Can somebody more knowledgeable in IBO lore settle the debate on where Barbatos Lupus Rex measures up in the pantheon of Gundam? I like BLR personally but how well does the unit stack up against UC century technology??
Can somebody more knowledgeable in IBO lore settle the debate on where Barbatos Lupus Rex measures up in the pantheon of Gundam? I like BLR personally but how well does the unit stack up against UC century technology??
@Nkuzmik these are the questions that vex me as well.
One thing about UC suits is that they tend to have a variety of weapon options. The armaments section for the RX-79[G] is like a laundry list!
And that gives me an evil idea. Gouf Custom.
Also, are we talking about BLR as driven by Mikazuki "I will win, no matter how much of my body and soul I must sacrifice to the AV system" Argus? And can we cherry pick, within reason, our UC pilot? Or are we assuming both units are piloted by Joe Average?
Nanolaminate Armor are weak againts solid melee weapons in general, so the GN Blades from AD will murder them fast. We know this because the melee weapons in IBO do not have anything special added and in general they beat Nanolaminate Armor just fine.
So for IBO vs 00, it would depend on the specific suit in question. Dynames has GN Missiles onboard it as standard equipment, which can hit you can pump you with particles till explosion. Kyrios also has a Hand Missile weapon option though it's set that is rarely used but also has its shield claw. Virtue lacks a non beam weapon option though will not lose either, more of a draw. All of this assumes the Anti Beam deflection is permanant and doesn't wear off, if they do it's a different story and even easier for the 00 suits.
Cherudim loses the GN Missiles but do gain the sharp edge on the GN Pistol IIs. Arios lacks a non-beam weapons, as even it's Flight Mode claw weapon is now beam based. Same goes for Seravee.
What's worse for IBO is that 00 GN suits have long operational times and large propellants while IBO's run out of them pretty fast. In the case of Original GN Drives, they never run out of propellants at all. And we haven't even added in Trans-Am yet. Even if we replace them with Pseudo GN Drives, they should be able to outlast the IBO suits with their short propellant amount. In space the IBO MS stand no chance. On Earth it would be slightly better cos they can still jump and run in the ground agter they run out, but the existing weaknesses apply.
Tech wise the only advantage PD calendar over AD has is that they have large number/mass production of semi perpetual Ahab Reactors compared to the small number of Original Drives in 00. That and the Ahab Reactors generate real legit gravity in ships and unlike Original GN Drives are literally indestructible.
Even then the Ahab Reactors's usefulness is less in combat. Their Ahab-based thrusters may be semi perpetual and efficient but have super weak delta-v compared 00's GN Thrusters. This is why they rely on the hydrogen-based Thermal Phase Transition thrusters for most of their travel and combat. Better delta-v but super bad fuel efficiency.
Rare Metal golden material weapons and Dainsleif may possibly work but might be a long shot. Even then it's very speculative and hard to be certain cos the AD armor took a lot of hits with nary any damage. The Flags/Enacts/Hellion/etc from 00 also carry railguns as standard and that doesn't do anything either although the Dainsleif will outpower those.
The only IBO MS weapon that I can be reasonably certain that can do damage do to GN-based armor would be Astaroth Origin's Nanolaminate Blade. It more or less works like a GN Blade though the technology was really buggy and never perfected, even before it was lost to time. But it is the only weapon in the calendar that is confirmed to use Ahab Particles. IBO beam weapons should also reasonably work also in theory but we do not know whether IBO MS can even theoretically use them, let alone one with it in it's official equipment set.
Nano laminate is weaker against kinetic attacks, but we see suits in IBO take some pretty brutal hits. I figure nanolaminate would hold up to UC ballistic weapons at least as well as the GP01 did when Cima was beating the crap out if it, but maybe not quite as well as the Celestial being Gundams held up to repeated hits from the GN-X's. The only reason I question the durability of GN blades is that they are designed to us the particle action to do the lion's share of the cutting. How much of the blade's volume is given over to GN "stuff" versus big slabs of structural metal? And if the particles are doing the work, then there is a wisdom in making the blades lighter so they can be quicker. I wouldn't expect them to just shatter or bend, but in say Exia v an IBO Gundam, I wouldn't be shocked if at least one of the 3 GN blades was damaged by the end of the fight. Versus Gusion? Now I'd start wondering if the blades will give out before all that armor does.
