Evador Bolts Equipment Review by David McCallum #701548

These came out just a touch too late for me to use them in the last war, but I am waiting with anticipation to get some stocks in for the next waltz. They are a much needed addition to the chassis slot options and fill a gap that has been a bugbear for mech commanders for quite a while.

So what do you get for your hard earned dosh? Well, book price is 981 Ferrite, 1105 Bioptics and 50 Crystal. On paper what you get is Dodge of 8, 2 x damage boost of 4% and there’s an unfortunate 5% projectile vulnerability… HOWEVER the big bonuses are a stonking 30% mitigation on any splash or trample attacks… and since the weight range of this piece is 75 – 85 tons, this is where it more than earns the money back.

That weight range now suddenly includes mainstay mechs you just don’t want to retire such as the Dangerous Dilophus, the heavily Armoured Ammonite and the Beamalicious Bishop. Not to mention heavier mechs like the Ballista and Gigus that by rights are too heavy to be thinking about retiring, but up until now have had no place in the lineup to call home when faced with those nasty BFM mechs.

You see, as a commander your choice was limited. Keep them behind your best mechs and watch them get torn apart and shut down by trample damage before they got a shot off, or to at least get some use you had to throw them at the front in a skirmish line against an enemy now too powerful and heavier by far than them.

Oh, but now they have trample shields… the true flexibility of your formation has returned. The fact that they also have splash shielding once they get into firing position is pure icing on the cake. Up at that tonnage range, chassis pieces were always going to be a mix and match… the Evador Bolts just add one more delectable piece to the puzzle so you can get the best out of your lines.

                           

Submitted by by David McCallum #701548

The History Of The Forerunners Leaked Data From A Classified Source

Forerunners colonized the galaxy over 100,000 years ago with huge FTL starships. Though these ships were fast, they did not travel instantaneously, and the galaxy is vast and not without its interstellar dangers. So wherever the Forerunners colonized, they brought Gate technology, and niodes keyed to Gates on other worlds, so they could move safely and instantaneously between worlds. They turned the rare planets of the galaxy with biology compatible with their own into colonized gardens. Earth was just one such world among many.

Forerunner civilization lasted thousands of years. It would be wrong to call the Forerunner worlds an empire, because they eschewed central governance. Forerunner history was an endless series of shifting alliances, in part because of Forerunners’ temperamental egocentrism, in part because of the same imperatives of the geography of Gates which make Mecha Galaxy fragmented today.

After several thousand years of relative order, improvements in niode technology caused niodes to replace more and more other Forerunner tech. But this presented a problem because of limited supplies of niobium. Resource wars began to consume more and more Forerunner attention.

Eventually, a Forerunner scientist developed a gene-targeted Forerunner-killing virus which could infect humans without harming them. Forerunners began tailoring viruses which would kill off only the members of a rival clan. But the virus mutated, and the Forerunners lost control over it. Within a decade, every major Forerunner enclave was wiped out, and after another century had passed Forerunners everywhere were dead.

Unable to maintain Forerunner technology, humans succumbed to a paleolithic state. By the time they had built their own technological civilizations the Forerunners were long since forgotten ….

Forerunner biology and civilization
Forerunners were more different from humans than humans were from neanderthals, though not as different from humans as we differ from chimpanzees. Forerunners were categorically more intelligent than humans; a Forerunner only as smart as the smartest human would have been regarded as severely brain damaged, much as a human with the intelligence of a chimpanzee is. This intelligence was not only greater than ours, it was fundamentally alien in character. They could easily master human languages but their own language is dense, complex, and nearly incomprehensible. This has limited archaeologists’ ability to understand what records the Forerunners left behind.

Humans were an integral part of Forerunner society, outnumbering the Forerunners but utterly enslaved by them. To the Forerunners, humans were not people, just a kind of very capable draft animal used for a range of purposes. Between the availability of human servants and their own vast intelligence, the Forerunners never developed what we would call computers or robotics. Forerunner psychology is impossible for humans to truly understand, but the best approximation would be to call it “nonviolently psychopathic”. Forerunners had neither care nor animosity toward one another. To a Forerunner, the solution to the Prisoner’s Dilemma is obvious: the two prisoners will coöperate because it is the optimal strategy in the long run. They were fiercely independent, but built vast anarchic networks of shared trust.

But this also meant that when Forerunners did come into irreconcilable conflict, the fighting was fast and ruthless. And this was eventually their undoing.

