Battles of the Star Angels and Space Devils

[JonSetanta]

I agree with J. Eagle, energy melee combat should be teh smex in this setting.
Most units will use ranged, as this is the trend for modern-future warfare, which means a massively powerful short-range weapon won't be effective in most battles (ship to ship for instance, or planetary bombardment), giving melee a lot of leeway for upping the ante.

[Judging__Eagle]

That and when the giant robot pulls out a Lightsa-... I mean laser sword, you know the ship it's attacking is gonna get opened up like a can of sardines. Oil and guts everywhere!

[the_taken]

Melee units being awesome? Sure. If anything, I was going to have Radioactive Tentacles of Doom be demonic melee unit staples. The trick is to have the option between melee and ranged combat both be equally awesome choices.

I envision that, on average, a character (mech/ship) will take three turns to close into "melee" range of a unit that is standing still, while shooting a brain dead target in your "optimal" range will get it removed from play in about three shooting phases on average.

[the_taken]

I just went over some math to start assigning weapon damage, recoil and tech point distribution, and I've noticed a small problem with the mechanics as they stand.

When you are hit by an attack, you lose Energy points.
You perform action like shooting and moving.
At the end of a turn, you restore energy points.
If you have less than 0 energy points, a hit-location on your mech takes damage equal to the negative energy points.
Then the number of energy points you have gets set to 0.

OK. That's elegant, simple and suitably giant roboticusness... It's good.

Now here's where it gets weird.
You can still spend energy if you have less than 1E, but you better be able to restore them back up to 0 or you'll blow up. We're cool with that. But also, shooting something something 'till it's out of energy doesn't stop it from shooting back, unless we make it so that you can't spend E you don't have, in which case we end up with the problem that if you took damage this round, your can't do anything the next.

Solution?

[CalibronXXX]

I think that's easily fixable with a cap on how far into negatives you can go; either a universal cap or a cap based on your maximum battery capacity. You can explain it away by saying that "0 energy" doesn't mean there is literally no energy left to spend, but that you can't spare anymore energy without taking it away from vital systems.

Edit: You took your old sig back?

[the_taken]

1195720259[/unixtime]]I think that's easily fixable with a cap on how far into negatives you can go; either a universal cap or a cap based on your maximum battery capacity. You can explain it away by saying that "0 energy" doesn't mean there is literally no energy left to spend, but that you can't spare anymore energy without taking it away from vital systems.

That paragraph makes sense, and is devoid of spelling errors, but it doesn't address the issues. I going to try and explain myself better.
With the rules as they are now, when the E in the B is less than 0 after energy is generated, one random hit location has its armor points reduced by that much, then the B = 0.

The problems is that with 0E you are almost guaranteed to take more damage next turn, whether it's from using energy to perform actions, like moving, or being shot at more. Even if you have initiative over someone shooting at you, they can still shoot back because actual damage is calculated at the end of the turn. Two mechs of equal power shooting each other will very likely blow each other up completely, and having one survive is completely random due to the hit location and damage mechanics.
It's impossible to win against someone of equal or greater power. All you can do is make them loose while you loose. Equal, even near equal power mechs will meet blow each other up simultaneously. There's very little strategy and tactic involved in this, and initiative is rendered almost meaningless. You can't have a cowboys style gunsling duel with this system.

Edit: You took your old sig back?

I have more than one .sig and I change between them randomly.

[CalibronXXX]

I was saying if a mech gets knocked down to, say, -10 energy they could not do anything at all, nor would a mech be able to take any action that would leave them with less than -10 energy. So if you hit a target hard enough they won't have enough energy left over to knock you down to 0 or less. There's no real reason you would use -10 specifically of course. So shooting something until it's out of energy makes it less able, or unable, to shoot back. Or am I missing a crucial detail as per usual?

[JonSetanta]

Arrgghpgbht.. negatives... please avoid the pitfalls of AD&D and "death's door" HP!
My vote is that once the main pool of E hits 0, the rest is taken out of reserves (vital systems) which are much slower to recover and potentially disastrous if drained too far. A fully drained ship/mech would then be out of comission for the rest of the encounter.
No thrust or air filtering power left, for instance.

