After the disaster that was initial mecha testing, you immediately called a halt to all further live testing while things got settled. After designating armor design and gyro teams, you got to work on dissecting the issues with the cockpit.
Sitting in a de-powered unit, you quickly started figuring out how the cockpit worked, and it didn't take long to figure out the issues with the controls. France did not, as a country, have a long history with the conceptual bipedal mecha. America had pushed for those designs the hardest, building to exploit open ground and areas between formations with speed: your national mecha were meanwhile designed to bull-rush enemy lines, straight through blizzards of rifle and machine-gun fire through strength of arms and armor.
Design-wise, the 0-2 cockpit was fairly simple: left and right feet handled the saunters, left hand operated the belly machine guns, right hand runs throttle, clutch, choke, gyro adjuster, parking brake, gearshift, and the three-switch radio and comms set. The refractive sight for the machine guns was set up on a tracking boom arm so you knew where they were aimed, and was normally rotated up and out of the way: everything else was fairly well-handled.
The problem was visibility and instrumentation. Once you got the stool adjusted and positioned yourself for operation, you quickly discovered the viewing ports were completely inadequate. The first thing you learned for handling the Araignée was to make sure you had proper side visibility to inspect for list and roll issues: something you don't have here. That was one thing to fix, both with better windows, and with ways to automatically determine roll, pitch, and yaw. Unfortunately, while you could use a fairly simple pendant-system for the clinometer, everything else would need to have an artificial zeo. That, in turn, meant gyroscopes.
While instrument developers might try and feed you a load about 'reading requirements off the main mecha stabilizing gyro', you knew intimately this was a load of horse shit. Each gauge would need its own, very small, stabilizing gyroscope. They didn't need a ton of stabilizing power if the gimbals were good enough- and gimbals were pretty easy- but they did need to be moving at a decent clip. Fortunately, there was already a Government Approved Supplier who made pretty much these exact instruments for the Service Aéronautique. Unfortunately, it meant developing a vacuum system.
The thing to remember about gyros is that gyrostabalization worked on anything spinning around a fixed axle. So, for instance, if you put a Pelton Wheel on an axle, and put that axle on a gimbal? Boom! Wind-powered gyroscope, as long as there was constant wind. Get the vacuum system set up to provide that wind, and you were in business. Working with Conrad, you quickly integrated the vacuum-dependant systems into their own panel, set up the vacuum system, and you moved on to other cockpit issues: specifically, visibility.
While you didn't like it, the pilot's upper box was untenable for satisfactory operation. Attempting to drive and operate the mecha normally was neigh-impossible while using it, so your first order of business was to delete it entirely and replace it with a flat hatch. Instead, you'd need to introduce a series of four vision blocks, so as not to compromise armor. While there would still be slightly dodgy forward visibility, a pair of safety mirrors attached to the sides of the vision blocks forward would make sure the blind spot extended no more than one meter ahead of the mecha.
Once that was all handled, the next question was pilot safety. Additional pads were to be installed on the vehicle for pilot bumps, and more importantly, a series of five padded grab-bars were added to make sure that in course of operations or emergency a pilot wouldn't grab a structural frame member that was holding something critical, such as vacuum lines, electrical lines, torsion lines, or god forbid the pneumatic line to the emergency gyroscope disconnect.
Once all that was filed and the work done with Guilmont & Sons (who were actually quite happy with the additions of the vacuum system and related gauge panel; one of the sons was talking excitedly about a standardized instrument cluster for the entire mecha) you got to work on other issues: specifically the armor and the gyro.
While the gyroscopic system didn't require many changes, it did require two major ones. The first, and critical, change was to add an automatic shaft speed compensator. If the engine spun up rapidly, the system would initially wind down the gyroscopic weights to compensate. Likewise, the reverse was true now as well. The second major change to make was a mounting one: the gyroscope needed to be mounted about 15cm forward of its current position. To do this required some inspired adjustments, and a large angled brace, since the meat of the support structure couldn't come forward with the system or else it could interfere with the hip structural assemblies.
Armor, however, was the worst modification. Saint-Chamond was very unhappy about modifying their castings for the armor pieces, but needs must: you needed to get as much weight back as possible. The dome would become more oblong, and while peak thickness would remain at 50mm, most of the dome would need to slope down to 40mm in order to make the casting not deform in use and still meet the mounting points. However, the modifications meant you were now only 2cm over starting length instead of 6cm over starting length, and along the way had saved something like a sixth of a ton in actual weight, and potentially infinitely more in effective weight due to shortening the moment arm of the leverage that the armor's weight would be putting against the legs. In addition, you also added something most designers wouldn't consider: a series of chain hooks to the bottom of the mecha. The purpose, you explained, would be to allow mechanics to chain the mecha to the ground while putting on armor, so as to prevent shifts in the mecha.
Once all this was done, prototype mecha 0-2 needed to go out and see how the changes felt. Unfortunately, that meant getting a test pilot- and St. Ignacio was flatly refusing to use it. The man had recently married, and as much as the ladies enjoyed a daring test pilot, they did not enjoy the 'live fast go out in a blaze of glory' mindset when it would be a blaze of glory less than a month after the wedding. As such, you had to hire another test pilot.
////
Votes
New test pilot: choose two, two highest are hired.
[] Pierre Vans: Calm veteran of the Great War.
[] Anna Petroyvina Chompevsky: Steadfast former ambulence mecha pilot.
[] Marc Fitzroy: Energetic engineering student
[] James Colchanac: Desperate Irish Army expatriate
[] Yves Montessor: Seasoned German civil mecha operator
