Mecha Space Pirate Quest Discussion Thread I

You know, I noticed something; S-Slayer, S-Slinger, S-Stiletto. All S names likely designed to give them a uniformed theme. They really are going for the PR.

How horribly optimized is the Knuckle Kaiser. Like seriously. All these guys have so much better tech and cost so much less CP. Can't we just redesign the thing from he ground up.

Hey Wong can you clarify how you are handling spaces for high CP weapons? Is there just space efficiency being added that isnt being shown?

>10-Kill Reactive Shield without any other active defenses
>WA+1 BV 3 Beam Weapon
It really is a mook killer, isn't it? Maximum cheese 15 SP Reset X Enclosing version when?

Shh, its already getting shit for free. Not really a huge amount we can do with it anyway considering the pilot's skill set.

Pretty much this, all we need is to get our own reactive shield and we can stop worrying about people snipping us

It may be cheaper, but it's also cheeky as the breeky can get. It's actually REALLY damn specialized for what it does as well. Sure it might give the Kaiser and it's flurry of blows problems, but it's screwed against Jesus and his gun or Slayer and 1 12k missile. It's also really heavy for rookie and it's shield is in multiple servos. Take out a arm and it's dead. The kaiser, while not as cheeky, is capable of dealing with ranged threats and has much better speed.

In short, it's a nice defensive model, but the moment someone comes with a big enough hammer, it will fold.

Maybe add some foot weapons.

Those magnums tho.

We could switch the feet for Talon which would let us grip onto things and it does 5k damage

Yes. It's so ubiquitous I don't generally bother mentioning it.

It's mainly the fact that we have so many additional systems. Most heavy-duty combat mechs don't have a Target Analyzer and ASP. Many mechs also only have 1 shield and 1 main weapon, while we have 2 ATFs and 2 shields, plus Grapple-chan.

Thus decreasing our land speed to 100m per turn? Most of our fights take place in space, true. But it'll be extremely awkward if we ever find ourselves grounded.

I don't think we really need to do anything in particular to our feet unless we can actually work out how Leg Extremities are even statted other than Link them to our fists.

so? 10 k each, but they need to hit. She is sitting on a -5 I believe. Because they aren't quick, she can only fire them once a action. Likewise, an active shield could shut her down if the person is quick enough.

In short, yes those pistols are strong, but first they must hit and with all that weight, she's going to have a hard time.

Get a boosterpack. Boosterpacks are the shit.

Yes. I was initially making an offhand joke about her taking out the most Green Skulls during the Battle of Auditorium, but her mech would be awful for a Harpy swarm to encounter. The Kaiser, at least, can bust her shield with a particular attack, and the King Swordfish can do it with a regular Lance stab...but a Harpy is kind of fucked.

Wait but isn't our MA at 8 so we can fly? And in that case we wouldn't need to worry about running on land

>not mounting your Thruster Systems on Weapon Mounts
>laughing_munchkins.jpg

They are linked though. And can potentially hit multiple times.

Our MA is 10 I believe.

Emphasis on 'potentially'. WA+1 BV3 means that it's unlikely to hit more than once on average against a similarly-skilled foe.

It shreds mooks to pieces, though.

Then we should be able to fly on land so we don't have to really worry about the talons drawback

Yep. The SOUL Squads are intended to work as a team, with Pierre and Caesar covering Naomi's weaknesses. You saw firsthand how a powerful but hyperspecialized mech can have trouble out of its element with Clemmy and the Archen.

Question, Mr. Wong. Is the UJCIDF the only extrasolar military operating in the Sol system or do Venus, Mars, Luna, and Earth send military forces to fight against "Avalon"?

We saw what linked 8 kill guns do to people before though. They aint no joke.

When? refresh my memory for a bit.

Red Siren made shit of clem with them and shadow spam.

Because Clemmy rolled exceptionally poorly and Rosita rolled exceptionally well.

High BV weapons rely on you rolling significantly better than your opponent, which doesn't actually happen all that often against similarly-skilled opponents. By nature, Burst Fire weapons are primarily mook killers, unless paired with high WA.

