Welcome to Mecha Monday! Here we dedicate ourselves to mecha RPGs, war games, and board games alike. Here we start games, tell campaign stories, share resources & assets, and seek advice for our games and homebrew.Assorted Mecha Goodness:https://pastebin.com/E2wi55AZPrevious Thread: >>92351507 Thread Question: Should mecha have drab military color schemes or bright superhero ones?Thread Theme:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O3VzWjTLjg
>>92502665>Should mecha have drab military color schemes or bright superhero ones?Military for the mook suits, superhero for the advance prototypes.
>>92502665>Should mecha have drab military color schemes or bright superhero ones?Full on Flying Circus custom color schemes for every mech whose pilot has sortied and survived long enough to convince his support crew to do it. Everyone who is in grunt colors is a scrub who hasn't been at the front long enough to get that kind of clout and is probably not going to survive long enough to get it.
>>92502665I believe that mechs should primary be solid drab colors. Maybe some for of camouflage. However fancy nose art and personal symbols should be displayed in vivid color.Also anyone play apocalypse frame or is variants? Apparently i picked it up from humble bundle when they had that huge ass sale
>>92503105Apocalypse frame is very fun, feels like armored core and Titanfall had a baby
>>92418379>Getting Wares Blade had been a really nice surprise for 2024What're the chances LionWing implodes before they KS Wares Blade? They came out of nowhere and already have a ton going on.
>>92502665True connoisseurs go with bright military color schemes>>92503292Very little hopefully, the SMT rpg is guaranteed money in the bank and they've succeeded with all their previous kickstarters like Embryo Machine and Connector Drive.
>>92503044this guy knows what's up
>>92504663If there aren’t boring military color schemes how will the custom aces stand out?
Good news: Select Heavy Gear units will be available as printable STLs sometime in the futureBad news: The first unit that will be available is the one I hate most in the entire gameSometimes I wonder if I’m being fucked with
>>92505853>The first unit that will be available is the one I hate most in the entire gameWhich one? If it's not the Griffon then I don't think I'd hate it like you would.
>>92505875Close, it’s this fuckerWould it have been so hard to make the flying boat actually look a bit like a boat
>>92505951Ah, yeah the Baroness is dumb but on brand for Eden. I'm surprised this is the first STL unit since the unit itself looked complex but then again maybe that's why. Still think something like the humble Asp would be at home as an STL file.
>>92505979That’s exactly why, big complex units are the most efficient choice to start experimenting with STLs on because small imperfections aren’t going to be as big of a deal and also they’re a bit of a drain to make ourselves anyway. I’m pro Asp-STL myself, but I think the real value of 3d printing right now is opening the door to models of units that couldn’t have been made in the past for one reason or another. Fingers crossed for the Gabor.
>>92502665>Garm and Spinner Rodi kits never everI hate Bandai.
>>92506173Push the printed asp hard. Important.
TQ: Well come on, you're just asking if we prefer Supers or Reals.The answer is super-colored grunts.
>>92509452I’m afraid of the Asp becoming overexposed to the point where the joke doesn’t work, like the Urbanmech
New HG battle report's up:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGGGuvwW0ek
>>92503624>ZoidsWell I'm already hooked.
Using this thread as an excuse to post Zaku.
>>92506173Do the weaponized Hardhat
>>92512740Have at you.
What makes your favorite mecha system your favorite? Like what's it doing that other systems aren't doing or can't do?
>>92511557There's the spirit
If you had to run Darling in the Franxx or Gurren Lagann, what system would be best?
>>92513572Just to make sure this is Wares Blade? Or another system.
>>92513655Nah I just got it from https://theironbible.com/ZoidBooks/ZoidsGenerations/ThatsZoidsFirstStory.php
>>92512740We’ll see whenever we get around to the Rise of the Gear adventure
>>92513506Mekton actually gives me bits and funnels that aren't just another attack or immobile turret.
