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I have finished reading the Marine Sourcebook and am quite pleased with what I have seen. One thing that I noticed is that all the destroids and battloieds save the Zentradi specific types share a lot in common with the Alpha fighter. The area in this post that I will be focusing on is the legs, more specifically the area below the knees. The leg units have those same pods as seen on the Alpha fighter and seeing as how the Alpha stores 12 missiles in each leg would it been a large stretch or fairly believable that the destroids (specifically the Tomahawk, Defender, Phalanx, Spartan, Valiant & Golem) retained the same launchers in the lower legs thus giving these destroids an additional 24 missiles.

As always comments & suggestions are welcomed.

Both the Condor, Bioroid Interceptor, and even the original REF Gladiator design had similar missile launchers (of various payloads). I don't think it would be a stretch at all.

If you view the art as the actual representative of a given mecha, then yes it would be reasonable using the BIF and Condor Battloids since they have the same lower legs. Assuming the text doesn't suggest the launchers are being used for something else (like reaction mass tankage, or concealed intakes so it can fly, etc).

Sparticus wrote:I have finished reading the Marine Sourcebook and am quite pleased with what I have seen. One thing that I noticed is that all the destroids and battloieds save the Zentradi specific types share a lot in common with the Alpha fighter. The area in this post that I will be focusing on is the legs, more specifically the area below the knees. The leg units have those same pods as seen on the Alpha fighter and seeing as how the Alpha stores 12 missiles in each leg would it been a large stretch or fairly believable that the destroids (specifically the Tomahawk, Defender, Phalanx, Spartan, Valiant & Golem) retained the same launchers in the lower legs thus giving these destroids an additional 24 missiles.

As always comments & suggestions are welcomed.

Lower tiered model of cars have a lot of the same areas as higher tier cars; but those areas are not necessarily populated and end up just having some sort of piece that makes it look complete, but does not actually function. For example, go check out the Dodge Challenger steering wheels. The SRT has a lot more features than the RT, but the basic design of the steering wheel are pretty much the same. Designers do this to because it is easier to manufacture parts for both and modify as needed. I see this as the case with the destroids. Perhaps in Developmental Testing and Evaluation, they figured the energy weapons and their 20 mile ranges were more than enough than installing kinetic missiles that only have ranges of 1-5 miles depending on if they were minis or SRMs. The cost vs reward was too high to include them, although the designs initially could have accommodated.

Back in the 80's when you bought a motherboard and processor. You could buy a mother board without a math co-processor. What it was, was a chip burned off the mother board. And a slot so you can add one. It was cheaper to make it, and destroy it, than to make one without it to begin with.

I finally got my copy of UEEF Marines in, and I have to say I was disappointed. The mega-damage values seemed far too low for a star-faring military organization. Then again, I'm comparing it to Rifts, so... yeah. Definitely on the low-ish end of the spectrum.

Tiree wrote:Back in the 80's when you bought a motherboard and processor. You could buy a mother board without a math co-processor. What it was, was a chip burned off the mother board. And a slot so you can add one. It was cheaper to make it, and destroy it, than to make one without it to begin with.

close but not exactly right.

the non math copro chips were ones that were made, and the processor portion of the chip tested fine, but the math coprocessor failed testing, either it was unreliable or otherwise didn't work right, so rather than scrapping the whole chip they disabled the non working portions.

the math coprocessor was a cpu that was fully functional that slotted into an additional socketed in the board in another location and performed numeric calculation assistance to the main processor.

much like additional and or dedicated graphics processors (or graphics cards) do today. interesting fact many graphics processors have comparable or HIGHER transistor counts than your cpu does which is kind of disturbing in some ways

I personally do not like the look, feel or anything else of the new destroids. if your gonna use parts from a transforming mecha to build non transforming mecha, you should at least keep the weapon systems of those parts. There is no this model should or shouldn't have these mods to them. Your landing on alien worlds to face enemies known and unknown. SO why would you not have every possible place packed with weapons when the parts were designed to hold them.

Yes, from an operational evolution of design and practicality, it does not make sense. However, the artwork itself is amazing IMHO. I really like Chuck's work.

