Giant Mechs are always the best? (Interest/Sign-Up)

[Geminex]

Okay, quick rundown of the weapons. Just something to help with the battles. I've tried to balance between realism and fairness, and I think it came out allright. Lemme know if you have questions.

SMG: twin-linked 30 mm cannons, accurate to about 250 metres. Fires explosive rounds that wreak havoc against infantry and light vehicles, as well as lightly armored mechs (1-2 armor). Shrapnel also has a good chance of disabling sensors, and, at close range (50 metres), rounds from this weapon threaten medium mechs (3 armor, 4 at point-blank range) as well. High volume of fire, very mobile (doesn't impair agility as much, and can be traversed and fired quickly).

Shotgun: Pump-action 90 mm cannon, normally shoots a spray of cluster bomblets. These are effective against light mechs (1-2 armor) at up to 150 metres, effective against medium mechs (3-4 armor) at 75 metres, and effective against heavy mechs (5-6 armor) at point-blank range. The high volume of shrapnel can generally also disrupt sensors, even when the enemy's outside of effective range, and it's a popular 'mortar', showering enemy positions with bomblets at ranges up to 800 metres. Devastating against infantry. Low volume of fire. Variety of ammo types exist, but you'll need extra cash to get anything beyond the scattershot.

Battle rifle: 75 mm cannon. Fires hypersonic sabot rounds that're accurate at up to 600 metres. Round has great armor penetration and explodes inside the enemy mech. Very effective against medium-heavy mechs (4-5 armor), somewhat less effective against mechs with 3 or 6 armor. Anything outside that range will either let the round pass through without exploding or has a pretty good chance of not letting the round penetrate in the first place. Weapon has low mobility and a low-medium volume of fire.

Sniper rifle: Battle rifle with improved optics and rocket-boosted ammunition. Extra range, higher armor penetration (Two or three shots can threaten even 6-armor mechs), but even less effective against light mechs. Lower rate of fire, lower mobility. Also pretty obvious when you do fire it, so prepare for return fire.

Assault rifle: 65 mm cannon, fires pure kinetic ammunition. Accurate in single-shot mode at up to 400 metres, accurate in burst fire at 500 metres (In burst fire, individual rounds generally have lower accuracy, but your volume of fire is greater, making a hit more likely). Sabot rounds deal significant damage against anything with less than 4 armor, enough to disable a mech with a few good hits. 4-armor mechs are a borderline case, taking about twice as many hits to finish off. Mechs with 5 armor can shrug these rounds off pretty well. 6 and above don't really fear these unless they're at point-blank range and aiming at something sensitive. Medium rate of fire, medium mobility. Some reliability problems. Bayonet mounts available, in case you feel like stabbing the enemy with your gun.

Machine gun: Oh Boy. 50mm 4-barrel gatling cannon that fires HEAT rounds. Once emplaced, accurate at up to 500 metres. Rounds absolutely tear up anything up to the 4-armor threshhold, as well as anything they might have been hiding behind. Heavier mechs are less vulnerable, but still want to avoid this gun's line of fire. Requires some time (generally 10-12 seconds) to emplace and set up. Can be fired on the go, but drastically loses accuracy. Has a slow traverse and subsonic ammunition, which means that it can be hard to hit moving targets. Insanely volume of fire, but ammo is in short supply. It's also very obvious, so prepare to be a target.

Heavy machine gun: ... A... 120 mm chaingun that shoots... burning katanas? Sorry, I put everything I had into the light machine gun. A heavy machine gun would probably fall under "heavy weapons" in any case, since it's gonna weigh more than 7 units.

[CABAL49]

Character
Reflex: 3
Accuracy: 4
Economy: 3
Engineering: 4
Focus: 2
Computers: 2

Mech
Payload: 6 (3*2)
Armor: 3 (2+1)
Speed: 3 (2+1)
Generator: 3 (2+1)
Backup: 2

Specialties
Combat
Primary Weapon Specialty: Light Machine Gun
Target Analysis

Industry
Repair
Circuitry

Logistics
Signal reading

Going for a general soldier mech. Also, if I were to switch to assault rifle, would I be able to carry a pistol(not specializing in it) as that would not go over my payload?

[Menarker]

Quick question. After missions, is there any sort of leveling up or upgrading for our characters/mechs? If so, is that on a individual basis depending on our accomplishments or respective abilities (like Scavenger to find equipment to use/sell) or is everyone sure to achieve at least a certain grade to keep everyone on par more or less?

[Relm Zephyrous]

Posting relevant character creation links, for easier first-post editing.
http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpos...8&postcount=15
http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpos...2&postcount=31


Marshall
Reflex: 3
Accuracy: 0
Economy: 2
Engineering: 6
Focus: 2
Computers: 5

Mech
Payload: 8/8 (4)
Armor: 4 (3)
Speed: 1 (0)
Generator Output: 3 (2)
Backup Systems: 2 (1)
Armaments
Knife (0)
Pistol (1)
Machine Gun (7)

Specials
Combat
Target Analysis

Industry
Repair
Scavenging

Logistics
Scanning Distance
Signal Reading

Concept: Knowledge Control & Fortification

Strengths
Knowledge: The most obvious edge this mech has, between signal reading, radar distance, and target analysis, the Marshall will know where everything is on the battlefield and usually the strong and weak points as well.

Heavy Support: The Marshall is a sheep dressed up as a wolf, and while she can fight pretty well, her main job is to give information to the party, provide a back line to fall onto, and to repair those who get back. This also makes the Marshall perhaps outright unique in the category of Self-repairing Heavy Mech, which can make it frustratingly difficult to permanently down.

