Ves already worked with gimmicks before. Back when he designed the 3-star virtual variant of the Hoplite, he adapted one of the spear-wielding knight’s gimmicks to the Young Blood.
The gimmick consisted of various enhancents to the shield of the Young Blood so that it would be able to bash its shield with greater speed and montum.
The implentation ca with a number of flaws. The Young Blood could only enhance its shield bash for a limited number of tis, because the batteries embedded into the shield carried only so much charge. In addition, the components lacked sufficient sturdiness and could easily be rendered inoperable.
"Still, it doesn’t matter if the actual implentation is disappointing. It’s an attention grabber."
The re existence of the gimmick attracted a lot of attention. The Young Blood beca known as the ultimate shield-bashing knight ch and its existence had been imprinted on countless Iron Spirit players.
The best gimmicks bestowed otherwise normal chs with seemingly inconceivable superpowers. anwhile, the worst gimmicks actually turned out to be a detrint on the battlefield.
No matter the case, a gimmick always attracted a lot of attention, thereby making them the perfect marketing material.
Ves knew that purist ch designers disdained the use of gimmicks. They would rather focus their efforts on maximizing the core performance of a ch. The more a ch designer emphasizes a gimmick, the worse the overall performance of the design in question.
Adding a gimmick to a ch always ca at the cost of weight, space, power or heat managent. It also raised the price of the ch and disproportionately increased the maintenance burden.
"A good gimmick justifies its existence. A bad gimmick becos a weight that drags down the design."
Ves did not even have to browse the galactic net to co across countless failed implentations.
For example, one iconic example often bandied about in the ch industry was the Grenadier. Nominally, the designer designed the Grenadier as a Skirmisher. However, it carried a bandolier of high-explosive shells on its torso.
The purpose of the Grenadier was to sneak behind enemy lines and inflict severe disruption with minimal footprint. Compared to missiles, grenades took up a lot less space and weight, and didn’t require any launchers either. The grenades also didn’t cost a lot of ti and money to produce.
Alas, the actual implentation fared much worse than the designer had intended. Almost every Grenadier that got caught got blown up when its opponents focused their fire on the bandolier. The Grenadier might be carrying around a lot of explosive might, but compared to missiles, they lacked much of the preventive asures against premature detonations.
"I also can’t forget about the Adaptris."
The Adaptris was a so-called multi-environntal ch. It was a heavy ch that was simultaneously an aquatic ch, a landbound ch, an aerial ch and a spaceborn ch.
The ch designer of the Adaptris piled his ch up with so many systems that it could adapt in almost every circumstance. The logic of the Adatris was that since it could be fielded in almost every situation, it could be produced and fielded en masse. The advantages of scale would eventually outweigh the inherent inefficiencies in the design.
Heavy chs always strained the resources and industrial capacity of a state. If the Adaptris could be produced in enough numbers, then the heavy ch component of its military force would beco ten tis deadlier.
Sadly, the designer had a few screws loose in his head. He sohow succeeded in pitching the idea to a handful of third-rate states, which allocated a huge portion of their limited industrial capacity in producing these gimmicky heavy chs.
For all their adaptability and theoretical performance, the ch designer hadn’t actually designed a good ch. The heavy chs ca laden with flaws due to the excess of different systems stuffed inside their fras. The most fatal flaw was that they ran out of power up to seventy percent faster than a normal heavy ch!
With countless more examples just like this, the ch industry adopted a wary stance towards gimmicks. If a ch designer wanted to add sothing special to their chs, they should better restrain themselves and keep their implentation modest.
Ves did not intend to flaunt that rule. "The only ch designers who resort to gimmicks are those who can’t compete the normal way."
Why did crazy designs like the Grenadier and the Adaptris co into existence in the first place? It was because their ch designers faced too much competition!
They couldn’t compete against the market with their normal capabilities!
"It’s too difficult to compete directly against mainstream chs!"
The dominant trans-galactic corporations ruled over the galactic ch industry from their headquarters in the galactic center. Design teams numbering dozens Masters and hundreds of Seniors focused all of their imnse expertise into perfecting a single standard design at a ti.
How could any average ch designer compete against the best that humanity had to offer? Even though the galactic center was tens of thousands of light years away from the galactic rim, any newly published design from the center would instantly reach the rim through the galactic net.
Within a single week, ch manufacturers around the galaxy would instantly produce at least a billion copies of the new design. Within a single month, the number of copies might surpass a trillion.
The amount of demand for the latest mainstream chs from the most reputable trans-galactic corporation could make any single ch designer die from envy!
Fortunately, many states wouldn’t allow these trans-galactic corporations unrestricted access to their ch markets. They adopted a variety of asures, from tariffs to quotas to give their dostic ch industry a chance to survive.
States had to be careful in implenting these trade policies.
If they acted against foreign chs with a heavy hand, they risked coddling their ch industry into complacency. Without the pressure of outside competition, the state’s dostic ch designers faced little incentive to exert their full efforts into maximizing the performance of their chs.
The difference might not beco evident in a couple of years, but this sort of change always took its ti to seep into the vitality of a state. After twenty years or more of continued decline, the strength of the dostic ch industry would be a shadow of its forr self.
