Upgrade Cost: -
85 tons
200 Base Armor
Starts with 10 Weapon slots +1 every 6 levels
Minimum Level 75
Manufacturer: Talbus Armaments
Starting Weapons: 2 Hex Cannon, 4 Wrecker Shot, 4 Smooth Bore
Level 1 bonuses: -20 Speed, +10% Projectile Damage, 5% Trample, 5% Splash
Level 110 equipment: 5 Cockpit, 5 chassis, 4 Engine, 5 Shield
Level 110 bonuses: +12 Speed, +64% Projectile Damage, 13% 3xDamage, 25% Trample, 25% Splash, Crit-kill 2%
The Talbus Armaments designers had a theme they were working with now which had started unintentionally with the Bishop and Rook but had been built upon with the Pawn and Knight. Marketing wanted a super-heavy artillery mecha in the sales portfolio since they didn’t have one yet. Accounting wanted the cost to be kept down on the development for a change.
A little historical research indicated that the phrase “King of Battle” at one time referred to field artillery because of the death toll it caused and how it could shape the battle field itself. Infantry had been referred to as the “Queen of Battle” because it is the most versatile component of the military and its ability to go anywhere. But then things got confusing and some historical references call the artillery the Queen of Battle or armored fighting vehicles. So they decided to just go with whatever seemed right.
Unlike missiles projectile weapon ammunition is very dense and the faster the cannons the more ammo needed to feed them. They realized this mecha would be larger than the Bishop, Knight or Rook but they wanted it to be somewhat similar. To keep cost down they scaled up and reinforced the Bishops frame, keeping the same general body shape but larger. To provide optimal fields of fire cannons were mounted on the arms and shoulders, however they also wanted to make something distinctive and visually different from the new Dreadnaught they had heard of so they tried to find other places to mount additional cannons. After several tries and increasing grumblings from accounting late one night an engineer decide that a sphere or ball and socket mount similar to the main gun on a Megazome would solve their problems, a few simulations and showing the revised design to the other engineers on the project and they all agreed it would be perfect. The obvious place for the weapons and the only place the ball mounts fit was on the chest of the mecha either side of the center line because the rest of the torso held the main power plant for the mecha.
Targeting systems for ballistic projectile weapons even when they have to compensate for differing atmospheres and gravitational fields are quite simple since humans have been designing them for thousands of years, so fire control kept cost down. They had already developed interlinking communication software for fire missions for the Pawn and Rook and the same systems would work in this mecha. The biggest problem was dealing with recoil when all cannons were firing, on the Rook the foot bracing made for a more stable firing platform their by increasing accuracy, similar extendable bracing was added to this mecha to adjust for the pounding recoil and keep it upright and mobile. Additional recoil compensators were added to the cockpit to protect the computers and pilots of the mecha.
The engineers were happy and had completed the mecha under budget so accounting was happy. When Cog-Marshal Taggart saw it he was happy and declared it a beautiful Queen of the modern battlefield. Then marketing saw it and kind of freaked out and insisted some market research be done before they released a mecha onto the market that might have major publicity issues especially with female and the more religiously conservative pilots in the galaxy.
(Unfortunately my scanner is out so my illustrations for this are not available I'll have to try another way. Looks like a taller Bishop with a red paint job and cannons on arms and shoulders and two Megazome style ball mount cannon on chest and with reinforced bracings on feet. 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