This is gonna be a bit of a rambling post, but bear with me. It does actually touch on a number of topics on tabletop gaming and how the series is very poorly represented by those that have had the licenses.
For those that may not remember, Robotech was an amalgamation of 3 original Japanese animated series consisting of Super Dimension Fortress: Macross (aka The Macross Saga), Super Dimension Cavalry: Southern Cross (aka The Masters War) and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (aka The New Generation). There have been additions over the years such as the Japanese OAV MegaZone23 Part I (aka Robotech: The Untold Story), Robotech II: The Sentinels (an original work attempting to make a sequel that failed due to the Yen vs Dollar in 1986 and was turned into a 'Movie'), the Japanese OAV Genesis Climber MOSPEADA: Love, Live, Alive (aka Robotech: Love, Live, Alive) and Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (also an original work as a movie that ended up being a standalone project due to the 'Creative Team'). The series spawned a line of novelizations from Del Rey in the late 1980s (after the series aired), a number of different comic book series by a host of different publishers and now 3 different Roleplaying Games (Palladium for 2 editions, Strange Machine Games for 1 edition, and Battlefield Press for a Savage Worlds version).
Robotech is the only franchise I can think of, bar none, where the canon (aka the Tv series as it aired in 1985) is ignored, sometimes whole cloth, by its licensees. This is especially true for every single version of the role-playing game that has been published so far. Part of this is the fault of the rights holder, Harmony Gold, since their current 'Creative Director' (as told by someone that worked with him directly) 'doesn't have ideas, he has whims'. The horror stories that have come out over the years of completed manuscripts, with all the changes requested being implemented, been sent to HG for approval, only to come back with different changes ordered. And this going on for six or more months at a time. Of course, when the RPG first came out in the 1980s, by Palladium, a large part of the problem was Harmony Gold simply didn't share what artwork they had with Palladium. I know this because I helped HG (through Tom Bateman, who worked there at the time) organize a gigantic file of Southern Cross artwork for them in the early 2000s and found a metric assload of wrongly labeled content (which I also helped fix by providing Palladium with my own personal collection for the 2E version of The Masters War book, for which I even got a special thanks). Of course, even then, Palladium (likely because of HG's 'Creative Director") got a crapton of stuff outright wrong, even when I showed them exactly what was wrong.
The ignorance of the Tv series by its licensees has been a stupid one since Palladium first started offering The New Generation and then The Masters War videotapes for VHS starting in the late 80s. And doubly so since the release of the Broadcast version of the DVDs in the early 2000s. These people are literally making money off of a license for the Tv series, attempting to replicate it in game form, and many times don't know their earhole from their arsehole when it comes to said Tv series. And worse, almost without fail, every last one of them refuse to change their minds no matter what direct evidence you provide them (and that's irrespective of whether you're nice to them or, as I have become in recent years, insulting to them). This is especially true of the recent RPG versions. A great example (if you'll forgive me) is their write up on the Chimera Heavy Escort Fighter from The Masters War. They not only have it as 'Clumsy' in aerospace combat (despite the fact its a nuclear-powered monster) but also the slowest (in space) fighter in the game, and thats irrespective of whether they are conventional space fighters (enemy and human) or Veritech fighters. I literally showed them 2 different videos from 2 different episodes showing where they were wrong: the first was from the episode Prelude to Battle (showing Chimera's rolling dodges to avoid being picked off by incoming enemy AAA beam cannon fire) and the second was from The Hunters (showing a group of Chimera's blowing the doors off of a squadron of Ajax Veritechs, coming from well below them, attempting to outrun the engagement zone where a short-lived black hole is about to open and swallow every single thing nearby). In both instances, I was told 'that doesn't really matter' cause of X, Y or Z.
So, okay, what the hell does that have to do with tabletop gaming? This isn't a thread for me to just bitch and moan about moronic licensees.
All 4 versions of the game have done an absolutely piss poor job of replicating even a moment of what we see in the series. I'm not the swiftest of cats on the best of days, but even a dumb redneck like me can grok the basic principles of the Square Cube-Law.
We'll start with both of Palladium's versions. We'll compare 3 mecha from the show and how Palladium wrote them up: Queadlunn-Rau Battlesuit (Macross), Bioroid (Masters), Enforcer (New Gen)
Queadlunn-Rau: 1E - 150 MDC, 2E- 290MDC
Soldier Bioroid: 1E - 90MDC, 2E - 125MDC
Invid Gamo/Enforcer: 1E - 200MDC, 2E - 390MDC
Of these 3, the Bioroid is treated as the worst of the worst.
I find that exceedingly odd because the Queadlunn-Rau not only is made for disposable clone troops (granted, elite ones), but already weighs in at 32.4 metric tons dry, MINUS the pilot. That is minus ordnance, fuel and the pilot alone (take Miriya as an example) is going to add another 6.25 metric tons. All told, you're going to be looking in the range of 40 metric tons, fueled and fully loaded. And the mecha's height is 17.11m at the shoulder. It is shown having negligible armor, being pierced by simple lasers (as well as 55mm slug-thrower ammo), either killing the operator (one is shot through the faceplate, so probably took her head clean off her shoulders) or simply exploding.
The Soldier Bioroid weighs in at 11.3 metric tons dry at 6.7m tall, has a few thrusters built into the feet (flying mostly on the Biover Anti-grav Sled or some sort of inertia-less system in space minus the Biover) and carries a hand-held beam cannon, though a few appear to have light beam cannons mounted in the head. Likely only needs a few liters of something for reactant and to turn into plasma to spit out the beam cannons. Most of the frame under the armor is bundles of 'myomer' fibers. The Bioroid is designed as an elite Air Assault Infantry mecha where the pilot's nervous system basically controls the mecha (the nerve impulses are translated into the mecha's movements) and its the only mecha in the series other than true Power-Amplified Body Armor to have such a setup (the Queadlunn-Rau and Gamo are piloted like almost all other mecha by traditional control methods like joysticks).
