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[Kestral]

Is this scale fixed by class, as the armor scale is (I.E., the Death Cat outmuscles the Hammerclaw? Or do we simply have it organized by class for reasons that escape me?

[Dunwair]

I don't think that they are necessarily fixed in the same manner, simply because the strongest Zoid in Gamma class (Deadly Kong) can throw up to 80 tons whereas the strongest Zoid in the class above it (Hammerclaw) can only manhandle around 100 tons.

Granted, that's just my guess, but I think it is safe to guess that every beta can't manhandle between 80-100 tons, which would be necessary to put them somewhere in the range between those two Zoids.

That being said, arranging it by class does make sense, because that's where the balancing act is. A judge is a lot more likely to have two of the same tier of Zoid duking it out, and therefore having the organizational chart break it up into tiers does make it easier for the judges.

At least, that's my guess as to why they did it that way.

[Kestral]

See, that was my initial thought too. And it does make sense... except that directly above it, we have armor strictly enforced by class, and below it, we have speeds with no classes mentioned. Thus my confusion-- we seem to have three different systems going on here, when logically there should only be two.

[Dunwair]

Except that speed isn't a relative thing. This is how I make sense of the system:

For armor it's completely relative, the only way you know how much punishment a Zoid can take is by measuring it against another Zoid. We don't have 'Zoid A has 1 meter of armor plating, Zoid B has 2 meters of armor plating, and Zoid C has paper mache and dreams for armor." We just have "Zoid A is tougher than Zoid B but flimsier than Zoid C." Because there are no physically measurable statistics, it's a purely relative system.

For strength it's somewhat relative, but there are some instances where it is tied into a measurable physical property. Some Zoids can throw a certain amount of weight around, but for a lot of Zoids it's just "Zoid A will win at tug of war against Zoid B but lose to Zoid C." So it's a mix of relative and measurable.

With speed, it's completely based off of a measurable statistic. You know exactly how fast you can move.

Makes sense to me.

[Soulless Monster]

To be completely fair, the Garantula does have paper mache and dreams for armor.

[Sigglethorp Von Stabenheim]

The reason the strength scale is organized by class is because its primary use is for comparison of the relative strengths of the class. As most battles are of zoids within the same class, this gives pilots and judges alike a relative easy way to understand who wins in a straight up brawl between two critters of say, the Alpha class. Now, while there are obvious exceptions to the rule, as Dunwair skillfully pointed out, the general rule of thumb is that a zoid from a higher class tends to be stronger than one of a class below it. As I said, this is not an end-all be all.

Thanks for your question. As it has been answered, this topic is now closed!