Striker Battle Dress 100 kg loadout

[kilemall]

Unlike most Traveller versions of BD that riff off of some addition or multiplier of strength and possibly other attributes, Striker gives BD a straight lift capacity of 100kg.

So what would you have your adventurers/merc cadre/military unit carry?

Off the top of my head, some laser or other PD for intercepting incoming, and for heavy crew weapons/high tech HMG equivalent you have to go Rapid Pulse plasma guns.

Power plants for all these toys? Mach 1+ grav? Expeditionary geegaws? Deployable linked robot/drone?

 

[kilemall]

Here's a thought-

100 kg at TL 13-15 buys a LOT of battery and fusion power and grav lift under Traveller.

If we mount enough gravitics on a BD suit to allow not just for hover/pop up/air assault, but actual speed on the order of 600 knots plus, then we are talking about getting those high speed negative DMs usually associated with grav tanks or planes.

As pointed out in another thread the counter is high + DM mass drivers and lasers, but effectively that means concentrating an expensive AA/PD weapon on one individual trooper, while the others are closing and dropping out of LOS but possibly in range to clear the point defenses.

But what struck me thinking about this last night, is the practical effect on a ground level LOS battle if one side can fly NOE at 600 knots individually.

Trooper is 2km away, 12 seconds later he's using his cutlass on you.

Conversely, you pop your hidden turrets and start mowing down a BD troop in surprise, 6 seconds later they moved 1km away out of LOS and are calling in ortillery.

Another issue with 100kg (effectively strength 100)- the cutlasses and other melee weapons themselves.

There is only so much kinetic damage a steel sword/blade/broadsword is going to do, even with a BD wielding them.

However, if you make them out of the same advanced materials technology as Striker armor, BD-sized melee weapons have both more inherent strength/weight/presumably cutting edge, AND have 100kg of force behind the stroke.

Think 40kg swords.

10x the strength of the weapons plus 10x the thrust equals one heck of a lot of damage.

If you factor in BOTH high speed and weapons, coming in at x knots to the powered thrust, makes lance charges on horses look tame by comparison.

BD suits can potentially be real terrors, if we think outside the Gauss/FGMP box.

 

[Whipsnade]

Unlike most Traveller versions of BD that riff off of some addition or multiplier of strength and possibly other attributes, Striker gives BD a straight lift capacity of 100kg.

Good catch. I've often wondered why BD adds to someone's inherent strength rather than simply granting a certain strength.

After all, stronger man using a pallet jack or fork truck doesn't somehow lift more than a weaker man.

So what would you have your adventurers/merc cadre/military unit carry?

The list is endless and will vary according to an opponent's abilities.

Off the top of my head, some laser or other PD for intercepting incoming...

Considering that ATGMs and like are the low-tech "go to" against BD, definitely some sort of anti/counter missile ability.

... and for heavy crew weapons/high tech HMG equivalent you have to go Rapid Pulse plasma guns.

Yes, very much so. With BD "heavy" weapons are only "heavy" with regards to their effects on the enemy.

I wonder if truly "automatic" weapons could be part of the mix too. The BD trooper is "merely" the platform carrying a something akin to Starship Troopers "bomb rack". Through a shared tactical data net, that bomb rack could be fired by people other than the trooper carrying it at targets the trooper may not even be aware of.

Power plants for all these toys?

Extended endurance and life support for BD? More power for the "toys" be carried? Certainly.

Mach 1+ grav?

Maybe. Speed doesn't automatically equate defense, especially with light speed weapons around. It's like the grav tank example.

Grav tanks still look somewhat like tanks because they still fight somewhat like tanks and not like aircraft. They may strategically redeploy at Mach+ speeds, but when within range of the enemy they're darting from cover to cover and not buzzing along at NOE or higher at Mach 2 where they're more easily targeted. It will be the same with BD troopers.

Expeditionary geegaws?

Protected comms, ELINT, real time code breaking, 57th Century Huff-Duff, ECM/ECCM, shared tactical data, and tons of stuff we can't even imagine.

Deployable linked robot/drone?

Drones are currently hot and, I think, will remain so in the future. Back in 1983, Steve Jackson released Battlesuit, a man-to-man wargame set in the Ogre/GEV universe. It featured, IIRC, three drone types each single trooper counter could control. The game fascinated me although I never got to play it FTF that often.

