That'd be my most favorite free weapon ever....especially if the model was all that crap duct-taped together :D
Agreed 100%, and given that there's even a good modern US analog to the MMR in the M110 (.30 cal version of the M16-series kitted out for designated marksman role), it seems like a great PanO fit.
Well a large portion of that is that most of the people that do Rifle + LSG aren't paying for a combi rifle, which keeps it cheaper (and awesome). PAN O is high tech because they don't equip their troopers with suicide weapons like light flamethrowers, or chain rifles, or smoke grenades. When they do smoke they do it right and trump other countries MSV, because they're the best. When they do flamethowers, they're automated onto more disposable robots g-syncronized to troopers. (many factions don't have G-sync units either) Not having disposable warbands is a sign of excess in many ways, and the warband that they do have in faction is a pretty highly trained religious knight in power armour. As an aside, all of Pan O's HI are compact, S2, as a sign of their superior technical prowess. They also are one of the few factions with compact S6 tags in regular use, which is a sign of technological superiority. I know that technically Pan-O might have better gameplay if they had regular sniper rifles, regular smoke, or chain rifle units. Overwhelmingly though, it seems that CB decided that Pan-O generally doesn't want to commit a lot of troops at once, would rather pay for fancier gear like multi-rifles and multi-snipers than other gear, and balanced all around useful gear like Combi-Rifles. This will probably change with Varuna, it's the first time they're coming to do a bunch of Pan-O stuff all at once in a long time. I'm pretty excited to see what they'll do, but that AD light rocket launcher troop has my hopes really high.
Calling it now. Varuna will have the ultimate troop. MSV2 AND Eclipse Launcher on the same guy. To give PanO what they always wanted while also mocking them.
Not really, this troop could be quite good, depending on rest of its tools. Smoke+MSV2 trick is nice, but not really necessary. More Eclipse, especially in MO, would be just fine.
Agreed but playing devils adovate, you could argue there were plenty of hints to something eventually happening. Just not to the extent it needed to be for a violent uprising like that occured. I feel like the poor MRRF players got a worst deal with a poochie grade sucker punch
It takes very little writing to make it feel good, I should say. So thet aren't doing it to spare people feeling bad about fluff.
I have no problem with the Uprising happening, though it is a failure of the promise of Yu Jing as a whole. But all the national responses were nonsensical. It's pretty simple, nations act in their own best interest. PanO started a freaking undeclared war with their Steel Wall, by intercepting YJ military craft operating over YJ territory. The Imperial Service showed no signs of counter-insurgency training, and then stepped up to mass graves for the lulz. The Yanjing intelligence service completely missed the single individual organizing all the international resistance to YJ. Haqq and Nomads allied with PanO to screw YJ, when they need to stay friendly with YJ to keep PanO in check. Aleph was apparently complicit in the Uprising by hiding data. Waaaaaaaay too many idiot balls in play.
This can be justified. Shit happens, gets missed, intelligence services aren't omniscient, even in the S-F future. The rest, though, yeah. Idiot balls.
In theory, yes. In practice, not so much. In 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 near the Turkey/Syria border, both sides found it wise not to escalate.
I maintain that this is NOT how the Steel Wall is specified as having happened. At least, not 'till after it received O12 sanction. This reading relies on unsupported assumptions about where Yu Jing units were deployed prior to the uprising.