[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 424: Ruffians

"Why do you say so?" Ves asked Pierce.
Though the other mech designer looked a little uncomfortable at voicing his thoughts, as a mech designer he had his own way of doing things. "Well, from what I've learned from my father's admittedly brief tutelage, your method is best suited for beginners who aren't always able to control their impulses. Sticking to a well-defined concept formed at the start is very helpful preventing the project from going out of control. Yet it's not the way an ambitious mech can be designed."

Ves thought about it a bit. Pierce had a point. "If you are designing something experimental, then I can see why you would want to keep your options open, but it sounds too much as if you are starting your design with no idea what will happen as a result."

"The people I worked with think that designs that can be imagined from the start of a project aren't good enough to be developed. A great design is a product that is only revealed at the end of a lengthy journey of exploration."

"Is that how it goes in the design team of a large mech manufacturer?"

Pierce nodded. "The mindset among the older, more experienced designers is that they need to be more unconstrained in their design process. The best designs they came up with are often the result of long periods of experimentation. The fewer the limitations, the higher the odds of creating something remarkable."

This was a completely different perspective from what Ves had learned. "How can mech designers keep control? It sounds really chaotic to me if nobody on the design team have a common vision on what their end product should look like."

"That's exactly the merit of this approach. Because everyone has a different picture in mind for the design, everyone has the opportunity to test out their insights. This way, you get the most options possible and allows the lead designer to pick from a wide range of possibilities."

"So the key here is the lead designer."

"Yes. The lead designer is the only person on the team who needs to retain some semblance of control. In some design teams, he acts as a herder that guides the mech designers under him in the right direction. In other teams, the lead designer takes the role of the composers, and imposes a bit more order in the process. THe most important factor however is that the design team should be setup in a way that takes advantage of each member's creativity."

Ves understood the point of such an organizational structure when Pierce mentioned creativity. It allowed every member to contribute, thereby effectively making the most out of the design team's creativity.

In other words, it compensated for the lead designer's lack of imagination.

"I can see the advantages in such an approach." Ves replied. "Yet it sounds awfully wasteful and inefficient. Many ideas will be tried without any chance of ever getting incorporated in the main design. An incoherent vision will also do the design no good when it ends up with a lack of harmony."

That last point was difficult to explain. Ves really wanted to say that his method of fostering the growth of the X-Factor in his designs wouldn't work if he didn't hold on to a strong and predetermined vision.

All three mech designers argued about the merits of both approaches. Ves was a strong proponent of previsualisation, while Pierce thought that such an approach was only suitable for inexperienced mech designers.

"What do you think, Laida?"

"It depends on your goal. Although it sounds simple and limiting, the approach from Ves sounds the best if you are designing an original mech on your own. As for exploring many different ideas at once, it's only suitable if there are lots of mech designers working on the same project."