SOC

[KAMUT]

OK, red

 

all the data is complete and I think we're ready for a test drive. look over the data cards and give a holler. I think the costs are fair enough for the uniqness of the model, if not let me know.

[red5angel]

datacards look good, I can playtest it this weekend if nothing else and let you know what happens.

[KAMUT]

Fair enough.

 

then we'll start the campaign back up next week when we have some solid test data, unless you want to incorporate the test into the campaign, your call. either way is OK with me.

 

we like to do our tests by putting a unit in two extreme situations; one would be its most ideal situation and the other the worst scenario.

 

for an ideal situation, what I think what I'll do is set up half of a 4'x8' table with lots of "abrupt terrain" stuff that I can utilize vertical climb and bottleneck any advance. in that half, I'll deploy a 1500 point section which would include one of each SOC variant. depending on what the other 1500 points would consist of, I would equip their rifles to meet the situation.

 

For a worst scenario, I think being out in the open with a full section of superiority CAVs may do it.

 

feel free to do what you wish, just let me know how they work for you.

[Black Lightning 2]

OK... I took a look at this and, it's ok...

 

The biggest problem I have with this is that you are introducing a whole slew of new and complex rulesets that aren't all that necessary.

I don't understand the different poses (crawling, prone, whatever), and I don't see how these would add to the vehicles characteristics in the game.

 

Why not just give the vehicle a better armor score to emulate its inherent ability to make use of cover?

 

And, what's with the Super Bowie Knife? +5AV!?! Are you kidding me? And, why can't a non-SOC get DF against this? If I got a guass cannon and some clown comes up on me with a knife, I'm gonna go "Say Hello to my little friend!"

Heh, nobody brings a knife to a gunfight anyway.

 

It would be better to give the vehicle a great ACA/DCA score to emulate the use of hands and specific close combat weaponry.

 

How did you price this stuff? How do we know the Octurro Weapon System is point costed correctly, I don't know how to do variable fire weapons, the rules for costing them isn't in the JoR.

And, the hull down bonuses you get from being prone or crawling. Are these costed out as armor upgrades?

 

How many "Quark" Points did you use? You only get three and those ACA scores seem pretty high.

 

Really, this thing is essentially a Psyro with additional rules that I feel don't belong.

 

I dunno... Personally, I would have liked it better if you had stuck with the design rules in the JoR... And, not tried to add stuff to it.

[Spartan6]

OK... I took a look at this and, it's ok...

 

The biggest problem I have with this is that you are introducing a whole slew of new and complex rulesets that aren't all that necessary.

I don't understand the different poses (crawling, prone, whatever), and I don't see how these would add to the vehicles characteristics in the game.

 

Why not just give the vehicle a better armor score to emulate its inherent ability to make use of cover?

 

And, what's with the Super Bowie Knife? +5AV!?! Are you kidding me? And, why can't a non-SOC get DF against this? If I got a guass cannon and some clown comes up on me with a knife, I'm gonna go "Say Hello to my little friend!"

Heh, nobody brings a knife to a gunfight anyway.

 

It would be better to give the vehicle a great ACA/DCA score to emulate the use of hands and specific close combat weaponry.

 

How did you price this stuff? How do we know the Octurro Weapon System is point costed correctly, I don't know how to do variable fire weapons, the rules for costing them isn't in the JoR.

And, the hull down bonuses you get from being prone or crawling. Are these costed out as armor upgrades?

 

How many "Quark" Points did you use? You only get three and those ACA scores seem pretty high.

 

Really, this thing is essentially a Psyro with additional rules that I feel don't belong.

 

I dunno... Personally, I would have liked it better if you had stuck with the design rules in the JoR... And, not tried to add stuff to it.

Try to bear in mind that this is just something that grew out of a weird idea I had about why there's not a few CAV's that have hands. These guys are just playing around. No one is trying to say that these are canon rules changes.

