Wild Construction Ideas

[Joseph Hewitt]

Here is another of those ideas which I don't seriously plan to implement, but which might be fun to think about. GearHead's construction system is based on an unholy amalgam of Mekton and Battletech. It's effect-based, which is great for flexibility but not so good for consistent tech levels or in-game tinkering.

Start from the engine up
The engine isn't all that important currently- aside from a few custom types, it's basically just a critical target. This is a bad thing since in the source material engines are very important. Instead of building a mecha from the top down, what about building one from the engine up?

Engines could have a power rating. A certain amount of power needs to be used for maneuverability. The MV score of a mecha would thereby be based on the ratio of its power rating to its mass. Of the remaining power, some would be used to activate systems- installing movement systems, computers, and anything else would take a certain amount of this power. The leftover power provides the energy point pool for weapons and special systems. The ratio of motive to systems power could be adjusted by tuning. Tuning the engine too far to the motive side would make it unstable, just like the High Performance engine currently in the game.

It should be easier to create a small, light, highly maneuverable mecha than a big, heavy, highly maneuverable mecha. There could be diminishing returns involved- power might increase linearly, while engine mass increases quadratically. Size could figure into maneuverability somehow. Maybe the base MV score would be calculated by Body Size Class + number of limbs, or something.

It should be possible to change a mecha's engine.

Make armor more interesting
Currently, most mecha take a default armor value equal to their size class. Since this is the maximum armor value there isn't a whole lot of variation. Also, armor doesn't tend to be a big factor in MV/TR.

What about if the current armor rating/mass adjust system were completely abandoned? Instead, mecha limbs would get a material, thickness, and maybe a quality rating. Different materials would be used by different factions- Earth and Mars using types of steel, Luna using ceramics, the L5 colonies using advanced composites. The material would give the base mass for the armor. The thickness- thin, regular, heavy, superheavy- would give its protective value.

Maybe a greater distinction needs to be made between hitting a target and actually damaging it. A huge heavily armored mecha like the Savin should be fairly easy to hit, but unless you're really accurate it's tough to damage. This would increase the utility of weapons which just need to hit- BURN, OVERLOAD, and so on.

Different armor materials could have different characteristics- ceramic might be no tougher than steel, but perhaps harder to score a critical against.

Mecha Engineering could be used to change the thickness of armor, and if you have raw materials to also alter the composition.

Mecha Weaknesses?
This idea came from Mobile Suit Gundam. The Gouf is superior in nearly all ways to the Zaku II, but suffers from weak joints. Maybe some mecha should have weaknesses like this. It could lower the frame cost. Excessively modifying a frame might introduce weaknesses, depending on the Mecha Engineering roll. Once revealed you can use Mecha Engineering again to remove the weakness, which will either fix the problem or replace it with a different hidden weakness, which you can try to fix after it gets revealed.

The right tool for the job
Ideally, different mecha/layouts should be useful in different situations. You should want different equipment for attacking a spaceship than you'd want for skirmishing.

Big weapons and artillery should be most useful against props and less useful against mecha. Maybe a size class-based to-hit penalty if the weapon is over some arbitrary DC? Say, a DC24 weapon aimed at a Class 4 battroid might get a -5 to hit, but only -1 to hit against a Class 8.

You should be able to change your layout based on the fight you're expecting. Maybe a spaceship system should allow you to change your mecha's equipment to a number of user-defined combinations instantly? Of course, for this to be useful you'd need some way to know what to expect... that's a whole other kettle of fish.

...

Comments? Any other bright ideas?

[plllizzz]

the ideas are nice, but it would be better if they went into consideration while making Gear Head 3

I hope we all heard of JADE [continuation of ADOM], which is in development phase prolly the same amount of time that Duke Nukem Forever

The engine thing was bugging me before, because they aren't important now - just use those breaker cannons and heavy missiles and you don't have to care for overload

[IronJelly]

That is certainly interesting and opens up a wide variety of possibilities.

It sort of reminds me of Robot Arena 2.  You started with a chasis (usually a box, but you could alter the shape), and the armor was just a choice of plastic, aluminum, titanium, or steel different metals which affected your armor, but also affected the weight.  You could never build an ant-weight with steel armor, for example, and a bot for heavy-weight not using steel was at a disadvantage.

If you were to implement a system like this, would the armor be per limb, or would it be an overall thing?  What I mean is, if I break the cheaply made arm off of a Buru Buru, and I don't modify it and put it on an Onyx-alloy Galah, would that become an obvious weak point?

