Following the previous discussion, and the somewhat less than apropos features of several models from both the revised KS renders and HG: Assault arena combat game in development for PC, I got to wondering:
- What makes a Gear a Gear, as opposed to say a Mount, Frame, or Armiger: is it something as simple as pilot head in vehicle sensor "head" assembly (which is not universal amongst even the Terra Novan factions) or something else entirely separate?
- What distinctive thematic elements set walker vehicles in Heavy Gear apart from the endless cycle of pseudo-copied Appleseed, Gundam, Patlabor, Robotech, etc etc etc [insert other manga/anime setting here] mechanical designs?
CEF frames are slimmer, more like large powered armor. They also (probably) are only piloted by brains in jars.
The mounts are less worn, and more driven or piloted. Like a car, or an Apache helicopter, except with legs. I imagine they have multiple operators.
Gears have several universal design features, primarily arms, v-engine, and ONN. This is because all gears are descendant from the same design. Basically REASLLY large power armor, and more worn than piloted, due to the interface.
What sets them apart from MOST anime robots is that they are not super, just general troopers.
I won't comment on the frames, armigers, and mounts as I didn't ever get the RPG books that explained the history behind them (and I only like the aesthetics of one of those, namely the mounts).
In regards to gears, I'd say as someone who initially got hooked on HG prior to its release due to a Gencon prereg book promo picture, I'd say the following are what defines a HG:
1) The Size. Bigger than a "power armor" but smaller than a big stompy robot. That sweet spot of about 10ft to 20ft roughly is what works for me with the scout gears being on the low end and the kodiak/king cobra on the high end. The gear striders are the straw that breaks that particular camel's back for me in that regard.
2) The role. They're not the super gundam be all and end all they do everything better than other vehicles style machines. They're elite in that they're better than infantry (whether in armor or power armor) but they're still the boots on the ground jack of all trades. They tough but other things are tougher (tanks). They're fast but other things are faster (aircraft). They're the legos of the HG universe that you can build almost anything with them but you don't necessarily want them to do everything. To put it in the terms of the shows I watched as growing up as a kid in the 1980's, they're not the Super Friends or the 6 Million Dollar Man but rather the Black Sheep Squadron of scifi robot combat and I wouldn't have them any other way.
3) The look. I simply like the original asthetics. As stated above, the look of an assault hunter in some jungle foliage is what caught my eye initially and kept it on Heavy Gear for over 20 years despite all the unfriendly moves by the company during that time. I'd say a gear is defined for me as a robot of 10-20ft with a bit of a ultiliarian look that has a general human shape (head, torso, 2 arms, 2 legs) with a v-engine and a variety of weapons in most cases (again jack of all trades).
YMMV but that is what defines a gear for me at least relatively off the top of my head. I frankly don't really like the infantry, tanks, striders, aircraft and gear striders in HG as much but I appreciate that they're present there both in the fluff and as models. I own most of the categories above (except gear striders as I think they suck up to the lowest common denominator) to some degree but the gears in HG will always be my favorite.
For me, from an outsider's perspective, what separates a Gear from other media's mecha is less the appearance, and more the role in story/game. A gear is a specialist, where as something like a Gundam/Mech/Titan is more of a generalist. In universe a gear's primary roles are fighting in built up terrain, close support for infantry, and maneuverable firepower. Anything else is specifically done better by other units. Tanks are tougher, with more firepower. Aircraft are faster with more firepower. Infantry are better at holding and seizing ground, ect. Gears are really just flexible support, whether as a cheap auto-cannon platform, or with an electronic support system, at least in terms of manpower (one pilot vs a multi-crew vehicle, or "throwaway gear" instead of an expensive tank).
While not unique, most other mecha tend to be used to slug it out with every possible opponent. A mech with an AC/20 is expected to fight mechs, tanks, infantry, anything but aircraft, and it may have weapons to deal with them. A gear however, though it might have AT weapons, it's still in a position where in most cases there are better tools for the job, such as other tanks, dedicated artillery, or (theoretically) infantry.
To me thats what separates a gear from other mecha. Out of universe I don't find much difference between a Gear, a Frame, or an Armiger (sp). They're all on man machines, designed to bring heavier-than-infantry-less-than-tank fire/support to bear, particularly in rough terrain.
I agree, I really like the gears-as-IFV thing. Reminds me of 8th M.S. team and Gasaraki (before the magic stuff started kicking in), or going way back R. A. Heinleins Starship Troopers.
To me a Gear is Gear because of the versatility and universality of it. A Frame is a high-end specialised machine with a lot of down time. A Mount is likewise specialised. A Gear can be deployed for five days, go through a dust storm, and come home to pick up a new gun and some fuel and get back at it. (A Hunter, obviously, not an elite strike machine.) Gears aren't magic mounts for teenagers. They are military machines that fill a role, not completely alter combat as we know it.
Visually: the V-engine (I remember the first time I saw a Frame's X-engine in HG2 - madness!), the human shape, the relatively small size, the agility; big feet, big ankles and shins; torso and head that look like a human is inside of them; blocky North/round South; roller skates and swords.
It would be negligent of me not to mention Ghislain.
Spoiler:
He drew that last year. It still looks as much like a Gear as what he was drawing 20 years ago.
Nice! If I had to pick two artists that defined the visuals that got me into RPG and tabletop gaming they would be Palladium's Kevin Long and Dp9's Ghislain.
Firebreak wrote: Visually: [..] the agility; big feet, big ankles and shins; torso and head that look like a human is inside of them; [..]
Along with other points raised, on reflection this could definitely be one of the biggest differences from how the vast majority of drawings portray combat walkers.
Because yeah: - The bulky lower legs of Gears do look like part of a machine carrying a heavy load that also has to balance out a tall structure while maneuvering. - The feet are wide, big, like they are intended to try and lower the impact pressure of a vehicle whose movement system makes a lot of compromises when compared to other types. - Both features look reasonable for protecting the moving parts from damage caused by landmines or area effect shells landing nearby, common impediments on any battlefield.
I can buy, even while disagreeing, concept artists not understanding or wanting to be bothered learning about things military, but mud (and other similar examples of soft terrain) is something everyone should be able to easily grasp. Personally, I haven't come across much any art that seems to acknowledge what effect this basic fact of life would have on their designs.
warboss wrote: [..] I frankly don't really like the infantry, tanks, striders, aircraft and gear striders in HG as much but I appreciate that they're present there both in the fluff and as models. I own most of the categories above (except gear striders as I think they suck up to the lowest common denominator) to some degree but the gears in HG will always be my favorite.
I like vehicles along with the Gears, but won't be surprising anyone when I say I've also always found them rather uninspired, even in the original setting sources.
Compared to the walkers most vehicles in HG have been pretty bland over the years, with only a few getting some kind of facelift of late, if not almost outright copies of things from Gundam (eyes the Voltigeur MBT and Sampson HAPC) or another setting.
Because yeah:
- The bulky lower legs of Gears do look like part of a machine carrying a heavy load that also has to balance out a tall structure while maneuvering.
- The feet are wide, big, like they are intended to try and lower the impact pressure of a vehicle whose movement system makes a lot of compromises when compared to other types.
You mean to tell me that shapely gundam legs and mecha high heels aren't practical??!!?!
I remember the owner of my FLGS once discussing how some of his physics buddies had calculated just how rediculously fethed the Battletech Battlemechs would be if they ever actually tried to put so much weight on such little feet in natural terrain, let alone actually be able to walk around in it. The conversation basically ended with "but, even so, they're still just too cool to care"
I did enjoy the early Gasaraki episodes where the mechs were basically Gears without wheels. Each unit of 4 mechs was directed by a commander and team in a dedicated mobile command vehicle using radio and satelite in real-time. Gasaraki tried very hard to make you not need to suspend your disbelief too much...until they just threw it all aside and said "just kidding, magic and demons, b!#@es!" :( VOTOMS was the big, direct inspiration for HG Gears, but Gasaraki initially felt like they were really trying to ground the mechs in realism.
I remember that scene. Spent the whole time wondering why no one had deployed infantry, you know, like a sane person in urban combat. Than I realized that this must have been heavy gear, where the infantry isn't worth the TV (at least not yet).
Going back to the original topic, while gears do have features that make them more http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealRobotGenre?from=Main.RealRobot/Real Robot[url] than alot of others, some of the wheels on assault gears are rather tiny. Even with the tank treads in the back half, I've always wondered why they didn't get stuck.
Honestly with battletech, it's a mixed bag. They have so many designs now, with such a huge variety, that there are just as many with practical feet/legs, as there are without. My biggest battletech hang up though has always been with: 1. In general, where do they store ammo? based on the size of the opening in an LRM rack, where is there room for ONE ton of ammo (120 missiles), let alone the 2-6 tons that regularly get equipped? These are missiles the size of a person.
Than we have this...
[img]http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/thumb/d/df/TaiSho.jpg/191px-TaiSho.jpg.png
[/img]
That hole in it's chest is an auto cannon. Not even the biggest in the game, just an AC 10. This mech carries 30 rounds of ammo in it's torso. For the gun in it's torso that is also the size of it's torso. The size of it's torso. The size of it's torso. This isn't even cool. It's just "Hey let's go F&^# a bear!" stupid. At least with the missiles, I can pretend that they're multi-cell launchers, and just let it go. But an AC 10, six times bigger than most AC 20's (the biggest AC).
maceria wrote: [..] Gears have several universal design features, primarily arms, v-engine, and ONN. [..]
warboss wrote: [..] I'd say a gear is defined for me as a robot of 10-20ft with a bit of a utilitarian look that has a general human shape (head, torso, 2 arms, 2 legs) with a v-engine and a variety of weapons in most cases (again jack of all trades). [..]
Firebreak wrote: [..] Visually: the V-engine (I remember the first time I saw a Frame's X-engine in HG2 - madness!), the human shape, the relatively small size, the agility; big feet, big ankles and shins; torso and head that look like a human is inside of them; [..]
"Homiform" would seem to be the primary visual characteristic in-setting then? With Mounts being of similar utility but not sharing the design approach so as to more efficiently carry heavier weapons or have greater protection just due to shape (I guess they could be considered smaller Striders by that definition)?
warboss wrote: You mean to tell me that shapely Gundam legs and mecha high heels aren't practical??!!?!
lol, when I watch/see the old-style Veritech jets I tend to wonder why the battloid mode feet (thruster shrouds) aren't just chock full of debris & dirt every time they go to try and fly away in guardian or jet mode.
Kalamadea wrote: [..] I did enjoy the early Gasaraki episodes where the mechs were basically Gears without wheels. Each unit of 4 mechs was directed by a commander and team in a dedicated mobile command vehicle using radio and satellite in real-time. Gasaraki tried very hard to make you not need to suspend your disbelief too much...until they just threw it all aside and said "just kidding, magic and demons, b!#@es!" :( VOTOMS was the big, direct inspiration for HG Gears, but Gasaraki initially felt like they were really trying to ground the mechs in realism.
Interesting - definitely shows where many ideas for Northern Gear features originated.
Additionally interesting is how these older anime/manga series implicitly acknowledge the potential for airburst-capable weapons getting better and better thanks to miniaturized seekers, fuzing, and on-weapon processors. More than a few mechanical designs on the web are going to lose some if not all of their ranged delivery systems just from the very first proximity blast(s) shredding ammo belts and the like, which doesn't sound very fun if used for a game. It shouldn't really be necessary for most everything in a setting to get plot armor to compensate for such obvious flaws that make little sense on a war machine in the first place.
After all, combat walkers are still armored vehicles, the whole point of which is to allow your own force to maneuver under AoE attacks initiated to fix you into place (or break up your mutually supporting formation) while being flanked or whatnot by a hostile force. Likewise, armored protection to maybe survive a direct fire ambush long enough to maneuver away from the engagement and/or return fire from a more advantageous position.
Kalamadea wrote: I remember the owner of my FLGS once discussing how some of his physics buddies had calculated just how ridiculously fethed the Battletech Battlemechs would be if they ever actually tried to put so much weight on such little feet in natural terrain, let alone actually be able to walk around in it. [..]