[the_taken]

Okay....

Calibron, no you didn't miss any details, but you're idea still ends up with an entity either being totally useless after taking damage or risks blowing itself up with even more damage next turn.

sigma999, I first I didn't see how what you were saying made any difference, but after thinking about it, I have come up with a solution based apon what you stated.

Solution: You can't have less than 0E. After you loose all of your E, damage carries over to actual hit locations on your mech/ship immediately, so initiative matters.
However, remember that you allocated energy to a system in an earlier phase. So E was removed from the battery during the energy phase to power weapons and thrusters and stuff, so even if you have no E in the B, you have E in the gun, and it can still shoot with it, assuming the necessary hit locations are still functioning.

Thoughts? I'm leaning to having the effects of damage only occur at the end of the shooting phase, so it'll still be possible for two equally powerful mechs to pop each other.

I'm also considering having energy restoration occur after each shooting phase instead of only after the last one. Should this the standard ability all units have out of the box? A standard ability higher level units obtain? Or a special ability that can be chosen from leveling up? If at all?

[JonSetanta]

Yep, a lot of people make that snap judgement about my comments.. but then when you think about it for a while, I've noticed an "oh yeahhhh, now I see" kind of realization. Sorry if it was obtuse.

Inspiration was Ultraman's (or w/e Japan calls it, I don't know) ever-draining forehead battery thing, the EVA disconnected blood supply, Gundam/Veritech fighter fuel limit, all these seemingly plot devices.
The time restraint (1-5 minutes?) pushes heroes to desperate/heroic maneuvers that they might not have taken if they had, say, 24 hours to act (in game)
Not stating that "Space Angels" should have mere minutes, but a short fuel time adds realism, tension, and suspense to any game.

My vote on the standard ability: there should be a difference between the mook-fighters built out of plain robots... maybe even a robot brain.. these should not have such fancy options. The PCs and other heroes, however, should.
So, no, have it as an uncommon feature, but availible to the constructed mechs from the start (although an evolving mech is interesting...)
Chosing the ability at levelup might represent simply acquiring an attachment while back in the dock.

[the_taken]

Initiative!
I need something both weird and simple here. From what's been determined so far, there's going to be allot of d6s, so what's a few more? Initiative will be a simple d6 roll, with up to a +4 bonus being possible.
Missiles, being really freaking fast entities, will be way off the RNG with a static Initiative of 11. Making it only possible to destroy a missile (with a high attack roll) if they didn't reach their target in the round they are launched.

Melee Weapons
Generally, these things will cost little if any energy, not suffer from recoil penalties, deal significant damage, and as suggested completely bypass E. The bad news is that they'll have a very short range, and an arbitrarily low RoF per shot.

Missile Madness
Missiles are potent weapons in space. They're fast, powerful, and self-reliant when launched. However, being a self contained weapon means that they're very large for the singular amount of damage that they can deal, so mechs (and starships) can only carry so many. Like, one per salvo for the cheapest units. Smaller, more potent missile salvos require more sophisticated hardware, and will cost more tech points. Additionally, a salvo system requires E to direct the missiles it fires.
From the metagame standpoint, at any level, the most powerful missile system available will function as a single save or die/suck effect, brutally wiping out a mech's E, and/or damaging several hit locations in a single attack.
Also missiles from earlier levels miniaturized for extra shots will be about as useful as guns, only cooler 'cause they chase their target, and more reliable 'cause they don't suffer from recoil penalties.

[the_taken]

Weapons and Tps Theory

"Tps" means "tech points"

Guns:

Base 1 Tps for a one handed gun
shoots once for 1E
deals 4 damage per shot
recoil penalty of 6
limit of three shots per turn
optimal range of any 6 continuous hex
absolute range of 0 to 18 hex

+1 Tps:
+4 damage, and consumes 1E more per shot
+1 damage (shot advantage)
increase absolute range by 3 hex
improve optimal range by 1

+2 Tps:
recoil penalty reduction of 1
+1 bonus to attack rolls

-1 Tps:
one handed to shoulder mounted + one hand
can only be fired in the second shooting phase
-1 shot per turn

-2 Tps:
two handed
recoil penalty increase of 1

Special: Upgrading a gun to fire and extra shop costs a number of tech points equal to the energy cost to fire one shot.

