Better Invid

[slade the sniper]

As explained earlier, the Invid really just don't seem to be...able to be the galactic level threat they are portrayed to be.
What sort of "buffs" can be given to the Invid to make them the threat they are supposed to be?

-STS

[Seto Kaiba]

Numbers are all you really need there... the thing that made the Invid a threat was the same thing as the Tyranids in 40K or the Bugs in Starship Troopers. Where there's one, there's usually fifty thousand of his best mates.

[Warshield73]

Numbers are all you really need there... the thing that made the Invid a threat was the same thing as the Tyranids in 40K or the Bugs in Starship Troopers. Where there's one, there's usually fifty thousand of his best mates.

Seconded. I didn't matter if I was running 1e, 2e or even an Invid Invasion of Rifts Earth I always treated any battle with the invid like a horde mode in a video game, kill 2 of them and 3 more show up.

I still remember when Rifts players first went against them the players knew the stats of 1e invid really well having played so long so they thought it would be easy but they just kept coming. It was one of very few battles where vehicle mounted rail guns started running low on ammo. To me they work similar to zombies.

I do agree that they need something in a space battle to help them take down large Zentraedi ships but the battle pods will die easy enough. I mean after all the bugs had plasma shooters that could take down ships in orbit.

[xunk16]

Numbers are all you really need there... the thing that made the Invid a threat was the same thing as the Tyranids in 40K or the Bugs in Starship Troopers. Where there's one, there's usually fifty thousand of his best mates.

Seconded. I didn't matter if I was running 1e, 2e or even an Invid Invasion of Rifts Earth I always treated any battle with the invid like a horde mode in a video game, kill 2 of them and 3 more show up.

I still remember when Rifts players first went against them the players knew the stats of 1e invid really well having played so long so they thought it would be easy but they just kept coming. It was one of very few battles where vehicle mounted rail guns started running low on ammo. To me they work similar to zombies.

I do agree that they need something in a space battle to help them take down large Zentraedi ships but the battle pods will die easy enough. I mean after all the bugs had plasma shooters that could take down ships in orbit.

Strange... We were just having a very different outcome in another topic... Not that I disagree, I was actually defending that same line of thought over there.
However, I would be interested on how you personally manage the in-universe accuracy to have battle pods dying easily enough.
Do you simply have the fleet strapping Invid Furys on top of clams to shoot far enough? Or scout dragging them around in space?
Then dropping them one by one on targeted planet to defend, so that they could take cover?
Because, HERE the result was described as being globally different.

What if the Invid had better tactics or actually fought the Zentraedi 24:1?

“Better tactics” won’t really solve the Invid’s basic problem of being totally outclassed per the RT RPG’s RAW stats. Their weapons have shorter ranges and deal less damage, and many of the Invid mecha don’t even have ranged weaponry. With Invid mecha like Enforcers, Commanders, and Overlords being extremely rare, and the Invid having no spacecraft capable of ship-to-ship combat save for the Regent’s personal transport, the Zentradi have an enormous advantage in battle with the Invid.

And this massively disadvantaged state is AFTER the RPG gave the Invid a massive buff vs. the level of durability they display in the TV series, in which light antipersonnel rockets and light man portable energy small arms were enough to take them down reliably.

Greater numbers will only work in the Invid’s favor if the Zentradi are obliging enough to fight on the ground or from a complete standstill. They’re so much faster than the Invid in flight that any Zentradi mecha except the naked Glaug (RAW, which is in this case inaccurate to the show) can easily outpace any Invid pursuit and most have weapons that outrange the Invid by hundreds of meters or more, so a Zentradi force can literally win a protracted fight against the Invid simply by reversing away from them while continuously firing. The Invid can’t catch up, so they’re stuck in the Zentradi’s metaphorical dust eating particle beam fire they can’t retaliate against. As long as the Zentradi keep the battle in space, they’re literally untouchable… and since they can simply flatten planets at their leisure from space, they have no reason NOT to.

I must admit this little difficulty has been bugging me for days.
Switching to better speeds and range for the Invid would seem to be a no-brainer, though that would force some house rule modifying the game and not simply adding to it.
But since I've taken the time to build a Starfish class with some fold capacity, and retro-engineer some stats for a pursuer missile... I had come up with that mostly ignored answer :

Well, secondary canon certainly seem to suggest these kinds of numbers would be probable. Even if we just think of the millions of invids abandoned on past battlefields by the Regent (See Genesis Pits Sourcebook). And theoretically, if you are inclined to that line of thought, a pursuer missile could be used to destabilize a fleet and get into range of the ships' hull before the Regults deployment. (Assuming a fold capability on the part of the Regent's ships.)
The regults would then have to fire on their own way out, in order to prevent the Invid getting in, then go in themselves to fight the pest from the inside.

A gamemaster would also be in his rights to interpret the "Called Shot" rule as applying here : since the Invids would be significantly smaller than the Zentraedis.
I mention it because the previous number crunching operation doesn't seem to account for the size difference.
Maybe this would smooth the path a little for a Gamemaster trying this kind of campaign?

As for the suggestion of "Zombies" I'm not sure it qualifies... But the case of Janus and Ku'Urtz certainly tells us that it would be possible in the limits of the RPG, assuming access to a genesis pit.
One could go at it using Invid Simulagents, parading as Masters, ordering a few Zentraedi in an ambush, then use the relevant Zentraedi DNA's plasticity to their advantage; while reprogramming a few to pilot Regults on their side. You then can have this little group capture more Zentraedis, convert them, rinse and repeat.
It is good to note that these tactics, while devastating, would be short lived. The RPG also states that the Masters did sacrifice a lot in order to convince the Regent such massive corruption of assets were futile. In the end though, the precise era while they would have been used is not clearly stated by the RPG. Which leave a little liberty to one wanting to build a campaign about such an operation.
And also offers leeway as to how devastating such a campaign would be.
An interesting argument on how long this would endure is the shock amongst Breetai's armada that the humans would "fire on their own" in order to attack the enemy. Which could be interpreted as a sacrifice the masters were loath to make. Something, however, they would eventually resort to; if we consider the massive sending of berserk civilians to fight the ASC on earth a few decades later.

But other than folding and burrowing into ships to force the Zentraedi into CQB, or taking a page on genestealer cults from the "Tyrannid bible of galactic warfare", I'll admit I'm open to suggestions. In fact, I've been green-lighted by our gm to run a prequel Zentraedi campaign between Optera's defoliation and Zor's copse shipping to Tyrol. "Showing" the fall of the Tyrolian Mercantile Empire will ask a lot of filling the blanks, but any strategy tips on how to make the Invid more terrifying despite their flaws would be of some help.

There is also this little suggestion :

Invid-brains do have an IQ score of 17 and are psionic so who knows.

So... What psy powers could an Invid brain use in order to close the gap bringing the Regults to being munched slowly by Invid six-packs?
Is there any other Palladium product which could extent the Psychic Invid Control to other kinds of targets? (Making this greffon a very peculiar brain... Though we do have the corruption of T.R. Edwards to base this on.)
Or maybe some Psychic "Illusion" that could help the Invid get in range before being noticed?

Plus, we're technically rolling with the old way of having particular individuals imbued with protoculture eventually able to achieve some kind of "magic". (See; Robotech Aftermath.)
And if you're not into that kind of things, they still do genesis pit experiments with everything they can put their claws on. So Perytonian turncoats, helping some Invid Scientist in exchange of promise never kept, could be a thing. That way, you now can add Magic to the Invid arsenal...
Maybe something from there could be enough to set a trap.

Once that critical condition is achieved though, numbers should definitely do it.

[ShadowLogan]

As explained earlier, the Invid really just don't seem to be...able to be the galactic level threat they are portrayed to be.
What sort of "buffs" can be given to the Invid to make them the threat they are supposed to be?

Numbers (already mentioned).

Group Fire (have groups of Invid capable of acting similar to the Bioroid Invid Fighter, this will make them more effective in ranged combat and simplify mass combat if X# of Invid act as 1), don't forget that Invid are "networked" allowing them to share information.

New Mecha (Inorganic Mecha Missiles, remote operated Booster Scout Stages w/o the Scout, space optimized mecha designs other than the Booster Scout)

Mount weapons on the Calmshell Transports (in 1E just port something from the Scorpion Carrier, not the entire suite but a few)

Not a conventional space power. The Invid invasion of Earth (as shown in Ep61), differs from Tirol (in Sentinels OVA). If we treat the show as a typical invasion, that approach basically bypasses defenders to get to the real prize. What good does a Multi-Trillion Dollar Space Navy do you if the enemy just by-passed you (not to mention this approach could potentially do significant damage on the way/in-out to said Navy). Most sensible races probably aren't going to bombard their own planet.

Give their force field (and ships) some property where they take fractional damage from BFG-level damage or possibly even Corbomite-like properties (ST:TOS "The Corbomite Maneuver) or something akin to the Omni-Barrier discharge (it takes so many hits and then releases in a controlled fashion unlike on the SDF-1, the Masters might have something like this). These would make some typical space combat approaches difficult.