Mmmpi wrote: [..] Going back to the original topic, while gears do have features that make them more Real Robot than alot of others, some of the wheels on assault gears are rather tiny. Even with the tank treads in the back half, I've always wondered why they didn't get stuck. [..]
I noticed on the dA page that trope links to someone mentioned dinosaurs, because to my understanding some animals tend to have high ground pressure and do bog down on occasion or else get slowed enough to become lunch for something else. It's all about the terrain trying to be crossed, and floating the vehicle across it - or say the foundation for a structure versus what is underneath it.
Why dinosaurs can somehow justify 10+ meters tall machines that may have less overall horsepower is a bit of a mystery to me though.
Mmmpi wrote: [..] My biggest Battletech hang up though has always been with: 1. In general, where do they store ammo? based on the size of the opening in an LRM rack, where is there room for ONE ton of ammo (120 missiles), let alone the 2-6 tons that regularly get equipped? These are missiles the size of a person. [..] This mech carries 30 rounds of ammo in it's torso. For the gun in it's torso that is also the size of it's torso. The size of it's torso. The size of it's torso. This isn't even cool. It's just "Hey let's go F&^# a bear!" stupid. At least with the missiles, I can pretend that they're multi-cell launchers, and just let it go. But an AC 10, six times bigger than most AC 20's (the biggest AC).
Heavy Gear is starting to catch this syndrome too with the Gear-Striders (or at least worse than before); guns that need a special category because they share visual sculpts yet are big enough to shoot other guns (as Albertorius would say).
Gatling-crazy is also starting to be a thing when compared to the original HG materials; no matter how many mecha-oriented games are out there on the market artists/writers/fans of supposedly unique settings still seem absolutely determined to make everything of a sameness.
heh, You'd think it would be easy to understand why multiple guns with (1-2) barrels each is better than one much heavier & larger gun with an equivalent number of barrels to keep aligned, cleaned, maintained, fed with ammo, etc etc etc. And that (5-10) or so ever more destructive rounds a second is plenty enough firepower versus point targets in ground combat.
Smilodon_UP wrote: Heavy Gear is starting to catch this syndrome too with the Gear-Striders (or at least worse than before); guns that need a special category because they share visual sculpts yet are big enough to shoot other guns (as Albertorius would say).
Gatling-crazy is also starting to be a thing when compared to the original HG materials; no matter how many mecha-oriented games are out there on the market artists/writers/fans of supposedly unique settings still seem absolutely determined to make everything of a sameness.
heh, You'd think it would be easy to understand why multiple guns with (1-2) barrels each is better than one much heavier & larger gun with an equivalent number of barrels to keep aligned, cleaned, maintained, fed with ammo, etc etc etc.
And that (5-10) or so ever more destructive rounds a second is plenty enough firepower versus point targets in ground combat.
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Not that I'm defending the Gear Strider Craze, but at least the weapons are in proportion to the hull, and have ammo boxes/mags that obviously hold enough rounds for "some" sustained fire.
As for the multi-barrel vs single barrel, some times the big shot is better. Plenty of historical example, such as Pre-dreadnaughts vs Dreadnaughts, or the Gatling gun vs the Napoleon. Even a heavy AT round has some advantages over 50+ 30mm rounds.
Not that I'm defending the Gear Strider Craze, but at least the weapons are in proportion to the hull, and have ammo boxes/mags that obviously hold enough rounds for "some" sustained fire.
Proportional it might be, but it was also supposed to be a Heavy Bazooka... and each of its ammo rounds was literally as big as a regular HBZ. You could fit a Gear's torso in the hole, ffs. And it was still a heavy bazooka.
As to the purpose of the thread, to me a heavy gear is, above all, meant to be utilitarian. They are, after all, weaponized power lifters. They are also rugged, and mostly (barring ONNets, obviously, and even then...) at a tech level that could be achieved today, had we found a need. Where other "mechas" have advanced myomers, unobtanium particles, gundamium armor and nuclear powered engines, Gears get by with hydraulics, computers and internal combustion engines. They are meant to be used, abused, broken, refitted and remade all over again. They are... well, tools.
As with all tools, they can be very generic (most work Gears) or quite a bit more specialized (every Heavy Gear combat vehicle is specialized, but there are degrees ^_^), but even the most specialized of them are very modular, in the same way the ASCOD Pizarro/Ulan/SV weapons system is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCOD#ASCOD_Pizarro). They are also as small as possible for the job and payload they are meant to have, and no bigger than needed.
Controls-wise, I've never thought of them as big power armors, and to me they don't feel at all as they're "worn" rather than "piloted". Every image, every technical drawing, every snippet of setting material paints them as combat vehicles being piloted, IMHO, not as worn armor, even with the head in head design.
In action, they are by no means the end-all-be-all of combat, contrary to what combat walkers usually are in most settings. They have a niche (one-man IFV, built up terrain armored combatant, highly mobile weapons plattform) where they fit, and don't overshadow any other branch of a modern army. They go unassisted, they die.
Those are the main concerns Heavy Gears revolve around, IMHO.
Now aesthetically, to me they must look as workmanlike as possible. These are "real" machines, and in those compromises are made. They need to "see", so they have a multitude of sensors all over their surface. They need to spread the pressure their vertical posture imposes, so they have big stompy feet. They need to be armored but still retain as much maneuverability and nimbleness as possible, so you get bulky extremities with boxy over armor backed up by ballistic cloth where you just can't put a plate. you get the idea. They are, at the same time, nimble machines and ponderous machines, and somewhat it fits. They are nimble, but with somewhat weird proportions. They feel ungainly due to that, but when you see them move, you do it with a sense of awe. Like looking at a giant gorilla (and a skating one, at that). I don't know if I'm making any sense at all.
Not that I'm defending the Gear Strider Craze, but at least the weapons are in proportion to the hull, and have ammo boxes/mags that obviously hold enough rounds for "some" sustained fire.
Proportional it might be, but it was also supposed to be a Heavy Bazooka... and each of its ammo rounds was literally as big as a regular HBZ. You could fit a Gear's torso in the hole, ffs. And it was still a heavy bazooka
It's a naval bazooka! Named after all those ships both IRL and in the HG background that have giant handheld weapons and stuff. Totally fits with gear strider quality fluff!
@Al Of course it's that large a gun. So you can fire bazookas while you fire bazookas.
Personally, my biggest hang-up with gear striders is that 1: they can come in unlimited numbers. Wrote a Nucoal list that had 3 and a scimitar, two of them duelists. They feel like something that if they need to exist, should feel more experimental, even in the production models. 2: They should be multi-crewed. I get the idea that
they've got improved computers over other striders and gears, but for the universe, they really feel like they should have a crew to match their bulk. These two more than the idea of playing Gundam:Terra Nova.
As for the individual weapons, all I can say is, at least they're just scaled up gear weapons, and not Macro-mega-buster-dakka-death-kill-every-kitten-bear-nova-burst-mega(yes twice)-nazi-kill-blaster-cannons. With the rest of the weapons being gear weapons and obviously back ups, the only armaments that I don't like are the ridiculous melee weapons. Stupid super-death-mcchicken-blades.
As for the look, yeah I like the overall utilitarian look as well. Especially as each faction has different ways to represent it (north's flat panels for easy repair, south's rounded to resist damage, CEF's lanky to reduce the mass they have to lift to orbit, ect).
maceria wrote: CEF frames are slimmer, more like large powered armor. They also (probably) are only piloted by brains in jars.
Not unless they've changed things.
OK, the new Frames are exclusively piloted by FLAILS (i.e. GREL "brains in jars"), and as such the torsos are slimmer (or have a significant space taken up by weaponry and other equipment), but the original Type 6-16 Frame, still used as the squad command vehicle, can still be piloted by humans or GRELs, and the Type 2-21 seems to be a derivative design of the 6-16.. The main difference between Gears and Battle Frames is simply the design - Frames are designed using state of the art materials, optimised for lightweight construction and high mobility (the legs are massively bulky because of the hover secondary movement system) and modularity of weapon systems.
Mind you, while the physical design and construction of the Frames may be in advance of Terranovan Gears, the latter have better control hardware/software. the neural net computers in Gears are more advanced than the systems used in CEF Battle Frames. Also, the extreme optimisation for mobility and light weight means that Frames aren't quite a srugged and resilient as Gears.
To me, the "Gear" is a humanoid war vehicle that is "driven" rather than worn, and is only mid-way up the "power level" of the setting. Unlike Gundams or Jovian Chronicles Exo-Suits, Gears are "troopers", still outclassed by the heavier ground vehicles. They're iconic, but not dominant, in the setting.
As a CEF player, I find it somewhat annoying that the high-tech styling of the CEF Frames means that they're not as interesting to paint as the Terranovan Gears with all their armour panel lines, overlapping plates, rivets, screw heads, access ports, etc, etc. I did liven things up a bit by basing my colour schemes on the artwork from the Art of Heavy Gear ebooks; the old Type 55 and Type 2-07 Frames with bright yellow and red details liven things up a bit, and the converted Type 81-12 Alpine Warfare Frame and Type 99 Space Frame in Magenta are quite eye-catching. Doesn't help with concealment much, though.
AndrewGPaul wrote: OK, the new Frames are exclusively piloted by FLAILS (i.e. GREL "brains in jars"), and as such the torsos are slimmer (or have a significant space taken up by weaponry and other equipment)
Well, yes and no, as you say. The main models (BF2-21, BF2-19 and BF2-25) are designed to be piloted exclusively by FLAILs, but all the F6-16 line is piloted by human pilots (exclusively, in theory).
That said (and as you say, too), given the volumes of the FLAIL models compared with the human piloted ones, it shouldn't be all that difficult to modify them to be piloted by human pilots (as their torsos are bigger than the F6-16's, with the possible exception of the BF2-25).
Mind you, while the physical design and construction of the Frames may be in advance of Terranovan Gears, the latter have better control hardware/software. the neural net computers in Gears are more advanced than the systems used in CEF Battle Frames. Also, the extreme optimisation for mobility and light weight means that Frames aren't quite a srugged and resilient as Gears.
If I recall my setting info correctly, Frames were made from better alloys (hence tougher and lighter at the same volume) and had a much better power to weight ratio (due to much better energy-related tech). They were also armed with much more advanced weaponry as a matter of fact, keeping with the CEF's doctrine. That said, they were much behind in the fields of actuators (Gears were nimbler to much, much nimbler) and had worse controlling software (as the CEF's equivalents to ONNETs don't "think" the same way).
To me, the "Gear" is a humanoid war vehicle that is "driven" rather than worn, and is only mid-way up the "power level" of the setting. Unlike Gundams or Jovian Chronicles Exo-Suits, Gears are "troopers", still outclassed by the heavier ground vehicles. They're iconic, but not dominant, in the setting.
I would mainly agree on that, with the only caveat that I'd calle them iconic in TN and the powers influenced by them, and not all that iconic in the rest of the setting (but then again, we don't know much about the rest).
As a CEF player, I find it somewhat annoying that the high-tech styling of the CEF Frames means that they're not as interesting to paint as the Terranovan Gears with all their armour panel lines, overlapping plates, rivets, screw heads, access ports, etc, etc. I did liven things up a bit by basing my colour schemes on the artwork from the Art of Heavy Gear ebooks; the old Type 55 and Type 2-07 Frames with bright yellow and red details liven things up a bit, and the converted Type 81-12 Alpine Warfare Frame and Type 99 Space Frame in Magenta are quite eye-catching. Doesn't help with concealment much, though.
Concealment is for stuff that doesn't leave huge ass smoke trails when they move
For me, the two things I found iconic for gears/striders and helped me design were:
* Robustness/simplicity -- The gear should look like you can figure it out and repair it in the field, possibly with gun tape and some scavenged parts from a car.
