Anyone here remember Renegade Legion?

[Connor MacLeod]

I do. I never played the game officially, but I was exposed to the flight sim game (which I admit wasnt all that great) but thought the background material and universe was grgeat and well set up (better than the SW EU at least.)

Anyone else? I've been kinda interested in analyzing it maybe as a braek from 40K, but I'm having a hard time digging up material. Is this something someone else might like to see.??

[The Cooler King]

Renegade Legion kicked ass. A friend of mine introduced me to the tank combat game, Centurion, while we were playing Battletech. I quickly grew to like the combat system (each weapon had a specific template that gnawed armor away piece by piece). The background, as usual for FASA at the time, was pretty cool and reasonably detailed.

[Drooling Iguana]

I thought the game was pretty good, although I hadn't played anything like X-Wing or Wing Commander at the time. I liked how you had to manage fatigue on the pilots and maintenance on the ships. Also, the Avenger kicks ass.

Never played the tabletop game. At the time I didn't even know there was one.

[Imperial Overlord]

You bet your Shiva class battleship or Serene Mountain Breeze class Supercarrier I remember Renegade Legion.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Oh, yes.
There were four boxed games with additional material; Interceptor which was the first out and had most detail on the background, but which I have to admit I never really liked- didn't do much more than any of the other games out there.
Leviathan, capital ships, much the same and far too much of the ships was boilerplate- thrust ratings determined by class rather than by anything to do with the ship itself, spend a given amount on armour and you get the same thickness, regardless of the size of the rest of the ship under it.
Basically, it's Battlespace's direct ancestor, fewer and smaller contradictions, but much less intricate.
Centurion was the charm as far as I was concerned, grav tank combat that made a big issue of movement and inertia, more tactical subtlety than the others.
Prefect was the fourth, and was strategic- level, well theatre really. All are at least fifteen years out of print; I have the first three, in crap condition after this time and I got them second- hand, but where copies are to be found this late in the day- search me. And I don't have a working scanner.

For what it's worth, the numbers are not going to be that big. The fighters had power ratings based on their installed engines, subtract the power requirement of weaponry and shielding- strobing gravitic deflector- and divide what was left by the mass of the fighter in tons to get the thrust rating in 'g'.
Most fighters were in the seventy to two hundred ton range and had maximum thrust- fusion based- in single digit 'g', average 6 to 10, outliers as low as 4, as high as 15.

Weapons were not powerful enough for instant kill except in 'golden BB' cases, and I'm not sure how the power requirement for drives squares with the power required to do damage; the most powerful fighter laser drew enough to accelerate 23 tons at 1 'g', but was capable of cremating a human one and a half times over.

Capital ships massed in the hundreds of thousands up to millions of tons, and low single digit 'g' accelerations- but there was no necessary connection between power generated and thrust in that system, nor between mass and damage tolerance. The assumptions stated in the design system do not make physical sense.

Interceptor, you might get something out of. Leviathan is safer ignored. I'm not sure there ever was enough fluff and non- game mechanic material to analyse apart from that.

[Typhonis 1]

Noble Knight games has some Renegade Legion stuff as would Amazon if you look.

[Connor MacLeod]

I've only got a few things (mainly the Jacob's star manual, which seems to lift directly from the game material, and is HORRIBLY informative in terms of scale and capabilities.)

Put it bluntly, the TOG has a huge navy Hundreds of thousands of battleships, cruisers, possibly millions of other ships A couple batlteships (or I hear a BB squadron) can do a "Hard exterimantus" style attack on a planet (ocecans boiling, atmosphere blown away ,etc.)

The ground combat looks positilvey scary.

[Adrian Laguna]

There's a Renegade Legion mod for Rainbow 6: Rogue Spear: Urban Operations. It has five missions, each with its own map, unique uniforms, and a whole slew of cool weapons. The missions are pretty difficult, I found them impossible on Elite difficulty (no auto-aim), but fun because they maps are well laid-out, reasonably realistic, and the challenge posed by the enemies believable.

[Azazal]

I have Renegade Legion, the 2 source books for new ships. Centurian, the tank game and the sourse book. Levithan, capital shi combat. Prefect, plantery assult game. Plus the RPG book.

So if there is anythig you need, let me know. from gut feel and remeberbering, not quite 40k level fire power on stuff, but they could out tech and possibly out number the IOM, picture a cross between Imp Guard and Eldar.

