The AHAB CL is a medium to close range specialist version of the AHAB, and it is a decently well crafted one too. While as always a proper design focused team would result in a superior product then a revision, the revision team did their best and it shows. By removing the over the shoulder artillery cannons the AHAB CL is far lighter on its feet and does not need the extreme ability to withstand and dump waste heat, allowing for superior maneuverability and for coding-space to be repurposed for superior intelligence. This open brain-space is immediately used to include more advanced melee and maneuvering subroutines as requested, turning it into a passable though not expert high mobility short to short+ ranged melee fighter and allowing them to use their cannons at speed (though issues with knockback sending them skidding can only be adapted to without setting anchor).
There is some issue later on in the revision cycle when the other team is asked for the heat-pick coding and it is found that they were never actually assigned to develop, but they rise above expected performance norms and develop a basic version of it anyway, resulting in the AHAB CL's anchor flail to be charge-able into a 'heat hawk' mode, wherein it does extra damage and has superior armor piercing. However attempts to cause this effect from waste heat do not work, and indeed causing this effect causes waste heat in and of itself that must then be dumped.
It should be remembered that despite these upgrades the AHAB CL will need command supervision to function at optimal levels, which is a potential issue for aquatic combat given the lack of aquatic capable command assets.
By dedicating the AHAB BB purely to bombardment and removing anything that does not apply to bombardment duties (besides their aquatic travel ability, that is) the result is, as expected, a unit with superior bombardment abilities. Their twin over the shoulder cannons hold far superior accuracy and replacing the secondary cannons with dedicated heat sinks allow for a superior rate of fire without risking the self-destruction of the AHAB BB. Later on in the revision cycle there's some surprise when the other revision team asks if the team has successfully integrated the AHAB BB's melee tools/anchors into the heat sinks, only to find that was not actually requested in the AHAB BB's revision write up.
The team then goes on and invents that addition anyway, allowing the AHAB BB's artillery cannons to contain energy shells of even higher firepower for the same duration firing cycle.
It should be remembered, however, that the AHAB BB's bit-brain is still almost entirely un-upgraded, and the AHAB BB will require constant supervision by an officer class entity for proper deployment. Which is something of an issue for aquatic deployments due to the lack of aquatic capable command assets. As well, despite the upgraded weaponry the AHAB BB has very minimal and crude melee coding and should not be expected to win in any close ranged fight.
It is now the Deployment Phase of Turn 8. During this phase you must decide which of your hackers will be leading your attacks (you currently have two attacks), and decide what they will use their memory space to bring with them in terms of chips and champions (You currently have 12 memory).
Hackers
CF_Dogcatcher
Ophilia Bailey is a hacker specialized in the obscure and weird forms of viri which she finds most interesting, but is also very familiar with standard corporate security fixed defense programming, as her last 'real job' was as a corporate data-security officer. Tactically, CF_Dogcatcher is specialized to figuring out the enemy's cunning plans and ruining them, but she can suffer when she tries to figure out the cunning plan of a hacker whom is not using cunning schemes and just has a metaphorical, or more literal, hammer.
DJ King Cabaret
A man once sued for reasons of 'we have more money then you', DJ King Cabaret has a well working understanding of shock and awe tactics, and his experience running a pirate radio station has also given him a well honed sense of trickery and deception from the need to befuddle and avoid the Net Police. Despite this preference for attention getting, in battle the real threat with him is a hidden dagger. However, his actual skills as a hacker are somewhat lacking, which can hinder him in a variety of ways including his ability to properly deploy battle chips into conflicted codespheres. As well, his mixed feelings about an AI songtress such as Sonata may sometimes cause him to be less then rational in direct engagements with her Stagehands.
Polar Coder
A coder who holds a home built battle chip close to his chest, the Polar Coder specialized in fortifying his position, launching large and straightforwards brute force take and hold attacks from his fortified positions, and slowing down his enemies both with delaying attacks and his own personal battle chip. His skill suffers, however, when he's asked to adapt to unexpected situations outside of his contingency planning, undertake complicated maneuvers, or when his insistance on using his own personal battle chip backfires. Despite these issues, he's still very good at making an army march forwards and destroy the enemy.
The Polar Coder must use at least 20% of his memory banks on personalized battle chips.
Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple) (Obsolete)
CarbineMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They've been upgraded over the original Minion.exe programs with a somewhat more advanced Pulse Carbine weapon that includes a charged shot function and slightly greater firing rate and normal shot damage, but have very limited programming on when to use their charged shot. However, ADI or a supervising hacker can use a command call to order local CarbineMinions and Officers to fire a charged shot at a target if needed.
(Simple)
RifleMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They were supposed to be upgraded over the original CarbineMinion.exe programs with a cut down version of the Hunter.exe's Pulse Railrifle, but unforeseen issues resulted in their weapon exploding when the program attempts to use it. This makes them fairly undeployable.
(Simple - Theoretically)
Wyrm.exe
Mindlessly aggressive flying snakes with plenty of teeth, the Wyrm.exe is an utterly expendable melee virus used as often as ablative distractions for other viruses as anything else. Being even stupider then a Minion, Wyrms are entirely dependent on outside authority for things such as 'targeting priority' and 'not giving away an ambush' and 'knowing when to retreat', and require very strong hard-coded friend foe identification coding to prevent friendly fire. And even then they still tend to kill each other off. They've got some swarm programming, mainly enough to keep them from getting in each other's way too much, and despite being theoretically a Simple virus their dependency on outside control limits the amount that can be safely deployed.
They've been updated with superior swarm programming, allowing for increased teamwork, less fratricide, and a cloud computing/bit torrent based memory system that allows them to remember longer and more complicated orders.
(Simple - Theoretically)
Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.
They've been upgraded to use more advanced Pulse Carbines with slightly greater firing rate and damage, as well as a charging function, and now are programmed to know how to both use the charging function personally and how to command the CarbineMinion.exe programs to properly use their own as well. Instead of firing a charged shot, they can alternatively use it for a short term moderate-minor boost to their speed or toughness. (Complicated)
FirstMate.exe
An upgraded Officer with a piratical look. The FirstMate.exe has a vastly expanded tactical library that was designed to be easy to customize or expand on for new unit types later on, as well as dedicated coding for using special abilities that is also easy to expand on later on. They also have a secondary six slot tactical library for immediate use to prevent time wasted considering all the plans in their large tactical library. FirstMates carry a basic charge carbine and an energy cutlass with a magnetic attraction effect against enemy weapons and shots. Lastly, they have seventy-five alternate uniform skins. (Complicated)
Scout.exe
A three wheeled trike with a turret mounted pulse pistol stolen from a Minion.exe, a flare launcher and a powerfield ramming prow that prevents the pistol from firing while active. Recent updates have made it noticeably more intelligent then the baseline Minions who's brain-coding the Scouts used to share, and it is now far more able to actually scout or harass enemies without dying pointlessly and without a report. They are noticeably better at teamwork then a baseline minion for scouting or combat by way of using swarm coding meant for real life drones. (Complicated)
Hunter.exe Ver. 0.9-B
A specialized sniper based on, but much more advanced, then the CarbineMinion.exe who use rifles almost as tall as they are. They have specialized sensors for long ranged fire, and can fire charged shots at up to the third stage of charging as well as being able to 'double tap' their third stage charged shot for two rapid fire projectiles at the second charge of power or fire first stage charged shots to a fairly fast degree. They have limited abilities for independent operations by use of two 'hot loaded' tactical slots that can be filled from either a highly limited personal tactical library or by local officer type programs, but have minimal capacity for making any tactical choice more complicated then 'who do I shoot first' on their own. (Complicated)
Tunneler.exe MKII
A refined and bugfixed modification of the Scout that replaces all of the Scout's old equipment with a drill tipped prow to allow for tunneling. After a cycle of error-squashing the Tunneler.exe MKII now works without noticeable issues or need for sustained attention. Simple but high efficiency engine and drill systems allow for active tunneling even through tough substances and an easy to use navigation system allows for user friendly tunneling efforts. As the Tunneler tunnels, gathered waste data can be used to reinforce their tunnels, preventing cave ins. (Complicated -> Normally effectively Complex to Very Complex)
Chamelee.mon
