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 Albertorius wrote:
Not really... Cheetahs are actually only slightly smaller than Hunters, it's just the current batch of minis had size differences exxagerated. A Cheetah is less than one head shorter than a Hunter (4.1 m vs. 4.3 m) and very slightly wider (3.3 m vs. 3 m), while being about a ton lighter. Jaguars and Mambas are again very slighttly bigger than troopers and about a ton heavier, and the biggest difference would be on the support gears, which are usually about half a meter taller than the elites and about three tons heavier, near the ten tons.

Protomechs are similar in size but with a wider range, from 2 tons to 15 (the two tonners would be smaller than many powered armors of the setting). So, the examples you gave. The Sprite (10 tons) is a bout the size of a Grizzly, whereas the Hobgoblin at 15 tons is bigger than any Gear. Then again, the Hobgoblin is as big as seven Harpy protomechs, so...

Mass is one part of "big", but so is volume (and height associated with it). But even then, a Cheetah isn't going to be outsizing the upper end of the early Protomech generations or the latter ones, and I don't think the tiniest Protomechs will be outsizing even the trooper lines of the Heavy Gears. Nothing you state here really changes that. From there, with the varied sizes of Protomechs, both in mass and volume, it will depend from unit to unit as to which is bigger or not.

 Albertorius wrote:
Piloting Gears is indeed much different from piloting protos, but also from piloting tau suits, which are handled more like suits of powered armor, while Gears are handled more like vehicles with the neural net handling all the "natural movement" parts.

That is different on the bigger tau suits, though, and the Ghostkeel is a dead ringer for a Heavy Gear, up to the "head-in-head" design, but the smaller suits are suits.

I know that Crisis Suits are different from Gears. I just said that piloting a Gear is closer to piloting a Crisis Suit than it would be to a Protomech. Being closer doesn't mean equality, or even congruity, just that the approaches are more similar than the another. Kind of like Humans are closer to being dogs than they are to being fish.

And no, Crisis Suits are not handled like powered Armor, that's the Stealth Suits. There isn't enough room for the legs to go down in a Crisis Suit, and I remember some earlier fiction noted that the Crisis Suit pilots sat in their suits akin to Gears, though, it has been a long time since I read that, so it could just be a Mandella Effect.

More New Eden Concept art. I might just have to start collecting a new army (so far it's been North/South/PRDF/Black talon)

The designs are cool... problem I have with hover everything is that the CEF used them to be able to handle any possible terrain... but it was all built with zero-g alloys and incredibly expensive.

Everyone and their dogs having everything hover, feels like cheapening it.

But they look cool. The exhausts feel a bit too thin, though.

At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy duddy (to match my new avatar, lol!) opposed to any change, I think I preferred when various factions and subfactions had distinct asthetics/gear and didn't cross over so much. They're supposed to be a part of the massive CEF fleet, right? So wouldn't they use them for logistics and support instead? I realize that mechanically equates to fairly limited variety in a subfaction but I don't think HG is a game big enough to need more than a half dozen full factions' worth of models. I kind of liked it when things were more delineated and if you wanted something different then you used the ally rules; in this case, Eden was the golem faction and they used the CEF for larger bipedal mechs and hover vehicles. YMMV. That's

 Charistoph wrote:
Mass is one part of "big", but so is volume (and height associated with it). But even then, a Cheetah isn't going to be outsizing the upper end of the early Protomech generations or the latter ones, and I don't think the tiniest Protomechs will be outsizing even the trooper lines of the Heavy Gears. Nothing you state here really changes that. From there, with the varied sizes of Protomechs, both in mass and volume, it will depend from unit to unit as to which is bigger or not.

Yes. That is exactly what I said ("protomechs are similar in size but with a wider range"). Gears tend to be more similar in size among them than Protomechs are, which run a bigger, and much, much wider gamut. Also, volume, height, etc, are usually in direct relation to mass, unless something has big, hollow spaces, which heither Gears nor protos will have.

 Albertorius wrote:
Piloting Gears is indeed much different from piloting protos, but also from piloting tau suits, which are handled more like suits of powered armor, while Gears are handled more like vehicles with the neural net handling all the "natural movement" parts.

That is different on the bigger tau suits, though, and the Ghostkeel is a dead ringer for a Heavy Gear, up to the "head-in-head" design, but the smaller suits are suits.

I know that Crisis Suits are different from Gears. I just said that piloting a Gear is closer to piloting a Crisis Suit than it would be to a Protomech. Being closer doesn't mean equality, or even congruity, just that the approaches are more similar than the another. Kind of like Humans are closer to being dogs than they are to being fish.

And no, Crisis Suits are not handled like powered Armor, that's the Stealth Suits. There isn't enough room for the legs to go down in a Crisis Suit, and I remember some earlier fiction noted that the Crisis Suit pilots sat in their suits akin to Gears, though, it has been a long time since I read that, so it could just be a Mandella Effect.