Human knowledge of the Forerunners
Human archaeologists know a fair bit about the Forerunners. They have translated some of the data that has survived, encoded in ancient neuroptics. They have looked at Forerunner histories and found images of their striking, uncannily inhuman faces. They have learned to use some of the technologies the Forerunners have left behind.

Mechs are possible because of recovered Forerunner technologies which humans have learned to control — niodes, neuroptics, and the brain inductor used to connect pilot to machine. Humans are a distinct species from Forerunners but just similar enough that our neural structure occasionally happens to match a Forerunner’s brain in the necessary ways to allow a person to interface with a matrix of niodes. This is why some humans can pilot mechs, but the ability is rare. It was the discovery of Forerunner artifacts on Earth that created the Mecha Galaxy era, when humans realized that the niodes and Gates archaeologists had found could be used together to reach faraway planets.

But humans have not been able to truly master Forerunner technologies. Niodes are a limited resource because the technique for making them from niobium has been lost, and in fact may be beyond the human brain’s capacity to understand, so all niodes are recovered Forerunner artifacts. Humans don’t know what ended the Forerunner civilization, but the clues they have say it was ended by war. They are right … sort of.

What were the Forerunners?
In the world of MechaGalaxy, everyone knows that the anthropologists of the 20th Century were completely wrong about the origins of humanity. Humans did not evolve on Earth. But the truth is close, in some ways, to the thinking of those primitive early scientists. Imagine if the story they told had been right, but things had gone differently in one respect: homo neanderthalensis didn’t die out, but instead survived to live together with homo sapiens when civilization emerged.

Might the neanderthals have been enslaved by the more intelligent humans? Perhaps. We do know that was what happened on the Forerunner homeworld … only homo sapiens didn’t enslave homo neanderthalensis, homo sapiens were enslaved by another, more intelligent hominid species — homo prodromos — the Forerunners. The Forerunners colonized a territory of countless planets which they linked using Gates, until their own internal conflicts destroyed them.

Cockpit Quotes By Monk Malone/Ron Frye#879655

Submitted by Ron Frye#879655

Multiplier Rail Weapon Review by Kalevi Karvinen #863817

Multiplier Rail (The use of a momentum capacitor to increase damage was pioneered in this gun.) Damage 35 Speed 105 2X Damage 3% 3X Damage 3%


So, now I'm a little confused... Why would anyone buy this weapon? Sure it is reasonably fast, and damage is decent too with a little possibility of scoring 2x or/and 3x boost, but still... Because there is also Fist of Fury with damage of 38 and speed 111, including 2X Damage 11% and 3X Damage 7%. You can buy both when you are on level eight.


Niodes shortage would explain some of that, as (with bulk) you can get five Multiplier Rail for cost of 79 niodes, when the cost of one Fist of Fury is 35 niodes (or 22 niodes). To get FOF you need to  buy an Axe Bot mech (35 niodes), but you can sell it right back (if don't need it) along with the Air Shock weapon too that came with it. From those you get 13 niodes, so the end cost of one FOF would then be 22 niodes.


But when comparing the price of one Multiplier Rail (19 niodes) to the price of Fist of Fury (22 niodes after resell), I personally would choose the FOF any time. Well, it's probably relevant to say, that if you buy bulk then the cost of one MR would be only 15.8 niodes. So it really depends on this, how many weapons you want and how fast. MR you would get more than FOF with the same amount of niodes.

But anyways, the Multiplier Rail is available at level 8, there are only 99 left (at the time of writing ) and its cost is

350 Ferrite 350 Bioptics 19 Niodes or Bulk 76 Niodes.









Submitted by Kalevi Karvinen #863817

Ammo Cookoff Weapon Review by David McCallum #701548

Well, Burn and Splash on a laser weapon. Who’d have thought? I’ll be honest, it’s certainly not what I would expect from a laser based weapon and I’m certainly wondering why you would bother.

Let’s look at the numbers. It’s a limited run weapon worth 42 Niodes, 550 Bioptics and 1776 Ferrite. Minimum level is 44, so comparable weapons are going to be the Duboce (lvl44) and the Flavian Spear (lvl45). At 75 damage, the Cookoff outstrips both. It probably should as it is a touch more expensive than both of the others. It’s also worth mentioning that the Scion Beam, the highest level crystal laser (lvl98) can’t match the damage output of the Cookoff.

One downside is that the Cookoff is a fraction slower than the comparable lasers. Probably this is accounted for by the manual fuse lighting mentioned in the description but it certainly isn’t a selling point.