Here's the thing about linked. If the one dice roll misses, they both miss. Likewise, you need to hit 3 over the enemy to get a full burst. Now, it doesn't seem like a lot, but remember; her stats are not super high yet. She likely has a 6 for guns giving her 16. Take away 5, then add one thanks to her +1 to hit. She has a basic attack role of 12. If stern is in the same range, but has a huge dice pool, he could possibly have a 20 if maxxed. That is a 8 point difference. If he spent a luck point each turn, he cannot be hit at all.

Not only that, but there are ways to screw over beam weapons. Anti beam chaff missiles for example serve as barriers against beam weapons equal to their kills, last a while, and are cheap as hell if you make them personal range. Likewise blinding and obscuring could lower her accuracy and make her unable to hit.

It IS a scary weapon, but it can also be countered with something I can get for 1-2 Cp a pop.

Absolutely no Enclosing anti-everything shenanigans. Reactive shields cannot be activated and deactivated on the same turn, that's my call on it.

This is a good decision, and I w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ approve.

Still, does Karen poking around at the S-Puffer mean we'll finally be able to get our own Reactive Shield soon? Hopefully a Ranged-only Enclosing 15 SP one to fuck over Jesus?

Man I am still waiting for that Kaiser Knuckle VS. S-Flowerhorn fight

So what have Oda, Miles, and Richard been doing recently? We haven't hung out with them in a while

Yes. Mars is the vanguard, actually, Fatima bragged about it shortly after you met. The UJCIDF is just the most visible and prominent, Luna and Terra are more about technological and financial support.

Explains a bunch and makes Fairchild's actions that much more cheeky. If she cannot get support from Mars or Earth, then her entire plan is stalled due to the lack of funds and man power.

Mr.Wong What is your favorite non Kaiser mech?

Probably training for the rematch against Caesar on Bluegill Joe. Then losing horribly again.

Oda has been working on an upgrade to his mech. Miles and Richard have been canoodling and working extensively on improving their piloting skills.

Did Miles ever figure out Caesar was the one that beat her on sim and taunted her?

The Osano-Wo. As an ace mech, its first version is kind of outdated, but if you scrub the weeaboo bits off it and make the katanas and heavy armor more generic it becomes a fine low-cost officer's mech.

I have to wonder: is it just aesthetics that's caused the humanoid frame to be adopted as go-to design for mechs everywhere, or is there some other reason that causes them to be favored over other, otherwise more physically efficient, structures?

What is the general opinion of us on Io? In our Hometown?

Isnt it something like being easier for the brain to interface with?

That might be a valid point, if Thought Control or Reflex Controls were the default control system. But as it is, the standard control scheme is fly-by-wire.

Which means it's just about as easy to pilot a non-humanoid mech as it is a humanoid one. Possibly easier, if you've got less limbs to keep track of.

That and HMIS interfaces the brain and the machine. So, technically, any vehicle that uses HMIS is a mech.

This came up in a very early thread, and no, there is a reason. Mecha are controlled via the HMIS. A human mind is better at controlling a roughly human-shaped body than it is at controlling something with tank treads or six legs or a jet fighter. It reacts faster and with more accuracy. However, it's not the go-to design everywhere, religious Martians (including the military and nobility) view humanoid mecha as haram.

What does HMIS stand for again?

Pretty sure people fly shit with their brain in this setting.

human machine interface system id assume.

Which is stupid idiotic i'd say.

You haven't been back there in a while, but you think it might vary from person to person. The Ionian authorities and Bucephalus Heavy Industries probably throw darts at pictures of your face. Local kids probably want to grow their hair out and wear shades and pretend to be you when they're playing.

>Local kids probably want to grow their hair out and wear shades and pretend to be you when they're playing

Well thats pretty easy when all the kids in our town have orange hair

please, our mother had the red head genes and our father was that one hellsing priest. They aren't all orange headed kids yet.

Wait about 20 years once we got the ball rolling.

>Implying Roarke didn't leave Io to escape the multiple child support payments he was going to have to pay

So how about those Waifu backstories you were talking about?

>implying Roarke would be so cruel as to run out on supporting his children
>implying he didn't become a pirate because there was no other way he'd be able to earn the money to keep his kids well-cared for

What exactly happened at Io that caused the death of Roarke's parents and the CCC's loss of his legs? Yet, CCC was still willing to stay and helped cover it up with the official story. Was Fairchild aware of the incident that robbed her of her sempai? Or did she had a yandere episode and killed them off?