* NNets -- These things are small brains, they're TRAINED by dedicated training crews. A Gear handles most of the piloting for you and means they move like something living. Non-TN NNets aren't that "evolved." Frames or Mounts just don't move like that, and no matter how good the pilot, it will move and behave like a machine. Hence FLAILs coming about. Wire them in and they start moving and acting more like gears...or so the nutjobs running the evil galactic conspiracy thought. They're really not all that bright and subscribe to anime villain rules.
As for GearStriders.... Sorry about that guys. The Cataphract was supposed to be the first, and be unique for the PRDF. It literally makes no sense for anyone outside of Peace River to do, and I had planned to do an "in setting" evaluation after a few years to determine if it was one of Paxton's dead-ends, or if it made sense to keep evolving it. Everyone else has enough population to just throw out a fully manned tank or patrol, and isn't run by an arms manufacturer with more money than population or sense. I unwittingly unleashed a monster.
As for GearStriders.... Sorry about that guys. The Cataphract was supposed to be the first, and be unique for the PRDF. It literally makes no sense for anyone outside of Peace River to do, and I had planned to do an "in setting" evaluation after a few years to determine if it was one of Paxton's dead-ends, or if it made sense to keep evolving it. Everyone else has enough population to just throw out a fully manned tank or patrol, and isn't run by an arms manufacturer with more money than population or sense. I unwittingly unleashed a monster.
-John
Contrary to what some may think, I didn't have a problem with paxton nor with the catapharact gear strider but rather they've both become poster boys for almost everything mechanically that I don't like about Heavy Gear. When the latter came out, I thought it was a cool one of thing that would differentiate Paxton from the polar and off world forces. Unfortunately, Paxton became an unchecked overpowered mary sue nation due to the wolf running rampant through the chicken coop ( (cough... saleem.. cough) and the one-off experimental gear strider idea was picked up by everyone because $. It's not your fault (at least in that specific case). Both happened long after you left and both have crept into the alpha/beta at least initially. The gear striders were some of the first things statted out (even if they didn't have a model yet) while other much more numerous and long produced models weren't... and the initial paxton rules (since toned down somewhat) were ridiculous as well turning a molehill advantage in the RPG into a mountain for free.
I have a problem with Paxton. They're an arms dealer that doesn't sell to anyone. Can't see the badlands buying enough stuff from them to support such a large army, or robust R&D branch, and the fluff says the Polars prefer their own equipment. Now with Nucoal building their own stuff (Including a brand new state of the art gunda...gear strider) taking away at least a third of their badlands market.
AKA: HOW DOES PAXTON STAY IN BUSINESS?!??!?!?!!!1/?
Thanks for the reassurance, but I still feel like I laid the egg that grew into a monster. Both with Paxton getting revised so I could move the story to where I needed it and with the unique designs.
Would anyone actually be interested in hearing what we were wanting to do with the storyline and such, or would that be opening a can of worms?
Mmmpi wrote: I have a problem with Paxton. They're an arms dealer that doesn't sell to anyone. Can't see the badlands buying enough stuff from them to support such a large army, or robust R&D branch, and the fluff says the Polars prefer their own equipment. Now with Nucoal building their own stuff (Including a brand new state of the art gunda...gear strider) taking away at least a third of their badlands market.
AKA: HOW DOES PAXTON STAY IN BUSINESS?!??!?!?!!!1/?
They sell plenty to the both polar alliances. If you read the RPG fluff, they make the common low tech proven weapons like autocannons, rockets, and bazookas by the buttload (at least they did in1st edition when I was buying rpg books). Even in blitz, they were still catching up to some of the stuff that the poles had (like +1 att/+1 def elite gears like the warrior IV). I know they were involved in the talon project work so maybe that became the launching pad into their current role of "we have everything you do and more!".
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jbuckmaster wrote: Thanks for the reassurance, but I still feel like I laid the egg that grew into a monster. Both with Paxton getting revised so I could move the story to where I needed it and with the unique designs.
Would anyone actually be interested in hearing what we were wanting to do with the storyline and such, or would that be opening a can of worms?
-John
Absolutely! It would also be nice to hear some story advancement that didn't involve characters named after employees doing awesome things that no one else can do. Fair warning... I'll still blame you for L&L though.
L&L was .... NOT what I wanted to release. I was halfway through dev on a brand new system to actually bring us up to squad-based gaming so we could have 5-6 squads plus extras per army without it taking forever and a day. Then I goit told we're revising and to put that on hold for a few years, and then my timeline on the revision got cut in half.
This is still no excuse, I really should have stood up to Bobo.
Anyway, as for the storyline, maybe we should start another thread for that?
Sure! Since we're talking about story progression in a hybrid rpg/minis game, it would fine either the misc games or RPG subforum IMO. I agree that Smilodon has an interesting topic that shouldn't be derailed.
I'm interested in hearing what Jbuckmaster has to say, wherever he ends up posting it.
I liked the concept of the Coyote tankstrider, it looked like it was trying to marry the maneuverability and ... oh what's a good word, I wouldn't use nimble, but it can lower its height, increase its height, it could shoot from a hill and not be at a wonky angle, it could duck behind cover. All kinds of things standard tanks can't do, albeit at the cost of armor, and it's probably more expensive than straight up treads.
(Though I hated the gear head on the coyote, it just looks so out of place, almost as bad as the gear arms on that nucoal tankstrider that just looked fantastically stupid) Ghost In The Shell has some fun tankstrider like designs (not the tachikomas, which are adorable, but I think they're ugly =)
And I agree with the sentiment that many of the standard vehicles just look sub par. Most of them look like solid blocks of pewter, with very little detail. It was easy to see that most of the love went towards the gear designs. The CEF is an exception, their hovertanks look great, but the rest look like they used very low detail 80s cold war vehicles, the Hun, for example, wouldn't look as bad if it had as much detail as a real T-54 / T-59 what have you.
Jbuckmaster wrote: L&L was .... NOT what I wanted to release. I was halfway through dev on a brand new system to actually bring us up to squad-based gaming so we could have 5-6 squads plus extras per army without it taking forever and a day.
I'll be blunt there. That system would have killed HG just as much as L&L did, if not more so. A great part of the charm of HG was that the system was not squad-based, which left the player free to decide what kind of spacing/etc. was best, and which did not turn models into glorified and expensive wound tokens.
From everything I heard you say about where you wanted to take HG, well, you did not want HG. You wanted 40K. And, if I wanted to play 40K or something like it, I would play 40K.
Jbuckmaster wrote: L&L was .... NOT what I wanted to release. I was halfway through dev on a brand new system to actually bring us up to squad-based gaming so we could have 5-6 squads plus extras per army without it taking forever and a day.
I'll be blunt there. That system would have killed HG just as much as L&L did, if not more so. A great part of the charm of HG was that the system was not squad-based, which left the player free to decide what kind of spacing/etc. was best, and which did not turn models into glorified and expensive wound tokens.
From everything I heard you say about where you wanted to take HG, well, you did not want HG. You wanted 40K. And, if I wanted to play 40K or something like it, I would play 40K.
I'll partially disagree there; it's "partially" because I really would have preferred blitz to be sold and marketed as the skirmish game the rules actually supported.. It would have been nice though to have a game ecosystem that wasn't bipolar with a manic sales focus (buy 5 gear squads!) and a depressive rules mechanic (games take way too long with that!). Supposedly that cohesive goal is the main focus of the current push with the rules supporting higher model count and the prices and plastic switch over supporting it as well. We'll have to see how it turns out. My gears are foamed and shelved in the meantime.
Jbuckmaster wrote: Thanks for the reassurance, but I still feel like I laid the egg that grew into a monster. Both with Paxton getting revised so I could move the story to where I needed it and with the unique designs.
Would anyone actually be interested in hearing what we were wanting to do with the storyline and such, or would that be opening a can of worms?
Well, I for one am always interested in discussions of the timeline and setting ^_^.
As to the Cat... well, I've said it before, but the problem was never really the Cat.
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Mmmpi wrote: I have a problem with Paxton. They're an arms dealer that doesn't sell to anyone. Can't see the badlands buying enough stuff from them to support such a large army, or robust R&D branch, and the fluff says the Polars prefer their own equipment. Now with Nucoal building their own stuff (Including a brand new state of the art gunda...gear strider) taking away at least a third of their badlands market.
AKA: HOW DOES PAXTON STAY IN BUSINESS?!??!?!?!!!1/?
Setting wise, Paxton sells to everyone, and if you went to the old vehicle books you'd see just how many of the polar vehicles carry Paxton weapons (hint: a whole lot ^^). The problem with Paxton has never been the actual weapons. The problem with Paxton is that they are Johnny come-lately's to the Gear manufacturing field by... well, centuries, and they never got an actual foothold on it. But somehow, for some reason... they're the best there are at that nowadays. Because REASONS. And they're manufacturing more Gear chassis designs nowadays than both polar powers combined. Which, taking into account that this is AFTER they got their main manufacturing centers blown up to kingdom come (along, I might say with basically all their air force). But they got around to not only designing but building a whole lot of new Gear chassises. And new abomin- pardon, "gearstriders".
But hey, it's the faction that makes the main playtester's hard, so...
And don't make me talk about NuCoal, now. You won't like it.
I remember reading the part where they sell weapons to both sides, but not chassis. My big WTF is the supporting whole armies, and a better than anyone else R&D, all with a budget from selling refrigerators and auto cannons.
I actually like the idea of Nucoal. Still trying to figure out how they got their own indigenous arms industry up and going so fast, with hover gears and everything so quickly, especially as none of the city states involved were known for R&D (though a few seem to have some factories). Their military can't be "that" great though if one of their founding cities is still occupied by the south. This is definitely not a faction that should have gotten a gear strider though.
And completely forgot Nucoal has access to the Humanist Alliance stuff.
Mmmpi wrote: I remember reading the part where they sell weapons to both sides, but not chassis. My big WTF is the supporting whole armies, and a better than anyone else R&D, all with a budget from selling refrigerators and auto cannons.
I actually like the idea of Nucoal. Still trying to figure out how they got their own indigenous arms industry up and going so fast, with hover gears and everything so quickly, especially as none of the city states involved were known for R&D (though a few seem to have some factories). Their military can't be "that" great though if one of their founding cities is still occupied by the south. This is definitely not a faction that should have gotten a gear strider though.
And completely forgot Nucoal has access to the Humanist Alliance stuff.
NuCoal is, essentially, self-insert fan fiction. And they don't just "access to the Humanist Alliance stuff", no, the entire Humanist Alliance, with all that made it interesting, was sacrificed to the NuCoal gods.
As for PRDF, the original version was supposed to be, essentially, on par with the technology of the polars. That's not incredible, BTW. Having centuries of experience is not worth that much.
Peace-River had a good industrial base, which is what take the longest to establish. The idea was that the proportion of "high-tech" was larger in the PRDF than in the polar armies, but not the absolute numbers.
I always used to describe the difference in number with "Assemble the entire PRDF in a firing line. Then, take all the Jaguars in the northern armies, removes their weapons and tell them to go stomp (literally) the PRDF. The Jaguars win."
I can't really talk about the current iteration of the PRDF, but from what I heard it is pretty dire.
Let's just say that I disagree quite a lot with a lot of Jbuckmaster's design decisions, and have some serious issues with his actions during and after the playtest of L&L, but I think he's kilometres ahead of his successors.
At the very least, he was not favouring one faction voluntarily, and the fluff part of the books did not read like self-insert fan-fiction.
Nucoal is another troublesome one but IMO not as bad as Paxton in terms of balance after the Gear Up TV adjustments pdf. They both got artifically speed grown to turn them i to full factions purely for sales. If nucoal had only developed the two related hover gears, I'd have said that was fast but doable by Terra Novan standards but instead they added another 4 to that. The original chasseur was a Southern TA design using alot of Jager parts that was sold to a city state (prior to nucoal) when the SRA couldn't work out the kinks. The Mk 2 was a refinement/development by Nucoal that still used alot of parts from the former. If the former had been the trooper, the latter the elite gear, I'd be fine with that level of advancement in conjunction with them using light hovertanks (including one new chassis) instead of firesupport gears.
