Also understandable that they are not going crazy over it since it's untested in the field and it's basic business skill not to be overwhelmed by the product.
@Basarin might we at some point develop stealth fields or something like seen in various mecha anime?
It's practically a metamaterial. You just need to teach it on how to behave the way you want, then bam.
Like, let the K-Scale get cues from natural camouflage, like Mother Nature's chameleons.
It's practically a metamaterial. You just need to teach it on how to behave the way you want, then bam.
Like, let the K-Scale get cues from natural camouflage, like Mother Nature's chameleons.
I don't think we do. They're support units, we probably want to use them for base excursions, but they really aren't uparmored or uparmed enough to contend as super robots.
They DO make excellent recon and support craft with a low profile however.
The General must be pretty annoyed at us right now. We made him look bad by turning out better results than he expected and still continue to do so with the latest series of projects including the two Intel Mechs as well as the Buckler.
Dusty old bones full of yellow dust. That's what I think about that chair force glory hound. Here's hoping he gets to redeem himself by taking a bullet for us or something as long as he's gone afterwards.
Of all the things to become a strange, rapid success, modifying the configuration mode into the aging Buckler IFV design was not what you were expecting. Granted, you had all manner of spare parts left over from the Westphalian husks you salvaged from the remnants of Warlord's last hurrah, but not this.
The 'old guard' of the DFRI - Captain Sasaki, Lieutenant Wilde, Sergeant First Class Henry, Dr. Ignatov and Sam Carlson - all put their heads together one week to see what they could do with the Buckler design, and see if they could turn it into another central piece of the configuration arsenal.
The Buckler, much like the Gargoyle or the Redtail, sounded nice in theory. A squat, harshly angled metal beast, it looked about the same as any armored personnel carrier from the early to mid twenty-first century. It did admittedly have a few good points in its favor: a low, lean profile, the ability to carry at least six to eight personnel (not including the operators), and above all, the ability to absorb a lot of damage. All the angles in the metal plating were designed as to serve to deflect incoming rounds as best it could, and if any thing managed to penetrate the armor, it stood a reasonable chance of deflecting away from the operators and the people inside.
It could perform a multiple set of roles thanks to a modular set of weapon hardpoints scattered about the hull. Autocannons and a remote-turret machine gun were the default loadout, but these could be easily swapped for a laser-guided anti-armor missile, anti-air quad cannons, or half of the carrying compartment could be replaced for a suite of medical equipment.
It all sounded very well and nice, and briefed really well to higher ranking officers. As a former loggie, however, you knew better.
These things were an utter nightmare to do maintenance on.
The hardpoints could be swapped, that was true. And if you actually managed to get the equipment it was supposed to mount onto the hardpoints, then it was fantastic. Good luck actually getting it to stick. You've had more than your fair share of seeing a turret simply slide off of the hardpoint after hours of trying to get it to stay put. You've had to ignore the official parts issued out in favor of getting your mechanics to jury-rig scrap metal restraints, which then eliminated the whole point about having a turret up there at all. You wanted an IFV with a turret, not a self-propelled gun with a fixed barrel.
So you admit you were a little biased. This only served to surprise you severely when you saw what was done with the prototype.
"I know what you're thinking, John," Sam says when they unveil the "Phalanx" prototype. Pointing an arm at the machine, he continues, "'This piece of junk? Bah, they could never get it to work!' Well, hah! Joke's on you, pal. Introducing the K-Circuitry System!"
The Buck - no, Phalanx - abruptly pushes itself upwards in the fashion you are familiar with from the Shepherd and the Jackal. "Now, before you ask: the K-Circuitry is a set of cables, circuits and signal nodes locked into key positions in the Phalanx, all augmented by K-Class Materials! They remain inert until the machine sends a signal to start. This links directly into the MMI, where the human brain can abstract it all as part of the machine."
The sides of the Phalanx right before the crew compartment unfold into arms, all the while the entire upper torso twists 180 degrees. The legs - showing the 'roof' and 'sides' of the old vehicle - are significantly more armored, and stomp into place as the configuration finishes, leaving behind large plumes of dust and debris in their wake. The head unit finally pops out of where the anti-personnel machinegun mount would normally be, its eyes flashing a bright green as the configuration completes. "The result? Even greater response time, greater interactivity with the pilot and the MMI, and frankly the ability to leverage the ol' engines to punch someone in the face that much harder." As if in response to that comment, the Phalanx slams a fist into an open palm, producing a sound similar to a thunder clap.