The Invid's Enforcer is probably their heaviest weapons platform in their arsenal with a pair of heavy duty 'heat cannons' mounted on the shoulders and a smaller pair of laser-plasma cannons mounted in the 'chin'. The armor is shown to be sort of effective in spots (withstand multiple his with rocket-propelled grenades) However, it weighs in 28 metric tons dry and is 9.7m tall at the shoulder. Again, this is the dry weight, minus any onboard fuel or consumables for the pilot (Invid pilots literally sit in a puddle of green goop). Like the Zentraedi, the Invid aren't necessarily torn up over losing masses of troops (one of their most effective tactics was to use their Iigaa Fighter Scouts to suicide ram enemy targets, mecha and ships, destroying both in the process.
Now we'll compare Strange Machine Games versions (sadly, we only have The Macross Saga stats so far for the Savage Worlds version). The armor scales thusly: Light, Mecha, Naval. 10 points of Light Damage translates as 1 point of Mecha damage.
Queadlunn-Rau - Armor Mecha: 2, Structure – Mecha: 2
Soldier Bioroid - Armor Light: 8, Structure - Light: 18
Gamo Enforcer - Armor Mecha: 2, Structure - Mecha: 2
Once again, we see comparable (though not the same) stats to those of Palladium, and in contravention of what is established in the show.
Long time Robotech fan contributor (and one of the authors of the unofficial Robotech Reference Guide, which HG used to make much of their baseline stats for) Peter Walker, who is an actual Astrophysicist, posted this about how armor works with relation to Galileo's Square-Cube Law:
Strength generally scales as cross-sectional area, whether muscle, skeleton, strut, or servo; height squared. Mass scales with volume; height cubed. A mecha twice the height (but otherwise identical) will be half as strong, proportionally - because its strength will have only quadrupled, but its scalable mass will have increased by eight.
The total mass of a mecha will be made up of several components:
1) the irreducable components like the cockpit module, computer, sensors, etc. These will be about the same size regardless of the mecha.
2) Some minor components that scale with height. These will be things like control and sensor cables.
3) the skeleton and actuators of the mecha. These will actually scale faster than than the cube of the height, because as it gets bigger, it has to become more robust to drive its self-mass, driving mass higher faster. Powerplants may fall under this category, but with a floor like category 1)
4) the armor, which will scale with the square of height.
Given a minimum strength/mass ratio, the armor thickness is limited by a factor that is linear with the height. The bigger you are, the less mass budget you have left for armor, and then you have to spread that armor over a larger surface (that is growing as height squared).
Got that?
So what IS established in the show. Well, we'll have to look at the Bioroid and the dialogue for it.
Episode #42 Danger Zone
[THE NARRATOR]: Professor Miles Cochrane and his colleague Dr. Sampson Beckett probe the remains of an enemy Bioroid in the Robotech Research Laboratory.
[DR. MILES COCHRANE]: I'm now activating ultraviolet scanner.
[DR SAMPSON BECKETT]: Oh!
[DR. MILES COCHRANE]: Alright, let's see exactly what type of mecha we're dealing with here.
[DR SAMPSON BECKETT]: Data on its way. Bioroid. Hovercraft. Some kind of assault ship.
[DR. MILES COCHRANE]: Okay, how about the damages received. See if you can get me a readout on that.
[DR SAMPSON BECKETT]: Alright. Requested data on its way. I'm punching up a schematic of the infrastructure. Hmmm. As you can see, internal damage is minimal.
The Bioroid is all beat to hell, by the way. Its missing its lower right leg and has cracking all across the surface of the mecha. However, only a few spots are completely exposed, as if they armor either flaked away or was blown off.
The long and the short of it is every version of the Robotech RPG has been built around several faulty assumptions. Part of this is inherent in the game systems chosen, like Palladium. The series shows that avoiding getting shot is the best way to survive. However, Palladium went the Battletech route where you're basically piloting modern day tanks trying to blast away at one another. Problem is, we can pretty well decode the series as showing weapons throwing out Mega-Joule energy hits (for most, not all, weapons) and armor either straining or completely buckling under those hits. And of all the mecha in question, only the Bioroid gets hit in vital areas that SHOULD cripple it and still not going down. A large portion of it is the biases of the licensees overriding not only common sense, but what is shown. Many fans claim to not like The Masters War, presumably because its a complex narrative that doesn't bore you to tears with nonsensical love triangles.
Speaking personally, I use WEG's Star Wars REUPD6 version, as its probably the closest we can get to a system that simulates what we see on screen.
This is literally just the tip of the iceberg on this and how the people producing the RPGs don't understand that 'Bigger doesn't always mean tougher'. As I love to say, there has got to be a better way to skin a cat.
I salute your nerddom. I've done a similar rant about the height and scale of Transformers, specifically the F-15 Jets and how they wouldn't be 60 feet tall despite a lot of fans saying they should be.
So I empathize.
But man. The one commonality in the anime(s) is that your survivability is strongly dependent on whether you're a main character or not, and the needs of the story. Bringing in real world physics just underlines how silly giant humanoid mecha are. The best you can do is either base the stats on what's good for the game, or try to emulate the TV show. Both approaches have their issues.
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on February 29, 2024, 05:15:50 AM
Speaking personally, I use WEG's Star Wars REUPD6 version, as its probably the closest we can get to a system that simulates what we see on screen.
