"We're going to need Armed, Floating, Zero-G Troopers" Topic

See the following videogame trailer for some excellent footage of a computer/videogame in space, where the astronauts are wearing manned maneuvering units (MMU's), and are fighting one another for possession of a space station:

link

These would be a lot of fun to play with miniatures as well, assuming someone will make some suitable figures to do so.

GZG does some Floating Vacc Suit figures, but they are unarmed, and don't have MMU's.

We need a couple of factions to do battle against one another, if you please, in 15mm. 25mm/28mm would be nice too.

I can see other battles on the moon, for space shuttles, spaceships, asteroids that contain diamonds and precious metals, etc., also.

The need for minis like these, in 15mm and 28mm scale, with and without MMUs, has been noted here on TMP for quite a while now.

The closest match so far in 28mm is probably Blue Moon's Human Spacemen, but they're not floating around: link

There's also Reaper's Duke Jones, Astronaut: link

But he's not floating or fighting, or even wearing his helmet.

Recoil weps in zero-G?Gyrojet,gauss,lasers yeah!looks like a fun concept to model and game.The big concern is situational awareness/response time,equipment level and type for modifiers=3d/g combat.I think on the table it would look pretty damn skookum.

looks like a fun concept to model and game.

Agree totally! That 'Shattered Horizon' vid is awesome.

I am already thinking about mounting 15mm figs, small asteroids and space debris on flight stands for 3D 1-2-1 space combat.

Cheers
Mark

And you totally need them if you want to play out the end of Moonraker!

For 15mm:

TMP link

CC

Can anyone recommend rules for freefall combat?

The video looked cool but I suspect that in "normal" play it would be a corridor-by-corridor "flowchart", since rooms will be small and infantry really shines indoors. For outdoor work, if you have infantry fighting at all, their "EVA as mini-fighters" models looks cool but seems unrealistic.

As for minis, I second the GZG recommendation.

Wow how very poor. In space you have recoil, you can hear everything, you have a jet pack that works like it is in a gravity well (cease accelerating and slow down of course) and finally in space you fight over mark 1 eyeball range, something we are doing our best to get away from on earth with all those future war concepts :)

Chris, if you read anything about the game you'll learn that:

- recoil is compensated for by the jetpacks
- sound is simulated by the onboard AI to better enable humans to deal with the dead silence of space

(both of these features are knocked out if you're hit by an EMP grenade, natch)

- the range and relatively basic weaponry is explained by the fact that these are scientists, astronauts and lunar miners fighting with relatively improvised gear rustled up as quickly as possible. The game represents the first days of a conflict which would necessarily change over time.

It looks like a great game to me.

Visually stunning, and no doubt rather fun to play.

55 – 150 grains of lead isn't going to push a 200 – 300+ pound (with MMU pack) trooper around much, even on full auto, I imagine, so the packs should be able to easily compensate for that.

No doubt, some nations are probably working on these, or have them already.

I'm more curious about how they control them, while firing weapons with both hands. Voice, or foot controls perhaps?

It looks like a great game to me.

Visually stunning, and no doubt rather fun to play.

55 – 150 grains of lead isn't going to push a 200 – 300+ pound (with MMU pack) trooper around much, even on full auto, I imagine, so the packs should be able to easily compensate for that.

No doubt, some nations are probably working on these, or have them already.

I'm more curious about how they control them, while firing weapons with both hands. Voice, or foot controls perhaps?

Deep sea divers have NEWT suits that use foot controls, if I recall correctly.

@ TGA: The lunar suits were over 200lbs, so let's get that up to about a 500lb suited trooper (assuming armor comparable to an IBA vest).

I could get the physics and engineering students on campus to cobble a control rig together within a couple days, using the controller from a Wii (or equivalent). A bit of coding in the Reaction-Control System in the MMU to translate weapon angle to center-of-mass, and you're covered. Sure, it's a non-secure (ie, hackable and position revealing) duct-tape solution, but it gets the job done for a couple weeks, until the DARPA geeks integrate the thing into the milspec datanet. Well, you might need two two controllers. One for the suit's position and one for the weapon. As long as they spin up in a known direction relative to each other, problem solved.

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Jon, you listening?

Agreed, this game looks amazing:

link

link

Just think of the wargaming possibilities…

@Lion in the Stars

I shudder to think of the spent casings floating around as space junk.

I think feet with hooks or servo-powered claws would be very useful to anchor yourself close to a rock or handhold, as would various grapples. A lot of grappling hooks, especially to haul in injured crew or damaged suits.

Enough fuel would be a problem. Nitrogen gas is currently used but that's got a very low specific impulse. Probably some variation on hybrid rocket motors (tire rubber + NOX). Hypergolics is too nasty to put into suits, especially if you're coming back from battle leaking into an airlock.

I may need to come up with rules for this!!

Yeah, empty cases would be a bad thing, Lampy. Either gauss rifles or caseless would be the option of choice, but a secondary option of a glorified paintball gun would also work.

As far as MMUs go, *if* you used a separate MMU from the suit (ie, suit carries the life-support systems, MMU is just maneuvering systems), you could abandon the MMU or at least the fuel and rockets if it got damaged, and still have an emergency N2 bottle to get you back to the airlock.