Which part? If you mean the Martian thing, there is a reason for it that Mohammed briefly went into during Metal Gear Moe. After the War, Jupiter had two huge, successful mecha companies with massive clout, loads of money, and several excellent designs. Mars had dozens of small companies, all of which were fairly new, and many of their early designs were utterly impractical and ridiculous. It started out as a protective measure for the Martian companies to avoid being eaten alive, Caliph Hakim casually mentioned to some friends of his at a state dinner that he didn't think it was truly in keeping with Islam to fly a mech in the shape of a human being, and immediately the sheikhs stopped buying from Jupiter. Most of the surviving Martian companies still died out, were bought up into a handful of stable brands, or were absorbed into the Martian military, but they're a sizable industry and Scimitars are a popular recreation, recon, and anti-Harpy mech.

You know, considering Stern and his Fencer, would he find the Paladin S and G to be acceptable?

pastebin.com/skXJUx02

Both have a MV of only -1.

Roarke was too young to know much about it other than that there was some kind of accident, falling debris killed his father and crushed Cassius' legs. It was a closed-casket funeral, but apparently Roarke's mom got burned to death somehow trying to rescue her husband and son.

God does Hamon have our Mom locked up somewhere

Yes. He would. Also, damn, you were looking to make the Paladins distinctive and you succeeded with that low MV.

That was the idea all along. Stupid tough, heavy, and all the fucking thrusters, while having an MV -1. Fun fact, the pilot has Reflexes 10, and Piloting and Melee at 6.

Looking at it, I have to wonder where you put 20 spaces worth of verniers. Remember, you need 5 verniers for each MV. I'd recommend showing your total costs at each step to make sure the math is easy to see for anyone looking.

Verniers can have Space Efficiency. So can Thrusters. So all that mobility gets squirreled away within foot after foot of armor.

thrusters yes, but verniers are weird since they are also a cost multiplier. Also that is 10+ cp worth of space efficiency with no notes or mention of it. There's not even notes on how much the thrusters or MA cost.

On an unrelated note, regarding Naomi's mech, I was just browsing through the ATM, and it seems that, by the standard rules, Energy Pools can indeed by hand-held?

Yeah I guess I should fix that. The S has a total multiplier of 1.47. The G has a total multiplier of 1.57. The S's thrusters cost 23.13 I believe? And have no space efficiency on Thrusters or Verniers. The G's thrusters cost 39.3 after 2.5 points of Space Efficiency (for 5 space, which is noted) and... actually 0 space efficiency on the Verniers, funnily enough.

Looking over the whole thing again, the S actually doesn't have any Space Efficiency, just 4 CP of Weight to keep it under 60 tons. The G has 2.5 CP of Space in its Thrusters, and 12 CP of Weight.

And yes, Verniers can have Space Efficiency.

Do you need me to be more specific with this?

Yeah, this is a problem I had to deal with while developing the cardinal and the rook. While I could make them bigger, the extra weight from the frame and cp cost for thrusters will tend to eat up a lot of space.. which means more cp to minimize space.

For the cardinal(seen here: pastebin.com/Ph40t9fn), I simply made the legs one size category bigger while removing a kill in each leg to give them 2 more space each. Gave me plenty of room to go up to 12 MA and a -2 to MV total.

In order of smallest to biggest backstories;
Clemmy, Samantha, Fatima, Karen, Rosita.

I would rather they all be somewhat even with a little more for characters we don't know as much about

I think I might have houseruled out Thrusters being allowed to have Space Efficiency. I think. I forget if I changed my mind or not.

Indeed they can, and indeed the sample illustration is of one. However, reactive shields specifically cannot be handheld, it's in the shield rules.

Hmm...it would be helpful. Who do you want to know about?

How important was the Belt in defeating the Green Men? I remember Slayer saying something about it

I remember you laughing maniacally over it, but never houseruling it out.

Favorite foods, colors, music, where they grew up, goal in life, fun facts

thats about it

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here, Thunder. You are aware what "plot, justice, and backstory" actually means on the internet right? :^)

I do I just thought you meant actual backstories because no way does Clemmy have the smallest and Karen the second biggest

>Who do you want to know about?
S̶t̶e̶r̶n̶
Clemmy, perhaps?

In relation to the Waifu group. Clemmy's pretty slim in Overlord and Sam's Sa-a-man-tha. Karen's has enough plot and has to have the backstory to match it. Also, one of the major reasons why Rosita sees her as her one true rival for Roarke.