The chs that proliferated in this state that closed its market to outsiders wouldn’t be able to asure up against the chs of their rivals. Many states ended up grinded beneath the feet of their neighboring states because they disregarded outside advancents.
On the other hand, if a state treated foreign chs too leniently, then their dostic ch industry would eventually atrophy, crippling its ability to design purpose-built chs for their ch forces.
This indirectly weakened the state’s ability to wage war, because mainstream chs would always be analyzed to death by the entire galaxy. Their strengths and weaknesses would quickly beco clear to all, including any possible opponents. It would be trivially easy to exploit these traits if an entire ch force consisted of the sa handful of mainstream ch models.
"The Bright Republic is in a difficult spot. I can’t bla them for opening up their market to mainstream chs."
The Bright Republic had to square off against the Vesia Kingdom, a larger and more populous third-rate state. It couldn’t afford to put too many restrictions on the high-performing mainstream designs that constantly proliferated from the galactic center.
These extrely well-designed chs provided the ch Corps and the various private forces that operated within its borders with a readily available supply of high-quality chs.
Naturally, the Vesians often exploited the well-known weaknesses of these mainstream chs, but that couldn’t be helped. Much more importantly, the pressure of galactic competition separated the wheat from the chaff. Incompetent ch designers had no place in the Republic. Only the best and most resilient ch designers continued to survive under these circumstances.
"Still, I’m far away from competing against the mainstream chs in an upright clash. I can only resort to tricks."
Ves already had sothing interesting in mind. Before his latest trip to the Joe System, he agonized over the problem, but after he explored the crystal ruins, he quietly ford so ideas.
The key to his gimmick lay in the composition of the crystal structures. Even if he didn’t understand the circuits embedded into the crystals, he would still be able to attempt to reproduce a copy of the naked crystals.
All of this beca possible due to his tily purchase of the Vulcaneye. The crystals bared all of its secrets against the powerful multiscanner.
As Ves studied a projection of the crystal’s composition, he put his formidable knowledge and enhanced mind to use. Could he fabricate the crystals by himself?
"It’s not possible." He shook his head. "It’s too costly."
Coincidence or not, the composition of the crystals from the crystal city utilized exotics available in the Komodo Star Sector. Perhaps that might be why the crystal builders left behind a presence in the Joe System.
However, an unimaginable amount of ti had passed since the passing of the tiny alien species. The Komodo Star Sector back then looked a lot different than today. Several of the core ingredients could only be found in the center of the star sector, smack dab in the middle of the Friday Coalition.
"Now that the Friday Coalition is clashing directly against the Hexadric Hegemony over the Glowing Planet, they’ll keep all of their high-value exotics to themselves."
Ves also couldn’t forget about the drying imports. The surrounding star sectors also beca engulfed in war. Few shipnts of rare exotics made it all the way to the Komodo Star Sector these days.
"If I can’t use the original composition, what about using substitutes?"
Substituting an expensive or scarce material for a more readily available one happened all the ti. Ves was no Master Katzenberg, but his breadth and depth of Skills and Sub-Skills gave him the basic qualifications to figure sothing out.
"If labs contain samples of pretty much every exotic available in the Republic. As long as Lucky hasn’t emptied them all, I’ll have a good chance of creating an inferior copy."
Ves fixated on the crystals because they ford the key to lowering the bulk of his laser rifle. He already applied so of the insights he learned from the crystal ruins into cutting down the bulk of the Tainted Sun. However, he could have done a much better job if he had so actual crystals to work with. The gamma laser rifle eventually failed to live up to its potential.
"My next laser rifle will be a far cry from the Tainted Sun."
He already gained a lot of experience designing the laser rifle’s big brother. Graser rifles demanded the utmost in terms of integrity, tolerance, power supply and heat managent. Ves faced a lot less pressure if he designed a regular laser rifle.
"The first gimmick will be to implent as much crystals as possible in the laser rifle."
Ves already envisioned the laser rifle being smaller and slimr than a standard model. Combined with the reduced weight of his rifleman ch design, the entire package would allow ch pilots to move faster and nimbler on the battlefield. At the very least, its mobility could compete head-on against the swiftest mainstream chs in the sa weight class.
"Still, this isn’t enough."
A better laser rifle only scratched the surface. Ves intended to embed a crystal in the fra of his design as well.
A bold idea surfaced in his mind. He imagined a large crystal embedded in the head or the chest of a ch. It would accumulate energy over ti, perhaps even absorbing enemy laser beams to charge itself faster. Once its energy accumulated up to a critical point, it disgorged its entire charge in a single powerful light beam.
The idea sounded very fanciful and unrealistic. At the very least, Ves couldn’t recall any ch that had used such a gimmick. While many designs did in fact embed laser projectors directly onto the fra of a ch, only the most expensive second-class or first-class chs employed such a gimmick.
"Laser projectors are vulnerable and present potential weak points. I’ll have to find a way to reproduce a crystal that’s both resilient and affordable enough."
Ves turned to his lab and eyed the handful of high quality equipnt. This would be the first ti he put the capabilities of his lab to test.
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