NuCoal's fine. I like NuCoal. Port Arthur was a neat concept.
NuCoal having enough unique chassis to field an army in-game is absolute BS.
For me, NuCoal's models marked the beginning of the end. They get a buttwheel and a gearstrider. The South gets a gearstrider. Paxton gets a buttwheel. NuCoal's addition ruined the distinctiveness the armies once visually had. Yes yes, a real military is going to look mostly the same as any other.
But thankfully these are space robots so we don't have to care about that.
On that same note, the recent trend towards giant wheel feet, totally rad visor heads, extreme crash bars, and round bodies for everyone is really, really ruining the look. If they had confined all the new designs to one faction or manufacturer, it might not have been so bad, but a LOT of the new stuff just doesn't fit. (Lynx, Salamander, etc.)
Paxton also got ANOTHER gear strider, better stats for free, a hover gear, and literally stole a strider model from the north (as in the concept art was yanked from the north pdf AFTER playtesting ended and the entry was dropped completely to shoehorn in a gear stridern while the strider art placed into the ALREADY released paxton pdf). Grumble...
We are kind of veering way off of smilodon's original topic of what makes a gear a gear. We still have the general HG discussion thread for complaints.
mrondeau wrote: NuCoal is, essentially, self-insert fan fiction. And they don't just "access to the Humanist Alliance stuff", no, the entire Humanist Alliance, with all that made it interesting, was sacrificed to the NuCoal gods.
And that for starters...
As for PRDF, the original version was supposed to be, essentially, on par with the technology of the polars. That's not incredible, BTW. Having centuries of experience is not worth that much.
And I was on board with that (hell, I'm even mentioned in the Shinobi's fluff, FFS). The problems came when they passed the "on par with polar tech" point full speed ahead and into the "bs" level of tech, when they added to that attack (as in, actual direct fire weapon effect) EW equipment, monowheel bikes, honest-to god power armors, a crapload of new super gears (capabilities-wise), another fething gearstrider, and stole the basically only new norther strider design from them. They got too much "we get this instead of you because feth you, that's why" for me to take them seriously anymore.
Peace-River had a good industrial base, which is what take the longest to establish. The idea was that the proportion of "high-tech" was larger in the PRDF than in the polar armies, but not the absolute numbers.
Yeah... and that "had" is the biggest problem. Being optimist, they lost half their industrial base and development teams at Peace River... and they still went on a golden age of discoveries and mass manufacturing, just because.
I always used to describe the difference in number with "Assemble the entire PRDF in a firing line. Then, take all the Jaguars in the northern armies, removes their weapons and tell them to go stomp (literally) the PRDF. The Jaguars win."
Pretty accurate, yeah.
I can't really talk about the current iteration of the PRDF, but from what I heard it is pretty dire.
Well... see above for a tiny bit of that.
Let's just say that I disagree quite a lot with a lot of Jbuckmaster's design decisions, and have some serious issues with his actions during and after the playtest of L&L, but I think he's kilometres ahead of his successors.
At the very least, he was not favouring one faction voluntarily, and the fluff part of the books did not read like self-insert fan-fiction.
Being a setting nerd, that last part is the one that stings me the most.
Firebreak wrote: [..] On that same note, the recent trend towards giant wheel feet, [..]
I saw what anime series that was copied from here the other day on a Google image search, but can't recall the title now.
But yeah, overall IMHO the Pod artists are getting about as uninspired nowadays as what was done for the original non-walker vehicle designs.
There essentially isn't a distinctive faction aesthetic anymore really, which was discussed previously in other threads as being a bad thing for a miniatures game, a type of game that is largely dependent on look driving sales.
Front Mission 'Wanzers' seem to be similar to VOTOMS & Gears as well, only perhaps a bit more skewed to the Gundam side of things IMO, without being as fanciful as the Armored Core models.
There is definitely a wide range of foot styles on the 'Wanzers,' but the overall heft seems about right: not a game I've ever played though on a console or PC, nor is Armored Core.
Just took a peek at the DP9 forums... can someone who remembers their password post the real reason for the first gear strider as quoted by john buckmaster over in the gearsstrider wtf? thread there? It would be eye opening and likely much appreciated (even if we never hear the rest of his story).
warboss wrote: Just took a peek at the DP9 forums... can someone who remembers their password post the real reason for the first gear strider as quoted by john buckmaster over in the gearsstrider wtf? thread there? It would be eye opening and likely much appreciated (even if we never hear the rest of his story).
Mmmpi wrote: I have a problem with Paxton. They're an arms dealer that doesn't sell to anyone. Can't see the badlands buying enough stuff from them to support such a large army, or robust R&D branch, and the fluff says the Polars prefer their own equipment. Now with Nucoal building their own stuff (Including a brand new state of the art gunda...gear strider) taking away at least a third of their badlands market.
AKA: HOW DOES PAXTON STAY IN BUSINESS?!??!?!?!!!1/?
Hmm. Didn't Peace River get blown up by terrorists using an antimatter bomb? Could have put a little crimp in the manufacturing business of Paxton.
IIRC, Paxton Arms is secretly building the Black Talons, so the funding for them should be coming from both the North and South. That means while Paxton is pretty much only building PRDF Gears for the PRDF publicly, secretly it's the Black Talons keeping them afloat. Modern day equivalent would be the Skunk Works. Kelly Johnson starts a secret, black ops funded organization within Lockheed Martin back in the '50's that keeps the company afloat all the way up into the 1990's when the company got bought out/reformed/whatever they call it. Commercially, Lockheed Martin built the C-130 Hercules cargo plane, the P-3 Orion "sub-Hunter", the F-16 fighter, and Trident ICBM's. These only accounted for about 1/2 the income of Lockheed Martin up through the 90's. Everything else came from Black Ops funding. The Skunk Works built the U-2, SR-71, and other "spy/secret" aircraft. John Q. Public will probably never know all the stuff the Skunk Works built or worked on. DARPA has given them a ton of money for a lot of black projects.
Anyways, I look at Paxton Arms as the Heavy Gear equivalent to Lockheed Martin with the Black Talon project their Skunk Works.
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warboss wrote: Just took a peek at the DP9 forums... can someone who remembers their password post the real reason for the first gear strider as quoted by john buckmaster over in the gearsstrider wtf? thread there? It would be eye opening and likely much appreciated (even if we never hear the rest of his story).
Hmmm. I haven't been to those forums in a long time. Would probably need the password recovery feature.
I could see a purpose built Strider for like, mounting a large gun or missile on- a mobile weapons platform, but the things they have now just make little to no sense to me. The biggest example that pops in my head is the NUCOAL transforming tank/strider thing. Looks great in "gear" or tank mode, but the idea that it transforms is a bit of a stretch for me. And why is it called a strider?
Clearly the definition of strider as applied to Heavy Gear seems to have multiple meanings.
Jbuckmaster wrote: Storyline tentative plans and such will be up later. I just got hit with a butt-ton of work and then got sick.
Hoping things quiet down after we secure the extended contract from Dell for the Datacentre Servers this aft.
-John
Thanks for the update. To be honest, I figured an ancient NDA monster had gobbled up the idea so I'm glad to hear we'll still be getting the "what if?" story whenever you get a chance.
IIRC, Paxton Arms is secretly building the Black Talons, so the funding for them should be coming from both the North and South. That means while Paxton is pretty much only building PRDF Gears for the PRDF publicly, secretly it's the Black Talons keeping them afloat. Modern day equivalent would be the Skunk Works. Kelly Johnson starts a secret, black ops funded organization within Lockheed Martin back in the '50's that keeps the company afloat all the way up into the 1990's when the company got bought out/reformed/whatever they call it. Commercially, Lockheed Martin built the C-130 Hercules cargo plane, the P-3 Orion "sub-Hunter", the F-16 fighter, and Trident ICBM's. These only accounted for about 1/2 the income of Lockheed Martin up through the 90's. Everything else came from Black Ops funding. The Skunk Works built the U-2, SR-71, and other "spy/secret" aircraft. John Q. Public will probably never know all the stuff the Skunk Works built or worked on. DARPA has given them a ton of money for a lot of black projects.
Anyways, I look at Paxton Arms as the Heavy Gear equivalent to Lockheed Martin with the Black Talon project their Skunk Works.
I suspect that exact comparison is what they were going for. The difference is that the skunk works didn't prop up the entire military industrial complex of the US during the cold war and pay for the rebuilding the country from utter devastation. It would be like if Lockheed were able to single handely rebuild all of Germany AND turn it into a first rate world military power AGAIN by 1960 on the back of the Skunk Works funding profit. It was a stupid ham fisted way to turn Paxton in the fluff into a "full" world power faction when there was no justification for doing so either in the fluff or the existing model line. The same thing pretty much happened with Nucoal to a lesser degree but they didn't have to rebuild almost everything (rather just a fraction with the HA portion they got).
I suspect that exact comparison is what they were going for. The difference is that the skunk works didn't prop up the entire military industrial complex of the US during the cold war and pay for the rebuilding the country from utter devastation. It would be like if Lockheed were able to single handely rebuild all of Germany AND turn it into a first rate world military power AGAIN by 1960 on the back of the Skunk Works funding profit. It was a stupid ham fisted way to turn Paxton in the fluff into a "full" world power faction when there was no justification for doing so either in the fluff or the existing model line. The same thing pretty much happened with Nucoal to a lesser degree but they didn't have to rebuild almost everything (rather just a fraction with the HA portion they got).
That was actually one of the big reasons I reworked the storyline in Blitz. Paxton had variable tech levels, was involved WAY too much in the back end storyline stuff (harbouring a superspy everyone thinks is dead and who knows "the truth"), bounced between being an evil police state or an being naively altruistic... and being incompetent on both ends... and then they get blowed up real good and bounce back without any issues.
Jbuckmaster wrote: Thanks for the reassurance, but I still feel like I laid the egg that grew into a monster. Both with Paxton getting revised so I could move the story to where I needed it and with the unique designs.
Would anyone actually be interested in hearing what we were wanting to do with the storyline and such, or would that be opening a can of worms?
-John
YES.
Jbuckmaster wrote: Storyline tentative plans and such will be up later. I just got hit with a butt-ton of work and then got sick.
Hoping things quiet down after we secure the extended contract from Dell for the Datacentre Servers this aft.
-John
If you're about again at some point John, I think this would still be of interest to myself and other folks.
Smilodon_UP wrote: - What distinctive thematic elements set walker vehicles in Heavy Gear apart from the endless cycle of pseudo-copied Appleseed, Gundam, Patlabor, Robotech, etc etc etc [insert other manga/anime setting here] mechanical designs?
A lot of people mentioned the v-engine as being a distinct feature of what makes both Gears and HG, but what do y'all think about the manner in which that engine is powered.
Does relying on internal combustion fueled by hydrocarbons define HG as a setting, or does fossil fuels being the literal driving force contribute significantly to the 'WW2 vibe'' and take focus away from sci-fi elements of the setting?
This is one of the stickier points about the setting for me, because of the distances involved in any kind of travel on Terra Nova; there are a lot of workable alternatives that could have been written in just as easily without needing so much industry to start up in the first place.
While fuel alcohol, or refined fossil fuels in those locales that have them, would probably still be adequate for most ground vehicles those types of fuels seem to need too much volume and mass that a walker or mount just does not have to spare.
Also, Paxton and NuCoal, what should (could) their relatively distinctive visual aesthetic be (or have been) as a faction.
- What distinctive thematic elements set walker vehicles in Heavy Gear apart from the endless cycle of pseudo-copied Appleseed, Gundam, Patlabor, Robotech, etc etc etc [insert other manga/anime setting here] mechanical designs?
A lot of people mentioned the v-engine as being a distinct feature of what makes both Gears and HG, but what do y'all think about the manner in which that engine is powered.