Well....here ya go!
http://www.d6holocron.com/wiki/index.php/Robotech_Defence_Force (http://www.d6holocron.com/wiki/index.php/Robotech_Defence_Force)
I didn't if you were aware of it, so here's the link.
Enjoy
Quote from: blackstone on February 29, 2024, 08:32:56 AMWell....here ya go!
I wasn't, though looking at the stats I'm convinced they're the exact opposite of what I'm looking for. Its also a lot of
Macross mecha that have absolutely nothing to do with
Robotech.
There is no way the HWR-00-Monster (erroneously called the MAC II) tops out a whopping 9D Walker-scale. The thing is a walking battleship turret, not a battleship. Its own weight, at 285.5 metric tons dry, and size, at 22.46m tall, would preclude anything but exceedingly thin armor. Besides, its not designed for frontline combat but to engage targets at dozens(?) of miles distant. That was partly why they designed the Spartan, to give the other Destroids a counterpart to engage in Close Quarters Combat instead. Spartans are there to defend Monsters, Phalanx's and Defenders from fast moving targets that close the distance. The Tomahawk has a few weapons to deal with close-in threats, like the TZ-III Gun Cluster, but those are almost last ditch weapons.
Still, thanks for the thought.
The sad part Palladium Books and by extension Kevin could have at least with the second edition tried to do something that would remotely resemble the anime.
But no he decided to quintuple down on first editions flaws and do nothing to address them. Keeping weapons damage low while adding more MDC makes already long combats longer. Sure one can use missiles it gets boring.
What a wasted opportunity sure to be repeated in a third edition if they get the rights again.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 29, 2024, 07:58:17 AMBut man. The one commonality in the anime(s) is that your survivability is strongly dependent on whether you're a main character or not, and the needs of the story.
Yes and no. The main thing is that you want to avoid getting hit. Rick Hunter, the protagonist of the first chapter, loses 2 VF-1J Veritechs in combat, bailing out in time in each one. One of them is literally thrown against a wall with spikes on it and the spikes punch straight through the armor as if it were nothing.
Skull-1, Roy Fokker's old VF-1S, gets shot full of holes by an enemy Queadlunn-Rau and he ends up succumbing to his wounds. Rick later takes over a repaired Skull-1 only to have the arms blown off in
Force of Arms as he managed to block a pair of anti-mecha missiles detonating against them in a one-in-a-million gamble.
There has to be some rationale for mecha resisting damage. At least in
The Masters War its shown that some cannon fodder (non-named character piloted) Veritechs have special arm shields that completely ablate away incoming beam cannon attacks. Hit the mecha in a location not protected by that and its still adios muchachos.
Its still mostly 'Don't get hit!'. Marie Crystal's Veritech Logan has a mid-air collision with a Bioroid in
Star Dust and it stalls out and she is saved by Sean Phillip's 'catching' her fighter with his Hovertank in Battloid mode. Lancer's Veritech Alpha takes a direct hit in
Dark Finale and it takes the Invid Princess Sera using her Commander Battloid mecha to save him from turning into a pancake upon impact with the ground. They're the exceptions to the rule, but getting hit is still bad.
QuoteBringing in real world physics just underlines how silly giant humanoid mecha are. The best you can do is either base the stats on what's good for the game, or try to emulate the TV show. Both approaches have their issues.
Well, there has to be a level verisimilitude or it breaks down. That even applies to mecha anime. Of course, you can't make Hard Sci-Fi Giant Transforming Robots, but at least SOME level of realism to keep from completely breaking your suspension of disbelief.
Honestly you seem very anal retentive about the minutiae of this series (which I salute,) but it also means that no product is ever going to satisfy you, so you'll have to create your own massive and intricate rules.
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 29, 2024, 09:24:37 AMHonestly you seem very anal retentive about the minutiae of this series (which I salute,) but it also means that no product is ever going to satisfy you, so you'll have to create your own massive and intricate rules.
I don't think it actually requires intricate rules, per se. The rules can be kept relatively non-crunchy, but the emphasis needs to shift from 'everything is a tank' to 'everything is fragile, don't get hit!' Player characters would have a pool of 'Fate' points to spend to keep from croaking in combat, turning a critical hit that explodes their mecha to 'I punch out in time' or 'No, it wasn't a critical system that was hit, but my Veritech just had its leg lopped off'.
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 29, 2024, 09:24:37 AM
Honestly you seem very anal retentive about the minutiae of this series (which I salute,) but it also means that no product is ever going to satisfy you, so you'll have to create your own massive and intricate rules.
Pretty much my response. There's a fine line between being so close to the source material to where it's either playable or unplayable.
Sometimes you have to make compromises.
Good luck to the OP.
Quote from: blackstone on February 29, 2024, 09:41:48 AMSometimes you have to make compromises.
Sure, no game is going to absolutely 100% simulate the combat we see in
Robotech, but you could at least get it razor-thin close, I think. Or at least closer than what Palladium and SMG have done.
Palladium turned everything into a tank. Combat was slow and the enemies that used swarm tactics (Zentraedi/Invid) had mecha that were beefed to the gills while the enemies that used sheer technological prowess (The Masters) to make up for low numbers were reduced to absurd levels. It was an upside down system that makes zero sense.
SMG took a baseball bat to the later generations to make them 'sort of' equal in power to
The Macross Saga mecha. This despite 20+ years of technological innovation in the case of
The Masters War mecha, and nearly 50 years in the case of
The New Generation. Its the equivalent of having a game where a Sopwith Camel is just as fast, maneuverable and capable as an F-4U Corsair or P-51 Mustang, not to mention an F-4 Phantom Fighter Jet.
