A battlesuit is a set of powered armor equipped with various weapons and abilities. They can assault planetary surfaces, space stations, and even certain starships.
EQUIPPING YOUR BATTLESUIT
Each pilot owns and maintains their own battlesuit. You can find a battlesuit outfitter on your alliance's capital.
You will start with access to a basic battlesuit. As you do ground missions, you'll gradually gain access to better battlesuits that can equip more modules. More about modules below.
There are four main components to battlesuits. These are things you have to think about when equipping your battlesuit.
- Weapons: As you might surmise, weapons are what you use to do direct damage to enemy targets.
- Abilities: Special abilities can have a wide range of effects, from repairing allies, otherwise helping allies or hindering enemies, to simply doing damage. All abilities use your battlesuit's energy, which recharges over time.
- Armor: Having armor lets your battlesuit take less damage when hit, but also makes it harder to evade enemy fire.
- Modules: Modules don't do anything by themselves. Instead, they determine which weapons, abilities, and armor you can equip.
For instance, a pistol is a part of the Projectile module. If you want to use a pistol, your battlesuit must first be equipped with the Projectile module. Once this module is equipped, you can equip and use a pistol. All weapons, abilities, and armor work the same way. You have to equip the module, followed by whichever specific weapon, ability, or armor you want. The module by itself does nothing.
You can also buy or find certain items that can be added to your battlesuit and used to help you in battle.
When you purchase a battlesuit, it is not actually in your possession. Instead, it will be stored safely at the spaceport where you bought it. When you board a ship carrying an aerial fortress, your battlesuit will automatically be transferred to it. Similarly, your battlesuit will automatically return to the spaceport when you leave the ship. You can move your battlesuit from one spaceport to another this way.
Battlesuits are available in tiers from one to five, with an intermediate tier 1.5 for basic alliance suit types. For battlesuits of your own alliance, you will upgrade to a new tier at 125, 250, 500, 750, and 1000 points. Other suit types will vary depending on alliance relations and whether the suit is an advanced type. New weapons, abilities, or armor are generally available every 25-50 points until 1000. For best results on ground missions, you should generally always use your highest tier battlesuit, and only use a lower tier to match the level of a group member with fewer points.
USING A BATTLESUIT
Battlesuit commands:
- LAUNCH: Launch to or from a mission area.
- DAMAGE: View your battlesuit's damage level.
- SQUAD: View the status of your entire squad.
- SQUADDAMAGE or SQD: View a quick sorted list of battlesuit damage within your squad.
- WEAPONS: View weapons, abilities, and ammunition.
- EQUIP/UNEQUIP: Manage modular equipment that you may find.
- ENTER: Transfer to an empty battlesuit or a vehicle.
- EXIT: Exit a battlesuit or a vehicle.
- CONTACT: Contact the aerial fortress for resupply and additional deployment. This is only possible at particular locations.
- COMMANDS: Provides a list of these same commands, but MORE IMPORTANTLY allows you to define your own aliases for your weapons, abilities, and items.
There are no default commands for weapons, abilities, and items. To use these, you must type COMMANDS and set your own aliases.
Roleplaying note: To the degree possible, setting your own aliases for battlesuit weapons and abilities is out of character. In character, battlesuits are not controlled primarily with "buttons" but rather with other physical acts such as pulling a trigger, throwing a grenade, quickly configuring and aiming a dispenser of plasma/minidrones/nanites, and so on.
IF YOUR BATTLESUIT IS DESTROYED
Your battlesuit is never actually lost, but may become heavily damaged and be automatically returned whence it came. What you do now depends on where you are.
- If on a planet... Find a battlesuit outfitter and check the menu, then purchase a refurbishment.
- If on an aerial fortress... Go into your fortress's battlesuit storage room, use the LIST command to select your suit, and use synthesis supplies to refurbish it.
BASIC BATTLE STRATEGY
A few major points:
- Support your allies! Each type of battlesuit has a specialty. League suits are good at taking damage, AEU suits are the best at repairing, Fringe suits have the most ability to deal out damage, EAOS suits are masters of plasma, and Mutuality suits do a little bit of everything. You and your allies must work together and make sure your skills complement each other!
- Not all weapons are appropriate in all situations! Some weapons, like missiles, are mainly anti-vehicle weapons and are difficult to aim at infantry.
- Be aware of splash damage! If multiple enemies are present, consider using grenades or similar weapons to do damage to all of them.
- However, brute force is not always the answer! Discuss tactics with your group, be mindful of your suit's specific role, work together, and pay attention to what's going on!
- Use demolition charges to take down buildings!
- If an enemy group is left alone (because your group was destroyed), they will begin to regain their health. If they completely regain their health, the encounter will reset.
- Vehicles might sound fun, but they're not usable in all missions.
- Most everyday ground missions, like RATS nests, Bari pods, and Tesla sites, will balance and scale to your group level. Others, like IFS Forward Assault Stations, always require high tier battlesuits! If you're not sure what's required, ask a more experienced character.
BALANCING YOUR GROUP
Ground combat is almost always a group activity, and this means you are working with different people, often people of varying point levels. The question then is, which tier of suit do you use? Which tiers should others use?
This is answered by applying one simple rule: Always match to the highest available tier of the person with the lowest ground points. For example, if two people have a tier 5 suit, one person has a tier 4 suit, and the person with the lowest points is only up to tier 2, then for best results, everyone should switch to a tier 2 suit.
Note that this is specifically a "level sync" sort of feature, designed to let higher point characters match to and work with lower point characters. It is not a difficulty slider. Arbitrarily fielding a group of tier 2 suits when everyone has tier 5 suits available will not have good results.
Being within one tier of the lowest point player is also fairly balanced; for example, using a tier 3 suit when the lowest point person is at tier 2. Once you can own multiple battlesuits, to be able to work with the largest number of other characters, we recommend choosing one role you prefer (tank, repair, or damage) and maintaining an even spread of tiers of suits with that role.
Roleplaying note: The tier sync feature is a game mechanic only and, to the degree possible, should not be discussed in character. It wouldn't make much sense for your enemies to be so accommodating!
