The Raven RepublicOriginal content by members of the Raven Republic
Hint: There is a mistletoe in the picture, look for it and you’ll know where to kiss… Anyway, as RR is slowly trying to be active again, our resident illustrator Trace has made another mind-blowingly awesome rendition of RR’s cover girl Sophie Emilia. Sophie wishes everyone an advanced Merry Christmas! She just keeps looking better and better.
Thanks Trace :D.
Welp, it’s that time of the year. Raven Republic was founded on August 13, 2006. We couldn’t resist posting a new colored Sophie Emilia picture to commemorate this event, drawn and colored yet again by the very talented Trace 02. RR’s cover girl still looks as fresh as ever. With all the events and meetings RR’s members have been through, we all hope to expect RR to stay around much longer.
Happy Birthday RR!
When it comes to missile technology, From Software has developed a twisted knack for finding all sorts of creative ways to screw us over. If you’re dodging the four-pronged assault of the Hydra, then you’re either evading Death-From-Above from a Mortar Rocket, or the slow, impending doom (and mushroom cloud) that follows from touching a Titan.
Up until a certain point of Armored Core, sniper rifles were something of the neglected child of the rifle family. While they dished out absurd amounts of damage and had incredible range, their small lock boxes and slow firing rate made them nearly useless at medium to close range, which is where most AC fights happen.
So there they sat in the shops, unwanted, unloved, until From Software hit upon two changes that suddenly made it a very, very bad idea to bumrush anybody packing them. The first were left-arm mounts, which allowed users to expand the SR’s miniscule lockbox by synergizing it with the much larger lockbox of handguns in the left hand.
From its long barrel, heavy weight, and its modest ammo capacity, the Sniper Cannon might lead you into thinking that it’s just another member of Armored Core’s Grenade Launcher family. But while they may look alike, the SC and the GL are entirely different weapons in how they introduce your demise.
While rifles, bazookas, and shotguns are the most common hardware pilots will arm their AC’s with, that doesn’t necessarily mean these weapons dominate the realm of whoop-assery during a fight. In fact, some guys are more afraid of these guns AFTER they run out of ammo.
That’s because they know that all those grenade blasts and bazooka shells that have battered them within an inch of their AC’s life are just a prelude, an opening act, and that the minute their enemy drops all that heavy weaponry, the real ass-kicking begins.
There are two weapons in Armored Core that quads are almost never without (pre-AC4, at least): Grenade Launchers, and Railguns. We’ve already covered the ass-kicking abilities of the Grenade Launcher, so we’ll be focusing our attention on the latter.
Being a track-based AC in Armored Core has several advantages, one of them being the ability to mount and fire some of the game’s biggest back-mounted cannons while you’re on the ground, and in the air.
In fact, some weapons only really kick you in the balls when they’re mounted on treads. And no other weapon best exemplifies this than the chain gun, at least during their heyday in Armored Core 3. Feared for their combination of shot velocity, stopping power, and rate of fire, the chain gun was like a machine gun on steroids.