[Typhonis 1]

Didn`t Renegade tanks enjoy having forcefields? Also you needed to paint them with a laser to time your attack to pass through said field.

[Siege]

Didn`t Renegade tanks enjoy having forcefields? Also you needed to paint them with a laser to time your attack to pass through said field.

IIRC they were gravity shields that 'flickered' real fast, hence why you could slip projectiles through.

I used to play the flight sim, which admittedly wasn't that great but still holds a soft spot in my heart because it was the first such game I ever played. Blowing imperialist TOG assholes out of the skies was a highly satisfactory experience .

[Azazal]

Didn`t Renegade tanks enjoy having forcefields? Also you needed to paint them with a laser to time your attack to pass through said field.

IIRC they were gravity shields that 'flickered' real fast, hence why you could slip projectiles through.

Very close, from what I remember the shields could stop or greatly reduce the effects of energy weapons, and would stop missiles, but high speed projectiles would blow right through them. The painting laser would let you find the flicker rate, they could not be left on all the time because they draw too much power. Once the flicker rate was know, you could time it to have your lasers and missiles hit during a down phase. Or just do like I did, ignore the shields and fire a 300mm APDS at them

I used to play the flight sim, which admittedly wasn't that great but still holds a soft spot in my heart because it was the first such game I ever played. Blowing imperialist TOG assholes out of the skies was a highly satisfactory experience .

But TOG has the best quote ever "In the battle between good and evil, evil always has more fun."

[Imperial Overlord]

I got the idea for Hethor's forehead tattoo from a magazine add for Centurian which depicted a TOG tank commander with an eagle and "Semper Fidelis" tattooed on his forehead.

[Jade Falcon]

I had a novel of Renegade Legion, but I can't remember the name.

Interceptor was scary in complexity next to a game like say, FASA's Star Trek combat game.

[consequences]

Seen it, own it, often heard to bemoan the fact that B-tech got to keep going instead of it.

[Coyote]

The best spin-off from the whole setting was Privateer, a computer game that I wish to God they'd re-issue for modern operating systems. That game rocked.

I loved the Kilrathi in the asteroid field by the Summ K'Ptah system. Send a single dinky rocket after their Dralthis and they start flying wild, trying to evade, and they slam themselves into asteroids for you. Dumbasses.

[The Yosemite Bear]

*Drops moljinor rods from the Thor sat "Democles"*

*targets enemy tank from rear with infantry*
unleashes TLVG SPAM from all directions.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Um, what?
Privateer and Privateer II were spinoffs from Origin's Wing Commander universe, and had nothing at all to do with Renegade Legion.

Privateer II was in fact a DOS game, and DOSBox should do for it- and there is a fan-production remodelled version of Privateer that works in XP. Go to wcnews.com- it's in there somewhere, under Downloads I think.


As far as I recall, the Commonwealth, Terran Overlord Government et al were low-to-middling tech, main ship to ship weaponry was huge firing grids of lasers, metres long.
If game mechanics are any guide at all, the standard Shiva class battleship can put enough energy on target to vapourise ~1000 tons of titanium a minute- on a warship target, with manoeuvring, jamming and shield effects still to be taken into account in that.

[montypython]

I don't know if I still have the CD of the PC game, got too look for it...

[Connor MacLeod]

As far as I recall, the Commonwealth, Terran Overlord Government et al were low-to-middling tech, main ship to ship weaponry was huge firing grids of lasers, metres long.
If game mechanics are any guide at all, the standard Shiva class battleship can put enough energy on target to vapourise ~1000 tons of titanium a minute- on a warship target, with manoeuvring, jamming and shield effects still to be taken into account in that.

Game mechanics seem to be more consistent/quantifiable than a great many other universes I've dealt with, but I'm still leery of using them (I'm still thinking "super science" ahoy here.)

Also bear in midn that the fluff has many examples of the TOG bombarding planets very rapidly, and the effects include "boiling (Away) oceans" and removing the atmosphere, as well as plenty of other nasty effects That's well in excess of the e26-e27 joule range of energy input even at a low end (IE ignoring inefficiencies and the side e ffects of such bombardment), which suggests they ought to be well into the TT range of firepower if not moreso.

There's also the spinal mass drivers, which hurl huge chunks of metal at relatavistic speeds (IE Nova cannon)

I'm also not entierly sure all the stats are reliable (we have multi-km ships that mass only millions of tons, mind. Even though alot of them tend towards being rather spindly, I'm not sure that it would be quite accurate Still working on that.

