Neo-Jovian Mecha Recognition Guide

SolFed

Solar Federation Space Force

Iolaus A2

Primary Operator: SFSF
Role: mass production orbital

Fixed Armament

• 2 linear gun (head)
• 1 beam saber (right hip)
• 3-slot grenade rack (left hip)

The Iolaus is the Solar Federation's current front line mass production mobile suit and of all its myriad variants, the SFSF's orbital use Iolaus A2 variants are the most common. A well designed, well rounded and perhaps most importantly, technically mature unit, its performance in all key metrics is at least equal if not superior to any opposing force it is likely to encounter in significant numbers.

Other

• Iolaus A3

Aello A5

Primary Operators: SFSF, SFAF
Role: Mass Production interceptor/Attacker

Fixed Armament

• 2 linear guns (head)
• 1 Beam Saber (back)

A somewhat older design based on Jovian technology, the Aello is a high speed intercept and attack suit. It's quick reactions and speed makes it popular with pilots, though it's light armour and reputation as a maintenance hog makes it far less popular with mechanics and commanders.

Stymphalian

Primary Operator: SFSF, INTACT Role: Mass Production Autonomous suit

A Solar Federation Drone, shamelessly stolen from older models of League raptors to fill the holes in SF ranks created by their massive out system deployments.

Solar Federation Army/Airforce

Hylas B7C

Getting acquisitions approved is a bureaucratic hassle, especially for the politicially less influential Army and Airforce. Refits and reconstructions need far less paperwork even when they wind up costing more. Through this principle, the SFAA has kept the venerable Hylas on as its primary war machine among its far flung Verge formations. Almost three decades removed from the original, the combat performance of these upgrades cannot be discounted and they are rightly considered 2.5th generation mobile suits. To many an engineering recruit's dismay however, many of these suits do in fact have frames dating back to mid-System War Hylas production runs and their maintenance has been described as a combination of hemorrhoids and exam crunch time.

Iolaus B

Primary Operator: SFAA
Role: mass production terrestrial

Fixed Armament

• 2 modular mission pod hardpoint (head)
• 1 beam saber (right hip)
• 3-slot grenade rack (left hip)
• more hardpoints!

Long relegated to second fiddle when it came to its share of the military acquisitions budget, the planetary wing of the the SolFed military has been acquiring its own B and C variant Iolauss for terrestrial and atmospheric operating environments. The B variant is equipped to handle a wide variety of terrain and gravitational conditions and is inherently a tougher suit than the A variants as it is almost never issued with a shield. Head mounted linear cannons are also replaced with modular mission pod hardpoints (usually direct-fire cannon armament on one side and something else in the other).

Antaeus B

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Orimary Operator: SFAA
Role: Modular Main Battle Terrestrial

• 2 modular mission pod hardpoints (head)
• 1 Beam saber (back)
• Numerous Hardpoints!

The Antaeus is one result of the increase in budget bought about by Solar Federation's push out system. More heavily armed and armoured than an Iolaus, the Antaeus is also even more modular, carrying numerous different pieces of mission equipment and different weapon options. Designed to be the ultimate in ground combat suits, the Antaeus is the Solar Federation Army's pride and joy.

Solar Federation Navy/Marines

Iolaus D

Primary Operator: SFNM
Role: mass production amphibious/gas giant

The longest Iolaus variant in coming and by far the most sophisticated from an engineering perspective, the Iolaus D goes far above and beyond the mundane requirement of operation in Earthlike waters. Featuring robust environmental controls, radialogical and electromagnetic flux hardening and a condensed graviton pressure balance system, Iolaus D can operate in incredibly hostile environments that have nevertheless proven militarily important in the past, such as the upper layers of gas giants. Its main fixed armament are shoulder mounted heavy pods for missiles or torpedoes.

Tenshi Corp

Morrígan -2S

Primary Operator: Saturnian Defense Force, INTACT
Role: limited production elite suit

Based on the Jovian Knightress, the Morrígan series is designed primarily for Seraphim pilots. As such it includes an advanced control system and a large bit system designed to best exploit the Seraphim's strength in Aleph. While the Morrígan retains the Knightress's distinctive head shape and design, it dispenses with the Mono-Eye in favour of a seemingly blank mask treated with numerous cell cameras. The Morrígan has considerably higher performance even than a Knightress, and is considered one of the best suits in the Federation Service.

