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But that doesn't mean Raid groups don't have their advantages. Their passive recovery makes it easier to just keep moving forward. Their raid links can allow units that are far behind to still dish out damage and help catch them up.
My only complaint for Raid Groups is I don't think it was smart to limit how many units can be deployed via Raid groups when Warships always allow full deployment.
I go with whatever I feel like, unless I feel that one type of group would be better than the other for a certain stage. If you want my personal recommendation for Warship, the Ptolemaios 2 Kai is absolutely one of the game's most versatile, and likewise, it's the game's most expensive WS, and obtaining it isn't exactly that difficult unless you don't have strong units since you only really need to fill in the GET Gauge for it IIRC during the stages from 00 the Movie which in themselves have plenty of enemies for you to shoot down to fill it.
Your selection of the Archangel above is a good pick, too, more of a defensive one I'd say because of its Laminate Armor reducing beam damage.
My point though, was that Warships guarantee that you always can deploy 9 units on every map, no matter what. Technically it's 10 units, if you count the Warship.
So why limit Raid groups when Warships never have such a handicap? It doesn't make sense and just make Warships are easier to use.
Unless you're using multiple XL-units (though battleships get a free universal-size slot for the master-unit).
But yeah. Warships are overall better than raid-groups IMO.
Raiders are an interesting addition, BUT they don't outperform battleships. Also, they have no base to launch from or return to for quick changes of formation.
They seem more flexible, but they ultimately aren't. They have the same kind of link-attack a warship gets, they have to "cuddle" for healing (without repair-mods or stuff like nanoplating), they can't retreat into a base-unit when things get dicey.
I used Raid-groups a lot when I started the game, but eventually just settled on Minerva and Ptolemy II Kai with my main groups. Once the ship-crews get the important stats to proper levels, you get all options with those.
- up to nine units per ship, plus the ship, so up to 20 units effectively in the field
- quick recharge/repair of units in the field with quick re-deployment
- restoration of purged equipment during mission
- link-attack has more maximum targets
- launching units from the ship increases effective range, very useful in most missions
Only disadvantage of battleships is that their destruction is a game-over, then again, own battleships are much tougher than the ones you usually have to protect in missions...
Overall, for the later game and stages and as you build up your teams, a Warship Group will work out better long-term, but there's a satisfaction for me personally while using a Raid Group that I don't get while using a Warship Group. A good demonstration of this is the race towards the end goal in 00 the Movie Stage 03, where Setsuna joins the Raid Group of Lockon and Allelujah, as the best way to reach the zone is to tear through enemies by setting up one of your allies into a position which allows the group to destroy enemies in a sort of ladder ascent, and finish in a position where they go with EN regeneration (or HP if need be) in order to speed past even further next turn. In a stage where your maximum Raid Group deployment is a high number like 6 or the full 8, the advantages a Raid Group gives you offensively allow them to get into the thick of action much easier and pick off individual targets with greater ease, IMO.
On a side note, I like to believe that the reason that Raid Groups exist in the first place is largely a result of so many of the series in this particular game focusing on groups of mobile suits that are not supported by a Warship at all, particularly the Gundam Team of After Colony (where they had no Warship to call home until the tail end of the story, and the Peacemillion isn't playable in this game) and Celestial Being of Anno Domini (where many battles see them without the Ptolemaios to back them up). You can recreate that sort of feeling with a Raid Group of your own.
Yeah, I think this kinda sparked the idea.
Wing had no warship for the main cast at all, SEED also had the team around Athrun act as a raid-group most of the time (even though their Gundam's were battery-powered and ran out pretty quickly). 00's Gundams typically operated far away from Ptolemy as well.
There's just so many penalties for using Raid Units which get so few benefits.
I dunno about that with the Athrun team. They are reliant on Warships because of the extremely limited energy supply of SEED suits until they reach N-Jammer tech. I've been slowly watching the Remaster and I haven't seen them deploy from anything but a Warship.
00 Units can be entirely independent, but they still clearly had their dedicated warships.
IBO is more of a mixed bag. They can deploy independently and don't seem to run out of energy, but they definitely needed warships to deploy into Space, and I don't think they were capable of atmospheric entry. (I don't remember if they ever tried)
And also, they absolutely can run out of energy, or at least fuel, which is seen on a few occasions. Fuel is a concern in a few instances from what I remember of G-Tekketsu, where they are running out or actually run out during certain battles. While I don't know the inner workings of a Gundam Frame's Ahab Reactor setup, I imagine that the power output would require some mean fuel reserve, though I do seem to remember them mentioning that the Gundam Gusion Rebake has longer operation time than it was as the Gundam Gusion, whose twin Ahab Reactor setup allowed it high mobility despite all the heavy armor, due to said armor being replaced with armor closer to that of Barbatos (being partially built using its spare parts).