We've never really talked about Karen's backstory but I swear Wong said Sam had a nice one

A lot of that I'll probably just sprinkle into the sessions. None of them are a music nerd on par with Roarke, except Red Siren.

Karen's favorite food is meal bars. Good food is somewhat lost on her, because she habitually eats while she's working or sketching out blueprints for upgrades. She likes fancy floral patterns more than specific colors, and she's told you that she's always dreamed about being on a planet. She's spent her whole life in space or on various colonies. Despite how she looks, she's surprisingly tough and her wrench weighs as much as a mace. She isn't quite as good or Mohammed or Samantha, but she does do some fencing with them.

As for Samantha, she grew up in a rainy agricultural colony of Europa. She and her younger twin Pierre were born to the upper class, her father was a landowner and her mother was a a senior weather administrator for the colony. They're both still alive, but retired, they had children fairly late in life because they prioritized their careers ahead of their personal lives. She's a steak and potatoes kind of girl by nature even though she has upper-class tastes and aesthetics. Her hobby is sewing, and she enjoys making her own clothes. She enjoys a light-dark contrast, and despite being well-bred secretly enjoys wearing maid outfits.

>and despite being well-bred secretly enjoys wearing maid outfits.
There surely has to be a story behind how this came to be.

Karen has man hands doesn't she?

Have you posted what Knuckle Kaiser Mk2 is going to be like? Are you making it yourself or are we going to be part of the revamp?

If we chose a different style of fighting how would we have had train us like Master Asia is doing? For sword and energy would it be space Guts

Who not how

Do you make a character then roll stats for them, or do you roll stats and build a character around what you get?

You should ask her sometime.

No, her wrench is an automatic. They're a little rough, but small. Her nails are pretty much always short and never painted.

As for the Mk II, what I essentially did what rebuilt it from the ground up. Bigger, stronger, with more accurate punches that do more damage and an Active Shield. After that you start walking the path of major upgrades like Drones and Reactive Shields and Mass Weight Efficiency.

I'm not sure. It's often hard to tell what plans I would have made if things had gone differently because they shift so much, new characters pop in with barely any permission from me, and others change almost beyond recognition.

Guns would have been Clint Eastwood, complete with a vitriolic hatred of Martians and extrasolars. As for melee, there are so many good examples that I wouldn't have had to go for someone as young as Guts. I'm not sure about missiles, but I would have found someone.

I'm using point-buy, just to clarify, if that's what you meant. I statted Roarke after he was rolled up in the first thread, but I'm not sure if that's usually how it's done.

Missiles would've been someone from Macross and their love of missile spam.

Speaking of which, just remembered that Martian mechs are all non-humanoid. So Space-Belka when?

More on waifus.

Karen has a bit of a grudge against both Bucephalus and Bahamut. The incident that forced her grandfather out of his position as a highly respected mecha designer soured him on the industry, and while he got over it and is content with what he does currently Karen feels the insult more keenly and it's made her competitive.

Samantha's parents are both rather uninvolved and spend little time together, she and Pierre were both more or less raised in a huge manor house by a large staff, with a lot of private tutoring and fancy early-childhood prep courses that segued nicely into joining the Academy and the UJCIDF. She deeply admires Colonel Stern, who improved on the fencing skills she and her brother already possessed during her time as a SOUL pilot. She's a bit of a romantic, and the more pragmatic Roarke can kind of get the sense that Samantha takes the whole 'knight of Jupiter' thing a little more seriously than some pilots, she has an unusually strong sense of righteousness. She's also tied for the position of strongest sword on your crew with Oda, both of them having precisely equal Blade and Mecha Melee stats. You've seen them spar before.

As for Clemmy? You don't know. You know very little about her actual life, just what you've exchanged in texts.

As for Rosita, she comes from a lower-middle-class family. Her parents didn't get along, she hated her stepsister and her stepsister hated her, and when she started winning amateur pilot competitions and her singing started getting some local recognition she moved out at around the same age most teenagers in that social class are getting ready to enter a trade program or the Academy. She was scouted by Bahamutcorp for the whole idol gig shortly thereafter, when she won a Bluegill paintball tournament while singing a song she'd written and it went viral on the holonet. She was a bit more cute and sugary and Magical Girl-ish back then.