Type Four

The aliens are the size of a dog, have four arms, and four legs, and a centaur like stance. No, Humans can not use the Alien PA - they wouldn't fit and have an insufficient number of limbs (two arms are slaved to the suits arms, two activate other systems, two legs work the throttle and steering, and the other two do nothing. yes, I figured all this out before you asked. I'm little if not obsessed.)

Humans do have their own PA, but its more of an augmentation than piloted robot. EVENS can't mask smell, but the alien PA has either filters or independent air supply so it doesn't matter. (The aliens can live on Earth without life support, but are not much of a threat without their robots) They run of fuel cells, so its probably 3-4 days of power in standby, less if used intensively, and refueled easily with ammonia (NH-4).

Yes, zombies can be used as weapons. They can be trained, and the opening fiction revolves around a custom built undead ubersoldat.

I have not established yea or nay on if the aliens can be zombified. I do know its their own bioweapon combined with nano, and not the micro machines alone that causes reanimation. In short, we had a major numbers advantage, so they turned to a special weapon, with unintended consequences.

While Gauss and EMP weapons are common, there are no transporters, and nano is not like a Star Trek replicator. The Aliens are at about the same tech level as the humans all points considered, maybe even a little behind. their home planet is very rocky and volcanic, so a walking machine made sense for broken terrain, and low recoil weapons like LASERS thus became necessary, as a tank cannon would knock the unit off its footing. Thus, human Gauss weapons have greater range, as they are mounted in larger vehicles better able to withstand recoil, as well as the fact atmosphere dissipates lasers, but not bullets.

Once again, I am very through when it comes to sci-fi. My biggest problem is that I like reading technical descriptions of how all this stuff works, but it may bore others. Who else wants to read a popular mechanics magazine from 2060 aside from me?

There is a fine line between hobby and obsession. I seem to have lost sight of it some time ago.

I think all this is interesting, even better since someone aggregates the information for me. But you do have a point, it might be helpful in the final stages to do a "complete idiots guide" for the technology. I can help you out with the idiot portion of that.