Roger replied to me: > If you have suits that can't move themselves fast enough to be useful,
15 mph or thereabouts with 4/5 off-road speed, which translates into Move 6. I had selected the motive power not with a "target speed" in mind but to give Body ST 120, matching the Arm ST. Is that too slow? A rifleman with arms and armor will be slower, but this battlesuit can't keep up with fast-moving tanks. > where you still get some advantage over unpowered infantry is speed of > deployment. The suit APC doesn't need an armoured cargo compartment, > because the suits are already armoured: it's just an armoured cab and > powertrain, with an open deck and grab handles. If you're thinking that way, why not carry battlesuits as tank riders, like the WWII troops? When crunchies ride on MBTs, the tanks must take care with turret rotation and the main gun. A battlesuit is tougher. > Then as soon as it > gets to where it's needed the suit troopers can dismount instantly in > all directions, no messing about opening hatches and such. OTOH, you can close those hatches and get out of the suit. It might even be possible to do some basic maintenance. > I suspect a tactical VTOL transport would look similar, something like > a Sikorsky Skycrane with grab handles in the roof. A tactical flyer needs to be fast and stealthy. Something like a Skycrane is a rear-area transport by TL9. I'm working on a suit with a shoulder-mounted gun pod and it doesn't really come together for me. I have body 6.4 cf, legs 2 cf, arms 0.75 cf, head 1 cf, and that looks good. But then I want to put a 4 cf pod onto a shoulder. 4' by 1' by 1' and some protruding barrels. That will unbalance the suit and block much of the head-mounted sensors. Bigger leg motors and smaller guns could solve both problems at once, of course. By comparison, the TL12 suit has body 6 cf, legs 2 cf, arms 3 cf each, head 1 cf. Big arms, but think of it as 2' by 1' by 1' bulges under the forearms. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