Tech wise, they have some bloody impressive stuff. Their ground war capabilities are easily on par with the best other universes can field. (they have powered armor, laser weapons, powerful/effective projectile weapons, integrated sensors for combat helmets, etc.)

On the civilian side, grav tech seems common/plentiful as do other high tech items - at least as plentiful as Star Wars (and moreso than places like 40K.

I won't even touch on the tanks.. (Their tanks are part gunship, part tank, with a little Bolo or baneblade thrown in.)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Is this background text from the computer game material? Impressive, if it is, but I would be wary of a lot of that being in- universe hyperbole.

There is a novel spin-off from Leviathan- Renegade's Honour, William H. Keith, which I think I have somewhere- have to dig it out and post quotes- but off the top of my head, it's not that impressive.

Essentially, it follows one small squadron as they go renegade, and get chased half- way across the TOG. The initial moment is when they refuse to take part in an extermination bombardment, which we get to see the assets assembled for and the start of.

From what I recall, it doesn't really support teraton to petaton energy firepower. The bombardment is the political sequel to a major fleet operation, so there are large numbers of units present anyway, it might be possible to do it with less- but I get the feeling TOG's too centralised for that. Any officer military or state, with the authority to order that kind of bombardment would have large forces available to do it with anyway.

It was to be a full- blown melt the land and boil the oceans bombardment, but it was to involve fifty battleships and their escorts, with substantial use of missiles, (nertial-confinement laser 'clean' fusion heads) and expected to take two days.

Later in the book, they pass by, while on the run, a gas giant that they detect strange signals from- and needing to stop for rest and repairs anyway, they investigate and find lifeforms similar to saturn rukh. Wondering what to do with them, the pilots reckon TOG would just bombard them until the atmosphere got hot enough to cook them. Jupiter- sized planet, here, they reckoned it would take weeks- for a fleet the size of which isn't mentioned, but probably around fifty ships again.

Gigaton range firepower, maybe on par with the Imperium of Man- and a lot more than the game numbers justify, true.

As far as ship size/mass goes, I'd stick with the mass. Reason being that in the design system, the mass of the ship is an established figure. Components are chosen, costed, and added up, while the length seems to come from the land of that-sounds-cool.

The mass and cost of the ship are grounded in some kind of economic model, however simplistic, and as far as I can tell the size simply isn't.

Ground combat- their most competitive edge. Numerous and efficient combined arms formations, equipped with transonic- speed multi-hundred ton grav tanks and IFVs. They definitely have a lot going for them there.

[Coyote]

Um, what?
Privateer and Privateer II were spinoffs from Origin's Wing Commander universe, and had nothing at all to do with Renegade Legion.

Say what? Seriously?

Fuck, all these years, I swore they were related. I loved Privateer and played some Wing Commander, but never looked at Renegade Legion much more than cursory glances-- they seemed to mesh well so all this time I thought they were related. Holoy cow.

Well... , I guess.

Privateer II was in fact a DOS game, and DOSBox should do for it- and there is a fan-production remodelled version of Privateer that works in XP. Go to wcnews.com- it's in there somewhere, under Downloads I think.

I once got a copy of Omega Strike or something, but it was buggy as hell and the video kept washing out, it would sieze up, etc. I'll check out your recommendation.

But since I'm talking Privateer, not RL, I'll just bow out quietly... [whistles, walks away...]

[Azazal]

Some preliminary numbers here using an online copy of the rules for Interceptor, please take with salt though, it looks like some of the number has been tweaked and may not be the same as published by FASA, I’ll try to dig out my stuff to confirm the numbers.

The Spiculum is the TOG premier front line space fighter, from the Interceptor games ship description:
“Say "fighter" to any TOG citizen and the image that immediately comes to mind is the SPICULUM. Sleek and deadly looking, the SPICULUM is a publicist's dream.
Any telecast of a battle has the obligatory shot of a SPICULUM flying through the fiery debris of an exploding Commonwealth ship. With all of this hype, cynics would
automatically assume that the SPICULUM is a mediocre fighter, but the reverse is true. The SPICULUM has tremendous acceleration, good defensive systems, good
secondary armament, and carries a considerable punch in the form of missiles.”

Going by game mechanics, the Spiculum has a max thrust of 12. A hex in game is 15 km across, and a turn is 1 minute. As such a Spiculum can accelerate 12 hexes a turn or in real terms, add 180 km a minute to its velocity, or 3 km/s. Given that the escape velocity from Earth’s surface is 11.2 km/s , not good for TOG’s premier fights, or as I like to call it, game designers not knowing physics.