Lt Gargoyle wrote:Your landing on alien worlds to face enemies known and unknown. SO why would you not have every possible place packed with weapons when the parts were designed to hold them.

I don't get this either.

The one that bugs me is the Golem; a 17 ft (5.1m) mech made with obvious cyclone parts.

Kagashi wrote:Yes, from an operational evolution of design and practicality, it does not make sense. However, the artwork itself is amazing IMHO. I really like Chuck's work.

I will not say that the art work is not good. but the mecha looks like a bunch of piecemealed mecha. even the Zentraedi mecha looks like a bunch of random parts.

camk4evr wrote:The one that bugs me is the Golem; a 17 ft (5.1m) mech made with obvious cyclone parts.

I fully agree with this one.

camk4evr wrote:The one that bugs me is the Golem; a 17 ft (5.1m) mech made with obvious cyclone parts.

This is because the Artists rarely take firm scale into consideration when making things "pretty" (in their opinion).
Much like the Directors of many of the origonal SDF-Macross episodes was never concerned with the height of the VF-1 or its weapons load outs... thats why the 13m tall VF-1 finds a uniforms in a ship normally crewed by 8-10m tall giants... his plot needed a uniform scale be-darned :/

Colonel Wolfe wrote:

camk4evr wrote:The one that bugs me is the Golem; a 17 ft (5.1m) mech made with obvious cyclone parts.

This is because the Artists rarely take firm scale into consideration when making things "pretty" (in their opinion).
Much like the Directors of many of the origonal SDF-Macross episodes was never concerned with the height of the VF-1 or its weapons load outs... thats why the 13m tall VF-1 finds a uniforms in a ship normally crewed by 8-10m tall giants... his plot needed a uniform scale be-darned :/

Additionally, just because the Golem has a head that looks like a cyclone, does not mean its a cyclone head. Look that the Monster. It shares the same "Alpha" shoulder and calf design for looks as the other destroids, but is obviously a much larger mecha. with the Alpha drawn next to it for scale.

You see this in real life too, FA-18 Super Hornets look a lot like F-18 Hornets, but is larger. Reapers look a lot like Predators, but is larger as well.

Kagashi's assessment is correct. I approached the design with the focus of manufacturing the same component parts and preservation of the aesthetic. Just because these compartments were used as missile launchers on some mecha doesn't mean they are automatically launchers. This same component that is built on the legs of the alpha fighter are quite similar to the armor adorned on the cyclone body armor and yet, there is no automatic assumption that they too must equate to missile launchers. If it was to be upgraded with missile launchers, then cool, by all means load them up, but I can pnly illustrate the weapons load outs that are stated unless approved otherwise. Sure I would have loved to have devised missile launchers for these destroids, but these were supposed to be the last of the destroids for a reason. So if they were so formidable, then they would likely still be fielded and produced which was not the objective of this release. The destroids were basically decommissioned by the better Alpha, Beta, etc. The same with the later cyclones series.

In regards to the Golem, no the parts are not exactly cyclone parts. The Sensor head is not a helmet with a pilot's head inside. Its design was to look uniformal among cyclone infantry. Thats why I chose to fuse the cyclone aesthetic with that of a destroids.

I Happen to Like the New Marines book. I also Play Rifts as well. As for the new Book I like the Designs and have added them to an existing campaign

I've been pleased with the update to the art. Looks less 80s and toy like for the new destroids. My only regret was that they didn't add a spacecraft in the book. I'm assuming if was one in the draft, it got cut for space. Already got ideas for pirates/privateers that use a mix of old marine gear plus earlier gen stuff. Just need to come up with ideas for a cast of misfits for the pirate ship. Yarr.

I too like the new look of the Destroids, and I liked the old Sentinel's destroids enough to update them for my 2e campaign. I like how the look much like a more modern design elements.

Can the art use a little tweaking, sure, but it's far from terrible. I rather fancy how the shoulder pods and leg pods, based on the Alpha's, give me room for "planned update space." I like this idea since I'm free of the "patchwork" nature of the original series need to have the destroids vanish and plan to keep them well active to the reclamation of Earth with a few upgrades to make up for the advantages in Invid have being all fliers (mostly added SRM and MM launchers).

-POUNCER