Surprise Attacks. In several episodes we see that Invid hide underground (or water) and then surface to deal with interlopers. This means they could wait and ambush ground forces at such a time the enemies greater range isn't as issue. If they every work out how to do something like this in space, like "holding in fold transit" given they have teleport...

Don't forget their "evolutionary experiments" could influence perception (and their options).

[Seto Kaiba]

Strange... We were just having a very different outcome in another topic...

What I should clarify about my original response is that the "galactic level threat" the Invid are supposed to be is "Not a".

True, no matter how many of them there are they will never be able to pose a threat to the Zentradi and they were never able to threaten the Robotech Masters themselves at the height of their game... but, then again, they're not supposed to be able to. They were just one of the victims of the Robotech Masters and their Zentradi forces in the backstory. It wasn't until after the Masters lost the protoculture matrix, the Zentradi, and abandoned their homeworld for a last-ditch effort to reclaim the source of their power that the Invid finally became a threat to anyone. Namely, a threat to a post-Masters Tirol and its neighbors that had been shorn of all defenses after the Masters and Zentradi abandoned them to chase the protoculture matrix, and to an Earth that had had its defenses destroyed by the exhausted forces of the Masters.

All the Invid need to achieve their intended level of threat is for there to be a lot of them... because they're not fighting the Masters at the peak of their strength or the Zentradi, they're invading basically defenseless planets that used to be oppressed by the Masters and Earth once the Masters and UEDF are too exhausted and beaten down to mount any credible defense.

[Peacebringer]

I always thought the Invid were a peaceful-species until the Masters came along and took their flower of life.

The Invid do have space-boosters so speed/range is not a problem; the Invid are more advanced in their biological and cybernetic-technologies as well as pscionics.

[Seto Kaiba]

I always thought the Invid were a peaceful-species until the Masters came along and took their flower of life.

Yeah, they were. It wasn't until they'd had two different home planets shot out from under them by two different sets of hostile aliens that they started to become aggressive. They didn't commit their first real aggressive act until 2022 or thereabouts when the Invid Regent invaded and occupied Tirol in a bid to recover the Flowers of Life, and then the Regess's invasion and occupation of Earth c.2030.

They were pretty rubbish at the whole "war" thing, with the Regent doing his very best Robotech Master impression to the amusement of exactly nobody and the Regess not really giving a damn about fighting anyone becuase she was all about the research on evolution. The only reason they posed a threat at all was the UEEF wasn't set up to fight in a ways that worked against them and there were so bloody many of them that casualties didn't matter.

[slade the sniper]

Not a conventional space power. The Invid invasion of Earth (as shown in Ep61), differs from Tirol (in Sentinels OVA). If we treat the show as a typical invasion, that approach basically bypasses defenders to get to the real prize. What good does a Multi-Trillion Dollar Space Navy do you if the enemy just by-passed you (not to mention this approach could potentially do significant damage on the way/in-out to said Navy). Most sensible races probably aren't going to bombard their own planet.

*snip*

Surprise Attacks. In several episodes we see that Invid hide underground (or water) and then surface to deal with interlopers. This means they could wait and ambush ground forces at such a time the enemies greater range isn't as issue. If they every work out how to do something like this in space, like "holding in fold transit" given they have teleport...

Don't forget their "evolutionary experiments" could influence perception (and their options).

Yeah, space folding as a beam of energy slamming into a planet then turning into a bunch of bug-like armored slugs would be pretty difficult to stop...
Planetary shields? Are those a thing in Robotech/Macross? Is there a minimum number or minimum range required to do the space fold beam attack?

Space folding ambushes would be an amazing tactic.

Strange... We were just having a very different outcome in another topic...

What I should clarify about my original response is that the "galactic level threat" the Invid are supposed to be is "Not a".

True, no matter how many of them there are they will never be able to pose a threat to the Zentradi and they were never able to threaten the Robotech Masters themselves at the height of their game... but, then again, they're not supposed to be able to. They were just one of the victims of the Robotech Masters and their Zentradi forces in the backstory. It wasn't until after the Masters lost the protoculture matrix, the Zentradi, and abandoned their homeworld for a last-ditch effort to reclaim the source of their power that the Invid finally became a threat to anyone. Namely, a threat to a post-Masters Tirol and its neighbors that had been shorn of all defenses after the Masters and Zentradi abandoned them to chase the protoculture matrix, and to an Earth that had had its defenses destroyed by the exhausted forces of the Masters.

All the Invid need to achieve their intended level of threat is for there to be a lot of them... because they're not fighting the Masters at the peak of their strength or the Zentradi, they're invading basically defenseless planets that used to be oppressed by the Masters and Earth once the Masters and UEDF are too exhausted and beaten down to mount any credible defense.

They were pretty rubbish at the whole "war" thing, with the Regent doing his very best Robotech Master impression to the amusement of exactly nobody and the Regess not really giving a damn about fighting anyone becuase she was all about the research on evolution. The only reason they posed a threat at all was the UEEF wasn't set up to fight in a ways that worked against them and there were so bloody many of them that casualties didn't matter.

Thank you for that clarification...that makes so much more sense, now.

-STS

[Warshield73]

Numbers are all you really need there... the thing that made the Invid a threat was the same thing as the Tyranids in 40K or the Bugs in Starship Troopers. Where there's one, there's usually fifty thousand of his best mates.

Seconded. I didn't matter if I was running 1e, 2e or even an Invid Invasion of Rifts Earth I always treated any battle with the invid like a horde mode in a video game, kill 2 of them and 3 more show up.

I still remember when Rifts players first went against them the players knew the stats of 1e invid really well having played so long so they thought it would be easy but they just kept coming. It was one of very few battles where vehicle mounted rail guns started running low on ammo. To me they work similar to zombies.

I do agree that they need something in a space battle to help them take down large Zentraedi ships but the battle pods will die easy enough. I mean after all the bugs had plasma shooters that could take down ships in orbit.

Strange... We were just having a very different outcome in another topic... Not that I disagree, I was actually defending that same line of thought over there.
However, I would be interested on how you personally manage the in-universe accuracy to have battle pods dying easily enough.
Do you simply have the fleet strapping Invid Furys on top of clams to shoot far enough? Or scout dragging them around in space?
Then dropping them one by one on targeted planet to defend, so that they could take cover?
Because, HERE the result was described as being globally different.

For me I never had to manage this in Universe. I ran 1e Robotech back in high school but never dealt with this. We spent about a year and a half in Macross with me running it and we planned to take those same characters and move them to Sentinels but then Rifts came out and as soon as I showed them the book they just switched.

In fact they only fought the Invid in space once in Sentinels. We did a few Invid Invasion games but this never came up with in that setting. Really the only time it did come up was when I had Invid Rifted in to a moon of Saturn in Rifts space but with that setting the weapons ranges and ship speeds actually fit with what the Invid have.

In 2e I have only run convention games and all the action has taken place on planets or in ships/stations. That's actually why I wanted to read this forum to see how it might be managed if I ever go that direction.

I'll be really honest I love Robotech but with all the different versions of it it's so hard to keep the lore straight. Seto and Jaymz have always been great sources for this. The history of the Invid here is really interesting Seto, thanks.

[taalismn]

The Invid are like Somalis riding technicals against American motorized armor....one-on-one, the tech-might on one side mauls the other.
But get enough numbers, surround the handful of tech-heavy units, and it starts getting iffy.
Now take away the American/Soviet/Zentraedi/Tirolian fuel supply. Those powerful units start grinding to a halt, the air support can't deploy in response all the time, and the high command starts pulling back the fully-fueled units to protect their HQ centers(or back to the landing ships).
And meanwhile the low-techs are multiplying.
Now the high techs are in trouble.

That's essentially what happened with the Invid, plus the Invid used unconventional tactics to surprise the Zentraedi and get them in bad positions, or hit their weak points before the Zentraedi could bring their superior firepower to bear. That netted the Invid Zor's death(though Zor might have deliberately INVITED his own assassination in order to get the SDF-1 away in the confusion). If the Masters had been able to keep the Matrix, they arguably could have eventually ground away the Invid. Instead, the loss of the Matrix gave the Invid the opportunity to become a much more serious threat.

But a serious effort to buff them?
Yah, I'd give them better short-range space-folding capabilities run by their Brains, so they can jump in on worlds and bypass defenses, or fold in right close to enemy ships to swarm them before the enemy can engage at long range.
The Invid should have enough experience fighting the Zentraedi that they can spot their weaknesses in doctrine and procedure and could exploit them once the Invid had the numbers. And seeing as the Terrans learned much of their space combat doctrine from fighting the Zentraedi, many of those weaknesses carried over into Terran fleet design and planning.

[Warshield73]

I think I mentioned this perviosly but right after Mutants in Orbit / Rifts Space came out I used 1ed Invid in my Rifts game. It was a few stage 4 invid (that I modified as psychics and mages) with an Invid brain (that was seriously mutated by ley lines) with several clam ships and lots of regent style invid and inorganics. To make them more of a threat I placed missiles and ship based weapons in the clam, it really didn't do much and the players made very short work of the clam ships and the invid in them.

[slade the sniper]

Is there any consensus/ideas on the Regis spacefold/energy bird beam? Or should it just be "plot power"?

