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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.

ferrous wrote:
While tankstriders, something sort of like this: http://spinner-vision.deviantart.com/art/walking-tank-169479752 or http://www.serenadawn.com/GITS-Vehicles_clip_image007_0000.jpg

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.

_
_ much editing: can't seem to spell here today.

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.

 warboss wrote:

 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?

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.

Maybe something like this by Galan Pang?

 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.

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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.

Methanol fuel and Ethanol fuel

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.

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_

Sorry, I made a mistake and indeed replied regarding ethanol.

 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.

All this other, not so well.

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_

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.

Anyhow, good stuff.

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).

Thanks!

 Albertorius wrote:

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.

Yeah, as much as I enjoyed HG2, the lore it created was pretty awful.

 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]

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_

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

 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.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

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.

 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.

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...

 Albertorius wrote:

 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

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Thanks.

More stupid questions:

- Is there a reason why the KC has both a Mortar and the AR/RP for IF?

- Is there a reason one would use the Mortar over the AR/RP? It seems that the AR/RP would be vastly superior IF option.

It's kinda silly how overgunned the KC is.

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).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.