Back. Now, a radical idea for how to make the game more amenable to both speedsters and tanks. I'll say up front that this is not anything which is likely to actually get implemented, because it would completely unbalance the combat system and probably require massive rewrites. Still, I think it's an interesting idea for how things could work, and maybe something from this could make it into the game.
What about if there were some way other than MV and TR to see how hard it is to hit a mecha? I was thinking about a new stat, which in my notes has been termed "Thwackability". The lower your Thwackability the harder it is to hit you. This attribute could be calculated based on the mecha's size class, the number of modules, and the ratio of maximum speed to mass. The speed penalty for moving would be reduced to compensate.
Note that I said "the lower your THW, the harder to hit", not "the higher, the easier". This is because THW can only result in a to-hit penalty, never a bonus. Now, there are several different ways this could be handled. The THW scores of attacker and defender could be compared, with a penalty going to the attacker (this would result in more of a Macross-style system). The THW score can be compared to the weapon's DC, with an excessive DC getting a penalty (thereby giving the right-weapon-for-the-right-job system). These two systems could even be combined (giving a penalty if you're less agile than your opponent, which may be offset by using a lighter weapon). The targeting UI could be updated to show your percent chance of hitting and your chance of damaging an opponent.
Note that THW could potentially replace MV and/or TR entirely. Also, DC could be replaced by a sliding scale of Power/Agility... more on this in a moment.
This covers how to get the speed vs speed part of the equation, but what about strength vs strength? We could also radically change the way armor works. Instead of stopping X points of damage, what if armor worked more like a saving throw? You need a weapon with high enough power or you won't cause any damage at all (other than staged penetration, which would still degrade armor over time). A weapon with more than enough penetrating power would be overkill- there'd be no benefit to using such a weapon. There could still be different grades of damage- depending on the penetration roll, it might do full, half, or quarter damage.
So how do we roll damage if DC is eliminated? All weapons of a given scale could do basically the same damage. Maybe the skill roll or certain attributes would affect this. The basic premise is that anything which penetrates your armor is going to mess you up.
At the moment, mecha get an armor rating which is usually equal to the module size. Instead, mecha could be given an armor rating of thin, medium, or heavy. Increasing the armor rating will increase weight by more than a linear factor- getting heavy armor will greatly increase Thwackability. The thickness of armor determines the penetration roll. So, it can be just as hard to damage a very small heavily armored mecha as a great big heavily armored one, but the small one still can't take as much damage.
This sounds like it should be workable. In fact, the concept is similar to that used by the Silhouette RPG system (Heavy Gear, etc). Unfortunately, it's a complicated system, and what I'd really like right now is to simplify instead. Even though the intent of this system is to provide more choices, there's no way of telling if there will be a degenerate best choice. The more complex a system is the more likely it is to have such a case, in fact... there's a name for this but I can't remember it.
Thoughts?
