Exo-Armors - The New BattleMechs

For simplicity's sake, UCEX adopts the Jovian Chronicles "Exo-Armor" giant robots as it's standard BattleMechs. This is for twofold reasons, the first being that they are allready fully drawn up and have ready play-sheets. The second is that Dreampod 9's simple mech designs are easy to understand without a full reading of Mekton Zeta/Mekton Zeta Plus and easy for players to adapt. The Exo-Armors are broken down into three groups, The Earth's, the Orbital's and Others. While the main description and basic images are provided here, the Mech-Sheets are downloadable form the GameMaster's section of the UC3K Forum.

When humans first went into space, the enormous costs and the technological limits of the time made manned space missions rare. Almost every task in space, be it civilian or military in nature, was handled by computers.

This changed with the invention of the fusion engine in 2007. Suddenly, rockets became immensely more powerful, and the first true reusable spacecraft designs were put in service. This significantly increased the number of space constructs, and by extension human beings, in orbit at any given time.

Military strategists soon discovered that although a high-speed pebble or a laser was fine to destroy an enemy installation, capturing it intact was another business altogether. No spacecraft could come close enough without being vaporized, and a space suited man just didn't have the autonomy nor the stealth to succeed either. Thus, the development of the first LandMates.

The LandMates were hybrid child of the standard space suit and the orbital construction pod. Slightly larger than a fully equipped man, it was a powered frame carrying the necessary fuel, weapons, and ECM systems required for its missions. Although a space fighter was more powerful and had a longer range (not to mention the ability to reenter the atmosphere), none could equal the LandMate in flexibility. After several highly successful missions, LandMates were included in the arsenal of every nation on Earth. Ground versions of the LandMate also appeared, serving with conventional forces in a variety of tactical roles. Even the civilians used LandMate technology in construction, fire-fighting, and so on.

As time went by, the general level of technology improved, and with it the sciences of war. New weapons were more powerful, armor tougher, electronics more sophisticated. To keep up, the engineers had to enlarge the LandMates, fitting them with advanced ECM to disguise their increasing size. A threshold was reached in the 2150s, when technicians of the Principality of Near Earth Orbitals chose to go one step further and build the famous "giant robot" of science-fiction.

The linear frame used to mimic the movements of the pilot was simplified and detached from the suit itself. It was then placed in a pressurized cockpit, which occupied the center chest cavity of what was now referred to as "exo-armor". This cockpit was then heavily armored and made into a self-sufficient escape pod. The fusion reactor was placed closer to the center of mass of the machine, with back-up units on either side of the torso.

The sensor equipment was originally supposed to be disseminated over the limbs and torso for maximum coverage. Computer simulations showed, however, that the pilot could not process the information fast enough. A set of cameras and other sensory devices were then placed in a turret atop the cockpit, roughly were a human head would be. This turret was then slaved to the move­ment of the helmet of the pilot, helping him relate to the machine he was piloting. In short, the pilot "became" the machine he was driving through the motions of his control apparatus. An artificial intelligence system, serving as co-pilot, would handle the rest of the sensory information as well as the actual flight calculation, freeing the pilot for more useful tasks.

As the exo-armor was nearing completion, technicians began looking for a suitable name. Many nicknames were proposed, not all of them flattering. Finally, one junior technician remarked that the machine looked like a medieval knight in armor. A supervisor replied that it was rather naked as far as armor go, and proposed "Hoplite", from an antique Greek soldier, as name. For lack of a better denomination, the nickname stuck.

After months of testing, the first prototype was ready to be shown to the Agora on July 23, 2162. It still lacked several important sub-systems, but it could at least walk and fly. The representatives were extremely impressed by the performances of the machine, and approved a plan to equip the NEO with sixty EAL-01 Hoplite exo-armors within the next five years. The rest, as they say, is history.

The EXO-ARMORS (short for exo-skeleton, armored) are the ultimate evolution of the personal combat space suit of the early twenty-first century. Originally no larger than a man, they increased in size until some of the biggest were nothing less than small ships. This was necessary in order to carry the enormous amount of fuel, armament, and electronics necessary to accomplish their assigned mission. Spacefighters remain in use, but their lack of maneuverability (compared to exo-armors) confines them to patrol, strike and fire-support roles.

A vehicle is called an exo-armor when its control system is a linear frame (see below). Exo-armors are usually classified in five categories: exo-suit, light, medium, heavy, and exo-ship. The classification chart gives a general outline of the actual classification system.

The exo-armors are typical Mekton designs. Most of the systems described in the Mekton Zeta and Mekton Zeta Plus books can be used, with a few exceptions (see below). There is no limit to the amount of space efficiency that can be used, but you cannot reduce the weight of an exo-armor by more than 25% of the weight before efficiency (base weight) because of the limits of Universal Century technology. A few rule modifications were used in designing the exo-armors found in this book (see Powerplant and flight System below).

TECHBOOK SYSTEMS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE UNIVERSAL CENTURY EX SETTING:
Cloaking (all foms), Gravitic Propulsion, Reactive Shields, Combiners, Gravity Lens, Techno-organics, Combiner Weapons, Refined Armor Beta AND Gamma, Teleporters, Energy Absorbers, Reflector Systems.

The linear frame is the main control element of the exo-armor. It looks like an industrial exoskeleton and completely supports the pilot; it also reproduces his every movement. The exo-armor'sonboard drive computer then interprets the motions and moves the armor's limbs accordingly, firing apogee motors as needed to compensate. This gives the exo-armor an uncanny maneuverability aswell as a strangely human grace. Additionally, a trained pilot can actually use his body motions to shift the exo-armor's center of mass around and change the exo's position without expendingpropellant. Veteran pilots are thus often able to stay much longer in battle. All this gives the exoarmor a definite advantage over the classic spacefighter (which has to fire verniers wheneveraltering its course).

The frame also protects the pilot from shock and strong gee forces, reorienting itself in the cockpit as needed. Because of these particularities, some special training is required to operate an exo-armor. Space flight is controlled via special joysticks located near the hand controls (see illustrations). Again, some training is necessary to fully control the armor, even ifthe computer can provide verbal and visual assistance. All relevant information (IFE targeting, velocity, etc) is displayed in the special virtual reality helmet worn by the pilot. The head and the main sensors are slaved to the motions of the helmet, adding to the "humanity" of the exo-armor.