Mech Designer course

Introduction to pilots

The basics

You have started preparing yourself for the task of designing a mech. Sadly you haven’t been prepared to work with pilots.

No to be adversarial but most pilots are stupid, self-entitled, egotistical idiots and while there are many requirements to become one, thinking is not at a requirement. They will complain about problems that don’t exist, make a mess, and blame in on the design, on the materials, on the mechanics, you, your general family, or others. Basically, be the bane of our existence. If you met a programmer or a someone working with customers, they will be able to relate.

Now, pilots are measured in 4 aspects that govern their Neural Link and that would determinate how well can they pilot. The Coalition set a series of guidelines for grading these aspects and to make it simple so that a pilot mind can understand they are graded with letters. S is the best and then A through F in descending order. Sometimes they use the modifiers of + and – to signify that it is higher or lower than the rank but not enough to change.

* Bandwidth: Is the amount of information they can receive from the mech. More complex mechs or ones with more modules will require pilots with a higher bandwidth to properly pay attention to the full mech. If the pilot has a lower bandwidth they CAN’T simply ignore some information, you will have to filter that or they will overload, and be disconnected.

This is the most important for low ranks. Anyone with an F rank should not pilot mechs. F rank are measured to connect to less than 10 modules meaning they may not make a legged mech move. At higher ranks it’s also a bit meaningless, technically an A rank should be able to connect to over 150 standard modules but no mech has that many. Also, this stat will rarely change even with training.

* Tolerance: Humans can’t work too many hours and pilots can’t stay linked too much time either. This varies due to multiple things, the more bandwidth, the more work they do the less they tolerate.

F tolerance means that your pilot SHOULD be in the chair for no more than 2 hours per session and then rest. Most pilots will start with a low score here however after training most can easily reach D rank and stay for 6 to 8 hours with no repercussion.

2 more things to consider. This is measured based on their bandwidth. If you lower the bandwidth they should last longer. Also, the more they stay connected the more tired they get and the less effective they will be, even if someone could stay 8 hours their maximum efficiency will be up to the 3rd of 4th hour.

* Concentration and Multitasking: Technically they are 2 opposites but we judge it in one field. A normal miner mech has 2 things to pay attention, WHERE to mine and THE SCANNER, they need to concentrate to parse the most amount of information possible to get the best result. A scout mech needs to pay attention to their multiple tools of detection and sense, sight, hearing, radar, lidar, electromagnetic waves, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, and any additional module. Not only that but they also need to move, check the communications and maybe even fight, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. They multitask. The more you do of one the less you do of the others. If you design a custom mech be careful of taking care of your pilot’s needs.

Most pilots do have decent scores in both however the more they focus on one the less they can do the other regardless of their score. They can also train, many snipers have shown growth in their concentration score while scouts do improve their multitasking… so long they are alive.

These 4 aspects are considered by the pilots when purchasing a mech and we can help them a bit dealing with some problems.

For bandwidth you can put a prepossessing AI or a semi smart filter to limit the communication between module and pilot with conditions, alert energy levels while below 50%. The more messages you filter the more you help them but the more they’ll ignore. This is something you may have to do even if it’s not needed because they don’t care that everything is perfect, they care when something breaks.

For Concentration you can add an AI that does post processing, to enhance audio tracks or calculate movement possibilities to make a shot that won’t be evaded or where there is more mineral.

For Multitasking you can add a scheduling AI that would repeat specific tasks so the pilot won’t have to command it manually.

And if they have a Tolerance problem give them a pillow and a prayer book.

Marcus idea paid off, while Dextra seemed flighty and strange in the head, her knowledge about that bus and buses in general was incredible.

They started chatting about engineering and design while the diagnostic for the fleet progressed. Some results were already out for other buses that Marcus started to fix with the company of Dextra.

"Can you hand me the small plasma torch?" asked Marcus while working on the side of a bus.

"Here you go lazy ass" Dextra threw him the torch.

Catching the torch in the air Marcus smiled "Thank you very much MISS Becker"

"Nice reflexes mister nice and proper" countered Dextra. "Also, it was lovely but I do have some work to do and can’t be late so I have to leave now"

"You take good care of my granny for me all right? I’ll come back tomorrow to check that she is ok so you better behave with her. And no dismantling anything hear me?" She wagged her finger while smiling and before Marcus could mount any response she turned around and left the workshop.

‘Good bye crazy ass lady that strangely knows a lot about buses’, though Marcus privately. Still, it had been enjoyable for him, while usually he preferred to work alone, she had been a good presence and her knowledge useful.

Still, he had work to do, the bus that he was repairing had a broken wheel motor, 2 more had other minor issues from a corrupted memory, another had a faulty communications module, and a broken door. Normal any broken part that the governmental workshop finds SHOULD be fixed easily yet they didn’t, the wheel motor was just burnt from not receiving proper maintenance. He had to remove it clean it, change the coiling for the magnetic field generator and it was done.

