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Phoenix Arms MBR-01 "LONGINUS" Energy Projection R

Time from conception to posting: 49 minutes.

I suggest this be approved. It is a perfect example of not just tech but of wording of the tech and discription that fits perfectly with that race's combat style.
 
It smacks of being a wiseass. Probably because it's a wiseass thing to do. But what the hell, more weaponry is okay too. Sounds much more powerful than an aether rifle.
 
Um, I have to agree with Doshii here. The Longinus doesn't match the range of the Mindy's aether rifle, but it's firing rate is insane in comparison. Also, SA and SMX mecha weapons rarely desroy a mecha in one hit. It can be done, but typically, a Mindy's armor can take quite the beating.

I thought the Phalanx already had a rather overpowered weapon with it's projected plasma having an 'indefenite' range in space. This is, balance-wise, pushing it.

I'll agree with Derran's last note. It's overpowered and doesn't really has it's place here. Not to mention it was sort of irrelevant with the subject it sprang out of : Skhaal's variable-size power armor. Frankly, since we're trying to tone things down a bit in the SARP, I don't think it has it's place.
 
This deffinintly does have its place. The NDI theme IS overpowered weapons and massive armor so it fits very well with their doctrine and playing style.

And in a real space battle, a power armor would not survive a single hit from a starship's weapons. The only reason the Mindys have been surviving is either hiding inside of their parent ship's shields, being misused, or not going against starships.
 
Um, what about being hit several dozen of times with a NH-28 NIWS' twin tripled-barreled aether cannons and look like swiss cheese but still be able to move around and function?

Sakura plotship said:
Meanwhile, the headless Mindy armor crawled along the outer hull of the Star Seeker until it could see the shape of the Sakura through its skin. Leaping off into space, it started to head back to the Sakura as lightning speed, heading for the armor bay. As it did, the light from the bay made a tiny twinkle that Kamiko could see out of the corner of her eye.

When Kotori detected the telltale signature of a CFS coming back online under the belly of the ship, she raised her aether rifle and fired shots between it and the ship, hoping to get it's attention as she and her nodes raced to intercept.

As the seemingly possessed power armor came silently screaming towards the armor bay to mow down the survivors, its grim appearance became more clear; it was tattered, bleeding, full of more holes than a slice of Italian bread. Lacking its rifle, it appeared to be trying to ram itself into the crowd around Hanako. It didn't have far to go. Luckily, Kotori's shots delayed it, sending the wrecked armor into to a spiraling defensive pattern.
Click to expand...

Then again, I'm using a weapon that uses 'total annihiliation' as it's damage in an instance in which it doesn't totally annihilate as a reference. Ugh.
 
Kotori said:
Um, I have to agree with Doshii here. The Longinus doesn't match the range of the Mindy's aether rifle, but it's firing rate is insane in comparison. Also, SA and SMX mecha weapons rarely desroy a mecha in one hit. It can be done, but typically, a Mindy's armor can take quite the beating.

I thought the Phalanx already had a rather overpowered weapon with it's projected plasma having an 'indefenite' range in space. This is, balance-wise, pushing it.

I'll agree with Derran's last note. It's overpowered and doesn't really has it's place here. Not to mention it was sort of irrelevant with the subject it sprang out of : Skhaal's variable-size power armor. Frankly, since we're trying to tone things down a bit in the SARP, I don't think it has it's place.
Click to expand...

See, I'ma have to disagree here. The Aether Rifle's description says that its damage is 'total annilhlation in a 3-inch wide beam'. Furthermore, it is a weapon designed to be able to damage warships which are armored with powerful advanced alloys like Xintium and Zesuaium which extremely durable and almost instantly disperse heat away from themselves making them unimaginably hard to damage. This means that its power level has to be in the multi-megaton if not low-gigaton ranges to even be able to penetrate the powerful defensive shields such vessels possess not to mention have enough energy left to be a 'hull-cutting tool' as Wes describes the weapon.

If such a weapon cannot destroy any mecha or starfighter in a single shot, then the mecha and starfighters present in this role-play are far more cost-effective than any warship could ever dream of being.

With that said, the MBR-01 is the Phalanx's counterpart to the GM-05, except that it isn't simply a carbon copy. It has less range, but its beam fire mode is vastly superior to that of the GM-05 while the GM-05's rapid-fire mode is better at laying down a lot of firepower in a short time (in both cases, the beam fire mode of the MBR-01 is twice as long while the GM-05's rapid fire mode is twice as fast).

