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[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

On a related note, I would totally be up for a real life zero friction sport room.
I would just constantly be doing that dash move in Vanquish at all times.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I don't think the advanced battlesuit needs to have a name at all, actually. People would tend to name theirs themselves, and having an extra name might be confusing.

There's no reason not to have an interesting project name, though. Like how my hypothetical future Avatar-class mech is called the "Kulak" despite its ATX-01 project handle and the descriptive identifier of "Rapid Assault Mechsuit".

For the descriptive part, "Advanced Battlesuit" should work better than the 2.0 thing, by the way. Or actually, just "Assault suit". It's smaller, faster, and more specially armored than the "Battle suit".

(I'm claiming the "mechsuit" moniker for the larger-than-battlesuit manned machines, by the way.)

[tryrar]

BTW, what's the thoughts on that link I posted earlier? I was gonna use the MAHEM idea to create better HEAT rounds, but I'm not sure how actually feasible that DARPA thing is or if it would be actually better than regular HEAT rounds...

[Sean Mirrsen]

BTW, what's the thoughts on that link I posted earlier? I was gonna use the MAHEM idea to create better HEAT rounds, but I'm not sure how actually feasible that DARPA thing is or if it would be actually better than regular HEAT rounds...

It could work, but it's basically the same thing the Plasma Stake does, actually, just at a lower power scale. As in, MAHEM still melts the metal via chemical explosive, and then uses magnetohydrodynamic principles to shape the molten metal into a penetrator with much more precision than a regular warhead of the same purpose could. The Plasma Stake plasmarizes the metal, and shapes it into a jet using magnetoplasmadynamic principles, but it's obviously limited by the amount of energy that can be released at once in a compact package.

It should be, then, possible with bluerad cells, to make a shell for a Gauss Cannon or a missile warhead that incorporates the plasma-jet MAHEM-derivative, yeah. There won't be a need for accelerator coils since the projectile supplies the speed, the bluerad cell's properties could simplify plasmarization, and the MPD chamber is simple enough to be mass-producible... could work.

[tryrar]

Yeah, I had the idea of making a simple micro-missile launcher for this. Would that be enough speed, or would it need to be a full on gauss shell?

[Sean Mirrsen]

It'll likely get less penetration the slower it travels, because the MPD nozzle is like a very short-lived thruster that will try to push the whole thing back out of its effective range as it starts up. Or it will just have to have less power in the first place. There would be a certain optimal point between the size/power of the carrier missile and the power of the plasma warhead. How 'micro' would you want the missile to be in this case?

[tryrar]

Well my idea was for a missile about 50% larger than your standard D-cell flashlight. Carried at a belt, shouldn't be too bulky, and should have at least decent power.

[Sean Mirrsen]

So you're looking at a diameter of 50-55mm, and something like a foot long? Hm. That... could work, I guess. Probably. The warhead would take up like half of that length though, and probably wouldn't be terribly effective against any really serious armor. As in, you'd be able to get through what, maybe four inches of battlesuit armor with a jet of that size? It could wreck a joint if it hit, likely, but not much else. Something more nasty and force-multiplier-ish would probably be preferable at that size.

Could be pretty good against people though, I guess. MkIIIs, for instance, if you can make it seek. However, against lighter armor you may as well use non-plasma weapons. Plasma is terribly hard to contain, it will try to dissipate into a fireball as soon as it exits the magnetic field that shapes it. A more conventional molten metal penetrator would work better if you don't need to get through armor made to resist that sort of thing. So yeah, may as well use MAHEM.
(Why they didn't call it MAHYEM is beyond me, by the way)

[tryrar]

Hmm, what if I made it a gauss/rocket combo, like the sibilius? Would that improved performance?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yes, but not much. Like I said, plasma is a finicky thing, it needs to be contained, otherwise it won't want to stay together. It is, at best, a neutrally charged gas that wants to expand rapidly because it's really, really hot. At worst it's a really hot gas the particles of which actively try to get away from each other instead of just bouncing around in random directions because of their temperature.

A large, battlesuit-mounted arm cannon thing only keeps the jet contained for at most two feet of distance. A half-foot warhead on a foot-long micro-missile will have neither the sheer volume of plasma, nor the proper magnetic field dimensions to keep the plasma contained for nearly that long. Not without physics-breaking automanips, at the very least. Which, in turn, limits how useful the weapon is going to be with that kind of warhead.
With a more conventional penetrator though, it might work better.
Hmm. Now, if you used that theoretical plasma thruster... a missile doesn't need to care about overheat, it only needs to stay together for a few seconds. You could get a pretty powerful, and pretty compact motor onto that micro-missile, leaving more space for a much more powerful warhead. It'd be bluerad-powered, so conceivably the same crystal that powers the motor will provide the final charge for the warhead, which would probably still not be plasma, but something like MAHEM, or something else entirely. (tesla saber buzzsaw missiles, anyone?)