-STS

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah, space folding as a beam of energy slamming into a planet then turning into a bunch of bug-like armored slugs would be pretty difficult to stop...

As long as you've got the element of surprise, yeah... at least until the local defenses get their sh*t together.

The only reason the Invid invasion of Earth was successful was that the UEDF was nearly wiped out fighting the Robotech Masters, otherwise it probably would've been an embarrassing turkey shoot.

Planetary shields? Are those a thing in Robotech/Macross?

Nope... in either setting, covering a roughly city-sized area is about the limit of what we've seen shields do and the energy required seems to be pretty excessive in either case.

In Macross, barrier technology's huge energy requirements are justified because the barrier isn't a generic sci-fi force field... it's a highly localized and very intense distortion of space-time into an impassable knot of twisted reality. Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy and Macross Delta do have something that comes kind of close though, a phenomenon that CAN be twisted into one massive barrier with enough energy. Uroboros and Windermere IV are surrounded by (apparently artificial) fold faults. Disruptions in higher-dimensional space that are impassable to space folds. The Vajra Queen, certain Protoculture biotechnological mecha, and the ancient Protoculture ship Sigur Berrantzs could convert fold faults into barriers of quite staggering size.

Is there a minimum number or minimum range required to do the space fold beam attack?

None that we know of... but it seems to take a lot of energy, and it doesn't appear to be something the Regess can do casually. She needed a runup and all the protoculture on Earth to use it when she left the planet.

Space folding ambushes would be an amazing tactic.

Which is why they're used so often in Macross... they're VERY effective and VERY difficult to counter unless you're on alert 24/7.

Their potential was further elevated in the Macross setting by the introduction of fold systems small enough to mount on VFs. Fold boosters made it possible for single VFs to strike well behind an enemy fleet's lines and attack key targets with tactical thermonuclear reaction or dimensional warheads. The demonstration that sold the New UN Spacy on the YF-24 Evolution (the prototype that the VF-24, VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, YF-30, and VF-31 were all developed from) was a combat simulation where YF-24 Unit 3 executed a precision spacefold to a point underneath a capital ship's air defenses and sinking it with a simulated reaction missile strike.

(Unfortunately not a viable tactic in Robotech, because that setting's space fold isn't folded-subspace teleportation... it's just warp drive by another name. One has to wonder if they could pull a Picard Maneuver though.)

Is there any consensus/ideas on the Regis spacefold/energy bird beam? Or should it just be "plot power"?

It seems to be a selective "Destroys Everything" attack... as in, it can vaporize ships as readily as a main gun attack but it can also choose not to damage objects in the path of the attack. The Regess destroyed the neutron-s missiles and their escorts completely, but apparently did not vaporize or even damage the SDF-4 despite it being in the path of the same beam.

[ESalter]

Is there any consensus/ideas on the Regis spacefold/energy bird beam?

Probably not.

I'd note we see it three times: when the Regis leaves Optera, when she arrives at Earth, and when she leaves Earth. The Regent's attack on Tirol, on the other hand, looks more "conventional" to me.

I personally interpret it as a space fold-based attack (like a "translational warp blast", or something); probably technological, but maybe directed by the Regis' mental control.

[Peacebringer]

The Invid's flower of life needs a G or K class star to grow on an Earth-like world in the HZ. Yes, they are discovering a lot of jovian-class planets in torch orbits (that means, it formed in the outer system and moved closer, absorbing all other planets in the inner-system), but, those planets are the easiest to discover so no wonder the majority of extrasolar worlds are torch orbits. The Regis could just take the flower of life and find another Sol-system to grow them on instead of invading occupying Earth.

What if there's more than one Regis and Regent?

[glitterboy2098]

The Invid's flower of life needs a G or K class star to grow on an Earth-like world in the HZ.

that is total speculation, as the show says nothing of the sort, nor did the old comics (which largely took the stance that FOL would grow anywhere), neither did PB's RPG's make such a claim.

[Peacebringer]

The Invid's flower of life needs a G or K class star to grow on an Earth-like world in the HZ.

that is total speculation, as the show says nothing of the sort, nor did the old comics (which largely took the stance that FOL would grow anywhere), neither did PB's RPG's make such a claim.

Science has come further and plants here on Earth cannot grow on M-class or F-class stars; A, B, and O class stars don't live long enough to produce planets.

[xunk16]

The Invid's flower of life needs a G or K class star to grow on an Earth-like world in the HZ.

that is total speculation, as the show says nothing of the sort, nor did the old comics (which largely took the stance that FOL would grow anywhere), neither did PB's RPG's make such a claim.

Science has come further and plants here on Earth cannot grow on M-class or F-class stars; A, B, and O class stars don't live long enough to produce planets.

Plus, technically, the RNU has the flower originating from Earth's past ecosystem.
And the sentinel / UEEF Marines source-book doesn't necessarily state it needs earth's specific conditions to grow; only to grow right.
Any change, including in the local flora and fauna, or the biomes, and you get a mutated variant that isn't really good at it's job.
You must at least find an analogical place, like Optera was before the Masters.

With apparently a strong link to the presence of nucleotides encouraging gender dysmorphism, and generational evolution by chromosome exchange.
Then again, that part is either coincidence or not. Depending on how much you put the emphasis on the shapings and the existence of the flower as the manifestation of a less defined extra-dimensional cross-pollinator. (In which case, the potential for evolution itself becomes a factor, not what makes it tick.)

But yeah... If one does forget the whole thing about the flower of life craving its "relationships" with other living creatures, I guess any somewhat earthlike world would do. It's not like if it were the first plant to grow different just by changing the ground under it. See Tea for an example.
Especially if you go with the RNU's explanation that Pollinators can apparently use a limited organic fold ability to follow people where they shouldn't be able to.

[Seto Kaiba]

Plus, technically, the RNU has the flower originating from Earth's past ecosystem.

Maybe so, but citing that carries all the weight of citing someone's fanfic... it was Robotech in name only even back in the Usenet days.

And the sentinel / UEEF Marines source-book doesn't necessarily state it needs earth's specific conditions to grow; only to grow right.
Any change, including in the local flora and fauna, or the biomes, and you get a mutated variant that isn't really good at it's job.
You must at least find an analogical place, like Optera was before the Masters.

It's an alien botanical macguffin... it doesn't have to obey Earth's natural laws or even exhibit what we would consider sensible biology if it doesn't want to. Thanks to the inconsistencies in the series and between sources, it doesn't even have consistent attributes. It obeys no law but plot.

[taalismn]

[
It's an alien botanical macguffin... it doesn't have to obey Earth's natural laws or even exhibit what we would consider sensible biology if it doesn't want to. Thanks to the inconsistencies in the series and between sources, it doesn't even have consistent attributes. It obeys no law but plot.

The Flower of Life is being a jerk.

It may as well be fertilized by tears of despair and howls of outrage...especially when it gets bored.

[Warshield73]

And the sentinel / UEEF Marines source-book doesn't necessarily state it needs earth's specific conditions to grow; only to grow right.
Any change, including in the local flora and fauna, or the biomes, and you get a mutated variant that isn't really good at it's job.
You must at least find an analogical place, like Optera was before the Masters.

It's an alien botanical macguffin... it doesn't have to obey Earth's natural laws or even exhibit what we would consider sensible biology if it doesn't want to. Thanks to the inconsistencies in the series and between sources, it doesn't even have consistent attributes. It obeys no law but plot.

A central plot component that has been written and rewritten so inconsistently that no two fans could ever come to the same conclusion about how it works or what the history is. So, when do the writers of Robotech get their own Star Trek series? They'll fit right in.

[Seto Kaiba]

The Flower of Life is being a jerk.

Especially in the failed Robotech 3000 series concept... where it was sentient and decided it was going to just straight-up murder everyone in the galaxy.

It may as well be fertilized by tears of despair and howls of outrage...especially when it gets bored.

"Sir, we're trying to analyze the latest protoculture samples but they won't stop blowing raspberries at us and forming rude shapes under the microscope."

A central plot component that has been written and rewritten so inconsistently that no two fans could ever come to the same conclusion about how it works or what the history is.

Yup... but that's what happens when you try to rewrite three radically different shows into a single storyline and base your entire macguffin on two totally unrelated concepts both using "proto" in their names, then hand the whole mess over to a guy who thinks L. Ron Hubbard is great sci-fi and the very worst licensed novelists and comic book authors in their respective industries for a decade-plus.

So, when do the writers of Robotech get their own Star Trek series? They'll fit right in.

Star Trek is still a long LONG way from slumming hard enough to hire THEM...

[Peacebringer]

Honestly, all the dead Zentraedi on Earth would make great fertilizer for the flower!

But in all Siriusness, M-stars don't produced enough UV and F+ stars produce too much; the flower would have to adapt and fast.

I checked out the original-series the Inbit, oops, I mean Invid came from; no surprise super-ships or weapons for the Invid; they appear to be scientists, which, may give them a HUGE advantage over the Zentraedi and Masters (who have grow decadent). I did find a lot of more awesome Alphas though.

http://www.gearsonline.net/series/mospeada/

The point I was making about pscionics is that if you can get into your enemy's mind and know exactly where they are going to strike, the Zentraedi may fold into a system and find themselves all of a sudden surrounded by a 100:1 ratio of Invid they were just waiting for them because they knew where they were going to be.

