 |
Intel
The War
Pelao was nothing more than a poor island nation before corporations began moving their VA research and manufacturing there to take advantage of business incentives offered by the island's government. The Pelaoan government soon realized they had an opportunity to become a world power and formed the Central Pelaoan Coalition (CPC) to forcibly take control of all VA facilities on the island.The world responded by creating the Alliance
Defense
Force (ADF).
A joint operation between
many different countries, their goal is simply to depose the dangerous
CPC
regime.
Vertical Armor
Each side immediately began their own Vertical Armor Research and Development effort, each producing unique VAs to counter the other side's. This section outlines the VAs both sides produced over the course of the war.Central Pelaoan Coalition (CPC)
 |
Archer The first mass-produced VA, the original idea was simply to allow artillery to get to terrain that treaded/wheeled vehicles cannot go. Soon tank-sized cannons were added, and the general purpose VA was born. |
 |
Rifleman The second mass-produced VA. After the success of the Archer even in general purpose roles, a more "tank-like" VA was produced. The CPC can never create anything truly general purpose though, and decided to optionally fit the Rifleman with a long range higher power cannon that can be used for sniping armored targets from extreme distances. |
 |
Ballista With the ADF embracing VA technology, the CPC decided to take things to the next level and produce "2nd Generation" VAs. The Ballista, like the Archer before it, is based around the idea of highly mobile artillery with a nice array of secondary weapons for close-quarters combat. |
 |
Pitbull The success of the ADF's fast, close range VA's prompted the CPC to create the Pitbull. While the Pitbull is slower than the light ADF VA's, it offers much more powerful weaponry and much more armor. |
 |
Citadel The backbone of the CPC's forces is the cheaply produced, lightly armored artillery VA. The Citadel is the complete opposite of this: incredibly heavily armored, sporting the largest artillery cannon every produced, this VA is so expensive that the CPC can only produce one every 6 months. Many ADF pilots consider its existence questionable due to the lack of sightings on the battlefield. The Achilles’ heel of the Citadel is its lack of close-range weaponry, but this was actually by design. The designers figured even if enemy forces were able to get within its giant artillery minimum range, the armor will hold out long enough for lighter forces (Pitbull, Rifleman, close-range equipped Ballista) to defend it. |
 |
Leviathan Intel not available. |
Alliance Defense Force (ADF)
 |
Stiletto After suffering a string of defeats due to the CPC's artillery-equipped VA's the ADF started their own vertical armor development program. The Stiletto is the first design to come from this effort, a fast and light VA equipped with short range rapid fire weaponry. The ADF believed this design would be the perfect counter to the CPC's long range, slow moving units. |
 |
Saber The ADF's second VA design is a much more general purpose vehicle, capable of decent speed, armor and weapon loadout but not excelling in any one area. The Saber is an excellent companion to the Stiletto; it is very common to see a group of Stiletto's racing into combat causing mass chaos with a large force of Sabers close behind, ready to clean up the mess. |
 |
Claymore With VA technology advancing at an astonishing rate the ADF decided to consolidate all of their latest technology into a single mass production-capable unit, the Claymore. Meant to be a direct replacement for the Saber as well as allowing support configurations, the Claymore is one of the most versatile VAs ever produced. This VA ushered in the 2nd generation of VA designs for the ADF, able to go toe to toe with the 2nd generation CPC units. |
 |
Estoc The Estoc was developed simultaneously with the Claymore, hoping to produce a 2nd generation team that would work similarly to the Stiletto/Saber combination. This plan worked pretty well, except the ADF didn't anticipate that the CPC would change their style and produce the Pitbull. While the Pitbull did create a lot of headaches for the ADF, a good pilot in an Estoc would often defeat a Pitbull in one on one situations. As a bonus the Estoc is much cheaper to produce, creating many situations where the ADF actually outnumbered the CPC, something unheard of at the beginning of the war. |
 |
Glaive Intel not available. |
Praetoria Free Company (PFC)
The Praetoria Free Company is a mercenary group hired by the CPC towards the end of the war. They have developed their own VA designs, built to be more powerful (and expensive) than the more mundane CPC and ADF designs. |
Decay The PFC believe in a "one size fits all" strategy of VA design. When the Decay was first introduced, the CPC was still prototyping the Ballista and the 2nd generation ADF VA's were in the design phase. Due to the extreme power the Decay possesses they were very expensive to produce during the 2nd generation era, but with the PFC being a mercenary group that charged exorbitant fees this was not an issue. All PFC members were given a Decay and expected to keep it from being destroyed or captured. |
 |
Pestilence Intel not available. |