GM's Note: I wrote this because people have had some problems understanding the harsh realities of the battlefield where this war is taking place. If you have any questions, please feel free to post your questions in this thread. I'll get back to them quickly.
The battlefield in which the NDI and Jaaq'tah clashes on in the Second Draconian War is data intensive. It's not about who has the biggest gun or even the most troops, but rather who has the best information. A huge army does no good if it's in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Even the infantryman packs more compartive firepower and protection than today's tanks with his suit of powered armor. The amount of information required to operate effectively on the battlefield is simply mind boggling, which is why at the core of every fighting unit is a sophisticated computer system. The onboard computer takes all the available data, correlates it, and gives it to the crew via an easy to use graphical interface, at the speed and amount that they can handle.
With a data intensive battlefield, the first thing the enemy is going to do is try to disrupt your communication and data flow for the simple reason that the less you know about the enemy strength, weakness, movement, etc., the greater advantage the enemy has over you. The more you know about the enemy, the more advantage you have over the enemy. This tactic has been in place since time began. Jamming technology rapidly keeps pace with sensor and scanner technology, almost to the point where line of sight is the maximum engagement range possible under ideal battlefield conditions but the information you can receive on a target in LOS is incredible. So is the amount of firepower that the target can deliver onto you if it can trace a LOS back to you! The race to develop better, more efficient, more powerful forms of electronic counter measures (ECM) and electronic counter counter measures (ECCM) is almost as intense as the warfare itself.
In order to achieve LOS one has to rely on something other than the suit's electronics itself: drones. The tactical drones are merely relays and remote sensors / scanner packages with semi-autonomous movement and limited thinking. The drones are programmed to follow the owning vehicle, to fan out and to overlap their shared ranges of detection. What one drone knows, all drones know in a kind of group mind, and this information is fed back to the owning vehicle for interpretation by the computer and dissemination to the crew. Drones are cheap, but a valuable tactical piece of hardware.
This is where the Squad Level Integration and Countermeasures System (SLICS) comes in. The SLICS is a complex system of squad-level line-of-sight and indirect networking among the high-performance tactical computers that are a part of each powered armor suit. The network integrates each unit into a larger unit that was greater than the sum of its parts. With SLICS, an entire squad operates as one greater effective unit. What one knows, all know equally well.
So what does this all translate to in the game? In the game, what one character can see, all other characters in that squad can see. When you engage an enemy, it's because you have a direct line of sight or you have a precision guided munition such as a TAC missile that can put the heat on him. Weapons are incredibly powerful. The standard M55 6mm SIAR fires 6mm tritanium rounds at velocities exceeding four kilometers per second -- and this is considered a light weapon. The heavier 10mm DIWS and the monstrous T6E 3cm pseudorecoiless rifle can put the hurt on armor. TAC missiles carry high-explosive and stabilized liquid explosive warheads and are precision weapons. Missiles travel inches off the ground and move at hypersonic velocities, moving much like a snake as they approach their target. He who shoots first often walks away with his life. Golem and Warhawk series armors do have shields but don't rely on them too much. Almost all explosive weapons exceed their damage capacity and a few shots from rifles will break through the shield.
Your armor is analogous to a one man tank. It is heavily armored, provides full nuclear, biological, and chemical protection. In addition to the powered movement that allows a man to run as fast as a modern car, it has ducted jump fans to facilliate even faster movement. However, only the Warhawk class has fully operational flight. If you're in a Golem, short, quick, 'bounces' are the way to cross terrain quickly. It has a full-blown climate control system and even concentrated high-energy ration paste, juice, and other 'combat enhancers.' Medical care for the soldier was administered through a dedicated subprocessor of the onboard. This subprocessor was connected to the echo suit directly through over 300 sensor feeds. Every aspect of the soldier was monitored, from blood / sugar levels, to adrenaline levels, to heart rate, brain waves, brain state, body temperature, etc. and adjusted medicinally through a variety of hypodermic injector collars contained within the echo suit itself, located at all major nerve clusters and joints. Combat drugs were often carried which would both increase sensory input and decrease trauma warnings to the brain for short periods of time. Such combat drugs heightened the suit wearer's responses dramatically in combat situations. Combat drugs sought to enhance certain aspects of a soldier's physical state, decreasing reaction time, decreasing nerve response, increasing pain threshold, speeding up the flow of information to the combat centers of the brain, blocking out feelings of hunger, fatigue, thirst, pain, bowels, etc.
