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I have a few questions about Titan operations, in particular the Warlord Titan.

A Warlord Titan is operated by a Princeps and up to four Moderatii, a Techpriest, an Engineseer, and integrated servitor units.

The Princeps is connected to the Titan's machine spirit via a Mind Impulse Unit, which in essence makes the Titan an extension of himself, where the Princeps commands the onboard systems to perform their proper functions, correct?

What functions do the Moderatii perform? Are they like Voltron, where each of the four Moderatii operate a separate limb while the Princeps controls the head region? Are Moderatii also connected via MIUs, or do they control their functions with analog equipment? Are their other crews, such as servitors that operate helm controls, or would that be covered by the MIU?

Also, how are Titans usually deployed? Are they shot out of a ship ala Starship Troopers Marauder suits? Or are they ferried down to a planet in massive barges like AT-ATs in Star Wars?

Dan Abnett wrote "Titanicus", which gives a good insight on what's inside a titan and it's a pretty good story too. I haven't read it in a long time, but that book is a good start!

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
The Princeps is connected to the Titan's machine spirit via a Mind Impulse Unit, which in essence makes the Titan an extension of himself, where the Princeps commands the onboard systems to perform their proper functions, correct?

Yep

What functions do the Moderatii perform? Are they like Voltron, where each of the four Moderatii operate a separate limb while the Princeps controls the head region?

From what I understand they tend to control separate sub-systems within the titan, for example individual weapon and targeting systems.

Are Moderatii also connected via MIUs, or do they control their functions with analog equipment?

Depends what fluff you read. Some will be mind linked, others will be using consoles, some will have a bit of both.

Are their other crews, such as servitors that operate helm controls, or would that be covered by the MIU?

There will be some servitors depending on the type of titan - some may control anti-infantry close in weapons systems (kind of like point defence stuff), some will help control other systems such as power etc. Other titans may only use the human crew tied into the titan. Some others may have lots of humans all at consoles.

Also, how are Titans usually deployed? Are they shot out of a ship ala Starship Troopers Marauder suits? Or are they ferried down to a planet in massive barges like AT-ATs in Star Wars?

Yes.

(ie there are titan drop pods as well as titan sized shuttles).

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
I have a few questions about Titan operations, in particular the Warlord Titan.

A Warlord Titan is operated by a Princeps and up to four Moderatii, a Techpriest, an Engineseer, and integrated servitor units.

True

The Princeps is connected to the Titan's machine spirit via a Mind Impulse Unit, which in essence makes the Titan an extension of himself, where the Princeps commands the onboard systems to perform their proper functions, correct?

yes. The princeps is the "Commander" of the Titan, and on a warlord he is in a suspended cask with some life-sustaining fluids that allow electronic impulses from the Machine Spirit to easily be felt. Smaller titans, warhounds and reavers, don't require this cask, they are just hard-plugged into command seats, but have less personal connection with their machines, whereas the Warlord's MS can control the Princeps

What functions do the Moderatii perform? Are they like Voltron, where each of the four Moderatii operate a separate limb while the Princeps controls the head region? Are Moderatii also connected via MIUs, or do they control their functions with analog equipment? Are their other crews, such as servitors that operate helm controls, or would that be covered by the MIU?

The moderatii observe the systems, like auspex, ammunition, void shields and damage interfaces. They also control the movement speed and direction, the guns, and pretty much anything else. Well, they are given the orders from the Princeps to do x or such. Gun systems are auto-targeted by servitors but the Mod pull the trigger in the end.

Also, how are Titans usually deployed? Are they shot out of a ship ala Starship Troopers Marauder suits? Or are they ferried down to a planet in massive barges like AT-ATs in Star Wars?

Titans are ferried from large mechanicus ships down to the surface, so like AT-ATs, and are generally only deployed wherever the battle is hardest or has the highest threat value. They are giant fething robots designed to kill things after all.

EDIT: ive never heard of titan-pods that's an interesting concept.... I wonder if I could do that for an apoc game...

