Rise of the Reds – or ROTR for short – improves upon the C&C Generals formula while also adding its own distinct elements to it. Most notably, the mod adds two completely new factions, the tank-heavy Russian Federation and the defence-oriented European Continental Alliance. In addition, the three original factions China, USA and GLA have been greatly expanded and redesigned in a variety of ways, with several new units, buildings, powers and abilities to explore and combine in your in-game tactics.
When the Chinese expeditionary force arrived in Germany to help quell the GLA insurrection in 2028, it worked closely with the German armed forces, which despite a spirited effort struggled to defeat the threat. The premier Bundeswehr units that accompanied the People's Liberation Army during this operation were light infantry brigades equipped with the Wiesel, a small tracked weapons carrier reminiscent of historic tankettes, which distinguished itself in rugged terrain and airborne landings.
Impressed by this concept, Chinese military planners called on state industries to develop a tank of similar conception after the war. The result was the ZTQ-30 Grasshopper - commonly called just "Hopper" by its operators. Lightweight, agile and extremely simple to produce, the Hopper became the fourth most mass-produced tank in history within only a few years. This is illustrated by rumours on the Chinese internet that supposedly any car factory in the country could produce the Hopper with no need for retooling. As of 2045, it is used by the PLA, the People's Armed Police and over two dozen international operators.
Although the workload on its crew of two, a driver and a commander-gunner, is taxing, those crews that survive their trial by fire quickly learn to exploit the Hopper's speed and agility for spectacular effect, overwhelming enemy forces with massed fire from their deceptively diminutive guns in fast-moving formations. The commander can also peek out of the hatch to survey the battlefield with binoculars.
Recently, all Hoppers have been upgraded with an external launcher, stocked with EMP rockets. These can disable enemy high-value vehicles or buildings from range to render them defenceless against an imminent pummelling by whole platoons of Hoppers. It must be noted that PLA doctrine calls for limited, discretionary use of these rockets by only one tank at a time, as to not dilute the intended "forward-thinking offensive mindset" instilled in Hopper crews.
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Metal Slug now with RAWKET LAWNCHAIR
(buried)
"as to not dilute the intended "forward-thinking offensive mindset" instilled in Hopper crews."
I've never heard of such a poor excuse for a terribly designed global-sharing cooldown for unit's ability.
Cheap tanks designed for mass spam all being able to stun-lock any tank or building with non-limited EMP rockets would be -more- terrible design than that - and also require less thought and sense of timing from the player to use effectively.
gonna have to agree that the lore explanation for the global cooldown for it is not that good and i am aware how potentially broken this a super spammable unit would be if it didnt have it. im will fanfic what i think would be more convincing and maybe more humourous fanfic explanation:
"upon the first deployment of the EMP rocket system in a battle against (Russia or GLA) forces, poor fire discipline from lack of understanding of this new weapon system among Hopper crews resulted in the Hopper platoon expending their entire EMP rockets against the first wave of hostiles, often against the same target at the same time. with none left for use against the enemy reinforcements which proceeded to decimate the Hopper platoons in short order.
in order to prevent further humiliating losses, PLA command ordered an update to Hopper crew training, which not only better explain the purpose of this new weapon, but also emphasizing strict disipline regarding EMP rocket usage only by explicit orders from the commanding officers who are trained to order the use of these weapons with discretion"
That is -effectively- the same explanation, just with a battle disaster episode inserted to explain -how it became- a specific point of doctrine. The issue there is that trained soldiers don't just receive a new weapon without being instructed on how to use it before they do, nor lose their sense of target judgement/fire discipline they possess for known types of weapons the moment they are given a new one.
The point about doctrine is simply based on the idea that, if mass usage of the rockets was permitted, Hopper crews would no longer engage in aggressive fire and manoeuvre tactics, but simply continuously fire rockets from range like a dedicated ATGM-armed tank destroyer would. While that would be much more intuitive in RL, lore ultimately has to follow game design and thus sometimes has to make strange or comical justifications for it.
Another much more banal and meta reason for the explanation given is quite simply due to character limits, because I pre-write these things to generally fit into a single Discord post as a scale measure.
Brother, are we related?
Please lets take an ancestry test.
To be fair the only other excuse I can think of is "EMP missiles are rare and few" but that contradicts the ROTR's well-established Chinese doctrine of negating enemy technological advantage and then overwhelming them with superior conventional firepower.
Honestly "it's the established doctrine and your officer will chew you out if you don't follow it" is a pretty universal excuse for literally any army.
A nice way for the Hoppers to "Hit'em while they're down".