Does relying on internal combustion fueled by hydrocarbons define HG as a setting, or does fossil fuels being the literal driving force contribute significantly to the 'WW2 vibe'' and take focus away from sci-fi elements of the setting?
This is one of the stickier points about the setting for me, because of the distances involved in any kind of travel on Terra Nova; there are a lot of workable alternatives that could have been written in just as easily without needing so much industry to start up in the first place.
While fuel alcohol, or refined fossil fuels in those locales that have them, would probably still be adequate for most ground vehicles those types of fuels seem to need too much volume and mass that a walker or mount just does not have to spare.
At the time for me as a kid, it felt more realistic and gritty having it run on a scifi futuristic fossil fuel engine but latter on I would have preferred something a bit more advanced personally. I realize that most of TN is the boonies and that the advanced tech that brought humans to the planet is impractical to use there on a day to day basis for common folks... but I grew to very mildly prefer the idea of a micro-fusion reactor instead as a powerplant ala the space marine backpack. I'm still ok though with the relative lack of advanced energy weapons both in the fluff as well as to allow the CEF to have a different feel (and I really liked their justification for their use with them). YMMV.
I didn't mind the fossil fuel thing, it allowed less questions that tend to arise when other methods are used, especially reactors. Though I'd be fine with decent capacity batteries or fuel cells.
My problem with Nucoal in general, they didn't really have anything unique model wise, it was all rips of other factions models, but only the good/popular ones, and then strips out and updates them so they basically had all the good options, none of the bad of other factions.
I mean, the Cuirasser is a straight rip of the Mamba (even stats)
Jerboa is a Ferret (though i can't recall if the stats deviate)
Chassuer is a Jager with Hover.
It felt kind of like Black Talons all over again, on a slightly less obviously overpowered scale.
I could almost get over the Chasseur, especially if they had the guts to let the Chasseur MKII be the only elite gear, instead of the Mamba clone. As a polar faction with hoverwalkers is somewhat unique.
I think a faction with a heavy reliance on light Tankstriders might've been interesting. Though the more I look at the Coyote, the more ugly I think it is, I'd prefer it if it didn't have a head on it, and was more of a turreted IFV that had four wheeled/tracked legs like something out of Ghost in the Shell. (and I hated the Tankstrider with a torso and arms that nucoal did get, that thing looks terrible)
I'd almost go farther and call for a faction that is almost entirely conventional tanks & mobile infantry, but that probably wouldn't sell, and the pod cant' sculpt tracked vehicles very well either.
The petrol engines is an interesting idea, but I don't think that it's particularly fundamental; obviously it drives the look of the Gears, with the V-engine backpacks, but it's only that visual appearance that's important - the V could be explained totally differently and I don't suppose most people would care.
On the subject of forces using "conventional" vehicles, that's sort of why I picked CEF; OK, the tanks fly, but they're still tanks (and when I started with 2nd edition, they were so expensive, especially after the multipliers for GREL skill and morale levels that I couldn't afford any Frames anyway).
I would have thought that Gears would be more useful for the polar powers, due to the increased preponderance for dense jungle, urban or rocky mountainous terrain, but in the equatorial plains and deserts, tank warfare would be more common. That might have been a way to differentiate Paxton's military; mostly tanks, GEVs and low-altitude hovering vehicles such as helicopters, with a small range of Gears developed more recently (partly for use in special conditions, partly as export models), and have most of their arms exports being heavy vehicle weaponry repurposed for larger fire-support Gears.
The tankstriders to me looked like goofy ideas ported back into the setting from Gear Krieg. They worked in that slightly silly pupl WW2 setting, but Heavy Hear always at least pretended to be plausible, and they're just the wrong side of the line for me.
Aww, though I do think their is a fine line, I thought Gear Krieg was awful. But I tend to hate super science in WWII in general, people seem to forget just how low tech things were back then, so the idea that they'd somehow make walking vehicles just breaks my brain.
My definition of Tank strider is different than what it's become in Heavy Gear. Not a half tank/half gear, but a turreted vehicle that just happens to have legs and treads/wheels for locomotion. (A more exaggerated version of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIzU4bU9DcA, or something like the Scorpion from BT)
My impression is that conventional would probably not have sold well, considering that many folks on the forums tended to want to play without infantry or vehicles at all. Which was a shame, I thought the game looked better with both of those in play for a better idea of the scale, otherwise the gears might as well have been space marines. Though maybe I'm wrong and it would've brought in a new audience of folks who like sci-fi tanks.
(And totally agree, CEF tanks are awesome looking)
warboss wrote: [..] I'm still ok though with the relative lack of advanced energy weapons both in the fluff as well as to allow the CEF to have a different feel (and I really liked their justification for their use with them). YMMV.
True, energy weapons like lasers would probably have somewhat less rather than more effective range compared to advanced ballistic cannons or missiles, which is in turn offset by the various HT models mounting compact particle cannons.
When you delve into the underpinnings of the technology, even in our near future HEAT-based weaponry will probably go away simply due to so many advances in materials technology reaching a point of practical manufacture and cost effective distribution.
A lot of materials resistant or proof against overpressure-based effects would in turn have some deleterious effect on energy weapons whose penetration ability is dependent on using the best not absorbed by an atmosphere wavelengths.
I've always thought Terra Novan particle cannons should look more like and be comparable in size to the different types of bazookas, and that the LPA on the Kodiak & KC is how lasers might look in the setting.
Although the blocky pulsed lasers on HTs and the Fire Dragon seems like something that ''looks right'' too.
ferrous wrote: [..] Jerboa is a Ferret (though i can't recall if the stats deviate)
The Ferret & Jerboa are an odd case, and probably something that works better as a miniature than in fluff.
IIRC, as fluffed the Ferret was specifically sold to an industry in one faction because it was so old and underperforming, but then in game most all Northern factions could and did have an option to take it anyways unless they had access to something better by combat group/overarching swaps.
But then the design got retconned as also having been sold to another faction, then subsequently ''upgraded'' to become their primary scout and EWAR model in game....
I think one thing in the pro column for the two models is both are visually distinctive on the table, even though copying a primary feature into multiple factions.
It also seems to be the source of NuCoal having a ''nosecone'' aesthetic in their faction, until a piece of art either got re-purposed or misused to become the Drake.
Leaving a faction like NuCoal/Port Arthur or Peace River able to still easily mix polar models, from both a fluff standpoint and gaming reasons, is probably a concept that should have stayed in Blitz.
ferrous wrote: [..] I think a faction with a heavy reliance on light Tankstriders might've been interesting.
Though the more I look at the Coyote, the more ugly I think it is, I'd prefer it if it didn't have a head on it, and was more of a turreted IFV that had four wheeled/tracked legs like something out of Ghost in the Shell. (and I hated the Tankstrider with a torso and arms that nucoal did get, that thing looks terrible)
AndrewGPaul wrote: [..] The tankstriders to me looked like goofy ideas ported back into the setting from Gear Krieg. They worked in that slightly silly pulpy WW2 setting, but Heavy Hear always at least pretended to be plausible, and they're just the wrong side of the line for me.
ferrous wrote: [..] My definition of Tank strider is different than what it's become in Heavy Gear. Not a half tank/half gear, but a turreted vehicle that just happens to have legs and treads/wheels for locomotion. (A more exaggerated version of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIzU4bU9DcA, or something like the Scorpion from BT)
I've always wondered why the HAPF did not become that Strider-based faction, as it would have been distinctive yet complementary (albeit equally expensive) with the direction the Pod took Caprician Mounts.
It was also a thing mentioned once or twice in actual fluff for the Humanist Alliance; as I've commented before somewhere, the unused ''bug-walker'' designs from the various Caprice books also look like designs the HA might've come up with for the protectors.
Except that for the HAPF players would've been able to mix in Gears or vehicles, providing another visual distinction from Caprice/Eden/CEF on the table.
ferrous wrote: [..] I'd almost go farther and call for a faction that is almost entirely conventional tanks & mobile infantry, but that probably wouldn't sell, and the pod cant' sculpt tracked vehicles very well either.
AndrewGPaul wrote: [..] On the subject of forces using "conventional" vehicles, that's sort of why I picked CEF; OK, the tanks fly, but they're still tanks (and when I started with 2nd edition, they were so expensive, especially after the multipliers for GREL skill and morale levels that I couldn't afford any Frames anyway).
That might have been a way to differentiate Paxton's military; mostly tanks, GEVs and low-altitude hovering vehicles such as helicopters, with a small range of Gears developed more recently (partly for use in special conditions, partly as export models), and have most of their arms exports being heavy vehicle weaponry repurposed for larger fire-support Gears.
ferrous wrote: [..] My impression is that conventional would probably not have sold well, considering that many folks on the forums tended to want to play without infantry or vehicles at all. Which was a shame, I thought the game looked better with both of those in play for a better idea of the scale, otherwise the gears might as well have been space marines. Though maybe I'm wrong and it would've brought in a new audience of folks who like sci-fi tanks.
If any faction on Terra Nova were to be using drones in the numbers Utopia gets them, Paxton should definitely have been the one.
I think drones and more numbers of vehicles along the lines suggested would also have required less whole cloth additions to the Riveran lineup, and probably have prevented a lot of the power creep and ''just because'' that has generated so much controversy around that faction.
Had the PL and combat group matrix combination worked better or been done differently there could've been a lot more opportunity for primarily conventional forces and factions being constructed by those so inclined.
But then yes, the whole bit about $$$ per individual vehicle, lack of variety of types (many of which are then almost exclusively usable by a single faction), and generally disappointing sculpts or resculpts comes into the picture.
I agree though, especially given the popularity of new games such as Planetfall and Dropzone Commander, that the ability to create (or play as a faction designed to do so) enhanced conventional forces could easily have brought in larger numbers of folks.
I agree that mounts and striders have some overlap.
Utopia was a nice idea that had two major problems. Overly confusing rules, and terrible looking models. Most of the armigers are just sorta blah, and the drones all looked like eggs with legs/treads/fans stuck on. Didn't help that they got a massive nerf bat by random rules revisions that weren't even targeting or thinking of them. (The old defense mod revision and the stun revision)
ferrous wrote: I saw HAPF as more the standard striders: chicken walkers, eight legged walkers, etc
I agree that mounts and striders have some overlap.
Having thought about this some more of late I've kind of changed my mind about the terms.
Going against fluff (for either clarity or a potential game divorced from the RPG) I think having more definition to what each is might be good, or at least hopefully a lot better than the current not necessary in the first place overlap.
Strider; walker vehicle retaining a two-legged design which sacrifices part or all of the homiform element in favor of greater protection, more efficient mounting of intermediate support weapons, and/or the addition of a second crewmember.
Mount; walker vehicle featuring more than two motive limbs to provide enhanced mobility for extreme terrain types or to compensate for a significant overall mass.
Tank-Strider; walker vehicle of either a strider or mount configuration whose primary feature is a concentration of armament into a full turret, allowing more efficient use of hull down and defilade positions.
I used a version of this one (NSFW dArt site), but can't locate the one I actually used offhand, for the image on the non-official datacards I worked up when testing Paxton; and yeah, those look more like what the term brings to mind.
ferrous wrote: Utopia was a nice idea that had two major problems.
Overly confusing rules, and terrible looking models. Most of the armigers are just sorta blah, and the drones all looked like eggs with legs/treads/fans stuck on. Didn't help that they got a massive nerf bat by random rules revisions that weren't even targeting or thinking of them. (The old defense mod revision and the stun revision)
Ayup, the handling of Utopia was/is pretty typical of the Pod; ''almost no one likes the look and the faction doesn't work in game, so lets go ahead and start brainstorming on ideas for the other colonies behind the scenes while we aren't making progress on field manuals for the primary factions.''
TPTB certainly had no trouble growing NuCoal or Peace River to fit HGB!, and then were thinking up ways to get Botany Bay and Jotunheim into the game, but the combined expeditionary force of three hegemonic states from an entire allied planet? ..... /sigh
If you're going to specifically choose to create one warfare-industrialized/ravaged planet so as to be the full willing participants alongside your setting's designated conquering horde at least do something with it!
