The problem is that I think people are going to object again to investing AP in expanding industry, and instead want to do things like
trickle AP into watching the progress bar for the engines go up.
I have to admit I don't really see the point of Haywire weapons when we can instead probably more cheaply get melta and plasma weapons.
We generally don't want to capture our enemies, we want to kill them.
Thanks for working that out.
I also that for the foreseeable future we're also going to have heavy competition for WAP.
Chassis and hull militarisation are both important to do and important to do ASAP, as they have a long lead time and if we don't do them we're likely to end up building obsolete designs that can't be upgraded.
That's why in the Basic Industry plan I started three of them, although the winning turn only does one. That's 2 AP locked for 1-12 turns.
I suspect that at some point in the next few turns we may start others.
The main point, I think, is that in the medium term we may be less bound by EP costs than previously assumed, and more by the number or detachments we can raise.
This means that we may want to consider more expensive options for equipping basic troops than we previously did.
That doesn't mean we can make the crazy leap to Ithilmar for everyone, but does mean that at some point we may want to consider an armour design with an intermediate cost at some point for some troops if the option becomes available again. I can see a niche for a suit of heavy power armour designed for ranged troops with heavy weapons while regular infantry with rifles uses VGW and elite melee or psyker units use Ithilmar.
We may also want to consider making units with options. For example our current Hearthguard Brightstar squads seem to have enough Starblaster Rifles and Starblaster Carbines available that they can pick which one to choose on a mission by mission basis.
We may want, for example, to give our line infantry both Sunblaster Calivers and Needler Carbines so they can pick which one is most appropriate for the enemy and battlefield.
I'll go draft up a theoretical intermediary between VGA and Ithilmar, gimme a second:
[ ] Heavy
[] Powered
[] Autotargeters
[] Extended Operations
[] Holo-Field
[] Power Assist (x2)
This is what I'm currently thinking when it comes to designing a middle-ground between Ithilmar and VGA (taking advantage of the extra protection offered by the jump from Medium Semi-Power, to Heavy Powered while hopefully not slowing the wearer down too much)
If I had to use all of the slots I'd probably either go with something like...
[ ] Heavy
[] Powered
[] Autotargeters
[] Extended Operations (x2)
[] Holo-Field
[] Power Assist (x3)
[] Extra Plating
This would be cutting it close in terms of EP expenditure (haven't calculated it yet, but I'd estimate somewhere around 11-12EP per suit, pricey, but not Ithilmar level) but would give us a suit that'd be
very fast, surprisingly durable while also keeping the Holo-Field to make us even more annoying.
We might not be able to fit a conversion field into this design, and I have planned for that by basically going "Yup, there's a foundry for that" by giving them the shields as equipment instead of a built-in feature.
I personally like this approach, especially with the revelation of how effective foundries have proven so far and with how promising our Ithilmars already are at the moment (considering that an Ithilmar with no extra plating requires dedicated Anti Tank weapons to penetrate, this would be even more of a pain to fight)
(Space Marines wish they'd have armour as good as this)
Alternatively, we could go with a heavy gunner approach:
[ ] Heavy
[] Powered
[] Autotargeters
[] Extended Operations (x1)
[] Holo-Field
[] Power Assist (x2)
[] Heavy Weapon Hardpoint
This would let us field a trooper that is a little squishier, but can bring two heavy weapons and a rending blade each, quite a large EP expenditure, but slinging around two heavy weapons would more than make up for it.
Still though, I think we should at least wait until the VGA foundry is online so we can set a benchmark for what to expect with our theoretical intermediary armour.
(Also yeah I admit I should've probably calculated the EP, but this is all theory atm and I like designing armour)