"More like powered armor", not "like powered armor" . I don't remember the fiction you refer to, though, and I don't think GW has ever shown the actual insided of a crisis suit, but to be honest, thos torsos are... really small, for a pilot.


IF a pilot is supposed to fit inside that completely, he won't be having much fun at all. Seeing how wide the leg connections to the torso are, one would expect the pilot's legs to be meant to fit at least partially inside the upper legs, while I think the idea was that the arms were inside the torso. As for piloting protos, if I'm not mistaken they are piloted mostly through neural impulses, with the pilot curled up inside like a ball.

 Charistoph wrote:
Tech-wise, MUCH different, Protomechs requiring some significant surgery to pilot them, either for neural links or losing all four limbs to fit in to the cockpit (with cybernetics provided when not piloting the machine).

Alaya-Vijnana system as in Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans?

https://g-tekketsu.fandom.com/wiki/Alaya-Vijnana_System

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Tech-wise, MUCH different, Protomechs requiring some significant surgery to pilot them, either for neural links or losing all four limbs to fit in to the cockpit (with cybernetics provided when not piloting the machine).

Alaya-Vijnana system as in Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans?

https://g-tekketsu.fandom.com/wiki/Alaya-Vijnana_System

They don't build a secondary computer in the brain, as far as I know, but the Clans use the Enhanced Imaging akin to what you see in the Battletech cartoon (yes, there was one, it is on YouTube, and it is canonically considered a propaganda piece in universe) to make a direct neural-cybernetic interface, and the Word of Blake used a Direct Neural Interface for their connections.

The reason for this is Protomech cockpits are REALLY small. The pilot needs to be blow a certain mass and height to qualify, and they don't have enough room for classic control systems.

The Clanners used failed Pilots and have them just curl up in to a fetal ball while inside the cockpit. The Word of Blake took a different approach, by basically removing the limbs of the pilot ala the X-Com MEC pilots, and basically sticking them in a life support bath.

Edit: It was a cartoon, not the universe being referenced.

I see, thanks.

Socket Soldiers are a much better refinement of the concept:



They're just heads that literally screw into a combat body.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I see, thanks.

Socket Soldiers are a much better refinement of the concept:



They're just heads that literally screw into a combat body.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of them... cool idea though obviously I don't know if it originated there.

https://battleangel.fandom.com/wiki/Socket_soldier

Socket Soldiers go back to the 1990s. Not sure when the other limbless stuff came out, but it's the logical endpoint of direct neural -> limbless -> brain & spine (Gally / Alita herself in 1990).

I don't know when they introduced the limbless Protomech pilots, either, as it was a Jihad thing. It might have been done after Topps secured it from WizKids Clix format.

I'm not as familiar with all the Heavy Gear lore, but it sounds like such a measure isn't as needed for them to operate their Gears. They depend more on AIs to handle all the crap the BTU relies on pilots for.

Still, a method for severely injured pilots to be recycled back in might encourage such a venture. How is the cybernetics in the Heavy Gear universe?

Sorry, but the question of HG cybernetic lore is way out of my depth. Hopefully Warboss or Albertorius can answer.

I think the bit about recycling injured / half-dead pilots is basically the same as with 40k Space Marine Dreadnoughts.

 Charistoph wrote:
I don't know when they introduced the limbless Protomech pilots, either, as it was a Jihad thing. It might have been done after Topps secured it from WizKids Clix format.

I'm not as familiar with all the Heavy Gear lore, but it sounds like such a measure isn't as needed for them to operate their Gears. They depend more on AIs to handle all the crap the BTU relies on pilots for.

Still, a method for severely injured pilots to be recycled back in might encourage such a venture. How is the cybernetics in the Heavy Gear universe?

They don't need it at all, Heavy Gears have full cockpits and they are piloted with two special joysticks and feet levers. There is no AI either, what there is is a ONNet, an optical neural network, which would be sort of like an expert system more than anything else, trained to make the gear move more smoothly and to compensate the input of the pilot into more fluid movements.

Cybernetics are usually more on the realm of advanced prosthetics than full enhacements, but there's also "webbling", where you implant an animal with a neural net to domesticate it or to make it able to control specialized gear.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but the question of HG cybernetic lore is way out of my depth. Hopefully Warboss or Albertorius can answer.

I think the bit about recycling injured / half-dead pilots is basically the same as with 40k Space Marine Dreadnoughts.

That's the CEF/Earth, which has been "recycling" their GREL troopers because they felt they were not reliable enough into FLAILs, which are mostly socket soldiers, really, but heavily webbled for total control. It's... kind of stupid, really, as the FLAILs are, while tougher than regular GREL infantry, even less imaginative and even more rigid, while at the same time more expensive in resources than just using comparable light vehicles.

