There are two big additions with this version of ChromeStrike but don't expect any more patches for a while. Life is rearing its head again and I think advertising (to eventually be rewarded in more feedback and player awareness) would prove more effective than fiddling with rules and content further.
After much soul-searching I /have/ decided to go ahead and add the new, much more cheap Ammo Pouch upgrade to the game. ChromeStrike mechs have always been giant mechanical infantry, from the very initial concepting of the game (partly inspired by FlyingDebris' great artwork). Given that they have always been fairly agile despite their size, I think it is more than reasonable to allow them to strap up with magazines to reload their weapons with. It also makes plenty of logical sense- who would ever carry a single magazine of anything? This in mind, the ammo pouch upgrade is relatively cheap, can be purchased up to three times, and replenish during downtime for free. They still do require the spending of either one entire turn, or two utility actions, to perform the reload action, as well as a functional arm unit. This means that turret arms are unable to reload, though I did retool the Storage Tank upgrade to still be beneficial for them. It also means that they do require at least a bare amount of planning to be used. I might increase the duration of the reload action in the future, but this seems reasonable for now. Go crazy with those Rocket Launchers and Grenade Launchers.
The second main addition with this version is the addition of the Power Armor chapter. I have a gigantic power armor fetish, partially thanks to reading Starship Troopers at an impressionable age, and it's always been a shame they haven't been highlighted enough. My own special needs in mind, I have added nearly twenty pages of fluff and model variants for both light/stand power armor, heavy power armor, and battlesuits. They're all much more customizable than before as well, which should enhance character-scale combat at least a little bit. Go take a look. It is very likely some of the power armor / battlesuits / ammo pouches will need CR adjustment in the future, but that's future me's problem. Purely as fan-service I also added in one or two little new things for a recent group playing ChromeStrike.
In addition to those I have also changed how difficult terrain interacts with wheeled mobility units, and more explicitly explained what types of mobility units can use terrain or perform defensive actions. In the past treads/wheeled/hover chassis didn't seem to have any drawbacks unless you really dug into the rules, and found single sentence mentions hidden away. This in mind, there is now more a little more decision making between agile biped/quadrupedal models or the other mobility units, with their own particular strengths.
As always, feedback and comments are very appreciated. See the full patch notes for more info. Here's the new version.
0.9.93
Added 'Reload' manuever to the game in both the quick start and game rules sections
Ammo Pouches now instead grant a Magazine, which restores 100% of base shots to a ballistic or explosive weapon, and cost only 1CR each (down from 2CR)
Kneel/Unkneel/Take Cover now requires Biped, Quad, or Hexapod legs
Reduced the number of shots for Shredders to 8 and Assault Shotguns to 12 (down from 10 and 16)
Storage Tank has been reworked- costs 2 CR (down from 3CR) and now grants +2 Magazines OR increases the shots of a turret-arm weapon by 100%
Wheeled mobility units now have -2 SPD in Difficult Terrain in addition to the restriction on Kneel/Take Cover manuevers
The NRB-01 now costs 1CR more and has an Ammo Pouch for its Rocket Launcher
The CO-03 'Rocket Cutter' now costs 1CR more and has an Ammo Pouch for its Grenade Launcher
The AL-03 'Tha'ir' now costs 1CR more and has an Ammo Pouch for any one of its million weapons
Fixed some minor formating issues on the Battlesuit entry
Added Power Armor Operation and Battlesuit Operation skills to useful skills
Increased the cost of Light and Recon Power Armor equipment, and all light power armor now has additional upgrade and defect options
Added an entirely new chapter on Power Armor after mechs, sporting additional fluff on power armor usage, fitting, donning, variants, etc.