[tryrar]

Wow, a MAHEM missile with an MPD thruster? Might get up to supersonic speeds with that! Now I REALLY can't wait to get back to the ship to design it! 

[Parisbre56]

I say, if that suit is going to replace battlesuits and has the same price, then just call it battlesuit. No reason to come up with a new name. You could even keep the old battlesuit and have the new one be one of those special models available, like Mobility or Heavy Laser.

And I just realised we can give our physicists an actual frictionless vacuum.

[Radio Controlled]

I think that plasma jet shaped charges can work, but are probably better for 'bigger' weapons, not small rockets. For those, I think a good ol' chemical solution might be best.

The pie charts are for other people, I really have no idea what is in them since for all I know, it's a rant about talking sheep and giant sentient space parasites. So until Lars and Miyamoto can be contacted to review them, I can't use them.

Gonna try to do that once I'm back from mission, it's added to the to do list.

I'm honestly just looking for suggestions I like, although a vote would be nice.  "Combat Hardsuit" doesn't... sound nice to me, and it sounds like it's a very different thing from a battlesuit.
"Beetlesuit" sounds nice, it fits into a theme which my brain likes, and it reflects the fact that it's basically a battlesuit that's slightly different.  I don't think it's any more confusing, because both terms would require looking them up, and at most Beetlesuit will evoke the image of a battlesuit covered in beetle chitin- which isn't far off the mark.  But, two people have said they dislike it, so I won't use it.  I take the weird-name route often enough as-is.

Yeah, sometimes a name can just sounds 'off' even if others don't think so. I kinda have the same with 'beetlesuit', in that even if it's not a horrible name, it doesn't 'resonate' with me personally, if that makes sense.

Incidentally, thank you sean for that apt demonstration 

The "Beetlesuit" is actually just Battlesuit 2.0.  Basically, it's just got much thinner armor made of our new types, and the improvements that are in my last Heph turn.  It also has minor improvements that allow it to fit through doors slightly easier.

I think we shouldn't focus too much on making the battlesuit small. As small as reasonably possible, of course (only advantagesthere) but from my analysis earlier, if it's not small enough to comfortably fit indoors, in a way that it can still fight and such, it's not much help. That's where your mini robobody comes in (in fact, after that analysis, I've come to realize these might be all that more important than a regular battlesuit, provided we can somehow get the soft ban on vehicles lifted so they can take over in other areas).

Some other ideas for the new battlesuit:
- remove the jump pack, but allow room for a jump pack or a flight pack, bought separately.
- cut down on all the variants that exist and which nobody will ever use. Next to the regular suit, a melee version with those small maneuvering rockets. This one can also then get either a flight or jump pack, but they don't come standard.
- be sure to mention to pw we're using one of the new exoskeletons. That way, we might be able to get another bonus to rolls out of it, preferably a dex or end bonus, for the same price, once we cut the jump pack. Perhaps a +1 end for the regular, and a +1 dex for the melee version?

Note, pw has confirmed in a pm that the roll system is changing, so it might be less OP to give another straight +1 bonus.

There's some more things, but I always think of them someplace else then forget them once I'm behind a computer -.-

So then, once again, why not "Beetleborg" Combar Hardsuit? The descriptive part of the name can be tweaked if you dislike the "combat hardsuit" word combination in particular.
That said, I fear that however we name it, it'll be "battlesuit 2.0" or "new battlesuit" for quite a while - the overall design mostly remained intact, I'm afraid.

Because then people will probably still just use 1 name, making the other one superfluous, and perhaps sowing more confusion if most people use name a and some use name b.

For the descriptive part, "Advanced Battlesuit" should work better than the 2.0 thing, by the way. Or actually, just "Assault suit". It's smaller, faster, and more specially armored than the "Battle suit".

I say, if that suit is going to replace battlesuits and has the same price, then just call it battlesuit. No reason to come up with a new name. You could even keep the old battlesuit and have the new one be one of those special models available, like Mobility or Heavy Laser.

Well, if we ever have a battle with multiple UWM battlesuits and some of our own battlesuits 2.0, it might be easier for pw and us if they don't have the exact same name. And always saying 'battlesuits 2.0' doesn't sounds very elegant.

[Toaster]

Bootysuits.

[Nikitian]

Battledress! Combatux! Hard Armored Garb!
 

Also, now that I think of it, we have so much use for suits, there's bound to have appeared several specialised names for them - the same way as many native tribes of northern regions have several different words for 'snow'. Perhaps it's time we differentiated the suits a bit, and then appointed a descriptive name based on one of those?

Personally, I think I'm a bit growing tired of the word 'suit', as omnipresent it is.