Quote from: Abraxus on February 29, 2024, 09:06:54 AM
The sad part Palladium Books and by extension Kevin could have at least with the second edition tried to do something that would remotely resemble the anime.
But no he decided to quintuple down on first editions flaws and do nothing to address them. Keeping weapons damage low while adding more MDC makes already long combats longer. Sure one can use missiles it gets boring.
What a wasted opportunity sure to be repeated in a third edition if they get the rights again.
You left out the part where he mislead thousands of his and Robotech's most hardcore fans on his $1.4 mil Tactics game about the status of the project ultimately only delivering around a third of the models promised because he spent the rest of the money on thousands of extra boxes exclusively for retail that should have been paid for with his own money...and then simply washed his hands of the responsibility when he finally had to admit he was losing the Robotech license.
Quote from: Abraxus on February 29, 2024, 09:06:54 AM
The sad part Palladium Books and by extension Kevin could have at least with the second edition tried to do something that would remotely resemble the anime.
But no he decided to quintuple down on first editions flaws and do nothing to address them. Keeping weapons damage low while adding more MDC makes already long combats longer. Sure one can use missiles it gets boring.
What a wasted opportunity sure to be repeated in a third edition if they get the rights again.
You are right. I bought Palladium's Robotech RPG around when it came out after a friend ran it. I loved the series back when I was young and I watched it every morning and Palladium's Robotech didn't feel anything close to the show. I was disappointed.
I haven't tried either Battlefield Presses version or strange machines so I cannot comment on those.
Quote from: Abraxus on February 29, 2024, 09:06:54 AM
The sad part Palladium Books and by extension Kevin could have at least with the second edition tried to do something that would remotely resemble the anime.
But no he decided to quintuple down on first editions flaws and do nothing to address them. Keeping weapons damage low while adding more MDC makes already long combats longer. Sure one can use missiles it gets boring.
Yeah, the MDC escalation started with Palladium Robotech and continued into RIFTS. Moar MDCes! A Cyclone ride armor has 200 MDC! Yay!
(Wow, I pulled up Invid Invasion just to have it on-hand, and Siembieda himself did a lot of the illustrations in there. And they're not too shabby.)
Technical minutia is a tough one. It's fictional. We can't relate because what works one time may fail utterly in another episode because the story needs it to.
Personally, If I'm running a Mecha based game from now on I'm using Tiny-D6 Mecha vs Monsters 2E. This includes RoboTech/Macross and the rest.
It has both transformers and combiners, but is rules light.
I will say that I own all 4 versions of RoboTech games, and Palladium 2E is my favorite. Hell, it even tried to justify why VF-1s were firing lasers out of their nose cone retro-thrust vernier ports (animation error). The 2E game mentions the SDF-1 squadrons did this as a modification, but normal VF-1s from the factory don't. And the firepower is crap. I'm ok with that.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 29, 2024, 12:47:12 PM
Yeah, the MDC escalation started with Palladium Robotech and continued into RIFTS. Moar MDCes! A Cyclone ride armor has 200 MDC! Yay!
(Wow, I pulled up Invid Invasion just to have it on-hand, and Siembieda himself did a lot of the illustrations in there. And they're not too shabby.)
Being 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.
The why is simple; because Kevin stuck with his usual Palladium ruleset as a base and that system utterly lacks any sort of luck/plot armor mechanic, the inherent resilience of the Robotech protagonists had to be accounted for in the MDC values of the mecha as if they were all being operated by the protagonists.
For the 1e Macross era it wasn't too bad; a modern tank had 50 MDC, the Veritech had 250, while a standard Battlepod also had 50. The modern tank gun did 2D6 MD, a long burst with the Veritech's GU-11 gun pod averaged 21 (6D6) damage and a single SRM was 35 (1D6x10) so 2-3 bursts or a couple missiles would easily drop a Battlepod and the Battlepod averaged 44 damage (8D10) with its main guns so about six hits on the receiving end to have you Veritech shot out from under you. Personal human body armor at the time had TWO MDC points (technically it was 200 SDC with a conversion of 100 SDC = 1 MDC).
Where it got stupid was the Southern Cross era, because the protagonists spent a LOT of time exposed to fire from mecha-scaled opponents and, again, Palladium rules lacked any sort of luck/plot armor. So to account for the protagonists' survival... viola; MDC body armor set at 50 MDC so it could take at least one, possibly two of the Bioroid's 1D4x10 MD weapon shots (basically meant to be equivalent to the 4D10 MD of the individual Zentraedi particle weapons). Similarly, since the protagonists were able to damage Bioroids with personal weaponry, those had to be MD too.
So, Invid Invasion rolls around and not only do you need to not backslide on the personal armor values, but you have to account for a man-scaled power armor atop it... which is why the Cyclone has 150-200 MDC.
Basically, all of it spins out of a "it made sense at the time" set of decisions all starting from that first decision to stick with Palladium's default of "no special plot armor for PCs."
The decision to make it even worse in 2e Robotech can similarly be laid at the feet of decade+ of Rifts material that started with being slightly ahead of Robotech (the beat body armor in Rifts had 80 MDC, the Cyclone-equivalent suits had 180-250 MDC), but supplement escalation (particularly CJ Carella's material) pretty quickly escalated the MDC values to where something Cyclone-sized had 450+ MDC and full-sized bots were closing in on a thousand MDC.
And because Kevin always thinks in his Megaversal system terms, that meant his 2e of Robotech needed to not be completely outclassed by the numbers you found in the Rifts books.
It's all a case of "Made Sense at the Time" logic based on the refusal to let anything Palladium produced use anything other than the core Palladium game mechanics.
