Mobile Armors don't really seem cost effective, and it seems

Because they never foresee (psychic) children piloting their own proto-type, and are not build for one vs one combat.

They usually work spectacularly against the majority of the armies that they fight... Save for one special snowflake.

>>14974552
Shiro wasn't a child and he wasn't psychic. He just had incredible DEM on his side. There's no reason why the Apsalus shouldn't have simply won against him and flew off to Solomon other than PLOT

>>14974568
I forgot to factor in crazy/insane/traitor pilots on Zeon's side. Those are never factored into production either.

If two sane loyal Zeon pilots had been piloting it, there would have been much less issue with the whole situation

>>14974536
Silver Bullet syndrome.

Wonder weapons were huge in World War II, which is the type of war that 0079 is about. Both sides made them to at least some extent, but the Nazis are much more famous for theirs. Some of them, like the train cannon, even worked a little, enough for them to keep chasing that silver bullet to win the war >>14974610 is talking about.

Later factions keep building them either because it's Zeon tradition or because they have lots of resources and relatively few pilots, so putting an ace pilot in a machine that can theoretically do the work of ten is a better use of the constraining factor.

The other reason, of course, is that mobile armors are big and intimidating, which helps raise tension.

>>14974536
>Mobile Armors don't really seem cost effective, and it seems like mortality rates for pilots goes up when there's one involved as opposed to a standard mobile suit, so why do Zeon, Crossbone Vangaurd, etc keep producing them?

So Sunrise has an excuse to dump another OYW OVA on its die hard cooks and rake in the money.
Otherwise there is simply no in-universe justification for the mobile armours.
The entire raison d'être of mobile suits is to be anti capital warship weapons.

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The Big Rang seemed pretty cost effective, considering an Engineer and not an actual experienced pilot was piloting it.

Dozel Zabi
Iron Mask
Four
Ple Two
Lalah
Gato
Quess
And the list keeps going, so its safe to say if you pilot a mobile armor your gonna die

>>14974761
As opposed to what? A MS?

Scirocco
Haman
Puru
Char
Chronicle

They all died in MS

If we want to be really specific here: unless you're a Newtype piloting the Gundam, you can die.

Neo Zeong is gonna win the war for itself if it didn't face the two Unicorns.

>>14974783
I think they were trying to say that mobile armors are so high risk because the combination of firepower and sheer size makes them a higher priority target than a grunt ms, so say a squad of zakus due to numbers and low target priority pilots would have a higher survival rate than a single mobile armor and it's pilot

>>14975280
>Neo Zeong is gonna win the war for itself if it didn't face SOREDEMO.

>>14974536
>why do Zeon, Crossbone Vangaurd, etc keep producing them?

Because their spacenoids which means they're sub-human morons.

>>14975361
Indeed.

>>14975361

> everyone quick to point out Feddie plot armor in taking it down despite it's success and advantages
> forgets it only has that success because it has reams of plot armor itself preventing any enemy from using anything but missiles on it despite missiles demonstrably being a bad idea

>>14974536
Some MAs do a pretty big amount of shit before they go down. Like I remember Neue Ziel doing a whole load of damage (and taking out the Dendrobium) before it went down, and while Zeong was a bad fit for Char it did take out a shitload of grunts.

>>14975412
Dude please, what are they going to destroy it with?

It even has those psychoframe aura thing that heats up and destroys weapons.

>>14975495

>Zeong took out a shitload of grunts

He woulda done that in a gelgoog too though.

>>14975532
Arguably yes, but "one guy in an MS that looks like every other MS on the battlefield took out a bunch of guys" is shit in war compared to "JESUS SOME GIANT NO LEGGED FUCK IS TEARING UP OUR LINES HELP"

>>14975520

Wait, I made a mistake, they weren't all firing missiles, they were all firing beam cannons despite them not working repeatedly.

> Sir, the beam cannons aren't working
> Well just fire more beams - that'll surely work
> What? We've got like machine guns and missiles we could at least try
> NO! MORE BEAMS! WE'RE OBVIOUSLY JUST NOT BEAMING HARD ENOUGH

> psycoframe aura thing that heats up and destroys weapons

Putting aside that no-one ever deploys anything but beams against it what are you on about?

Also, having just re-watched both the movie and TV version it's kind of notable that while the Big Zam is really strong against ships it's shit against mobile suits and there's really nothing special about Amuro and Sleggar's assault that would render it invincible against other mobile suit pilots. The worst part about it going by the animation is it's intimidation factor, but the damage it was wreaking and the fact they were soldiers is enough for Sleggar to negate that. Once they actually fly at it they make the approach with no problems and while Sleggar is killed by one of the toe missiles, he's in a fighter rather than a suit so has less maneuverability compared to even a GM. Amuro avoids them with ease and it's not even implied to be a newtype thing or something special to the Gundam that lets him do it. If it was mass produced it might cost a few GMs to take down each one, but I really don't see why it wouldn't be possible for 2 or 3 GMs working together to take individual ones down. Especially when any mass produced version probably wouldn't be nearly as strong as the prototype one Dozle pilots going by how these things normally work in Gundam.