Which brings us to the special features. I don’t know about everyone else, but to me lasers are all about damage multipliers and crit-kill. The Duboce has the first, the Flavian has the latter. The Cookoff gets 12% burn and 4% splash. It’s almost like it wants to be a sawn off Hephaistos and just ends up failing.

I’m honestly struggling to think of a use for this weapon. First impression is that I’m not impressed, and second impression isn’t much better. The problem is that the systems to really make use of this weapon are going to be found on a fire mech rather than a laser one, which relegates the Ammo Cookoff to a rather expensive backup weapon in case your fire mech finds itself pitted against an opponent with heavy fire shielding. To be brutally honest, I’d rather wait a level, save a few niodes and get the Flavian Spear.

 

Submitted by David McCallum #701548

Are You A Hoarder? by David McCallum #701548

Is your weapon and equipment page starting to take on epic proportions, less like a manifest and more like it should be appearing in Ben Hur?

I have that problem and I take my hat off to the devs, they have done a wonderful job in cleaning up the weapon list with its search options. While the standby weapon list is still massive, at least I can find stuff very easily if I need to make a new formation from scratch, or just be able to search quickly for a new prize that needs to be added and saved into existing formations. And selling off old stuff is far easier to cope with as well.

If I had one minor niggle (and it is very minor) it is that occasionally you will have two weapons that are of different types but equal by the filter parameters, so they get jumbled. It would be super if it 'auto-grouped' them, but as I said, that is a minor niggle compared with the ease of use we have now.

Ah, but the equipment list... there is so much stuff in mine just to cover the run of specialist formations, and it doesn't sort sensibly. Yes, you can get it to sort by type, which is a start, but it’s all mix and matched down the page. Worse still, it doesn't seem to bring eligible systems to the top for ease of use; you still have to scan down pages and pages of list because there will be the odd little useable piece stuck in amongst all of the out of weight range stuff. In honesty, it looks more like my kids tried to make me a father's day breakfast.

There must be a ton of stuff, both niode and crystal that can be recycled for resources or simply gotten rid of to make the list more manageable. I just can't see the wood for the trees, or in this case the Nux Raids for the cup holders.

If I had one wish it would be a tab for 'Equipment not used in any formation', so I can see easily what's never used and either go 'OOOH, How did I miss that?' or else simply delete it. Ah well, wishes are free...

Yes, I hoard... but it’s not all my fault... Honest...

Submitted by David McCallum #701548

The Brotherhood, Beliefs By Pat Willis#224534

They are a clan that calls the Shogunate  systems home, whose members no matter the race or creed all share one common belief, The God Mecha will come.  What exactly is this God Mecha? It is supposedly a machine of great, and terrible power that is supposed to arrive in the next couple centuries. One that only the best of the best can pilot, and have the honor of being able to control. To find the best of the best is the Brotherhoods job.


They comb the galaxy, other clans, outer territory settlements, and even other Factions to find those who they think may have the capability to ascend to such piloting heights. Any one in their way is a target to be eliminated, as they stand in the way of the Brotherhoods mission. If they find a promising recruit, they take him or her in and reveal to them the ways of the Brotherhood. Some say these are technological secrets on par with the Forerunners advances, others say they reach back through the ages and use black sorcery, and yet others still claim it is a mixture of  both combined to make a frighting third option.


Once the individual is in and has certain secrets revealed to them, as well as accepted by them, they are placed under the strictest of discipline serving in the Shogunate guard. There they are endlessly trained to fight in and through all kinds of conditions. Be they external or internal. They become one with their machines during these times, and it is there in the middle world between man and machine, the God Mecha is made known to them. Not much is known about this process but it is assumed that the stress induced state combined with prolonged mechanical integration produces a sort of “Cyber astral realm”.


It is in this transcended state they see the God Mecha, and promise him or herself to the Brotherhoods cause. From that moment on they are simply referred to as Brother or Sister by other Brotherhood members, and considered one of the clan. Rarely is one seen out in public without their trademarked cyber monk’s robes, or a heavily modified and outfitted mecha. They seek out other pilots like themselves who may be deemed worthy, and they all share the hope of having the glory of piloting the God Mecha.

 Submitted by Pat Willis#224534

State Of Affairs By Joel Parras#637457

A distant calm cloaked the galaxy as a heavy slew of missions from intelligence gathering to pirate incursions kept the majority of pilots busy & hard at work.

My darkened stare drifted to the drifted to the comm screens as they flickered once again to the next field report as a smile somehow crept it's way onto my mouth. The brothers & sisters where doing well as always with improved payments & greeted with yet another lottery win.

