A/N: change driver/driving to pilot/piloting, change the height of the Sieg type Mecha from 4 meters to 8 meters (i think this is more reasonable, still compact but a lot more realistic)
***
Keiko knew that sooner or later she would have to pilot a mecha, so she did her homework a long time ago. She carefully studied the information books on mecha piloting, and theoretically, she knew all the procedures to handle this big guy.
But there was a distance of tens of millions of light-years between theory and practice. It was like a person who had never touched a car before going to a driving school to learn to drive, while the night before, cramping all the knowledge about cars and driving in their mind. In the end, they wouldn't miraculously be able to drive the car on their first try, even if they had all the knowledge.
In the nutshell, the most basic principle of mecha piloting was understanding "synchronized micro-motions."
It meant that the actions taken by the pilot in the mecha cabin would be synchronous with the mecha. The pilot only needed to make a small action, and the mecha would emphasize this action.
For example, if the pilot just raised their right arm slightly, this action would be magnified by the mecha to raise the entire right arm.
Another example: if the pilot just slightly moves their left foot forward a few centimeters, this action will be amplified by the mech into a big stride with their left leg.
The incongruity between the pilot's actions and the mecha increased the difficulty of piloting a mecha by many folds. When the pilot controlled the mecha, they needed to rely on their own body sense to judge the accuracy of the mecha's action.
This, of course, required many years of training, which would test your talent in this area.
The top mecha pilot could control the mecha to perform a variety of difficult actions, such as driving the mecha to do a rollover, backflip, roundhouse kick, and so on.
This was unimaginable for ordinary pilots as they have already exerted full effort just to complete simple tactical actions.
Keiko finally booted into the training system; a stream of notifications popped up in front of her eyes.
[Welcome to the Federal Virtual Mecha Training System. Check the identity information...]
[Successful identity verification, pilot: Keiko Lee, Rank: Second Lieutenant, Affiliation: Federal Western Army...]
[The download of the new system is complete… verifying the content...]
[Generating System Environment in 10 seconds...]
[3...2...1…]
'Take a deep breath... You can do it, Keiko!' Keiko, who was so nervous that her palms were sweating, was constantly encouraging herself.
[System initialized…]
When the countdown ended, the data stream screen disappeared from her sight, and then a magnificent jungle scene spread out in front of Keiko.
Even if she knew it was fake, Keiko was still shocked by how realistic it was. Those 3D and 4D movies in the old days were simply cheap compared to this. It was really difficult to distinguish it from reality.
She tried to get used to the height of her line of sight. The pilot's view of the outside world was captured by several full-angle high-precision cameras covering six parts of the mecha's body. The scene in front of her eyes was taken from the mecha head, so the height is nearly eight meters. This kind of detail was also perfectly replicated in the virtual system.
Keiko swallowed a big gulp and tried to move her fingers slightly, but she didn't feel any difference, so she tried to bend her arms and stretch her palms in front of her face.
Although she was very careful, she didn't expect that with such a simple action she would still accidentally grant the mecha's face a facepalm. Fortunately, the steel palm didn't hit her face directly, so she was only startled by it.
"Well, the sensitivity is much higher than I thought..." She muttered to herself and licked her lips in embarrassment. After the failed experiment, she had a vague concept of how to pilot a mecha.
Fortunately, her little action didn't seem to attract other people's attention. Maybe she unknowingly logged in earlier than the others. When she entered the virtual platform, no one beside her had appeared yet. After she facepalmed herself, the other officers showed up around her one after another.
"Keiko!" Suddenly, Seol-Hyun Ae's voice sounded in the communication channel.
Keiko looked around and saw several mecha around her, but she didn't recognize which one was Seol-Hyun's, so she asked, "Where are you?"
"Look at the Sieg Mk.2 directly behind you."
Hearing this, Keiko was naturally ready to turn around and look back at Seol-Hyun Ae's position. She then twisted her waist in the cockpit to turn around, but unexpectedly, her action was more impactful than she thought.
Her movement just now was so great that the axis was deviating, making the center of gravity was unstable. A short yelp was coming from her mouth, the screen in front of her was spinning, and she fell directly on the ground.
"Pfft! Keiko, what are you doing? Are you trying an acrobatic move?" Seol-Hyun Ae wasn't polite at all and laughed.
Not only was she laughing, so did the other officers around her, and the laughter came to Keiko's ears through the communication platform. At their level, basically, no one would fall while driving a mecha. This was even worse than a novice, so everyone thought that Keiko definitely did it intentionally.
Keiko blushed. She was so embarrassed that she wanted to find a hole and spend her whole life inside it.
How could she be so stupid?
If she wanted to look back, she only needed to turn around and switch the screen. The mecha was not a real person, and not all actions needed to be synchronized with the pilot's real body.
The first problem for new pilots was the simple act of turning the mecha. The axis of the mech coincides with the axis of the human body. When turning around, the human body only needs to exert force on the legs and waist to turn around; however, the mecha is different.
When the pilot made the mecha turn around, they needed to swing the joystick with their left hand to stabilize the center of gravity. If they turned their bodies directly, the result would be similar to what happened to Keiko before.
"Hahaha, Second Lieutenant Lee, please get up quickly. Is it a long time since you entered the virtual platform again and are still not used to it?" Jeanne's voice entered the intercom, she smiled reservedly, but there was a strong sense of sarcasm in her tone.
Keiko tried to control the mecha to stand up, struggled for a long time, and finally stood up shakily.
She hurriedly said, "Sorry, I just got a little dizzy and made a mistake."
"Oh, Second Lieutenant Lee might have a backlash from our new system. It stimulates the human cerebellum quite a bit," Jeanne said. "If Second Lieutenant Lee feels uncomfortable, you can log out first."
Keiko randomly made up an excuse. How could she know that it will be so beautifully twisted by Jeanne?
But she didn't intend to miss this rare opportunity to get familiar with the mecha, so she said, "It's okay, I'm feeling better now. Let's continue."
Everyone didn't seem to care too much about it. Since Keiko said she was fine, no one forced her to log out.
A prompt appeared in the upper left corner of the screen in front of her, and Jeanne's avatar appeared. She opened the public channel and took the top priority. In order to clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the new system, she began to explain in real-time.