Making a full faction out of Utopia also expands the setting even more outside of Terra Nova (important for a miniature game); urban battles? check (Caprice); marginal planetary surface battle? check (Caprice); Black Talons on a waste world? check (Utopia), etc etc.
One idea I had was that Utopia should've been how the NEC/CEF got more conventional forces onto Terra Nova; using small battlegroups comprised of Frames, GRELs, and Armigers with drone APCs/IFVs for places the hover-based everything else couldn't go.
That would also provide another route for getting CEF & allied infantry carriers (and drone tanks/spider autos?) onto a table beyond just the Hamath (which remains way too pricy, and does little, for anyone to actually make a combat group of them) or the HAPC.
Spit-balling of ideas portion of the post: (some NSFW site links)
Distinctive faction aesthetics, basic themes. North - plane surfaces or slabs at low angles from the vertical or horizontal. Seems to still be the viable iconic look for Heavy Gear.
South - curves, but not blobs; apart from the legs the HG:A Sidewinder actually looks like a Southern war machine should if the 90's-era designs were to be updated.
Riveran - half-round, urban friendly, pilot survivability. Patlabor comes to mind, or at least that whole ''making a favorable impression'' ideal. I think this faction would certainly have adopted the Razorback- or Adder- style full pilot protection.
NuCoal - nosecones & outboard motors, machine survivability; the HG:A Mamba looks (a little) something like this but the Jerboa revamp, or even the Drake*, would probably be the major direction. Something with a bit of curvature, so the HA influence/technical assistance is still present.
CEF (Frames) - angled planes, triangular bracing/patterns, certainly a lot that can be done to dress them up. The more current artwork of Wanzers from Front Mission could provide some idea for thematic elements, or something more like this for the torso.
Utopia - anything really, still not entirely sure on what to propose that might best represent the faction/sub-factions. But the Caprice ''bug-mounts'' could certainly work.
Caprice - current models look somewhat reasonable (apart from cost per considering the necessary actions per combat group) and fit the source material surprisingly well.
Features of production or concept models that definitely need to go away, or at the very least get left solely for Badlands Rally or Arena;
- wheelie-feet, which just does not fit the realistic war part of the setting.
- shield swords, halberds, bladed staffs, and similar obviously impractical non-ranged weapons; not to mention that suddenly a lot of models in the setting can now get chain-swords or vibro-axes too.
*Actually, the Drake seems more like designs from Assault Suit Leynos. Titanfall-styled elements could work too given the Jerboa miniaturized sensor head they already manufacture.
Nice, I like your definitions, I'd only amend that striders can have arm manipulators, while mounts never will.
(Which means tankstriders should be called tankmounts, but that doesn't roll off the tongue.) Though there exists plenty of multi-legged striders already, though I'm not really a fan of the Red Bull, Fire Dragon or Thunderhammer. Though the Thunderhammer at least looks cool.
I don't mind utopian golems, I like the Zaku-ish round head. Though they are kind of tiny, and the rules put them in an odd place. They might've been better served as infantry like FLAILs, but CEF already has Flails and GRELs, so that wouldn't have been very interesting as an option for CEF to take. Giving them a better defense score like infantry, maybe make them susceptible to +AI weapons would've been a nice hybrid.
Frames probably should be thin, which they kind of are, but that might also be tough to do as a miniature. The FLAIL only frames should be very thin, since they shouldn't need a cockpit anymore.
They sort of are; the type 2-21 and 2-19 have teeny little heads. The rest of the Type 2-21, though is basically a 6-16. Which makes sense to me - it streamlines production and (most importantly for the CEF) logistics and supply lines. It presumably also means that as more and more GRELs are converted into FLAILS, their Frames can be converted at the same time.
What I would like to see is a difference in the designs from before the capture of Caprice and after. I'd like to see some elements of Caprice design bleeding over. Perhaps we already have - the Battle Frames were only designed after the first attack on Terranova, but I can't remember if they were designed back on Earth or on Caprice.
Yeah, they sort of are decently thin and angular. My main beef is that a FLAIL only frame should be a bit more differentiated. I feel like people should be asking, "Where does the pilot sit" when they see them.
What would you expect to see from a caprice partnership? I think I recall someone made a frame with four mount like legs somewhere on the internets. But I'm not sure what advantages it would have. Hover Mounts seem like a strange combination. I could see a mount with a HT-72 turret on it as being possible.
I think CEF went with integrating more of Eden/Utopias stuff, since drones are more multipurpose, while mounts seemed pretty specialized to caprician terrain.
Honestly, not so much new units, just different design cues. Perhaps Caprice-designed Frames might have weapons integrated to the arms, rather than on the back of the forearms. Or simply different shapes in the details. Just the difference between a Hunter and a Jäger. Or tank turrets with those laser pods like on the Moab mount.
Ah, yeah, that makes sense, except I don't think much manufacturing is done on Caprice. I wouldn't mind seeing it anyway, perhaps have a HT-73 that has an improved mount for the laser.
Sort of reminds me of the PAK forces that had the option to replace the turret with a visigoth AA turret. Maybe the CEF forces that are actually garrisoned on Caprice would be more likely to need to refit using Caprician parts.
- What distinctive thematic elements set walker vehicles in Heavy Gear apart from the endless cycle of pseudo-copied Appleseed, Gundam, Patlabor, Robotech, etc etc etc [insert other manga/anime setting here] mechanical designs?
A lot of people mentioned the v-engine as being a distinct feature of what makes both Gears and HG, but what do y'all think about the manner in which that engine is powered.
Does relying on internal combustion fueled by hydrocarbons define HG as a setting, or does fossil fuels being the literal driving force contribute significantly to the 'WW2 vibe'' and take focus away from sci-fi elements of the setting?
At the time for me as a kid, it felt more realistic and gritty having it run on a scifi futuristic fossil fuel engine but later on I would have preferred something a bit more advanced personally. I realize that most of TN is the boonies and that the advanced tech that brought humans to the planet is impractical to use there on a day to day basis for common folks...
ferrous wrote: I didn't mind the fossil fuel thing, it allowed less questions that tend to arise when other methods are used, especially reactors. Though I'd be fine with decent capacity batteries or fuel cells.
AndrewGPaul wrote: The petrol engines is an interesting idea, but I don't think that it's particularly fundamental; obviously it drives the look of the Gears, with the V-engine backpacks, but it's only that visual appearance that's important - the V could be explained totally differently and I don't suppose most people would care.
I thought about this further then read some more stuff, and I think for Terra Nova what makes the most sense is for them to be using the methanol economy.
''Methanol can be efficiently produced from a wide variety of sources including fossil fuels (natural gas, coal, oil shale, tar sands, etc.), but also agricultural products and municipal waste, or wood and varied biomass. More importantly, it can also be made from chemical recycling of carbon dioxide.''
This seems like a very workable idea, able to be produced most anywhere from quite a lot of feedstock types, and fits with the fluff of a widespread colonial population that has to or has had to make-do.
Drawback; While it stores as a liquid only somewhat more dense than gasoline, methanol has only about half the energy density.
For the CEF, I think their using ammonia as their fuel source would make the most sense, which again also fits their sourcebook fluff.
A faction that figures on portable fusion plants along with drilling down to an aquifer is already most of the way towards making ammonia; it has about the same pros and cons as methanol when compared to gasoline but is FAR easier to store than hydrogen in any state.
Alongside ammonia, I think the CEF would also manufacture methane as the cheap catalyst for making ammonia fully and readily combustible.
Considering the amount of GRELS about, it's not like there would be a shortage of liquid manure.....
In the setting of Heavy Gear sustainment units don't just resupply fuels, they can make fuels.
ferrous wrote: Nice, I like your definitions, I'd only amend that striders can have arm manipulators, while mounts never will.
(Which means tankstriders should be called tankmounts, but that doesn't roll off the tongue.) Though there exists plenty of multi-legged striders already, though I'm not really a fan of the Red Bull, Fire Dragon or Thunderhammer. Though the Thunderhammer at least looks cool.
I had thought about it, but decided not to try and establish conditions for speed, method of SMS, or arms, etc etc so tool arms or even full arms were still a possibility for some factions/designs.
I would agree that a lot of the bigger models cost an awful lot in points and $$$ for their game performance in most of the rulesets while having as many detractors as they do partisans, even before Gear-Striders got thrown into the model mix to muddy things further.
Tank-Mount is definitely correct under this proposal, but does sound pretty lame.
ferrous wrote: I don't mind utopian golems, I like the Zaku-ish round head. Though they are kind of tiny, and the rules put them in an odd place. They might've been better served as infantry like FLAILs, but CEF already has Flails and GRELs, so that wouldn't have been very interesting as an option for CEF to take. Giving them a better defense score like infantry, maybe make them susceptible to +AI weapons would've been a nice hybrid.
Had the FLAILS only been vehicle oriented there wouldn't have been an overlap thus leaving a place for APES infantry, but then the FLAIL concept wouldn't have made any sense, as what do you do in setting with the much larger numbers of Mordred- and Morgana- class GRELS.
It is also an idea that runs afoul of the heavily against/not featuring cyberpunk or things cyborg HG setting.
I think the term ''golem'' should also have been left for heavier machines instead of supplanting the APES nomenclature, as something further able to discriminate from Armiger or Frame type walkers in other factions.
ferrous wrote: Frames probably should be thin, which they kind of are, but that might also be tough to do as a miniature. The FLAIL only frames should be very thin, since they shouldn't need a cockpit anymore.
AndrewGPaul wrote: They sort of are; the type 2-21 and 2-19 have teeny little heads. The rest of the Type 2-21, though is basically a 6-16. Which makes sense to me - it streamlines production and (most importantly for the CEF) logistics and supply lines. It presumably also means that as more and more GRELs are converted into FLAILS, their Frames can be converted at the same time.
AndrewGPaul wrote: What I would like to see is a difference in the designs from before the capture of Caprice and after. I'd like to see some elements of Caprice design bleeding over. Perhaps we already have - the Battle Frames were only designed after the first attack on Terranova, but I can't remember if they were designed back on Earth or on Caprice.
ferrous wrote: I could see a mount with a HT-72 turret on it as being possible.
I think CEF went with integrating more of Eden/Utopias stuff, since drones are more multipurpose, while mounts seemed pretty specialized to caprician terrain.
Some kind of Tank-Strider for one of the allied NEC factions might be kind of neat, where it doesn't need the extreme terrain capability of the Caprice mounts, and is roughly similar to the hybridized vehicle philosophy behind the hover-tanks for facing unknown terrain types.
AndrewGPaul wrote: Honestly, not so much new units, just different design cues. Perhaps Caprice-designed Frames might have weapons integrated to the arms, rather than on the back of the forearms. Or simply different shapes in the details. Just the difference between a Hunter and a Jäger. Or tank turrets with those laser pods like on the Moab mount.
And this is interesting, varying existing models across compatible factions by cosmetic changes.
Makes sense from both a making things distinct on the table and commonality of parts standpoint.
Isn't methanol a very net negative energy fuel? As in you have to expend (with todays tech) much more energy to make it then you'll get back? I'm not sure that a fuel which traditionally is so land/agriculture intensive is a great option for a plant with so much desert.
warboss wrote: Isn't methanol a very net negative energy fuel? As in you have to expend (with todays tech) much more energy to make it then you'll get back?
I'm not sure that a fuel which traditionally is so land/agriculture intensive is a great option for a plant with so much desert.
I think hydrogen, and to some extent ammonia, are the ones with a net energy loss using current technology, along with processing atmospheric carbon dioxide into another form (types of methanol).
Ethanol is primarily made using agricultural crop feedstock, while methanol is made from all sorts of other things, a lot of which can apparently be waste products from something else.
The big hangup with using the alcohol-based fuels seems to be an intrenched (and costly to replace) petroleum distribution network that is largely incompatible with simply swapping or even just as additives past a certain point.