Knowing preparations had already been made & far more pressing affairs need my attention i take a deep breath & recheck my information as the battle feeds flood in. Soon the time will come.

Aside from constant conjecture & rumor the path ahead was as clear cut as an illegal open cut ferrite mining operation through the dense jungles on Rizpah. It seems while most are blinded by the lights oncoming few could see to tell if it was a star of hope or destruction headed their way....let alone past the illumination to see the ever speeding rush to reality.

With the data relays coming in reporting the same findings from my liege confirming my findings the only thing to doubt now was the fortitude of others. My smile turned to a knowingly savage grin.

While the machinations of war where taking place everywhere around us we both breath easy knowing that we all make our own fates & we make ours happily.

Mechanical murmurs & screeching of metal coming to a sudden halt signaled that the final formations had been finally filled into place & personal hanger bays where explosive with the point of overflowing. Somehow without even noticing my grin has changed to a shallow smirk with the extent of resource acquisition this moment has required. My work is almost completely done & the satisfaction is superb.

Punching next jump course into the autopilot, our destination clear, i recline with a long overdue smoke between his lips, triggers a torch & inhales deeply. Even though an sense of decent sleep was seemingly impossible the time has come to rest under the stars for a night.

Submitted by Joel Parras#637457

The Unofficial Biography Of Captain Lady Karen, 3rd Contessa Of Iksenslet By Karen Iksenslet#889315

Howdy. There are questions, I guess, about who am I and what I do. I submitting a mini-bio earlier, but...I may have been not completely honest. In the interest of disclosure and working closely with an interviewer, I submit to you: The story of Me.

The Unofficial Biography of Captain Lady Karen, 3rd  Contessa of Iksenslet

Captain Lady Karen, 3rd Contessa of Barony of Iskenslet was born approximately 26 years ago (by current date/in question) and the youngest of Colonel Sir Dirk of Iksenslet and Major Lady Karina of Iksenslet, sister to Her Holiness, the Abbess Katinka of Iksenslet, and Lieutenant Sir Brock of Iksenslet, Hero of the Battle of the Canyons (deceased), on the planet Omaha, third principle world of the New Holland Confederation. Her parents were war heroes, and celebrated military strategists of great repute. It had been suggested by scholars and historians that the New Holland system would have fallen to the depredations of the Shogunate, the Hegemony, and the Tech Warriors of Novum Dolorum had it not been for the military tactical genius of Colonel Sir Dirk and Major Lady Karina.

When Lady Karen turned sixteen years of age, she entered into the Grand Academy of the New Holland Defense Force. By all accounts, her record indicated that her performance was good, yet, no known records exist of her class standing, but she did graduate, which suggests that she did not earn enough demerits or nor was she low enough on the grading and tactical scale to cause her to fail to graduate with a commission. It is currently unknown when she was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. What records do exist imply that Lady Karen was undergoing training and education as a special missions operator. However, a deeper search is currently forbidden, as that all active/inactive records of such are heavily classified, and this author regrets a lack of a security clearance that high.

At some point in her career, Lady Karen was promoted to Platoon Leader and 1st Lieutenant, and on her own merits. She was given a small platoon of low grade scout mechs and was told to, “Cause trouble.” The after action reports were almost giddy, to use a descriptor, at the amount of “trouble” she caused. Sabotage, ambuscade, skirmishes, picking fights with hostile elements just to lead the enemy elements back to where the heavy artillery or infantry mechs could eliminate them. Lady Karen’s small force of scout mechs did more to set back any active invasion or strategic effort of hostile enemy forces than any heavy infantry or cavalry force that the New Holland Army could bring to bear. Reports from enemy forces repeatedly stated that hostile opposition was one thing, but a psychotic charge from light and under-armed scout mechs was something else, and was wholly unexpected.

The tactical doctrine of the New Holland Defense Force was to lure the enemy in, and then use heavy artillery, followed by cavalry, and then what remaining opposition would be eliminated by use of infantry. Close in air support was also used, but the ultimate end to battle was brought by heavy infantry mechs bringing all weapons to bear. Lady Karen, however, disregarded the doctrine. In revenge for the loss of her brother in the Battle of the Canyons, and while all sides agreed that he died with honor, Lady Karen rode out to face the Tech Warriors of Novum Dolorum on top of a prize Nephilax mech naked, and while screaming obscenities and waving a laser pulse rifle. The Tech Warriors were completely routed, and Lady Karen had satiated her vengeance.  While her “tactics” were lauded, this did cause some of the High Command to begin to question her sanity. Her parents were questioned at length about her stability, but their essential answer was, “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” This action initiated her promotion to Captain, and cemented her official court title of Captain Lady Karen, 3rd Contessa of Iksenslet.