Added CT Corporate Security Armor for light power armor
Added Gutter Power Armor, CT Heavy Power Armor, CT Vanguard Armor, NRB Heavy Power Armor, NRB Zakladka Armor, EG Heavy Power Armor, and EG Infiltrator Armor for heavy power armor variants
Added the Power-Loader, CO Tetsujin, NRB-01b, NRB-02b, and EG-01b battlesuits
Grenade Launchers (Smoke) are now explicitly allowed to be fired at the user's feet to automatically hit
Updated the generic Mobile Infantry and Stealth Power Armor entries in the appendix to use the new Heavy Power Armor statblocks
The generic Battlesuit likewise references the section in the new Power Armor chapter for expanded rules and alternate models
Fixed the 'body' attribute bonus in Turnout Protection, renaming that bonus to Power instead, as was intended
Added Smart Grenade Launchers to the character armory
Battlesuits are now allowed to take torso/chassis upgrades instead of being limited to all the other parts
Added Expanded Cockpit to mech upgrades
REA upgrade renamed to ERA. Oops.
Another great update - I love the look of the reload rules, and look forward to playing with them when my game resumes! I'm quite surprised that mortars are also able to be reloaded...and also terrified. The CT-based quadruped in my group is running double mortars, and is a nightmare when it comes to indirect fire thanks to the spotting provided by our CnC mech.
ReplyDeleteI did have a question regarding the reloading rules, more of a clarification really. I take it that the Secondary Arms upgrade would count for a mech having a "working arm with hand" and thus allow a turret-armed mech to reload its weapons?
The more generous cover and kneeling rules make quad mechs a lot easier to use now. I did struggle somewhat with using them as the GM, they did become glass cannons, being able to kneel and take cover now makes them feel much more like the intermittently-mobile turrets they seem designed to be. I did notice a typo leftover from the previous edition, though - the first sentence of Kneel still says "Requires biped legs", contradicting the new quad-friendly ruling at the end of that passage.
The wheeled mobility units getting hit in difficult terrain seems like a very good idea. The CT and Beico wheels have overperformed a little for their price point, in my experience (at least when used sensibly as part of a balanced design by my players). With this change, there is now a definite tradeoff for them. I will say, though, that I found the terrain rules in the main book a little vague and just kind of invented my own instead (half speed in difficult terrain, ATM allows you to move at full speed, or half speed through terrain that would otherwise be impassable like moderate-depth water). It might be nice to have them a little bit more codified in there, when you have chance - though it was an easy grey area to work around.
The new power armour rules look like a lot of fun. The battlesuit ones in particular are likely to be of use for my group, thanks to a certain PC (whose player also occasionally comments here) having a background in drone development, and is currently testing and marketing battlesuit-scale drones to various nations. The Expanded Cockpit upgrade is also very nice, I had to jank together something similar for one of my players who had a Titanfall-inspired concept, and I'm happy to see it officially supported here.
Thanks again for all the hard work, and I hope life isn't hitting you too hard. On the advertising front, I will definitely be evangelising for this system as much as I can, and I suspect my best-connected player will be doing the same.
Thanks for the observations. This version was admittedly slightly rushed. Might put out a little minor update to fix a few small things in a few days.
DeleteI completely forgot about secondary arms is actually what happen with that. On a similar note, something that always bothered me in mech games is shoulder parts that for all intents and purposes seem like belt-fed weapons. For some unknown reason those still have multiple magazines and reloading time, despite the lack of appearance or moving parts to explain that behavior. In theory such a weapon should just have a single big ammunition reservoir that it feeds from until depleted. That in mind, I think turret arms could probably be given a slightly better boost from Storage Tanks (like +150% maybe instead of +100%) and Secondary Arms noted as being unable to reload weapons in their effects description, as was intended in hindsight. Turret arms having 2.5x shots instead of 1x+2x magazines would be slightly less capacity in return for not having to bother with reloading.
Good catch on the "Requires biped legs" bit. Could probably just change that to "Requires legs" or similar with the space constraints. Will take another look at the difficult terrain rules as they are present in the book. Your own method sounds like an elegant way to handle that, and I probably intended something similar. It's one of the parts of the rules that I haven't put much thought into or revised.
On life, I'm still alive so it could be worse, thanks. Had several important things break all at the same time but they're mostly fixed now.