Since I first saw battlesuit I was wandering, how the pilot fits in it.
The head of battlesuit is very small and neck is too thin.
The arms and legs are too distant from each over!

Recently I have found good-looking conversion at Coolminiornot.
The pilot is sitting in very confined compartment inside main body of battlesuit. This version seems reasonable to me.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/100452

Has someone any idea of what fluff says about this?

Hey, that was a GD submission in 2006 or 2005 And I thought it was cool also. My main problem with the idea of a guy sitting in there is exactly that, I don't think Tau would risk having Seasoned veterens in the suit itself (though it makes for absolutely cool fluff) I would think that they actually have a satillite feed or some sort of link. Commanders safely sitting in a command module somewhere in space or in the manta. I mean it is kind of cowardly, but if you read the fluff losses are not greatly appreciated by the Tau empire...Hence why lose a good commander in battle when his suit can just be destroyed and he can live to fight another battle? Thats would seem a bit more fluff like if you ask me. But look at the conversion...see how cramped he is who in the world would find that comfortable?

I think GW was just too bent on the idea of the dreanought when they introduced the tau crisis suit...thats all. And the suit is kind of bulky for the sleek, always moving tau...

Both Kill Team and Firewarrior describe the process as the chest armor raising up and the thigh armor lowering to form steps. The pilot's legs are inside the thighs of the Crisis, and his torso/arms/head are inside the chest of the suit. His arms are locked into place (probably to prevent injury, and a control interface enters the base of his brain, generally taking away the pilot's ability to control his limbs, but allowing the pilot to subconsciously control the limbs of the suit. It doesn't matter if the suit is cramped because there really isn't any movement required by the pilot, everything is controlled by neural commands/thumb switches so the pilot doesn't need to reach a switch above his head.

I'm sure someone else can explain this process a little better than me, but that's about what I got from it.

where is the fluff on that?? I haven't read anything of the sort anywhere...now im really curious...

I don't think that a remote controlled suit would be too practical in the 41st mill. If, as you referenced, the control system for the suit was located in a manta, there'd be a recognizable delay between command entry and suit response. Also, there'd be a sizable chance that transmissions would be lost, or worse. Electronic Warfare would cripple the Tau, all it would take would be a Damocles command Rhino or a chimera with improved comms and as soon as the IG/marine noticed the somewhat sluggish battlesuit running about, there'd be one less suit for the Greater Good and maybe a new Imperial Crisis Team in worst case scenario. Warp Forbid we start thinking about Eldar, Necrons, or Dark Eldar. Heck, I'd even go so far as to rule that if an EMP grenade went off within 6" of the suit (or on the suit itself) it'd be pinned during your next turn. That's not even touching inclement weather or psychic abilities...

Just say no to satlink control schemes.

I've heard a lot about XV8 pilots experiencing something called battle suit neurosis due to the neural link between the pilot and his suit. I think this is when they lose the ability to control their limbs outside of their suit and then they volunteer as monat Helios class suicide suits. I think it's called the soul purging or something. Could anyone confirm this for me? Or am I just crazy?

The Crisis suit fluff came from the novels 'Kill Team' by Gav Thorpe and 'Firewarrior' by Simon Spurrier.

The 'Battlesuit Neurosis' fluff came partly from the 'Firewarrior' novel and partly from a GW UK article on Crisis configurations, but it's hard to say if the two are related. Firewarrior's version stems from the pilots eventually becoming too attached to their suits, beginning to 'feel' the pain their suits go through, and in a worst case scenario, losing the ability to control their tau limbs and becoming pretty much vegetables. The GW articles' version is the pilot developing selfish, destructive, untaulike traits, and once they become aware of this, they adopt the Soul Cleanse monat configuration, essentially a suicide-suit (fusion blasters and flamers, anyone?) and they rove the battlefields where they are needed, attempting to find their new niche in the tau'va.

I think the ejection system special gear pretty much rules out remote control suits as well. You can't very well have a pilot that isn't in the suit eject from the suit.

I think davidmournestar was just saying that the Tau should do things remotely since they despise war by attrition, and can't even understand the concept.

However, i have to disagree, my main reason being the Shas' desire to be physically in the battle. They're literally bred for it; taller, stronger, tougher, faster. All the rudimentary genetic engineering and longstanding Shas tradition of battle and war, not to mention the vast amount of training would be for naught. Just because he's a veteran and commander doesn't mean he shouldn't be out there doing commander-stuff. I mean, he isn't Shas'ar'tol or anything, so he isn't that important.

Ryzouken brings up a good point about a delayed effect between command/response with RC suits, but that really only comes into play when we deal in thousands of kilometers distance. I fly UAVs for a living, and out to 185km there isn't really a noticable delay between our tracking unit and the UAV responding, but there is a significant delay when you're dealing with a Predator drone in Afghanistan being piloted by an Air Force O in Nevada.

Not to mention the fact that if the Manta controling the suits gets taken out, then you lose a vital part of your forces.

On the remote control side of things, could they use a tight beamed light signal? or some other such encrypted tightely focused signal. If it was that easy to jam we wouldn't be able to use our drones either would we?