On the topic of weakness, be careful.  Having weaknesses can be fun if done right, but the game would be less fun if there was some master spoiler list of what to do to quickly beat a given enemy.  If I know that kicking the legs out from under every enemy Buru Buru I meet will take it out of the fight quickly, then it is no longer fun or a satisfying victory to fight buru burus.  On a similar note, the player having a weakness he/she doesn't know about might be less fun when you get to the big boss battle, and that one shot that shouldn't have defeated you happens to bump you in the heel, which is where your self-destruct button is.

How I would handle random weakness:
there are a specific number of weaknesses.  Some are easy to exploit, some are not.  Lets say we have a small number of weaknesses to start with:
1) Easily removed head, which disables the mecha
2) Joints suck.  turning is slow and potentially can cause parts to fall off if done too much/too quck
3) Imbalance.  Kicking this mecha's legs out from under it will quickly and easily stop it from moving permanently.

Of course, in the end, there would be more, and some that could affect flying mecha.

Now, those weaknesses don't belong to any specific mecha, and specific pilot, or any specific setup.  Instead, when you create a character, each weakness is randomly assigned to a mecha and it's variants, which will all have that weakness for the whole game.

This would introduce an interesting element of uncertainty into the game.  Facing something you know is tough, and trying something unusual, like kicking his legs, might be a valid option.  What if Savins in your game all happen to have the weak joints?  Suddenly you find yourself needing to rethink much of your strategy, but you wouldn't know until you own a Savin, or until you fight one.

Of course, there ought to be a way or two to know these weaknesses.  A high Spot Weakness skill would be great for seeing it on an enemy.  A decent Investigation score used on a mecha might reveal it, and maybe if you have a good mecha engineering skill you can identify (and more importantly overcome) your weakness.

[plllizzz]

I think the weaknesses can be saved only for customised and kitbashed mecha

MEcha Eng. would become a less 'must have' skill, only for the true wrench-masters in heart... or just for the risky ones

also, enemies should also come with customised mecha - giving a heavy customised, hard to defeat enemy that one weakness that can be exploited can make a battle more dramatic

[Ephafn]

Make armor more interesting
Currently, most mecha take a default armor value equal to their size class. Since this is the maximum armor value there isn't a whole lot of variation. Also, armor doesn't tend to be a big factor in MV/TR.

What about if the current armor rating/mass adjust system were completely abandoned? Instead, mecha limbs would get a material, thickness, and maybe a quality rating. Different materials would be used by different factions- Earth and Mars using types of steel, Luna using ceramics, the L5 colonies using advanced composites. The material would give the base mass for the armor. The thickness- thin, regular, heavy, superheavy- would give its protective value.

Maybe a greater distinction needs to be made between hitting a target and actually damaging it. A huge heavily armored mecha like the Savin should be fairly easy to hit, but unless you're really accurate it's tough to damage. This would increase the utility of weapons which just need to hit- BURN, OVERLOAD, and so on.

Different armor materials could have different characteristics- ceramic might be no tougher than steel, but perhaps harder to score a critical against.

Mecha Engineering could be used to change the thickness of armor, and if you have raw materials to also alter the composition.

I like your idea of remodeling armor using its material. Except that ceramic is more brittle than steel -> harder to damage, but vulnerable to shattering (critical). Having each material have its own advantage/disadvantage would bring some fun in mecha tinkering, and also help differentiate models. So you want a light armor that is only good for the first few hits? Use plastic. You need to be able to last a long time? Use steel. In between? Aluminum. And so on. Adding special tags like Anti-Beam and Hardened to the mix makes it even better.

The right tool for the job
Ideally, different mecha/layouts should be useful in different situations. You should want different equipment for attacking a spaceship than you'd want for skirmishing.

Big weapons and artillery should be most useful against props and less useful against mecha. Maybe a size class-based to-hit penalty if the weapon is over some arbitrary DC? Say, a DC24 weapon aimed at a Class 4 battroid might get a -5 to hit, but only -1 to hit against a Class 8.

Would this be the logical conclusion on making the mecha MV values size-dependent? If the Class 4 Pixie have a MV of -2, but the Class 7 Savin have a MV of -6, then it is logical to want to use very accurate guns on the Pixie, and keep the inaccurate ones for the Savin. Then it is a simple question of making low DC guns very accurate, and high DC guns/artillery/missiles inaccurate. No need for any arbitrariness, except a conscious decision when balancing the weapons.