So, it's less "40k SM dreadnought" and more "let's make ALL marines into tiny dreadnoughts". The old Caprice golems are a much better idea for basically the same.

 Albertorius wrote:
They don't need it at all, Heavy Gears have full cockpits and they are piloted with two special joysticks and feet levers. There is no AI either, what there is is a ONNet, an optical neural network, which would be sort of like an expert system more than anything else, trained to make the gear move more smoothly and to compensate the input of the pilot into more fluid movements.

Right, and while I said, "AI", I'm not talking a full SkyNet capacity, or even Star Trek:TNG's computer system, but something that is definitely more advanced than what we have now. Also, they do gain experience, from what I understand, such that older systems perform far more quickly and efficiently. So when a pilot CAN eject, they make sure they pull the core of it so they don't lose all that "experience".

 Albertorius wrote:
Cybernetics are usually more on the realm of advanced prosthetics than full enhacements, but there's also "webbling", where you implant an animal with a neural net to domesticate it or to make it able to control specialized gear.

How advanced a prosthetic is will make that determination, I think. If an arm replacement can be provided that can work like a full arm, it really isn't that much of a stretch to link a mecha in to that system. However, what trade-offs that come attendant to that are usually what makes that determination. Providing a healthy pilot and ONNet is probably more cost-effective than wiring a pilot to cybernetically control a Gear. Still, one advantage with that wiring would be that it would be harder to steal.

Terra Novan medical ethics pretty much prohibits socket soldiers for gears. The CEF keeps FLAILs so secret they've got self destruct systems because they realize what a P.R. disaster they would be, even if they're using GRELs as the guinea pigs. Even their own troops don't know, aside from some of the technicians that maintain them.

And the best cybernetics Terra Nova has available basically add some FIT (fitness) and body armor to the character, making them harder to hurt but no faster, no super jumps, nothing like that. More of a side effect of having replacement limbs rather than actual augmentations (aside from the duraskin implants, which is Shadowrun style dermal sheath).

 Charistoph wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
They don't need it at all, Heavy Gears have full cockpits and they are piloted with two special joysticks and feet levers. There is no AI either, what there is is a ONNet, an optical neural network, which would be sort of like an expert system more than anything else, trained to make the gear move more smoothly and to compensate the input of the pilot into more fluid movements.

Right, and while I said, "AI", I'm not talking a full SkyNet capacity, or even Star Trek:TNG's computer system, but something that is definitely more advanced than what we have now. Also, they do gain experience, from what I understand, such that older systems perform far more quickly and efficiently. So when a pilot CAN eject, they make sure they pull the core of it so they don't lose all that "experience".

They do get experience, yes, and they need to be trained, but they are in the same "AI" catergory as the current batch (well, actually a little bit less advanced than the current ones) and firmly in the realm of trainable expert systems.

 Albertorius wrote:
Cybernetics are usually more on the realm of advanced prosthetics than full enhacements, but there's also "webbling", where you implant an animal with a neural net to domesticate it or to make it able to control specialized gear.

How advanced a prosthetic is will make that determination, I think. If an arm replacement can be provided that can work like a full arm, it really isn't that much of a stretch to link a mecha in to that system. However, what trade-offs that come attendant to that are usually what makes that determination. Providing a healthy pilot and ONNet is probably more cost-effective than wiring a pilot to cybernetically control a Gear. Still, one advantage with that wiring would be that it would be harder to steal.

It's a cost and ethics dilemma. Webbling animals is usually as far as the public will go, and even then it's something that's not kindly looked upon. They also don't gel too well with terranovan ethos on technology, most of the time, as they usually prefer to go for sturdier and more reliable options, still with a frontier world mentality.

It's not technologically impossible in the setting (although I would posit that training limb nerve conections to link with a new limb is quite a bit easier than trying to pilot a full mecha just with the power of the mind), but it doesn't seem very cost effective (except apparently for the CEF... and well, I already commented on that) and there would be a big stigma associated.

Was cleaning out storage and found 3 generations of 1/144 hunters.

Finally putting them side by side I feel like the Original Blitz sculpt (middle) by that dude from Minimaniak is the best of the 3

I agree! It was a good mix of dynamism and a bit of artistic license for the medium.

Duymon wrote:
Was cleaning out storage and found 3 generations of 1/144 hunters.

Finally putting them side by side I feel like the Original Blitz sculpt (middle) by that dude from Minimaniak is the best of the 3

Oh, absolutely. The original 1/144s are very precise in reflecting the tehnical illustrations, but Phil's metals are gorgeously renditioned versions of Ghislain's art.

We don't speak about the North/South plastics >_>

 Albertorius wrote:
We don't speak about the North/South plastics >_>

Truth.

