Star Army

Star ArmyⓇ is a landmark of forum roleplaying. Opened in 2002, Star Army is like an internet clubhouse for people who love roleplaying, art, and worldbuilding. Anyone 18 or older may join for free. New members are welcome! Use the "Register" button below.

Note: This is a play-by-post RPG site. If you're looking for the tabletop miniatures wargame "5150: Star Army" instead, see Two Hour Wargames.

  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 September 2024 is YE 46.7 in the RP.

Infantry carried rockets?

Rascaldees

Banned Member
Inactive Member
Something like an AT4 or Stinger system to take care of power armor, tanks, planes etc. Obviously limited in capacity as these weapons are relatively heavy.

The concept behind this is bridging the gap between power armor and the typical infantryman. There are clear separations here when power armor is mainstream but can rarely be damaged by an infantry soldier.

I believe bringing rockets and missiles more prevalently into the setting will help to bridge this gap. It gives a standard soldier a chance against heavily armored targets while keeping power armor exceptionally useful in areas where rockets cannot be deployed such as the interior of a space station or starship.

That would also mean more players might be keen on playing regular soldiers or regular people since they can beat the bigger guys even if it's still a slim chance.

I am suggesting this concept because of a weapon I intend to bring to the table. Under a good amount of advisement and with a decent amount of forethought, it seemed good to bring the option to the community.
 
I also realize that I haven't been precisely the most fair person. And for that I apologize. Specifically I'm apologizing to @Charmaylarg Dufrain , @SchererSoban , @Ametheliana , @Syaoran and a few other members that I cannot necessarily recall the names of from memory.

My logic behind this concept is this:

Real world infantry carry rockets and missiles (AT4, Javelin, Stingers) in order to deal with vehicles. To me, it isn't a far leap to assume they'd start doing so in order to deal with power armor as well.

Edit: I suppose this thread could include other weapons such as nonconventional heavy weapons like flamethrowers and the like. I suppose what I'm looking at is a way for infantry to reasonably deal with power armor rather than having two power armor soldiers be the top dogs and ultimately whichever one slugs it out first wins the entire battle.
 
I know that yamati does have flamethrowers, and they and nepleslia and s6 have anti pa infantry weapons so yeah it's definitely a feasible tactic. The neshaten don't employ power armour at all so they have no need for that kind of thing so they're probably the only faction without anti pa equipment, but they still have rockets to fight tanks.
 
I know that yamati does have flamethrowers, and they and nepleslia and s6 have anti pa infantry weapons so yeah it's definitely a feasible tactic. The neshaten don't employ power armour at all so they have no need for that kind of thing so they're probably the only faction without anti pa equipment, but they still have rockets to fight tanks.

Are anti tank rockets not powerful enough for power armor? I just want a little clarification. I'm not trying to be a dick.

Also, what about taking down air support with rockets? Not orbital support necessarily but something like a fighter jet being slapped by a missile?

Also sorry for being a dick last thread.

Edit: I should perhaps clarify before I accidentally do a misinformed. I'm asking about upscaled infantry weapons in general.
 
Personally every time i go anywhere in the internet i expect the worst and you definitely aint the worst I've come across in my travels.

To answer that, I haven't got the exact numbers on hand but an anti tank rocket would be able to heavily damage if not destroy most pa depending on its rating, traditionally pa are anywhere from tier 4-6 while tanks can be upwards of that, and the anti tank or pa weapon doesn't have to match or exceed the tier of its target, a t4 rocket would still mess up a t5 armour with a direct hit its just less likely to instakill. Thats the basics of the drv3 tiers.

As for taking down air support, it depends who your fighting. Many factions don't have a great deal of standard fighter planes and instead just have space worthy fighters that are also used in atmosphere, most fighter craft and smaller gunships are around t6-8 I believe so you'd probably be looking at a pretty hefty rocket to fight them but still not impossible. Since pvp is an option literally never used everyones faction usually fights within itself during plots or in yams case they fight an npc enemy faction.
 
Personally every time i go anywhere in the internet i expect the worst and you definitely aint the worst I've come across in my travels.