As for how that factors into Raid Groups, I don't think output and energy/fuel reserve is the biggest reason. Really, it's all down to the sheer amount of times these mobile suits venture out away from a warship (especially relevant when said warship is unable to travel to Earth with the MS), end up isolated from said warship due to circumstances, or never had a warship as a home base to begin with.
I would be concerned about that if it weren't for the fact that restoring those takes a turn inside the Warship after purging equipment (and also if I used XL/XXL units more frequently which have a Purge function, which is only the case for the Halphas Böse Halberd outside of my Master Unit).
And as for unit selection regarding those that can be refitted inside a Warship, I find that most of the time I personally use a mobile suit, I usually keep it in the same loadout no matter what since I don't like to overcomplicate things, and it still wastes a turn to return to the Warship to be able to refit in the first place - so I usually prefer Transform units if I'm in need of alternative attack options. Raid Groups are handy for me personally because I don't need to worry too much about managing units and any need to return to the Warship, and though that gives me less versatility I'm usually running units that are versatile overall or are in compositions ideal for the stage itself.
Top it off with how the majority of Warships can't submerge themselves underwater, and you're in some literal deep bleep if that's your preference by the time you get to the Cosmic Era Expansion Pass stage (A Challenge from the Deep) which takes place entirely underwater until you pass the mid-stage event.
I use it sometimes to recover EN, especially since many of the Mobile Armor units use a ton of EN, with their mobile suit modes being more efficient.
They deploy from the Vesarius most of the time, yes.
However, when sortied, they tend to be pretty far out most of the time.
Look up the bit about the Mirage Colloid Stealth System for the Blitz. As stated in the episode that was introduced that can last up to 80 Minutes, which is contextualized as significantly higher than normal consumption. That speaks to a pretty long sortie for something with fighter aircraft style accommodations with their Hyper-Capacitors. There is a point where things like fatigue and needing to use the restroom becomes a problem with those setups.
For context:
https://sofrep.com/fightersweep/length-average-fighter-mission/
a typical sortie is around one to two hours of time in the air.
The only time SEED suits are contextualized as rapidly depleting their reserves is when they're spamming energy weapons, with that being lampshaded as why pretty much every time depleting the capacitor is an issue.
Keep in mind the original Gundam's beam rifle had an official magazine capacity of 16 shots per E-cap, and Zeta often unofficially treats it as more like 12 with both of them only having 2 to 3 spares. Along those lines in practice we tend to see empty e-caps being discarded rather than being put back in the rack, which given that the figures that are available for how long it takes to recharge the things with the reactor fully dedicated to it isn't exactly irrational. Not to mention the ZZ basically shutting down after firing it's overpowered head beam gun...
So that limitation is largely just a Gundam normal, and even the suits in Wing are not immune to it. In turn mind that the Sandrock operated out of Quatre's little support group, and Duo/Heero operated off that ship with the dude that's later in charge of the Peacemillion during the early phase on Earth. There was still some basic nods to logistics being a thing.
The main deviation with SEED on that front is they pulled over the Macross concept of Energy Conversion Armor, which is to say power being able to go to reinforcing armor instead of just thrusters or weapons. In turn when we do get a figure from The Tiger, the Strike is supposed to be able to take 76 hits before that causes a depletion problem.
Well that and they decided in Destiny to give the ability to effectively have the ship reload the suit by just beaming energy to it... Which speaks to why to want to be using the Minerva, or similar SEED Destiny ship, if you're inclined to use and get the most out of the SEED Destiny suits.
It is true a proper fusion reactor powered Mobile Suit, VF, etc. has effectively unlimited operational time. That being because with Helium-3/Deuterium or Boron/Protium* the amount of fuel required to run the reactor could effectively be packaged in a pair of small pressurized bottles under the seat. However that's not true of propellant for fusion rockets hence the limitations are usually a combination of that and their exotic particle reserves, hence why those are the usual things they have limiting operational time.
Do mind the N-Jammers as described shouldn't do anything to interfere with a fusion reactor's operation. They're specifically designed to mess with the neutron cascade in fission to prevent it from being able to achieve the supercritical state.
*Protium is normal Hydrogen which has no Neutrons as opposed to Deuterium or Tritium which have two and three particles in the nucleus due to having neutrons.
The Nuclear powered suits of SEED and Destiny do not use fusion reactors they use fission reactors that's why the neutron jammers work on them it makes it impossible to split an atom. A fusion reactor would not have this weakness. A fusion reactor of the same size would also produce twice the power of a fission reactor. Most Gundam series use fusion reactors only SEED uses fission. I've no clue as to why the Wing Gundam can't recharge its buster rifle yet the Wing Zero can fire its buster rifle as much as it wants, I've always figured each of Wing Zero's buster rifles is equipped with their own fusion reactors that augment Wing Zero's reactor. Much like the GX and the Double X are supposed to be able to fire their satellite cannons while docked with the G-Falcon though we never see this.
With the exception of the EW Wing which has "magazines" of fuel cells loaded into the arms.