IS Information

[Neo]

Shielding
• Primary protection for IS and its pilot is provided through use of energy shield (invisible to naked eye) that could block both physical and optical weapons. The protection level of IS shield is sufficient to be impenetrable to most conventional weaponry, but it could be penetrated by high-powered IS weaponry.
• The basic armor plates of IS offer minimal protection against incoming attack, since any weapon powerful enough to pierce the shield would be also powerful enough to penetrate the armor plate. (That should explain why the pilots are so scantly covered by armor plates)
• However, special equipments such as additional physical/energy shield or augmented heavy armor plate (specially designed to withstand damage) could provides moderate to adequate level of protection.
• The integrity of the energy shield is maintained unless the IS is depleted of power, but the shield tends to lose its strength when nearing a complete power depletion. (Same thing applies to all other components such as armor plates. Weapons, especially, tend to have difficulty maintaining the materialized shape when nearing power depletion)
PIC (Passive Inertia Control)
• Incorporating PIC allows the IS to accomplish extreme agility and mobility unparalleled by any conventional platform.
• PIC largely absorbs and negates impact shock, thus protecting the pilot and the IS from catastrophic events such as high-speed collision.
• PIC is also applied to flight assist, and coupled with gravity control technology, makes IS capable of flight and hovering.
Hyper Sensor
• When the pilot is linked to Hyper Sensor, she receive augmented sensory input data from IS's sensor, directly into 5 sensory system in her body. Simply put, when piloting an IS, the pilot's senses such as vision are greatly improved.
• Using the sensory data input from IS, the pilot gains 360 degree field of view, being able to 'see' directions that are not possible for human body without turning her head (Such as behind, directly above and below)
• However, because such improved sensory input is much different from normal human body, the pilot must process the input date into something she could comprehend first. (The speed and efficiency of processing such data decides the effectiveness of IS piloting)
Battle Damage / Repair
• As IS gains experience during any situation while it is active, (be it normal training or combat, or even a simple checkup) it records data about its every components and proceeds with optimization process. When IS receive damage, it automatically tries to repair the damage during its Closed Form period. The resulting data collected would be implemented throughout its component to improve their efficiency, but the damaged component would be left out of equation.
• It is possible to activate a damaged IS (as long as it has power left) but such action - especially entering combat situation with damaged IS - is highly undesirable, since IS would try to cope with the given situation only with components that are still operational.
• Activating a partially damaged IS causes the inoperable components (damaged parts) to stop optimization until it is fully repaired.
For an example, If an IS loses a leg, and is forced into combat it would try to maintain its performance as best as it could without use of a leg. So, even when the leg is fully repaired, it would show a discrepancy of efficiency compared to other components, which will continue to compound the situation as the IS keep on operating.
• For that reason, even the most hot-headed pilot tends to refrain from forcing damaged IS into action.
Components
The basic components of an IS are:
1. Cores - The Black box of an IS that allows it to function. Because only 467 Cores were created, most of them are shared by the world's governments where only a few IS pilots, who work under certain organizations and large corporations, possess their own personal IS. The reason for having Designated Pilot and Personal IS lies with the very nature of IS itself; possessing self evolving mechanism which is manifested only when IS is kept paired with a pilot for a prolonged time. It is considered illegal to exchange or remove the cores, due to the fact the core is a mixture of an AI and a power source.
2. Energy Barrier / Absolute Defense - The Absolute Protection is activated by IS itself and not by pilot.
If the attack is deemed by the IS as not life-threatening to cause serious injury to its pilot, IS would not activate Absolute Protection ability, even if it results in minor~moderate injury to its pilot.

This ability is said to be able to protect the pilot from any kind of attack, but it also has seriously high power consumption, depleting the power of IS with just single activation.m(In that sense, it is more like pilot safety mechanism rather than combat defense mechanism) In competitions, the pilot is declared to have lost the fight if the shield level hits zero, so as to avoid any injury to the pilots.


There is also the option of adding additional weaponry to the Personal IS (known as Equaliser). However they have to specially made for the IS in question, a complication made problematic since each core is unique and may reject the equipment made. Here's the following equipment. Due to the limited number of IS cores , most of them are being used in R&D, being distributed and shared among the world's governments and corporations. The types of IS are split into 2 categories:
1. Training IS - Used to train IS students in how to use an IS. It's settings remain the same despite the user. Japan, being the leading pioneer for IS, has developed a mass-production version to train those at IS academy, but one must have permission to use it.
2. Personal IS - Special IS units that "bond" and change to fit with the user's specifications. Originally harder to use in their default settings but once formatted to their users, they become like an extension of the users themselves. Personal IS units' abilities far surpass those of the Training IS units, boasting greater output in firepower, speed and maneuverability, etc.