Strength of Mobile Suit Types?

[Mafty]

Going beyond the fact that Gundams and other specialty units are more powerful than Mass Produced Units. Within the Mass Produced units, would some types or classes be better than others? Like would Reconnaissance Units be considered weaker than than an Attack Use Unit? Would an Attack Use Unit or an Artillery unit be more heavily equipped? Is General Purpose the best overall? etc

[Seto Kaiba]

Going beyond the fact that Gundams and other specialty units are more powerful than Mass Produced Units. Within the Mass Produced units, would some types or classes be better than others? Like would Reconnaissance Units be considered weaker than than an Attack Use Unit? Would an Attack Use Unit or an Artillery unit be more heavily equipped? Is General Purpose the best overall? etc

Wow... that's a thorny one.

On average, I would have to say "No" since many of those special-duty Mobile Suits are variants of the general duty Mobile Suit. There may be minor variations in performance but most of the difference in combat capability will be what weapons and other gear the Mobile Suit is equipped with rather than its basic performance. That said, it'll be heavily situational as well since some weapons and equipment will perform better in specific situations than others (which is the whole reason we have these special duty variants in the first place). An MS set up for sniping won't be performing optimally if it's forced into hand-to-hand combat. Nor, for that matter, would a MS design for combat in close quarters do particularly well if it's caught in an artillery duel.

[MythSearcher]

Going beyond the fact that Gundams and other specialty units are more powerful than Mass Produced Units. Within the Mass Produced units, would some types or classes be better than others? Like would Reconnaissance Units be considered weaker than than an Attack Use Unit? Would an Attack Use Unit or an Artillery unit be more heavily equipped? Is General Purpose the best overall? etc

Wow... that's a thorny one.

On average, I would have to say "No" since many of those special-duty Mobile Suits are variants of the general duty Mobile Suit. There may be minor variations in performance but most of the difference in combat capability will be what weapons and other gear the Mobile Suit is equipped with rather than its basic performance. That said, it'll be heavily situational as well since some weapons and equipment will perform better in specific situations than others (which is the whole reason we have these special duty variants in the first place). An MS set up for sniping won't be performing optimally if it's forced into hand-to-hand combat. Nor, for that matter, would a MS design for combat in close quarters do particularly well if it's caught in an artillery duel.

Only exception are those carrying heavy equipment, like those EWAC models with a very large disk on the back.
Eyezaku seems to be speically built, but EWAC Nero and Jegan would presumably much less capable in fighting than regular Nero and Jegan.

[Mafty]

The EWAC Nero seems like an especially severe case of this as it doesn't even have any armaments. This makes for a very dangerous job as the operators; they cannot defend themselves, and are crucial to getting info to the ship, thus would be an especially big target for destruction. Even other reconnaissance units (of which there are a rather large amount)in Gundam seem better equipped. For example Crossbone Vanguard has two separate units for reconnaissance, with the Dahgi-Iris having quite a lot of weaponry, and managing to hold its own against other units.

[MythSearcher]

The EWAC Nero seems like an especially severe case of this as it doesn't even have any armaments. This makes for a very dangerous job as the operators; they cannot defend themselves, and are crucial to getting info to the ship, thus would be an especially big target for destruction. Even other reconnaissance units (of which there are a rather large amount)in Gundam seem better equipped. For example Crossbone Vanguard has two separate units for reconnaissance, with the Dahgi-Iris having quite a lot of weaponry, and managing to hold its own against other units.

Notice the EWAC Nero has the longest sensor range at 6250 km, which kinda explains why they think it does not require armaments. The EWAC Jegan has 38.4 km as a comparison.

In any situation, I don't think those units with such a heavy equipment can survive battle even if they have armaments. Just as they showed in MSV-R, the Eyezack was relying solely on stealth(but failed since the ships can detect its drones)

[Mafty]

What does everyone think of ceremonial types? They're not a particularly common version (I can only think of some units from MSV, And the GINN Ceremonial Guard from SEED DESTINY). However they are still often heavily armed, and seem like they could still serve a purpose in combat.

[MythSearcher]

What does everyone think of ceremonial types? They're not a particularly common version (I can only think of some units from MSV, And the GINN Ceremonial Guard from SEED DESTINY). However they are still often heavily armed, and seem like they could still serve a purpose in combat.

I usually think of them as either very slightly weaker than regular units because they are decorated(took up some weight, but likely very little so functionally should be almost negligible unless you put large useless things like horns, shoulder pads and cape on them, but those can be easily purged so won't really be a problem) or for power display reasons exchanged operational time with performance, so they may be able to perform really well in a much shorter period like the interceptor types.

These units serve the sole purpose of display, they have to LOOK powerful, so decorations is one of the ways to do so, but IRL mostly you just get a new paint job. Another way is to have them move around with visibly powerful moves(since you really cannot randomly fire powerful shots in colonies, you either have to move fast or do some kind of sword dance?) so performance might have to be better but you never have to keep on that kind of display, most fighters just do a fly by with very little acrobatic move and fly away, never have to be as long as real combat. MS also have this advantage of being able to walk away even if the propellant is spent. Having spectators usually means it is under gravity. Even if you have to do the ceremony in space, you can always just have them perform a little and then have some off screen transports pick them up so they don't really need to have real functional operational time.

[SonicSP]

The Graze Ritter from IBO is also a ceremonial type, with almost no sortie records and battle data prior to what we see in the show. Specs wise it's actually more mobile than the regular Graze, as a result for being tuned for orbital combat.

Aside from pilots being trained in nice looking aerial formations, the ceremonial part of the unit equipment wise is the Knight Blade which looks nice during ceremonial sections while being practical in the IBO mobile suit combat world.

As far as the HG is concerned anyways, there is no mention of any downside to the unit from a specs perspective, but from what we see in the anime and the brief mention in the HG about no sortie records, the downside appears to be the military unit it's used in than the machine itself - in the sense that they suck.