If you want that anime feel for your game, I'd just use Mekton. It is better for genre immersion than anything Palladium could ever put out

I second Mekton for the simulating the minutia. Savage Worlds can emulate the show feel with the right modifications, like tying soak rolls to pilot rating after adjusting for equipment effects, but that is not the way published material went.

Well, I stuck with WEG D6, but even I had to go back and change some stuff. Like putting Body Codes for particular body sections on mecha instead of a single all encompassing Body Code. And even with that I had to add a few tables to simulate some stuff, like the fact we see Bioroids having to be shot into swiss cheese before exploding (redundant systems being a thing for them). It does add a layer of crunch, but it shouldn't be too terrible. Unlike Star Wars, the majority of your combat is going to be mecha-to-mecha. I also changed the Scales to Character -> Cyclone -> Battloid -> Shuttle -> Capital -> Battle Fortress -> Factory Satellite (Mecha other than Power Amplified Body Armor are all going to be Battlold scale, which basically combined Walker & Starfighter from Star Wars D6).

The normal rules for Damage to a Vehicle is as follows (from Star Wars REUP 2.0, with a few tweaks). This would apply to any Mook bad guys (so your standard Regult, Invid Scout, etc) EXCEPT Bioroids.

Exceed Body damage TN
1-3: Controls Ionized; Enemy pilot stunned; they lose any remaining actions and miss next turn

4-8: Lightly Damaged: -1D to Body Code Area; Enemy pilot stunned; they lose any remaining actions and miss next turn

9-12: Heavily Damaged: -2D to Body Code Area; Enemy pilot takes damage equal to Weapon at Character Scale; they lose any remaining actions and miss next turn

13-15: Severely Damaged: -3D to Body Code Area; Enemy pilot takes damage equal to Weapon at Cyclone Scale; they lose any remaining actions and miss next turn 

16+: Vehicle Destroyed and pilot killed

Mecha should go with a different system for character vehicles (they are, after all, the Heroes of their own games). Once you exceed the target's Body Code (for the specific location), then its been penetrated by the weapon being used. No ifs, ands or buts. This only applies in situations where the vehicle has been hit with weapons at its own scale. Once its hit with weapons greater than its scale, use previous table. So, now you roll on single d6 and compare it to a System Chart:

Body Code Damage Table
1: Non-critical system; vehicle suffers -1D to Body Code for areas hit

2: Non-critical system; vehicle suffers ionized controls*: lose any remaining actions and miss next turn; vehicle suffers -2D to Body Code for areas hit

3 - 5: Critical System; vehicle controls ionized*: (Limb) - useless (but repairable) or (Hull) - Pilot's compartment hit by low velocity spalling & pilot stunned: lose any remaining actions and miss next turn; vehicle suffers -2D to Body Code for areas hit

6: Critical System; (Limb) - Joint hit, limb completely severed or (Hull) - Roll on Hull Critical System Table; vehicle suffers -2D+1 to Body Code for areas hit**

Hull Critical System Table
1 - 2 -  Pilot's compartment hit by low velocity spalling & pilot stunned: lose any remaining actions and miss next turn
3 - 4 - Pilot's compartment hit and pilot hit by high velocity spalling & takes fragmentation damage to their Body translated as Penetrating Weapon at Character Scale
5 - Pilot's compartment hit and pilot hit by high velocity spalling & takes fragmentation damage to their Body translated as Penetrating Weapon at Cyclone Scale
6 - Reflex Furnace hit and vehicle explodes

What you also COULD do (which increases the lethality) is this as well....
Exceed Body damage TN:
1 - 8: Roll once on Damage Table
9 - 15: Roll twice on Damage Table
16: Roll three times on Damage Table

Bioroids, however, are different as I said. You basically have to do overwhelming damage to them to destroy them. Otherwise, they survive. So the Bioroid gets its own special Body Code Table (but uses the same Hull Critical System Table):

Bioroid Body Code Damage Table
1 - 3: Non-critical system; vehicle suffers -1D to Body Code for areas hit

4: Non-critical system; vehicle suffers ionized controls*: lose any remaining actions and miss next turn; vehicle suffers -1D to Body Code for areas hit

5: Critical System: (Limb) - Damaged and now useless, (Hull) - Pilot's compartment hit by low velocity spalling & pilot stunned: lose any remaining actions and miss next turn; vehicle suffers -2D to Body Code for areas hit
 
6: Critical System (Limb) - Joint hit and completely severed, (Hull) -  Roll on Hull Critical System Table; vehicle suffers -2D+1 to Body Code for areas hit**

** - If this exceeds the remaining Body Code for the Hull, then the vehicle is destroyed

Naturally, some areas on enemy mecha will be weak spots that if you intentionally target, it kills the pilot. This includes the faceplate on the Queadlunn-Rau (the pilot's upper torso is right behind it, namely their head), the faceplate on the Bioroids and the Camera Eye and Thrusters on any Invid mecha.