Space Control: This class works especially well when it can entrench into a position and not have to maneuver much within it. This puts most of the focus into relaying all information figured out to the more mobile members. Speed doesn't matter much when entrenched, and accuracy doesn't matter much when you're firing a machine gun.

Surprise Element: The mech is stated like a Heavy Class so certain things will be assumed by foes. One being that it has a damn clue how to aim. So when setting up and locking on with the Machine Gun, foes will react as if the Marshall has crisp accuracy, and stay out of threat range thusly.

Heavy Haul: This mech can unload its massive ammo stores in order to carry big loads back home. This means that if a mission requires moving a huge piece of equipment, or an entire mech needs to be drug back to the workshop, the Marshall can do it.

Weaknesses
EMP and Explosives: Sort of a weakness, relative to regular armor at least. But a high engineering, high computers, and 3 generator makes it less effective than against the typical Heavy Class Mech. The near inability to dodge splash damage though is the main difficulty, although the Marshall's reflexes are actually above-par.

Surprise Melee: Again, only sort of. At melee range the Machine Gun can rip anything to shreds, and anything farther usually can't get a good bead on her without endangering themselves to Machine Gun fire since the Marshall knows at least basic target leading and how to face an opponent. And with near omniscience the Marshall shouldn't have something breathing down her neck from behind in the first place. But should a surprise flank happen, this is a big issue.

Mobility: The core deficiency here, if a mission requires constant moving then there isn't a way to utilize the Machine Gun. Moving unlike attacking can't be put primarily on auto-pilot so it detracts from the all-seeing / all-knowing capacity she gives the team. She is very good at fortifying a location and breaking fortifications, but mobile combat is something the Marshall is utterly inept at.

This is partly why I mentioned that I shouldn't be the only medic. because yes I intended to be a medic, but I also intended to be a fortification type. Someone else with repairing capacities should likely be on the team, in order to give a more standard on-the-field medic.



Edit: After looking over everyone else's mechs, it seems like scavenging is common. We're going to strip the battlefield clean. Maybe we should have a mission sometime that we have to mine diamonds quickly and repeatedly like SCV's while fighting off foes. But that is a bit silly.

Hell I'm not even the only one to pick the HMG. (Or LMG now, I guess) Weird, but it works.

[DanteFalcon]

Geminex deserves a cookie. Actually a batch of cookies. Made of ambrosia.

Menarker: Yes there will be level up systems in place for both mech and PC which will be skill points that you get to choose where they go.

Scavenging acts as a temporary boost to your economy stat depending on what the mission would likely have had for you to pick clean. Its basically there to help supplement your economy statistic so that more people than just high economy people can get varying ammo types.

And as long as you don't surpass your payload you can carry it. You can carry = to your payload.

[Relm Zephyrous]

Considering that others have scavenging, I might just switch that special to turrets. This way I can lay them down for fortification protection, and also somebody else can pick up turret manipulation and utilize them. We already have somebody who can manipulate turrets, so giving them more options can't hurt.


Also, are turrets of any use on their own? I'm assuming that if I lay them down then they can be of some help to me even before anybody locks on to them.

[Menarker]

Originally Posted by DanteFalcon

Scavenging acts as a temporary boost to your economy stat depending on what the mission would likely have had for you to pick clean. Its basically there to help supplement your economy statistic so that more people than just high economy people can get varying ammo types.

And as long as you don't surpass your payload you can carry it. You can carry = to your payload.

Do you mean unused Payload slots? Or can mechs carry X amount of loot equal to their Payload score, regardless of the fact that they might be carrying X amount of weaponry?

[Aldurin]

I'll throw out some suggestions for special ammo while we're at it. just to give Dante some ideas. I assume that economy would be spent toward getting these rounds and that switching between ammo types would take time.

Cryogenic rounds:
Standard rounds, but the explosive parts use liquid nitrogen, trading a small amount of damage to lower the target's speed temporarily. If the NO2 is exposed to infantry or mech pilots then they take -1 from all stats temporarily and damage from frostbite.

Incendiary rounds:
Standard explosive rounds with small amounts of napalm, inflicting fire damage and lowering backup systems and generator output by 1 due to overheating. Humans take fire damage over time unless they have a means to prevent it. If incendiary rounds are used on a mech affected by cryogenic rounds (and vice versa) the mech loses 2 armor points temporarily.

Concussion rounds:
Extremely weak rounds that act like flashbangs when fired. Lowering accuracy and focus of all infantry and pilots by 1 for a short time.

EMP rounds:
Already mentioned by DF, so I'll leave him to that.

Overcharge rounds:
Extremely powerful rounds that can bypass 2 points of armor, at the cost of damaging the user's mech that fires if a check is failed based on the pilot's engineering skill and the mech's backup system's stats. These would probably be unavailable for full-auto or even semi-auto weapons.

Magnet rounds:
Magnetic rounds that curve towards mechs slightly, granting +2 accuracy to the user whenever it's fired at a mech. Slightly reduced range and generator output is considered -1 when trying to resist EMP's on the user. Has -2 accuracy if aiming at non-mechs when there are mechs near the target. Cannot use auto-targeting with these rounds.

Gas rounds:
Lower-velocity rounds that do almost no damage, and release small amounts of gas on impact (I'm assuming non-lethal), causing any human without a rebreather system to have -1 on all skills. Can affect mech pilots if there's enough damage on the mech. Downside is the range of the burst, as it can easily be blown back into your own formation and affect everyone.

Any thoughts?

[DanteFalcon]

For the sake of ease of use if you scavenge after a battle is over you have half your payload in space to carry things back because of spent ammo or potentially missing limbs.

[Menarker]

Then I'm going to drop Scavenger for something else, since I'm using shield/mace, so I won't exactly have depleted ammo.

I'll see if I can think of a custom Industry Ability... of course, any suggestions would be great.