Expensive or not, I'd really like to keep the option to use ItG Tactical Gears like PanOceanic Armoured Cavalry within the framework. They would seem to be too large to be SZ=3. Could be "up to one mecha/anime mecha per side" tho.

I think more than two dozen individual "decision units" (which includes each Elite infantry trooper) is right out. I'm thinking of maybe going for an organization chart type of thing rather than limit the points value in the outset. Something like 0-1 commander, 0-2 heroes, 4-12 Elite infantry models (arranged into units as per rules), 0-2 light vehicles (1 squadron or 2 individual), 0-1 mecha/anime mecha. Would likely mean some juggling with points values at the army selection time, although D:VG does have provisions for unequal forces as well.

What I do for small unit combat (stolen from 'The Face of Battle') is initiative cards for the individual soldier / vehicle rather than the unit. Green get 1 card, Regular 2, and Elite 3. Each card gives the individual soldier / vehicle an action to use. So Green get 1 action / turn, Elites get 3.

We havn't really looked into the points balance issues of this properly but we have found it quite fun to play.

Don' t know about the good and the bad of it, but changing such a key part of the mechanics requires major overhauls (or "mangling", to borrow my own term from the above) in many other areas of the game as well. To itch his own, of course, but I would personally like to avoid that and go with additional limititations to the existing mechanic mostly.

That's true, although ultimately "activation rushing" cannot be entirely avoided unless all the activation unit choices are obligatory. But it might indeed make sense to actually allow (and require) just a single squad instead of a number of grunts split into several squads. In the light of this, the organization would come to 0-1 (or 1, period?) commander, 0-2 heroes, 1 squad (of up to 12 models, no mobs allowed), 0-1 squadron of drones or other light vehicles (up to 2 models), 0-1 gear (mecha/anime mecha).

We could always just define three activation units, in terms of card assigment - since everyone's eite, this doesn't affect orders at all:

1. squad
2. commanders and heros
3. vehicles and specials

I would say that size 3 would be fair game for officers or squads, if players wanted to spend the points thusly.  Specials would be limited to vehicles and crew-served weapons, and vehicle squads would be fine - for the latter, you'd probably just need to make wimpier infantry to compensate for the PV investment.

The percentage of vehicles can always be limited, so in low-average PV games, the "armored fist" (like the name!) would probably be no more than one large vehicle/mecha or possibly a 2-3 member squad of very fragile vehicles.

So, planning on going official, aren't we? This complicates things a bit as it means they should be more or less sensible in the get go...

I would still not take the points limits angle on this particular one and keep the number of units fixed to 3 instead. Both methods are a bit problematic of course. It can get difficult to gather equal PVs for two forces if the number of units is fixed, even after applying augmentations and covert ops. But the purpose of these modifications defeats itself if there is no upper points limit, and setting one would require determining an "average force cost". I suppose 500 points per block could be a number that makes sense that way, but am not sure.

If the maximum number of units is 3, I'd say maximum command level would have to be 1, but if any number of 3 unit blocks is allowed, then of course there would be no reason to deny 2C.

Otherwise good, but am not sure how well a hero of any quality sits with an (almost all) Elite force. Perhaps one could model "the teen prodigy" from many mangas and animes (relevant to the discussion by it's by now extremely tenuous connection to ItG) or maybe a Matrix quality hero (was a Matrix quality one even allowed? Can't recall right now...) could be used as some kind of "robot remote", but these are "far fetched" explanations for having one. From purely game mechanical point of view of course, it might make sense to have one as a points balancer.

I think it would actually be easier to incorpotate campaign & advancement rules into the regular D:VG game.

Under the [size=75]S[/size]S rules ([size=75]small[/size] skirmish, ha ha), most everyone is already Elite (or Vehicle), so they can't develop further in regards to training level, which is the most obvious way to advance within the existing rules. Perhaps some accomplished models might be turned into heroes or officers, but that's about it in the "hardened veteran" category.

Of course there's alway the option to limit the total cost of equipment (including augmentations) at the outset and then gradually allow more expensive stuff to be bought (within the levels set by the army list of course), but I'm not sure how well that clicks with the all-Elite aspect of the force either. Shouldn't they really have the best from the get go?

Anyway, I really feel that campaign & advancement rules should be a separate topic. It would be nice to have some as those are basically the only stuff that Defiance doesn't have (as opposed to [size=75]S[/size]S which you can of course play under the existing rules if you just agree on the limitations beforehand), and we had a bit of a discussion about that a while back as you recall. Nothing much came out of it at that time, but maybe time would be right for a resurrection of that subject, eh?

Been quiet in this thread for quite a while, but was fiddling with the idea again in my head on my way to work (the 1-and-quarter-hours bus trip is good for fiddling ideas)...

Became concerned with the ability to assign enough discrete frames as Elites. In the base rules, you need to have distinct Armor, Movement and Quality for each frame you introduce, so you can't make a "shooter" (better ranged weaponry) and a "brawler" (better cc-stat and pistols/grenades as weapons) version of the same frame, for example.

I think this might need remedying in some way if the idea is developed further. I see two solutions:
(1) Allow "overloading" of the frames so that each A/M/Q tuple can take several "weapon loadouts" and "close combat modifications". Each such overload would simply count as a separate frame for the force construction purposes.
(2) Calculate the pv value for making Green, Regular and Matrix troops individual action capable ("fire team of 1", if you like) and to have their unit morale upped to the Elite level. Their individual morale would remain the same as in the base rules. Veteran and Linked would be disallowed in this scenario as they'd be the same as Elite if such modifications were made. The different "individual quality" troops would be allowed to join in the same unit -- it wouldn't create too great a confusion as the unit morale would still be the same regardless of which quality troops it contains.