This may be a good time to point out that each game has a wiki available to the GM which you might find more convenient than maintaining a separate game for the same purpose.  The advantage to the wiki is that you can link topics from individual pages for much easier reference instead of digging through umpteen different threads to find that one answer.

The url would be wiki.rpol.net/?id=56363 (which you can create and edit as you see fit).

ugh.


not the first time someone's suggested i should look into making a wiki.

The last time was for my PF game.

I suppose i will consider it, though no promises.

wow.  you can do some cool things with the ruling i made on it this morning.

To re-iterate.  It counts as level one, for an option you do not already have.  You may invest xp to pick up a specialty in this option, but it will only be usable in heirloom mechs.  If the mech is lost or changed, you need to work on heirloom status all over again to get the spec back.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:55, Thu 16 July 2015.

I've got a wiki setup for a game I'm running and I'm willing to help run you through it and answer any questions to the best of my ability.  I can provide a link via PM if you're interested.

They really are handy.

Larger dice count as -1/-2 for purposes of mech fu correct?

Aka attacking someone with Physical 6 2d8 if you only have a physical of 5 results in a +1 TN to hit them in physical combat? (+1 for each point they're below 5)

Actually a good question, i suppose we're enjoying the larger dice thing and going with it, at least as far as Energy, Missile, and Ballistics is concerned.  Mostly to account for the presence of extreme range.

Even willing to presume CAT will allow weapons with a range of 3 or less to fire at range 4, and count it as extreme.

Do we want to keep it for everything else?  Pilot checks and physical combat?

Yeah its an important question since mech specialist would allow applying a 2d7 or 2d8 to initiative, pilot checks, and thus also physical combat.

I'm okay with keeping it, it only changes the % curve a bit in general, with the bigger dice of course allowing you to pull off a better chance at high TNs or impossible TNs. Like a character jump jetting down next to a +5 moving VTOL and attempting to punch it out of the sky. Normally that would be 13+ and impossible. (Assuming standard 5 physical)

I'm tentatively allowing it for now, though reserve the right to change it, if it becomes a problem later on.

I need to look at phsyical combat harder and make sure the dice size arent messing it up.

Reminder...

AC/2s are considered standard tech, and do not require a roll for modifications.

For modification purposes...
At this time, you automatically make availability rolls to get CASE.  (Safety first for all you ammo using sorts)

Most unit assets... gone.

Only unit asset that i'm tracking is prestige points, which are used to buy unit level functions.


Personal over head... also gone.


Players will have 12 tons of space to put all their material possessions in.

No single piece of equipment will weight more than 2 tons.

A spare mech is considered (4) tons for storage purposes.

Armor, internals, weapons, equipment, they all fall under the 12 ton limit of stuff.

---

Units are allowed (2) officers, the CO and XO, who are the lance commanders.

These characters are alloted an extra (2) tons of inventory for each rank they have.

Freelancers are considered unit commanders of... themselves, and will get 1 ton of inventory for each rank they have.

---

Non-Infantry Conventional Units skill levels... Gunnery 4 and Drive 5.
Makes it easy for the BM to calculate numbers.

Green Units ~ Standard Conventional units ~ No Specialties.

Regular Units ~ Standard Conventional units ~ (1) Specialty

Veteran Units ~ Command variant Conventionals units ~ (1) Specialty

Elite Units   ~ Command variant Conventionals units ~ (2) Specialty

How the units specialty is determined is still a work in progress.

---

Salvage

Characters have a Salvage Rating equal to their Mental rating + X-tech + Tinker.
A squad of infantry will add one to the characters Salvage rating.

One Salvage point = 10k cb of equipment recovered off the battlefield.
One Salvage point = 16af of field repairs.

So a character with a Mental rating of 2, X-Tech 1 and a squad of infantry is worth 4 salvage points

They can recover 32af of armor from the field, and use it for repair on their mech... If they took no damage they can just salvage a Medium Laser... if they took a lot of damage, they wont bother with salvage and will draw armor from their personal inventory to repair 64af of armor damage.

Quicker... and more individual oriented, though players in the same unit can pool their resources to salvage larger things like a Guardian Suite on the field that someone might want, but cant salvage by themselves.


Unit resources can also be spent on salvage operations doubling the pay out value for disabling a mech.  Mech is also automatically available to anyone that ones to buy it for an up/down grade... or for the really rich for a spare mech.

Handicaps take into account Character development (xp used), mech development, and player skill.

The first two are hard math calculations.


the last is subjective, based on what i've seen in the campaign.  Take it all with a grain of salt, a high handicap means i think you do well, and you weigh more heavily on missions.  If you're new, it means i havent seen you play enough and you'll be around +.000.  A low or negative handicap means i think you struggle and you will weigh less heavily on missions.  Starting handicaps will range from -.2 to +.2 .

During the course of the campaign it will go up or down, based on what happens on the missions.

+.200 Adam
+.100 David
+.100 Piotr
+.000 Teri
-.100 Roger

+.200 Akarian
+.100 Joaquin
+.000 Alric
+.000 Damien
+.000 Svend

+.200 Regina

---

To refresh your memory...

Handicap is used to determine you effective mission weight for mission Op Force calculations.


ie Himiko is in a 20 ton locust and has a handicap of x1.305 = 26.1 tons, fractions all round up so she's valued at 27 tons for missions.

Conventional units will be added to the handicap, which have a flat value.  (to be determined later)

* * * ATTENTION * * *


yeah... i know this process can be drawn out, and take forever as you discuss and work out the numbers again... and again... and again...


Thats fine.