He hated those kinds of people who had a simple job and fucked it and then hid any problems, worse were those who purpousedly made messes to get benefits. Oh such a shame that this broke, I'll throw it out at home, yay shiny new tool.

Thankfully most of the problems where easy to fix and before his shift ended, he had 3 buses working again, as soon as the reparation mode was disengaged the buses got new orders from the AI and started doing the newly assigned routes.

Before leaving he went back to Val.

"Hi Val. Do you have some time?"

"Sure Marcus. What’s up?"

Marcus proceeded to tell her everything he heard from the crazy Dextra

"Those fuckers" commented in anger Val, "Either Romilius knew and didn’t care or he should know but didn’t and now he is paying for the lack of supervision"

"Thankfully the government uses this audit AIs to assure the population that most jobs are getting done" commented Marcus.

"The AIs are not perfect, they can follow simple logic chains and need certain number of resources to properly calculate everything but the fucker may be ordering extra reports or things like that waste processing power so they can’t properly assess any problems" said Val "Still, thanks for coming to tell me this. Do thank this Dextra woman tomorrow"

"Will do Val. Also, I sent you an order of parts I need to update Dextra’s bus and to fix the other 3, if Marcellinus does pick up the job he can print and repair the other 3 but for Dextra you’ll have to order new parts".

"I’ll keep that in mind in case Mar works with them, you’ll have the parts for tomorrow as long as they are in the government warehouse” said Val.

Marcus left the workshop and went home, he needed to keep working with his design if he wanted to be done in 5 weeks.

He finally had only 3 competing schematics and the main body and parts where the same he had to run heavy testing programs to verify for wire and pipe placement, security against possible attacks, energy consumption at different times, etc.

In travel mode it would be like an ATV thin and long car, the main body at the middle 2 legs at the front and slightly open, same with 2 in the back and the 2 in the middle would be shorter and almost directly below. Each leg only uses their main segment and at the end would hold an electric motor for speed and as the legs still moved, they would re orientate so it could cross any crevice and ignoring bad terrain.

When walking the electric motor will disengage and stop supporting anything. The legs would unfold and create a triple jointed leg and the union with each foot will have a hexagonal spiked foot with mechanical absorption so it would remain silently.

On harvesting mode, it would extend 2 arms with a folded 8-meter rail. It would stab the base of each rail in the floor for stability and weight management, then the harvester pads will move through the rail. The first part is a movable arm with a spike, it would hit each wheel making it lose the liquid safely. Then, using pattern recognition, a harvesting area would be selected, marked the perimeter and prepared. A suction cup will secure the bark, then the perimeter will be frozen and cut thanks to a quick hit from an impact drive. With the bark removed and secured in the suction cup it would be retrieved back to the holding area. All of this would be mostly automated using a RAI so that the pilot will only need direct control when problems arise.

The ‘thorax’ would host the capsule, the passive power system with a large number of batteries, 3 pressurized containers with the needed liquids, auxiliary modules and would host the union for the 6 legs. Due to the high number of modules, general control of the legs and general difficulty of the model it will require a pilot with an above average bandwidth and multitasking.

The abdomen would work as a double purpose holding area. While outside the forest it will have a generator with fuel depot that would be left outside the forest and could be reconnected to recharge the batteries and use it to hold the collected bark till it was time to leave the forest.

The generator could be a miniaturized fusion reactor but it would make the mech more expensive or a normal burner gen which would make it noisier. Then a 12 pack of normal batteries for a long time of on power movement and normal modules for communication, sensors, and the rest.

Finally, the protection system was design to mimic the water pressure from the trees making the owls think is dangerous to go and attack so they’ll evade the mech while it’s working.

There were a few complications, the limited time they could work in the forest. Even with the battery pack full they would have at most 2 hours of work time while at max draw power, and you have to count the time it would need to move in an out of the forest, leaving the generator far enough for it to not be heard by the owls it would need 2 to 3 km minimum, preferably 5 km to be sure, at a walking speed of 5 km/h to be completely quiet and consuming the least amount of energy it would leave 1 hour of work time while keeping some in case of an emergency to use weapons while going back.

A possible solution would be to increase the quality of the batteries but it would increase the price and the government doesn’t have others in catalog.

On the plus side this would lower the probabilities of attacks allowing the mech to go, harvest and leave without fighting, no need to put the trees, the pilot or the mech in danger and there would be less need to fix the mech. It’s a purely defensive mech that works by preventing combat which is the optimal option in this case. If there is need of combat it still has some high-pressure water jets, the cryogenic gas as a short-range weapon and growth liquid which can work as a disabling agent due to its thickness and glue-like behavior which is needed to seal the rings on the tree.

Marcus kept playing with some ideas but the base of the design was already set, he needed to run advance calculations that would take days on his computer or he could rent a remote design bay. He would send the schematics, run a full batch of tests, and see which schematic proved better. Maybe based on the results he would change the schematic to further improve it or remove problems. But he still had time, he was learning more so for now he would try to do it at home. It would take 2 weeks for the 3 schematics to be done in his house but he didn’t have anything better to do.