NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 9705046" data-attributes="member: 63">The way I'm envisioning it, multiple militaries field their own combat mechs, produced by arms companies the same way they have made tanks and planes and missiles. Most fill the role of escorts for tanks, and are only about 12 feet tall and like 10 tons - basically oversized infantry who can survive small arms fire and limp away if they step on a mine. (Protomechs, by BattleTech parlance.)There's also plain old traditional infantry, mechanized infantry who operate on jeeps and motorcycles, and power armor infantry who have suits that look like Iron Man but are way less powerful. (Battle Armor, by BT parlance.)And most everyone uses fuel cell engines and a mix of ballistic weapons and missiles, plus near ubiquitous anti-missile systems -- little turret-mounted guns that shoot down incoming missiles and drones.Rampant is one of a few companies that are testing out larger mechs, up to 20 feet tall and weighing as much as 45 tons. The tech breakthrough they claim makes their mechs a gamechanger is myomer - synthetic muscles that, combined with neural-linked pilots - give mechs exceptionally faster reactions than traditional armor, enough even to dodge enemy fire.There is some early development of laser weaponry, but in order to be mech-portable it has a limited range before air refraction renders it harmless. And the energy burden is intense (producing a lot of heat, in BT parlance). However, Team Banzai has had recent breakthroughs in producing mech-scale fission engines which can repurpose waste heat, and already a few laser-equipped mechs are being prototyped in Japan.Every squad will include at least one mech with e-warfare equipment, which scramble signals to remote controlled explosive drones and at short range can fry their circuits, even if they are fly-by-wire or AI-piloted. Small scale engagements are often decided by who can identify and neutralize the ECM carrier on the other side first, making the rest of the squad vulnerable to guided missiles and drone bombardments.</blockquote>

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