"All those hardpoints you were complaining before? Well, hah! Joke's on the old manufacturer. We ripped those out and replaced them with Wilde and Henry's classic configuration hardpoints instead. We've made this thing able to configure with other machines from the get-go; we don't have those machines yet, but it's ready for 'em." The Phalanx stomps forward towards a series of scrapped Jackals, previously established as training dummies. "Now, you're used to the Beowulf and the Jackal, which float like butterflies, sting like bees, yadda yadda. The Phalanx?" A massive fist slams through one of the training dummies, sending it clattering to the ground in a giant heap. "Well, this thing is designed to deliver a punch, and take a punch."
A pop-up turret emerges and begins sending rounds towards the Phalanx. It simply holds up its arms against the incoming firepower in response. "And if that's not enough - " A howitzer emerges and aims at the Phalanx with slow deliberation. "Well, it's got this."
The howitzer fires, and the Phalanx disappears momentarily in a cloud of smoke and thrown about dirt. As the smoke clears, however, the left arm is shown to have an expanded plated shield mounted on it. Battered, and probably useless, but it left the Phalanx perfectly fine. "We had all those leftover parts, figured we'd use it for something. We've got enough room on them arms to mount a single-use shield. This is a display version only though; we'll need to dig into more projects to really give it a durable permanent thing."
The shield detaches from the arm and falls to the ground in pieces, but the Phalanx stands strong.
"So, whaddya think? We really pulled out all the stops on this one."
You can't help but agree.
CR-04 Phalanx model chassis completed! Stats to follow in later post.
@Basarin does the Phalanx hardpoints also reconfigure well so that anti-infantry weapon/other things are mounted and can be used on mech? Like say a autocannon or something that was attached to roof of the vehicle form becomes a shoulder weapon when in mecha?
You know, if we can get a remote networking feature properly set up with the MMI, we could have a Coupling System to allow networked awareness between pilots.
@Basarin does the Phalanx hardpoints also reconfigure well so that anti-infantry weapon/other things are mounted and can be used on mech? Like say a autocannon or something that was attached to roof of the vehicle form becomes a shoulder weapon when in mecha?
It's implied but yes. I am somewhat vague in some areas here because, barring a commissioned art piece (and those are expensive!), I leave the specifics open enough for your interpretation.
The sides of the Phalanx right before the crew compartment unfold into arms, all the while the entire upper torso twists 180 degrees. The legs - showing the 'roof' and 'sides' of the old vehicle - are significantly
Based on this, I imagine that the driver's compartment moves to the mecha-form's back. And so, any forward-facing guns would probably move to the arms (between the shoulder and the elbow), and to fire them the mecha would need to aim with the elbow. Or, if the guns were just above the driver, the mecha would need to hunch a little.
The rear of the vehicle (where I would have put the upwards-facing guns, missiles or whatnot) becomes the legs of the mecha, and their "up" in vehicle mode becomes "forward" in the mecha mode. In most cases, that's exactly where the enemy should be, so to get a good aim the mecha would need, at most, move it's hands out of the way. I'm imagining, in a boxer's stance. Which, coincidentally, is a quick movement away from "point the elbow" mentioned above.
The devil number! Too bad it wasn't a 616, the "true" number before transcription errors and Hollywood took over. Would a 111 result into a "Zaku" unit though?
From what Rotterdam can determine so far, Charles Mander is a retired Naval Defense Force Officer (something he insists on referring to as "His Majesty's Navy, in support of the Earth Union." Yes. He says it like that every time.) who was forced to retire after being too injured to continue active service. A long-time advocate of action against Westphalian terrorism, Mander Security Solutions is the culmination of his life's work of defending against separatism. Rotterdam can't confirm it yet, but he seems to have predicted fairly early on Westphalia's favor towards using esoteric warmachines, and spent a good amount of resources towards building the Valiant as a response.
Still, you're not about to give up on it. For the same reasons other commands don't want to give up their drop ships, you are just as determined to get your hands on one.
Architect, when he heard what was going on, frantically rushed to fill in the gaps they left behind. Apparently Kaus energy weapons can make a really big boom if improperly handled.
Max shrugs as she points behind her. "Right over there," she answers as she sips from her coffee. True enough, the artifact is simply placed right above the door to the cafeteria. Still in its containment unit, but also well-disguised enough to avoid notice, it's been given a narrow avenue of vision to detect passing and going individuals. Enough for it to get a bead on individuals, but no more.
