What's your favorite BattleDress?
- Thread starter Magnus von Thornwood
- Start date
Looks more like it's crossing over into a mini-mech, than traditional Trav BD. Almost going towards the Schalli BD in the Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide (RCEG), with its integral heavy weapons.
I think you can argue there's a place for them - if you want them IYTU - but the bigger they become, the greater the logistics problem. You can't transport as many, because they take up more space. Suddenly you need an entire engineering department to maintain them, because there's more things that can go wrong and they are harder to fix (compare car vs tank maintenance). And when you go to use them, you realise they cannot fit into urban buildings (the Hulk problem with doorways).
Anyway, that's my take on large BD (such as the ones Kaeto depicted, and those TL-12 Heavy BD suits in the RCEG.
Oh and "But why anyone prefers an ACR to a gauss rifle escapes me.... "
An ACR is cheaper than a gauss rifle, available at TL 10 instead of TL 12, and is a bit more flexible with ammunition, such as it's ability to fire HE and create a danger space. Therefore it's a better weapon in many respects for an infantry platoon, who is up against other infantry platoons.
(No matter how much I love a good gauss rifle!)
Yes, there are various sample BD squads in canon, whose loadout is 3 gauss rifles and one FGMP-15, but I treat these as shock troops who are supposed to go in and cause havoc among the enemy leadership (taking them out with aimed fire), scatter the rest (fusion gun fire tends to do that!), then escape before anything heavier can be brought to bear on them.
I can't say I've seen a favourite battle dress design, although the powered armour from The Forever War was quite well done. I ref'd it IMTU as follows:
A powered armour suit could weigh about as much as a motorbike - if it fails it still can't be too heavy to crawl out of. This puts an upper limit of about 100-150kg on the weight of the suit. At this weight you would need some sort of frame to hang it on while you got in and out of the suit. Maybe the suit could come with a folding stand or some means of locking the exoskeleton while the operator got in or out.
It has a power pack - fuel cell or small reactor - with enough fuel to run for several days. After that you refuel or get out and walk.
The suit does come apart in the event of failure. Perhaps there is a lighter inner pressure suit, a powered exoskeleton and an outer armour suit. Think maybe something like Bubbles's armour from Questionable Content.
From Striker, we get a weapons payload of up to 100kg unencumbered and 200kg encumbered. This is enough for a heavy weapon such as a PGMP and its power pack, although other weapons such as an auto grenade launcher or heavy machinegun could be carried. The operator might also carry a personal defence weapon that could be used unpowered as well, maybe a gauss rifle.
A suit needs at least some tuning to its owner. Perhaps it operates at -1 Dex unless calibrated properly. Battle dress skill could include the calibration procedure if the proper equipment is available.
The augmented reality faceplates from the vacc suits in Planetes might be a good example of how the fire control works. You can flip it up and down over the faceplate to use it. The device might have a collimator to fake depth in its projected image.
Thus the suit and its payload could weigh up to about a quarter of a ton, plus the weight of the operator and his personal kit. It's also quite expensive, at several hundred thousand credits for the suit and its weapons and equipment. At that price you might have one or two unpowered troops minding its flanks and perhaps trained to help with maintenance.
IMTU I had powered units at a ratio of one powered to two unpowered soldiers. These would be deployed in a section of about 3 powered units plus support staff but you could do any deployment structure that took your fancy.
The capability of the suit is that it allows heavy weapons to get most places you can get infantry and it allows them to be used more like small-arms without needing set up time. You get firepower and flexibility with quick response. At least that's how I see the cost of the kit being justified.
Bear in mind that for the price of a single powered unit you could buy a light armoured fighting vehicle with better protection and considerably more firepower than anything carried by battledress. Pretty much anything carried by BD could also be a crew-served weapon. It needs a unique selling point, which is really about mobility and close support.
A powered armour suit could weigh about as much as a motorbike - if it fails it still can't be too heavy to crawl out of. This puts an upper limit of about 100-150kg on the weight of the suit. At this weight you would need some sort of frame to hang it on while you got in and out of the suit. Maybe the suit could come with a folding stand or some means of locking the exoskeleton while the operator got in or out.
