EPTIts 12 minutes past 12 on the 12th day of the month. Here is another Star Tale blog. Everything in Star Tale is public domain.
This time Im going to talk about the different Armour options you have for your Infantry. This is a really fun part of the game system in my opinion.
After all, who doesnt love Power Armour.
Remember in Star Tale that the Attributes go from '1 to 12'.
(see previous blog post Star Tale Attributes)
The weakest, smallest, squishiest units in the game have an Armour value of 1.
Humans who are not wearing any protection dont fare much better. They have a basic Armour value of 2.
However Commanders can equip their soldiers in 6 different types of Infantry Armour to increase this Stat.
Light Body Armour:
Size 3
Weight 3
Armour 3
Medium Body Armour:
Size 3
Weight 3
Armour 4
Heavy Body Armour:
Size 4
Weight 3
Armour 5
The above 3 Armour types are quite cheap to purchase. While each is more expensive than the last, its not a huge difference. The main consideration is how your other Stats will be modified/locked by using the different Armours. You may not want your troops being slowed down in Heavy Body Armour for example.
Next we have the 3 Powered Armour Exo Suits:
--------------------------
Lithium Armour:
Size 3
Weight 4
Armour 5
Light Exo Suit (LEXO). This suit is very high tech and the most recent addition in the lore. Very expensive. Think Genji in Overwatch, or a cyborg ninja in Metal Gear etc.
--------------------------
Ironhide Armour:
Size 4
Weight 4
Armour 6
Medium Exo Suit (MEXO). These were the first Power Armour suits developed in the fluff. The Terran Bloc disguised their production from internal enemies by shipping them unassembled in boxes labelled "Boiler Plates", and referred to them as Boilers as if they were simple plumbing equipment during the development phase. In game they are quite expensive but much less than the other two types of Exo Suit. This is the equivalent of standard power armour in other sci fi works, eg Space Marines in 40k, or MJOLNIR armour in Halo etc.
--------------------------
Knucklejack Armour:
Size 5
Weight 5
Armour 7
Heavy Exo Suit (HEXO). The second type of Power Armour to be made in the storyline. These are extremely resilient but very slow. They are the equivalent of Terminator armour in 40k etc. Its very expensive to buy these for your army.
--------------------------
All the above Infantry Armours are Height 4. You can see there is an overlap between the Heavy Body Armour and the Light Exo Suit, both are Armour grade 5.
In the Star Tale universe, we are at at time when Armour is particularly strong. Generally speaking the latest breakthrough innovations have been in armour and shield technologies, rather than in the offensive weapon fields. This means that on the battlefield, guns have their place, but increasingly it is viable to use close combat with melee weapons.
We see acrobatic combatants dance over the warzone in their high tech Light Exo Suits, dodging bullets before slicing enemies to ribbons with advanced Haze Blades.
We see hulking behemoths in Heavy Exo Suits inexorably advancing through barrages of gunfire, to emerge from the smoke. And now the true horror begins for the enemy artillery battery as the Knucklejacks tear into deadly close combat with Energy Hammers and Power Gloves, ripping the hulls open. There is little hope for the troopers inside.
Additionally, some units can also equip two other types of armour:
Bubble Shield: This is the standard sci fi kind of energy shield.
Mag Shield: Powerful magnets push bullets away from the target. The effect is like for example Fortune in Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty.
The different types of armour are more/less effective against different types of attacks. It can get really expensive to kit out a unit with the best armour options but equally it can be worth it to achieve a certain goal on the battlefield.
Also, remember the scale for Armour is 1-12, and see how HEXO armour is grade 7! For infantry to be able to have such a high level of Armour really shows just how ridiculously strong your heavy infantry can be.
Customisation is very open in Star Tale, and this Armour system follows that.
Any Class can use any Armour.
(see previous blog post Star Tale Classes)
This may seem odd at first. Why have a Class system at all if they arent restricted? Well at the moment Im doing my best to set it so that choosing a Class is like choosing a natural body type. However, the individual unit is then allowed to use any Armour. The drawbacks are tied into the equipment itself. For example, Heavy Armours are slow moving.
Therefore, when you see an enemy unit using Heavy Armour, you may not know exactly what body type (what Class) is inside that Armour, but you do know straight away exactly how fast it can move and things like that.
Armour modifies some Attributes, but has hard locks on others. This way it means that certain Armours synergise with certain Classes better than others, but there are still reasons a player might want to pair Classes and Armours in nonstandard ways.
Some of the Stats Im doing from memory right now as my notes are elsewhere, may have got some wrong.
Things like Size, Weight and Height are done in bands. Therefore sometimes 2 units will have the same Stat even though technically they arent exactly the same in the fluff. But they are similar enough that they are in the same band in the game rules.
So thats an introduction to Star Tale Infantry Armour. As always, everything is public domain. You are free to use anything however you wish. See you next month on the 12th.