A BD trooper, thanks to the C4I abilities his suit should give him, could control and employ a few large drones or a "swarm" smaller ones while also acting on and sharing the intelligence they provide. That would be a huge force multiplier and a very dangerous opponent.

 

[Hyphen]

Good catch. I've often wondered why BD adds to someone's inherent strength rather than simply granting a certain strength.

After all, stronger man using a pallet jack or fork truck doesn't somehow lift more than a weaker man.

My guess is meta-game reasons: it is a means to allow differentiation between characters, even if everyone is in BD. Do you really want everyone to have STR 30?

FWIW, DGP added a clause that normal BD has a max STR 30, while Assault BD goes up to 45 (i.e. it TREBLES the wearer's STR).

The other thing they added was that a wearer could use the normal STR enhancement without penalty, but could still access the higher STR ratings with a certain amount of risk:

"The user can adjust the strength to the situation (up to a max UPP of [30 or] 45), but only experienced operators (Battle Dress 2+) can use this feature without damaging the manipulated object, or even the suit."

"To control suit while overriding strength pre-sets:
Difficult, Battle Dress, DEX, instantaneous (fateful)."

Menelvagor Ltd sells these. Just head to Beowulf Down, then
==> Tavonni Specialities
==> Menelvagor Ltd
==> Imported Goods
and you'll find a bunch of Equipment Sheets giving you the specs, if you're interested. Bundle deals and bulk purchase discounts apply!

;-)

 

[kilemall]

My guess is meta-game reasons: it is a means to allow differentiation between characters, even if everyone is in BD. Do you really want everyone to have STR 30?

FWIW, DGP added a clause that normal BD has a max STR 30, while Assault BD goes up to 45 (i.e. it TREBLES the wearer's STR).

The other thing they added was that a wearer could use the normal STR enhancement without penalty, but could still access the higher STR ratings with a certain amount of risk:

"The user can adjust the strength to the situation (up to a max UPP of [30 or] 45), but only experienced operators (Battle Dress 2+) can use this feature without damaging the manipulated object, or even the suit."

"To control suit while overriding strength pre-sets:
Difficult, Battle Dress, DEX, instantaneous (fateful)."

Menelvagor Ltd sells these. Just head to Beowulf Down, then
==> Tavonni Specialities
==> Menelvagor Ltd
==> Imported Goods
and you'll find a bunch of Equipment Sheets giving you the specs, if you're interested. Bundle deals and bulk purchase discounts apply!

;-)

If I were to consider putting in such a rule, it would be for actual STR tasks such as lifting something heavy, pushing on a door, etc.

The 100 kg carry at a minimum can be construed as at least encumbrance limit. If treated the way STR is for encumbrance, that is where I am getting the STR +100.

Which is not unreasonable, same era LBB8 rules for robot medium arms have a STR of +20 each and heavy arms have a +50 strength each.

If we think of the BD suit as spreading around that strength between arms, legs and support for lift/push, +20 for each limb and +10 overall assist, we can get there. Or conversely its some lower figure like you cite and the rest is just pure distributed carry capacity.

Still, +25 STR makes for the ability to have much denser and heavier melee weapons, on the order of the multiples of Striker armor.

The hoary image of a Marine wielding a cutlass with a BD may have fresh oomph if he can readily cut through combat armor or doors.

 

[kilemall]

Could have sworn there was a post in here about how point defense would render a high speed BD raid moot due to the rules, and how NOE would go more slowly.

Well I checked into both, and yes there is the PD rule that says it ignores speed negative DMs, and the NOE avionics rules says less then 190 kph at all tech levels.

Can't really argue with the PD thinking, of course a standard we would expect is that MD/pulse lasers would mow down all manner of missiles and incoming shells, practically a staple in merc scifi. Can argue that there is nothing special about PD fire control in the downstream definitions referenced, perhaps a dangling intention unfulfilled.

But NOE at pokey helicopter speeds? Oh hell no. We've got computer guidance, smarter and smarter AI and gravitic compensators, by TL15 we have to be going faster.

Among other things no intakes and better materials tech, bird strikes are likely No Big Deal.

 

[kilemall]

Thanks for the reply Whip, that should get most people thinking about possibilities.