It has a power pack - fuel cell or small reactor - with enough fuel to run for several days. After that you refuel or get out and walk.
The suit does come apart in the event of failure. Perhaps there is a lighter inner pressure suit, a powered exoskeleton and an outer armour suit. Think maybe something like Bubbles's armour from Questionable Content.
From Striker, we get a weapons payload of up to 100kg unencumbered and 200kg encumbered. This is enough for a heavy weapon such as a PGMP and its power pack, although other weapons such as an auto grenade launcher or heavy machinegun could be carried. The operator might also carry a personal defence weapon that could be used unpowered as well, maybe a gauss rifle.
A suit needs at least some tuning to its owner. Perhaps it operates at -1 Dex unless calibrated properly. Battle dress skill could include the calibration procedure if the proper equipment is available.
The augmented reality faceplates from the vacc suits in Planetes might be a good example of how the fire control works. You can flip it up and down over the faceplate to use it. The device might have a collimator to fake depth in its projected image.
Thus the suit and its payload could weigh up to about a quarter of a ton, plus the weight of the operator and his personal kit. It's also quite expensive, at several hundred thousand credits for the suit and its weapons and equipment. At that price you might have one or two unpowered troops minding its flanks and perhaps trained to help with maintenance.
IMTU I had powered units at a ratio of one powered to two unpowered soldiers. These would be deployed in a section of about 3 powered units plus support staff but you could do any deployment structure that took your fancy.
The capability of the suit is that it allows heavy weapons to get most places you can get infantry and it allows them to be used more like small-arms without needing set up time. You get firepower and flexibility with quick response. At least that's how I see the cost of the kit being justified.
Bear in mind that for the price of a single powered unit you could buy a light armoured fighting vehicle with better protection and considerably more firepower than anything carried by battledress. Pretty much anything carried by BD could also be a crew-served weapon. It needs a unique selling point, which is really about mobility and close support.
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The powered armour used by the martian marines in the second series of the Expanse is my idea of what Traveller battledress could be like.
It could come down to that, but that would be a function of the players' preparation, their actions leading up to that point, and whether it fit into the scenario/campaign arc the ref intended.
Lower-range battle armour isn't the amazing stuff of the Imperial Marines, or what's worn by the DoROH. You may not even, as a ref, have to say "Here comes your antagonist and his off-sider wearing TL11 battle armour", just "holy drek, two suits of PA appear on the sensors at..." and let the player's own fear and paranoia do the rest.
Graham2001
SOC-12
There is a rather interesting set of non-powered combat dress (Seen at 01:32 - 01:39, 01:43 - 01:45 & 01:58 - 02:01) in this demo video, along with some rather impressive combat robots, especially the 'big dog' at 02:22... I'm guessing it's main weapon is a gauss gun...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nc8a9gnDso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nc8a9gnDso
thats got to be Mongoose Traveller Powered carapace rather then Battle Dress
THIS would be Battle Dress IMTU.
it doesn't need to be iron man or the Knight Sabers and it can still be awesome....plus a nice Anti-Material rifle or a tank would be a good way to take it out if you had too. does it need a total realistic reason for why they dont deploy a squad of troops instead ? probably. will i ever give one ? no no i will not.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Discrete firepower.
sadly it looks like the picture of MADOX-01 vanished....thats what i'd use for Battle Dress IMTU. i'd use it to supplement Marines in Powered Carapace.
of course i also dont have FGMP/PGMP at all and the Imperium or what ever government stands in issues their troops Gauss weapons.
of course i also dont have FGMP/PGMP at all and the Imperium or what ever government stands in issues their troops Gauss weapons.
I always have taken the suits in Rimrunners as Combat Armor. But it works as Battledress in the CT frame as well.
They're not described as being massively bulky items, but there's a couple of separate bits of narrative about setting the feedback elements in the suit, and about how an untrained crewman attempted to operate it but injured himself in the process because he wasn't prepared for the way the suit operated. That's the sort of narrative that led me to conclude that the suit was powered
Still could be either CA or BD. Depending on your view of Combat Armor...
Then there are the Marauder Suits from the Anime 'Starship Troopers'
Desperately in need of a rear-view mirror.
Aren't they also powered by some sort of battery as well?
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