Chapter 6586 The Finesse of Mech Templates Designing a good mech template was not as easy as it sounded. Technically speaking, even a Novice Mech Designer could convert a mech design into a mech template. However, it took great expertise in materials science, broad understanding of the material usage in every major region of human space and a large amount of experience in mech design in general to develop a good template. A bad one could easily be overly specific to the point where not everyone was able to find the right substitution materials. Perhaps no viable alternative existed. Perhaps the ones available in a region may be unaffordable. Perhaps a close substitution material just happened to possess a deviating property that caused the mech to behave much differently than what the ideal design dictated. Other problems occurred when a mech template became overly broad. Localizers became flooded with choice. They lacked enough direction to select the most optimal substitute materials. People could spend weeks or months on narrowing down the list of viable materials to use in a localized design. It was easy for them to settle for suboptimal choices that ultimately caused the localized mech design to exhibit inferior performance. It was also casy for all of the little changes to cascade into increasingly more divergent performance when the localized mech was built into reality, thereby losing the connection to the original intent and philosophy of the original design team. When it came to developing mech templates, the overall rule was that I was better to be too loose than too specific. Yet going too far would ultimately result in a lot of confusion and significant drops in quality throughout the galaxy. This was also why only the biggest mech corporations made use of mech templates. By meticulously training and organizing in-house mech designers to develop localized mech designs according to company guidelines and with great familiarity of the design philosophies of the lead designers, they could minimize the error rate. Mech corporations that engaged in this kind of business for a long time tended to develop a lot of specialized expertise in localizing mech templates. They employed large teams of metallurgists who proactively developed an expanding collection of new alloys just to achieve a closer match with the ideal mech design! There was a huge amount of depth and intricacy in running a business model based on mech templates. It was the only way for mech corporations to release mainstream mech models that could be sold in one variation or another in every corner of human space. Smaller players could never achieve the enormous reach by using their own mech designs, as they were localized to specific regional conditions by default. These factors not only included material availability, but also cultural and legal restrictions. It was no surprise that these massive mech corporations employed an enormous amount of mech designers. Every regional branch had to keep their own design teams on retainer just to fulfill the localization demands. None of this had anything to do with little ol' Veronica. The incarnation just needed to design the ideal versions of the Rule Breaker Project and assist with converting them into mech templates, one for each tech level. After that, the mech templates would be released into the wild, where norms who were desperate to pilot mechs would embrace the new works with great enthusiasm! "Usually, a mech designer that has developed a mech template but lacks the infrastructure to release it on a wider scale must proactively contract competent and reliable third party design studios across the galaxy to complete the localization step. This is an impossible undertaking for most, but we are different." Master Willix patiently explained to Veronica. "The unique and unprecedented value of our mech templates will ensure that third parties will do whatever it takes to convert them into localized mech designs." In other words, as long as the demand was high enough, third party mech designers would be clamoring to adapt it to their regional mech markets! Not only did they smell an amazing opportunity to raise their sales figures and expand the reach of their businesses, but they also wanted to associate their names with a historic and prestigious product release! These favorable conditions meant that Veronica and Master Willix were in the rare position of not needing to worry about these troublesome issues at all. Nobody could compete against the Carmine System. For a long time, the Rule Breaker mechs would be the only machines in the Milky Way Galaxy that could enable norms to pilot mechs! Of course, in order to make sure that every norm could make good use of their Carmine mechs, Veronica and Master Willix worked hard to make the designs practical, versatile and adaptable. In the span of two months, Master Willix had fully invested her capabilities as a RA Master Mech Designer and did much of the heavy lifting in raising and optimizing the utilization of technology. Since the Rule Breaker Project was meant for mass adoption on the widest possible scale, the three versions had to be as affordable as the budget models at every tech level. This heavily limited the quality and performance of the tech and materials that could be used to make the machines combat worthy. Master Willix put great focus simplifying the designs as much as possible. She readily rejected solutions that could raise the performance of the machine just because they added an excessive amount of complexity in the design! The Carmine mechs had to be as simple to manufacture and repair as possible because that made it easier for them to spread far and wide. Master Willix had another reason to prioritize simplicity over maximum performance. "The Class I design philosophy that I am simulating is much more effective on simpler modular and semi-modular mech platforms." She explained to the Cyborg Cat. "Wild Modularity is a philosophy that produces the greatest value when it is highly compatible with a large