Melee Weapons:

Base 1 Tps for a one handed method
absolute range of 0-1
optimal range of a single hex
attacks once for 0E
deals 4 damage per attack, bypassing target E
no recoil penalty
limit of two attacks per turn

+1 Tps:
+4 damage, and consumes 1E more per attack
+1 damage

+2 Tps:
increase range by 1 hex
+1 attack per turn

[technomancer]

How (if at all) do counter-missile systems work? I understand you can just shoot the darned things, if they're in the air (space?) long enough, but is it possible to have dedicated anti-missile guns? Presumably they would have hella-accuracy, fire out of turn, and use virtually no energy, but do crap damage (just enough to reliably take out a standard missile). What about decoys designed to draw off missile fire? Possibly both? If you do either (or both), they should be better than their energy cost would indicate, because they won't always work (either you miss, or, worse, your opponent doesn't bother shooting you with missiles).

And you could probably specify that you can't have delayed missile activation. I.E. Launch from extreme range, don't move. Next turn Launch and now both sets of missiles are on their way, and your opponent faces a volley twice as dense, so as to swamp missile defense.

[the_taken]

I'm still thinking about how to price missiles. Basically, I'm letting players have a few tech points to play with at first, the gradually increase them as the mechs become more powerful. I have a good idea on how I want Missiles to act, I'm just not sure at what power level they show up at.
But to make sure we don't get a time delayed volley: A missile that is not being direct deactivates and ceases to move.

Every mech has three basic options to avoid being subject to missiles.
1> Destroy a missile system before it fires. This actually hard to do
since missiles enter the battle during the energy phase so that they can make use of the movement phase they are summoned on, and have a high to-hit score.
2> Be a such a distance that the missile can't close in the turn that it is launched, then shoot it.
3> Get an intervening object. The missile may hit it instead.

Additionally, there are three defensive tactics that can be acquired by spending Tps.
1> ECM. A device that you allocate E to. Adds to your to-hit score against missiles, making it more likely for a missile to miss you.
2> Chaffs/Foil. When a co-operative intervening object is not readily available, make your own. Limited amount of uses and takes up a hard point. Hilariously, you can also launch another missile as an intervening object.
3> Cloaking Device. Just like every other entity in the game, missiles have to detect you to attack you.

[JonSetanta]

Check out d20 Future (d20 Modern variant) for an example pricing range. I can't verify the validity, but hey... it's fantasy scifi.
The SRD is availible online: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d2 ... ][br]whole zip is here: http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/Future.zip

[the_taken]

Eden Guard
Our mother we leave with our siblings, sacred and protected from us, for we are selfish and would destroy them for our own, pathetic, gains.

The Eden Guard are a military faction of fanatical bureaucrats with one missions statement: Earth's Closed.
See, right now, there are tribes of people that live in jungles all over the world, without electricity, or running water, or cotton. It's not that we drive them out of our modern societies, they just don't accept that cameras don't steal your soul. Outsiders are chased away, or sometimes even attacked, 'cause we're soul stealing demons. Plus we have freaky metal monsters, and we don't always eat what we kill. They don't like us, or phi, so there are laws in place that prevent people from interacting with theses savages, 'cause they're like a society of werewolves.
The Eden Guard, being a futuristic warped reflection of modern policies, have taken wildlife preservation and the Prime Directive to a whole new level. They won a war at some point and kicked everybody that had an education off of Earth, all in the name of respecting another's beliefs and wildlife preservation. So those technophobic tribes I mentioned a paragraph ago got Earth all to themselves 'till they figure out that star travel is awesome, or die off/evolve into something else.

Every member of the Eden Guard is hardcore warrior. The organization itself is really big on military hardware, and continually pushes technology used in destroying people and things forward. They also sell out use of their soldiers as mercenaries and obsolete war machines to factions of interstellar conflicts, given that the party they're supporting doesn't have any strong interests in Earth. They're also more than willing to sell both sides nukes to obliterate each other with.
But there's always somebody that wants to take Earth back, leaving opportunity for PCs to engage a human opponent that doesn't run, hide or crumble easily.
Almost everyone that asked was given access to the reverse engineered alien mech tech, and The Eden Guard pounced on the opportunity to maintain military superiority.

