Combat is also a kind of sensory overload, and I want all my dolls to come back safe so they can do this again with each other.
I try not to gawk too much, and keep my eyes on the telemetry. Sometimes, as the sensory data rates get higher towards a climax, there are latency anomalies, dropped packets that point to incipient hardware failures or software bugs.
When the testing gets to more… sensitive parts of their bodies things tend to slow down a bit. Slow down and, well, deviate from the script. There's no hesitation: when you know exactly what someone is feeling there's no need.
Linked up like this they can feel every part of what the other feels, far better than in the groupsense. The test procedure becomes a formality and the simple feedback of reaction and sensation takes over.
Then it's on to nerve stimulation testing, the dolls taking turns touching each other lightly, firmly, with special cooled and heated rods, while I make sure every sensation is correctly transmitted. They don't really need my help, though.
This makes a tech's job easier: after I get the imaging done and load the firmware the dolls take turns conducting the sensorium test. It starts with simple proprioceptive testing, moving through a series of limb positions.
A compromise was found: we hacked together a version of the telemetry analysis tool that can run on a combat doll's implanted systems, and do the tests in pairs.
Dolls have different needs though, and the physiological stress response to disconnection screwed everything up. Plus they hated it, and you don't want to be someone they hate, trust me.
The official way to do this is to move one soldier at a time onto a dummy network with telemetry analysis software for detecting faults. Worked fine in testing!
It's important to check over each doll's entire sensorium to ensure the haptic link they share stays low-noise. Phantom nerve pain is unpleasant and leads to decoherence, dolls unconsciously pulling away from the groupsense.
Or the bacteria can overgrow their genetically targeted neurons, and have to be pruned back with targeted antibiotics. Biotech is the best nanotech but it can still be more of an art than a science.
The tiny, bacterium-deposited electrode filaments can self-heal to some degree but a concussion can screw things up, and even this kind of war is still full of concussions.