Ves considered hiring a fabricator in order to ease the pressure on his ti. If he wanted to advance his skills, he had to kept pumping out designs. If he wanted to earn lots of money, then he had to fabricate lots of chs for Marcella to sell. He lacked the ti to invest in both activities if his sales volu grew to more than three chs a month.
The only problem with hiring soone was that keeping the System secret might be difficult. As much as the System appeared harmless, it was actually a miraculous invention that straight-up defied the laws of reality as Ves knew it. Such a precious treasure attracted covetous intentions, many of whom had the power to squash him like a bug. Letting the System’s existence leak to anyone else was just asking for trouble.
Another problem which concerned Ves was that hiring soone else to do his fabrication would lead to sub-standard products. A full-ti fabricator might be a wizard when it ca to working with the 3D printer and assembler, but if he was ignorant of the X-Factor then the chs he made would be devoid of life. Selling cheap products under his na only dragged him down just when he wanted to build up his brand.
As Ves couldn’t figure out the solution to this dilemma, he called up Marcella.
"Heya Ves, I’m kind of busy right now, so keep it short."
"I’m having a bit of an issue here." Ves said, then explained his thoughts regarding his potential hire.
Marcella smiled at him as if the problem was trivial. "Well, it’s too early to hire a ch technician, so you have plenty of ti to think it over. If you want my opinion, why not do both? You can sell the chs produced by your personnel at the standard price and charge a premium if the client wants a ch handmade by the designer. Just set the price point high enough so you don’t get too burdened."
That was actually a great idea. It kept Ves busy without leaving the fabricator with nothing to do. He’d essentially leave the grunt work to his employee and only co out and fabricate in person if the money was worth it. Still, it depended on whether the clients were willing to fork out the extra cash.
"Don’t worry about generating sales for your premium variant. I’ll take care to pace you with such requests so you don’t spend too much ti on it. There are always at least so clients who make so requests to modify the design a bit. Sotis they want the ch to be flashier. Other tis they want the ch to bear a customized emblem in its armor pattern. I think the going rate for such customizations is 2 million credits."
Earning an additional two million credits per sale was a generous amount. Naturally he’d charge more if the client requested more drastic changes.
Marcella hung up in order to get back to her work. Before she left, she warned him to expect another prospective sale in about four weeks or so. That was enough ti for their first client to provide feedback on the Phoenix Cry’s performance in the field.
Ves considered the issue of hiring a fabricator later when he got a good idea of how many sales Marcella achieved. Instead, he turned to a much more interesting activity.
He was ready to go back to designing virtual chs. He recalled the experience of designing different variants of the Fantasia and the Caesar Augustus and how much experience he gained in applying his growing skills. If Ves wanted to grow to the point of designing a viable original ch, then he’d have to beco as good as the seasoned ch producers with a couple of successful designs under their belt.
With 2.8 million credits in his spending account, his scope had widened. Though he could easily login to Iron Spirit’s market and purchase a huge amount of 1-star designs, what would be the point? He’d earn only scraps of DP with each successful design and sale.
"Hey System, can I ask you sothing? Since I can earn 1 DP when I design a 1-star ch and 50 DP when I design a 5-star ch, what are the rewards for designing 2, 3 and 4-star chs?"
[The base rewards for designing a 2-star ch is 5 Design Points. The rewards go up to 10 Design Points for 3-star chs. The reward further increases to 25 Design Points for 4-star chs. Do note that these rewards are lower when selling a ch based on your designs. Please work diligently in improving your designs so that you may work proficiently with more advanced models.]
In other words, the System told him to get off his butt and start designing higher starred chs.
Though he owned a pair of 5-star virtual licenses, his skills were too insufficient. The Marc Antony generated only a piddling amount of sales, and Ves doubted that would ever change since he hadn’t really brought anything unique to the design other than the X-Factor. And even that last feature got diminished when Ves relied on the ga server to produce new copies of his chs.
"I shouldn’t bite off more than I can chew. Obsessing over the Caesar Augustus will just warp into Kozlowski’s design philosophy. I should keep an open mind and develop my own principles."
Considering his generous budget, he felt it was a good idea to start upgrading to 2-star designs. To be honest, he could skip a grade and purchase a few ultra-discounted budget 3-star virtual licenses, but he still had plenty of ti to reach this grade with a proper reserve of cash. For now, he preferred to make a gradual progression through the generations of chs. By experiencing each major generational group, Ves could increase his insights into the history of chs and their major developnts.
