Kacen wrote:
What advantage would articulated wheels have over regular wheels that could have a noticeable, useful effect on gameplay?
They'd improve rough terrain performance.
Erm, maglev tracks are for trains. You'd have to put magnets all over the battlefield for that to work...and I wouldn't consider that an equivalent replacement for tracks.
The "treads" are suspended in magnetic track bands which reduces friction which equals a speed boost.
Like the former, I don't see legs as a replacement for half-tracks, if they were to be added I would think they'd be a complementary propulsion not a replacement. The attributes of legs, I would think, would be being unaffected by uneven terrain (like cyborgs), essentially making them the best all-terrain propulsion, low-medium body points, low-medium speed (especially for heavy bodies), and medium weight support. Should perhaps have the same weakness to AP weapons as wheels and hover.
Somehow, though, I think with these considered, the only advantage they'd have would be all-terrain, and weighing that minor advantage along with the average to low stats legs would hypothetically have, they'd be overly impractical.
The advantage is outweighed by everything else. Tracks would be more practical because the legs would only be slightly more advantageous in the terrain department and perhaps slightly faster, speed being effected by whether it's bipedal or quadrupedal (I see light and medium bodies as being bipedal and heavy ones as being quadrupedal; the latter being slower by a wide margin.), while tracks would have far more armor, better weight support, etc. They'd be better weighing the advantages and disadvantages.
I'd imagine legs would be fairly expensive, too.
The only way I see leg propulsion being useful in the game is if we made uneven terrain a more extensive gameplay element...that or perhaps having some sort of more splayed spider-leg like propulsion that could climb up hills. That would be a turtler's nightmare if they used the terrain to their advantage; if that were done only then could I see legged propulsion as being practical.
I misspoke, I meant for mag tracks and legs to replace tracks and half tracks. Mag tracks would be as fast as half tracks or wheels but as strong and rough terrain capable as ordinary tracks. Legs would have superior rough terrain capability to everything else, but only be as strong as half tracks and/or be slower on even terrain than mag tracks.
On top of that, if I recall the main issue with adding legs is, to put it simply, the animation looks horrible. I mean let's be honest even the cyborgs look fairly lame when they walk.
They are going to have to fix this eventually, otherwise cyborgs will continue to have this issue.
Like the legs, I see this as a complementary replacement, and more feasible than the legs even.
They'd be more like repulsorlifts, just hovering above the battlefield. They'd have low-medium body points, be faster than hover, have the worst weight support of all propulsion systems (besides VTOLS), be amphibious (obviously), and completely unaffected by terrain.
They'd be stronger and have better weight carrying capacity than ordinary hover.
You know, side commentary, that's something I never liked. I always liked the idea of all bodies having strengths and weaknesses but the NEXUS bodies just throw that off.
In campaign it doesn't matter much but in skirmish it sure does. If you're at tech 3 and you have the money all you'll find yourself using are New Paradigm and Nexus bodies; New Paradigm for any non-combat vehicle (trucks, sensors, scouts) due to their low cost and speed of production, and NEXUS for any combat vehicles, tanks, etc. Maybe New Paradigm bodies for long-range artillery.
That would be something to consider.
Then there's the super heavy bodies, which I rarely use. Their horrendously slow speed and high production costs just makes them less cost effective overall. That's just me, though.
They simply don't have enough firepower for their cost/production and painfully slow speed. Maybe if plasma weapons were made into their own line and were too heavy for vengeance bodies to really carry, so that you needed the super heavy bodies to field these weapons.