[slade the sniper]

The point I was making about pscionics is that if you can get into your enemy's mind and know exactly where they are going to strike, the Zentraedi may fold into a system and find themselves all of a sudden surrounded by a 100:1 ratio of Invid they were just waiting for them because they knew where they were going to be.

That would be some crazy psionic range to pick out plans from a Zentraedi skull light years away.

-STS

[Seto Kaiba]

Honestly, all the dead Zentraedi on Earth would make great fertilizer for the flower!

But in all Siriusness, M-stars don't produced enough UV and F+ stars produce too much; the flower would have to adapt and fast.

It’s a poorly-defined sci-fi macguffin… it doesn’t have to play by normal biological rules when it’s more or less magic.

I checked out the original-series the Inbit, oops, I mean Invid came from; no surprise super-ships or weapons for the Invid; they appear to be scientists, [...]

Nope… the Inbit are definitely not scientists in the original Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.

One of the things about the Inbit in the original MOSPEADA is that they’re so alien that their motives remain largely indecipherable to humanity until very late in the story. That alien-ness is a two-way street too. For most of the story, humans are as incomprehensible to the Inbit as the Inbit are to humanity. It’s not even clear if the typical Inbit is individually sentient in the way that humans perceive sentience. The Refless’s motivation for invading and occupying Earth seems more religious than scientific given her narrations at the start and end of the series, despite the goal of the occupation being to locate new environments that the Inbit could use to further their own evolution. Until the Inbit evolve to humanoid form, she’s the only one of the species who’s ever depicted exhibiting curiosity or any intellectual traits at all.

[...] which, may give them a HUGE advantage over the Zentraedi and Masters (who have grow decadent).

Ah, no… nothing can make the Invid of Robotech a threat to anyone who’s actually ready to fight. They’re pathetically bad at war. The only reason they manage to threaten anyone is that they only start attacking after everyone else is too exhausted to fight back properly. The Invid aren’t thinkers, where the Masters are master scientists and the Zentradi outnumber them tens or hundreds to one.

Decadent is definitely not a word that fits the Zentradi, and it doesn’t really fit the Zor from the original Southern Cross either.

I did find a lot of more awesome Alphas though.

You mean the rejected concept art? Because there were only four types of Legioss - the same four types in RT - in the original MOSPEADA: Eta, Iota, Zeta, and Dark.

The point I was making about pscionics is that if you can get into your enemy's mind and know exactly where they are going to strike, [...]

Assuming, of course, you can understand what you find when you get in there… there’s the old philosophical quandry of “does thought have language?”. Telepathy isn’t particularly helpful if it means you’re reading a mind you can’t comprehend because it perceives reality differently or it follows an alien thought process. If thought has language, reading minds isn’t all that helpful a tool if all you get out of it is thoughts in a language you don’t understand or framed in a thought process that you can’t follow. Sci-fi typically cheats this by having all aliens conveniently take a humanoid form that’s easy to relate to, but that isn’t the case here.

That was the thing with MOSPEADA... the Inbit were so alien that they couldn’t understand humans and vice versa. Humans were dangerous animals to the Inbit, and humanity saw Inbit as unintelligible monsters.

Telepathy also usually has a very limited range… it’s not the kind of thing that’s typically usable over distances of light seconds, never mind thousands of light years. Invid telepathy seems to be limited to distances of a few hundred to a few thousand kilometers and only between Invid.

the Zentraedi may fold into a system and find themselves all of a sudden surrounded by a 100:1 ratio of Invid they were just waiting for them because they knew where they were going to be.

That assumes, of course, that they can read the minds of Zentradi who may be folding in from a position thousands of light years away, and that the Zentradi force is small enough that that Invid can achieve numerical superiority at all. The Zentradi fleet from the original Macross series had 7.5 billion soldiers in it. The Invid don’t have anywhere close to those numbers.

[Peacebringer]

Individual Invid aren't thinkers; that's why they have hive-minds.

Once you throw in metaphysical concepts like pscionics, anything is possible.

Attacking exhausted military forces doesn't mean they are bad at war; it's just a good tactic. Sun Tzu would agree.

Science is a form of religion.

Another aspect is that the Invid can create biological-weapons; think, Prometheus.

[Seto Kaiba]

Individual Invid aren't thinkers; that's why they have hive-minds.

What the Invid have isn't exactly a hive mind, since the whole thing is controlled from the top by an individual who stands apart from it and there's no indication that individual Invid can communicate with each other through it or play any role in decision-making. It's more a group mind where the lower-tier Invid are basically flesh-robots following the orders of a single ruler.

Once you throw in metaphysical concepts like pscionics, anything is possible.

Even psionic abilities have limits... usually fairly severe limits, if the author of the story and setting is anything like competent.

Some of those limits are based on actual and theoretical science, while others are based on preserving dramatic tension and preventing characters with those abilities from being boring invincible heroes (or villains).

There's a very good example of how telepathy would be pretty rubbish for espionage purposes due to differences in perception in Larry Niven's Known Space. The Kzinti, a felinoid species which was known for being stupid levels of aggressive and cannibalistic to boot, had telepaths and used them for espionage purposes. They decided to invade Earth after their telepaths gathered intelligence that convinced them Earth possessed no weapons whatsoever. They promptly suffered a humiliating defeat (the first of several) because the telepathic intelligence they gathered was subjective, based on the perceptions of the humans whose minds they read. To the humans whose minds they scanned, things like asteroid-vaporizing lasers and mass drivers weren't seen as weapons... they were just tools. Dangerous tools, but tools nonetheless. Humanity later even learned how to weaponize the perceptual problems with mind-reading against the Kzinti telepaths. The Kzinti, being carnivores, are profoundly put off by something as simple as the memory of your last salad because it's fundamentally wrong to them on an unavoidable biological level.

Attacking exhausted military forces doesn't mean they are bad at war; it's just a good tactic. Sun Tzu would agree.

You misunderstand. The Invid are so rubbish at warfare that the fact that the planet they attacked was basically defenseless because its defenders had been all but wiped out fighting an enemy who could actually fight worth a damn was the ONLY reason they didn't immediately suffer a crushing defeat.

Science is a form of religion.

... not even close. If anything, they're polar opposites.

Another aspect is that the Invid can create biological-weapons; think, Prometheus.

They've never demonstrated anything remotely close to that kind of capability... or a willingness to do so.

The closest the Invid ever got to creating killer monsters was making robots (which, to them, kind of are monsters).

[Peacebringer]

There are Invid made genetic-mutations in the Sentinels book.

Considering a military force, "Rubbish", is a good way to get defeated; say you are right and the Invid are terrible; but, the NVA were a, "Rubbish", fighting force, they lost the Tet offensive and yet, they won the war; also, the Zentraedi had a fleet of 7.5 billion soldiers and has inter-stellar travel, and yet, they got defeated by a military force that could barely master inter-planetary travel and had far few soldiers (probably only a few million at best). The Zentraedi are also, "Rubbish".

Larry Niven's novel is nice, but it's just one interpretation of pscionics; like I said before, once you throw metaphysics into the picture, the genie is out of the bottle and ANYTHING is possible.

According to the books, the Hive-mind controls the Invid.

I did some more research on Mospeada and I found the Xai-Zora ship; now if you use that against the Zentraedi, their warship are doomed!

[Seto Kaiba]

There are Invid made genetic-mutations in the Sentinels book.

There are... but that's something that Palladium Books's writers came up with as filler for the last two books when they ran out of official material.

Considering a military force, "Rubbish", is a good way to get defeated; say you are right and the Invid are terrible; but, the NVA were a, "Rubbish", fighting force, they lost the Tet offensive and yet, they won the war; also, the Zentraedi had a fleet of 7.5 billion soldiers and has inter-stellar travel, and yet, they got defeated by a military force that could barely master inter-planetary travel and had far few soldiers (probably only a few million at best). The Zentraedi are also, "Rubbish".

... I am at a loss to explain what's going on with the punctuation here, and your comparison is completely historically inaccurate.

The People's Army of Vietnam was not considered a "rubbish" force... they were a large, well-organized, and highly motivated force whose only real disadvantage was fighting with outdated equipment due to procurement mainly coming from the People's Republic of China. They fought against and defeated the much better-equipped French Expeditionary Corps and won handily in the First Indochina War and stalemated the combined Army of the Republic of Vietnam and United States Army despite the latter's massive advantage simply by refusing to fight a proper war and chipping away at the US and ARVN forces in guerilla warfare until the political pressure from mounting casualties forced a withdrawal. They might've been tactically inferior, but they were strategically top notch in asymmetric warfare as their track record showed.