As soon as he made up his mind, Ves eagerly logged into the ga for the first ti in weeks. He happily sauntered over to the location in the virtual city where they sold the virtual licenses. As he stepped inside a shop featuring endless 2-star licenses of any kind, Ves felt as if he stepped into a candy store.
The 2-star chs represented the age where the most viable ideas from the previous generations got refined. The simple division of light, dium and heavy chs solidified and the designers of the ti started to incorporate components that only worked in their weight-class. For example, a laser rifle ant to be wielded by a heavy ch would burden a light ch excessively as both its weight and power draw were too much to handle.
"Since I’m only going to work on dium chs from now on, I can filter out all the outer crap."
The projection of chs and components on sale lost much of its clutter.
"That’s better."
The crowded view thinned out again when he removed the variants. He wasn’t going to produce a variant of a variant, that was just stupid.
Ves started to browse the ch designs first. If he wanted to design a new variant, then the choice of the base model was of utmost importance. The previous tis, he got handed out a model from the System. This was the first ti he actually had a choice in determining his future direction.
He considered getting his hands on an animal-shaped chs. The bird and mammal-shaped chs that started to feature in the 2-star generations incorporated design philosophies that largely extended to today. If he wanted to branch out his ch range to sothing other than bipedal chs, then right now was the perfect opportunity to do so.
"Hm, animal chs are much less popular than their humanoid counterparts. While I don’t face as much competition, my clientele also won’t be as diverse."
Going by the potential sales he could generate, then Ves was not optimistic in excelling at designing animal chs. The ch designers who worked with such abnormal chs usually put their whole careers into optimizing such designs. As soone who only intended to dabble with the unusual designs, he could never make a living out of it by half-assing his efforts.
Thus, Ves filtered out anything other than humanoid chs, leaving him with plenty of choices but without any distractions.
"What would be the best ch to work on first?"
If he wanted to work on balancing armor and speed, it was best to start with an extre. chs that already featured a pretty good compromise between the two were hard to improve and easy to screw up. He’d rather get his hands on a dium ch that was fast but lightly armored or a ch that was well-armored but slow.
"Since I already worked on the Caesar Augustus, I already have so experience working with heavier chs."
Ves removed the chs above a certain tonnage from his display. This finally produced a much more general overview of available designs. He guessed that he had a couple of hundred chs to choose from, which was daunting but not too overwhelming.
The choice of chs didn’t matter except for price. Most 1-star ch licenses cost about 100,000 credits to acquire. The virtual licenses for 2-star chs jumped up to an average of 1 million credits already! And the 3-star ch licences could only be acquired if you were prepared to cough up at least 5 million credits.
The prices the ga demanded for its virtual licenses reflected the actual value of acquiring them. If a ch designer possessed so talent, he could earn back the money from his designs. The low amount of upfront investnt was ideal for impoverished ch designers to earn a decent living with their skills.
As soone who already owned his own workshop and sold an actual ch, Ves wasn’t in it for the money. While the extra inco might be nice, he was more interested in earning DP. By pricing his designs low, he could ensure a higher volu of sales compared to those who relied on their designs to earn a living.
"Why bother trying to milk so credits in ga when I can earn a couple of millions with each ch I sell?"
Discounting chs worked best when the base price of the model was high. Ves cut out the economy and mainstream models and was left with only the premium ch designs. The prices of these chs were all fairly high, which made them less popular to the older teenagers and untrained potentates who muddled in the 2-star range.
After browsing through the fifty or so models that were left, Ves stopped narrowing his criteria and instead just looked at the images scrolling past his eyes. His attention caught a glimpse of a reflection. He zood in on the ch.
A shiny chro ch ca into view. The Globe-Elstar Corporation’s Octagon O-225C. Its reflective surface caught the eye, but not in a good way. Such a tallic surface offered no additional protection against any damage types and only influenced enemies to target the chs first.
Perhaps aware of this tendency, the original designer of the ch focused on making the ch as agile as possible. Though he cut down on a lot of armor near the joints and other weak points, it made the ch exceptionally limber and could even perform so acrobatic stunts pilots would never even dare on a regular dium ch.
"Interesting. It’s going to be fairly tough to upgrade this ch’s armor without negatively influencing its range of motion."
The challenge of designing an improved variant of this base model intrigued Ves. While he always focused a bit on speed in his other models, he applied it mainly on movent speed. How fast a ch could get from point A to point B.
