So far in some Vanilla, you can make a list with almost all of the Mercenaries and make an ok list. It's getting kind of stupid. It also Alienates the Combined. Sorry but had to do it!
There's more Aristos than troop options in USARF and almost enough to fill 2/3rds of IA's entire possible AVA, "bloated" is relative. If they port the lot, Aristeia! could be a whole sectorial. As for the death thing, I was talking about for-real dying. Cube destruction, Combined shenanigans etc. I know in the lore Eclypse MK1 got killed off for real by an equipment malfunction, Infinity's timeline seems even more dangerous. Just struck me as weird that more Aristos keep getting involved in the factional wars but we haven't heard anything about an 8 Ball Memorial Buffet Restaurant Dojo, or H3xxer being rotated off the front due to suspicion of Sepsitor corruption or the like.
I would assume there are copies of their cubes backed up in several places. I would imagine it would be kind of tough to kill one of these stars off for good. They seem way too valuable for that
Indeed, "off-site" backup of cubes is fairly common and was a contributing factor to the events of Outrage.
I figured that. But go take a look at the backstory of Eclypse on the Aristeia! website. The guy actually did die for good when his Cube was obliterated by an equipment failure. The Infinity setting is extremely inconsistent on how dead someone actually has to be to stay that way, but that may be due to Aristeia! being set earlier than Infinity- maybe they hadn't had the offsite backup technology at the time.
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Oh, man, I think one of the guys in my gaming group just bought the ITS11 box for us... He wanted Wild Bill so bad! Yup. Though there is still an issue with someone getting Sepsitorized.
No, Cube 2.0 is a constant off-site backup, which gets turned off when you go into combat with the Combined Army!
There seems to be several different methods. The standard cube is installed in the body, and needs to be recovered from the body and can be destroyed leaving the barer beyond recovery, but, if it can be recovered, the barer can be brought back with all the memories up to the point of their body death intact. There can be backup copies, but this may be prohibited or simply cost prohibitive in some cases, (having active copies of oneself is definitely prohibited), and the memories from a backup would only be up to the point when the cube was last backed up. It could be that the original Eclypse did not have a back-up do to the nature of Aresteia! being a game show rather than wartime conflict, and cube recovery was thought to be guaranteed, (if so, Eclypse's cube death likely changed this thought). The Cube 2.0 has an active backup system which automatically backs up the memories of the user to an off-site server or satellite, so there is seldom a problem with recovery. However, Sepsitor corrupts this backup too, so Aleph has put directives in place to auto delete the back-up, and isolate those servers if the barer is attacked with a Sepsitor weapon, or is MIA or KIA when in battle with the Combined army to prevent this. This does not prevent the barer being brought back using an older backup, as is the case with Diomedes. There are also back-ups without a Cube. This is what Hassassin agents utilize before going off on an assigned mission, and may be utilized by other factions in different cases, Teutonic Knights seem like a likely candidate as well, but it has not been specifically mentioned. The Hassassins use it to prevent interrogation through their Cube if they are killed, but this does leave them without the ability to determine exactly what happened if all agents are killed in an operation.
I don't mean that the mercs are bad. They are fantastic! I just find it's getting to be too much. I can almost make a better list with mercs in Yu Jing than I can with Yu Jing. Especially now that they have made some of them specialists. The below are not great lists but they actually not horrible either. Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 3 1 DĀOYĪNG Lieutenant L2 Hacker (Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 29) JÄGER Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 21) MONSTRUCKER Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Drop Bears / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) BOUNTY HUNTER Sniper Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 21) AÏDA SWANSON 2 Submachine Gun, Viral Mines / Viral Pistol, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 24) LIBERTO Submachine Gun, Chain-colt, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 8) MAJOR LUNAH Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29) ARMAND (Multispectral Visor L1) MULTI Sniper, Nanopulser / 2 Breaker Pistols, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (1.5 | 45) KNAUF MULTI Sniper / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Submachine Guns, Chest Mine / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 17) GROUP 2 4 LÙ DUĀN Mk12, Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (0 | 21) WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Haqqislam ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 3 SALADIN Lieutenant Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 36) BOUNTY HUNTER Sniper Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 21) AÏDA SWANSON 2 Submachine Gun, Viral Mines / Viral Pistol, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 24) KNAUF MULTI Sniper / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) ARMAND (Multispectral Visor L1) MULTI Sniper, Nanopulser / 2 Breaker Pistols, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (1.5 | 45) JÄGER Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 21) MIRANDA ASHCROFT Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 20) MONSTRUCKER Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Drop Bears / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25) KAPLAN Engineer Combi Rifle, Adhesive Launcher, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GROUP 2 1 1 1 KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Submachine Guns, Chest Mine / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 17) LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10) 5 SWC | 291 Points Open in Infinity Army
Considering how dangerous Aristeia alone is, I think that the characters have had multiple L-Hosts by now. So those of them that do black-ops or mercenary jobs could still be kicking around especially when a corporation finances body/cube back-ups for you.
Yeah... they should really start restricting mercs by factions... they'll still be useful across more factions than an in-faction model, and they'll promote owning multiple armies, I just don't see a good argument for soooo many mercs being available outside of mercenaries extra.
I'd bet Contender + Full Auto (at least L1) for that sweet +1 burst with all weapons. He is that fast with a winchester :p To be fair, Major Lunah in Aristeia! is a younger one that the metal model in ISS, so maybe some Aristeia! "old glories" are trying to reignite their fame by engaging in the most dangerous sport: hunting aliens :p It is certainly possible that "Eclypse Mk2" is an old backup, and the distance between the two versions was wide enough to consider them two different individuals.
Yes. And what's really annoying me is that the "Combat"-Factions profit most from the Mercs. There are a lot tool-boxy Mercs that factions like PanO can get good use of, but they are of much lesser use in factions that have their own toolboxes, like Nomads or Haqq. And there are no Combat Monster-Mercs to compensate this. Where is the Rogue Swiss Guard? Or the Rogue Aleph-Greek-Combat-Monster with BS 15? Factions like Nomads or Haqq could get good use out of them, but there isn't one. There is not even a BS 14-one. So the usefullness of Mercs across factions is skewed. And the more Mercs they release, the more skewed it becomes. Edit: And what's also annoying me is that the Mercs even the differences between factions. If half of the list consists of Mercs it becomes pretty irrelevant if I'm playing PanO or Haqq or Aleph