Despite the heroic efforts of the New Holland Confederation to remain free, it was eventually annexed by the Hegemony, and at an extreme great cost to morale, manpower, materiel, and the Pyrrhic victory forced the Hegemony to reconsider their own military and tactical doctrine thence forward. Colonel Sir Dirk and Major Lady Karina were reduced in status to mere freeholders, and their titles and awards stripped and permanently barred from any social or civil service regarding the military under penalty of death. Captain Lady Karen of Iksenslet, for that was her rank and title during the Fall of the Confederation, elected to not surrender. In her mind, and from found documents and witness accounts, she believed that being a mercenary was lucrative, and should the opportunity present itself to avenge her parents and their loss of station and status, then she would take it.

Currently, Captain Lady Karen of Iksenslet is serving with a military mech clan and is working on her reputation as a ruthless warrior and the enforcer of her clan. It is not known what her actual outlook or mindset is, as that her actions are questionable, her motives unsure, and it has been suggested that she’s not mentally stable. However, what is not for debate is that she does appear to be doing well and despite her “issues”, her clan may appreciate her.
***This biography is unofficial and makes presumptions. There may be facts on in evidence, but this is the distillation from best sources and with evidence available. Do not consider this a scholarly account by any means. It serves merely to share facts that were gathered and to present another perspective to the mindset and motivations of Captain Lady Karen of Iksenslet.***

Submitted by Karen Iksenslet#889315

Boreas Mecha Review By Pat Willis#224534

Available to pilots with a minimum heavy skill of 50 the Boreas is available to own for 17,400 Ferrite, 14,200 Bioptics, and a whopping 150 Niodes. It is a 95 tonner with starting armor points of 250, 10 weapons, min lvl of 82, levels/weapon of 3, and made by Alpha Corp.

I own 2 as stands now and I find them to be impressive war machines. Both of mine sit at level 102 and have the following abilities before equipment...

Tons: 95
Level: 102
Armor: 1276
Class: Boreas
Bonuses before
equipment:
Ice Damage + 90%
Speed - 24
Speed + 24
Precision (51)
3X Damage 18%
Slow (20)
Trample Shield 50%
Splash Shield 25%
Laser Shield 40%
Wide Fork 4%

With equipment however it becomes a whole different story and many of those stat values go way up. Some of the main standouts for me on this model are Ice damage +90%, Precision (51) which get rather high with equipment installed, 3X damage at 18%, and all the built in shielding it comes with.

These are monsters on the battlefield, equip them right and not much aside from a crit-kill can take them down. I am biased admittedly as I love ice based mecha, and boy oh boy does this fit the bill.  Oddly enough though for an ice based machine I had to give it equipment before it started to Freeze anything. It does slow just fine, but freeze takes some tweaking, and dialing in to achieve. I highly recommend this mecha for any tried and true ice enthusiast. It won't let you down.

Submitted by Pat Willis#224534

It Takes All Sorts By David McCallum #701548

It’s a big game and a big community. We have lots of different styles of play. There are campers and crystal players, level managers and big spenders. There is hardly a week goes by when we haven’t had another flare up of one camp calling out another for not doing things “their” way…

Outside of this game, I have a friend who is into medieval activities. He likes getting dressed up in armour and hitting people. He hates dancing. But if they are a dancer short, he gets up and joins in. I asked him why, and he said to me that while he gets his fun, there are folk who are acting as referees to the tourneys. Or are away cooking the feast. Or doing any number of other things that make a medieval festival an enjoyable package event where everyone gets to have their fun the way they want to. So why should he be the one to spoil the dancers fun, if by getting up on his two left feet he can let them have their dance?

So play this game “your” way. Get as much enjoyment from it as you can. Just because somebody is playing different, don’t let it get to you. Don’t rail on them, because they are entitled to have fun too and are entitled to get their fun the way they want to. Nobody is wrong, just different.

As for the devs, they seem to try to cater to everyone. However as the old saying goes, they aren’t going to be able to do it all of the time. Your time will come around again though.

So relax. This time around, maybe you are the one getting up on your two left feet and dancing. In short order, you’ll get to have fun hitting people again.

Submitted by David McCallum #701548