>>92505951I wanted something that looked like a Star Wars Armada Imperial Assault Carrier. But, this is ultimately what got accepted by DP9. ( Look forward to more BIG units in the future. ) I've grown more fond of it since we wrapped up those designs years ago. Surprised it's going to be offered as an STL. I'm always the last to know. It makes sense though. Production and shipping would be a nightmare from Canada.
>>92513572>>92503624My kingdom for a zoids adventure during the old war era, before the first anime. When Death Saurer's were many and zoids fought and died in their thousands.
>>92516149That would have been much cooler
Wait a minute, are there *two* DP9 anons?
>>92512740
>>92516683One from writing and one from art, apparently
FUCK I FORGOT THE THREAD NAME A THIRD TIME
>>92518275You have dishonored the general, fall on your sword.
>>92518657What do you think this is, the Dominion?
DP9 anon, is there a recommended build for the Southern Army box? I picked it up at Gencon years ago and it's still on sprue.
>>92519033Since the optimal loadout changes between editions you may just want to magnetize
Is there some time-frame for Wares Blade or is it indeterminate right now? And who actually plans on playing it and others?I'd love for more people to get around to talking about other stuff again, it's always fun to have conversations about more obscure or niche systems. And I love to hear about systems i've never heard of before.
>>92519033Just make em generic, or slap whichever weapons you want on em.I put some number decals on them so I can tell em apart, and that way you can use whatever loadout you feel like. As long as the numbers appear on the army list page as well, I'd say you're good.
>>92519697Currently it's still very much in the 'Announced' phase. When it ends up coming out I will definitely take a closer look at it. It remains to be seen if the mechanics are any good.>>92518275You dumb negro. I thought to remind you at the end of the last thread, but assumed you learned your lesson.
>>92520247>It remains to be seen if the mechanics are any good.Which edition is getting translated? There's been an unofficial translation of 1e around for a while.
>>92519269If you wanna go with a 'can't go wrong' build and are anal about WYSWIG, here's something good.Jagers: 2 Normal, 2 FlameMambas: 2 Normal, 2 LongfangCobra: 2 BushmasterKing Cobra: NormalIguana: 2 Black boxes
>>92520267I believe it's the first, but not 100%
>>92520292In that case the English TL that's kept in the JTTRPG thread OP pastebin should be suitable. There's also a Savage Worlds conversion in there, but I don't know if it's official.Dunno where either of them came from orgiinally.
technically not mecha, but mecha adjacent, I finally got around to painting my HPCs so my GREL don't have to rely on the Overlord to get around anymore
>>92523164Oh man. APCs are just about the most boring vehicles, but you made even these look fantastic. Great coloring, it almost looks painted.
>>92523164Man, as much as I love Heavy Gear, it has some of the most idiotic tank and vehicle designs I have seen since 2300AD's articulated tanks.>the Aller with the "pagoda mast" turret bristling with weapons>the Visigoth with twin drivetrains, four tracks and twice the chances of throwing one>the Hun with the big Striker style launcher box>the CEF's hover armada up to and including the jumping SPG that even the books admit are horribly vulnerable to even thrown sand
>>92524261I guess it's a sacrifice for how generally grounded the Gears themselves are. And this isn't even considering how near fantastical a landship would be.
>>92524261Hey just wait until you notice there's also these armored things that walk on two legs, you'll flip out.
>>92524261I dunno, I think the various look pretty cool.I like how sometimes the dumber design decisions are referred to in the flavor text.https://heavygear.wiki.gg/wiki/Bear>The GU-4 machinegun placement, although ingenious, caused problems because of the muzzle’s proximity to the main omnicamera. When the gun was fired on full automatic, the bright muzzle flash has a tendency to blind the Gear’s pilot. The problem was usually solved by makeshift flash suppressors.
>>92524261Track tension be like:"Am I a joke to you?"