The battlefield in which the NDI and Jaaq'tah clashes on in the Second Draconian War is data intensive. It's not about who has the biggest gun or even the most troops, but rather who has the best information. A huge army does no good if it's in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Even the infantryman packs more compartive firepower and protection than today's tanks with his suit of powered armor. The amount of information required to operate effectively on the battlefield is simply mind boggling, which is why at the core of every fighting unit is a sophisticated computer system. The onboard computer takes all the available data, correlates it, and gives it to the crew via an easy to use graphical interface, at the speed and amount that they can handle.
With a data intensive battlefield, the first thing the enemy is going to do is try to disrupt your communication and data flow for the simple reason that the less you know about the enemy strength, weakness, movement, etc., the greater advantage the enemy has over you. The more you know about the enemy, the more advantage you have over the enemy. This tactic has been in place since time began. Jamming technology rapidly keeps pace with sensor and scanner technology, almost to the point where line of sight is the maximum engagement range possible under ideal battlefield conditions but the information you can receive on a target in LOS is incredible. So is the amount of firepower that the target can deliver onto you if it can trace a LOS back to you! The race to develop better, more efficient, more powerful forms of electronic counter measures (ECM) and electronic counter counter measures (ECCM) is almost as intense as the warfare itself.
In order to achieve LOS one has to rely on something other than the suit's electronics itself: drones. The tactical drones are merely relays and remote sensors / scanner packages with semi-autonomous movement and limited thinking. The drones are programmed to follow the owning vehicle, to fan out and to overlap their shared ranges of detection. What one drone knows, all drones know in a kind of group mind, and this information is fed back to the owning vehicle for interpretation by the computer and dissemination to the crew. Drones are cheap, but a valuable tactical piece of hardware.
This is where the Squad Level Integration and Countermeasures System (SLICS) comes in. The SLICS is a complex system of squad-level line-of-sight and indirect networking among the high-performance tactical computers that are a part of each powered armor suit. The network integrates each unit into a larger unit that was greater than the sum of its parts. With SLICS, an entire squad operates as one greater effective unit. What one knows, all know equally well.
So what does this all translate to in the game? In the game, what one character can see, all other characters in that squad can see. When you engage an enemy, it's because you have a direct line of sight or you have a precision guided munition such as a TAC missile that can put the heat on him. Weapons are incredibly powerful. The standard M55 6mm SIAR fires 6mm tritanium rounds at velocities exceeding four kilometers per second -- and this is considered a light weapon. The heavier 10mm DIWS and the monstrous T6E 3cm pseudorecoiless rifle can put the hurt on armor. TAC missiles carry high-explosive and stabilized liquid explosive warheads and are precision weapons. Missiles travel inches off the ground and move at hypersonic velocities, moving much like a snake as they approach their target. He who shoots first often walks away with his life. Golem and Warhawk series armors do have shields but don't rely on them too much. Almost all explosive weapons exceed their damage capacity and a few shots from rifles will break through the shield.
Your armor is analogous to a one man tank. It is heavily armored, provides full nuclear, biological, and chemical protection. In addition to the powered movement that allows a man to run as fast as a modern car, it has ducted jump fans to facilliate even faster movement. However, only the Warhawk class has fully operational flight. If you're in a Golem, short, quick, 'bounces' are the way to cross terrain quickly. It has a full-blown climate control system and even concentrated high-energy ration paste, juice, and other 'combat enhancers.' Medical care for the soldier was administered through a dedicated subprocessor of the onboard. This subprocessor was connected to the echo suit directly through over 300 sensor feeds. Every aspect of the soldier was monitored, from blood / sugar levels, to adrenaline levels, to heart rate, brain waves, brain state, body temperature, etc. and adjusted medicinally through a variety of hypodermic injector collars contained within the echo suit itself, located at all major nerve clusters and joints. Combat drugs were often carried which would both increase sensory input and decrease trauma warnings to the brain for short periods of time. Such combat drugs heightened the suit wearer's responses dramatically in combat situations. Combat drugs sought to enhance certain aspects of a soldier's physical state, decreasing reaction time, decreasing nerve response, increasing pain threshold, speeding up the flow of information to the combat centers of the brain, blocking out feelings of hunger, fatigue, thirst, pain, bowels, etc.