Likewise, your argument about the Zentradi doesn't fit the facts. For almost the entire duration of the conflict, the Zentradi used only the smallest fraction of the forces (about 0.025%) to engage the SDF-1 and the rules of engagement were extremely strict because they were under orders to capture the ship intact. Several battles in the series clearly show the Zentradi could have overpowered or destroyed the SDF-1 fairly easily if they'd fought seriously, but were under the strictest orders not to. When the kid gloves came off, the Zentradi destroyed the entire UEDF in a matter of seconds and were set to do the same to the SDF-1... and would've had an easy job of it had 20% of their forces not defected and the SDF-1 not used the most advanced robotechnology in the known universe as a ad hoc bomb to destroy Dolza's moon-sized mothership and the surrounding fleet. Robotech is pretty clear that had the UEDF not had Zor's battlefortress, the most advanced ship ever, the outcome of that battle would've been VERY different.

The Invid, however, are pretty demonstrably useless in a fight. They didn't even possess ranged weaponry, their armor was so weak that even antipersonnel rockets and man-portable beam weaponry could easily pierce it, their one type of ship had no defenses to speak of, and their only strategy consisted of suicidal ramming attacks. The only reason they posed any threat at all when they invaded Earth was because the UEDF had been all but wiped out fighting the Robotech Masters, and couldn't muster an effective defense. Their numerical superiority was all that made them threatening, even when the UEEF started trying to retake Earth's surface. Even in the RPG, the Invid are basically helpless if you're smart enough to fly backwards and shoot at them while they chase you. If the UEEF had stopped to think about their strategy, it wouldn't have been any contest... but their singleminded obsession with landing troops ASAP made them easy marks for Invid's numerical superiority even though their weapons could pop Invid like balloons.

According to the books, the Hive-mind controls the Invid.

Which isn't quite how it works in the show.

I did some more research on Mospeada and I found the Xai-Zora ship; now if you use that against the Zentraedi, their warship are doomed!

... the what now? There's no ship by that name in MOSPEADA. The Inbit only have one type of ship, the Shelldo, which is the defenseless clam-shaped thing from the series.

[xunk16]

I did some more research on Mospeada and I found the Xai-Zora ship; now if you use that against the Zentraedi, their warship are doomed!

... the what now? There's no ship by that name in MOSPEADA. The Inbit only have one type of ship, the Shelldo, which is the defenceless clam-shaped thing from the series.

I also have difficulty finding this Xai-Zora. Maybe this is wrongly translated from Japanese characters? Would this be the hive ship as referenced by Mecha Journal?

Also... I think someone fearing his players might want to go "all backward" would be pretty much obliged to find a way to consider them [The Invid] as the Vietnamese asymmetrical types. The real challenge is to find the strategies to make this happen. While on the ground, this is mostly a simple affair of traps and numbers.
But in space?
Palladium might have added a lot to "canon", by defining the genetic engineering of the Invid in clearer terms, but this was already here with that fascination over "evolution" on the part of the Regess. If one does consider The Sentinels, this is much more than just speculation. Furthermore, the RPG at least give us a glimpse of the way Invid might improvise strategy on the Regent's front. (Though naive... at least they try.)
I'm not saying this isn't a puzzle however. Or that it wouldn't require at least some form of speculation from a Gm.
And like the Vietnamese in their holes... the Invid are certainly not having an easy time of confronting such spectacular enemies.

The Invid Regess / Regent does not "directly" control the whole hive though. It's made pretty clear that they have relay towers to their Psi ability in the anime, and that hitting such target is a priority; since it would let the resistance move a little less in plain sight. While this might generally be a question of messing with the enemy's intel, one might ask how much Psi perception is gained that way. Are these towers just detecting protoculture too? Or might they be able to identify movement / lifeforms? (Though that wouldn't originally be of import to the Regess / Regent, until they would have tagged such a signature as "important".)
We still have the mystery of the Regess using Annie to contact Bernard group, however... Which could mean more potential to this increased range than just detection.

More importantly, these relays teach us that the Invid have found an artificial mean to increase the range of their psychic abilities.
One that could be present when we count Starfish-Class super-carriers and / or whatever Xai Zora / Hive Ship is...
Couple this with the bio-engineering capacity, an army of Invid Brain Stems, and mostly independent Invid Scientists; you'll probably find the psychic powers you need in other Palladium publication to make your Invid much more [a bit?] menacing.
After all, they only need to get in range of something the players won't want to get away from.

(I'm still wondering how much their diminutive size would handicap Zentraedi targeting them per the "Called shot" rule. This is still mostly trying to shot a zigzagging cat from the perspective of the Regults. Something that could also mitigate the range factor if one really needs to give them an edge.)

Basically, you either want to cover your approach from the outside.
Or infiltrate simulagents from the inside, scrambling the mind of the people giving orders and interpreting readings on a Bridge.
Zentraedi might also be pretty vulnerable to sabotage.
Once this is achieved, guerrilla tactics might find their way on the table.

And there is the small issue of what can be done with Perytonian sympathizers and possible (expanded with other books) ritual magic.
(The UEEF Marine sourcebook gives us the idea they know of the concept, but I had to go to Palladium Fantasy to have any idea of what it could be.)
Depending on how much of Invid "bigger ships" and relay tower would count as "Technology", one is potentially right to ask what would be their reaction to magic. Worst case scenario, you shove some slaves into EVA suits to do some rituals on the hull, while their relatives are held hostage.
Given, this would be pretty reckless on the part of the Scientist / brain attempting the maneuver.
And I still have to go through the whole spell list to see if something would solve that very issue of "getting near enough to harm".

(Also... since Magic comes from P.P.E. AKA "Psychic energy", wouldn't this also be boosted by psychic relay towers?)

[Seto Kaiba]

I also have difficulty finding this Xai-Zora. Maybe this is wrongly translated from Japanese characters?

Nope… as a translator, and as someone whose personal library includes every major publication that covered Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, I’m confident this isn’t a case of mistranslation.

You see, Peacebringer claimed that he “did some more research on MOSPEADA” and he supposedly found this other Inbit ship. The obvious problem with this claim is that Artmic had only designed one class of Inbit ship: the Sheldo “satellite fort” seen in the animation. That fact’s enough to narrow the field of possibilities to “BS” and “mistaken identity”. My guess would be it’s the latter, with something from someone’s fanfic being mistaken for official… a problem that’s too common in the Robotech fandom as it is.

Would this be the hive ship as referenced by Mecha Journal?

That kind of thing right there is why sites like the uRRG and its spinoff Mecha Journal are such a detriment to the Robotech fandom. All they ever do is misinform, because they’re presented like they’re authoritative reference materials for the Robotech setting based on research and not the wildly inaccurate fanfics they really are.

As someone who’s invested a lot of his free time and effort into translating Japanese books and magazines to get the most complete and accurate information possible, sites like that offend me on a professional level. It’s like academic dishonesty.

I mean, come on… that’s a stationary building and they’ve written it up as a spaceship.

Also... I think someone fearing his players might want to go "all backward" would be pretty much obliged to find a way to consider them [The Invid] as the Vietnamese asymmetrical types. The real challenge is to find the strategies to make this happen. While on the ground, this is mostly a simple affair of traps and numbers.
But in space?

It’s supposed to be the other way around, though… the Invid are supposed to be the strategically and numerically superior foe while the UEEF is forced into guerilla resistance tactics.

All you really need to do as a GM to enforce that is exactly what MOSPEADA’s writers did in the show’s first episode. The UEEF ships aren’t space warships, they’re space landing craft that are all about securing a beachhead on a planet and ferrying down ground troops and equipment. PCs who are soldiers - and really, they’re ALL soldiers in that part of the story if they’re in space - are either flying escort for the shuttles and transports or are canned spam ground troops in the shuttles and transports. They can’t pull that kind of game-breaking game of reverse chase when they’re trying to escort a fairly unmaneuverable troop shuttle or cargo transporter past the Invid’s orbital interdiction efforts and make reentry. Once they’re on the planet, you can hem them in by using terrain creatively if they try to resort to that game-breaking cheat.

It’s only a game-breaking exploit if you, as GM, allow your players to use it to break the game.

This, of course, is kind of the UEEF’s entire problem. They’re so fixated with landing the ground troops that it seemingly never occurs to them to secure air (space?) superiority before they try to organize a mass landing operation. We see at the end of the series that their ships are perfectly capable of one-shotting Invid transports before they ever disgorge their troops, but they seem to forget they can DO this at the start. They also seem to have completely forgotten point defense guns are a thing you can have.

(I'm still wondering how much their diminutive size would handicap Zentraedi targeting them per the "Called shot" rule. This is still mostly trying to shot a zigzagging cat from the perspective of the Regults. Something that could also mitigate the range factor if one really needs to give them an edge.)

Rapid fire is a wonderful equalizer… and blast-fragmentation warheads generally don’t care if you’re zigzagging.

[ShadowLogan]

(I'm still wondering how much their diminutive size would handicap Zentraedi targeting them per the "Called shot" rule. This is still mostly trying to shot a zigzagging cat from the perspective of the Regults. Something that could also mitigate the range factor if one really needs to give them an edge.)

Generally speaking the size difference is not going to be an issue UNLESS one makes a Called Shot to target a specific area, and then those are usually noted in the mecha entry (ex. Invid Eye Sensor).