It's too bad the roll failed, it would have been funny that the transformation sequence was interrupted and someone found themselves naked in the middle of the cafeteria.
Energy Blast Heavy Weapon Strike developed!
Cost to deploy: 2 RP
Heavy Weapon Strike at Advantage (3d6, inflicts 4 HP). 2 Charges. Can be used as a Free Action.
Good reception, if not particularly outstanding, with the Intelligence Services. They agree to take both as a package deal; whether they will use it that way or not is another matter. Not that it's your problem. +2 Permanent RP per turn!
It all sounded very well and nice, and briefed really well to higher ranking officers. As a former loggie, however, you knew better. These things were an utter nightmare to do maintenance on.
The Buck - no, Phalanx - abruptly pushes itself upwards in the fashion you are familiar with from the Shepherd and the Jackal. "Now, before you ask: the K-Circuitry is a set of cables, circuits and signal nodes locked into key positions in the Phalanx, all augmented by K-Class Materials! They remain inert until the machine sends a signal to start. This links directly into the MMI, where the human brain can abstract it all as part of the machine."
A massive fist slams through one of the training dummies, sending it clattering to the ground in a giant heap. "Well, this thing is designed to deliver a punch, and take a punch
he howitzer fires, and the Phalanx disappears momentarily in a cloud of smoke and thrown about dirt. As the smoke clears, however, the left arm is shown to have an expanded plated shield mounted on it. Battered, and probably useless, but it left the Phalanx perfectly fine. "We had all those leftover parts, figured we'd use it for something. We've got enough room on them arms to mount a single-use shield. This is a display version only though; we'll need to dig into more projects to really give it a durable permanent thing."
... Scratch that, it's better since this is "just" the base unit!
We need to combine it with the "Bulkward" tank so that the latter can transform from shield to giant cannon at will.
@Basarin So is the Phalanx going to be able to combine with the TMU and the Shepard or do we have to make whole new series of machines for it to combine with? A while back you mentioned that Satsuma was a member of the airforce but you didn't mention what her actual job was, like was she a pilot or a mechanic or what?
Since we now have a basic design for light and heavy ground based mechs maybe our next project can be a robot that transforms into a jet form or at least something speedy and flight capable, cause with Tellison being a jet pilot he would probably preform better in a machine more similar to what he's used to and it would be a shame to let his skills as a flyer go to waste. Of course to make a good one we'd probably want to invest in studying the Pilum wreckage and do more research into anti grav.
Actually now that I think about it Tellison's review after the pilot training action specifically said that he would preform well in a machine that has a crew, so maybe that means that we should be preparing him to be the pilot of our Stork class one day? Because you all know that we can't have a giant flying battleship and not make it transform into a giant robot.
From what Rotterdam can determine so far, Charles Mander is a retired Naval Defense Force Officer (something he insists on referring to as "His Majesty's Navy, in support of the Earth Union." Yes. He says it like that every time.) who was forced to retire after being too injured to continue active service. A long-time advocate of action against Westphalian terrorism, Mander Security Solutions is the culmination of his life's work of defending against separatism. Rotterdam can't confirm it yet, but he seems to have predicted fairly early on Westphalia's favor towards using esoteric warmachines, and spent a good amount of resources towards building the Valiant as a response.
Whiiiich makes me wonder. How old is Charles Mander, compared to Warlord (R.I.P.)? Younger? Older? Would it be logical to assume that they both fought in Unification Wars? Also, do you have a canonical name for Warlord? If it was already mentioned, I think I missed it.
Actually now that I think about it Tellison's review after the pilot training action specifically said that he would preform well in a machine that has a crew, so maybe that means that we should be preparing him to be the pilot of our Stork class one day? Because you all know that we can't have a giant flying battleship and not make it transform into a giant robot.
That will happen in the future, once our guys get good enough to make increasingly large Configurations, especially because we're in a tight schedule. Right now the APC should do wonders for Telli. The Cadet will have to wait until we get a transforming tank, or we use our contacts to ask the Air Force guys for the latest fighter-bomber jet to reverse-engineer-improve it.
@Basarin So is the Phalanx going to be able to combine with the TMU and the Shepard or do we have to make whole new series of machines for it to combine with? A while back you mentioned that Satsuma was a member of the airforce but you didn't mention what her actual job was, like was she a pilot or a mechanic or what?
If you want to use the Shepherd or the V-33, you don't need to start over. You will need to make some modifications. Those things are not one-size-fits-all.
Also, check her section in 'Lore.' Has more information