>>92511636I absolutely love this
>>92524261Terra Nova is just really bad at tank design since there are only small bands of the parent where they’re effectiveLook forward to even wackier tanks coming in the prequel adventures
>>92524529I've got nothing against gears, they fill a clearly-defined tactical niche (mobile, heavy terrain one-man infantry fighting vehicles). However, those tanks are either huge targets (the Aller), unnecessarily complicated for no reason (the Visigoth, with its doubled track system) or "wtf were they thinking" (the Hun, which uses indirect fire rockets instead of something like the Striker's Swingfire anti-tank missiles).
>>92525054Cmon dog for as much as we can say votoms is realest robot they literally have legs with wheels on the ends so they can skoot like a wheeled vehicle in a way more complicated, profile raising manner. It just looks really cool.
>>92525625Even in the cartoon, it probably was just a way to make animation cheaper and faster.
>>92525054The Hun is a piece of crap in-universe too though. It was picked because it would generate the most jobs to build, when the tank it was competing against was better.
>>92526064Naw, if you wanna save money just set it in space lol.
>>92526074Even in my robot games, quid pro quo and corruption takes root.Ah well, it lead to the Hittite which is good at melting everything, that's all that matters.
>>92526598Same reason the Sidewinder got canned by the SA despite being really good
>>92524261I have to respect OG 2300AD for how clunky-janky their PAs & walker pods looked.
>>92526598It makes for very good games, corruption is a fact of life, specially in the South.
>>92520267>>It remains to be seen if the mechanics are any good.>Which edition is getting translated? There's been an unofficial translation of 1e around for a while."LionWing is publishing the Wares Blade Renewal book, which was first released in 1994 and served as the definitive edition of the game, incorporating all of the rules tweaks, errata, and data that had been scattered across various releases from 1986 through 1994."
Someone from an earlier thread a while back mentioned pulling out the files from Heavy Gear 2 to extract models and turn them into 3d minis. What programs would be needed to do this, and what steps would need to be taken?
>>92538054I don't know but I'll warn that it's unlikely. You have to do loads of resculpting to game models, to the point it's usually easier to at most use them as a reference and make brand new ones.
>>92538095...could i pay someone to make a universal STL file of an Asp? Who would I go to?
>>92538114Plenty of south asia modelers and stuff like that than are into mecha, and they would find peanuts a good enough for exchange. I follow one than its called Rattapoom_K than gets the style of soldier mech very well, I'm sure there are dozens if not hundreds of them if you look a bit.
>>92539084Oh, Rattapoom is a fucking beast. I love his stuff
>>92539084Rattapoom is amazing but his style is definitely more North than South
>>92538114>>92539084I would add that a lot of people, especially those with patreons or projects, probably don't want to mess with others ip's very much.
Inspired by the arms industry corruption that hasn't died even in 6000s AD, I started looking at the various in-universe costs of the gears and stuff. I was somewhat surprised when I spotted this:>basic Hunter, unit cost 221,590 marks>Hunter Commando, 432,132 marks>Grizzly, 634,286 marks>Jäger, 221,667 dinars>Para Jäger, 350,667 dinars>Sidewinder, 225,750 dinars>Spitting Cobra, 525,857 dinarsand then>Warrior, 963,667 fucking marks/dinarsMeanwhile the latest high-speed/low drag gears (the Jaguar and the Black Mamba) come out at 471,750 marks and 503,250 dinars respectively. How is a basic trooper gear worth twice the latest elite stuff? Does Paxton simply have the Badlands market share cornered so they can force their customers to pay through the nose since?
>>92540216the money is in the sustainment / maintenance contracts, not upfront sales
>>92540216Economies of scale. The Warrior is only produced by PA in a single factory so production costs are much higher than the Hunter which is built everywhere. The price probably goes down in the 1940s when Paxton starts licensing production out. Also the Warrior is primarily for the PRDF, most Badlands communities use Pit Bulls which are only 187,833 dinars.That’s the in-universe explanation anyway. The out of universe one is that the pricing system in Silhouette was completely fucked.
>>92513591AdEva is probably your best bet for Darling in the Franxx, though the pistil/stamen element is going to be pure homebrew.TTGL, I don't have any idea how you would run that with an existing system.
