Unit Types
Unit Types summary (tentative)
Manpower
All manpower isn't equal. As a power wishes to improve the quality of its soldiers, it must necessarily seperate the wheat from the chaff, necessitating ever-more expensive and intensive training that provides ever-decreasing results.
AI may be a mitigator, but so far no-one save the posthumans have successfully created an artificial intellect by any method other than brute-force emulation of human thought processes. Given that the creation of a true sentient AI heralded the fall of the posthumans, nobody really wants to do any sort of research into building a sentient AI. In the end, although unskilled labor can be replaced by drones, and most soldiers will have support by non-sentient AI, in the end you still need manpower, whether human, bioengineered, or cybernetic.
Manpower comes in several types-Untrained, Green, Regular, Hardened, Elite, and Specialized.
Green
Green manpower is marginally trained and similarly, marginally effective. Green soldiers and pilots are equivalent to reservists, people who train very occasionally to keep their skills fresh, if not honed. However, they are cheap and easy to train, and can fare quite well in a defensive or rear-echelon role.
0.5X Cost multiplier
Regular
Regulars are the backbone of most militaries, professionals who are well-trained and disciplined. They are cost-effective, unlikely to break, and competent enough that they can handle all but the most specialized gear. The vast majority of combat soldiers end up at this level of competence.
1X Cost multiplier(no change)
Elite
Elites are Rangers, Marines, hardcore types who are often trained in specialized operations, whether it's amphibious operations, orbital drop, or NBC warfare. Although cost-inefficient on a grand scale a few elite units are extraordinarily potent force multipliers.
2X Cost multiplier
Specialised
Specialized troops have even more extensive training and are often seen with the most advanced equipment and the largest egos. In general, only special forces, ace squadrons, or special forces support units will have this level of training, as the screening and training necessary for it is highly cost-ineffective, often washing out 80% or more of the people who qualify.
4X Cost multiplier
Planetoid Military Units
These units are (primarily) for major operations on the surfaces of major planetoids, or large habitats. Despite the extensive use of drones and other automated war fighting equipment, AI remained more or less the purview of the posthumans and as such, the human brain and the soldier lies at the heart of military operations.
Infantry
The backbone of any military, infantry are most effective when you have someone you want to fight but don't particularly want to destroy everything they have. Cheap, highly effective in built-up terrain, and versatile, foot soldiers run the gamut from poorly trained militia to elite special forces.
Guerillas Batallion
- Guerillas are soldiers who have learned, whether by training or brutal selective pressures, how to fight unconventionally, moving light and striking hard. With their skillset in living off the land, scavenging equipment, hacking security software, and stealthy operation, guerrillas are critical to winning unconventional wars. They are suited to arenas with high number of civilians or dense rural terrain.
"The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea." Mao Zedong
- Cost: 1 Point
Infantry Battalion
- Ranging from under-equipped conscripts to elite direct-action assault forces, infantrymen are a solid backbone upon which the entire army builds. Even though they are equipped with powered armor and use smart weapons, operate in theaters as diverse as terrestrial combat and space habitat assault, their role and tactics are still eminently recognizable.
"The infantry doesn't change. We're the only arm of the military where the weapon is the man himself." Major General C.T. Shortis
- Cost: 1 Point
'Storm Troopers
- Mobile Infantry or Gears, Storm Troopers are soldiers who sacrifice flexibility for firepower, speed, and armor. Clad in extremely large and heavy powered armors often standing two or more meters tall, shock troops stride the border between infantry and vehicle, devastating urban combat specialists which are at home in the chaos and violence of street-fighting.
"The Geebeeps were holed up in Renos City pretty well, we took the maglev lines into the city, but the streets were too narrow for our armour and the dome prevented air and heavy artillery strikes, they were too dug in to be taken by infantry. It took a week but reinforcements arrived, Patrolman Gears. Geebeeps broke in a day, they'd poured everything into preventing adequate beachheads and lacked a defence in depth. Renos city fell within the week."
Lt Colonel A. Brook, 22nd Infantry Division.
- Cost: 2 Point
Ground Vehicles
Transport
Infantry units are assumed by default to have either APC or VTOL transport capabilities. The following units represent significantly upgraded capabilties.
IFV Battalion
- An infantry fighting vehicle (IFV, also known as (mechanized) infantry combat vehicle, (MICV) is a type of armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) used to carry infantry into battle and provide fire support for them, either on the ground or from the air.
- Cost: 1 Point
Armoured
Armour can be tanks or Mecha.
Light Armoured Battalion
- Light Armour are small, highly mobile air transportable armoured vehicles used in difficult terrain, for fast deployment or as recon units.
- Cost: 1 Points
Armoured Battalion
- Armour are armoured fighting vehicles designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities.
- Cost: 2 Points
Heavy Armoured Battalion
- HEavy Armoured vehicles are large tanks designed to break through heavily defended fortifications or endure heavy urban fighting (if they fit)
- Cost 4 Points
Artillery
Artillery Battery Battalion
- Self-propelled artillery can deliver precise strikes and heavy bombardments in support of units kilometers away. Note: Mark as either Surface to Surface, Surface to Air or Ground to Space
- Cost: 1 points
Heavy Artillery Battalion
- Heavy self propelled MRLS, or giant cannons remain popular with many armies to take fire deep into the enemy rear or attack enemy aircraft hundreds of kilometers away. Mark either Surface to Surface, or Surface to Air, or Ground to Space
- Cost: 2 points
Air Vehicles
Similarly air support plays a critical, if slightly diminished role because of the existence of space forces. However, although most ships can reach down through the atmosphere and swat at targets, most popularly using railguns, it requires specialist systems and is it often cheaper and more effective to just get closer using aircraft or ground units rather than invest in a orbital strike ship.
