But it’s not just a Pan O thing. Aleph and CA also have rem pres TAGs (with better operator remotes to boot) and they don’t have to give up smoke or warbands or cheap regular orders to get them. Granted, they don’t have the same volume of main battle TAGs as Pan O, but the TAGs they do have are easily the same caliber as the Pan O stuff. For my taste, I don’t want Rem Pres TAGs for every faction. I think the difference between REM and Manned should be a logically consistent mix of equivalent strengths and weaknesses and Pan O TAGs should have faction specific benefits on top of that to give them superiority over everything.
I'm not convinced it's the TAGs that makes Pan-O not have access to smoke or warbands. The most important part is, I think, that CB wanted to design a faction without them. We could discuss the finer points of the Guijia and the cost of Ghost: Remote Presence, the Guijia leaves some to be desired in-faction and that's a concern, and regardless if the Guijia would have the improvement of Remote Presence, I don't think the faction would be designed to support it well and it would remain one of the faction's least used units. Returning to the actual case in point, however, I think it's barking up the wrong tree by demanding that the Pan-O Remote Pilots be adapted to the very best of the Manned TAG pilots when the real discrepancy is the oddly superior pilots of CA and Aleph who basically get the best of two worlds - stats that makes them average compared to the manned pilots and the superior repairability on the actual TAG. <Now, if I were to wish-list, I'd completely ditch Manned and have all TAGs that aren't Ghost Remote Presence have Ejection Device Level 1, but retain the ability to dismount, and increase prices accordingly. This would make the Remote Presence TAGs slightly cheaper by comparison (should there exist a Remote Presence TAG that's sufficiently simple to make a direct comparison)>
Bear in mind that, background-wise, The ALEPH and Combined Army TAGs are still going to be higher-tech than the PanO ones.
Well, JSA doesn't have smoke warbands or kuangshi, and we also have, on average, 2 less BS than PAN-O. PAN-O gets a lot of bonuses outside just 'good tags' so I don't think it's a very reasonable statement to claim that manned TAGs being slightly better than they were would make PAN-O TAGs worse - you still have better armor, weapons, and ballistic skill, the main traits of a mobile killing machine. Point being, I don't view this as a balance issue so much as a 'this makes so little sense it is jarring' issue. That said, if 'buffing' manned TAGs would be an issue, I wouldn't mind giving the PAN-O TAGs a small price drop or something to compensate - I'm not trying to steal PAN-O thunder, I just want the pilot part of manned TAGs to still be relevant... Ejection seats would preserve the order, move the pilot to a safe spot, and not require an order to dismount, so they're still unique and valuable. I guess that's just my opinion though.
PanO TAGs are the best but their bots being WIP 10 is dumb. Why are they WIP 10 when the robot brain of a Pathfinder is 13? In fact, if they're being remotely piloted, why not the WIP of the TAG pilot which is 12? Seems ridiculous. They should be WIP 13 and the same points cost. And that would actually make more PanO players want to play TAGs too because hey fast good specialists!
Even as a PanO player i think that pilots disappear is dumb. I do would like WP 12 on my Crabbot tho.
Kind of a late comment, but this was one of the things I was hoping would get cleaned up in N3. In 1st/2nd edition core book, TAG pilots didn't even exist. In Human Sphere (2nd ed) they were added, but with as little gameplay impact as possible, since they did not want to affect existing points balance. N3 was a good place to re-evaluate that, but they did not do so. So far they've made some pretty major TAG adjustments via ITS rules updates and other out of band digital releases. I'm very curious to see if the next full book has any more changes or if it just codifies the pilot/fatality stuff we've seen so far. If they're ever going to change how the unconscious/pilot interactions work, this would be the place to do it.
This would be awesome. That said, this reminds me - I found this topic on the old forums, but couldn't find the FAQ being discussed (for clarity - it was about ED TAGs and Expel, and ruled that Expel can't be used on them, apparently). Is that still valid?
Yes, Expel can't be used on TAGs with Escape Device (i.e. TAGs where the pilot can't dismount) and the FAQ is still valid. Or at least should be. You know what - this topic is polluted. Can you make a new topic asking if the FAQ is still valid so we can get an answer marked as official or get it in the next round of FAQ? Unless @daboarder could bring it to their attention (unless I'm mistaken, seems like you're involved in the next FAQ?)
Yes the FAQ is still valid. Or everything breaks. @daboarder is just a Warcor @tox is collating the issues for review. This doesn't really rate.
Just to be clear, all of the warcors are collecting Qs to be FAQ'ed or ERRATA'd. It's just that i'm the one that sometimes put it black on white (or whatever theme are you using!) to stop running in circles! BTW, the issue of the vanishing pilot is already in the queue...
So basically just for Manned>Rem Pres..... With a side of "PanO cant have nice things"? manned are manned, they arent even bad and i dont agree with the core premise of asking them to be buffed at all. they already have been. Rem Pres has massive opportunity costs to really use it. Manned does not. Rem Pres is about the TAG being the core part of the list, manned is about the TAG enabling the rest of the list to function. One is not stronger than the other, more glamorous maybe but thats the bonus for the price paid.
No, for the concept of a manned TAG to make sense and be consistent with how orders are handled within the game. I don't agree with your core premise which, while not explicitly written, which can only be that the game's balance both for all TAGs in all factions and between the factions themselves is perfect. There is room for improvement. Regardless of how you twist and turn this, most manned TAGs would, with my wish fulfilled, still be simpler TAGs with less special gear and - for the few cases where the Rem Pres TAG has roughly the same low level of fancy gear - costlier than the Remote Presence TAGs by relying more on the blood, sweat, and tears of their pilots. Pan-O TAG hegemony isn't about making the most technologically superior TAGs, but similar to Yu Jing's HI hegemony in making the more cost effective TAGs with less risk to pilots. As for the "Pan-O can't have nice things", I would strongly suggest that the balance between TAGs (which is to say, that which dictates costs) currently has a balance where Remote Presence is clearly better than Manned TAGs at the same cost - which means that the pilots themselves must be better than Remote Pilots in order to maintain even a semblance of equilibrium where each point matters roughly the same. Thus, the WIP 10 Crabbots makes perfect sense, but the WIP 13 Karkata/Scindron does not. Again, this internal balance would have to have the two forms of pilots unmarried* from each other to break, although this does not really address the issue where some pilots are clearly much better than other pilots (which isn't something Pan-O players really care about). So, no, it isn't about Pan-O can't have nice things, it's about "Pan-O is comparatively exactly where they should be on this issue". So, just like you're handing out "shut up manned peon, know your place", please receive this "shut up remote peon, know your place" * And by this I mean for the two abilities to be judged and priced according to what benefit they bring the TAG they are on .