A feathered dinosaur raptor virus with mantis like bladed hands and hind-limbs, Chamelee.mon viruses are not anywhere near being properly self aware but still possess a high quality and flexible tactical library for teamwork based hunting and skirmishing tactics even if said library is almost solely focused on those subjects. They are near invisible while still, and less so but still hard to accurately pinpoint when in motion making them hard targets to land a shot on even though, if shot, they are not much if any tougher then a minion. They can be manually assigned a high priority target though how they go after said target is still up to them, and have a slider for effecting how highly they rate their own self preservation. Officers can use these, but are not programmed to except for setting the self preservation slider to max when they decide it's time for all forces to retreat. (Complex)
Wako.mon
Cyclopean pale giants recruited from the tunnels of the Archival Sediment, Wako Warriors weld distinctive datana blades and wear high quality armor coded from bronze scales as well as possessing the ability to unleash searing, if short ranged and stamina draining, eye laser blasts. They also demand a high price for their labor, requiring both high quality 'food' and access to a variety of luxuries, as well as demanding that the deepest tunnels of the Archival Sediment remain un-invaded. These requirements, and their tendency to refuse what they consider to be 'stupid orders', makes them hard to deploy. However when deployed they are potent warriors, skilled in tighter confined and closer quarters then is usual for combatants of their stature. (Complex)
Specter.exe
An altered and upgraded variant of the Hunter that incorporates stickbug programming from the Economic Canopy for purposes of highly advanced passive stealth (so long as it is mostly still or moving very slowly) and the ability to climb up walls. Like the Hunter.exe they were developed from, the Specter.exe can either fire single stage charged shots fairly rapidly, fire normal second stage charged shots, fire third stage charges shots, or use a dynamic instability in the third stage charge to 'double tap' out two second stage charged shots. However the high energy signature of a charged shot happens to screw over the Specter.exe's passive stealth, making it pretty obvious where they are. This, combined with the inherited highly limited degree of independent thought that Hunter.exe units possess, render the Specter.exe less useful then was originally hoped. (Complex)
Captain.exe
A large bodied peg-legged commander with a hook-hand using the same melee weapon coding as a First Mate's charged cutlass and a shotcannon that either fires normal shots equal to that of a CarbineMinion's normal shots or fires shotgun sprays when charged, Captain.exe programs are surprisingly physically fit for a command program and tend to lead from the front. While their tactical command power is only minimally improved from that of a FirstMate.exe, and they lack said FirstMate's fast-load tactical operation slots a Captain.exe's more flexible command library is better suited for dealing with unexpected setbacks and also included a dedicated strategic coordination and control suit with attached subordinate bitbrain for long term command calculations even while the primary mind of the program is occupied by other concerns. They have a tendency to constantly sing piratical sea shanties, which is actually a disguise for inter-captain communication, and have a cosmetic skin library with eighty three different skins, that over half of which happen posses a cosmetic laser eyepatch. (Complex)
A.H.A.B, AKA Anime Heavy Assault Boats - Mostly Obsolete
Boat girls armed with an anchor flail (they have very basic melee coding and a lot of brute strength), shoulder mounted '12 pounder' charge cannon turrets with immense firepower and just as immense firing cycles, waist-turret mounted '6 pounder' charge cannons with tank level firepower, and the ability to walk on water. They aren't very smart as a lot of their mental coding was copied from CarbineMinions and SwordyMinions with limited alterations (such as making sure they know their shots have a blast radius), and as such need supervision to be used as faux-naval artillery or otherwise be used to their fullest extent, but they're still immensely powerful as befits a vehicle level unit concentrated down into the individual scale.
(Exceedingly Complex)
AHAB CL, AKA Anime Heavy Assault Boats, Cruiser Lady
A short to melee ranged specialized version of the original AHAB models, the AHAB CL entirely forfits the bombardment cannons in return for superior mobility as well as more advanced programming in the areas of using said mobility, melee combat with its anchor flail (which now can be charged in a 'heat hawk' effect for extra damage and armor piercing before needing to cool down), and better programming for using their waist mounted cannon turrets which remain tank level cannons. While the AHAB CL is less then it could be if it was a design level effort, as a specialized revision of the original AHAB it represents a very high grade of effort.
Like the base AHAB model, the AHAB CL needs command supervision for optimal operations and are not very smart when left on their own outside of the areas of 'hitting things', 'shooting things', and 'how to move fast', with some side knowledge in 'how to dodge'.