If I had a time machine that could only be used to fix trivial stuff, I'd have gone back to when Kevin had been first working on Robotech and convinced him the genre required some type of "plot armor/luck points" mechanic instead of trying to build it into hardware.
If that had happened, we may not have even seen MDC except as a mechanical convenience (because things like main battle tanks already had 2000 SDC with main guns doing 2D6x100 SDC, so a convention of "divide by 100 for convenience" isn't unreasonable).
Hell, I suspect you'd have had to actually go back to whichever system resulted in Kevin deciding to add personal SDC (vs. SDC only applying to armor and objects while creatures had hit points); probably either TMNT or 1e Heroes Unlimited; just because the entire point of adding those was to account for the incredible resilience and plot armor of the comic book protagonists and villains. It was only because of THAT decision that doing the same with the MDC values made sense.
I think you COULD actually build a solid Robotech system out of Palladium's rules... but you'd have to go back to basics with 1e Palladium or even Mechanoid Invasion and build the needed luck points/plot armor* mechanics off that to do so.
* Because it would be scalable to both personal and mecha scale combat, I think luck points spendable to increase your defense rolls instead of "armor points" to absorb damage abstractly would make the most sense if basing it off Palladium's base engine.
Then you could do a Veritech or Destroid with 20 MDC (2000 SDC) and personal armor with 100 SDC (relative to a human's 14-ish HP at level 1) and a Cyclone with 150-200 SDC. The Veritech's 55mm gatling rifle would be about 3D6x10 SDC for a single shot or 2D6x100 SDC for a 10-round burst or 4D6x100 SDC for a 20-round burst (which is holding the trigger down for one second... GU-11 supposedly held 200 rounds and could fire at up to 1200 rpm/20 rps ... so basically 10 seconds of sustained fire).
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 (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.
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 01, 2024, 10:00:35 AM
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.
That's probably because the Macross section is hands down the most popular of three, so of course the people owning the IP don't want it obsoleted (I was always more a New Generation fan myself so it didn't bother me).
In terms of the timeline though, comparing the VF-1A series (developed c. 2007 in the Robotech timeline) to the VAF-6H series (developed c. 2035 for the Alpha generation that made the return to Earth with Karbarran and Tirolian refinments and the Beta Fighter linkage capabilities) is roughly on par to the differences we see between an F-15 (c. 1972) and an F-22 (c. 1996).
The F-15 is amazing... it's so good that we're actually discontinuing production of the F-22 and a new F-15 (the -EX) is entering production because there's literally nothing else on the planet that can take on an F-15...
... except the F-22 which literally takes out whole flights of F-15s in training exercises.
The VAF-6H (the blue Alpha for those watching at home) is similarly a beast, that utterly outclasses the VF-1 series at basically everything (better thrust, more armor mass, better space endurance, five times the firepower... this is before you include the Beta Fighter it can link to which is just a "Dear God in Heaven" can of whoopass... each arm carries THREE of the Alpha's main guns, it does legit tank missile hits like literally nothing else in the series can, and it can go orbital under its own power... the Alpha has an edge in maneuverability and acceleration; that's it).
So, yeah, I absolutely agree it's silly to have stuff at least three generations less advanced be considered equivalent to the current generation war machines.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 05:38:48 PMIn terms of the timeline though, comparing the VF-1A series (developed c. 2007 in the Robotech timeline) to the VAF-6H series (developed c. 2035 for the Alpha generation that made the return to Earth with Karbarran and Tirolian refinments and the Beta Fighter linkage capabilities) is roughly on par to the differences we see between an F-15 (c. 1972) and an F-22 (c. 1996).
Sorry, no. Development of Robotechnology is more akin to the span of technology between the Sopwith Camel and the F-4 Phantom. For example, the VF-1's head lasers (and presumably nose-lasers) overheat as shown in
First Contact, to later Veritechs being armed with beam weapons exclusively and able to fire for dozens of shots, in space (where there is no real way to radiate away the heat without something exotic to explain it). Veritechs also get way smaller, to the point the VF-8 Logan exists, a mecha that is 1/6th the volume of the Valkyrie. And the Logan's internal armaments are nothing but the aforementioned beam weaponry.
We see Veritechs go from having no armor whatsoever:
Rick's VF-1J gets thrown against what amounts to a coat rack and the spikes punch through it, a low-velocity throw. The armor is non-existent, which makes sense when you consider the Valkyrie had to be built when technology wasn't understood. And 2007 was when the first models entered service, so they couldn't have technology newer than 2005 at the very latest or else no jigs, dyes and other construction tools would have been ready at the time.
To being able to mount something that increases pilot survivability (granted, we may be talking a few minutes in combat).
We see Cannon Fodder Ajax (
Mind Games), Sylphides (
Southern Cross) and Logans (
Southern Cross) being able to (temporarily) withstand multiple hits from beam cannons that are most-assuredly anti-tank grade weaponry (so Mega-Joule level energy, possibly high as a dozen Mega-Joules or more). Also, by the 2RW, the Earth has multiple 50km+ Factory Satellites in its possession and mecha are now mass produced in ways that dwarf the best the Earth could achieve before the Zentraedi Holocaust.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 10:45:22 AMThat'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.
True, but most people who point to the Bioroid's poor performance don't actually bother with the particulars of the battle. We know that at the same time, the Masters forces speeding towards Earth are basically running on fumes. No doubt, the Bioroids on Tirol are similarly hampered. We know that Tirol's defenders are down to a pittance of forces. We hear of 'Bioroid Squad 5' (which has ~9 Bioroids in it, so 3 'Fire Teams') so at a minimum there were 45 Bioroids to defend the planet (which amounts to 2 Bioroid Assault Corvette's worth of forces; each Corvette can hold 27 Bioroids and Biovers). In the first wave, the Invid have 3 Shell-Door ships packed with Iigaa Armored Fighter Scouts. That's ~1300 Invid mecha. Then there is a second wave which involves 3 more Shell-Door ships with Gurab Shocktroopers. That is ~600 Shocktroopers.