[the_taken]

1196058690[/unixtime]]Check out d20 Future (d20 Modern variant) for an example pricing range. I can't verify the validity, but hey... it's fantasy scifi.
The SRD is availible online: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d2 ... ][br]whole zip is here: http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/Future.zip

Well, that didn't really help. Unless I missed something. Did I? How was that supposed to help? I mean, wealth level check just means you may get something if you ask your DM.

I'm going for a hard you have 10$ worth of guns at all times. I'm trying to figure out when I want rockets to show up.

OK. I figured it out. I want them to show up at about the same time you can afford a gun that shoots eight times a turn.

The most basic Rocket launcher is a two-handed weapon, costing 6 Tps.
It takes 2E to activate (place a missile onto the battle map during the energy phase in the same hex as the launcher) and 1E to direct the missile. Meaning 3E is used in the first round, and 1E for each consecutive round the missile is still in play.
A launcher can only direct a single missile at a time.

A missile has a speed of 10hex. It moves in a strait line, directly towards the designated target.
> If it enters an occupied hex, the missile makes an attack roll against the object.
-> If it hits, it stops moving and detonates in the first shooting phase.
-> If it misses, it continues moving in a strait line, up to it's full movement.

A missile deals 20 damage to everything in the hex it detonates in. A mech subtracts it's E from the damage it takes before allocating damage to every hit-location.

Upgrades

1 Tps:
+2 damage
+2 hex to the blast radius

2 Tps
launcher is a hand-and-shoulder weapon
missile detonates when destroyed by weapons fire

3 Tps
+1 missile in the launcher
+5 missile speed

Did I miss anything?

Edit-> Looking back, the gun upgrade rules have a loophole that's abusable. Gonna fix it.

[technomancer]

Can you take the same upgrade more than once? For example, can up take blast radius 3 times to have a blast radius of 9 hexes?

I would assume that you cannot tell a missile to detonate after it's traveled a specific distance, so that you can't have the missile just detonate in the same hex as your foe. I guess there might be a long-range specialization that includes missile with a huge blast radius and a long-range sniper rifle to shoot your own missiles with.

On a related note, can you tone down your upgrades on the fly? Say you have a super-blast radius missile, only you haven't managed to destroy your enemy before they are close enough that your missile will hit you when you shoot your enemy, could you turn down your blast radius in the middle of battle?

[the_taken]

Yes, certain upgrades can be applied more than once, like the "+3 hex blast radius" upgrade. I should probably mark them or something, but I think it's pretty obvious which can be taken more than once.
Looking back though, a +3 blast hex for 1 Tps is a fucking sweet deal. That's going to need a nerf. (Edit-> there +2hex for 1Tps now)

No, there will be no premature detonation command. Although the sniper/rocket combo is viable. I actually considered it for one of my beta load outs.

I'm pro "I'm in your face, so you can't missile me! Neener neener neeener!!!" tactic. So no you may not reduce the yield on your missiles during a battle.

Next Up: Utility devices and stealth rules. Ideas welcome.

[technomancer]

Utility devices: What do you want to be able to do that's not combat?

The first one is obviously non-tactical movement. This must include faster than light travel due to the premise (radio trying to find their radio shell before they find yours). Repairs would also be vital, because you're pretty much going to pound each other to scrap every fight. Salvage operations, as well as mining and manufacturing, are needed to scrounge up those tech points to make your mech totally sexy.

Other than that, I'm not sure what else might be useful to do outside of combat.

As for stealth rules, it should probably be difficult to be stealthy and powerful at the same time. The easiest way to do this is to lower the value of your stealth field in relation to the amount of energy you spend on other stuff. This also makes intuitive sense because it should be easier to find something that is using more energy (and shooting at you). Distance should probably factor in, too.