(Exceedingly Complex)
AHAB BB, AKA Anime Heavy Assault Boats, Bombard Babes
A counter-point to the AHAB CL, the AHAB BB sacrifice their lesser cannons and melee coding in return for superior artillery programming and upgraded artillery cannons which are more accurate, faster firing, and harder hitting. Especially with the integration of their new twinned anchors into their heat sink system, allowing them to withstand higher levels of waste heat which in turn allows for stronger and more concentrated energy shells to be fired from their cannons. They're also still pretty stupid outside of the area of shooting things at long range and need supervision for optimal operation. As can be expected, the removal of all close in weapons and melee coding has made them vulnerable to anything that can get under their main guns as well.
(Exceedingly Complex)
Autonomous Digital Intelligence
Vivi_Paltest.dat
A gelatinous and gluttonous naga with a collection of strange and interesting code shards and a habit of eating things she finds interesting to add them to her collection, Vivianaja Palladian is the Firmament's first ADI champion, and serves it well with her variable armaments and defenses pulled out from her collection as she remembers them as well as her own noticeable personal toughness and ability to patch herself up with loose data. Worryingly, her collection includes what seems to be coding of military origin, though Vivi denies ever visiting the military owned sectors of the Cyberworld before this conflict started. (Memory 4)
Ikarus.P2
The escaped and rogue protagonist of a long lasting series of SHUMP games, Ikarus.P2 is haunted by the sacrifice of his elder brother. While this has resulted in a fighter both skilled and dedicated to the Firmament's freeware mission it has also resulted in his doubts in the value of the Great Flame War in comparison to the actual official mission of the Firmament. However, with the advancements in Firmament forces caused by the iterative effort of the Great Flame War Ikarus.P2 has finally agreed to participate in said arms race. Ikarus.P2 is armed with a pair of high caliber vulcan cannons and a slow-recharging energy rocket launcher system capable of being used in anti-air (direct fire) or anti-ground (arc fire) modes. While he has long used up the last of his power ups, he remains in possession of the modular systems which those packets interacted with, and could put them to use again if a new source is found or designed (Memory 4)
Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)
Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)
MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)
SquadSummon S
This strategic battle chip is an upgraded, though more complex, version of MinionCall A that can summon a (smaller) squad of minions and officers of variable, if pre-set before the mission, type, It may only summon one version of minions and one version of officers, and can not be adjusted in the field. (Complicated, Memory 1)
Swyrm W 1.1
This strategic battle chip is based on the existing MinionCall and SquadSummon battle chips and serves to summon in a flock of explosive Wyrm.exe programs. With recent refinements to the code base the spawns now last a good thirty seconds before they begin to randomly explode and spawn in more rapidly, allowing this chip to be used for short term area denial or as an effective attack chip. The explosions themselves are somewhat weaker then they used to be as a side effect of the decreased dynamic instability of the code. (Complicated, Memory 1)
Delivery Droppod Deepstrike
A Strategic effect battle chip that allows for either the rapid repositioning of around a platoon (50ish) troops in eight or so armored drop pods that remain long enough to give some initial armored cover to the deployed viri, or the use of the pods as a 'carrier platform' for deploying other strategic or tactical battle chips beyond the ranges they'd normally be able to be deployed at.
(Complicated, Memory 2)
PolarBlizzard
This strategic battle chip covers an entire section of the battlefield with bursts and gales of random code data, having a detrimental effect on everything within the effected zone. Viri are slowed and suffer bit-brain errors from stray data, 'line of sight' and other sensory modes are greatly degraded, and it becomes entirely more difficult to target other battle chips within the blizzard's zone. Even friendly battle chips are effected by this targeting interference, for the data-blizzard is truly random. It would take a unit with specialized hardening to function normally in such a weather effect. (Complicated, Memory 1)
CallChiptune
'CallChiptune' is a Battlechip that uses the Firmament's vast archives of abandonware soundtracks to summon appropriate music for any occasion. It's ability to figure out what music is appropriate can be a little off at times though, but who doesn't like a cheery 8-bit soundtrack going on in the middle of a desperate battle to keep viruses from deleting your homework? (Simple, Memory 0)
Author
Topic: The Firmament - Great Flame War Arms Race (Read 18577 times)