The APU (Amplified Personel Unit), sometimes referred to as a Mech, is an armoured Noob unit, piloted by an Operator. They appear by forcefully dropping in near Dummy positions to drive them away at the start of a wave. They appear in standard modes starting from Wave 4. The APU works off of a system of 'mimicking' the actions and posture of the pilot, which is only possible through a special kind of exoskeleton worn by the user once entering the suit. The exoskeleton sends updated limb information to the computer, which then uses an advanced zero-latency fiberoptic cable to distribute the information to the various limbs. However, the legs are an exception to this rule, as they work off a hybrid type of computation. The legs are usually set to automatic, but can rarely be set to manual in the event of emergency or maintenance. Automatic mode works by having the two feet pedals automatically move into predicted feet positions using a very hard and durable type of fabric to support the weight of the user. This effectively creates a 'floor' for the user to walk on, allowing for seamless walking motion. Experienced pilots can often engage in a running motion, but unfortunately, not many experienced pilots are left. The vehicle also has a special collision-avoidance system that is often classified as a 'force-feedback mechanism'. How it works is that should one of the limbs of the vehicle experience an obstruction in their motion (i.e, a wall in the way of the arm), the limb will temporarily override the computer and instead inverse the signal, sending back refreshed data on how the pilot's exoskeleton should move accordingly with the new obstruction in mind. With this system, the seamlessness of the suit is enhanced, but can often lead to instances where the collision avoidance system and rotation checks fail, leading to brutal mangling incidents. With the added seamlessness of motion, an effective pilot can navigate an area in the dark or when blinded, by using only the sense of touch, in a way. Due to the nature of the 1:1 zero-latency mimick system, each suit has to be manually adjusted according to the user's arm-length and leg-length, as to prevent confusing cases of limbs overreaching. To help with this, the suit comes with the ability to retract or elongate the limbs through a simple slider, which is accessed through maintenance tools. Interestingly enough, the concept of a dual-way mimicking dates back to the patent of the original Chassis, which was designed for the Mastermind (identity yet to be disclosed). When designers were first making the system, they tried using an automatic stride-retargeting to plant the feet, but it was found to be too hard to maintain and often led to cases of strange feet positions, jeopardizing the balance of the Chassis. Instead, the designers opted for the dual-way mimick system, which turned out to be a very effective and easy-to-implement solution.
Thanks to u2471f for the original APU