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 29, 2024, 03:41:33 PMBeing familiar with Kevin (we've swapped stories over lunch at Origins and a couple times in his office back in the mid 2000's) I can pretty much tell you exactly where the MDC inflation started and why.

So in other words he identified something his system was lacking for emulating certain genres, and instead of creating a rule for the genre books, then folding it into the next edition, he just kept hitting that broken button harder.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on February 29, 2024, 09:26:28 PM
Well, I stuck with WEG D6, but even I had to go back and change some stuff. Like putting Body Codes for particular body sections on mecha instead of a single all encompassing Body Code. And even with that I had to add a few tables to simulate some stuff, like the fact we see Bioroids having to be shot into swiss cheese before exploding (redundant systems being a thing for them). It does add a layer of crunch, but it shouldn't be too terrible. Unlike Star Wars, the majority of your combat is going to be mecha-to-mecha. I also changed the Scales to Character -> Cyclone -> Battloid -> Shuttle -> Capital -> Battle Fortress -> Factory Satellite (Mecha other than Power Amplified Body Armor are all going to be Battlold scale, which basically combined Walker & Starfighter from Star Wars D6).

I'm curious to know what you think of Mini-six:Bare Bones?  It is one of the more modern take on WEG D6 rules, with some streamlining.  And it's free to download, so have a look either way.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/144558/Mini-Six-Bare-Bones-Edition

The three biggest changes are these:

1.  Re-worked combat with pre-calculated Block, Parry, Dodge, and Soak values to be average target numbers rather than rolling them.  It's done to speed up combat by halving the amount of dice rolls.  Also, they're always in effect aka free, simplifying how many actions you are doing per round. 

2.  Only four attributes, not six.

3.  Hero Points are less powerful, but also have many more uses. 

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on February 29, 2024, 09:26:28 PM
Bioroids, however, are different as I said. You basically have to do overwhelming damage to them to destroy them. Otherwise, they survive. So the Bioroid gets its own special Body Code Table (but uses the same Hull Critical System Table):

So I'm curious. Have you modeled how Invid Scouts and Shock Troopers can one shot Bioroids with their cannons and swipes from their claws? I'm referencing the Invasion of Tirol, where common warrior Invid did terrible damage even to the heavily armored sections of the Bioroid armor.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 01:12:33 AMSo I'm curious. Have you modeled how Invid Scouts and Shock Troopers can one shot Bioroids with their cannons and swipes from their claws? I'm referencing the Invasion of Tirol, where common warrior Invid did terrible damage even to the heavily armored sections of the Bioroid armor.

I don't consider the Bioroid vs Invid attack in The Sentinels to be valid, because we see Bioroids mop the floor with Earth forces best mecha during the 2RW. The Invid are demonstrably terrible against beam attacks throughout The New Generation. At close range, even the EP-40 (which is basically a souped-up beam pistol) punches holes in both Iigaa and Shocktroopers. The Alpha's gunpod punches gigantic holes through them. Its only when Scott uses missiles that Invid survive contact. The Bioroids should have fought much better based on how they performed against the UEF.

I agree that basically nothing in Robotech can take a punch; even the SDF relied on shields to block shots and suffered hull breaches from attacks.  For any of the mechs it basically boiled down to "dodge or hit them first".  At no time in the series was anybody shown just tanking big hits and strolling away.  The problem comes in how to model such lethal circumstances in a way where the PCs don't have at least one member die during any given session when some random alien gets a good roll to hit them.

Basically what I'm getting from this (and I haven't watched Robotech in a while but the memories are coming back)...

Robotech is different from the majority of other Anime Mecha Shows (like Gundam in Particular) in that the Mecha are much like real life fighter Jets... they pack a ton of firepower but are very fragile.

However, the game makers keep treating them like they're flying tanks instead (aka like Gundam).

You wouldn't care what the system is (Obviously you want a good system) as long as it reflected the source material and what makes Robotech unique versus every other Mecha genre out there.

In a sense, Robotech *really is* more about Dog fighting in Mecha rather than Tank Fighting.

I am all about this thread, it's great.

