Upgrade Cost:
75 tons
150 Base Armor
Starts with 8 Weapon slots +1 every 5 levels
Minimum Level 50
Manufacturer: Talbus Armaments
Starting Weapons: 2 Diabolis Nozzle, 2 Assault Plasma, 2 Mag Chain, 2 Magmolator
Level 1 bonuses: -9 Speed, +6% Fire Damage, 10% Laser Vulnerable, 10% Missile vulnerable
Level 100 equipment: 5 Cockpit, 5 chassis, 5 Engine, 3 Shield
Level 100 bonuses:+15 Speed, +56% Fire Damage, +7% 3xDamage, +5% Burn, +3% Crit-kill, +30 dodge, 15% laser vulnerable, 15% missile vulnerable.
Being based in the Society of Cogwerk Planets has resulted in Talbus Armaments being much more willing to take risks and experiment with designs that others might consider insane, dangerous, or even insanely dangerous. This is partially because that often also applies to the engineers from Cogwerk space that apply for jobs with Talbus and also their target market of mercenaries and clans from Cogwerk space and the fringe. Sometimes these ideas get off the drawing board, through testing and actually into mass production.
Usually such ideas start with a problem in need of solving. In the case of the Knight it was maneuverability in loose or wet terrain were the ground pressure created by mecha feet becomes problematic. Maybe if they could make the mecha hover above such terrain it could still maneuver and still use ground clutter to protect it from anti-aircraft weapons fire. Someone got the bright idea to take the liquid fueled thrusters from a second hand dropship and slap them on the legs and back of a mecha, since the thruster harness used in space and for slowing a mecha from and orbital drop wasn't strong enough to provide lift on most worlds.
As such things go additional ideas get added to the first. The thinking went that hovering above loose terrain in which a mecha might sink was good but being able to leap small buildings or fortifications or scale large buildings and mountains was better. Another problem they had was steering so control surfaces were added to the back and shoulders but they still had stability issues. So they replaced the hands/primary weapon mounts with a pair of thrusters as well which solved that issue finally.
Now of course the mecha was practically unarmed, however a test pilot proved that to be a non-issue during a combat exercise he jumped up to a target, braced the mecha and then fired the hand thrusters on full throttle with after burners into the target. The test mecha was thrown on its back and bent several of its control surfaces but the target was destroyed and burning. So the thinking went if they used vectored ionic plasma thrusters not only would the accuracy of jumping be improved further but the plasma exhaust could be adjusted easily from thrust to weapons modes such as a short ranged plasma cutter or a long ranged plasma pulse. They just need to add an ionic plasma reactor to the mecha and then route plasma conduits to all the thruster locations where the new thrusters would be.
This had an added benefit of removing the massive and vulnerable air intakes from the front of the mecha as well getting rid of the massive fuel tank on the back and the miles of fuel lines they had been dealing with. It also made the mech capable of flight in space, without the use of a maneuver harness that most mecha need in zero-gravity environments, although it could not lift itself from the surface of a world. It performed very well in orbital combat trials as well as moving with a fluid grace unmatched by other mecha, although by now the test pilots were really getting used to the mecha and its controls.
At this point they had to find a market for the new mecha, they had spent too much money on development and accounting was now insisting on seeing some sort of return. So invitations were sent to to Talbus Armaments biggest buyers and the test pilots took the mecha though its paces at a tournament. Cog-Marshal Taggart was very very impressed by the mechas ability to attack from unexpected directions and withdrawing from threats just as fast. He declared it to be a Knight of the Mecha age and was eager to add them to his growing force of Bishops and Rooks.
(Unfortunately my scanner is out so my illustrations for this are not available I'll have to try another way. Looks like the Bishop but with streamlined shoulders, thin maneuvering "wings" coming out of its back and thrusters/weapons for hands and feet, paint job should be white. The three most commonly used colors for Chess pieces are Black, White and Red, the Bishop is Black, the Rook red a color often used to designate artillery units, the Pawn, Knight, Queen and King should be colored so that there are two mecha of each color. Also all numbers in the statistics are subject to change to make the mecha playable and balanced.)
Submitted by Sean Wadey#356579