38 Mech Simulation

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be that much of a difference between the simulation pod located within the function room of the government building and a personal VR pod one can get installed within their own homes. However, once a person actually 'dived' into the simulation world, they would notice a huge difference between both.

First, a normal civilian VR pod can be safely used by anyone and everyone -- even babies who just came out from the womb can dive into a simulation using a VR pod unharmed. The reason is that a VR pod is directly connected with each person's biochip wirelessly, allowing for the chip within a person's brain to directly create a false reality through the stimulation of the brain and the central nervous system. Therefore, a person simply need to sit within a VR pod, insert a gaming chip within said pod, before experiencing the game that they wanted to play.

On the other hand, a military-grade simulation pod requires a much higher energy consumption and can only be used by consenting people above the age of 16. That is because the pod fully encases one's brain and directly connects itself into one's nervous system using the same technology as mechs. Therefore, such a simulation pod would produce a 100% effectiveness when creating and generating an imagery, allowing for its host to fully embrace him or herself within the simulated environment.

To make it simple, a VR pod is basically a toned down version of a simulation pod. One would be stimulated enough to fully enjoy themselves in a VR pod, whilst a simulation pod are for those who wants an even more hardcore and realistic environment.

Not surprisingly, Daniel wanted to book a room and use a simulation pod since it was the only way for him to practice piloting a mech without actually using the real thing. Since a normal student studying at EUMA would have already gotten a mass-produced mech for practice by now, a person like Daniel looking to transfer in can only hope to get the same experience through these simulation rooms that are up for reservation by the government or large companies with the same resources.

Though, since private simulation rooms are much more expensive than government-owned ones, Daniel did not have the luxury to use the former and thus could only use the government simulation rooms once a week after waiting through a massive online queue.

On the other hand, Jake simply tagged along since Daniel needed a sparring partner. Otherwise, he would have literally done anything else instead.

"Are you sure you don't want me to book a private simulation room for you? I can ask my dad to get you one for free." Jake asked with nice intentions when he enetered the virtual lobby within the simulated war game that the both of them are going to play.

"No thanks, I don't wanna owe you anything." Daniel replied, shaking his head.

Since the two of them were only playing a private game with each other, there were no need for them to conceal or change their faces within the game. Therefore, the two of them simply stayed exactly the same when entering into the lobby that looked as though they were floating in space, with shiny stars glowing all around them.

In front of them were a selection of many different mechs. Daniel used his hand and made a swiping motion to scroll through and read the stats of all the mechs that the game had to offer before finally choosing one that looked satisfying to him.

In less than a second, the scenery before Daniel changed. It looked as though he was suddenly swept into a wormhole before being transported at high speeds towards his destination. When he finally arrived at the designated map, he found himself being thrusted into the middle of an epic space battle.

Daniel immediately turned on the shield function on his mech to prevent himself from being hit by the criss-crossing laser beams as he materialized into the hostile environment.

<2. 1. 0. Good luck, soldier.>

Daniel directly materialized standing on top of an asteroid barely enough to stand one person. The first thing he did was to take a look at the map located on the top left corner of the screen before him, while also making sure to evade any attacks that might arrive by focusing on the rest of the screen.

"Most of the people within the radar is green, meaning that they're friendlies." Daniel thought to himself. "It seems that the enemies are too far away to directly aim at us. Though, I still need to be wary of the stray shots directed my way."

A GP mech suit, or general purpose mech suit, is said to be a jack of all trades yet master of none. The reason for this is because the mech is mainly designed by engineers so that they could fit as many different type of weapons within the mech as possible. Initially designed for the purpose of being the next superweapon, soldiers didn't take long to find out that such a mech suit is actually useless in real battle.

Since the mech suit is equipped with a long-ranged sniper rifle, two beam sabers, quite a number of carbon fiber daggers and a propulsion system designed to be energetic enough to penetrate the atmosphere of the Earth, such a mech is too heavy against lightweight mech suits, while the energy consuption needed only to maintain all the weapons within the suit meant that the weapons themselves would each have a lower spec rating than a specialized mech suit.

Though, since a person would be able to use all the different categories of weapons invented by mankind within the same suit, the GP suits are now used for the purposes of training cadets and newbies who just joined the military, so that they can get used to wielding each type of weapon before finding their own specialties and moving on to a different mech. This is also the reason why Daniel is currently using such a mech despite the fact that he's basically shooting himself in the foot by using such a mech to participate in a war game with Jake.

Since the war game is a capture the flag mission fought between two opposing team, with Jake and Daniel each commanding a platoon of 20 NPCs, with many battleships shooting at their direction from outside the playable zone, Daniel did not actually need to find and get himself into a one-on-one battle with Jake. Therefore, after flying around the many asteroids to reach the rest of his computer-controlled teammates, Daniel simply decided to have them protect him for now as he continued to get himself familiar with the usage of the general purpose mech suit.

Unfortunately, Jake seemed to have caught on to this and didn't give Daniel any chances. Within an instant, a super-long-range sniper rifle directly shot through at least 20 asteroids before directly burning through 5 of the teammates protecting Daniel's vanguard. The only reason Daniel got out of this sudden attack unscaved was because one of the teammates managed to push Daniel's mech out of range before the large laser beam arrived.

At the same time, a robotic voice resounded from within Daniel's mech, notifying him of the news before he even had the chance to take a breath.

"Damn! Jake actually chose to use a Sniper-type!" Daniel cursed. "How did he manage to catch onto our tails so quickly when everyone in my team have turned on their stealth function?"

Little did he know, Jake had simply fired continuously with his sniper rifle at random directions and only managed to hit Daniel's team through sheer luck. Well, the former did have to fire at least 10 times, diminishing most of the energy within his own mech in order to achieve such a feat. His mech didn't even have the energy to fire another round.

Of course, Daniel didn't know this so he could only retreat with the remnants of his team. Although he lost five teammates in one go, maybe it was actually a blessing in disguise since he now know where Jake's location was after the latter revealed himself from the last shot.

Since there were no long-ranged snipers within his own team, Daniel could only split the rest of his team up into two, having one team zig-zag toward Jake's location while he himself head elsewhere to hide while also sending out unmanned probes at the same time to scout out the location of the opponents' flag. Unfortunately, by the time the first squad reached Jake's location, the latter had already left the area without even leaving a clue as to where he went.

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