So if you have any objection to this weapons system, then you must also voice such objections against the GM-05 Aether Rifle used by the Mindy. If this weapon has no place here, then neither does the Mindy's primary weapons system.

But wait - I don't think you're willing to go that far, are you? That's right, I thought so.

*eewwitt*
 
Okay, I still have a bone to pick with this, but facing up with that means facing up to a lot of other thing I don't really agree with... such as aether weaponry like Derran said. Each and every time I tried to make sense of it and see the damage dealt as something more manageable and understandable from a gaming standpoint, I was shouted down.

And so, I'll just quote Uso Tasuki from another thread and say :

"Arrrgh! defeat!"
 
For what it's worth I think that this weapon fits well with the NDI's power rating, level of destruction and level of technological description.

Personally I'd like some more details about what the energy weapon is, whether it is electromagnetic based, quantum based or otherwise, and detail of that sort.
 
Derran Tyler said:
But wait - I don't think you're willing to go that far, are you? That's right, I thought so.

*eewwitt*
Click to expand...

I'll go that far.

We've just used aether rifles and other weapons in the 5th, and they didn't instantly destroy everything in sight. The Super Phalanx specifically because it's so damn tough.

Let's own up to something -- aether rifles, and the Longinus -- are overpowered. And that means that when you're trying to write out a fight, it's really fucking tough because one hit is supposed to kill you instantly. AWPs all around.

So, how do we fix this? By acknowledging there's barely a single type of weapon that's not meant to kill something in one shot. And then you acknowledge that you want to have more fun than "BAM I SHOT YOU HAR HAR."

This is probably where tech people and character people deviate. I'm not willing to play by the "tech" rules and say to a player, "Oh, that LAMIA got you with the aether beam, you are dead." What FUN is that?! This is about having fun, isn't it?

As far as I'm concerned, fun is what counts. Within reason, I'm not about to let tech stop people from having fun.
 
Doshii wins twelve internets for waging a battle I don't have the courage to lead anymore. Winning it is another matter though T_T

I guess it comes backto the discussion of attack ratings. You can put whatever you want in the dmaage scale, but it's still the moderator that's trusted with adjuciating how damage is interpreted.

And, if I recall, we trust the modertors around here, don't we? So in a way...

Fun > continuity, tech concerns, etc...

Technology remains a guide, not a straightjacket in my opinion.
 
Let us see.

As far as the weapon goes, it tackles the greatest problem with the PHALANX: a lack of firepower to rival that of the Mindy. This actually tackles a gameplay issue, where the slightly larger characters have to use the PHALANX, and yet currently are underpowered given that they do not have the aether rifle. Perhaps they can use one, but having one designed for them, I believe, is superior.

This weapon makes since from an IC perspective, as the NDI would of course want to equip its power armours with a powerful weapon, especially with armours like the Kylie and Mindy flying about, effectively undamagable by the normal weapons a PHALANX has at its disposal.

My only problem with it is, as I have said before, a lack of description on how it achieves the desired effect, and the nature of the attack. I think that's very important.

However for the point that you are bringing up, we must accept that these weapons really should utterly annihilate fighters and other armours, and really there's no reason to stop that. I agree that player satisfaction is important, but it can not really stretch to taking a weapon designed for damaging large ships, and make it so a hit on something as small as a fighter or power armour survives.

If you're going to have character shields, like I suppose is important, then have close misses or have them get out of the way, not take a hit which should annihilate them and leave them only damaged.

Space fighting with these sorts of weapons is incredibly dangerous, and I don't see why a weapon should be held back simply because "It kills players too easily."
 
Okay okay, let's not turn this into a debate about technology and RP that's been done elsewhere a few dozen times already, if I recall correctly.

I seems no one disagrees that the design and the IC reasons for the weapon are sound, so, let's not drag this out anymore than it has to.

The 'Phoenix Arms' MBR-01 "LONGINUS" Energy Projection Rifle' is Approved.

Adding a description on how it looks when it fires and how it behave might win you an internet, Deran ~_^
 
On a real basis, I think you might bring up the same point to anti-fleet weapons, or the weapons which almost every single ship has which will almost certainly destroy the enemy ship in a single shot. As always my favourite example of this is the transposition beam.

The fact is that even a Plot-ship can not take that hit even by being mildly damaged, it's a whole 'boom' dealy, and really the Mishhu's most powerful weapons are the same sort of thing, they fire you die. So why don't the plot ships die? It's because they don't get hit by the most powerful weapons.