 

I think they've done an excellent job of fleshing this stuff out. I have issues with the +5 AV myself, I think it's a little high. But, hey, it's all just experimental.

 

Someone might bring a knife to a gunfight if they thought they could get that knife "between the ribs" so to speak.

 

 

Good job guys, please let us know how these things play.

[Black Lightning 2]

I'm not saying it's a bad idea.

 

I'm just saying adding new rules for a vehicle is bad mojo. 'Cause it get's confusing to play with and against it.

 

But, then, that's just it... Dude asked me for my opinion. There it is.

 

Please, don't take it as a slam on you, KAMUT, I like your effort. But, I think it'd be a better piece of work if we stuck with the design rules that have been presented to us.

[KAMUT]

Nothing here is considered a slam bro, this is why you actually have the datacards; because you might catch something Red and I didn't, and thats just as important as the green light.

 

For the most part, everything does follow the design rules, but the problem was certain characteristics were not covered by them, so as I said before, some things had to be set aside. extra points were tacked on the cost of the chassis and the optional weapons were priced individually.

 

for example, there is nothing in the JOR covering hand held weapons, so what we did is sort of follow the design rules, and added more of a power requirement because of extra arm movements required to target and fire.

 

next up was the ability to switch between weapons, something of a characteristic only a machine like this would have, but that would require additional power as opposed to simply switching weapons mode. won't escape that, that is their strength.

 

the optional weapons themself are much larger than a light CAV is supposed to carry; so they are comparable to a large CAV.

 

Ideally I was looking at this like, what is a typical grunt capable of bringing to the battlefield and it came down to a Rifle, Pistol, Bayonet, and an AT weapon. that is the most basic battle-rattle so being that these machines emulate humans more so than a CAV, it only made sense to follow that route as opposed to treating it like a typical CAV.

 

hence the crawling, kneeling and scaling; thats just the damage track system dictating how much movement points and power required to do these things.

 

The knife is a new twist, how would you manage a weapon like that? its not a weapon that requires the same kind of targeting as a typical CAV weapon so would it trigger defensive fire? if you feel its AV is high we can work with that, but also remember, after one DT of damage, the weapon is gone for good. since other SOCs carry this same weapon, they could defend themselves with it.

 

the hull down bonus in the prone is pretty much common sense, less of a target site picture. in this mode the SOC is harder to hit; grunts do this everyday.

 

ACA/DCA can be worked with, but I want to get away from the thought that, because a machine has hands, it should be better in close combat. "Close combat" should be a last extreme, especially for a machine as light as this; hence the reason many of the larger weapons went with range as opposed to firepower.

[KAMUT]

I'm thinking we can fuse the "Kneel" and "prone" data to one set of scores, I was originally thinking "kneel" could be a requirement for some future equipment, but merging that stat would be easier to manage, as for "prep a claymore", we can always merge the PW cost there too.

 

the question remaining, should "Prep a Claymore" also draw on movement costs (because of the kneeling involved)?

 

As for the high AV value for the Bowie.

 

Who brings a knife to a gunfight?

 

comes a simple grunt answer.

 

if I'm right on you with a knife, its all ready too late for you....

 

imagine the damage caused by a knife penatrating into the cockpit of a CAV.

[red5angel]

BL some good points, I've been trying to peel away the unnecessary stuff and I think KAMUT has done most of that. The kneel and prone could come in handy since it helps in the use of terrain. I wouldn't want to give a unit a high Def value just because it can kneel or go prone, that's oversimplifying things a bit too much I think.

 

As for the knife to a gun fight, this may be my martial background speaking but I think people have some odd ideas about how effective guns are at close range compared to knives. In the right hands a knife, no matte rhow big your gun is, can be surprisingly effective. Add to that the fact you have a large gun, that is easily manhandled in close combat - rifles are the worst in close combat and I enerally equate the long barrels on CAV's to rifles in close combat, that that knife is suddenly going to look a whole lot more impressive up close when your guns are ineffective due to range. You can fill the wall behind me all you want with lead while I am cutting you out of your cockpit if you get my meaning.