You might be able to extrapolate something from the spaceship rules when attack targets of X size (2E Genisis Pits pg96, 1E RT and M2 and Rifts Phaseworld all have similar if not identical), but by the list here lumps all mecha on the same scale category. IINM humans in Rifts/PF do not take any penalty to attack a Faire/Pixie, and the size difference here is much more than Regult vs Gamo/Gurab.

[Peacebringer]

". . . large, well-organized, and highly motivated force whose only real disadvantage was fighting with outdated equipment. . .": you've just described the Invid as represented by you in previous posts.

And yes, the Invid hive-minds are different in the show, but, this is a forum about an RPG game, not the show and I am going by what is written in the books.

You may have every major publication of MOSPEADA, but do you have every minor one?

AP-rockets and and man-portable energy weapons can pierce the armor? In the M.D.C. system, what page does it state weapons can pierce armor?

This whole, "Flying backwards", logic has to stop;

1. Do yawl think the Zentraedi have the discipline to simply, "Fly backwards", rather than get into the heat of the battle?
2. Max-speed of a Zentraedi Battle Pod: 650mph flying in space: Max-speed of Invid Armored Scout: 2,345mph: Max-speed of Invid Armored Scout with space-booster: 4,020mph.
3. As the Zentraedi, "Fly-backwards", the Invid clam ships fold behind them releasing shock troopers.

So, back to the OP of how to make better Invid.

1. Numbers.
2. Psionics.*
3. Genetic-mutations.**
4. Zentraedi, as Seto stated, being restricted and instructed not to wipe out hives, as they need to take the Flower-of-Life alive.
5. Xai-Zor factor.


*If you can fold objects across space, so can one fold communications. It takes only one Invid-probe to ascertain Zentraedi-plans.
** 20% of the Zentraedi genetically mutating and defected to the Invid.

[Seto Kaiba]

". . . large, well-organized, and highly motivated force whose only real disadvantage was fighting with outdated equipment. . .": you've just described the Invid as represented by you in previous posts.

Nope… the Invid are a large, poorly-organized force that displays breathtaking incompetence on the field of battle at almost every turn. Their troops are literally so stupid that they lose track of a hostile they’ve been pursuing - even one standing directly in front of them - if the emissions of its protoculture power system disappear. Their one and only saving grace is that the UEEF are just incredibly incompetent.

And yes, the Invid hive-minds are different in the show, but, this is a forum about an RPG game, not the show and I am going by what is written in the books.

Yet, the Robotech RPG is supposed to be reflective of the content in the show… so that will inevitably come up in discussion. Also, if you’re going by what’s written in the books you’re not doing a very good job of it as a number of errors in your later posts clearly show.

You may have every major publication of MOSPEADA, but do you have every minor one?

Pretty much, yeah… there may be one or two leaflets or promotional pamphlets that I don’t have but I’ve got copies of everything noteworthy. Genesis Climber MOSPEADA didn’t do all that well in Japan when it first aired, so it got relatively little in the way of press coverage.

This whole, "Flying backwards", logic has to stop;

1. Do yawl think the Zentraedi have the discipline to simply, "Fly backwards", rather than get into the heat of the battle?

Are you really asking if a highly organized, highly disciplined, strategically literate force can obey an order as simply as “reverse away from the enemy at speed”? FFS, the RPG even asserts the Zentradi rank-and-file are brainwashed and indoctrinated for obedience above all else. Seems a safe bet they can handle something that simple.

2. Max-speed of a Zentraedi Battle Pod: 650mph flying in space: Max-speed of Invid Armored Scout: 2,345mph: Max-speed of Invid Armored Scout with space-booster: 4,020mph.

Try again… because that’s completely wrong.

According to the RT2E Macross Saga sourcebook, the Zentradi mecha have the following top speeds in space:

• Regult: 11,200kph (7,000mph)
• Glaug: incorrectly cited as no flight capabilities, actually as fast as the Regult
• Glaug w/ Booster: 14,784kph (9,240mph)
• Nousjadeul-Ger: 11,200kph (7,000mph)
• Queadluun-Rau: 18,480kph (11,550mph)
• Gnerl Dogfight Pod: 22,176kph (13,860mph)

According to the RT2E core book, the Invid mecha have the following top speeds in space:

• Scout: 2,176kph (1,360mph)
• Booster Scout: 8,704kph (5,440mph)
• Trooper: 960kph (600mph)
• Shocktrooper: 960kph (600mph)
• Enforcer: 1,449kph (906mph)
• Commander 3,600kph (2,250mph)
• Overlord: 5,600kph (3,500mph)

Now, as anyone who passed a grade school maths class can clearly see, the Zentradi’s slowest mecha (the Regult) is 28.6765% faster than the fastest Invid mecha (the booster scout). They’re more than capable of this game-breaking “fly backwards to win” maneuver.

3. As the Zentraedi, "Fly-backwards", the Invid clam ships fold behind them releasing shock troopers.

… but they can’t do that, because they’re not fold-capable. The RT2E core book indicates this ship is capable of sublight flight only… and it ain’t winning any prizes for speed.

5. Xai-Zor factor.

Seriously, what the hell is this thing you keep referring to? There’s nothing by that name anywhere in Robotech or MOSPEADA. Wasn’t that the bad guy from Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire?

*If you can fold objects across space, so can one fold communications. It takes only one Invid-probe to ascertain Zentraedi-plans.

But the Invid Regess’s forces don’t possess fold technology, so they can’t… and the Regent has a single fold-capable ship.

[Peacebringer]

You have trouble admitting you're wrong; you should work on that.

For someone that claims to possess such a grand library, you would have understand my point of view and the capabilities of the Invid their base, the Inbit and the Zentraedi.

Given there are actual tables to roll on Zentraedi insanity, Zentraedi are not the highly disciplined force you claim.

Insisting the books should reflect the TV show and therefore, etc. is a strawman.

If the Regess doesn't possess fold-technology, how did she and her Invid get to Earth?

And I love the comment about, "Grade school math"; takes me back to the first days of the internet and BBS.

Anyways, at least you agree on these points:

"1. Numbers.
2. Psionics.*
3. Genetic-mutations.**
4. Zentraedi, as Seto stated, being restricted and instructed not to wipe out hives, as they need to take the Flower-of-Life alive."

Also, does it specifically state in your RT2e books that the battle-pods can fly backwards at that speed?

[Zer0 Kay]

The Regess doesn't fold to get from one planet to another. She absorbs the Invid race and all their tech which is technically a part of her and uses her superlum8nal form.

[Zer0 Kay]

Even if a ship doesnt have fly in reverse at speed. They have this other thing going for it which too many people forget, newtonian physics, thrust toward enemy, turn ship 180, wait to close, thrust away from enemy matching speed, change direction 180 just out of their range and fire at enemy with superior range weapons and projectiles that benefit from increased relative speed and decreased range.

[Zer0 Kay]

Insanities do not negate discipline. A lot of soldiers suffer from insanity and have successful careers.

[Zer0 Kay]

Individual Invid aren't thinkers; that's why they have hive-minds.

What the Invid have isn't exactly a hive mind, since the whole thing is controlled from the top by an individual who stands apart from it and there's no indication that individual Invid can communicate with each other through it or play any role in decision-making. It's more a group mind where the lower-tier Invid are basically flesh-robots following the orders of a single ruler.

Once you throw in metaphysical concepts like pscionics, anything is possible.

Even psionic abilities have limits... usually fairly severe limits, if the author of the story and setting is anything like competent.

Some of those limits are based on actual and theoretical science, while others are based on preserving dramatic tension and preventing characters with those abilities from being boring invincible heroes (or villains).

There's a very good example of how telepathy would be pretty rubbish for espionage purposes due to differences in perception in Larry Niven's Known Space. The Kzinti, a felinoid species which was known for being stupid levels of aggressive and cannibalistic to boot, had telepaths and used them for espionage purposes. They decided to invade Earth after their telepaths gathered intelligence that convinced them Earth possessed no weapons whatsoever. They promptly suffered a humiliating defeat (the first of several) because the telepathic intelligence they gathered was subjective, based on the perceptions of the humans whose minds they read. To the humans whose minds they scanned, things like asteroid-vaporizing lasers and mass drivers weren't seen as weapons... they were just tools. Dangerous tools, but tools nonetheless. Humanity later even learned how to weaponize the perceptual problems with mind-reading against the Kzinti telepaths. The Kzinti, being carnivores, are profoundly put off by something as simple as the memory of your last salad because it's fundamentally wrong to them on an unavoidable biological level.

Attacking exhausted military forces doesn't mean they are bad at war; it's just a good tactic. Sun Tzu would agree.

You misunderstand. The Invid are so rubbish at warfare that the fact that the planet they attacked was basically defenseless because its defenders had been all but wiped out fighting an enemy who could actually fight worth a damn was the ONLY reason they didn't immediately suffer a crushing defeat.

Science is a form of religion.

... not even close. If anything, they're polar opposites.

Another aspect is that the Invid can create biological-weapons; think, Prometheus.

They've never demonstrated anything remotely close to that kind of capability... or a willingness to do so.

The closest the Invid ever got to creating killer monsters was making robots (which, to them, kind of are monsters).