To answer that, I haven't got the exact numbers on hand but an anti tank rocket would be able to heavily damage if not destroy most pa depending on its rating, traditionally pa are anywhere from tier 4-6 while tanks can be upwards of that, and the anti tank or pa weapon doesn't have to match or exceed the tier of its target, a t4 rocket would still mess up a t5 armour with a direct hit its just less likely to instakill. Thats the basics of the drv3 tiers.

As for taking down air support, it depends who your fighting. Many factions don't have a great deal of standard fighter planes and instead just have space worthy fighters that are also used in atmosphere, most fighter craft and smaller gunships are around t6-8 I believe so you'd probably be looking at a pretty hefty rocket to fight them but still not impossible. Since pvp is an option literally never used everyones faction usually fights within itself during plots or in yams case they fight an npc enemy faction.

I suppose to make things fair something designed to kill a T8-T9 could be required to lock on or unpack or both since it would be a fairly large missile launcher. Though that said it could still be (to my knowledge) infantry portable. We do heft around M2 50 cals from time to time.

What about something more directly targeting a tank or mech though? From what I've seen and been told the highest tier tank so far is a T8. To me, that complicates the equation since you don't need a missile to lock on if you aim at a slow moving (relative to size) target if you're a trained soldier or firing en masse. That upsets the balance in my mind though because super soldiers and armor mounted targeting systems exist which can very easily compensate for this loss in order to hit aircraft.

It's an interesting scientific concept. It would make missiles incredibly cheap because they wouldn't need onboard targeting systems: just thrust and maneuverability.

I do think this gives smaller factions, especially those without power armor, the ability to stand up to a PVP fight if it ever occurred and would also mean that factions don't have to completely rely on power armor either. But I gander this is speculation on my part.
 
Even in modern, IRL combat, you have one, maybe two shots without another guy to carry two more if that.

I'm referring to the weapon itself. I personally don't plan on having my guys carry more than four shots at maximum without either a mechanical exoskeleton or power armor for these big boys.

It is a good point though.
 
Last edited:
Not trying to shamelessly advertise or anything but the company that i designed and now effectively co-run with @SirSkully called Galactic Horizon has a pretty wide range of stuff in its catalogue
One such item is a tier 9 missile which can be fired from any launcher big eough to hold it, and its only 1m long.
There is also a launcher they sell to go along with it and said launcher can be attached to the shoulder or back of heavy pa or vehicles and structures.

Its still expensive but that's because i just go against the grain because i dont think even here a missile would cost less than a couple thousand.

Edit, there is also a janky gauntlet for pa which is literally a giant switchblade. Then skully has designed some neat little quality of life things like climate suits and portable cover.
 
Not trying to shamelessly advertise or anything but the company that i designed and now effectively co-run with @SirSkully called Galactic Horizon has a pretty wide range of stuff in its catalogue
One such item is a tier 9 missile which can be fired from any launcher big eough to hold it, and its only 1m long.
There is also a launcher they sell to go along with it and said launcher can be attached to the shoulder or back of heavy pa or vehicles and structures.

Its still expensive but that's because i just go against the grain because i dont think even here a missile would cost less than a couple thousand.

I gander. I know that heavy weapons for PA can be quite powerful. I think I'm mostly looking to probe the limit of standard infantry forces.
 
Well i believe s6/ndc has quite powerful sniper rifles which can hirt them a fair bit, horizon has developed a couple strong shotguns, but if you're looking to go against pa without a tank or pa, best bets would be jeep or truck mounted guns which can then be stronger or portable launchers yeah. As for pvp, it basically doesn't happen because both sides have to agree to pvp before any rp happens, and usually no one wants to lose so im sure you can see why no one starts lol.
 
Well i believe s6/ndc has quite powerful sniper rifles which can hirt them a fair bit, horizon has developed a couple strong shotguns, but if you're looking to go against pa without a tank or pa, best bets would be jeep or truck mounted guns which can then be stronger or portable launchers yeah. As for pvp, it basically doesn't happen because both sides have to agree to pvp before any rp happens, and usually no one wants to lose so im sure you can see why no one starts lol.

I suppose. Though I fear making vehicles to fight power armor would be... well, more expensive than just building power armor judging by what I know from the system so far.

