CAV: SO Rach Kraken Preview

[Qwyksilver]

I'm thinking, since there will be build your own rules, that maybe some of my small scale fighters, might end up playing the role of UAV/Drones...

[Maredudd]

Does CAV 1 or 2 have UAV/Drones? I went through the CAV 2 rules this last week and don't notice any, but then I was focusing on the rules more than the hardware.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Maredudd

[Qwyksilver]

There were no UAV, probably the closest were some of the beta version Psyro.  Although you could argue that maybe one of the Whisper or Ripper missiles could very easily be proxied by a "drone"

[Girot]

It would be very easy to simply write your own rules for them, based on the Construction rules.  I myself am going to be incorporating mines.

[ShadowRaven]

oooh mines..... As a sometimes battletech player, I like mines, they can be so evil.

[TGP]

Does CAV 1 or 2 have UAV/Drones? I went through the CAV 2 rules this last week and don't notice any, but then I was focusing on the rules more than the hardware.

 

It would be very easy to simply write your own rules for them, based on the Construction rules.  I myself am going to be incorporating mines.

 

It makes a lot more sense to me to imagine that every CAV is an unmanned vehicle...and that the operators are safe in orbit or  safe from orbital bombardment in a bunker.

 

What looks like cockpit glass is just the sensory interface...the tele-present operators have a matching control module with wrap-around view screens the same shape.

[Girot]

It makes a lot more sense to me to imagine that every CAV is an unmanned vehicle...and that the operators are safe in orbit or  safe from orbital bombardment in a bunker.

 

I could see this in a more "advanced" setting but personally I like the aesthetic of being in a cockpit and stomping around the battlefield.  Especially now that the scale of it all has been corrected in my head I can imagine these things zipping around in battle more like Titanfall and Battletech instead of MechWarrior.

[knight907]

On a side note as a topic of conversation. If this model was done to scale with the CAVs it would be about 4" long. Not a big deal with plastic, but do you want a 4" long fighter for your game? Discuss...

4 inches (60 scale feet) is just too big. There are 2 ways to fix it:

 

1. With F-14s being 64 feet long and Apaches at 58 feet, for CAVs to range from 25 to 35 feet tall puts them on the small side even for modern-day vehicles. Relative to scale versions of either of those, CAVs are downright puny. If the CAVs were twice as tall, at 3-5" (50-70 scale feet), they would retain the gravitas we expect from giant, stompy robots. Alternatively, if the overall scale was halved, the model sizes wouldn't change, but the full-scale fighter would come down to 2", a much more appropriate size. Due to the massive rescaling issues resulting from both of those options, I doubt either of them are plausible.

 

2. Instead of an F-14, think F-35. At 35 feet long, the full-scale model would be 2.5" long, making it the same size as larger CAVs. Also, no disrespect to the artist, but it's very bulky. This is understandably necessary for a metal model. In metal, making it as sleek as a fighter plane should be would make it too fragile, but plastic is flexible. Reshaping it with thinner wings, fuselage, stabs, and weapon pylons would make it look more like the fast, atmospheric-capable fighter it's supposed to be.

[Girot]

If we could get a piece of concept art with a pilot (and his WISO) standing in front of their CAV that could help give us a much better feel for what the scale should be.  As it stands the different models that currently exist have a lot of different sized cockpits.  Add onto that the fact that many of the cockpits in question are supposed to contain two personnel but look way to small for that.  This can be extremely confusing when trying to interpret scale, especially when you talking about a genre where your target demographic is likely going to be experienced pilots (albeit via video games).

 

 

2. Instead of an F-14, think F-35. At 35 feet long, the full-scale model would be 2.5" long, making it the same size as larger CAVs. Also, no disrespect to the artist, but it's very bulky. This is understandably necessary for a metal model. In metal, making it as sleek as a fighter plane should be would make it too fragile, but plastic is flexible. Reshaping it with thinner wings, fuselage, stabs, and weapon pylons would make it look more like the fast, atmospheric-capable fighter it's supposed to be.

 

Having worked with a lot of different Bones, including the prototypes, I can tell you the bulkier design will better translate into Bonesium as well as metal.

 

That being said, this craft also needs to be tough enough to survive space, atmosphere, and the transition between them.  In this specific case I think the artist nailed it.

[smokingwreckage]

I have the 28mm CAV Dictator. A Bones Orc doesn't come up to its knees. Even so, it's not a Mechwarrior kind of mech. It's more like a bigger cousin to a battle-suit or 40K Wraith Lord; which makes more sense anyway... if you want to haul the maximum tonnage into battle, you want treads under it, or wings.

 

With material costs less of an issue I wouldn't be averse to seeing the models get a little more bulk, but adding even 10-15% doesn't require a scale change. There's WAY more rattle than that in wargaming scales.

 

But, ah, while we're talking about bigger CAVs... in plastic... like, I don't know, 28-32mm scale, for example... is there an emoticon for puppy-dog eyes? A 28mm CAV, maybe a bit bigger than the old Bigtator, sure would make a sweet reward ;)

 

It's all a bit academic since I am unemployed right now, which makes me very sad, because I have longed for CAVs since they first strode, sleek and heavily armed, onto the scene, and for Bones CAV since the moment I first assembled and painted a large Bones model.

 

I'd kill for a Gnomic in 32mm scale, but then, I like ugly, brutal war machines :P

[Girot]

Even if we are able to sweet talk only a single 28mm KS only CAV I am SOOOOO doing a diarama of it fighting Kanjira when they both arrive!!

[Maredudd]

Even if we are able to sweet talk only a single 28mm KS only CAV I am SOOOOO doing a diarama of it fighting Kanjira when they both arrive!!

Oh! That so needs to be done!!

[Doug Sundseth]

Fair enough, but it might be the difference between getting one in mold and 2-3 in a mold. I would have no problem with aircraft being at half scale.

In 15mm games we typically use 144th scale aircraft, well except for dive bombers full scale stukas are to cool to pass up.

 

 

And in microarmor scales, the aircraft are generally scaled the same as the armor.

 

Further, an F-14 is very large for a fighter aircraft (as has been noted above).

 

FWIW, I'd prefer everything scaled the same.

 

Finally, if the game pieces and ground are scaled the same, an 8' long table would be less than 1/3 mile long. An aircraft travelling at (say) 400 kts would cover that distance in just over 2 seconds. Even if the ground scale is 1/10 that of the models, we're still looking at 20-odd seconds to move the length of the table. For me, that means they might as well be larger for the cool factor. For others, that might mean the opposite.

[smokingwreckage]

I think someone calculated that a sprinter could cross a 28mm battlefield in one typical game turn, so yeah. Ground scale is essentially imaginary.

[Doug Sundseth]

Increased lethality of weapons have led to the so-called "empty battlefield". (In the October War, battlefield personnel density was calculated at 1 man per 40,000 square meters. For reference, that density would be about 2 people on a 4' x 8' battlefield at 1:180 scale.) With further future increases in lethality, it would be reasonable to postulate a vastly lower density on those battlefields.

 

Designing to a very different ground scale than figure scale, with the figure only marking the approximate position of its corresponding unit, is very common in military wargaming.