Verge Polities

League of Outer Stars

Type 11 Raptor

Primary Operator: League
Role: mass production mobile doll

As a mobile doll, the Type 11 Raptor lacks a cockpit or any of the protections and systems associated with keeping a human alive in space. The balance of empty volume is filled with additional energy cell capacity and propellant tanks. In combat, the AI makes full use of its ability to sustain high G forces constantly, making it notoriously difficult to target with certain weapons systems. In flight, the Raptor's unusual silhouette is easily recognizeable and is a result of its ability to fold neatly into a roughly triangular package. League ships typically launch groups of six at a time from hexagonal linear catapults.

Groups

Tensor

A48 Lodion

Tensor Megacorp is one of the few non-state entities anywhere capable of sustaining its own mobile weapons development programs in a meaningful way. The A48 Lodion is a high performance suit manufactured exclusively for Tensor's own internal security forces and its morally suspect PMC subsidiary Blackgate.

Jovian

Space Independence Alliance

MS-12 Virago II

The quintessential mecha of the early System War, the Virago II was by far the Space Independence Alliance's most heavily produced mobile suit and eventually offshot into dizzying surfeit of variations and special purpose units. Thanks to its fundamental robustness, reliability and maintenance procedures purportedly less complex than the assembly instructions of its highest grade modelling kit, it remains in service on various minor worlds of the Verge.

MS-17 Knightress

A late war mass production unit, the Knightress was rushed into action in the aftermath of Saturn's defection when the strategic situation turned decisively against the Space Independence Alliance. Equipped with an integral chest-mounted beam cannon, it handily overpowered any of the Hylas variants then in service. The unit naturally proved too little too late and most of them were destroyed in action. Those that remain operational in the Verge generally have little problem finding pilots however and the lineage of the design itself has been sustained over the years by various iterations of Neo-Jove.

Other

• MS-10 Virago - The first mass production mobile suit deployed in numbers but was considered a second line unit even at the outbreak of the System War. Examples are to be found in various museums and junkyards.

Neo-Jove

MS-20 Tsun

The first mobile weapon developed entirely outside of the Sol system for Neo-Jove, the Tsun was a survival measure designed to be as simple as possible to produce and maintain with the limited resources available in the Verge. Thanks to its simplistic design, it has even had parts produced by fabricators aboard warships and assembled entirely in hangars. While earlier SIA mobile suits were also designed almost entirely for orbital combat, the Tsun was the first non mobile armour to entirely lack legs and any terrestrial combat ability. In orbital action, it proved a fast and nimble unit but was hampered by fragility and the indifferent performance of its linear weapons.

MS-21 Tervagen

The Tervagen was the high end mobile suit of the first Neo-Jove war and was built in small numbers to achieve local superiority in complement to the main forces composed largely of Tsun, Virago II and Knightress variants. The distinctly heavy set silhouette of the Tervagen quickly became feared as it handily outclassed the Hylas. And while the early mass production Iolaus could match it on paper, the Tervagen's limited distribution to only the best System War veterans meant that it almost always wrecked its SolFed counterparts in even encounters. An aleph use variant also existed. In the end, the strategic untenability of the invasion of Earth saw virtually all of them destroyed before they could evacuate back into orbit.

MS-22 Shield Maiden

The main mass production unit of the later part of the first Neo-Jovian war. Produced in great numbers in Alpha Centauri (and used by them after the war). The Shield Maiden is heavily armed and armoured, and capable of transforming into a mobile armour mode for extra thrust. However outside of mobile armour mode it is a relatively sluggish. The production fabricators were evacuated from Alpha Centauri after the Alpha Centauri war, but appear to have been lost somewhere in transit.

AMS-24 Tomoe Gozen

The personal mobile suit of Alicia Malvin. A prototype built from the ground up for aleph use.

MS-25 Aila

First appeared as a prototype during the SolFed invasion of Alpha Centauri and then in limited numbers throughout the Second Neo-Jove war.

MS-29 Marida

A "mass production" unit (there are more of them than the various oneshots) developed since the Second Neo-Jove war. We don't have any obviously.