The high damage value doesn't bother me either. It's scifi, meaning they may have come up with some impressive tech to add to something already a fairly large size. It doesn't necessarily represent it's capability to cut through armor, but then anyone who has fought with a blade or similar weapon knows that you always aim for the soft spots. Cutting into joints, canopies and weaker locations can be even more effective against an opponent if in close then anything else, much more surgical. I wouldn't bring a gun to surgery

 

 

"It would be better to give the vehicle a great ACA/DCA score to emulate the use of hands and specific close combat weaponry."

 

 

I personally think this was a cop out on Reapers part and is the weakest aspect of the CAV game, reducing close combat to what it is in the game of CAV is while I understand an attempt to steer people away from that to range combat, a way too obvious one in my view. To me it just looks like someone got lazy and didn't want to bother.....

 

 

When it comes down to it, while I agree that too many additional rules are a pain, some add ons from time to time make it interesting.

[KAMUT]

yeah, I think you caught the knife issue dead on, if the thing is going to be used, it's going to hurt and it isn't going to be used like a gun.

 

But going back to the Kneel/prone issue, I think merging that would work, I just need your opinion.

 

One thing to remember about close combat; this is not hand to hand combat. this is simply manuevering and attacking within close proximity. the Knife attack is hand to hand combat, and if a CAV has no hands, well, it's really a one sided attack.

 

One thing though, I don't really want to get into kicking and punching, because I think that take us down a road Reaper intentionally tried to avoid. Besides this is a 40 -45 ton machine, sure there may be "weak points" in the chassis that may equate to "pressure points" and such, but a machine isn't "going to respond to pain", only the physical attributes of hitting these points.

 

I don't think it was laziness on Reapers part, I just think they really wanted to avoid overcomplicating the game for these same reasons. what we're doing with this Cybot, is "finding a happy medium", it's gonna be a little more to grasp at than a typical CAV, but yet simple in its own right.

[red5angel]

There isn't going to be a good resolution to the close ocmbat thing in my book, CAV doesn't do close combat well. I can understand what you are saying KAMUT and I am comfortable with that, however, to play devils advocate - even in close but not melee combat those close combat grenade launchers and anti personnel weapons that supposedly fill the gap in close combat for CAV's would come into action since it has been relegated to some sort of conceptual miasma.

[KAMUT]

yeah, that is a little on the abstract side of things. honestly, I rarely use close combat anyway, but I'm not bothered by it.

 

however....

I can give a simple clause to open up some Hand to Hand, without changing any of the SOC's data.

 

the option to parry; SOCs are the only unit capable of "defensive fire" against a knife attack. bear with me.

 

the SOC has the option of returning the attack, thus the attackers knife value versus the defenders arm value

 

or

 

the SOC has the option of parrying the attack, knife value vrs knife value, and no attack is returned.

 

what do you think?

 

I'm gonna merge the Kneel and Prone data, I think that would simplify the process more.

[red5angel]

you don't get defensive fire in close combat anyway do you? I'm not sure it's necessary although the idea of parrying is intriguing. The roll vs is along the same lines as CAV in general though.

[KAMUT]

yeah, it's the same general framework, but the knife attack itself was a "base to base contact" alternative to close combat for a SOC. basically conducted the same as a "ranged attack". of course, close combat could be conducted instead, and the SOC should have some formidable ACA/DCA scores.

 

The Parrying option is just a thought, we can keep that on the back burner for a test run.

 

One thing about the knife is, in theory its one of those weapons that if you do use, you'll hope it finishes the target in one stroke, otherwise, you could be in trouble if the target gets activated next.

 

check your email for the latest update of the TAK X1, Prone and Kneel stats are merged, and tweaked a bit for ease.

[red5angel]

Well, I would be more comfortable if it had a higher ACA/DCA I guess. It gels more with the game that way.