I liked more how in novel ''mechanicus" Titans were portrayed and less in ''Titanicus". I would like to see MIU enabling princeps to actually be Titans, moving and fighting completely just as one entity. In "Titanicus" however they are portrayed more like princeps need their moderati just for about anything. Princeps should "evolve" beyond such things, changing their view of battliefield in an instant, activating shields or weaponary to them should be just as natural as blinking. Moderatis should be used just for observations and conclusions that princeps cannot do himself in a heat of battle.
For example: in ''Titanicus" there was a place there Warlord titan stepped on mines. Princpes should have felt just a scratching feeling in his foot and he should ask his moderati only for that was that and where it come from. And moderati should open a separate window in place of his princeps to check that his area might be mined or research others possibilities of how and from where this damage might have come.
Other example in a same book would be then Titans were fighting in dust-storm. Moderati should do all data observations and thinking while princeps should be focused on keeping his awareness of a battlefield. Opening extra windows will obviously ruin interaction with Titan, so it should be avoided. All necessary data should be transferred via fluids or it could be told via binary as a conclusion by moderati.

The Moderati keep an eye on various subsystems, and can do jobs delegated to them by the Princeps. Although the Princeps is capable of fully controlling the titan alone.

They're basically co-pilots that operate the lesser systems. The Princeps has direct control over movement and weaponry.

Depends on your fluff Grey, in Titanicus the Princeps acted more like a ship commander fighting his vessel from the CIC with a Steersman, Sensor operator, weapons operator and the Moderati standing as XO, monitoring basically everything. All/most of the crew was hard linked to the Manifold, which allows interface with the MIU that the Princeps has basically taken a full dive in.

Okay, another question. Should the Moderatii also be linked to the machine spirit via MIU, would it be possible for the Princeps to delegate more tasks to the Moderatii should the Machine Spirit begin to overwhelm him? Such as in a high stress situation where the overload of data is threatening to make the Princeps succumb to the MS's influence?

And that's a bad thing? To be one with a god? To become a god?

Ernestas wrote:
And that's a bad thing? To be one with a god? To become a god?

Do you want a Machine Spirit to take control of your body in the middle of a combat situation where coordination is critical? Even if it remained loyal, there would be no controlling something that powerful, and it could do more harm than good without the teamwork with the rest of the legion.

Machine spirit do not overwhelms you as a wulfen curse for example. Its slowly changes yours personality to its. Over a time, you loose all that have made you, you. You become same thing, extension of your machine's will through your personality which in time will mirror yours machine's own character. In time, you will have nothing in common with humanity apart from your wrecked body. You will begin imagining yourself as a Titan. You will think and feel as your's Titan's machine spirit. You will act just as machine spirit would act. You will speak only in binary. You will have a very poor grasp of humanities culture and all that makes us human.


Co-ordiantion is always a problem, but princeps are drilled very well in this area and discipline comes naturally to them. But this will not influence theirs machines characters (thus theirs too). For example, warhound princeps will always be wolf-like hunters with high initiative and strong sense of independence while Emperor class princeps are always very arrogant. These are not problems of co-operation, but more like strengths or at least minor flaws that matters little in actual battlefield.


As for chain of command, well, you better tread very carefully around them, because you really do not have anything to send against them. Titan legions always are one of the most important factor on a battlefield.
In novel ''Titanicus" you for example can see how most respected and oldest princeps, "Red Fury" managed to win all remaining Titans to his cause and effectively ending the coup. There was a very good line where master of the forge threatened to remove him from his position. Red Fury's answer was: who is going to manage to do that?
In conclusion, while princeps are very loyal, you would better tread carefully around them, because you literally have nothing which could remove them from their post. Even single rogue titan can wreck immense damage on you cities and armies before he is taken down. And if you face an entire legion insubordinationing then best course of action usually will be a heavy orbital bombardment, reducing hundreds if not thousands of square kilometres of earth around them into nothing, but radioactive desert.

An Ork would paint it red and press all the big shiny buttons. JUST SAYIN.