>>92538114>...could i pay someone to make a universal STL file of an Asp? Who would I go to?Wasn't there some patreon that was doing quasi-official Gears for a while?
>>92545353There are people who do custom prints that are officially partnered with DP9, but AFAIK never whole gears
Is there a game, mecha in a game, or anything at all where I can have a mech that gives less of a military feel and works more like Mazinger Z? Badass special attacks, weapons that aren't just guns or missiles, cities blowing up. Anything like that would be cool.
>>92547000Not an RPG, but Robot Alchemic Drive for the PS2 is fantastic for that. Check out some videos.
Heavy Gear vehicle rarity chart is up, fucking finally
>>92539084>>92539412>>92545353I refuse to work with western artists. These clowns just get worse over time... Though there are exceptions. SEAisan is preferable. Is Rattapoom_K SEA? Do you recommend any others?
>>92547000Battle Century G? Sadly not much in the way of Super Robot if that's what you're looking for.
>>92547000Mutants and Masterminds
>>92554491Which version?
>>92547000Monsterpocalypse, Core Connection, Giga-Robo?
>>92550852Rattapoom's Thai. He's the kind of person who'll deep-dive into the engineering stuff just so he can motorize whatever he's printing.He takes the occasional commission.
>>92554496M&M 2e had a whole supplement called Mecha & Manga.I think you can still pull off a lot of it in 3e.
Does anybody have any suggestions to make Lancer feel more substantial out of combat?
>>92558153Play a better game.
>>92558416Could you name some? I would love to introduce something with crunchy mech combat and a robust social system to my group.
>>92550811Post it
>>92558444Heavy Gear
>>92558444Battle Century G, Mekton Zeta, Heavy Gear, Armor Astir, Battletech/Mechwarrior… there’s a whole list in the pastebin somewhere. At least half the games in the mecha games list are better. Lancer is mid.
>>92550811Where tf is said chart, homie
>>92563239https://www.dp9community.com/gear-up-blog/vehicle-rarities
Why are Heavy Gear models so expensive? Like this fucker right here is nearly $60. What is the justification?
>>92565511If GW can get away with it why not them?
>>92565511Mold costsIt’s why we’re switching to 3d prints
>>92565557If only gw would retvrn to mecha
>>92565511They're making their shit in America instead of China
>>92565511Current market price of lead-free pewter is approximately $40/lb.
>>92566150Tau and Knights, my dude.
>>92569897Fuck wrong thread
>>92566848>$40/lb.holy shit. I guess that's why all minis are plastic these days.
>>92572588Plastic molds are incredibly expensive too, thoughThere’s a reason we’re going all-in on printed resin
>>92558153One of the dirty secrets of Lancer is that the mech combat mechanics being totally divorced from the pilot mechanics means you're often best served by just having an entire second system for pilots. Sprawl, Blades in the Dark, whatever. It lets you have a lot more skills and fidelity of action rather than just being underfoot and underpowered.
I really wish FromSoftware would branch out into tabletop RPGs. Their settings are obviously fertile for some shorter, small scale TTRPGs and tactics games, but I don't trust other companies to handle them when outsourced.An Armored Core game would be sweet. I could see it being something like, each player controlling two ACs and several MTs and battling, or a 1v1 narrative arena game.
>>92575973>An Armored Core gameHappened but FS didn't ok the name in time, was released under "Mech Command RTS"
>>92575686Is stitching BitD really that great of a solution to Lancers out of mech issues? Playing two games at once sounds clunky. Really Lancer is probably best handled as a string of wargaming missions. In a manner to how a Front Mission game would play.