And it wasn't actually that pivotal a battle in the grand scheme of the wars. Tirol wasn't the capitol of the Empire anymore and Zor's Protoculture Factory wasn't there. The Invid Invasion of Earth was way more central to the wars than Tirol.
As another poster said Kevin knew the issues in the first edition of the Robotech rpg and didn't even try to fix the issues instead making it worse.
People like to get on D&D case for new editions at least when possible thry tried to fix some of the glaring issues. Nor is hiding behind the Sunken Cost Fallacy a reason to not try and emulate a genre. Or an excuse not to fix known issues.
As usual Kevin knew best was told many year ahead of the current issues of the first edition of the Robotech rpg. Then ignored any and all feedback. I'm not too sympathetic to any game designers who insist on repeatedly trying to hammer a square block into a circular opening .
The closest I agree would be the Mekton rpg in emulating most anime imo
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 01, 2024, 07:06:38 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 10:45:22 AMThat'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.
True, but most people who point to the Bioroid's poor performance don't actually bother with the particulars of the battle. We know that at the same time, the Masters forces speeding towards Earth are basically running on fumes. No doubt, the Bioroids on Tirol are similarly hampered. We know that Tirol's defenders are down to a pittance of forces. We hear of 'Bioroid Squad 5' (which has ~9 Bioroids in it, so 3 'Fire Teams') so at a minimum there were 45 Bioroids to defend the planet (which amounts to 2 Bioroid Assault Corvette's worth of forces; each Corvette can hold 27 Bioroids and Biovers). In the first wave, the Invid have 3 Shell-Door ships packed with Iigaa Armored Fighter Scouts. That's ~1300 Invid mecha. Then there is a second wave which involves 3 more Shell-Door ships with Gurab Shocktroopers. That is ~600 Shocktroopers.
I think the Bioroids performed rather well, considering. They were heavily outnumbered and their defeat was inevitable, but they took some Invid with them. We can't know the total ratio, because we're only shown the fighting at the capitol. (I'm assuming that was the capitol city of Tirol)
But my point was the individual examples of weapon performance. We're shown that a Biorod can be one shot-ed or at most one volley-ed from a Scout's cannons. And Invid claws can tear open a Bioroid's chest in one swipe.
This is still a cannon battle, despite the series never getting finished, and one can hold it up as evidence that the Bioroid armor is tough, but in the Robotech universe, tough is on a sliding, narrative scale.
QuoteAnd it wasn't actually that pivotal a battle in the grand scheme of the wars. Tirol wasn't the capitol of the Empire anymore and Zor's Protoculture Factory wasn't there. The Invid Invasion of Earth was way more central to the wars than Tirol.
It was certainly notable in that it was the Invid that the REF encountered at Tirol and not The Masters, as they expected. I would say it was pivotal in that if the Masters had delayed their departure, or the REF arrived a little earlier or Invid had arrived a little later, the Expedition just may have gotten an alliance with the Masters against the Invid.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 01:32:05 PMIt was certainly notable in that it was the Invid that the REF encountered at Tirol and not The Masters, as they expected. I would say it was pivotal in that if the Masters had delayed their departure, or the REF arrived a little earlier or Invid had arrived a little later, the Expedition just may have gotten an alliance with the Masters against the Invid.
Actually, the REF (in fact everyone Earth-based) never encountered the Invid until the Invid Invasion of Earth. No one had even heard of them until Musica tells Bowie of them in
Final Nightmare. The REF was out in deep space battling, quite likely, The Disciples of Zor and whatever was left of Dolza's Grand Fleet (at least for a short time). And that's not even mentioning whatever local forces would be trying to pick at the dead corpse of The Masters' empire. At least in the Tv series. The novels/comics (and even RPG) are altogether different, in ways that actually defy numerous dialogue cues and such. As I said,
Robotech is the only franchise I know where the canon is ignored, sometimes whole cloth.
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 02, 2024, 05:53:16 PM
Actually, the REF (in fact everyone Earth-based) never encountered the Invid until the Invid Invasion of Earth. No one had even heard of them until Musica tells Bowie of them in Final Nightmare. The REF was out in deep space battling, quite likely, The Disciples of Zor and whatever was left of Dolza's Grand Fleet (at least for a short time). And that's not even mentioning whatever local forces would be trying to pick at the dead corpse of The Masters' empire. At least in the Tv series. The novels/comics (and even RPG) are altogether different, in ways that actually defy numerous dialogue cues and such. As I said, Robotech is the only franchise I know where the canon is ignored, sometimes whole cloth.
Is this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?
And Robotech's actually unique among 80s franchises for
having a semi-coherent canon. Ask Ratman about Transformers or me about Masters of the Universe. :D
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2024, 07:05:31 PM
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 02, 2024, 05:53:16 PM
Actually, the REF (in fact everyone Earth-based) never encountered the Invid until the Invid Invasion of Earth. No one had even heard of them until Musica tells Bowie of them in Final Nightmare. The REF was out in deep space battling, quite likely, The Disciples of Zor and whatever was left of Dolza's Grand Fleet (at least for a short time). And that's not even mentioning whatever local forces would be trying to pick at the dead corpse of The Masters' empire. At least in the Tv series. The novels/comics (and even RPG) are altogether different, in ways that actually defy numerous dialogue cues and such. As I said, Robotech is the only franchise I know where the canon is ignored, sometimes whole cloth.