Agility was a different concept entirely. It involved combining wide range of motion with fast-moving limb reactions to turn a ch into a dodging champion.
Thinly armored simian chs often specialized in these kinds of designs. The hunched-over posture and their strengthened arms afforded these ape-like chs exceptional stability even when they jumped and crawled around forests and complex urban environnts.
As for agility-focused humanoid chs, they relied on sophisticated internals instead of chanical design in order to stay upright. The Octagon featured the most advanced gyroscope of its generation to maintain its balance even as it dodged left and right. That was the main reason the ch got such a high price tag.
As for its other specs, the ch perford fairly average. Its speed was respectable, but not as good as dedicated sprinters. The armor was nothing to get excited for, but it did the job except when it ca to the joints. The Octagon ca with a standard loadout of two heated knives and a spear that could also be thrown in an ergency. Most pilots who bought this ch also added in a pistol or a submachine gun in order to turn the ch into a good close-ranged skirmisher.
All in all, the Octagon possessed plenty of character. Ves liked whoever designed this ch, as he was not afraid to break so rules in order to achieve a unique result.
He added the virtual license of this ch to his shopping cart. "That’s 650,000 credits down the rain. Now I should add so components to complent this design."
The shiny chro job defined this base model. While it did not entirely fit with modern aesthetics, Ves preferred to keep its shiny exterior. That didn’t an his choice of replacent armor was restricted. He rely had to add an extra step to his production process by painting his chs with a reflective coating.
His choice of armor had to et certain criteria. First, it had to offer more protection at the sa amount of weight. Second, it should be effective without stacking too many layers. So armor systems only worked properly if they surpassed a minimum amount of thickness. The Octagon’s main feature was its agility and putting on too much weight negated that advantage.
His search turned up so intriguing results. First up was the Grayson Inc. Flexiplate Alpha Mark III. He found one experintal armor composite that featured a certain amount of flexibility in its plating. It was as bendable as a thick piece of rubber and excelled in absorbing shocks from kinetic impacts. It sounded perfect for developing better armor around vulnerable joints, and was in fact often employed in such a manner.
To complent the other portions of armor, he looked up the Grayson Inc. SquarePlate Mark I, a modular armor system of the sa company. These types of armors were often employed on lighter chs, but the system he looked at was specifically designed for dium chs. It was a pain to mold such such an armor system on a ch due to the demands it imposed on the positioning of its plating. However, it gave a significant advantage to a ch if well-designed.
Conventional armor plating used form-fitting plates to cover up a ch’s internal fra. If implented well, they offered close to the maximum theoretical amount of protection to that section for its weight and thickness. However, if a piece of plating suffered damage, it may still be adhered to the ch while turning out to be functionally useless. If a ch suffered moderate damage throughout its entire fra, such deadweight only slowed the ch down while leaving its internals vulnerable.
Modular armor systems aid to counteract this situation by designing their plating around uniform shapes of squares or hexagons. It made the ch look a little angular or bumpy, but offered a great amount of freedom in shedding its damaged layers. The more damage a ch sustained, the more plates it shed thus the less weight it had to haul everywhere. This provided chs with modular armor a distinct advantage in the later stages of a battle.
Naturally, such a system ca with its own tradeoffs, or else it would have been much more popular today. The fixed shapes of its plating were only partially variable in size. The SquarePlate only featured three different sizes. One big plate for chest armor and the like, one dium plate for arms and limbs, and one smaller plate for tricky angles and fingers. Working with these three shapes made any ch variant lose their most optimal armor sche. That and other factors caused modular armor systems to be able to absorb less damage than their conventional equivalent.
"It has a pretty good performance anyway despite that point." Ves concluded. He hadn’t worked with modular armor before, but was highly intrigued by its possibilities. Modular armor was one of the best solutions out today that attempted to marry together armor with speed. If Ves was serious about developing his specialization in this area, then he couldn’t avoid working with this nifty invention.
Adding both the FlexiPlate and the SquarePlate to his shopping list increased his bill by 150,000 credits. Ves had enough for one session now. He wanted to exercise is mind right away and was unwilling to consider replacing other components before he learned more about the Octagon ch.
A total of 800,000 credits disappeared from his bank account by the ti Ves acquired the three virtual licenses. The difference in costs compared to 1-star chs daunted any novice ch designer. He was working in a whole other stage now, and the consequences of screwups rose by a significant fraction. Luckily he already possessed real experience working with the equivalent of a 5-star ch, so Ves maintained his confidence.
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