Warlord
Traditionally, there is an additional class in the ranks of our certified soldiers - but the normal one, the “MAX” suit, is so last generation. Sure, a heavily armed mech suit is really cool, but why should the NextGen Consortium abide by the prevailing logic? Leave that to the other companies - we shall forge ahead, with something new, better, stronger - something next generation.
(Disclaimer: Warlord armor system is not guaranteed to be better than a MAX in all situations)
In the pitch of battle, the side that has the better support is the side that wins. Why should we make a single soldier into a walking tank, when we can improve an entire squad? ...Yes, we know it's to use the walking tanks as a vanguard to break through the enemy line, but that was a rhetorical question and we still think improving many soldiers is better than one really good one. Our new soldiers, the Warlords, take the support to a new level. The Warlord themselves are heavily armored and armed badasses, comparable to a heavy assault in terms of the kind of weaponry they can wield and the kind of tankiness they bring to the battlefield. The purpose of this is to allow them to stay alive as they perform their duty, somewhat like the heavy assault - But their special abilities are not the same. No over-shield here.
The Warlord’s Nanite Augmentation FieldTM is the thing that sets the Warlord apart from the other classes. At the Warlord’s discretion, they can activate the system, creating a field of energy around themselves that interacts directly with the nanites making up soldiers and equipment, making changes to their performance and capabilities. For allies, this often results in significantly improves capabilities, of themselves and their weapons - higher speed, the ability to shrug off more damage, the ability to do more damage, and more. It can feel like an adrenaline high, but more so. For enemies, this can lead to the opposite effects. The versatility leaves the Warlord a versatile warrior depending on what needs to be done.
(Disclaimer: NextGen is not responsible for any delusions of grandeur and unlimited power that may arise from nanite augmentation. You are not invincible, listen to the damn sergeant. NextGen is also not responsible for addiction to nanite augmentation that may arise. Please use responsibly.)
The basic-level Nanite Augmentation Field only affects allies. Within a moderate range (which ought to be enough to cover a squad, or at least most of one), it boosts the speed and damage resistance of affected allies for its duration. It, unfortunately, can’t be on indefinitely but should recharge at a reasonable pace. Warlords are obviously capable of using the Australia, but will also ideally be able to use the Eta-module Alcor, at least until we start designing new weapons for them.
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Also, SPIDERTANK (second go)
SWT-2 “Arachne”
The Athena was a failure, plain and simple. Marketing departments blame a too-clever name confusing the technicians. The marketing department has definitely not been beaten for the insult to the engineer’s intelligence. We know when we screw up, and we totally did, but come on, you think the name was the problem? Instead of blaming marketing, we decided to actually look at what went wrong, piece by piece. Could we do something else with the time? Probably. Would it be as cool as a jumping spider tank with a badass cannon? I didn’t think so.
First up: Mobility. We know that spiders have eight legs. We don’t care, spider tank is just a more interesting designation than insectoid tank. The Arachne still has six legs. The body, well, it was nice to have an outline to work off of, but we had to first get the thing able to walk. Besides some general structural improvements - strengthening the legs and suspension, adding some flat “feet” to the spindly legs so it doesn’t need to balance precariously, and so on and so forth - we’ve torn out the computer that was being used, which was a hack job of a sunderer’s computer, and replaced it with one purpose built for the Arachne and the fact it has six legs instead of wheels or treads. This computer also coordinates the jumping system, which while it does still work mostly on the basis of the legs, also now includes several jets across the lower side that help it lift off the ground. We’ve taken a good chunk of the armor out of the design - it should be able to stop small arms fire, but it’s in trouble if someone takes a tank to it or high explosives or what have you. The ammo compartment remains well armored though.
In terms of offensive armament, it’s mostly the same, at least in (intended) capability. We basically bolted an Eta-module Alcor to the front for anti-infantry duty. We found that the gun had a problem loading the magnetic spikes, and have as such improved the loading system (and given the gunner an access hatch to the ammo compartment, to manually load in case that system gets knocked out). The barrels also had problems accelerating their respective ammunition to the appropriate speeds, and have been lengthened and had additional power routed to them to make up for that.
Hopefully, the Arachne should accomplish what the Athena was built to do - be a high power, high mobility armored vehicle. And not fall flat on it’s face.
CI1 Hawk
The Cloaking Interceptor 1, called the “Hawk” by designers, is our first proper fighter aircraft. It has a crew of two, a pilot and a gunner. It’s not a very wide craft, but is rather long, shaped vaguely like an arrow. It’s primary armament is a nose mounted plasma cannon, and it also has two plasma missiles to fire before needing to rearm. It has a distributed engine design, rather than one, to provide redundancy - there’s two jet engines in the “arrowhead” and one in the back. Speed, armament, armor - all fairly average. That doesn’t seem very next generation or experimental, you say, and you would be right - the craft’s main statistics are distinctly average, not doing anything all that special. Why then, is the NextGen Consortium designing such a craft? Because something about it is in fact very much experimental, and we don’t need to be doing too many things at once.
The Hawk includes, as part of the engine compartment, a cloaking system, not dissimilar to that of an infiltrator. When activated, the craft becomes extremely difficult to see and to lock onto, at least when not going at top speed - and even then, it’s outline would be broken up enough to confuse aiming and delay missile lock. The idea of the craft is to cloak, get close to the enemy craft, and unload before they realize they’re under attack. Traditionally, in an age with radar coming standard, it is fairly difficult to hide in the sky - but with NextGen technology, we’ve made possible a true aerial ambush.