Is this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?
Glad you mentioned that. I wasn't sure what the heck Insane Nerd Ramblings was talking about, since I've never read the novelization.
Alls I know is that in the outline for Sentinels the REF is fighting the Invid Regent's forces.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2024, 07:05:31 PMIs this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?
And Robotech's actually unique among 80s franchises for having a semi-coherent canon. Ask Ratman about Transformers or me about Masters of the Universe. :D
Sort of yes, sort of no. More like Diagetic vs McKinneyist. There has been a sort of shift even among the 'purist' thought because a lot of us went back and studied what the Tv series says, specific cues and such. Like the people who basically built Harmony Gold's database, more specifically their timeline, at the time didn't really do any sort of in-depth dives on the show. Its why you have the absolutely absurdity of an 18 month long 2nd Robotech War, when there are specific time cues given throughout the series that shows its closer to 6 months at the very most. Which shouldn't be surprising as The Masters were running so low on power (but even on that low of a power, they were devastatingly effective).
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 07:35:51 PMAlls I know is that in the outline for Sentinels the REF is fighting the Invid Regent's forces.
I know, but we have to go with the Tv series first (and
The Sentinels was, thankfully, never finished). And if you pay attention to the Tv series, it paints a very different picture. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, its only a 7 year delay in the REF battling the Invid. You still have all the way to the early 2050s (so roughly 20 years) to tell stories of the REF fighting to liberate planet after planet.
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 02, 2024, 07:43:38 PM
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2024, 07:05:31 PMIs this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?
And Robotech's actually unique among 80s franchises for having a semi-coherent canon. Ask Ratman about Transformers or me about Masters of the Universe. :D
Sort of yes, sort of no. More like Diagetic vs McKinneyist. There has been a sort of shift even among the 'purist' thought because a lot of us went back and studied what the Tv series says, specific cues and such. Like the people who basically built Harmony Gold's database, more specifically their timeline, at the time didn't really do any sort of in-depth dives on the show. Its why you have the absolutely absurdity of an 18 month long 2nd Robotech War, when there are specific time cues given throughout the series that shows its closer to 6 months at the very most. Which shouldn't be surprising as The Masters were running so low on power (but even on that low of a power, they were devastatingly effective).
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 07:35:51 PMAlls I know is that in the outline for Sentinels the REF is fighting the Invid Regent's forces.
I know, but we have to go with the Tv series first (and The Sentinels was, thankfully, never finished). And if you pay attention to the Tv series, it paints a very different picture. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, its only a 7 year delay in the REF battling the Invid. You still have all the way to the early 2050s (so roughly 20 years) to tell stories of the REF fighting to liberate planet after planet.
I doubt very seriously that the show writers were concerned about a coherent timeline. Going by what's said and/or shown in the series runs up against the issues of translation, dubbing for dubbing's sake, and trying to tie three (sometimes four) seperate, barely related shows into one continuum.
I would take the shows as the least reliable source for hard facts and data. And any writer or creator who wants to fudge for the sake of making a show or game work despite all the loveable mess that is Robotech is fine with me.
Even shows like Star Trek have to to some "creative remembering", in the case of women starship captains, for example...
I'm curious why you are thankfull that The Sentinels never got finished? It's got... lots of problems. But a part of me really wants to see what the show could have been. Maybe it would have turned out crap, but it would have been interesting to see it finished at the least.
Love this thread!
Harmony Gold never deserved their fandom. They're literally the rock band that made 3 great albums that spends the next 40 years pissing on their own fans. I used to drive past their building in LA...and never forgot to wave my middle finger out the window.
The best Robotech RPG that I played was using the Hero System's Robot Warriors book, an extremely underrated RPG from the mid-80s. You created your own mechs and our GM was a Robotech MegaNerd so he built out every mech to his view of the TV show.
Was he perfectly accurate? I'm only a casual Robotech fan so I don't know, but it FELT right when we played. The campaign was cool. Macross era of course, and the GM told us upfront that we had zero plot armor. Hero System PCs are hard to kill, but Robot Warriors was no joke about what happens to humans hit by mecha weapons...
We were flying tanks...but dodging was more important than armor.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 11:07:25 PMI would take the shows as the least reliable source for hard facts and data. And any writer or creator who wants to fudge for the sake of making a show or game work despite all the loveable mess that is Robotech is fine with me. Even shows like Star Trek have to to some "creative remembering", in the case of women starship captains, for example...
You would be mistaken. The show is way more internally consistent than people realize. Thing is that you have to LET the show be internally consistent by ignoring the later stuff that conflicts with it, such as the idea the REF had been out there battling the Invid prior to The Invid Invasion. Or the Zentraedi had been fighting the Invid at all. Its only stuff that was crammed in afterwards that caused the problems. The simple fact is the Tv series came first, all else should flow from that.
QuoteI'm curious why you are thankfull that The Sentinels never got finished? It's got... lots of problems. But a part of me really wants to see what the show could have been. Maybe it would have turned out crap, but it would have been interesting to see it finished at the least.
The problem with
The Sentinels is it takes the expansive universe that we just barely get a peek of in
Robotech and immediately squeezes it down to a fraction of its size. And that doesn't even touch on the goofy aspects that Macek wanted to add like psychic powers and such.
Quote from: Spinachcat on March 02, 2024, 11:38:58 PM
Love this thread!
Me, too. I loved the original Robotech RPG because I watched the cartoon so of course the game was a required purchase. Macross is Robotech as far as I'm concerned; I never saw the rest of the series based on Mosepedea or whatever it's called, or the Sentinels. Roy Fokker and Max Sterling and whoever else blowing up giant fucking dudes in robot walker things was all I knew and the RPG did it to the best of my knowledge. I was 12, so it was a lot easier to just go with the flow and accept the fact that a Veritech was much hardier than the cartoon; I mean, how do you even know it didn't get hit a few times before it blew up?
