Landmates

by Richard Pieri (ratinox@CCS.NEU.EDU)

Landmates are advanced combat exoskeletons designed for various purposes, from heavy combat to scouting. Below are the details and specifications for different Landmate models.

What are landmates?

The word Landmate comes from a series of comics called Appleseed, a Japanese comic translated into English. In the comic, these bots are used in the fields of law enforcement and military defense (and offense, of course).

I’ll try to describe what they look like, but to get a better idea, you could buy a few of the issues or better yet, you could find one of the Japanimation videos to see the Landmates in action.

Landmates vary in size, but on average, they are about 8 or 9 feet tall and about 3-4 feet across. They look imposing and much like a multi-segmented bug. They have two arms, two legs, one head, and one set of rabbit ears. These look much like rabbit ears and contain extra sensors. The rabbit ears can move around, great for peeking around corners! Just beneath the big robot arms, there are two stumps about the length of normal man-sized arms. Here lies the control mechanism of the ‘mate. When a pilot is using a ‘mate, he sits in the thing more than wears it. And the pilot’s arms slide into the stumps like sleeves on a jacket. Thus, when a pilot moves his arm around in a circle, the ‘mate senses the movement in the stump, and that movement is reflected in the movement of the large robotic arm.

Also, note that the stumps double the movement. That is, when a pilot moves his arm one inch, the robot arm moves two. You can see then that the Landmates are very quick! This may seem confusing at first, and to visualize it perfectly, you may want to track down a picture of one of these things. Anyway, a pilot boards a ‘mate by speaking a phrase into an external speaker, which is then analyzed, and if found to be correct, the Landmate opens up to allow boarding. You get into a ‘mate much the same way Ripley got into the big yellow cargo hauler in Aliens. Then you speak another command, and the armor shuts around you again. Got it?

Landmate stats

These stats are fairly rough and almost totally unplaytested. That is because I never really intended for the players to get one of these things! Feel free to fudge the stats during gameplay if they die too quickly (see also the new damage track for Landmates).

• HANDLING: As in the basic game.
• SPEED: Speed in kilometers per hour (not meters per combat turn). The number after the slash is airspeed.
• ARMOR: The rating in vehicular armor that the ‘mate has.
• SIGNATURE: As in the basic game.
• STR: The strength that a ‘mate pilot has access to for lifting and hand-to-hand combat damage.
• HP/FP: The number of hardpoints and firmpoints that come standard.

Note: All ‘mates can carry one specially designed (and very large) weapon in their hands. This does not count against the HP/FP total.

Type         Handling    Speed    Body/Armor  Signature  Str   HP/FP  
Guges           5          75         4/6         5      14     1/2  
Interface       6        75/100       4/3         7       9     0/2  
Marshal         4          60         4/0         4      10     0/2  
Jackrabbit      6         200         3/0         5       7     0/2  
Mageversion     same      same       -2/-1       -2     same    same   

The Guges (say Goo-yooze) is the standard heavy combat model, the Interface is an air-to-air fighter, the Marshal is the standard patrol model, the Jackrabbit is a scout system, and the Mageversion has a clear faceplate to allow a mage to throw spells. Standard features on all models include:

• Hewlett-Packard onboard computer (25mp)
• Four forward, one rear, and two rabbit-ear sensor systems, including:
  • Smartgun
  • Enhanced hearing
  • Lowlight
  • Rangefinder
  • Thermographic
  • Other customizable options
• Ultrasound
• Audio and video camera with uplink
• Audio and visual surge dampers
• Megaphone/external speakers/microphones
• Environmental controls (airtight seal, cooling, heating)
• Two telephone/12 radio channels
• Tracker signal

Landmate-specific weapons

These weapons are designed exclusively for Landmates and may not function on other vehicles. Handheld weapons are held in Landmate hands, not human-sized hands, as they are too heavy for mere humans.

Name                Type   Conc.  Ammo     Damage      Mount  
LM Laser           Sniper    X     40      8D4/12M8      HP  
Vidicator megagun   HMG      X  200(belt)  10S2/6M2      HP  
Panther rifle      cannon    X     50      10D4/5S2   hand held  
MI26 Machine Rifle  MMG      X     50      12S3/6M2   hand held  
Net Gun              X       3     8          X          FP  
Ares LM-LMG         LMG      X     80      9S5/-      hand held

Weapon notes

All normal weapons can be mounted on the FP or HP with the usual recoil modifications. Only specially designed weapons can be held in the hands. All others add +4 to the target number when attempting any action, including a quickness check to reload.

Brief adventure ideas

(How I used them in my game)

Here’s what I did with them. Feel free to adapt as you wish. Actually, I wouldn’t recommend this adventure, but you did ask for it…

I introduced Landmates as a crackdown on crime. Marshals started patrolling the streets. The premise was sort of like Robocop, but there were lots of them, and they had humans inside. Anyway, my runners started intercepting shipments of Landmate bits, rubberized foot pads, strangely large pistol grips, packets of stickers reading “This establishment protected by Landmates,” and the like. Finally, after some preliminary runarounds (to get them interested), they were hired for a simple sabotage mission. The only problem was that both Lone Star and the new Landmates were going to be in the general area of the sabotage mission!

As it turned out, here is what was happening: Ares Macrotech and Mein Zone Ind. (more on them later) were attempting to outbid Lone Star for security control of Seattle. A presentation of the Landmate technologies was to take place, followed by a demonstration of existing Lone Star tech. To make a long story short, Lone Star failed miserably (due in large part to the successful sabotage mission against their Citymasters and weapons!), and Landmates were instituted to clean up the streets of Seattle. Now the runners find themselves with an interesting dilemma: fight the Landmates and support their old enemies, Lone Star? Or perhaps they would prefer to move to California Free State or somewhere else more friendly! Anyway, that is about as far as the adventure got before I decided to bag it. The escalation was just too much.

Read this before you flame

Whoa, before you start, realize that I have already considered the many geopolitical effects Landmates would have and did not factor them into this short adventure. I have also declined to comment on the necessary tech that may or may not be available in 2050 to make Landmates possible. Anyway, the premise is kind of neat, so I would say go ahead and use them, but maybe in a war-blasted battlefield or some other combat scenario, perhaps a kind of new world war? Any comments or criticism would be great, but constructive, please! I would also love to hear how other game groups might use the Landmates!