I tend to put a lot of the electronics and gunnery into LBB8 brains, so a lot of that would effectively be robots, power source and Striker weapon.

So for you specifically, what would your default kit be for a general adventurer/merc who does not have the luxury of swapping loadout for mission set, the baseline of what is essential if you have to suit up and go when the enemy calls on their timeline not yours?

 

[Whipsnade]

My guess is meta-game reasons...

IMHO, that's more than just guess. It's most likely the truth of the matter.

Traveller the RPG has differentiation between PCs because Traveller the RPG is centered around PCs. Striker the wargame has a different focus however.

 

[Whipsnade]

So for you specifically, what would your default kit be for a general adventurer/merc who does not have the luxury of swapping loadout for mission set, the baseline of what is essential if you have to suit up and go when the enemy calls on their timeline not yours?

Shock & Awe, definitely Shock & Awe.

Something or, perhaps more likely, a combination of somethings that will dish out PTSD diagnoses on a epidemic scale. Something or, perhaps more likely, a combination of somethings that will make a survivor say at some future date when told they might be again facing BD "Be right back, I think I left the oven on...".

We're looking at a BFG that does BF amounts of damage to the target and anyone in the same time zone as the target. We're looking at speed which will let that BFG make a lot of house calls on people who don't know the BFG is in the same time zone. And we're looking at some sort of extended sensor network/drone capability which will let the owner of the BFG identify, target, and reduce to a melange of vapors and ashes people who think they're safely hidden in another time zone.

Shock & Awe.

 

[kilemall]

Don't forget a couple of nuclear demolitions.

The nuclear damper doesn't work if it didn't hit your charges cause you were walking in.

 

[Whipsnade]

Don't forget a couple of nuclear demolitions.

It's the only way to make sure.

Seriously though, the BD's canonical "spouses", the PGMP and FGMP varieties, are most likely enough of a BFG for my purposes. As you note, the VRF gauss "chain gun"(?) is another good choice, especially when BD would allow someone to carry enough ammo to feed the gun for more than a few seconds.

Shock & Awe, my friend, Shock & Awe.

A frighteningly overpowered weapon rapidly carried about by an armored someone plugged into a real-time sensor/drone network which gives them a seemingly "supernatural" tactical awareness.

What's not to love?

 

[kilemall]

It's the only way to make sure.

Seriously though, the BD's canonical "spouses", the PGMP and FGMP varieties, are most likely enough of a BFG for my purposes. As you note, the VRF gauss "chain gun"(?) is another good choice, especially when BD would allow someone to carry enough ammo to feed the gun for more than a few seconds.

Shock & Awe, my friend, Shock & Awe.

A frighteningly overpowered weapon rapidly carried about by an armored someone plugged into a real-time sensor/drone network which gives them a seemingly "supernatural" tactical awareness.

What's not to love?

 

[Hyphen]

As you note, the VRF gauss "chain gun"(?) is another good choice, especially when BD would allow someone to carry enough ammo to feed the gun for more than a few seconds.

To me, the innocuously-named 'Light Rapid-Fire Gauss Gun' is even scarier than the FGMP:
http://members.tip.net.au/~davidjw/tavspecs/maint/combat/wpnsheet/lrf_gaus.pdf

 

[aramis]

It's the only way to make sure.

Seriously though, the BD's canonical "spouses", the PGMP and FGMP varieties, are most likely enough of a BFG for my purposes. As you note, the VRF gauss "chain gun"(?) is another good choice, especially when BD would allow someone to carry enough ammo to feed the gun for more than a few seconds.

Shock & Awe, my friend, Shock & Awe.

A frighteningly overpowered weapon rapidly carried about by an armored someone plugged into a real-time sensor/drone network which gives them a seemingly "supernatural" tactical awareness.

What's not to love?

The VRF GG has one big problem - it's BIG. Its most portable version is 2 tons... Sure, it can put 100 rounds down range per burst, and sounds like a circular saw... but without a vehicle mount, it's not within the realm of "man pack capability"...

 

[jec10]

Some thoughts on the OP:

- if you use the canonical FGMP-14 from CT/Striker then you've used of ninety of your 100kg straight away. So you've got 10kg of other 'stuff' you might carry. I would normally add: TL13+ Map Box (1kg); Thermal Image Goggles (negl weight); 100 Power radio (.1kg); 5-Power LaserCom (2kg); 5 hand grenades (5kg).

