No really what does? With the changes since N4 some of how they categorize troops makes absolutely no sense. Some are MI and others are HI, and with that comes being hack-able except for Ariadna. So is this just an arbitrary thing? Some sort of story driven rule? Examples: All of them are Move 4-4 and all of them have Immunity (Shock) Zhencha: HI. ARM3, BTS3, 1 Wound+NWI Haidao: HI. ARM3, BTS0, 1 Wound+NWI Sombra: MI. ARM3, BTS6, 1 Wound+NWI Hasht: MI. ARM1, BTS3, 1 Wound+NWI Jing Qo: MI. ARM3, BTS3, 1 Wound+NWI Grunt: MI. ARM3, BTS0, 1 Wound Minuteman: HI (non-hackable). ARM3, BTS0, 1 Wound
It's an arbitrary troop type left over from previous editions just like Skirmishers and Warbands, it hasn't been relevant since N2 outside of the new Classified deck.
zhensha and haidao should never have been HI imo. But they wanted to claim they had HI troops, so made them a 1W HI with Shock Imm as are other multi-W models in N3, specifically HI all had 2W+Shock Immune from having more than 1W. As for the MI with NWI, well any special characters can get NWI, it is found on LI and WB too. Similarly Shock Imm could mean anything, while REM, TAG and HI got it, it is also present on a few LI and MI, with or without NWI. LI Moderators are shock immune since a long time ago. MI Prowler has it. MI Kusanagi has shock immune and NWI. Fluff-wise LI has light armor, MI has medium armor thus MOV 4-2 and HI has power armor allowing then to go back to 4-4 speed. But MI sucked so bad, they had to buff them. So now everything has MOV 4-4 (outside of those who are 6-2, once again has no particular meanings, it could be HI Hollow Men/Brigada/Riot Grrl as well as LI Avicenna/Wild Bill). Fluff-wise it stays true that HI has power armor even if there is no in-game effects that is specifically tied to that (well, Hackable, i guess).
Most HI originally had 4-2 MOV except very few like the Suryat, GDA, Shang-Ji, and a couple others. In N3 they almost all became 4-4. I was hoping in N4 they'd get rid of troop types and just create special skills for Remote, Power Armour, and TAG.
Disagree. The big thing is Hacking. YJ has HI that have the same traits as MI but are hackable. Zhencha vs. Sombra for example. They are almost the same type of troop. The Sombra has a better BTS, but he's MI and un-hackable.
Hackable isn't a tag that's built into unit type. They could make all HI without the Hackable tag. So the only difference between the types, s far as rules go, is for Classifieds.
It does give a discount, but the size of the discount seem to depend on the price of the trooper and for HI in the "cheap" bracket the amount of discount is diminutive, often hidden behind the still rather expensive CC stats and the likes (and I think this is deliberate to keep the prices relatively close to the N3 prices given how sectorials are allegedly designed price first abilities second), while for troopers in the expensive bracket (e.g. ARM7+ TAGs) the discount is sizeable. The only ones I can't find trace of a discount on are Kriza and Sun (who seem to have no discount in spite of being very expensive HI) and Qiang Gao (who seem to have the discount applied reversed and is paying extra)
That'd be both against the forum rules, but more importantly extremely laborious and require me to do it all over again on a large number of units. Just suffice to say the pattern I keep seeing is that the assumed 2-3 points discount was cancelled out by having skills like Haris and/or increasing CC by a point or two. It may be all mumbojumbo, mind you, but I also imagine seeing a pattern where there's either fundamental archetypes or where new units are made by taking existing units and modifying them. Either way, some "archetypes" are better than others and I think particularly MI (and units based off of MI) have a tendency to be a bit cheaper than they should be. Either way, we're talking about fairly small differences and fairly small discounts, easily swallowed by CB increasing CC from 16 to 19 (which is still basically the same amount of stay-the-hell-away-from-CC level of CC)
It's about scale. Discussing points values isn't against rules, but deconstructing the system wholesale is.
another reason why not returning frostbyte to the mission pack was a mistake imo flavor explanation (HI = power armor or exoskeletons, MI = dudes with really good kevlar or superbodies) mostly works except for things like Sombra who doesnt look less high-tech than a Minuteman and probably should be bricked by zapper just the same. or Margot who is still an HI despite wearing just pants and jacket. it actually is https://infinitythewiki.com/Unit_Profile#Trooper_Characteristics "HI, REM, and TAG Troopers are Hackable unless otherwise stated." There is also E/M interaction which refers to the troop type
Should the ARM be a part of equipment? That could make a lot of things easier and allow for varied types of armor.