Unknown, or at least misunderstood if not misrepresented, long term health risks seem to be another sticking point.
Methane seems to be the easiest to produce, but doesn't help to solve the production of carbon-waste since the molecule is carbon bound to hydrogen (CH4), where ammonia is just nitrogen with hydrogen (NH3).
Terra Nova wouldn't seem to have a big carbon sequestration problem with so few people and vehicles, although lacking surface oceans full of carbon-fixing plankton could be a bad thing long term.
warboss wrote: Sorry, I made a mistake and indeed replied regarding ethanol.
naw, As always you truly have to wonder if wikipedia and anything put out by the companies doing or obstructing the research are all being factual and objective, or to what degree they are choosing not to be so.
It's really hard to judge a lot of this ''go green'' stuff, especially when the sources have a tendency to start knocking responsible nuclear power, GMOs, in-floor heating, jacuzzi baths, saunas, quarter-pounders, etc etc as inherently being ''evil'' and too against ''nature''.
Now tanks, armored vehicles, munitions, conventional aerospace, and robotics - those things I can understand and interpret fairly well.
The other thing to bear in mind is that efficiency might simply not be an issue. The NEC is the biggest industrial power ever seen, in the setting. If making the fuel for their vehicles is energetically wasteful, that might not matter, if the engines can be smaller and lighter for the same power output, or if the refinery units themselves are easier to ship via gateship than a petrochemical refinery.
I don't know if that's the case, but if so, it might be another way to show the wildly different operational constraints and priorities of the CEF.
I was contemplating Organic Batteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_radical_battery for a while, though perhaps, a more futuristic version would be easier to produce, and yield even better battery life and charge quicker.
Read all 3 pages, pointed over from the other thread.
- Gears are bulky humanoid robots based on the AT VOTOMS template.
- Frames are bipedal robots, but inhuman in their proportions and angularity.
Utopia is a stinker, but it is a different look & style.
Caprice is OK, but I don't get why they aren't basically just walker tanks with *MUCH* bigger guns - shouldn't they basically be walking artillery pieces?
The whole PRDF/NuCoal/Black Talon looks to have been a sales-driven push to get people to re-buy what they already had, but "shinier and better". Rather than having a coherent, in-universe differentiation of who fights how without what.
The side discussion of ground pressure vs speed is a little odd, as robot battles are dominated by Rule of Cool.
I think the Caprician walkers were meant to be more like the Ghost in the Shell style walkers. Minus the wheels on the feet. Basically, nimble, surprisingly fast, and able to climb up and onto anything. And the reason they are that way, was due to the terrain being mostly vertical, as everyone is located in a single trench on Caprice, and I don't think they were initially designed as a military force, more for putting down rebellions by miners, though someone can correct me on that.
The North/South do have some striders that are basically artillery with legs. The Thunderhammer, in particular, but also the Fire Dragon and RedBull (granted that last one is PRDF)
The PRDF were kind of their own distinct faction. They got muddied fast with constant revisions because they were someone's favorite pet faction. They were supposed to be a mix of really crappy badlanders gears and then a set of core elite all purpose models. But Black Talon basically took the elite route. They do have a couple of unique models, like the first Tankstrider, but generally they had a lot of the same overlapping set of models as the two main factions, and if you skipped them in your particular ruleset, I for one wouldn't cry much.
OK I get the Caprice concept. I just don't think the execution is quite right. No biggie.
Googling the Striders, I don't much like their look in general, nor do I really see how they match the factions. I think maybe I should ignore them...
The whole PRDF thing just sounds even more muddled in execution. I think I'll ignore them, too. ____
Stupid question time:
My Southern King Cobra model arrived, and it has this metal tube bit, but it's not obvious how it mounts. What is it, and how is it supposed to mount? I see some mount on shoulders (usu. Spitting Cobras), others on the back-mounted vertical launcher.
Lots of weapons, but from what I can tell, the weapons are:
- Medium Particle Accelerator (gun);
- Medium Rocket Pack (shoulder);
- Light Artillery Rockets (giant brick on back?);
- Heavy Machine Gun (shoulder);
- Light Guided Mortar (the tube?);
- Anti-Personnel Grenade Launchers (on skirt);
- Medium Vibroblade (knife).
Setting wise, Paxton sells to everyone, and if you went to the old vehicle books you'd see just how many of the polar vehicles carry Paxton weapons (hint: a whole lot ^^). The problem with Paxton has never been the actual weapons. The problem with Paxton is that they are Johnny come-lately's to the Gear manufacturing field by... well, centuries, and they never got an actual foothold on it. But somehow, for some reason... they're the best there are at that nowadays. Because REASONS. And they're manufacturing more Gear chassis designs nowadays than both polar powers combined. Which, taking into account that this is AFTER they got their main manufacturing centers blown up to kingdom come (along, I might say with basically all their air force). But they got around to not only designing but building a whole lot of new Gear chassises. And new abomin- pardon, "gearstriders".
But hey, it's the faction that makes the main playtester's hard, so...
And don't make me talk about NuCoal, now. You won't like it.
Sorry for dredging this up but anytime I see anything about the sudden rise of Paxton, I always feel the need to chime in.
I put the blame for all of those shenanigans on DP9 and Heavy Gear 2. Actually, to be specific, I put the blame mainly on one of the people from Activision who was working on HG2. He was was a fan of Heavy Gear and he wanted to contribute to the HG universe. Fine. When he approached DP9 about it, they generally didn't care because their mentality was that it was a computer game so whatever.
Now, this guy did not want to be tied to the North nor did he want to be tied to the South; he wanted to created a Badlands regiment. Ok, fine. Then he looked at the stats for the Warrior IV and compared them to the Jaguar and Black Mamba. He was not happy about with the stats. He wanted something that was comparable to the Jaguar/BM. So he created the Warrior Elite.
I still remember on IRC when he was showing it off. It was more maneuverable than a Jaguar or BM and it had a Vibrorapier. Some other people and I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't listen and put it in the game. He then started creating other Gears, such as the Agamemnon, Perseus (a stealth/hover Gear!), and some other munchy crap. But he needed to explain where all of this came about. So he started creating some background information about how Paxton was so worried about war popping up between the North and the South after Thor Hutchison's death, that they decided to secretly recruit all of these dissatisfied people who worked for various Northern/Southern Gear manufacturers to create these 'Elite' gears that were better than anything the North or South had. And of course, all development was offsite so when Paxton City went boom, luckily they still had these amazing Gears out of harm's way.
He even tried posting some of the stuff on the Heavy Gear Mailing List. But when his designs were cut to ribbons, he refused to share anymore information and just did whatever he wanted.
What pisses me off the most is that this guy kept insisting on putting this stuff into the game, which eventually wound up in the main HG storyline, which pretty much killed Heavy Gear for me. He even created his own regiment, the Shadowguards, which was formally an entire Southern Legion Noire regiment that defected and ran off into the Badlands because they were ordered to go destroy a Badlands village while all of the townsfolk were innocently celebrating some holiday and the kids were all skipping around a maypole (I wish I was making this drek up).
It's been almost twenty years since then but even now this all rankles for me. Gah, now I'm all annoyed.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Stupid question time:
My Southern King Cobra model arrived, and it has this metal tube bit, but it's not obvious how it mounts. What is it, and how is it supposed to mount? I see some mount on shoulders (usu. Spitting Cobras), others on the back-mounted vertical launcher.
Lots of weapons, but from what I can tell, the weapons are:
- Light Guided Mortar (the tube?);
Yes - the tube is the mortar, except usually the bit is a double tube that somehow feeds ammo to the firing portion.
This seems to be how the original sculptors or artists implemented the concept(s) out of the 1e and subsequent vehicle guides.
Not sure if this is universal for the light mortar, or just specific to this sculpt.
For the KC, what few pictures I've ever seen of it assembled anyways, mounting the bit onto the HRP ''backpack'' seems the path of least frustration.
Agis page of miniatures; specific image.
Pinterest; specific image.
This of course is why so many folks over the years have kept trying (if not outright hounding?) to get the Pod to see the light as to why they should create and maintain an image gallery of all the assembled models used for the box art.
But, yeah, that whole DP9 ethos thingamajig - since you've already bought it....
Redeemer31 wrote: He even created his own regiment, the Shadowguards, which was formally an entire Southern Legion Noire regiment that defected and ran off into the Badlands because they were ordered to go destroy a Badlands village while all of the townsfolk were innocently celebrating some holiday and the kids were all skipping around a maypole (I wish I was making this drek up).
odd, I'd figure the LN would do exactly those kinds of things rather than the Republican movers & shakers calling out the MILICIA (and thus be exposed or somewhat accountable to the AST at large) because the regular SRA would (usually) cry off on something so ''beneath'' their skill and shiny toys.
This guy sounds like someone who probably got along very, very, well with Robert.
ferrous wrote: Yeah, as much as I enjoyed HG2, the lore it created was pretty awful.
I can't wait for the near future when HG:A becomes just as official. [/sarcasm]
JohnHwangDD wrote: Stupid question time:
My Southern King Cobra model arrived, and it has this metal tube bit, but it's not obvious how it mounts. What is it, and how is it supposed to mount? I see some mount on shoulders (usu. Spitting Cobras), others on the back-mounted vertical launcher.
Lots of weapons, but from what I can tell, the weapons are:
- Light Guided Mortar (the tube?);
Yeah - the tube is the mortar, except usually the bit is a double tube that somehow feeds ammo to the firing portion.
This seems to be how the original sculptors or artists implemented the concept(s) out of the 1e and subsequent vehicle guides.
Not sure if this is universal for the light mortar, or just specific to this sculpt.
For the KC, what few pictures I've ever seen of it assembled anyways, mounting the onto the HRP ''backpack'' seems the path of least frustration.
This of course is why so many folks over the years have kept trying (if not outright hounding?) to get the Pod to see the light as to why they should create and maintain an image gallery of all the assembled models used for the box art.
But, yeah, that whole DP9 ethos thingamajig - since you've already bought it....
Hence, "Stupid Question Time"... and wondering why the inconsistency in the bit (Spitting Cobra uses the double tube, instead of the single tube on the KC) and the SC shoulder mounting vs the KC back mount... I guess it's a handwave how the KC's mortar reloads.
Oh yeah, you put "HRP", but the latest calls it a LAR - did the Pod change the weapon stats at some point?
It's as if the Pod believes that people play the game for the scintillating rules they have written, not the models...
Yeah, and I'll end up buying a few more CEF Frames when all is said and done. And damn, if I don't like that big CEF hovertank. It's a darn good thing that HG can be pretty cheap.
Redeemer31 wrote: He even created his own regiment, the Shadowguards, which was formally an entire Southern Legion Noire regiment that defected and ran off into the Badlands because they were ordered to go destroy a Badlands village while all of the townsfolk were innocently celebrating some holiday and the kids were all skipping around a maypole (I wish I was making this drek up).
odd, I'd figure the LN would do exactly those kinds of things rather than the Republican movers & shakers calling out the MILICIA (and thus be exposed or somewhat accountable to the AST at large) because the regular SRA would (usually) cry off on something so ''beneath'' their skill and shiny toys.
This guy sounds like someone who probably got along very, very, well with Robert.
Exactly. I kept pointing out how illogical it was and even if that were to happen, there's no way in hell that the SRA would put up with an ENTIRE REGIMENT of LN defecting and would probably put all of their resources into wiping them out of existence.
Of course, they did. Because the job is to streamline and simplify, so naturally, that means to make up new things and apply them arbitrarily and inconsistently...
JohnHwangDD wrote: Oh yeah, you put "HRP", but the latest calls it a LAR - did the Pod change the weapon stats at some point?
They sure did! The permanent beta edition has an all-new weapons table, and there *RPs have been further divided into *RPs and *ARs.
Funny thing is, of course, that you can't trust that new table too much, give that weapons change depending on who has it, now.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Of course, they did. Because the job is to streamline and simplify, so naturally, that means to make up new things and apply them arbitrarily and inconsistently...