The ground combat scenario doesn't help the IBO suits too much. A GN powered opponent will almost always be able to maintain distance. Having gravity and ground to work with, the IBO suits have some very impressive footwork options and as long its a melee fight, footwork is half the battle.
Cherudim still packs 4 missile pods.
The propellant issues in IBO stem from very real physics. Apologies to anyone who's played KSP. One metric of rocket efficiency is "specific impulse." An engine with high specific impulse will give you a relatively weak thrust, but with a long burn duration. This actually results in a high delta-V. Think ion-drives. A low specific impulse engine gives you ALL the thrust but for a very short period of time, but with a relatively low total delta-v. For example, the shuttle's SRB's. Huge power to weight ratio, but relatively short burn, and you get a relatively modest delta-v. If you put it into a tortis and hare paradigm, you wouldn't be far off. There are some more subtleties, but that is close enough for this conversation.
Interesting.
Another matchup that would suck for most units from IBO? Tallgeese.
Lets look at the iron triangle for a moment.
Maneuverability: HAHAHAH F-you. No.
Armor: It's a brick so it will take multiple hits to put it down
Weapons: Concentrated Dober rifle hits were able to hurt a Gundam.
The GN Blades are designed to work just fine without the particles. The MG Exia manual mentioned the GN Particle effects can be turned off and sword used as is, if particle savings were needed.
Even then, they are not beams so wouldn't be affected by the Anti Beam properties of Nanolaminate Armor anyways They are seen to work in Anti Field conditions in their show just fine, where beams are diffused. So basically their extra cutting power should still apply.
Also there is also the mass reduction effects of the GN Blades. They can reduce their mass prior to midswing than turn the mass effect off after midswing for maximum force. This is best used with the GN Buster Sword but should work also with Exia's GN Sword. This will help them swing easier/faster although the benefits of this will get smaller with lighter and smaller swords.
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On the topic of GN Blade sizes:
The advantage of the smaller solid GN swords in 00 is that they require less space to swing to reach effective momentum. An example of this in Episode 3 where Exia couldn't get enough momentum going to damage Sergei's Tieren while it's head was being held, so it switched to its Beam Dagger. Presumably the advantage of the larger solid blades would be that final force dealt to target will be higher, given enough space and opportunity to swing it.
While they are a lot of redundancies, Exia's equipment is designed to give it a lot of melee options on different situations.
Beam Sabers are noted to be succeptable to atmospheric conditions, while also vulnerable to beam diffusion techniques the blocs might develope. For the latter, Celestial Being developed the Beam Dagger (Mode) which is the same amount of power concentrated into a smaller size and thus harder to diffuse.
Solid GN Blades are primarily there as Anti-Gundam measures especially with GN Fields. They sped their developement up after the original Virtue Physical plan was dropped since Exia would be the only Anti-GN Field unit left.
Didn't realize GN blades were designed for use while turned off. But Nanolaminate isn't just anti beam. It offers kinetic defense as well. The Handwavium as to why guns and missiles are only somewhat effective, while a sword or a mace is more effective is kinda thin but whatever.
Yeah some extra kinetic defense is more or less the extent of it outside of the anti beams. Not enough to last againts GN Blades for long though given that they are also melee, have the further enchancement and the Nanolaminate will also scrape fairly fast after repeated bullet hits on one spot (like in Episode 5).
On the melee thing, they never explain why "strike" (打撃 da geki) weapons are effective againts them. Maybe it is better at disrupting the Ahab Particle effects or something?
The only other weakness we know is that napalm rounds can also melt them with repeated hits. Although the degree of it's increased damage potential relative to normal rounds/explosions is also not specified.
I used to get wound up about stuff like that until I heard an interview with JMS, where he said that B5 ships "fly at the speed of plot." I started taking a much more Doylist view after that. I'll go with an IP's internal logic and rules until they start to break down, after which point I just chalk it up to "writers aren't scientists/engineers."
What do you think?