Here ya go. I guess it depends on exactly how you interpret 'isn't really effective'. I figured it meant 'has no real effect within a reasonable timeframe', because he didn't even give me a time for cracking armor at short range. Then again, he might not have given me that because most of the ranges were pretty long.
About changing the page- do we have any example of a cutting laser actually damaging a battlesuit? Ever?
In other news, I've decided to post my more insane ideas for improving our suits. They're all really ideas at this point, rather than completed ideas, but the basic concepts are thought out. Criticism welcome, because I'm sure I missed something obvious.
I wrote this on a phone while on caffeine, so be warned.
Principality: Replacement for MK.1
-Primarily just general Improvments that everyond seems to support. No heat fins, and maybe see through spots for a robobody's extra eyes.
-A 4 TPU power source, linked to the gloves.
Power: Replacement for MK.II
-Everything the Principality has
-Greatly stripped down medical systems, only keeping on iris for each limb, and a tourniquet for each iris. Mostly for fighting in vacuum.
-Actual armor, preferably a step above a longcoat. Helmet and chest armor would be the priority, limb armor only if it wouldn't bring price up too much.
Stronghold:Replacement for MK.III
-Everything the Power has, except for:
-Milnoplate level armor
-12 TPU power generator
-Weakened exoskeleton, probably around 2/3 power, unless it needs the strength to carry armor
-Flight systems, of course.
-A pair of hand lasers, with matching spark gaps. Basically two red hands.
Dominion:'Replacement' for battlesuits. (VERY WIP)
-Everything the Stronghold has
-One or two layers of BS plate, preferably the stronger deep variant. Avatar cloak over joints.
-Much stronger exoskeleton, to deal with armor weight
-Possibly a stronger generator, depending on what it needs
-Possibly the ability to redirect generator power into armor's surface, much like standard battlesuit.
-larger flight system, so it retains MK.III level manueverability.
-Possibly all the systems a standard MK.II has, if it doesn't increase cost much.
-Possibly large robotic hands, to avoid having that be a weakspot.
-NOT a mech, should be much smaller than actual battlesuit.
-NOT a true replacement for battlesuits; more of a fusion between a mobility BS, and an MK.III.
Potential Practicality Problems:
Principality:
-Might end up being too expensive for a basic suit. If so, the whole integrated generator idea is pretty much dead.
Power:
-The reduced medical systems might not be enough to offset cost of the armor.
Stronghold:
-Could end up too expensive.
-Could end up too heavy.
Dominion:
-Might be impossible to miniaturize sufficiently, ending up too heavy to maintain sufficient manueverability, or protection at a small enough size.
Explanations for things:
Integrated generators:
Basically, the idea is that almost every gun needs electricity. And a lot of people carry more than one gun, but can't use all of them at a time. If we put the generator into the suits, we reduce the number of generators we need to make total, and improve the power of our guns overall.
Side benefits are that enemies can't grab our guns and immediately use them against us, and we will always have a powerful melee weapon.
For a 4 TPU suit, a gauss rifle can fire twice as fast, or a lasrifle can fire continually. Heavier weapons such as a cutting laser could be modified to use a rechargeable, shorter duration battery (or limited to heavier suits). All our small arms are supported by 4 TPU.
For a 12 TPU suit, a basic lasrifle can fire with a gungnir attachment, or at a power level 50% higher than a cutting laser, continually. All our heavy weapons are supported by 12 TPU, with a bit of wiggle room if we want to make them more powerful. And since the laser/tesla portions of a red hand are so cheap, it allows us to give these suits free, continual use, long range tesla arcs.
Stripped medical systems:
MK.II suits are basically the most redundant equipment we have. They're entirely useless for a robot, mostly redundant with fleshtechs (which we need for people with basic suits anyways), have a habit of turning their users into robots, and don't even actually protect from damage. Trading the medical bits for actual armor means the suit keeps it's value after it chops it's user's head off, and stands a better chance at actually saving them from lethal things. It also means we won't be vulnerable to dinky civvie weapons, and even stand a decent chance at surviving UWM small arms.
The entire idea of the Dominion:
Basically, most weapons either do almost nothing to a battlesuit's first armor layer, or can utterly wreck it. There isn't much of a middle ground. Therefore, we should keep a layer or two to maintain small arms immunity, and trade the rest of the protection for manueverability so we can avoid the larger projectiles.
Simultaneously, we solve the two main issues with the battlesuit: vulnerable joints which are far weaker than the armor, and large size which precludes indoor operations.
Please, please note, that this is NOT a complete replacment for a battlesuit. In a straight fight, the latter would probably win, no getting around that. Instead, this is meant to be something that is more useful for general duty ARM stuff. The battlesuit trades general ability for raw defense, this does the same thing, but minimizes the loss in ability.
Religious subtext names:
Bitches love religious subtext, amirite?
Uh, honestly, I just find it humourous. And am absolutely horrible at naming stuff. It was either that, boring stuff like 'heavy flying suit' 'improved basic suit', or perplexicon words. If people have better names, by all means, suggest them!