The Fey Fianna under the control of Commander Ikeon Powell gradually fought more proficiently.
The rcenary commander might not be exceptionally talented or clever, but the man had to possess enough skill in order to earn the respect of his subordinates.
As an experienced rcenary leader who piloted many different chs over the course of his career, his ability to pick up new machines and quickly beco proficient in their use was not weak.
The manual that the Larkinsons had given to him also contained a lot of helpful tips and thought exercises that could help ch pilots control multiple objects.
As projections of chs continually appeared inside the vast central grounds of Phoca Arena, the sole Fey Fianna controlled by a new ch pilot organically displayed all of its basic capabilities.
A lot of ch pilots and other ch insiders gained a more intuitive grasp of the Fey Fianna's speed, maneuverability, accuracy and many other traits.
Seeing a ch in action granted them a much better idea of how the ch would fare in combat than seeing a lot of numbers on a spec sheet.
At a certain point, the projected chs began to be replaced by battle bots. These machines were relatively cheap and disposable, but they exerted enough pressure onto the Fey Fianna that Commander Powell had to pay attention to defense.
Relying on the adaptive modular armor system had to be avoided as much as possible. It was not desirable to rely on hard armor to fend off attacks because it was a non-renewable resource.
The main defensive tool in this demonstration was the water hyper energy shield fey.
The single fey's energy shield was not as strong as a transphasic energy shield, but it did a good job at trying to close the gap.
Whenever the fey projected its energy shield in a bubble that was large enough to cover the main body, its entire surface glowed in blue.
At the sa ti, it produced an illusion that resembled multiple whirlpools that seed to suck all of the energy out of incoming attacks.
Both laser beams and gauss rounds found themselves unable to wear down the energy shield as effectively as before.
Once a battle bot started to employ a hyper weapon the results drastically changed.
The battle bot ard with a laser rifle suddenly released a beam that was imbued with fire energy!
Boom!
A small explosion erupted when the fiery beam struck the water energy shield!
The collision between fire and water often produced explosive results, and this was no different.
However, the power of the laser beam could not overco the power of the energy shield.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The firepower of the battle bot ard with a hyper weapon largely beca suppressed by the water energy shield.
Even though the louder explosions looked more dramatic, the reality was that much of that power got wasted when it was directed elsewhere.
The water energy shield decisively held the advantage in this instance!
Ves occasionally narrated what was happening as the demonstration continued to unfold before everyone's eyes.
"Water energy and fire energy normally enjoy an antagonistic relationship. If everything is equal, then water usually holds an advantage, which ans that it is the most suitable elent to defend against energy attacks imbued with fire energy. However, the energy shield fey cannot keep this up forever. The incoming laser beam attacks will still deal damage even if they are unable to display their full power."
The Fey Fianna's other two living fey locked onto the threatening battle bot and sought to puml it into pieces.
This was difficult as both sides did not remain stationary. The Fey Fianna and its accompanying fey were constantly moving around, which made it difficult to maintain an acceptable degree of accuracy.
The opposing battle bot did not enjoy much protection, but that made it lighter and more nimble.
It was a challenge for the two offensive fey to land their attacks, especially when the ch pilot in charge of them was completely new to attacking with the help of spurs!
However, enough ti had passed for Commander Powell to understand the knack to utilizing them. Drone chs existed long enough for ch pilots to develop a lot of standardized techniques and ntal shortcuts that enabled them to improve their control of their difficult machines.
Ves had studied them as well. "Ah, I see that Commander Powell is utilizing two related control techniques at once. The manual that we have provided them has only given him a description of how to execute them, but the living ch he is piloting is actively helping him to perform these new and unfamiliar thods. This is one of the reasons why his control has improved so quickly."
The lack of proficiency at the start was quite clear and obvious to the ch pilots with drone ch experience. They had lived through this phase as well.
The difference was that it usually took weeks if not months for them to ta their spurs and make them move according to their will!
Even if those past struggles happened with more traditional drone chs with a dozen spurs or more, it was still remarkable how Commander Powell was able to control four different fey without looking like a fool.
"The first control technique he is using is to imagine that his fey are limbs extending from his ch. ch pilots often pull it off by visualizing their fey as tentacles. By imagining that the ch has 4 extra tentacle limbs extending out of its sides or back, it becos easier to control the fey like they are extra hands. Of course, this ntal model also cos with a number of downsides. The spurs have to stay relatively close to the main body, and they cannot make movents that would cause the extra limbs to break or perform illogical movents."
This was a tried-and-true control technique that every drone ch pilot started with. It reduced the complexity of controlling the spurs while also borrowing existing human neural pathways related to the control of limbs.
