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Heavy weapons and gear; because it makes me giddy.

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Tue, 2012-08-07 12:47

Prophet710 Prophet710's picture

Heavy weapons and gear; because it makes me giddy.

So far with the exception of the Reaper and the new Fenrir I have yet to find anything that screams heavy artillery. Arguably there isn't much need for such gear seeing as if you as a player or you as a GM find yourself caught using strategic assets, you're'/they're done for anyway. However, because I like the heavy gear I'd like to throw around some ideas as to what kind of military/strategic assets each faction might be privy to. Things such as tanks, APCs, Fighter air/space craft, exoskeletons, power armor, light vehicles. That kind of thing, and then couple them with rules, (obviously most of these are going to be vehicles) though there should be some morphs other than the Fury and Reaper and Olympian (discussed at length in other posts) that are specifically geared for war and combat but fill a more specialized or more general role. As a note we can also throw in starships, corvettes, cruisers, dreadnoughts etc. (discussed but not quite detailed in other posts [that I can remember anyway]). Another great thing to look at would be more combat/strategic/tactical weapons, heavy armaments other than the plasma rifle, etc. I might be over thinking this but I like these discussions.

—

"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."

Tue, 2012-08-07 14:53

Xagroth

The problem with that is that

The problem with that is that people will, usually, keep things mobile and stealthy. Because the amount of firepower an infant can deploy even today is much higher than a battle tank's, compared to the production cost. In short: a soldier with a missile launcher can destroy a M1A1 Abrams, and the cost involved is very disparate. Anyway, that being said, my thoughts on heavy "gear" in EP are as follows: - Nothing is too big: The biggest door a Pandora Gate can open will be an absolute limit, usually with a 20% safety margin (since the controls to size up the gate are not known yet). - Really big stuff belongs to the spaceships/naval branch, and will be able to fly. - Things that can get into cities/habitats are prefered. - Synth stuff with cyberbrains is prefered against biomorphs and crewed combat vehicles (unless Jovian ones). - Nanowarfare, electronic warfare, and last resort options are very important. - Logistic trains are important: even if you have a CM mounted on, you still cannot make ammo from dirt. Also, some emergency batteries and solar chargers or the like might be interesting to include. - Walkers with floating/self propelling capability seems to be prefered against wheels or chains. Low gravity means a walker can try to grab the "floor", while a normal vehicle would be prone to accidents.

Tue, 2012-08-07 15:18

Jaberwo

I could imgine that a lot of

I could imgine that a lot of the heavy equipment comes in swarms. This way you don't loose everything at once and if a part of the swarm gets killed there might be an idetnical component nearby that can fill the gap. So instead of a tank you have several small (1-2m) drones that are hardened against small arms fire, but don't try to survive anything bigger, because it is not practical. There are 2 Sensor drones that have eyes for every part of the spectrum radar lidar and whatnot. 2 Drones for killing small targes like Infantry with railguns and seekers. 2 Drones with heavy weapons. 1 nanowarfare and 1 electronic warfare drone. I'm gonna try and make a document about such a system.

Tue, 2012-08-07 22:06

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

The Eye had an article about

The Eye had an article about scaling up weapons which seemed quite suitable for me. I haven't had a chance yet to use these crew-served weapons in a game, but I intend to :) I do think that it's more fun to actually throw dice than to say "boom, you're dead", since some players make CRAZY tough PCs, so I certainly applaud what you're doing.

Tue, 2012-08-07 22:15

Thampsan

What about something like a

What about something like a 'server' synth. I'm thinking a really over-large, possibly modular synth with tracks, complex walker system or something that can hover that specialises in being able to run private sim-spaces and hold multiple ghost-rider modules like some sort of group tour guide or mobile laboratory.

Tue, 2012-08-07 22:27

Prophet710 Prophet710's picture

Could even use this as a

Could even use this as a multi-role EW and/or recon suite. The egos within control drones, conduct infosec/hacking and real time data collation.

—

"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."

Wed, 2012-08-08 04:05

Xagroth

Thampsan wrote:What about

Thampsan wrote:
What about something like a 'server' synth. I'm thinking a really over-large, possibly modular synth with tracks, complex walker system or something that can hover that specialises in being able to run private sim-spaces and hold multiple ghost-rider modules like some sort of group tour guide or mobile laboratory.

Have a look at the Fenrir in Rimward, if you modify it a little its close enough to what you want. As for the "swarm" idea, well, it depends. I remember a Traveller fleet competition a computer won twice in the 70's or 80's by using that system... It still has a problem, though: area saturation bombardments will take it down quickly, and there is that little problem of dropping signal jammers in the middle of the enemy formation or even hack the spotters to paint other units as enemy ones.

Fri, 2012-08-10 18:51

Thampsan

I am aware of the Fenrir,

I am aware of the Fenrir, however it's a combat vehicle, i'm talking about a synth body that is designed as a mobile laboratory, collect, scan and then internally analyze.

Sun, 2012-08-12 10:31

Xagroth

Thampsan wrote:I am aware of

Thampsan wrote:
I am aware of the Fenrir, however it's a combat vehicle, i'm talking about a synth body that is designed as a mobile laboratory, collect, scan and then internally analyze.

The Xu Fu (pg 152 Gatecrashing) is quite close to that. I suppose you could add some sort of extra stuff for the analysis, like microscopic vision and fractal digits.

Wed, 2012-08-15 07:09

#10

BOMherren

Heavy artillery

Prophet710 wrote:
So far with the exception of the Reaper and the new Fenrir I have yet to find anything that screams heavy artillery.

Dwarf! Not the Dvergr biomorph, but the robot from the core book (p.346). Put a cyberbrain in that thing, kit it up for combat, load up on some crew-served weapons, and go to town. Bonus points if you get a fork in a Guardian Angel or Swarmanoid to spot for your seekers! If you need something a little more nimble, put a Cyberbrain in a Hyperdense Exoskeleton or Battlesuit. Don't bother having a Morph wear the thing, unless you really, really need some more Aptitude bonuses, because it will make you much more vulnerable. Remember that exoskeletons are vehicles, and so the wearer of the suit can be targeted independently of the suit itself.

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