And hey, the first PVP is going to start soon. But both sides have agreed to a "why are we fighting again" sort of ending so far.
 
You could literally just get a beat up pickup and whack launchers on it lol. But good luck with your pvp

I suppose but my question is about building something akin to an RPG, just upscaled for scifi reasons. Something shoulder fired that can take out heavy vehicles and low flying aircraft.
 
DrV3 makes LAT/RAT/MAT kind of complicated. But it still exists in the sense we know it in linear 5th generation combat.

Infantry LAT and MAT exist in setting but are almost exclusively the same size and payloads. Usually also always Mini-Missiles as well.

These aren't used against PA unless they are guidance based munitions and even then you are at best making the PA move and will likely not score a hit.

They are used more against Mecha (MUCH larger PA sometimes on the scale of gundam size...), Mechs, Low tier tanks, And soft targets.

This is because most things in SARP are shielded and much more resilient towards damage the way we know it. Tanks have gone from intimidating beasts to soften hard targets into absolute nightmares against infantry due to shielding on top of their already powerful armor. Making the average infantryman and any PA short of a mindy scarce around them unless air support (which is also usually shielded) is around to take them out.

In setting we've degraded to 4th generation warfare. Tanks pretty much only kill other tanks after long slugging matches, Fighters kill fighters due to insane speeds fast enough to outrun most missiles fired by MANPADS and the like as well.

I'de give a better answer but im posting mobile from work and will again if I can when I get home.

Pretty much if you are fighting some planetary militia they will have stuff like that and it will work well against them as well. But if you are fighting and actual military like nepland, catland, the abs, elysia, etc...

Well it'll devolve into a lot of PA combat and total war and theres a whole lot of stuff that doesn't work against either side due to bullshit PA and shields. But it works eventually so you keep on chipping until the suicide charge of cats charging at you over that hill has finally stopped moving...
 
DrV3 makes LAT/RAT/MAT kind of complicated. But it still exists in the sense we know it in linear 5th generation combat.

Infantry LAT and MAT exist in setting but are almost exclusively the same size and payloads. Usually also always Mini-Missiles as well.

These aren't used against PA unless they are guidance based munitions and even then you are at best making the PA move and will likely not score a hit.

They are used more against Mecha (MUCH larger PA sometimes on the scale of gundam size...), Mechs, Low tier tanks, And soft targets.

This is because most things in SARP are shielded and much more resilient towards damage the way we know it. Tanks have gone from intimidating beasts to soften hard targets into absolute nightmares against infantry due to shielding on top of their already powerful armor. Making the average infantryman and any PA short of a mindy scarce around them unless air support (which is also usually shielded) is around to take them out.

In setting we've degraded to 4th generation warfare. Tanks pretty much only kill other tanks after long slugging matches, Fighters kill fighters due to insane speeds fast enough to outrun most missiles fired by MANPADS and the like as well.

I'de give a better answer but im posting mobile from work and will again if I can when I get home.

Pretty much if you are fighting some planetary militia they will have stuff like that and it will work well against them as well. But if you are fighting and actual military like nepland, catland, the abs, elysia, etc...

Well it'll devolve into a lot of PA combat and total war and theres a whole lot of stuff that doesn't work against either side due to bullshit PA and shields. But it works eventually so you keep on chipping until the suicide charge of cats charging at you over that hill has finally stopped moving...


Got it. I suppose that makes sense then to only ever build gundams and spacecraft. Otherwise the infantry are a waste of money, training and other resources.
 
I know someone mentioned power creep a while ago, basically this is why we try to avoid it lol. Already yam basically has pa everywhere but they don’t use much mech, but essentially we don’t want power levels to rise to avoid making anything *completely* outdated
 
It's my two cents but it already is if the only thing fighting each other is version A tank and version B tank. It makes almost any sense of tactics and combined arms warfare useless. The way I see it is if that's the case, why bother building infantry, tanks, etc and instead cut your costs by almost 90% and only ever build gundams? Precision munitions are definitely very possible. If the gundam is invulnerable to any conceivable small arms fire why not build one and then outfit it with small 'smart' munitions like pea sized missiles that only target enemy foreheads?

It's just my opinion though. Take it as you will.
 
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top