Science itself is indeed the polar opposite of religion. It is a process used in order to prove assumptions. While religion is a system of belief based on assumptions. The problem is that so many of the assumptions aren't fully proven (creation of the universe, global warming, evolution, etc...). Even if they are solidly supported through the scientific process, without the ability to replicate it leaves it an assumption. All these things that science wants to prove in order to disprove religion are labeled "science" therefore making "science" a religion because "science" isn't fully scientifically proven therefore requiring faith to assume it as scientifically proven truth.

[Zer0 Kay]

Individual Invid aren't thinkers; that's why they have hive-minds.

What the Invid have isn't exactly a hive mind, since the whole thing is controlled from the top by an individual who stands apart from it and there's no indication that individual Invid can communicate with each other through it or play any role in decision-making. It's more a group mind where the lower-tier Invid are basically flesh-robots following the orders of a single ruler.

Once you throw in metaphysical concepts like pscionics, anything is possible.

Even psionic abilities have limits... usually fairly severe limits, if the author of the story and setting is anything like competent.

Some of those limits are based on actual and theoretical science, while others are based on preserving dramatic tension and preventing characters with those abilities from being boring invincible heroes (or villains).

There's a very good example of how telepathy would be pretty rubbish for espionage purposes due to differences in perception in Larry Niven's Known Space. The Kzinti, a felinoid species which was known for being stupid levels of aggressive and cannibalistic to boot, had telepaths and used them for espionage purposes. They decided to invade Earth after their telepaths gathered intelligence that convinced them Earth possessed no weapons whatsoever. They promptly suffered a humiliating defeat (the first of several) because the telepathic intelligence they gathered was subjective, based on the perceptions of the humans whose minds they read. To the humans whose minds they scanned, things like asteroid-vaporizing lasers and mass drivers weren't seen as weapons... they were just tools. Dangerous tools, but tools nonetheless. Humanity later even learned how to weaponize the perceptual problems with mind-reading against the Kzinti telepaths. The Kzinti, being carnivores, are profoundly put off by something as simple as the memory of your last salad because it's fundamentally wrong to them on an unavoidable biological level.

Attacking exhausted military forces doesn't mean they are bad at war; it's just a good tactic. Sun Tzu would agree.

You misunderstand. The Invid are so rubbish at warfare that the fact that the planet they attacked was basically defenseless because its defenders had been all but wiped out fighting an enemy who could actually fight worth a damn was the ONLY reason they didn't immediately suffer a crushing defeat.

Science is a form of religion.

... not even close. If anything, they're polar opposites.

Another aspect is that the Invid can create biological-weapons; think, Prometheus.

They've never demonstrated anything remotely close to that kind of capability... or a willingness to do so.

The closest the Invid ever got to creating killer monsters was making robots (which, to them, kind of are monsters).

The inorganic seem pretty biological as do all their mecha and their being able to be absorbed into and transported by the Regess in her superluminal form supports that. Then again the anime never showed the Regess transport inorganics... but it never shows her use them either.

[xunk16]

Insanities do not negate discipline. A lot of soldiers suffer from insanity and have successful careers.

Some would say a Soldier's Insanity is a job requirement. Depends on how you define "crazy" I guess.
They certainly are taught to ignore some of their survival instinct, and they tend to live trough things most of us will gladly not really have to.

The Regess doesn't fold to get from one planet to another. She absorbs the Invid race and all their tech which is technically a part of her and uses her superlum8nal form.

The Regess being able to cross dimensional barrier, I'd count her Phoenix form as a kind of "biologically evolved" "fold".
Acording to the RNU, she also wouldn't be the first to develop such a thing in contact with the Flower of life. The pollinators have been known to cross distance they shouldn't be able to in an undefined manner.

For someone that claims to possess such a grand library, you would have understand my point of view and the capabilities of the Invid their base, the Inbit and the Zentraedi.

We still have no source on the Xai-Zor. No need to get ugly about this... If the ship exist, even on a fansite reference, it should be able to be demonstrated.

Even if a ship doesnt have fly in reverse at speed. They have this other thing going for it which too many people forget, newtonian physics, thrust toward enemy, turn ship 180, wait to close, thrust away from enemy matching speed, change direction 180 just out of their range and fire at enemy with superior range weapons and projectiles that benefit from increased relative speed and decreased range.

I would agree on the inertia "backward flight" theory... but the Regult really doesn't need to do that. It's thrusters can rotate to point forward to perform jumping maneuver in an atmosphere; that would qualify them to still rotate in space and accelerate as much backward as they can forward. Though I do myself wonder how much more difficult this could be on a Zentraedi formation. Do we know of a way for the Regult to have a rearview?

But the Invid Regess’s forces don’t possess fold technology, so they can’t… and the Regent has a single fold-capable ship.

I also have to disagree on the Regent having only one starfish class ship. There is at least two designs of the thing in the Sentinel comics, with one looking younger / smaller and is used by an Invid Scientist. (They are so biological-looking that the starfish-class super-carrier still have their vestigial "mouths". This, of course, doesn't negate the possibility of a Genesis pit creation, but it would imply a source specie; meaning the experiment could be reproduced.)
Plus you'd have to consider the Ship used by the Regent's clone... which would hardly be the same considering the Regent would still need to travel and defend himself.
And some Invid Scientist outposts which might have needed a bigger carrier to get settled at the start of the War.

In "The Battle for Fantoma" Tesla is saying to the Regess that the Regent has sent TWO new warship to the Tirol front.
Though we don't see a Starfish class, or two, in a same panel for the given issue... (I didn't re-check the whole comic collection, just a fast browse; though I thought there might have been a picture of this somewhere. Let's put it on faulty memory for now.), we do see it does mean a whole lot of new clamships. This would imply something to ferry those, which the Scorpion ship doesn't have.
As I imagine the Starfish class to be pretty ressource intensive to build, it would also make sense that they hide to "protect the brains" after having dropped the new clams in range.

And, of course, if one needs it, the ships from the first edition of the RPG are still mostly in scale with the second.
(Except the separation of the MDC. Which isn't a problem if you don't have a new version to compare it to.)
So we still have at least allegedly 200 "remaining" Scorpions.
Which gives us a mach 10 (7672.69 mph), .16c sub-light speed. Not a lot, but enough to pose a certain threat to male Zentraedi fleets. (Especially if there were more in the beginning.)
Of which at least one bigger version, with stats unknown, still exist in the comic reboots.

Shame we never had the chance to see the "Ship" sourcebook ever completed. The Invids certainly need more than their clams.

As for the science / religion thing... I myself do consider science to become religion, when people consider paradigms to be truths, instead of the "until further notice" they really are. Of course, a true scientist wouldn't do this; but they aren't generally the ones we see the most.

[Seto Kaiba]

Science itself is indeed the polar opposite of religion. It is a process used in order to prove assumptions. While religion is a system of belief based on assumptions.

Not quite. Science is a systematic process for building and organizing knowledge based upon testable hypotheses, the empirical evidence gathered while testing those hypotheses, and any predictions formed based upon that empirical evidence. Belief without proof is not a part of the scientific method. When a hypothesis has a strong body of supporting evidence but hasn’t yet been definitively proven beyond all rational doubt or has unresolved questions, that is a theory, and theories change and evolve as new evidence is gathered via repeatable, verifiable testing.

What you’ve posited here is a fairly common fallacious argument that attempts to misrepresent science as a belief system by falsely asserting that science claims to have all the answers, and really it never has. There’s always something more to know.

The Refless’s motivations in the original Genesis Climber MOSPEADA seem more religious than scientific, as she makes frequent reference in rather scriptural prose to a being of darkness called “Shadao” and a being of light called “Leito”, the latter of which she describes as “inviting” the “children of the universe” to a specific chosen place (Earth) and then equates that journey to evolution. She later condemns humans as “strong with Shadao’s power” when leaving Earth for parts unknown, and repeats the same invocation to “Leito”. There’s definitely at least a little bit of cross-pollination going on between religion and science there, because the Refless’s religion seems to involve a belief in some kind of evolutionary manifest destiny… hence her study of the Earth’s evolutionary history and the cruel medical experiments performed on Rainy Boy.

The inorganic seem pretty biological as do all their mecha and their being able to be absorbed into and transported by the Regess in her superluminal form supports that. Then again the anime never showed the Regess transport inorganics... but it never shows her use them either.

The Inbit mecha in the original Genesis Climber MOSPEADA were at least partially organic technology, powered by bio-energy transmitted from the hives.

Robotech never really rules out that the Invid mecha are technorganic, and the RPG flat out confirms that they are in the explanation of Invid mecha in the core book.

One of the things that Sentinels tried to develop was the dichotomy of philosophy between the Regess and Regent. The Regent’s use of inorganic technology is implicitly connected with his moral failings from the Invid perspective, in his pursuit of revenge on the Robotech Masters he became a twisted echo of their cruelty and his methods became more and more like theirs. The Regess, on the other hand, decided to let it go and rise above, rejecting inorganic tech in favor of the evolutionary improvements offered by the flower of life.

[Seto Kaiba]

You have trouble admitting you're wrong; you should work on that.

