backstory:

the earth forces reserve unit. it's a GM styled unit but made of even cheaper materials, given cheaper weapons and not quite standardized overall.

it's described as ramshackle, poor and flimsy. however, this is the assumption the lunar army forces usually make and more often than not, has proven to be the undoing of many like minded units. in fact, the unit as unstandardized as it appears, it is due to the unit's inherent strength and incredible reliability. many units have survived combat and have been passed on from one pilot to another, mostly intact with each pilot adding or removing parts and personalizations as they come and go. field patch-jobs, occasional maintenance are enough to keep it going, even in the worst conditions of bureaucracy or war.

as a pilot's unit, it is a very forgiving unit and can be used to train even the lousiest of rookie pilots. performance-wise is where the Kotin fails. its weapons are usually nowhere near as potent as anything the jupiter or lunar armies are able to field and the Kotin is just able to get by. it is armed with a series of ballistic weapons and whatever the army can get its mittens on such as: the 280mm cannon, rocket launcher, torpedo launcher, machine guns and for close in work, a heat hatchet. however, it is the Kotins that have been modified for earth army snipers that tend to have superior performance even to lunar units.

snipers are somehow more in-tune with their machines and are able to deduce what would be needed to make their machines stealthier as opposed to being more high-tech or powerful. equipped with the sniper rifle, sniper variant kotins have a much higher kill-death ratio.

this makes the kotin an invaluable asset for earth forces guerillas who are usually not well trained or equipped but have a need for an incredibly cheap unit that is easy to maintain and use and is more importantly available in much greater quantity.