BM03 Vegalta

Battle Machine 03 Vegalta is the name of a series of vehicles in the EDF games, first appearing in Earth Defense Force 2017. The Air Raider can call for Vegaltas in Earth Defense Force 2025 and Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair.

A vehicle with similar functions, the Mech, appears in Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon. Another equivalent vehicle, the Nix, replaces the Vegalta in Earth Defense Force 5.

Description
The Vegalta in 2017 is a bipedal humanoid one-man power suit with reverse-jointed legs and weapons mounted where its hands would be. The appearance is of an industrial rather than a military machine, with external cables and piping, and major components completely exposed. The driver sits in an open cockpit at the top of the machine where its head would be; in spite of this, the Vegalta has formidible armor and offers complete protection to EDF soldiers while they are using it.

In EDF 2017 there is only one type of Vegalta, which can be found pre-placed in certain maps. Its stats vary according to the difficulty level, but it is always armed with the same weapons: a machine gun, rocket launcher, and a flamethrower.

Description
The Vegalta series in 2025 and 4.1 are large one-man bipedal powered armor suits which mount weapons on their arms and in later variants also their shoulders, in a similar manner to the Fencer. The 2025 variant is clearly supposed to be the "finished" military version of the cobbled-together 2017 model, with a fully enclosed cockpit, larger feet for all-terrain operation and more streamlined armor, but fundamentally the same structure. While the vehicle also has hand-like manipulators, these have no in-game function.

Initially Vegaltas are slow and cumbersome; the traverse of their upper body is limited and they cannot turn their legs on the spot, having to walk forwards or backwards to do so. The Vegalta also takes time to accelerate to its full walking speed: later variants improve on this acceleration and are overall easier to control. To increase their manoeuvrability, all Vegalta models can jump and hover for a short time using jet thrusters (X or L3 when using a PS joypad: press to jump, press again and hold to hover).

The Vegalta series divide into four main groups of variants; the general purpose "A" series, the short-range "flame" series, the medium-range "missile-gun" series and the area attacking "buster" series.

Oddly, there is no Vegalta variant in these games that has the same combination of weapons as the 2017 Vegalta did.

Strategy
Vegaltas are flexible combat vehicles which can adapt to a variety of scenarios, and are generally a good choice if it is uncertain what the next battle will bring. While there is a Vegalta tailored for more or less every situation, they are all less than optimal against a small number of tough targets such as Hectors or Deroys: though the Heavy Cannon can hold its own against them at lower difficulties, for such scenarios it is generally better to use an Epsilon Armored Railgun.

Even the fastest Vegalta is still not much quicker than rolling, and so they are also unsuited to fast strikes. Their difficulties in turning mean they are at their best in missions where it is guaranteed enemies will be coming from in front of them, with the flame series particularly suited to assaulting tunnel exits and their occupants. Their worst scenario is being simultaneously attacked from the front and back, particularly if the attackers are Spiders since the Vegalta's large hitbox will lead to it being destroyed in short order.

It is difficult to place Posts, generators or turrets on a Vegalta since it is tall and irregularly shaped; the feet are about the best place since they are quite large. It is possible to get on top of an offline Vegalta, however, using a series of jumps; one to the top of the lower leg, one to the vehicle's waist joint, and then a third to the roof. The roof makes an excellent vantage point for using Guide Kits and Guide Kit-fired strikes. A Vegalta's complex motion means it will sometimes "shed" devices placed on it (much as armored vehicles tend to do with force field generators) and so it is a good idea to use more than one, even though multiple Posts do not offer multiple buffs (aside from Life Vendors). Assist Guns are generally a wiser choice since the assist post does not fall off or obstruct aiming when placed on the roof.

Most Vegaltas do not really require additional turrets anyway, since their own close-range weapons are perfectly adequate. The exception to this is the Buster Arms and Busterlord, which tend to damage themselves trying to attack anything at close range. For these slow siege vehicles it it generally a better idea to place turrets on the ground in front of the Vegalta rather than trying to move around with them, though.

Variants
All Vegaltas have a crew of 1 and cost 3,500 credits to resupply.