I explored this game design space a different way:

https://platonicsolid.blogspot.com/search/label/mecha

https://platonicsolid.blogspot.com/search/label/mecha%20dev

But D6 is awesome too.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 29, 2024, 10:38:03 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 29, 2024, 03:41:33 PMBeing familiar with Kevin (we've swapped stories over lunch at Origins and a couple times in his office back in the mid 2000's) I can pretty much tell you exactly where the MDC inflation started and why.

So in other words he identified something his system was lacking for emulating certain genres, and instead of creating a rule for the genre books, then folding it into the next edition, he just kept hitting that broken button harder.

I'd be a bit more charitable and say he had a solution that worked well enough in one genre (personal SDC for TMNT and HU) and was extrapolated from existing systems (turtle shells and steel skin are natural armor, so let's just use the SDC system to model the extra toughness those guys have... oh and for all those martial artists who take punches from guys with super strength and get back up again).

So, since it worked before, why not use it again? It wasn't like he was expecting people to run mass battles in Robotech. You were, at most, a squad of mecha pilots (i.e. protagonists of this story) going on patrols against hostile forces... so just model the numbers so everything the PCs use has protagonist numbers and everything the threat forces have uses antagonist numbers.

And because, unlike D&D who makes each edition basically a new system, Kevin does not do fundamental rebuilds of the core system (and to be fair, his fans like the system as it is), he just nudges at the edges to keep from ruining his "thousand true fans" approach to longevity in the field (particularly when there's no guarantee a radical change would actually bring in more fans than it would cost... the risks you'd take at 30, 40 or 50 are not the risks you'll take at 70).

Hindsight is 20/20 and sometimes the cure is perceived as worse than the disease.

As to Mekton... I would agree in general, but Mekton has a real problem in that everything combat related is governed by a One-stat (not just a super-stat that is more important than others; a singular stat that is so important that if you've not maxed it you've basically failed at character creation) called Reflexes.

These days I lean more Jovian Chronicles/Heavy Gear as it at least makes it the super-stat-iness less potent, but something that requires a broader range of stats than just reflexes is critical to having any sort of meaningful differences at the pilot level (ironically, Palladium's system making attribute bonuses require truly exceptional attribute scores meant that skill training and level were usually far more common as the source of bonuses than attributes).

Indeed, in my own Robotech homebrew I did away with attributes entirely pretty much to entirely get rid of that. Your rank in a skill is the only thing that determines performance. If your character concept is an agile bastard, put your skill ranks into things you'd be good at if you were agile.

But there were enough mecha-related skills (piloting of the different modes, sensors, melee, ballistics, missiles, beam weapons, electronic warfare) that no PC could be best at all of them... so the PCs each ended up with their own specialities (the guy who skates around in Gerwalk with his GU-11, the battloid melee combat expert, the electronic warfare guy, etc.) even if they were all operating the same mecha.

I also generally liked the weapon-multiplier (multiplied by margin of success on attack) vs. Light damage/Heavy damage/Kill values from Jovian Chronicles for reflecting the sort of erratic damage results that you see in Robotech.

Quote from: Orphan81 on March 01, 2024, 07:56:38 AMBasically what I'm getting from this (and I haven't watched Robotech in a while but the memories are coming back)...

Robotech is different from the majority of other Anime Mecha Shows (like Gundam in Particular) in that the Mecha are much like real life fighter Jets... they pack a ton of firepower but are very fragile.

However, the game makers keep treating them like they're flying tanks instead (aka like Gundam).

You wouldn't care what the system is (Obviously you want a good system) as long as it reflected the source material and what makes Robotech unique versus every other Mecha genre out there.

In a sense, Robotech *really is* more about Dog fighting in Mecha rather than Tank Fighting.

That's a fairly accurate take. The problem has also been the people in charge don't want the earliest mecha generation become obsolete, even though we know demostrably they are even before the 1RW is over. That's why the Valkyrie kept having to get upgrades to keep just barely ahead of the curve. It helps to explain the in-universe reasons for the change to the 2nd Generation and later 3rd Generation mecha.

A great example is how I argued with the idjits that designed the current RPG rules for Strange Machine Games. They have the 1E Destroids sporting the most armor of any mecha in game. This is absurd when you consider none of them were designed before the Earth even had a fraction of a grasp of the science of Robotechnology. What's more, they're half armed with conventional weapons systems and only a few experimental beam weapons (namely the Tomahawk and Spartan).

Let's take the Tomahawk and the Salamander Battloid as examples.