If you want stealth to be common, then you could just allow anyone to spend energy to conceal themselves. You spend 5 energy hiding, and 5 energy on other stuff, and you are now stealth neutral. If you spend 10 energy on other stuff, you now are very not stealthy. If you spend 10 energy on hiding, you are now very, very stealthy.

If you want to use 4d6 method for stealth as well at attacks, then stick stealth neutral in the middle, at TN14, and just move the TN up and down according to how much energy is spent in which way.

This means you'd have to spend 10 more energy on stealth than on other stuff to be as undetectable as you can. Of course, if they have sensor upgrades, you'd have to spend more on stealth to counter their advantage. You can also throw in modifiers based on ambient conditions. A dust cloud would make it harder to find someone, but if you're in the middle of some oddly exotic particles, it would make it easier to find someone.

[the_taken]

Old Ideas:
Tps increases stealth rating
Tps increases detection abilities

New Ideas:
Spending E decreases stealth rating
Stealth allocated E increases stealth rating
4d6 TN14 is the base stealth

Too many d6s? Hmmm...

Let's try: Stealth isn't perfect. Even if you have all seven cloaking devices on, a Level 8 psychic dampening field and in deep orbit around a nebula planet, enemies could still be aware of you. Maybe not target you with an attack, but they'll still be at yellow alert.
(This is why space pirates don't have cloaking devices and instead practice scope and die warfare.)

TN14 is actually a good number for a 4d6 detection roll, but I don't want to roll too many dice. TN7 on a 2d6 roll is a little better, and prevents people from requiring both a massive distance and an ass load of bonuses to get off the RNG. Yes I actually want units with a stealth level off the RNG in either direction.

SR = Stealth Rating

So here's the deal, most units have a base SR (stealth rating) of 5. There are up to four upgrades (costing 2Tps each). Each one allows you to allocate up to 3E to reduce your SR by 1 for each 1E allocated to the system.
For every 1E you allocate to movement, weapons, scanners etc. your SR drops by 1. Firing a weapon also decreases your SR by 1 at the next detection phase for each shot.

Distance Modifier: In addition to having cool mech-ninja gear, distance is also a factor. Every 3hex after the 18th hex is a distance bonus of 1. So 20hex to 22hex is 1dm, 23hex to 25hex is 2, 26hex to 29hex is 3, etc. etc..

Sensors and Scanners: Sensors are just what all mechs get, a set of space eyes and space ears or whatever. The point is, they have 360 degree detection. Before each shooting phase, roll 2d6 and check the result against every enemy mech's SR + distance modifier. The shooting mech can then target every mech it can detect.
-> Missiles use the directing mech's targeting information, and so don't need to roll anything.

Scanners are one of four upgrades, costing 2Tps each, and can have up to 3E allocated to them, improving the result of the detection roll by 1 for each 1E allocated. There's also a 4Tps upgrade that adds another dice to the detection roll for 3E.

If a detector doesn't have anything to detect with an SR within it's possible rolls, don't roll any dice, and point out the things with SR's below the detector's minimum possible roll.

Multiple detections on a force. The mech with the highest possible detection roll... rolls first. Every enemy it detects gains a -2 distance modifier to other mechs on the detector's force. (If a friend detects a mech, you need to roll 2 lower to detect it yourself.) This modifier stacks, so getting detected tags you for targeting by others.

Meta to fluff: Rolling means that the character has a cloud on the radar. Could be a shiny particle, could be a psychic anomaly, could be an enemy. The point is, the detector knows there's something around him, but can't point out where or what it is. From the GM to player, it means that the player's mech is in the dark.

[JonSetanta]

Don't Gundams have sensors facing every angle? It's simple enough, to put a camera on the shoulders, legs, back....

[the_taken]

1196898222[/unixtime]]Don't Gundams have sensors facing every angle? It's simple enough, to put a camera on the shoulders, legs, back....

Um... Sure. And Evas can see 317 degrees with their computers and cameras. What's your point? Am I missing something?

[technomancer]

I think he thinks cameras are worth a damn at the distances space uses. At least, those without foot-wide (or more) lenses.

[JonSetanta]

I was curious if they did or didn't. Yes it's useful, but since I don't watch Gundam anything, I was going by a tidbit someone mentioned years ago and not sure if it's true.