variety of cheap and low-quality modular parts. If the Rule Breaker Project only accepts modular parts of such high quality and sophistication that they can only be developed by Master Mech Designers, then only a limited number of people can modify and diversify the Carmine mechs over time. This is not conducive to establishing a rich industry and market for third-party Rule Breaker parts and mod kits. Not every Carmine mech pilot has the means to request upgrade and customization services from Master Mech Designers." That was very much true. The point was that the Rule Breaker Project had to keep everything simple whenever possible. That did not mean that Veronica was forbidden from employing more sophisticated design solutions. She just needed to make sure that it was her last resort. It helped a lot that attaining competitive performance was not a high priority this time. Even so, Veronica could not afford to make the Carmine mechs too shabby, or else they would get torn apart with ease by the modern conventional mechs that were utilized today. "It is best to ensure that the Carmine mechs are at least as good as the mech models that used to be popular two mech generations ago." Willix said. "That gives us enough leeway to successfully complete the project within the accelerated deadline. It will also put a hard floor on how extensively we allow the performance of the Rule Breaker versions to slide. We should not use this excuse too often to avoid the need to develop difficult solutions. Overly simplistic mech designs will generate too many bad impressions and will slow down the adoption and improvement rate." Wild Modularity was a rather radical approach towards modular and semi-modular mechs. It treated an initial modular mech as a level 1 player character in a typical game. The starting version of the machine was weak and limited, but as the pilot continued to use it over time, the mech 'leveled up' and gained an allowance to modify or upgrade the design while remaining true to its original concept. This was normally not possible unless at least some of the original mech designers participated in the upgrade project. Mech forces that employed their own in-house mech designers did not have to worry too much about this requirement, but there were many smaller groups and outfits that lacked the financial muscle to employ their own competent mech designers. Veronica and Willix wanted the Rule Breaker Project to become accessible to the masses, so they needed to make sure that the initial mech designs could be improved by any decent Apprentice Mech Designer. Simply replacing the stock parts with similar versions based on stronger and more expensive materials was an easy way to improve the performance of the Carmine mechs! Replacing basic modular parts with more advanced and more sophisticated versions was another way to upgrade the low-level Carmine mechs, but this demanded greater skill and better access to advanced tech than usual. This made sure that most segments of the mech market would be able transform the initial Carmine mechs into their own unique and personalized machines. Wild Modularity became such a pivotal aspect of the Rule Breaker Project that Master Willix even decided to lower the emphasis on the other design philosophies. The rational mech designer had initially chosen to simulate a Class III design philosophy that increased the damage tolerance of the internal structure and the cockpit, a Class IV design philosophy that increased the reaction speed of the mech and a Class VIII design philosophy that increased the processing power and the deep learning capabilities of an Al-assisted and controlled machine. Each of them were relatively basic design philosophies compared to Wild Modularity, but they all contributed to the survival of the Carmine mechs, which was especially important when they were controlled by total beginners with no actual training in piloting their new machines! Master Willix laid out her argumentation. "Once the Carmine mechs have 'leveled up' as it were, the Carmine mech pilot does not necessarily have to rely on these crutches anymore in order to remain effective in combat. He or she may develop his own ideas, and commission the services of a mech designer of his choosing to strengthen a specific aspect of the Carmine mech. This can range from converting the machine into a drone mech to replacing the starting armor system with a much thicker and more damage-resistant alternative. Each of them can perform much better when backed by a specialized design philosophy. I intend to give third-party mech designers the room to replace one of my simulated design philosophies with their own ideas. I will expressly mention this in the design notes so that they can do so without fear of breaking the end product." "Won't the latter change affect the efficiency of the Carmine Systems and Wild Modularity?" Veronica asked. "It will, but as long as the mech designer in question is careful enough, the negative impact will remain in a tolerable range. Some Senior Mech Designers and all Master Mech Designers should be perceptive and knowledgeable enough to make good use of the opening that I have created in the Rule Breaker Project." This was another advanced concept that Veronica had not encountered before. The Rule Breaker Project was so massive in scope that she was finally beginning to enter the true world of high-level mech design! Even if not all of the lessons she leaned was applicable to the Red Ocean, Veronica enjoyed them anyway. She did not intend to waste her the sheer potential of the Milky Way's mech market. Her radical and subversive product strategy for the Milky Way Market may be different from her more cautious and upright product strategy for the Red Ocean, but that made this challenge all the more interesting! Veronica could get away with designing and releasing a lot more interesting mechs in the Milky Way than she could get away with in the Red Ocean! The release of the Rule Breaker Project was just the first of many radical mech designs to come!