The Neue Ziel was a great success. Operation Stardust was a success thanks to it, it killed a boatload of mobile suits and half a fleet, was capable against a gundam mobile armor, and it's destruction was a mutual kill as he rammed a federation cruiser in his last moments.

I bet that zeon groups kept building them afterwards in the hope of having the next Neue Ziel. No idea why they never build more of this beast.

>>14975552
I don't see how Neo Zeong can destroy beam weapons but cannot destroy missiles.

>>14975554
Cuz the director of 0083 never worked on more Gundam series.

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>>14975552
>>14975567
The Silver Bullet used 2 missiles against it and it doesn't fucking phase it.

>>14975562
>>14975573

Oh, my apologies, I thought the original post (>>14975361) was on about the Big Zam for some reason, and not the Neo Zeong it was so readily apparently on about.

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>buld mobile armor
>send it out, probably alone
>it takes down a half dozen battleships and a heaping helping of nameless grunts, then dies to a protagonist

How much more can you expect from one machine?

>>14974577
>If two sane loyal Zeon pilots had been piloting it, there would have been much less issue with the whole situation
Pretty much, the whole point of the Apsalus being built was to make a weapon to destroy Jaburo.

And you know what, it would've worked if it weren't for those meddling kids... did you see what it's Mega Particle cannon did? It blew a hole straight through a mountain range. Mobile armours tend to be more like mobile weapons platforms, if Zeon had the resources to actually guard them instead of being sent out alone things would've been a lot different.

>>14978774
This is why I hate Gundam, Zeon always has those wonderful weapons that can win the war, yet it's always stopped by the human error.

If only every Zeon pilots are Anavel Gato and Shin Matsunaga.

>>14978499

Would "actually win the war" be too much to ask for?

>>14974730
The Big Rang conceptually was a terrible idea, as it essentially comprimised the entire purpose of the Bigros design and purpose by turning it from a fast and hard hitting blitzkrieg unit into a stationary resupply and attack platform.

With all of that said and noted, the Big Rang did as well as it did due to how many of the machines quirks ended up serving as counters to many of the Federations tactics at A.Boa.Qu.

Anti Beam Smoke screen= Battleship and GM's can't damage the Big Rang from afar.

Oggo support= Ball's can't effectively pick off the Big Rang and GM's cant afford to get to close to it.

Mega Partical cannon= Long range warfare from battleships missiles are rendered useless as long as the cannon is functioning.

Basically with all of these noted, it ended up being a really solid weapon for the time and place. Just horribly impractical for any other occasion.

>>14974536
I just love how the Apsalus just has a normal-ass zaku head in the middle of all that bulk.

Whenever I think about mobile armors and resources I come back to the Neo Zeong. The cost for the red paint alone could probably bankrupt a small nation

Japan loves monster of the week. What do you start introducing once standard mobile suits are no longer a believable threat to the MC?

The Ball is doctrinally a light MA, and Brigros were deployed in large numbers to good effect.

Large specialist MAs do die, but they generally die with a 70:1 KDR versus MS and ships to some plot armor assface.

>>14978787

When there are protagonists running around, yeah.

>>14979092
Hell, imagine what Lalah's ratio would have been had the Feds not had a Newtype of their own in the right place at the right time.

>>14978925

If it's proven to work, why waste the resources trying to re-invent the wheel?

Still, probably would've been cheaper just to have regular cameras all around the thing.

>>14978901
well to be fair even though I don't recollect it doing it(although it's been years since I last saw IGLOO), I'm pretty sure the Bigro part of the Big Rang could probably detach itself from the larger body if needed(and thus regain it's mobility)

also if we want to talk effectiveness, in all likelihood the Elmeth and the Zeong are probably the most effective of the Mobile Armors(yeah technically the Zeong is an MS, but it's closer to an MA in role) that reach any amount of production(at least one other Elmeth is deployed towards the end of the OYW, and of course the Zeong had several other units in varying stages of completion, although they never see usage), the Elmeth if it weren't for Amuro would have probably ended up being something the Federation would not be able to defeat, and going off Char's performance in the Zeong, again without interference from Amuro, he probably could have crippled the Federation's assault on A Baoa Qu to the point where Zeon could have potentially won the battle(although they would have probably still have to abandon the fortress and retreat back to Side 3)

>>14978925
it's not even the only MA to do that, the Rhinoceros also uses a Zaku head and torso as it's core block

>>14978925
Well it was pretty much cobbled together out of multiple Zaku parts to begin with, which is why they had so much trouble to begin with trying to keep it airborne and weapons capable with goofy generators.