Athena's Gear
Deus Ex Machina
Arache
| Class: |
Heavy Gear |
| Height: |
~22m (ground to top turrent); 31m maximum. |
| Weight: |
31 tons |
| Weapons: |
Turret, Artillery, Lasers |
| Ground Speed: |
179 km/hr |
| Air Speed: |
N/A |
| Gear: |
Arachne: Arachnid Class. Occasionally, she will
pilot other gears when Arachne (being an artillery gear) is
inappropriate for the job. Much of the time, in fact, Elly
does not pilot the gear herself, opting to man the large turret
on the top of the gear.
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| Gear Description: |
Her gear is a six-legged machine that moves along
the ground like a daddy-longlegs spider. The legs come out
from the sides of the body, extend into the air and come back
down again (forming a triangular peak). As compared to the
legs, the body is rather small. The body of the gear is
equipped with one 260mm turret on the top and a long-range pod
launcher just above the cockpit. On the rear of the gear is a
large barrel that sticks straight up into the air: this is the
artillery weapon. Black Widow uses aturret laser in the front
if she needs shorter range attacks.
The entire gear is painted black and has a foreboding,
dangerous look to it. It is a very intimidating gear, as it
looks like a moving claw over the ground that rises menacingly
over smaller gears.
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| Class: |
Heavy-Attack Gear: Heavy Artillery and Support Fire.
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| Primary Function: |
All-Terrain Artillery Weapon: long-range bombardment on heavily-defended outposts. Her gear is packed with powerful weapons, but their slow rates of fire and the large radius of damage force her to stay out of close-range combat. Athena usually softens up her opponents from long- range as her Strike Team charges in and finishes them off.
The gear is not meant to be a "Mercenary Gear", or a gear that is strong all-round and can be used in long, extensive single-gear battles. It was built as a deadly war machine and was meant to work in tandem with other Strike Groups.
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| Weapons: |
(** I got a lot of this information from a Compendium of Tank, Self-propelled artillery, and heavy-artillery weapons based from World War II to the Moderm Times. Of course, I scaled them to be larger to match the immense size of a gear (to a gear, a 100mm cannon is probably a simple shoulder rifle). The characteristics of the cannon and artillery are based off of modern weapons: their power, in relation to other gears, is not exaggerated.)
Athena uses a mounted 260mm turret, two medium turret lasers on the front and back, and a 309mm artillery piece.
The turret is a large, 260mm turret which fires a large slug that is capable of
penetrating a whopping 1280mm of armour. On average, this is enough to destroy an equivalent- weight gear with a direct shot, or, at least, to severely damage the opponent (the gun will easily knock off a gear's arms or legs, and it will certainly knock a gear off of its feet with no trouble at all). Athena can get a relatively decent rate of fire from the weapon (she gets off about a shot every five to seven seconds) and its range is good. The problem is that to get any effective aiming from the turret without a properly timed shot, an additional gunner is required; usually, this isn't a large problem. In addition, due to the natural fact that it is harder to hit a moving target, and that a computer cannot track it from the range at which the cannon is usually fired, lessen the gigantic cannon's effectiveness. It has an extremely difficult time hitting small gears, and thus, Athena tends to focus on eliminating heavy and assault gears (or ships and other slow moving targets). The recoil of the cannon is also extremely heavy, and cannot be easily fired if Arachne is missing more than two legs.
The artillery piece suffers from the disadvantage that it requires an external crew to reload it; it is not a self- loading weapon and Athena does not use it in most battles. If she chooses not to use it she can detach it from her gear. However, if she does use it, she usually has a small team of light gears tagging behind her, reloading the weapon. It is an extremely long-range weapon and has massive destructive power; its explosive range will destroy light and medium gears with little trouble at all, and it will certainly put a large dent in the smooth operation of larger gears. However, if the cannon's hit percentage is considered average at best, then the accuracy of the artillery piece is extremely pathetic; but being a long-range weapon targeting densely fortified outposts, accuracy is not of the largest concern. As with all heavy artillery, this weapon is used to soften heavily-defended areas from long range before the mobile strike forces move in.
In close-range combat (which she tries to stay out of), she uses either her front legs (which can pick up average-sized gears and throw them while she balances on her four other legs) or her laser. Compared to the other weapons, the laser is quite useless and are meant as a last resort should she be nearly defeated.
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| Abilities, Diabilities: |
The gear is actually rather agile for its size, and can not only move forwards and backwards, but also left and right without having to turn. Being six-legged, it has a much easier time moving over rough terrain like hills and deserts. It is also heavily armoured, being a command gear. A part of cockpit is equipped with wheels, and it can detach itself from the rest of the gear and move around like a car, but this leaves Arachne totally unusable. This feature is only put in place to protect the life of the commander.
However, the gear lacks close-combat ability and is tuned only for long-range support fire: if any gear closes in on her, Athena usually stands no chance in defending herself. However, there are different configurations of the Arachne's chassis (the chassis is known as the Arachnid) that are equipped with close-combat weapons. Athena prefers this configuration, however, because of its power and usability: the combination of large artillery-scale weapons, combined with smaller, faster gears is often deadly against unprepared foes.
Arachne has poor Ether Amplification, as her Ether Powers would not be able to stretch as far as her other weapons do. If Athena wishes to use her Ether (and she usually doesn't), then she uses another gear.
The body houses only the engine, the fuel tank and the cockpit, and although the gear's body is relatively small as compared to the area of a regular gear, the legs are not as heavily armoured as the body. The legs are prone to damage if they are exposed to too much firepower. Although she can still move after losing up to three legs, she cannot fire her cannon or artillery piece because the recoil is too great and would likely rip the rest of the legs off. In more than one instance, Arachne's legs were damaged and she was rendered unmovable; she had to rely on the rest of her Strike Team to get her out of the mess.
Alone, Arachne is not a very powerful gear, but when combined with the power of assault gears, the maneuverability of the light gears, and the all-round usefulness of the medium attack gears, Arachne rounds out the group with its ability to attack from behind her allies.
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| Acquired From: |
Athena started piloting regular two-legged gears at first, but as a volunteer to test a new type of six-legged gear, she grew rather attached to the idea of using six legs in battle. Arachne is the first of the Mass Production units and although it is configured for command and support fire, the general chassis of the gear, Arachnid, remains the same and it would not be surprising to see more gears like it from Kislev in the future.
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Access Athena's Full P-sheet in Plain Text (39 K)
Access Athena's Condensed P-sheet in Plain Text (8 K)
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