Nation of Machines (Planning)

[Marvelous Miscreant]

I suppose so...if that's what you want I'm sure there's a way to make it work.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Literally every robot show I've ever seen has had melee not only viable, but most of the time superior.

Speed would probably be your main stat.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Indeed, shooting thick metal with bullets is less effective than smashing it with a hammer or puncturing it with a sharp blade of some kind.

Besides, energy based defenses practically negate basic gunfire

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Provided you can keep from being hit with the bullets.

On that note, I need to know how we're handling ammo. How much dakka can I put in the air by hitting the big red Fire Everything button?

[Philote]

I'm considering filling that niche.

Do any of you remember Zoids or Liger and his transformations?:

[Marvelous Miscreant]

I had honestly not considered that until now. Hmmm, well it stands to reason that ammo isn't unlimited and that buying more will be needed. However, it would be silly to try and track every shell, mortar, bullet and rocket fired.

Therefore, ammo tracking may have to get a little abstract. I'll try to think of a good way to handle it but it may come down to some kinda point system or something....I dunno.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

That is literally the exact robot I was thinking of when I recommended speed.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Vaguely....for some reason I never caught much of that.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I do it so that every weapon has a certain number of salvos. Say, my big gun has a 5/5 salvo, I can fire it once, then I'd have 4/5.

My side guns have a 12/12, so I can spray them away and end up with 11/12.

For our purposes, a Salvo is the gun firing full tilt, enough to hurt another mech. Shooting one gun once, as a signal or something, doesn't count.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Actually, that's a lot simpler that the point thing I was thinking of. Let's go with the Salvo thing.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Now, how do we decide how much. Maybe tie it to the weapon stat?

I'm inclined to just leave it up to GM approval.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Well, this is basically what the weapon stat is for, so let's say 5 salvos for each point in Weapons (with a starting base of 5 for 0 points) These salvos can be split amongst the various weapons.

May have to tweak those numbers a tad though....not sure. Balancing numbers in rules was never my strong suit.

[Philote]

I have an urge to recreate DK from Brawl in Mech form:


Possibly Pawn sized instead of Titan sized. I want to put explosive charges into his fists so that things literally explode when he punches them

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I'll test it.

I have 40 salvos to divide between everything I can shoot.

Shell cannon (5/5)
Shell guns (15/15)
Cheek guns (10/10)
Underbite Shotguns (5/5)
Morter (5/5)

I can only think that high weapon is balanced out by the fact that a high weapon mech should have more weapons to divide the salvos between.

It could also make journeys between settlements more tense, or milked for moral choices (save these caravanners, or conserve your ammo for the fight you know is coming).

[Philote]

Do we have a salvo equivalent for rechargeable weapons?

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I'm not sure how you'd do that without destroying your hands.

You want a cool alternative? Piledrivers.

[Philote]

I considered that mech design.

Could I max out my blast defense?

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I don't think even maxing defense would let you take an explosion to what has to be the most intricately designed part of a robot. Maybe if there was no hand, just a big club arm....

Still, if you want to damage another robot with it you're going to take damage because if you want it to be strong enough to hurt a mech it's got to be strong enough to hurt you. The only difference is in the degree.

[Philote]

I was thinking of either an energy or material base mod that would give me a specific boost in defense related to explosive based damage.

I don't think I need the fine-manipulation upgrade for the arms as an initial component of my mech.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

I should probably add something like that to the Shop...