It's a fucking cartoon about giant robots flying around with literal giants who become human sized and then fly around in giant robots. As long as you get to the entire point, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ROBOTS HONESTLY ENOUGH, you'll be okay.
Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......
https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 03, 2024, 05:01:33 PM
Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......
https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm
Perhaps, but as stated, for all it does well, Mekton itself could use a fan conversion (since a new edition seems exceptionally unlikely) for it character-scale rules to deal with Reflex being the supreme stat it is.
For my money, Jovian Chronicles' system does Robotech even better. The Reflex equivalent stat is still good, but not nearly as all encompass nor as overwhelming as it is in Mekton.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 04, 2024, 07:46:38 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 03, 2024, 05:01:33 PM
Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......
https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm
Perhaps, but as stated, for all it does well, Mekton itself could use a fan conversion (since a new edition seems exceptionally unlikely) for it character-scale rules to deal with Reflex being the supreme stat it is.
For my money, Jovian Chronicles' system does Robotech even better. The Reflex equivalent stat is still good, but not nearly as all encompass nor as overwhelming as it is in Mekton.
I'm assuming that you are talking about Jovian Chronicles as a standalone game and not the campaign setting for Mekton II like it was originally.
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 04, 2024, 04:09:16 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 04, 2024, 07:46:38 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 03, 2024, 05:01:33 PM
Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......
https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm
Perhaps, but as stated, for all it does well, Mekton itself could use a fan conversion (since a new edition seems exceptionally unlikely) for it character-scale rules to deal with Reflex being the supreme stat it is.
For my money, Jovian Chronicles' system does Robotech even better. The Reflex equivalent stat is still good, but not nearly as all encompass nor as overwhelming as it is in Mekton.
I'm assuming that you are talking about Jovian Chronicles as a standalone game and not the campaign setting for Mekton II like it was originally.
Yeah, I was curious about that. Especially why, since I've never played the DP9 version...
Yeah, I'm talking about the Sihohette game engine.
The short version is that the dice mechanic is you roll a number of dice (d6s) equal to your skill rank (ranked 1-5) and take the highest result (if you roll multiple sixes, you add 1 per additional 6... so a 2,3,5 = 5, and a 2,6,6 is a 7)... then add your attribute (which is 0 average with +3 being incredible) and situational modifiers. Rolling all 1s is a critical fumble.
Basically, with less skill you're going to get more erratic results, higher skill means you get more consistent results and occasional exceptional outcomes, but rarely fail.
Combat is an opposed roll where you take the margin of success and multiply it by the weapon's damage multiplier (Ex. You beat the defender by 3 and the weapon's damage is x5 so you've got a 15).
Compare the damage to the target's Armor. If you beat the Armor you roll on the Light Damage table (1d6 with results include disabling a weapon or system; an arm servo for example, losing some maneuver or movement; i.e. a leg or thruster hit depending on movement type affected, etc.). If there's a choice of things to affected you roll a d6 (even the attacker decides, odd the defender... the system was designed so the mecha-scale could be used for wargaming without a GM).
If the damage is double the Armor then you roll on the Heavy damage chart (another 1d6 only with results like lose all your weapons, lose an entire motive system or even X rounds before the things explodes).
If the damage beats the Armor by three times then you just get killed immediately.
Regardless, each hit, even if it doesn't beat the armor, reduces the Armor by 1.
Ex. that 15 damage is going against a target with Armor 10... it's taking light damage result and it's armor is dropped to 9. Damage is -2 to maneuver (meaning you're more likely to take more damage the next time you're hit).
Next turn because of the loss of manuevering it's beaten by 4... so 20 damage vs. 9 Armor... roll for heavy damage. You might lose all your weapons or sensors, or have your thrusters blown out leaving you stuck drifting along your last vector (if you use minis it uses Vector-based space movement) or it ruptures your reaction mass tank and you have 1d6 turns to get clear before it blows (less of a deal for mecha with an ejector seat... a HUGE deal when its a cruiser with hundreds aboard).
If it had beaten the target by 6 then it just goes BOOM! immediately (you can try for an emergency ejection, but it's not guaranteed).
* * * *
Basically, the fact that the damage is a bit more cinematic rather than Battletech-ish feels more in line with Robotech where you're more likely to see one-shots and catastrophic system failures than chipping away at armor and servo Kills hoping for a lucky hit location roll to deliver a hit to something crucial.
The Even/Odd of system's effected even captures a bit of that scene where Rick takes a missile barrage and opts to lose his Valkerie's arms by using them as shields instead of something more critical.
It also helps that Mecha piloting may use Agility, but Electronic Warfare (which includes all sensor use... so Mecha perception basically) and Space Navigation uses the Creativity attribute, G-Handling uses the Fitness attribute, and Gunnery uses the Perception attribute.
So if you want to be a Mecha-jock you can't just cap your Agility and call it a day... you also need to be good at Creativity, Fitness and Perception to be effective.
Note that a PC in an Adventure-tier game only has 30 attribute points and a +3 costs 16 points (a +1 is 4 points, a +2 is 9 points and you have 10 attributes total to buy for). Basically, you can pay through the nose to get ONE of those four attributes to a +3, but you're not going to come close to getting all of them (you can take negative attributes in other categories to get some extra, but you'll you'll be a crippled unlikeable schmuck and still not be able to get everything you want to a +3)... which means different PCs can shine at different things even when they're all mecha pilots.