Just playing devil's advocate.

Maybe we need a new remote control unit. Something like a hunter killer drone with ion cannons or other heavy weapons. Beats risking a tank crew.

This reminds me a lot of Protomechs from the old school Battletech TT game, which I have envisioned as very similar to Crisis Suits.

Protomechs were an intermediate step between Elementals (power armor) and full-sized light Battlemechs. The pilots were given special implants that interfaced with their 'Mechs, called the Enhanced Imaging system, which essentially allowed them to control the 'Mech as if it were his own body.

The Pilot would sit in the fetal position in a tiny cockpit in the body of the Protomech, his consciousness only vaguely aware of his own body, allowing him near perfect control of the 'Mech's body. However, this method of control sometimes lead to a "god complex" where the pilot believed that he was invincible, or that the 'Mech was his actual body. To help prevent and control this occurrence, members of each Point (5 man squad) were trained as a tightly knit team, and were nearly inseparable on and off the battlefield.

EI however, has a negative effect on the nervous system, and after a short period of time (usually 1-5 years,) degeneration of the nervous system can cause the pilot to become unstable, exhibiting signs of psychoses including paranoia, and in severe cases catatonia or death (Battlesuit neurosis anyone? Though I think the more advanced technology of the Tau would make such occurrences a rarity, effecting only a small percentage of all Shas'ui.)

O'Nars: We'd still be able to field Drones, they each have their own AI. A Jammer isn't going to take that away from the drone, and when dealing with drone squadrons or communications, jammers have to be one of two things to prevent comms or transmissions; either ridiculously more powerful than the transmitter, or much closer to the reciever than the transmitter is (or in between the two), in which case a drone squadron wouldn't have much problems.

In the Command & Control Manta's case, however, the transmitter on that baby has got to have some kick behind it, and even if there is ECM in the area, there are such things as ECCM (Electronic Counter Countermeasures, hehe) which nullify the effects of jammers and the like.

There's also such thing as EMP-shielding nowadays, so don't expect a simple electromagnetic pulse grenade to take out a Crisis suit 100% and render them all useless.

The Professor: Hit the nail on the head I guess

You know, Battlesuit Neurosis reminds me of Cyberbrain Sclerosis from Ghost in the Shell. Maybe some of the Tau are incompatible, (or too compatible!), with the neural interface. That would determine whether they'd travel the road of battlesuit pilot or honour guard.

I too think you are right, Professor.

If you look at the Battlesuit itself, some of the porportions are too awkward to actually have limbs threaded through them. The fetal pilot jacked into his 'suit, on the other hand, seemed to me to always be the more appropriate option, especially considering that the background information also stated that the veteran's 'sported agumented limbs and implants." Seems to me that these happened to be the nerve shunts required for the connection.

That would make sense... Only thing in the way is the 'official' GW canon though, hehe.

I think the 'augmented limbs' and 'implants' are the neural interface and possibly bionic limbs and other such biometrics. I don't like the idea of a free-floating pilot in the fetal position though. Something takes away from the scare factor of a crisis suit when you imagine the pilot curled up into a little ball in the suit.

The novels clearly state the pilot's 'locked in' to the suit, legs in the thighs, arms in supports/restraints, and the head and neck are secured in place for the neural interface and the sensor suite that lowers around his head. The pilot's semi-conscious. He still sees out of his own eyes it would seem, but all neural commands such as the act of turning one's head or moving an arm/leg are directly translated to the suit's appropriate limb/optical cluster.

The only limbs requiring threading are the full Tau legs straight and locked inside the thigh armor of the crisis.

I thought we came to a consensus a while ago in another thread, that the suit was controlled by a combination of joysticks, neural interface, and gumption. I do like the visual of a pilot with a visor over his face, straining at the controls as he jinks from building to building dodging las fire and explosions. I dunno, in a game where daemons and battlemechs fight eachother you can go with what feels best.

Not sure about joysticks, there are little crisis hands that need manipulating by the neural interface. Unless the pilot can switch between moving his hands and the crisis hands.

Oh well, either way, XV8s are pretty badass machines

Well, the theory is that the neural interface controls subconcious function like balance, walking, and communications. More important and concious things like guns, flight, and arms are controlled manually.

I strongly disagree. Hold a firewarrior model in front of a crisis suit. It should be clear that if his legs were in the suit's thighs, his hips would be dislocated violently. There's no way a Tau could stick his limbs into the limbs of a crisis suit comfortably. Stealth armor, yeah, anything bigger than that, no way.

I'm with the Professor. First thing I thought when I read about the Tau Battlesuits was "ooo, Protomechs"! As to wether the legs are inside the thighs or not, I'd say "no". That's not a stable position, awful for ejection purposes, plus if the leg snapped for any reason (such as a bad landing), the pilot would risk losing a limb unnecessarily. In Stealth Suits, sure. Those are more like powered exoskeletons than self-propelled armour, anyway.

As to scare factor, I don't care if the pilot is curled up in a ball inside the chest of the suit, if a Crisis is jumping on my head, firing a hail of pulse shots and guided missiles, I AM going to fail my Leadership test!