Which UT loadout(s) for Mass Combat Battlesuits?

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

The title says it all: which specific items from Ultra-Tech are assumed to be carried by the Battlesuits unit found in Mass Combat?

Reminder: They have the F, (Arm), Rec, and (Air), TS 800 per element. $200k to raise. That's TS 4000 (and WT5) per $1M.
Compared MBT's TS 2000 Arm, Cv, F, $750k. That's TS 2666 (and WT10.4) per $1M.

Thanks in advance!

[vierasmarius]

The specific loadout will vary with TL and unit quality. Basic and Good probably use the basic powersuit available (Powered Combat Armor at TL9, Commando Battlesuit at TL10...) while higher quality uses the heavier variant, and Poor quality uses out-of-date suits, or an exoskeleton and a hardsuit. Weapons will include the heavy "support" weapons as standard armament (Miniguns and HMGs), which should at least be able to penetrate enemy battlesuits. Several members of every squad (or every member, at higher troop quality) will have Mortars or Missiles able to penetrate tank armor.

I think the Recon class is covered by the training the units receive, and the sensors included in a battlesuit. Higher quality units will likely have superior sensors as well.

[vicky_molokh]

The Raise cost of $200k implies that a single loadout is around $20k (more than that for training cost, less than that because military-grade industry can probably make suits cheaper; go figure). Unless BS squads are smaller, say, 4 people, giving 50k per person.

Compare:
a single UT TL9 LBT is $2M, and has DR 500/200.
A single HT TL7 MBT is $350k and has DR 1,155/165.
No idea how to extrapolate that into a TL9 MBT.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The Raise cost of $200k implies that a single loadout is around $20k (more than that for training cost, less than that because military-grade industry can probably make suits cheaper; go figure). Unless BS squads are smaller, say, 4 people, giving 50k per person.

That's... difficult. Just the cost of a single powersuit ranges from $90K for the lighter models, to $200-300K for the heavy suits. The minimum cost for a Battlesuit-scale weapon is around $15K, ranging past $100K for the more exotic beam weapons. We can cut those costs a bit, by using a Light Exoskeleton and Combat Hardsuit ($35K) with a LSW ($13K). But that's still nearly $50K per soldier, without factoring in training cost. You'll be hard pressed to have more than 3 soldiers per element. For fully equipped soldiers, 1 element must be 1 trooper...

It's entirely possible that UT and MC were written with completely diverging design principles. They're both generally balanced against themselves, in terms of power and cost. But unless you assume that all the gear in UT is representative of what would be in Supersoldier loadouts for MC, you're not going to get the costs to match.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That's... difficult. Just the cost of a single powersuit ranges from $90K for the lighter models, to $200-300K for the heavy suits. The minimum cost for a Battlesuit-scale weapon is around $15K, ranging past $100K for the more exotic beam weapons. We can cut those costs a bit, by using a Light Exoskeleton and Combat Hardsuit ($35K) with a LSW ($13K). But that's still nearly $50K per soldier, without factoring in training cost. You'll be hard pressed to have more than 3 soldiers per element.

Okay, so do we have to assume that a Battlesuits element contains only 2-3 actual battlesuits?

They should still be able to beat a Rifleman Squad (TS 320 at TL9, for $12K; that's 25k+ worth of TS for $1M, though with a WT of 80+).

[Langy]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Okay, so do we have to assume that a Battlesuits element contains only 2-3 actual battlesuits?

I'd say it's probably a squad of 5+ battlesuits. The prices in Mass Combat don't really match well to the actual cost of the item in question. For example, Jet Fighters are only $400,000, while an F15 cost over $25,000,000 in 1998. There's no way you can represent an F15 even with tons of price-increasing mods in Mass Combat.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Okay, so do we have to assume that a Battlesuits element contains only 2-3 actual battlesuits?

They should still be able to beat a Rifleman Squad (TS 320 at TL9, for $12K; that's 25k+ worth of TS for $1M, though with a WT of 80+).

That TL9 Rifleman squad is actually $60K to raise, so only TS 5.3K/$1M, and a budget of $6K per soldier. With that they can afford at least basic body armor (Tac Vests w/ Inserts) and Assault or Storm Carbines. A Battlesuit squad could get away with using the Exo + Hardsuit (DR 50/30) combination instead of full Powered Armor, and still be impervious to their direct fire. Higher quality Riflemen would upgrade with ETC and/or APDS ammo, with support from an AMR or LSW, and shaped-charge grenades or mini-missiles for anti-armor. They could be a challenge even to well-equipped Battlesuits.