A series
Blue-painted standard all-purpose series similar to the Vegalta in 2017, armed with at least a revolver cannon and a repeating rocket launcher (which is later replaced with a vertical-launch missile pod which can lock on to up to six targets at a time). The revolver cannon fires heavy, high-powered rounds that travel in an arc, requiring some compensation at range. The A series get progressively more powerful until the AX, which thanks to buffs, in 4.1 has the second-highest total damage for all its ammunition of any single-seat vehicle (increased from 2025's mediocre 620,000, less than the Firelord or Busterlord, to 954,000, beaten only by the EF24 Bazelart Powered's 960,000).

Numbers in (brackets) indicate changed stats in EDF 4.1. Missile Pods do not really have a fixed rate of fire, it is possible to fire again as soon as the previous set of missiles have hit their targets.

Flame series
The "Flame" series are green-painted close-range specialists armed with flamethrowers as their primary weapon. They have high mobility compared to other Vegaltas, but weaker armour.

The flames from their primary weapons will always fire out to their maximum range and damage all enemies they contact along the way, making the flamethrower an excellent choice for combating swarms of enemies at close range or fighting with Hornets. Flamethrowers will also sometimes hit the same enemy multiple times, dealing immense damage.

Outside of the DLC-only Vegalta Gold (which is available for both 2025 and 4.1), the secondary armament of this series is two powerful shotguns, which can be used to put the hurt on enemies that make it through the wall of flames or to fire at more distant targets. The shots travel in an arc like revolver cannon rounds, requiring some compensation at a distance.

While it is quite likely to end up destroying the vehicle, it is more than a little amusing to place Impulse Mines on a Flame-series Vegalta to give it "reactive armor," and can even give it a little bit of defense from the rear if done correctly.

Missile-gun series
Red-painted specialised medium-range, multi-target series armed with missiles and revolver cannons. These are slightly less mobile than the standard Vegalta, but have excellent upper body traverse speed and firepower. The Vegalta Revolver Custom is a very powerful tool for dealing with aerial foes thanks to high manoeuvrability and fast traverse speed for its upper body, and has become even better in 4.1 with buffs to both of its weapons.

Numbers in (brackets) indicate changed stats in EDF 4.1.

Buster series
The Buster variants, also painted red, are more cumbersome than other Vegaltas, being slow to turn and having a lower traverse speed for their upper body. They make up for this by being easily the most destructive variant, with the first armed with a pair of howitzers while latter models switch to the mighty "Dispersal Howitzer," a weapon which fires a shotgun-like spread of fifteen arcing high-explosive rounds. It is worth noting that in 4.1 the Dispersal Howitzer's laser sight indicates the arc of the spread's midpoint; shots will land in a broad area surrounding the point indicated, with some much closer if the weapon is fired at a low angle.

Their secondary weapons are revolver cannons; the first variant has a very powerful 3-round burst version, while later versions switch to an even more potent 6-round burst revolver cannon that fires explosive rockets; the Busterlord's rocket cannons have a DPS of 17,000 for each gun. Obviously, this weapon requires some distance between the Vegalta and whatever it is firing at, making it more of a medium-range weapon, though the rockets themselves are quite capable of travelling the entire diagonal distance across the map since their trajectory is flat rather than an arc like a normal revolver cannon.

Trivia

 * It appears to be named after Vegalta Sendai, a Japanese soccer team.
 * The original Vegalta design is rather obviously influenced by the APUs from The Matrix Revolutions.
 * The guide laser in 4.1 will visibly arc to indicate the point of aim for howitzers and revolver cannons, suggesting the EDF has somehow invented bendy light.
 * A "revolver cannon" is a real system, which is used on some guns for fighter jets and warships: the loading mechanism uses a cylinder with multiple chambers to cycle rounds from the magazine. However, the Vegalta's gun has multiple barrels while a revolver cannon usually only has one, meaning it is probably a mistranslation of "rotary cannon."
 * It is called the "Begarta" in the PC version of EDF 4.1's keyboard command setup menu, an example of a fairly common Japanese-English translation error since "B" and "V" and "L" and "R" are not distinct sounds in Japanese, though since the word is already translated correctly everywhere else the error is a little baffling. On the plus side, at least it is not a "Depth Crower" from the same menu. Or an "Elerctormagnetic Prison."