The MBR-04-MK.IV Tomahawk weighs in at 31.3 metric tons dry at 11.27m at the head unit. The Tomahawk's upper torso contains 2 x 12-shot rocket launchers, 2 x TZ-III Gun Clusters, 2 x 12.7mm machine guns, 1 x 6-shot anti-aircraft rocket launcher and all the equipment necessary to operate them (motors to open missile pod doors, motors to elevate the gun cluster, ammunition trays and feed mechanisms, etc). That's in addition to its main armament, the PBC-11 Particle Beam Cannons.

By comparison, the CBH-05-Mk.I Salamander weighs in at 19 metric tons dry at 6.1m tall and mounts 2 x 12.77mm LIW-77 Ion Cannons and 2 x 3-shot 78mm Point Blank Missile Launchers. Its main armament is the carried beam cannon gunpod.

The Salamander is 1/8th the volume of the Tomahawk, but 2/3rds its weight. The Salamander is also 20 years and change difference in newer technology and production methods (being produced on 1 of 3 Factory Satellites the Earth had captured by the 2RW).

Yet somehow, magically, I'm supposed to believe the Tomahawk has demonstrably better armor than the Salamander. Never mind simple advances in metallurgy. Never mind the fact its weight and lack of most of the frame being dominated by internal weapons mounts. Yet I'm supposed to believe it somehow has worse armor than a walking artillery battery? The Tomahawk isn't designed to go toe-to-toe with enemy mecha in Close Quarters Combat. Its meant to destroy its opponents from mid-range, basically anything that gets past the Defender's AAA guns or Phalanx's missile volleys. By contrast, the Salamander is absolutely designed to engage in Close Quarters Combat. Yet the gamer smoothbrains say its obviously got less armor cause 'reasons'.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 01, 2024, 01:45:41 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 01:12:33 AMSo I'm curious. Have you modeled how Invid Scouts and Shock Troopers can one shot Bioroids with their cannons and swipes from their claws? I'm referencing the Invasion of Tirol, where common warrior Invid did terrible damage even to the heavily armored sections of the Bioroid armor.

I don't consider the Bioroid vs Invid attack in The Sentinels to be valid, because we see Bioroids mop the floor with Earth forces best mecha during the 2RW.

That's fine. Every creator's going to have to draw a line somewhere when picking which examples to emulate. But you're disregarding the mecha combat performance of a pivotal battle in the Robotech Saga. This is a stand-out example because it's the only TV series moment we have of cross-chapter mecha fighting. Fans who pay attention to and care about this stuff are going to notice.
You run the risk of accusations of favoritism towards the Biorods because in Southern Cross they are portrayed in one way, but in the larger context of the Robotech Saga, they are portrayed another way.

QuoteThe Invid are demonstrably terrible against beam attacks throughout The New Generation. At close range, even the EP-40 (which is basically a souped-up beam pistol) punches holes in both Iigaa and Shocktroopers. The Alpha's gunpod punches gigantic holes through them. Its only when Scott uses missiles that Invid survive contact. The Bioroids should have fought much better based on how they performed against the UEF.

They get one shotted by Bioroids in the battle of Tirol as well. I don't think anyone is under the assumption that the common Invid fighters are very tough. They rely on numbers, massed firepower volleys and claw to hand combat.

Quote from: Valatar on March 01, 2024, 02:12:15 AM
I agree that basically nothing in Robotech can take a punch; even the SDF relied on shields to block shots and suffered hull breaches from attacks.  For any of the mechs it basically boiled down to "dodge or hit them first".  At no time in the series was anybody shown just tanking big hits and strolling away.  The problem comes in how to model such lethal circumstances in a way where the PCs don't have at least one member die during any given session when some random alien gets a good roll to hit them.

Yep. I personally favor the idea that you can make the mecha a little tougher (and from the examples in the shows, that's not hard) across the board, simply to give PCs some wiggle room to take a few hits and not every fight is a RND test to see if you get hit and instantly die. It doesn't even have to be "metal hit points". A mecha can take system damage, like servos, motivators, engines, weapon systems, degrading their performance instead of exploding or crumpling like tinfoil.

It's a concession to the needs of an RPG compared to a TV show narrative. If someone wants to emulate the show that closely, just make it so any mecha hit is destroyed and the pilot is killed unless they're one of the named characters from the series. (And even then...) Good luck, kids!

I could never really get past the fast that "season" 2 and "season" 3 were different anime than "season 1".  I liked robotech/macross, I never got into the other two, so including anything from those never felt right or correct to me, so the whole jumbled up universe is a frankenstein mess to begin with.
As for the games themselves, I never really touched them, but it sounds about as messy as the shows were.