So i'm going to put out a little incentive for players to wrap up and get their paper work in sooner, rather than later.


I'm going to be going through characters, and as i do, I'm going to be waving my magic fairy god mother wand around here and there.  If i'm good with your character sheet and i've marked it completed, based on how long you've been in the campaign, and what i see on the character sheet, i will offer you stuff to buy.

The sooner you get your stuff in, the better your odds are of getting the chance to buy something cool.  The longer you wait, the more likely youre going to end up with a rock.  Character in after the 20th will get no bonus... but will have had the advantage of 4 full days to uber tweak their characters.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:38, Fri 17 July 2015.

To save yourself grief...

players should make the purchases from availability, but not make mods to their mechs till after i post any bonus material they might want to buy (which may be included in mech mods)

Hey Kitten!

Thank you for taking a look at the revised Alaric already! :)  It looks like the character options section of the sheet still show his old options (hazard checks/tactics/damage magnet/Edge 1) instead of the ones I switched him to with the character mulligan (Heavy Mech Specialist/Energy Weapons/Edge 0). Additionally, the inventory lists Endo Steel and I believe the purchase was for Beta Endo Steel, does that need to be adjusted?

Options, fixed

'Endo' with out notation is pretty much understood (by me at least) to be Beta.  The easiest to get.  The newer versions are available though because of the harder availability rolls (really beta is pretty hard as is) no one is attempting them.

Awesome, thank you! :)

(Keep in mind this is subject to my time to actually sit down and work through the character sheets.  I work top down... and will aspire to do...around four or five or so a day.)

I've been put on... by David... to make an attempt to create a wiki for the game.


I suppose after all this time, it's due.

VERY little done with it, so far ive only created a Table of contents, the intro and archetypes...

Very very very very useless at the moment, will try and change that over time.


Link is, http://wiki.rpol.net/?id=56363

When it's actually worth a darn, I'll put it out in the reference section.

New Ballistic Spec...


Hail of Bullets ~ cost 15xp
Machine Guns may be used to spray an area defensively with bullets, acting as AMS to knock down missiles.
10d6 Ammo used and 3 Heat generated

---

Wall of Lead ~ cost 35xp
Machine Guns may be used to spray an area defensively with bullets, acting as AMS to knock down missiles aimed at a target within 30 meters.
10d6 Ammo used and 3 Heat generated


New Tactics Spec...

The lonely road ~ cost 15xp
+1 bonus to character's tactics when they are not part of a Lance

---

I work alone ~ cost 35xp
+1 bonus to character's tactics when they are not part of a Lance
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:36, Sat 18 July 2015.

As discussed by the battlemasters and unit commanders, Only half the mental rating (rounded down) will be used for calculating leadership.  This means that initiative, will get notably harder for missions and no longer be quite the cake walk youre use to.

The beta use of options to increase dice modifier, is being concluded as i make a final decision.

I've decided to use the larger dice modifier from options only for weapon attacks.  Weapon attacks have a limited number of character adjustments and the use of natural tn 13+ for extreme range makes use of the larger dice.


For other skills it gets really mucky using it for pilot checks and other things.  I'm not going to go through the particular incidents that i'm concerned, suffice to say they're there, and serious enough for me to make the call at this time to discard them for non accuracy options.

{Stroke's locust's foot affectionately}

I've always loved this mech.

My only regret about piloting the locust, is the total lack of torso space for equipment.

2 CT and 1 RT critical is all i'm every going to have for equipment on it.

Was asked if you could take a mech spec twice.

I said no.  It would be like taking ballistic twice which is pretty breaking.


I was also asked was there a way to take more specs.

I said no.  Specs may not exceed options....


So heres what I was thinking...

For purposes of spec you can take repeat options.  In the case of mech spec you would have to spec in the same much.  The option bonus would cap at two but you could take more specs by developing them both and get a plus two benefit much earlier.


Ie you could take mech spec light twice develop both to two.  Only get a plus two bonus for pilot but be allowed to take four specs from light much spec.  Allowing you to take both shoot on the fly and run and gun.

Maybe... if you max both options... I would bump the bonus to three....

Just thinking out loud.  Thoughts...

It's seems super expensive (your now losing an option plus 75xp on top of it, to get 2 more specs), but seems like it might work okay.
The trade off of being able to grab 2 specs and 2 options level bonuses for only 50 XP initially invested vs a full 75 is an interesting one.

Although it does make use of one of those "exception" type rules which always makes things a bit more clunky and feel off. E.G 4 levels of ballistic options essentially bought, but only 2 levels count for bonuses. As a designer I never like those types of exceptions as it usually means you're doing something the system wasn't designed to do, and are writing a one off vs redesigning the core system.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:57, Mon 20 July 2015.

Balancing it in my head.

Let's say...

We leave normal single option progression the way it is, and it's considered 'normal'.


Let's say we have something we call a 'specialized' option.  Not only are you good with an option, youre pretty darn godlike.

Option bonus would work as...

1st 25 xp ~> +1 Bonus +1 Spec
2nd 50 xp ~> +2 Bonus +1 Spec
3rd 75 xp ~> +3 Bonus +2 Spec

So after 150xp put into the option you'd have a +3 bonus, and 4 specs in it....

It is a double sized option though, meaning youre giving something else up.

Overall, it's costing you a bonus to something, but youre getting the same number of specs, they're just all concentrated in one particular option.


So for 150xp, i could be +3 Ballistics...
Have Cluth and Deadly shot, as well as fully developed fire discipline and sure shot... for another 100xp.

Sure... that's 250xp and 2 options gone, but look at what youre getting.