Yes, dinosaurs had a fair bit of toughness, but as far as I can tell it's a trait they haven't really held onto since 65 million years ago. Speed, on the other hand, is something that's been relevant since pretty much forever.
I might've just extolled the virtues of Speed, but do note that having a high max-speed is worthless if our soldiers don't have bodies and senses that can keep up with it.
It doesn't, but it does mean that they can get into and out of cover easier. Which makes them less likely to die. It means that they can fire semi-auto faster. Which means more rounds down range, means more chances for critical hits. Speed means more territory covered. Speed means faster redeployment. Speed means surprise. Speed means attacking the enemy from behind. Speed has limits sure, but part of designing something to use their speed is ensuring they can survive it. You couldn't significantly increase the speed of humans without also making them tougher and stronger in the process. It'll just be significantly less than a strength or toughness mod on its own. All around. Looks to me like speed is the best thing we could go for. Especially since our units would be equipped based off their strengths/weaknesses. Having all our troops using the equivalent of a .50 anti-material rifle and just shooting, moving, and communicating sounds great to me. We can get vision after, maybe some toughness to support higher speeds. But speed is the biggest, most important thing to have in a fight. In every fight.
You are free to vote for what you want, but I want to point out that as far as I can tell we are not the ones in charge of equipment, and that thinking that our soldiers will get suitable equipment (provided it exists at this point) assumes a level of inter-department communication that can't always be counted on.
could we sacrifice the design and testing actions for more research actions? if they represent time spent working isn't it odd to just lose them if we don't design or test anything? or does this represent moving into a new building/setting up all the equipment?
You forgot the X's in your votes, they don't count at the moment.
It probably represents us having a research team, a design team and a testing team. The latter two would not suddenly become able to do the former just by being given more time off.
