[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 451: Code of Conduct

His brief blunder with Iris aside, the rest of the installation proceeded without issue. Once the cockpit's interior became whole again, they invited the mech pilot assigned to this Inheritor to test it out.

"Will anything really change?" Chief Carmon asked with a healthy dose of skepticism.

"I know it doesn't seem very impactful, but it's been proved that the surroundings of a mech pilot can drastically influence the way he pilots his mech. A pilot who is uncomfortable in his own mech will only be able to exert eighty percent of his full potential."

Ves quoted an old study that actually tested this premise out. Put a mech pilot in a rotting old rusted cockpit, and his performance fell off a cliff.

Nevertheless, adding excessive comforts in the cockpit risked a backfire as mech pilots tended to become more complacent while they piloted. They lost their edge and became less alert.

After decades of experimentation, the mech industry came to a consensus that the best cockpit was a clean and sterile environment. Any comfort provided to the pilot should be understated and invisible. It should facilitate the mech pilot for long stretches of time without inducing too much physical discomfort. It should also be uncomfortable enough to keep the mech pilots on his toes.

All of this sounded simple at first glance, but in practice it was very hard to apply. Every mech designer held their own ideas on how far they needed to go in terms of inducing comfort and tension.

Ves had always leaned towards the camp that stated that the best way to go was to go with comfort. It fit well with the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord designs, as they had both been designed to operate for long stretches of time. The X-Factor was also strongly associated with comfort, though not everyone bought this line of thinking.

Many mech designers found excessive attention to this area to be a massive waste of time. Ves remembered his last visit to Leemar, where he got entangled in a design duel with Oleg. Master Olson's genius disciple strongly believed that designing a stronger mech mattered the most.

"Would you rather sit in a comfy chair as your mech falls short and explodes, or sit in a neutral chair and ride your mech to victory?"

In any case, Chief Carmon and Lieutenant Chandis shared the same skepticism as they watched the mech pilot clamber into the completely renewed cockpit.

"Everything is shifted!" The mech pilot broadcasted from the cockpit. "Give me a couple of minutes! I have to relearn where everything is positioned!"

They waited and waited until the Inheritor finally booted up. The slim mech came to live and started to stretch its hands and fingers.

"How is it going so far?" Ves asked while he glanced at the control panel that showed the Inheritor's parameters. Everything looked green so far. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Okay? This is more than okay! I feel great!"

The mech pilot displayed the usual exuberance of someone who got dosed in the X-Factor for the first time of their life. Ves was highly familiar to such reactions, so as soon as he heard the jubilation in the voice, he knew he succeeded.

The mech he worked on radiated a faint pressure. It was very weak, and were it not for his highly tuned senses and his knowledge on what to look out for, Ves wouldn't have been able to spot it. He was afraid that his work on the cockpit was too inconsequential to count, but evidently his fears could be put to rest.

Back at the professor's office, Ves and Iris waited in their seats as Velten finished parsing the readings.

"I see that your test pilot has performed up to twenty-eight percent better than usual at the start, but diminished as the simulated combat tests dragged on. How can you prove it's not the placebo effect at work?"