In the same way, a PC suit of armour should not be hit by this weapon, get hit by a lesser armour, which we are told most PHALANX will be fighting with anyway.

And one more point:

This is a weapon for the NDI and SA, only these two races can use it. Neither of these are particularly likely to be shooting at the PC's, and both Wes and Derran are good enough GM's to not simply kill a PC. So really it's a question of capacity over possible use. Only GM's will be firing at the PC's, and GM's have a vested interested in keeping their Players alive.

Just because the weapon can do something means little. On Nepleslia all the players can be killed by a high powered sniper rifle, Xaser Assault rifle or something of the variety. And yet they are not. Because the GM (and me since I appear to control most of the people that would ...), do not want to kill PC's.
 
As far as the weapon goes, it tackles the greatest problem with the PHALANX: a lack of firepower to rival that of the Mindy. This actually tackles a gameplay issue, where the slightly larger characters have to use the PHALANX, and yet currently are underpowered given that they do not have the aether rifle.
Click to expand...

However, I must re-iterate - the MBR-01 and the GM-05 are really ill-suited for what you use infantry for: taking and holding territory. Even in the description of the Mindy's aether rifle, it says this:

Note: The extreme power of this weapon makes it unsuitable for some tactical situations (the rifle can melt or set fire to nearby objects when active), and it is not uncommon for the GM-05 to be replaced with another weapon on a per-mission basis. Since the armor has two mounting slots, sometimes the GM-05 is paired with a GM-06 Accelerated Plasma Rifle.
Click to expand...

Why? Because Wes, too, realizes that a weapon of such power (which to perform the tasks its described as being able to do, it needs a yield in the hundreds of megatons at the very least) isn't a tactically sound weapon in almost any situation you would use infantry in. Of course, I believe this note vastly understates the problem of having an infantry unit with a primary weapon of such amazing power.

Realistically, both Star Army and NDI military planners would equip their troops with the lesser weapons because for killing other power armor infantry they are more than enough to get the job done. The argument that the EM-9L's disruptor blast couldn't fell a Mindy or Kylie is not only laughable, but is largely unsupported.

This is why when I designed the PHALANX, I didn't initially create a counterpart to the aether rifle because I have an understanding of what the PHALANX would be used for. Space Marines, first and foremost, are infantry. They are used to take and hold ground on a planetary body (because unless you just want to kill everything on a planet, you're gonna want troops to take and hold ground) and board enemy warships. Even in large numbers, against a warship, a power armor isn't gonna stand a chance and they would be wiped out in very short order (Read: fast-firing, high-powered, and amazingly accurate point-defenses that can track, engage, and destroy hundreds of thousands of targets in seconds). This is why the NDI still maintains starfighters - they are far more survivable (faster, more acceleration, better armored, automated so they can be mass-produced, and vastly more powerful weapons layouts) in the anti-warship role.

To argue against what I'm saying means that non-carrier warships are essentially obsolete as they are designed in this RP, because if you can equip small, man-sized units with the means to take out warships and take the kind of punishment , why do you even build destroyers, cruisers, etc.? If the power armors are this strong, then the warships MUST be several orders of magnitude stronger (even though as it stands now, a PHALANX or Mindy with its main gun can take out the better half of the state of Arkansas with a single shot) in order for them to remain relevant.

Maybe I'm getting long-winded here, but the point is this:

The PHALANX, Mindy, Kylie, and every other power armor in this RP are INFANTRY and should be used as such. They engage other armors in the process of taking and holding territory. Because of this role, having weapons that can destroy entire population centers with one shot isn't preferrable 99.5 percent of the time and such weapons as the aether rifle and Longinus are severely limited in their usage - anti-warship warfare.
 
Really, the player should be the one deciding how their character is damaged. But with weapons like this being used in anti-infantry roles, the only real options are to die, be mutilated (leg blown off, etc.), dodge, or throw the accepted "damage scale" out the window and pretend like your character's not too badly hurt.

I'm really thinking I should try and get some player versus player plot started, but it seems like everyone's fine with GM-run stuff. Hmm. I might try and get something started later. In the meantime, I'll wait for James to get back for the Colosseum.

So that I'm not completely off topic, I didn't know if you wanted this approved (I don't know how much approval really matters to you) or if you were just designing the thing to prove that you could, Derran, but Kotori's taken care of it, so there you go.
 
As a side-note, the Mindy rifle beam is a thin, blazing bright white beam.

No problems with the weapon at all, moving this topic to the approved section.
 
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