For fire power, the heaviest laser used on fighters has a max effective range to 15 hexes or 225 km in combat situations, taking into account movement of attacker, target, ECM, ECCM, etc.. At that range it can due 11 points of damage to armor. I’m not seeing a listing of what the armor is made from though and for some reason FASA decided to make the weight of armor compared to points of protection based off of the total weight of fighter, or so this online copy shows, again need to check this with the original rule books. Formula is showing as “10 armour boxes = .25 % of ship's total tonnage” so a heavy fighter and a light fighter with the same armor values in game terms will have different weights of armor.

Anyhow, the rules book is showing that a heavy fighter would have 10 points of armor equal out to .6125 tons, so out laser can vaporize roughly .67375 tons of armor at 225 km. Need to verify what the armor is made from though to get an idea of how powerful said laser is.


Like I said though, let me dig up my books and see if I can get some more numbers out there.

[consequences]

Let's see, 3kps velocity gained, over the course of a minute, looks like 5 gravities to me(this is doing some fiddling, because constant thrust means there's no way it could neatly cover those 180 km in a minute and then still be moving 3 kps). Which isn't particularly great for a scifi power, but certainly allows them to get clear of a planet if they can maintain that level of thrust constantly.

[Connor MacLeod]

Some preliminary numbers here using an online copy of the rules for Interceptor, please take with salt though, it looks like some of the number has been tweaked and may not be the same as published by FASA, I’ll try to dig out my stuff to confirm the numbers.

The Spiculum is the TOG premier front line space fighter, from the Interceptor games ship description:
“Say "fighter" to any TOG citizen and the image that immediately comes to mind is the SPICULUM. Sleek and deadly looking, the SPICULUM is a publicist's dream.
Any telecast of a battle has the obligatory shot of a SPICULUM flying through the fiery debris of an exploding Commonwealth ship. With all of this hype, cynics would
automatically assume that the SPICULUM is a mediocre fighter, but the reverse is true. The SPICULUM has tremendous acceleration, good defensive systems, good
secondary armament, and carries a considerable punch in the form of missiles.”

Going by game mechanics, the Spiculum has a max thrust of 12. A hex in game is 15 km across, and a turn is 1 minute. As such a Spiculum can accelerate 12 hexes a turn or in real terms, add 180 km a minute to its velocity, or 3 km/s. Given that the escape velocity from Earth’s surface is 11.2 km/s , not good for TOG’s premier fights, or as I like to call it, game designers not knowing physics.

For fire power, the heaviest laser used on fighters has a max effective range to 15 hexes or 225 km in combat situations, taking into account movement of attacker, target, ECM, ECCM, etc.. At that range it can due 11 points of damage to armor. I’m not seeing a listing of what the armor is made from though and for some reason FASA decided to make the weight of armor compared to points of protection based off of the total weight of fighter, or so this online copy shows, again need to check this with the original rule books. Formula is showing as “10 armour boxes = .25 % of ship's total tonnage” so a heavy fighter and a light fighter with the same armor values in game terms will have different weights of armor.

Anyhow, the rules book is showing that a heavy fighter would have 10 points of armor equal out to .6125 tons, so out laser can vaporize roughly .67375 tons of armor at 225 km. Need to verify what the armor is made from though to get an idea of how powerful said laser is.


Like I said though, let me dig up my books and see if I can get some more numbers out there.

there's some fluff material (I dont remember where, this is all from skimming) that fighters carry enough hydrogen propellant to cover 4 AU to and back before running out. They're also listed as having low accels (10-15 G I think for one fighter), but that's usually with "balanced" power distribution (IE weapons, etc.)

There's also the fact that Capital ships (and their "parasites" like corvettes, ,gunboats, patrol ships) can all enter T space, and that requires accelerating up to higher speeds than 3 km/s as well (up to .5c given one source.)

As for firepower, one of the Centurion fluff bits mentions Grav Tanks carrying 10 GW lasers, and being able to withstand nuclear detonations (of an unspecified yield), so that alone tells us quite a bit about what fighters should be capable of handling (fighters can engage capital ships.)

I know that a number of the different gaming systems tend to indicate that the game data is "abstracted" somewhat (prefect does with distances.) so I'm less inclined to go by that as "definitive"