>>92576812In a very real way, Lancer is already two games at once. What sword my Blackbeard is carrying means fuckall when I'm trying to talk to some miners in a space bar and bluff them into thinking I'm part of their relief crew and need a card key. Your pilot stats and mech stats are completely divorced and they're employed by completely different sets of mechanics. My pilots triggers don't matter during combat, my mech loadout doesn't matter when I'm not in it. All you're doing by running a second system for pilots is letting there be a bit less ambiguity than the really shallow skill check system. You definitely want something fairly light but even a simple 2d6 system that players are comfortable with can help the game feel less like combat encounters and wastes of time between combat encounters. For ICON the devs just straight up made players pick a combat role and a noncombat role so that both have equal mechanical weight even if they have different toolsets and mechanics.
>>92575973It's kinda unfair that Elden Ring got a TRPG but not Armored Core
>>92576856How is character/mech building in lancer anyways?
>>92578674>RPG with native waifu-mechanicsGlorious.
>>92578674Man why do the Japs always get the cool TTRPGs
>>92583670It's good! There's an online tool called Comp/Con that's positively phenomenal for coordinating and consolidating information. Best companion tool I've seen for a game. Characters are extremely basic with a few skill points. Your core stats are all mech focused, things like having a strong Hull or elaborate Systems installed. There are also talents that let you do more specialized mech maneuvers like steering it while riding on the outside doing repairs or firing missile salvos with uncanny accuracy. On a mechanical level it's similar to D&D 4e where there's a handful of keywords that are used in standardized ways so synergies are obvious and interactions between abilities are straightforward. Mechs are very modular and respeccing upon level up is flexible as well. Each mech has three license grades, with the first giving you basic weapons and tools, the second letting you use the mech's custom frame, and the third having powerful capstone tools like customized AIs or specialized weapons. You can mix and match weapons and systems from any mech you have the licenses for, giving you a lot of flexibility in what you do and how you do it. The reward for using licenses within the same mech manufacturer is powerful bonuses that synergize with that manufacturer's style like starting every turn invisible or longer range with melee weapons. It falls a little prey to the classic issue of in-depth character builders where tinkering with builds and theorycrafting can be more interesting than actually playing the damn characters, and as mentioned in prior posts the mechanical depth for the actual humans is all but nonexistent for people that care about that. But as a TTRPG that feels like a bunch of gunpla bits you can snap together and put into cool poses? Great system.
>>92575686>>92576856It's so divorced from real mecha media. In most mecha the suit and pilot are both vital elements. Amuro was carried early war by the gundam, and Ramba lost partly because he didn't get the new suits he needed, and this intersected as them being on almost even footing. Treating the robot as just an entirely separate skill set of weapons and special abilities is such a waste for a narrative game.
>>92584000I completely agree. Tonally I think they very deliberately let it be "wow cool robot" because the Gundam is man's capacity to wage war made manifest; it is the zenith of what it means for one person to inflict their agency onto the world. The gulf of power between a Gundam and a not-Gundam is unfathomable and the weight of that power on the pilot IS the media. Lancer sidesteps the notions of how a pilot feels about the responsibility that their skill and agency means in the context of society, it ignores the supply chains and egregious cost in maintaining a Gundam (not that the shows don't do this but they don't 3D print the damn things for zero cost), and the pilot is seen as ancillary to the cool mech doing cool mech shit.I can appreciate it staying at that surface level because trying to turn some of that into mechanics would just bog the game down and it's not like having "ennui over the inability to reconcile any meaningful difference between blowing up a colony and refusing to slaughter the earth government actively exploiting that colony" as a line on the character sheet means anything. Plus not every player is going to deliberate over shit, they're going to be Duo "I'm here because the checks don't bounce" Maxwell on a good day or Wu Fei on a bad one.
>>92583944Because they don’t have a monolithic entity that completely dominates the hobby with its ecosystem and Nips are not obsessed with the mythical wider audience instead focusing on catering to targeted groups.
New bread pls
>>92502665>Thread Question: Should mecha have drab military color schemes or bright superhero ones?I gave all the bad guy mechs a color scheme of bluish green with red highlights for the sake of uniformarity. I left the PC mechs to the players and they went with grey, mudcore brown, and edgy red/black.
>>92586011>>92587571