Has anyone come across any good Northern painting guides? I've finally finished assembling about 300 TV of WFP and holy cow if I don't actually want to paint them! Buuut I've seen plenty of videos on YouTube where Southern gears get the painting love, but I'm at a loss for a good set of paints to reproduce the Northern schemes I've seen online.

Well, I haven't painted much HG in years, but the last gear I painted was a northern one, classic illustrations scheme.

Only 28mm ^^

 Siygess wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
We don't speak about the North/South plastics >_>

Truth.

Has anyone come across any good Northern painting guides? I've finally finished assembling about 300 TV of WFP and holy cow if I don't actually want to paint them! Buuut I've seen plenty of videos on YouTube where Southern gears get the painting love, but I'm at a loss for a good set of paints to reproduce the Northern schemes I've seen online.

Northern gears in general usually display some sort of desert scheme, whereas usually Southern gears get a jungle or grey scheme. Neither are universal, just the most common. Generally any dark tan or yellowish-brown base color with highlights and elements in a very light tan, some metal drybrushing over the top and an ink wash over it works fantastic as a basic Northern scheme. Desert camo patterns, particularly old 90's era Desert Storm ones, are also prominent in a lot of the art (though less in painted representations).

Keep in mind there's no set strict faction colors the way there often is with games like 40k, where Imperial Fists are always yellow and the like, Terra Novan forces are big into camo and matching their environment, or flying their own unit colors. I'd say paint them in whatever scheme you think most fits your headcanon of where they're based or what their job is. UMF Paratroopers sporting very southern Jungle camo may be appropriate if they're expecting to be dropping into the Mekong Dominion for example.

 Albertorius wrote:
Well, I haven't painted much HG in years, but the last gear I painted was a northern one, classic illustrations scheme.

Only 28mm ^^
snip

*swoon*

 Albertorius wrote:
Well, I haven't painted much HG in years, but the last gear I painted was a northern one, classic illustrations scheme.

Only 28mm ^^

Spoiler:

Scale matters. For me at least, the larger you go then the better dimensions/proportions closer to the technical art look in figure form.

Holy crap Albertorius, that is a crisp paint job!

Edit: And as for the scheme, it is more about the colours. Like.. is Zandri dust a good base for WFP if I'm erring towards a pale sandy colour instead of the typical CNCS off-yellow. And what is a good complimentary brown as a secondary colour?

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with it, all things considered.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Siygess wrote:
Holy crap Albertorius, that is a crisp paint job!

Edit: And as for the scheme, it is more about the colours. Like.. is Zandri dust a good base for WFP if I'm erring towards a pale sandy colour instead of the typical CNCS off-yellow. And what is a good complimentary brown as a secondary colour?

Zandri Dust should work for pale sand, sure. Something that could work pretty well for that could be a sort of "tiger stripes" camo scheme using a very dark brown or black and bone or off-white.

Yeah, the original Tactical sculpts are the best. Southern Gears are the same way.

It's almost a crime to put the plastics in the same picture, they're so poorly-sculpted and proportioned by comparison.

I think the OG RAFM Gears look nice, too!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, the original Tactical sculpts are the best. Southern Gears are the same way.

It's almost a crime to put the plastics in the same picture, they're so poorly-sculpted and proportioned by comparison.

I think the OG RAFM Gears look nice, too!

The RAFM gears were great. They only had 2 flaws; the rocket packs weren't great (having small holes rather than the current/superior 'nubs'), and the bases were generally too small for the scale (and solid lead pewter as well).

DP9 was so forward looking at the start with high production art/layouts, video game licenses, animated series. I feel like with the plastics they were looking backwards, as guys like Mason were already 3D printing ludicrously detailed gears years before the Kickstarter campaign for the plastics came out, and the plastic renders were 1990s level of detail (which turned out fine for Caprice/CEF but not for the gears).

Funnily enough, after maybe five years, I've painted two Gears, two work Gears from Arena that I had unopened since, as I'll be using them for a Lancer scenario I'm planning to run soon, as farming equipment. Painting is basic and fast (maybe an hour for both), but it does the job:









Holy feth the Engineering Grizzly was a pain to assemble. I hate metal. Also, I didn't remember the quality of the metals from DP9.

It's not great.

 Albertorius wrote:
Funnily enough, after maybe five years, I've painted two Gears,

Holy feth the Engineering Grizzly was a pain to assemble. I hate metal. Also, I didn't remember the quality of the metals from DP9.

It's not great.

Yeah, I can't stop staring at the orange peel. Like every surface has orange peel. And prominent mold lines.

That reminds me that I ought to work on getting my HG stuff built.

I suppose you could argue that a lower quality finish for the construction version was a feature and not a bug?

Regardless, we finally hit 1,000 votes in the poll after 8 years sometime this week! Yay! I feel like there should be a celebratory cookie or something...