So far, you’ve yet to prove me wrong… and I don’t expect that day to come anytime soon if your present performance is any indication.

For someone that claims to possess such a grand library, you would have understand my point of view and the capabilities of the Invid their base, the Inbit and the Zentraedi.

Perhaps the problem is that my perspective is based on evidence, where yours don’t seem to be based on anything except wishful thinking? I’m not sure where you’re getting this stuff. It’s not in the RPG, it’s not in Robotech, and it’s not in the OSM.

Given there are actual tables to roll on Zentraedi insanity, Zentraedi are not the highly disciplined force you claim.

So, I went looking for this and unsurprisingly failed to find it. The RPG does incorrectly claim the Zentradi use combat drugs and keep their troops in stasis whenever they’re not in battle, and the combat drugs do have some specific rules associated with mental effects… but only if the PC or NPC is off their meds and going through withdrawal (RT2E Mascross Saga pg.224).

Also, the description of Zentradi troops quite literally describes them as unquestioningly obedient and easily led (pg223). That’s VERY inconsistent with your claim that they’re undisciplined or an anarchic force. The book even describes the rank-and-file troops as “little more than organic automatons” (pg208), and that they are constantly brainwashed for obedience (pg208).

Insisting the books should reflect the TV show and therefore, etc. is a strawman.

… dude, reflecting the content of the source material is LITERALLY THE POINT of a licensed game like Robotech. Harmony Gold even put a condition in Palladium’s license giving HG an editorial veto power and requiring Palladium to follow the official Robotech setting to as great an extent as possible. It’s not a strawman argument, it’s a statement of the obvious.

If the Regess doesn't possess fold-technology, how did she and her Invid get to Earth?

From page 10 of the RT2E core book, she converts herself and her people into energy.

Anyways, at least you agree on these points:

We don’t actually seem to agree on any of those points…

4. Zentraedi, as Seto stated, being restricted and instructed not to wipe out hives, as they need to take the Flower-of-Life alive."

No, that was a remark about the SDF-1 not being instantly obliterated in a comically one-sided fight because the Zentradi were under orders to capture it. The Zentradi had no such restraint on their actions when they flattened Optera, for instance.

Also, does it specifically state in your RT2e books that the battle-pods can fly backwards at that speed?

The stats do not impose any directional limitation on speed… which is appropriate given that the Regult’s engines are mounted in rotating outboard pods, explicitly acknowledged as a thrust-vectoring arrangement in the Regult stats on page 155.

The Regess being able to cross dimensional barrier, I'd count her Phoenix form as a kind of "biologically evolved" "fold".

The way it’s talked up, it’s more an evolved ability to convert matter into energy and back… she’s doing an end-run around relativity by deciding to not be matter anymore for a bit.

Do we know of a way for the Regult to have a rearview?

They do have a multifunction main display in the cockpit.

I also have to disagree on the Regent having only one starfish class ship. There is at least two designs of the thing in the Sentinel comics, [...]

You know I only consider official setting materials… he’s only ever depicted with the one ship, an oddly scorpion-looking affair, in official materials.

Shame we never had the chance to see the "Ship" sourcebook ever completed. The Invids certainly need more than their clams.

Given that the plan was for all of RT2E to follow official canon as much as possible, I suspect you might have found that disappointing… the UEEF Marines book basically only flew because HG had already given up on animated Robotech by the time it was proposed, and stopped bothering with their creative oversight for the cancelled Shadow Chronicles property.

[xunk16]

I also have to disagree on the Regent having only one starfish class ship. There is at least two designs of the thing in the Sentinel comics, [...]

You know I only consider official setting materials… he’s only ever depicted with the one ship, an oddly scorpion-looking affair, in official materials.

I know, but I'd thought it was worth mentioning it, considering the subject at hands.
Some might be open to more suggestions for their own tables. Who knows...

Shame we never had the chance to see the "Ship" sourcebook ever completed. The Invids certainly need more than their clams.

Given that the plan was for all of RT2E to follow official canon as much as possible, I suspect you might have found that disappointing… the UEEF Marines book basically only flew because HG had already given up on animated Robotech by the time it was proposed, and stopped bothering with their creative oversight for the cancelled Shadow Chronicles property.

Which would still open the possibility for an improved Scorpion-class, if only to balance things out.
Plus the possible ship stolen from other Sentinel races. (The Regess did use one of those for a time...)
And with the creative oversight slightly less suffocating, Palladium might have had the chance to plug a few plot holes created by the reboot.
Then again, I don't know much about why this book was on the grill for so long, or what might have been included in it.
I'm just sad we don't have it.

[Peacebringer]

Prove you incorrect? Review your posts and you'll see.

You don't seem to understand what, "Wishful" thinking is, other than your sheer arrogant-ignorance of military forces which is a flaw easily remedied by the opfor at table-top games.

Zentraedi insanity table, pg. 10.

Also, do you work for Palldium in the legal-department? Do you have access to their original and current contracts with Harmony Gold? Strawman.

Like I stated previously, simply flying backwards is a flawed, unZentraedi tactic; the Invid can come in from all directions.

If the Regess can convert her ENTIRE civilization into energy and travel thousands or millions of light-years, what else can she do?

And if you really insist, clam-ships folded in when they took Tirol.

[xunk16]

Zentraedi insanity table, pg. 10.

That's from the Zentraedi Sourcebook, 1st ed.
If you're going to argue with Seto, you probably want to send your reference clearly.
Insanity rules have happily been restored to the fairy tales they came from with the second edition.
I guess Palladium decided to wipe that part of their history.

To be fair though, if anything, Zentraedi tends to have less options to become crazy than humans.
AND it's an optional rule.

But like so many things with Robotech, you'll probably find people to contest that since it is no longer "current", it does no longer exists.

[Zer0 Kay]

I thought the pollinators were the Invid. Plus your introducing non-robotech canon.

[xunk16]

I thought the pollinators were the Invid. Plus your introducing non-robotech canon.

If that was for me; I never said I was sticking to current canon... but the RNU were very much Robotech and still can be for an RPG game searching answers to the forever elusive "what were they thinking?" debate.
Though it might not be to the taste of some people, which is why I prefer to include the source when mentioning such details.
If the argument doesn't stick for you, have it your way. There's enough Robotech for everyone.
Point is... we are discussing a way to make the Invid better.
Which in itself is contrary to current canon.

[Seto Kaiba]

Also, do you work for Palldium in the legal-department? Do you have access to their original and current contracts with Harmony Gold? Strawman.

No, I just heard it directly from Harmony Gold at one of their convention panels when the RT2E license was first announced. Also in an interview they did on the SSL podcast.

Also, you keep saying “strawman” but you clearly don’t know what a strawman argument is...

Like I stated previously, simply flying backwards is a flawed, unZentraedi tactic; the Invid can come in from all directions.

As ever, I have no idea where this latest claim is coming from. The Zentradi are a well-drilled, highly professional armed force of gargantuan scale who (according to the RPG books) are so committed to total obedience that they brainwash their troops to follow orders unquestioningly.

We’ve seen in the series that they’re perfectly willing to use their own ships as sacrificial lambs for the sake of diversion or to spook an enemy out of cover, to set traps and lay ambushes, and engage in high-risk infiltration operations to gather intelligence. They’re clever, highly motivated professional soldiers who are not about to balk at using a strategy that provides the best results with the least risks.

As far as the Invid coming from all directions, they have to come from SOMEWHERE. They are not equipped for interplanetary flight, and their one and only model of troop transport is slow and highly vulnerable. They can come up from a planet’s surface, but that’s essentially coming from one direction… no all around. To come from all sides, they would have to outmaneuver the FAR faster Zentradi ships and mecha… which isn’t going to happen.

Your argument here has no merit, and no evidentiary basis.

If the Regess can convert her ENTIRE civilization into energy and travel thousands or millions of light-years, what else can she do?

As far as we know, that’s her best trick… and it takes such gargantuan amounts of protoculture to pull off that she can’t do it casually. She can speak telepathically, glow like a cheap glowstick, and… I dunno… gesture grandly without moving any part of her body but her arms? Her entire civilization ain’t that big. Her influence over evolution is achieved technologically, so it isn’t part of her innate power set.

And if you really insist, clam-ships folded in when they took Tirol.

For one, the Sentinels OVA isn’t canon (per HG). Only the “broad strokes” of the Sentinels story arc still apply to the Robotech setting.

For two, we never see how those transports arrive at Tirol. The first we see of it in the cancelled TV series pilot, Tirol is already surrounded by the Regent’s ships. Rem and Cabell’s lines about them suggest they were brought in by a fleet of larger ships, and did not travel there under their own power.

Zentraedi insanity table, pg. 10.

That's from the Zentraedi Sourcebook, 1st ed.

Ah, there's that mystery solved... thank you. He's citing an obsolete book that was so inaccurate even Harmony Gold condemned it as "Robotech in name only".


EDIT: Deleted a few sections, since the reason Peacebringer is having so many issues is now apparent... it's not that he's trying to BS anyone, he's stuck on the wildly inaccurate and badly outdated RT1E while everyone else is on RT2E.