Part of the problem is that CB's PH stat doesn't directly correlate to anything; PH 14 is more than some TAGs.
Look at what the PH stat does. It increases damage in melee, allows you to sneak behind the front line and it allows you to dodge bullets. That's not brawn, that's precision and reaction time - or in Dungeons and Dragons terms, that's Dexterity. (Which makes PH 17 Guijia weird, but on the other hand that's also why TAGs get a malus on their reactions)
It's a combination of "Brawn" and "Agility." It governs how much you can carry, too, with the Casevac rule. I don't know if it would complicate things, but it'd be neat if PH was separated out into "Brawn" and "Agility" while WIP was separated into "Smarts" and "Guts" in a new edition.
Sure, but what would they do? In a dungeon crawl it's contrived for the GM to find uses for INT, CHA and WIS, and Infinity is a very extreme form of dungeon crawl by comparison. What would you even do with these attributes? I suppose that CC could be eliminated into Agility, and make failing a Guts roll hurt, but it'd still leave the attributes fairly watered-down.
They wouldn't necessarily be costed evenly. The main thing is TAGs and REMs would have low agility. It doesn't make sense that a Xeodron can't casevac a Daturazi.
THAT, however, is what we the players call it. You can tell a conscript to push a button (in fact, that's what a large part of their training does), but would you trust a conscript (who hopefully hasn't "lost" their weapon yet) to open a cryo-casket without compromising the highly valuable contents or to know when to abort the procedure when something goes wrong in order to try from the beginning? Sure, more missions should literally contain button pushing - menial tasks you can simply direct a knucklehead to perform - but some of those missions have complicated stuff that'd take said knucklehead hours to go through over radio how to do, i.e. not precisely something you do when bullets are flying over their heads. I can fully accept that many of those "button pushing" requires advanced technical training and an adaptable brain to perform. (Though, even if my dad served as an artillery spotter, that had less to do with him being a civil engineer and more to do with a personal gripe with the conscription officer, I fail to see how artillery spotters qualify as a specialist for any reason other than "need more specialists")
I facelpalm at the, for example, Mobile Brigada girls who either have bionic limbs, or painted armor under rigid frames, frankly :S For Aleph's troops is less of an issue, since, well, the Asura is a Terminator after all. PH = combination of weight, strength, agility... Everything phisical (duh! XD) that is not present on other stats, the same way WIP is everything mental that is not covered by other stats. Thus that penalty on dodge, -3 to remotes and -6 to TAGs. Even if a S3 remote has PH 10 like a S1 servitor remote XD The egregious part comes from things in background, like Penthesilea being supposed to "rescue" Achilles when he gets in too hot, but she is unable to grab him, or even give him a ride back as a package (Achilles having a PH higher than anything but the Marut in Aleph, so he has to be Evac'ed in a Probot XD)
I would suggest to not assume what other posters think, this is a multi cultural forum and posters are from all over the world, assuming one thinks the same as you (has the same culture ectr, ectr) is the worse assumption one can make. As far as scaled weapons and armour go, its an artistic decision and it has been announced as such from the beginning, there is nothing lazy about it since all assets need to be adjusted to each sculpt instead of been "the standard universal size". Infinity sculpts have passed all the variations of weapons been standard size for all, been realistic proportioned, this one is the most aesthetically pleasing direction for each individual sculpt.
Especially with bio-engineering, nanotech and combat drugs in the setting. Wouldn't surprise me if the lowliest Fusilier was hopped up on thousands of dollars worth of enzymes, hormones and implants that could let them look huge and menacing/petite and delicate while also possessing the reaction times necessary to dodge bullets and leap twice their height from a prone start. And it would certainly be easier to attract recruits to the army with parades of fashion models in form fitting armour than several ranks of Incredible Hulk clones with blue berets. On topic, anyone able to attest to the quality of the campaign rules and scenarios in the book? I'm set for army rules and minis at present, but am always on the lookout for new ways to play, so those scenarios and long-term campaign rules are the big driver for whether the book is worth a buy for me.
I understand that the break from reality creates an immersive dissonance for you and others when viewing unrealistic armor. Personal, I get a little disappointed when the sculpts tend more toward the realistic. I find realistic armor boring. That is why I don't collect Ariadna. I like a little fantasy in my war-dollies. I like them to have super-hero proportions, with the men big and strong, and the women lithe and agile. I prefer combat heels to combat boots. I am ok with scifi soldiers sporting swords, and going into battle without helmets. For me, Infinity has been trending a little too far toward the realistic, and that gets me less excited. Fortunately, they still produce quite a few miniatures that I do really enjoy, but I am starting to think that Aristeia! might be a better fit for me thematically. Too each their own, I guess.
-rm -rf PROD enter? All jokes aside, "pushing a button" is generally a lot more involved for the trooper, it's an abstraction. Think defusing, hacking, lugging, sabotaging, etc. Things that take time.
Or to NOT push THAT ones... But yeah, sometimes where I work I believe that, if WIP is required to read and program, then I'm surrounded by WIP 2 FATALITY2 users. They crit, or they fail at even reading how and what to do in the exact sequence you just wrote for them... -.-
The problem is that EVERY guy is huge and EVERY woman is tiny. An actual variety would excite me! And I continue to think it's a bad artistic decision, and very much not aesthetically pleasing especially when the male and female models are displayed right next to each other.
Actually there are different sizes you just have to look for it. Take a look at the securitate women...tall and small. One of the best looking line infantry. The pink haired lady, without the battle heels, is taller than the heckler and the black haired is quite smaller. Again another good example of different sizes. The lady is stockier than most of other women in Infinity.
