.