It was a lot easier to get started with this technique when the ch pilot hopped inside the cockpit of a humanoid ch that actually possessed such a limb structure.
Piloting a ch with five, six or eight arms enabled ch pilots to experience what it was like to control additional limbs that did not directly correspond to the human body.
Once they transferred to a drone ch, the gap between their past and current machines wasn't as big as before, making it much easier for the ch pilot to intuitively control spurs as if they were tentacles.
More proficient drone ch specialists usually abandoned this technique once they got enough practice under their belt. The true potential of spurs could only be unleashed if they were allowed to travel much further away from the main body or perform complicated maneuvers that could make actual tentacles get twisted into knots.
However, that was not an issue that most beginners had to worry about. The extra limb control technique was already good enough for most ch pilots.
"Aside from the extra limb control technique, do you see how synchronized the luminar crystal cannon fey and the gauss cannon fey have beco? They have practically beco twins with each other. They are always floating next to each other. Their guns are pointed at the exact sa direction with minimal deviations in angle. They even fire their weapons at the sa ti despite the fact that the luminar crystal cannon can fire faster. This is usually known as the spurs-as-fingers technique or the fingering technique."
The spurs-as-fingers technique was an approach that encouraged the ch pilots to imagine the spurs as individual fingers attached to the sa hand.
Doing this activated certain parts of a ch pilot's brain that was related to controlling the fingers of their own hands. This effectively reduced the burden of controlling multiple spurs as the ch pilot automatically 'grouped' them in the sa hand.
This was an especially helpful control technique for drone chs that carried many spurs.
It helped even more if the spurs were either identical to each other or possessed enough similarities that it did not matter too much.
This made it a mandatory technique for any ch pilot expected to master the Sparrow Storm!
No baseline human ch pilot could effectively control an entire ch as well as 16 spurs at once.
Without relying on augntations, a ch pilot had to use shortcuts like these to make the process of controlling all of those spurs more manageable.
Naturally, more seasoned drone ch specialists eventually abandoned this technique as well.
The disadvantages of grouping lots of spurs to the sa 'hand' were considerable. The lack of flexibility and the inability to maximize the use of every spur in a given mont restricted the ch pilots too much.
The prestige of piloting drone chs without the use of these training wheels was considerable!
Only those who were able to control every spur as if they were individual fishes swimming around the main body were recognized as true drone ch specialists.
Their skill and lethality with a drone ch was on another level. They were highly desired among certain employers who recognized the benefits of using drone chs. The highly specialized ch pilots were usually able to negotiate much higher salaries and other benefits due to their value.
In addition to that, drone ch specialists usually made for good battlefield commanders. Their ability to multitask and pay attention to many different moving elents at once could easily be applied to commanding entire ch units.
Once drone chs started to age and decline from their peak, it was natural for them to switch to command chs and start ordering around their subordinate ch units like they were spurs.
Ves did not think that would apply to the Fey Fianna. It was not a typical drone ch, and its target audience did not consist of ch pilots who were necessarily good at controlling many different pieces at once.
While other drone chs forced ch pilots to adapt to their unique circumstances, the Fey Fianna instead took the initiative to accommodate its own ch pilots!
The demonstration that continued to unfold before him made that very clear.
With the help of the extra limb control technique and the spurs-as-fingers technique, Commander Powell exerted enough control over his offensive fey to aim and fire their modest arsenal as if they were guns on a weapon turret!
Each ti the luminar crystal cannon fey and the gauss cannon fey fired their respective weapons, their output either missed or struck their targets in almost perfect synchronicity!
Most salvos missed as it was not easy for spurs to land hits against a maneuverable battle bot, but Powell was constantly improving his proficiency in his techniques.
Bang!
The battle bot eventually got struck enough tis for it to malfunction and collapse to the arena floor!
More threatening battle bots erged. Each of them were equipped with basic hyper weapons that produced different reactions when they struck the water energy shield depending on their E energy attributes.
The additional battle bots stressed the defenses of the Fey Fianna while at the sa forcing it to quickly eliminate the machines by improving its hit rate.
Commander Powell endured a lot more stress than before, but he grit his teeth and persisted in this challenge!
This demonstration did not only showcase the excellent features of the Fey Fianna, but also revealed how such a ch would fare in the hands of a capable ch pilot that had yet to pilot a drone ch than before.
If such a pilot was already capable of reaching this level of combat effectiveness, then how much better would a true drone ch specialist perform under the sa circumstances?
The lower limit of the Fey Fianna beca quite clear after this display.
However, the true value of the Fey Fianna still remained unclear so long as its upper limit had yet to be shown!
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