UAVs Squadron
Most UAVs are tiny designs, incapable of housing a pilot or a complex tactical AI and massing only a few tons at most. With only simple programming and low payload space they make poor units for dogfights but their extremely low cost and space requirements make them useful and expendable scouts. They can also be armed with smart missiles or other weapons that allow them some capacity to perform air support, in which case their long loiter time makes them a godsend to ground units in the vicinity.
- Cost 1 points
Tactical Air Squadron
Depending on armament and protective devices, tactical aircraft can be anything from fighters, to interceptors, to tactical bombers or even heavy gunships or transport VTOLs. Universally useful, tactical air units are by far the most common type of air support. Often deployed from space, only a few rare designs have any capacity to claw their way back, so the vast majority are equipped with VTOL systems so they can land on even makeshift airstrips.
- Cost 2 points
Strategic Air Squadron
Commonly either found as dropships or heavy bombers, strategic air are larger and more expensive, and often equipped with engines that allow them to fly from ground to orbit, to take on a new load of supplies or soldiers, strategic airpower is a critical component in any offensive military action. Being capable of lifting heavier vehicles, unlike tactical transport VTOLs, strategic airpower is also a vital component for a defender who does not wish to face down main battle tanks with merely infantry-launched missiles and prayers.
- Cost 4 points
Spaceborne Military Units
Infantry
Espatier Battalion
- Espatiers are 'space infantry' and are the space-borne version of terrestrial marines. While standard infantry are frequently used to occupy larger space stations and habitats, smaller space stations, zero-gee environments and asteroids require more specialised infantry. Equipped in vacuum capable power armor and armed with a variety of weapons from low-penetrative slugthrowers to heavier railguns Espatiers are trained to assault a variety of space targets.
"Espatiers are not space marines. Space isn't a ocean, it's a three dimensional environment which requires a complex understanding of physics and inertia. The 3rd Republic recruits almost exclusively from spacers because it cuts the training time in half. Don't compare us to marines unless they start fighting underwater" Lt Psyllus, 2nd Espatier Division of the 3rd Jupiter Republic
- Cost: 2 Point
Spacecraft
Military spacecraft in Heaven's Wake rely on salvaged hulls and apex technology from the golden era, as many polities are unable to produce the required components and superstructure for warfighting vessels. These come from vast graveyards of derelict vessels, some tombs others hastily abandoned when the apex technology underpinning vital functions failed to function, or stranded by non-functioning t-gates.
Spacecraft have hardpoints for weapons, generic modules are various abilities and engineering modules for either reactors or drives. Every ship needs at least one reactor and drive. Why pick one over the other? Reactors allow for more sustained acceleration burns, while having more drives allows for higher accelerations. It's the difference between endurance and 'speed'.
Hulls
Light Hull
2 Hardpoints
2 Generic Modules
2 Engineering Modules
Medium Hull
4 Hardpoints
4 Generic Modules
2 Engineering Modules
Heavy Hull
6 Hardpoints
6 Generic Modules
4 Engineering Modules
Superheavy Hull
8 Hardpoints
8 Generic Modules
6 Engineering Modules
Combat Wasps Launchers
Combat is primarily fought with Combat Wasps, large remote piloted or autononous drones, with their own small independant drives, submunitions of various types.
Combat wasps are able to perform both Attack and Defense roles. Combat wasps can either be programmed to lock-on to and target a specific ship or object, or to engage enemy targets at will. They are a variety of types, listed below.
X Beam Weapon
These expensive drones are armed with powerful Beam Weapons (Particle Beams or Energy Beams) and are basically flying guns. Very short ranged weapons, they are nevertheless useful as at close range they can easily punch through the hull of a starship. At longer ranges they will cause minor damage. These weapons can be placed in a defensive role to pick off any hostile wasps before they get to close to any friendly ships.
X Kinetic Missile Wasp
These drones are armed with a series of tubes containing pieces hardened matter shaped into a spear or harpoon shape. These harpoons are launched from the wasp and accelerated to a very very high velocity. If they are able to strike a target, the resulting kinetic force that is released will severely damage the target.
X Electronic Warfare Wasps
Although most wasps will have some sort of inbuilt ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) device or decoy chaff dispensers, this particular wasp if specially designed for this role. On the space battle field, it's role is to confuse enemy wasps into targeting decoys and sensor ghosts, or making them explode at the wrong time.
X Thermo-Nuclear Wasp
These wasps are armed with a thermo-nuclear warhead and are the most common form of wasp. Designed to get in close, before unleashing their submunition of bombs or nuclear torpedoes they are highly devastating.
Spacecraft Generic Modules
+X Electronic Warfare Module
+X Combat Wasp Rack Module
+X Point Defence Module
+X Armour Module
+1 Crew Recovery Module
+X Cargo Module(Define as Inert/Fuel/Living)
+X Command Module
+X Detachable Drive Module
+X Additional Thruster Module
+X Enhanced Deploy and Recover Module
Spacecraft Engineering Modules
Reactors
Reactors power the ship, the better and more reactors you have, the more effective the ship is. Combat Wasps can be launched more frequently with better reactors, as you can charge them quicker. Drone carriers tend to prioritise reactors over propulsion
+X Basic Nuclear Fission Reactor:
+X Advanced Nuclear Fission Reactor
+X Basic Nuclear Fusion Reactor
+X Advanced Nuclear Fusion Reactor
+X Apex Fusion Reactor (Apex Tech Only)
Propulsion
These determine the speed of your vessel in normal space.
+X Nuclear Saltwater Torch Drive: 0.5X
+X Nuclear Liquid Core Torch Drive: 1X
+X VASIMR Drive Drive: 1.5X
+X Reactionless Drive: 2X
+X Anti-matter Torch Drive: 2.5X