Go, and let the MCAS come back to life!

To me, the way to save the MCAS is to actually use it. Once it gets exposure, then it's likely worth investing in new parts for it to meet different needs.

Aendri's comments leave me a little incredulous, though. The Mindy 1F wasn't modular at all and it encouraged the Star Army's "you don't edit your own power armor" stance. The Mindy II litterally reversed that by giving a standard chassis that you can then add a plethora of modules on. It's extremely customizable.

The MCAS actually doesn't look like it can do a whole lot more. It had its uses, like it did in the Miharu plot, giving players with mostly Daisy-tier resources equip stuff the Daisy wasn't designed to field. But otherwise, I kind of feel like the MCAS deserves being a footnote in KFY's power armor history: it has no character, no identity of its own, it's very name is not even an evocative acronym, and it's nigh impossible to make any kind of affordable art for.

Basically, I'm mostly on board with Wes' arguments.

The MCAS allows you to change EVERYTHING about it on the fly, without having to make up pieces as you go along. Different linings, different core pieces, different power plants, helmets, and so on. No other armor system in the SAoY does that. They allow for some basic hardpoint swaps, MAYBE a power supply swap, and that's about it. If that's changing with the newest version (I know it didn't with the Daisy II, but the Mindy 4 might be a different story), then so be it, but as it is, saying it's no more customizable than the Mindy is just silly. That's like saying every person is identical, just because they can all wear the same clothes. What goes on the outside of the armor matters, yes, but modifications internally can be just as important, if not moreso, and it feels really disingenuous to say otherwise.

Maybe my point of view hasn't aged well. When the Mindy II came out, hardpoint swapping was not a thing in SARP. I figure maybe it is now, and now it looks ordinary (kind of like when Miharu came out, it was the only ship made in 3d, but the "wow amazing" of the Himiko class faded away when DogaArt and stuff from Adam Kop started showing up).

I don't feel there's all that much actual value in changing the power supply or the insert, though. It still seems like a fringe case dealing with hybridizing elements of the Daisy/Mindy to create exceptions. I'm rather okay with exceptions not being common (them being, you know, exceptions).

There are other things beyond just hard point swapping that have a big impact though, like changing the helement with the sensors it has. Also power supply makes a difference because if it's Aether you can be aether tracked, where as if it's capacitor or fusion powered you can't. However you can't run teleports with the fusion or capacitor. Also changing the actual plating(though you wont do that too frequently) can be useful too to exploit certain properties of metals.

Actually, you can teleport with the non-aether generators, you just pull from the capacitors instead of directly from the power supply, and they take longer to recharge.

What it comes down to, though, Fred, is that what you're talking about is exactly what the MCAS is meant for. It's the exception. It's just a good way to make the exceptions a bit cleaner and easier to work with, rather than making a million little articles for each and every modified version of armors out there, and it establishes a good, simple template for all of them to use. Nobody here, save possibly for Wes, is advocating the MCAS as something you should be seeing regularly. It's for that 1% of the military that can't use standard armors, or who have earned the right to their own custom unit, and even among those numbers, probably only a third would actually HAVE an MCAS when it comes down to it, since most of them aren't infantry, and wouldn't need the system as a result. When we're down to talking about 3 people in 1000 who would have it, it IS the exception.