By carrying the Map Box you get advantages in CT/Striker command-and-control meaning your troopers can react quicker. If your CP has a Battle Computer then you can set up an unjammable LaserCom network that can keep in touch while the troopers are moving, even in an ECM-heavy environment.

- I would have some troopers not carry FGMP-14 but rather have a 4cm RAM auto-GL TL11 from CT/Striker. With a base launcher mass of 9kg and 12kg for a 20-rnd magazine they could carry plenty of grenades (HE, HEAP, Flechette).

 

[kilemall]

Some thoughts on the OP:

- if you use the canonical FGMP-14 from CT/Striker then you've used of ninety of your 100kg straight away. So you've got 10kg of other 'stuff' you might carry. I would normally add: TL13+ Map Box (1kg); Thermal Image Goggles (negl weight); 100 Power radio (.1kg); 5-Power LaserCom (2kg); 5 hand grenades (5kg).

By carrying the Map Box you get advantages in CT/Striker command-and-control meaning your troopers can react quicker. If your CP has a Battle Computer then you can set up an unjammable LaserCom network that can keep in touch while the troopers are moving, even in an ECM-heavy environment.

- I would have some troopers not carry FGMP-14 but rather have a 4cm RAM auto-GL TL11 from CT/Striker. With a base launcher mass of 9kg and 12kg for a 20-rnd magazine they could carry plenty of grenades (HE, HEAP, Flechette).

Very good point on the basics, and likely the 100kg spec/ability was above all to enable the differentiation between the grav compensated 'light' PG/FGMPs and the heavy suit only ones.

A big underlying element of Striker is the economics of actually operating a merc outfit, and trying to get that edge with as little capital and maintenance outlay as possible.

A 300-400 KCR difference per trooper that the suit-only gun saves, adds up quickly, even for a small spec ops TL14 fire team.

I think another unappreciated gem is the TL13 laser rifle- in there punching at the light PG range, good enough against most battle dress, at twice the range, and one helluva long range sniper rifle against the unarmored.

RAM GL superiority is a sore point with me, mitigated only by the thought of laser PDs as others have suggested, and IMTU increased armor.

That RP-A gun, TL14-15, looks like a squad weapon to me, the M-60 of the battle dress set.

I would think the recoil alone would make it impossible to be suit-mounted, but a two man team, one carries gun and tripod and the other a backpack fusion plant/battery, should do nicely.

 

[jec10]

RPA needs a fire control as well I'm afraid.

Equally for all those fans of a BD-mounted point defence system, you'll need a PD fire control. That is why I lean towards a squad support drone that has the PD system. It moves along with the squad covering them.

 

[aramis]

It's worth noting that Striker's encumbrance rule reads as following:

Rule 42: Encumbrance
Infantry are limited in the amount of weight they can carry. A soldier can function normally while carrying a total weight of 10 kg. He can carry up to 30 kg, but will be encumbered; an encumbered soldier walks 2.5 cm and runs 6 cm. A soldier's armor is ignored for purposes of calculating weight carried.

A soldier in battle dress may carry up to 100 kg without being encumbered, and
may carry up to 200 kg while encumbered.​

Note that that's CT Strength 10...

 

[mike wightman]

RPA needs a fire control as well I'm afraid.

Equally for all those fans of a BD-mounted point defence system, you'll need a PD fire control. That is why I lean towards a squad support drone that has the PD system. It moves along with the squad covering them.

I would argue that it doesn't - the BD is the fire control.
PD fire control is a must though.

 

[kilemall]

It's worth noting that Striker's encumbrance rule reads as following:

Rule 42: Encumbrance
Infantry are limited in the amount of weight they can carry. A soldier can function normally while carrying a total weight of 10 kg. He can carry up to 30 kg, but will be encumbered; an encumbered soldier walks 2.5 cm and runs 6 cm. A soldier's armor is ignored for purposes of calculating weight carried.

A soldier in battle dress may carry up to 100 kg without being encumbered, and
may carry up to 200 kg while encumbered.​

Note that that's CT Strength 10...

So you are saying that perhaps we should interpret the Striker BD as being more a multiplier of 10x STR?