I figured though that if I called the rocket pack an AR almost no one would know which bit I was talking about.
I quickly browsed the LRB today, or at least the version I downloaded last time we had a discussion on dakka about something model-related, and all it shows in the recognition pages towards the back for mortars is two-tube bits.
Not sure when (if ever) the KC might have gotten such a mounting, but without digging my books out of the closet I'm thinking it might have occurred in line art for FiF.
The miniature image used in the LRB seems to also have the mortar mounted to the rocket pack, but it's hard to tell for sure as one of the comm antennae is in the way, and of course there are no Pod galleries with views from other angles.
On the KS update with the sprue layouts (#44) the LGM is shown as being an included bit, but the mortar does not appear on any of the ''assembled'' 3D renders that I could see.
Maybe this has to do with the v-engine drum being so big. /shrug
Well, the LGM is Guided, so it would be much more precise when someone is painting the target. Other than that, they are perfectly redundant.
In the old rules, the HRP only had 24 missiles, which basically meant that you would either do some low ROF shots over the game or one or two big Alpha Strikes with it (and as unlike the LGM it did not have a minimum range, you usually waited to b as near as possible. That coupled with the fact that non guided IF weapons failed a lot, you usually just used to point blank work.
That said? Yes. KC/Kodiak's main layouts are stupid ^_^
ah, thanks for the clarification. Though it still seems like a somewhat redundant item. But if the philosophy is to load the unit down with all the weapons you can, sure, why not? Probably should toss in a bigger sword, too!
The back HRP had IF with no minimum? So it's actually direct fireable? Just like the shoulder RPs notionally can IF (well, OK, I can kinda imagine the mount elevates)? That's very curious, and probably undesirable... Maybe distinguishing the RPs into DF vs IF is something they should have done at the beginning.
I think the excess of weaponry is part of what makes a Gear, a Gear, in the HG setting. As opposed to a Frame, which seems to be somewhat more restrained in weapons count.
Gears are more multi-purpose. They tend to have some sort of main gun, usually an autocannon, some rockets, hand grenades maybe some anti-infantry gun. Some of the gears, like the King Cobra and the Kodiak were just stupid, with so many overlapping weapons. It made a bit more sense when they could fire more than one weapon a turn, then no sense when they limited gears to one action, and then a little bit of sense when they bumped the KC and it's brethren to two actions.
But yeah, frames were more specialized, as they came later, after GRELs and Hovertanks, to fill a niche. I think that niche was as a screening defense against gears, and better navigation through dense/urban terrain than hovertanks.
If the weapons can be clearly distinct and tactically useful, sure, have more of them! Being able to fire multiple weapons would make the multiple weapon system more viable, but it kinda goes against typical single pilot capabilities. Unless all of the additional weapons are "fire&forget" rocket/missile systems, preferably smart seekers.
Frames make a lot more sense in urban areas, as Gasaraki amply demonstrated. You almost feel bad for the tanks... except that they don't deploy any infantry to screen the armor.
JohnHwangDD wrote: ah, thanks for the clarification. Though it still seems like a somewhat redundant item. But if the philosophy is to load the unit down with all the weapons you can, sure, why not? Probably should toss in a bigger sword, too!
The base Kodiak/King Cobra are absolutely redundant, no ifs or buts. They were meant to be player character rides, and as such they were made to have "one of everything", so to speak. Also, being as they were "Grizzly/Spit plus", they started with the main designs' loadout and basically worked upwards from there. Which yes, for actual combat vehicles look ridiculous.
OTOH, the variant designs tend to be much more sensible (The Hooded Cobra tosses the LAC, the LPA, the LGM and downgrades the MRP to add better HEAT armor, a LLC and swaps the APGL ammo for anti-laser aerosol, whereas the Kodiak Destroyer swaps the LPA for a HBZK, which is an altogether better weapon for their intended prey, even if it makes it a tad slower).
The back HRP had IF with no minimum? So it's actually direct fireable? Just like the shoulder RPs notionally can IF (well, OK, I can kinda imagine the mount elevates)? That's very curious, and probably undesirable... Maybe distinguishing the RPs into DF vs IF is something they should have done at the beginning.
Yeah, that's the funny thing... they could totally have. HG's weapons are just predesigned weapon systems made using their own design rules, so probably the "IF" trait of the RPs should have been added in a case by case basis to diferentiate between vehicles. It was easy to do, too, but...
I think the excess of weaponry is part of what makes a Gear, a Gear, in the HG setting. As opposed to a Frame, which seems to be somewhat more restrained in weapons count.
Up to a point, yes. On the one hand, Gears follow very much the same guidelines in weaponry as infantrymen (main gun, backup/special case gun, knife, grenades), plus APGLs due to them not actually being infantry but vehicles. On the other hand, they also tend to be designed following a very terranovan worldview of "make do": most Gears are multipurpose by default, and carry stuff to be able to do multiple jobs when in the field. Really specialized designs are more the exception than the norm (for example, as you have already seen, basically every trooper gear carries some kind of RP. That's for emergency anti armor work and to be able to do support IF in a pinch).
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JohnHwangDD wrote: If the weapons can be clearly distinct and tactically useful, sure, have more of them! Being able to fire multiple weapons would make the multiple weapon system more viable, but it kinda goes against typical single pilot capabilities. Unless all of the additional weapons are "fire&forget" rocket/missile systems, preferably smart seekers.
That's expensive, yo
Also, RPs are not really unguided, just kind of dumb ^_^. Most Gear designs that have multiple weapons have them due to ammo limitations or to use them for different stuff, so that's actually there. It's just that some other designs were made thinking about player characters, as it was an RPG.
Frames make a lot more sense in urban areas, as Gasaraki amply demonstrated. You almost feel bad for the tanks... except that they don't deploy any infantry to screen the armor.
Frames do work very well as HT bodyguards, as they can keep their pace.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Thanks, Albertorius. The historical context is helpful.
I always look at Robotech missile systems as the defininig version...
For Frames, don't they need the Jump Jets to keep up?
Are you thinking about the Hover mode there? Because Frames don't have jump jets by default (they can get them using Mobility Packs, though).
Honestly speaking, HT-only battlegroups will always be faster, but as their operational range is so tiny, particularly when they go fast, from a strategical POV, and even from a tactical one, Frames are able to keep up with the HT advances.
When used properly, and in properly open terrain, HTs go first, top speed. They kill the most valuable/dangerous targets and leave the shattered remains of the enemy as pockets of resistance. Then the Frames and troop carriers mop up those pockets, consolidate, and wait for the HTs to double back to refuel and rearm. Rinse and repeat.
On built up terrain, that it's the bane of that tactics (and of the regular CEF HTs and troop transports), Frame are invaluable as strike teams and as bodyguards for the rest of the CER armor. GRELs still consolidate and mop up, but also storm buildings and the like.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I was actually asking about the Jump Jets option, whether it made them the same speed as a HT.
Also, the CEF "Blitzkrieg" tactics make perfect sense.
Ah, ok, misunderstood the meaning. No, not really. Jump Jets would allow the Frames to be airdropped and to gain a lot of new movement options, but they wouldn't get faster, at least in comparison with HTs.
Setting wise, Paxton sells to everyone, and if you went to the old vehicle books you'd see just how many of the polar vehicles carry Paxton weapons (hint: a whole lot ^^). The problem with Paxton has never been the actual weapons. The problem with Paxton is that they are Johnny come-lately's to the Gear manufacturing field by... well, centuries, and they never got an actual foothold on it. But somehow, for some reason... they're the best there are at that nowadays. Because REASONS. And they're manufacturing more Gear chassis designs nowadays than both polar powers combined. Which, taking into account that this is AFTER they got their main manufacturing centers blown up to kingdom come (along, I might say with basically all their air force). But they got around to not only designing but building a whole lot of new Gear chassises. And new abomin- pardon, "gearstriders".
But hey, it's the faction that makes the main playtester's hard, so...
And don't make me talk about NuCoal, now. You won't like it.
Sorry for dredging this up but anytime I see anything about the sudden rise of Paxton, I always feel the need to chime in.
I put the blame for all of those shenanigans on DP9 and Heavy Gear 2. Actually, to be specific, I put the blame mainly on one of the people from Activision who was working on HG2. He was was a fan of Heavy Gear and he wanted to contribute to the HG universe. Fine. When he approached DP9 about it, they generally didn't care because their mentality was that it was a computer game so whatever.
Now, this guy did not want to be tied to the North nor did he want to be tied to the South; he wanted to created a Badlands regiment. Ok, fine. Then he looked at the stats for the Warrior IV and compared them to the Jaguar and Black Mamba. He was not happy about with the stats. He wanted something that was comparable to the Jaguar/BM. So he created the Warrior Elite.
I still remember on IRC when he was showing it off. It was more maneuverable than a Jaguar or BM and it had a Vibrorapier. Some other people and I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't listen and put it in the game. He then started creating other Gears, such as the Agamemnon, Perseus (a stealth/hover Gear!), and some other munchy crap. But he needed to explain where all of this came about. So he started creating some background information about how Paxton was so worried about war popping up between the North and the South after Thor Hutchison's death, that they decided to secretly recruit all of these dissatisfied people who worked for various Northern/Southern Gear manufacturers to create these 'Elite' gears that were better than anything the North or South had. And of course, all development was offsite so when Paxton City went boom, luckily they still had these amazing Gears out of harm's way.
He even tried posting some of the stuff on the Heavy Gear Mailing List. But when his designs were cut to ribbons, he refused to share anymore information and just did whatever he wanted.
What pisses me off the most is that this guy kept insisting on putting this stuff into the game, which eventually wound up in the main HG storyline, which pretty much killed Heavy Gear for me. He even created his own regiment, the Shadowguards, which was formally an entire Southern Legion Noire regiment that defected and ran off into the Badlands because they were ordered to go destroy a Badlands village while all of the townsfolk were innocently celebrating some holiday and the kids were all skipping around a maypole (I wish I was making this drek up).
It's been almost twenty years since then but even now this all rankles for me. Gah, now I'm all annoyed.
I do so love these nuggets of history. Having been 11 when the game was released, I wasn't quite as up on Heavy Gear creation as I am now. Any other stories you could share from those days?
Albertorius wrote: How about the original creation of the HTs' stats and the threshold hunting they did for them?
I wouldn't mind hearing about that. I didn't think armor values were as big of a problem until Blitz, since all armor degraded pre-Blitz, so armor thresholds weren't as big of a deal. Ie 18 armor was actually good to have over 17, not just in the off chance that your opponent might've brought the only 17 damage weapon around. Unless this is a different threshold?
Albertorius wrote: How about the original creation of the HTs' stats and the threshold hunting they did for them?
I wouldn't mind hearing about that. I didn't think armor values were as big of a problem until Blitz, since all armor degraded pre-Blitz, so armor thresholds weren't as big of a deal. Ie 18 armor was actually good to have over 17, not just in the off chance that your opponent might've brought the only 17 damage weapon around. Unless this is a different threshold?
Different kind of thresholds
IIRC, the original stats of Earth's HTs (the ones from the HG2 tie-in, I think) were designed in such a way that the speed, armor, weapons, perks and flaws were added so as to always keep them exactly at the threshold of maximum efficiency for the cost. That way, they were able to design a vehicle with a MTV that was much lower than it would have been had they designed them organically, as they did for example with the polar tanks and armor.
So they ended making them waaay cheaper than they should for their capabilities, and way cheaper than other comparable tanks.
In Blitz, the hovertanks were overpriced for several editions. Before NuBlitz, they were really expensive, and needed to take some downgrades because the default gun sucked and the downgrade was actually better and cost less. They were pretty mean machines though, decent armor, fast, and with powerful weapons. But for several editions if you took the minimum two, that was pretty much your entire army, so it was easy to get surrounded and killed.
Of course, they were still better to take than frames, who were overpriced and subpar. =)
Named after all those ships both 
Looks great in "gear" or tank mode, but the idea that it transforms is a bit of a stretch for me. And why is it called a strider?
