Warwalker: Genesis - Discussion

Hey, this is the discussion for Warwalker: Genesis, The next few posts have some information not in the signup, just to save space there.

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edited 8th Jul '12 7:31:02 PM by nman

Weapons and Mods

• Weapons systems: Weapons and mods aren't set in stone, so you can change them between missions. Your loadout is just what will be equipped when you start the first mission, and every subsequent mission until you change it. You can use energy weapons as many times as you like, but they take a certain amount of turns to recharge, while ammunition-based weapons can be used every turn and have no reload time, but have a maximum ammo capacity. So if something says it takes 0 turns to recharge, you can use it once every turn; if it says one, you have to spend one of your turns without it, and so on. For ammo, if it says five turns, it means you can use that weapon five times. Range just means the range up to which you can expect a weapon to be most effective at (just to help you when making your mech). Melee/Close/Medium/Long/Very Long range is rougly equivalent to 10/100/1000/10000/20000 feet. You can't use melee or close range weapons further than their range. Almost every other weapon can be used at any range, but will have somewhat realistic penalties. *
  for example, firing a mortar close to yourself will hurt your mech, or trying to hit something 20000 feet away with a machinegun designed for 1000 feet will be difficult
  • Vibroblade: An arm-mounted, retractable, oscillating blade. (melee range)
  • Twin Swords: Collapsible swords sheathed on the mech's shoulders, and have magnetic hilts. (melee range)
  • Cable Whip: Launches a retractable, high-strength cable with a wrecking ball attached to it at high velocity from the mech's arm. Light mechs have a modified version that can function as a grappling hook. (close range, 0 reload)
  • Electrified Whip: Similar to the cable whip, but has a relatively lightweight magnetic head to attach to other mechs, which then sends out an incredibly powerful electrical pulse. (close range, 1 reload)
  • Machinegun: Shoots a bunch of tiny bullets. (medium range, 10 ammo)
  • Shrapnel Gun: Fires a large direction-charge canister shell that detonates as it leaves the barrel of the gun, throwing a wide forward arc of metal shards out over many meters. Highly effective against infantry and small vehicles. (close range, 6 ammo)
  • Railgun: A high-damage, long range energy weapon. (very long range, 3 reload)
  • Missile battery: Each use shoots out a few missiles, and you can fire them all at one enemy or different ones. (long range, 4 ammo)
  • German Rocketry Pod: Launches a pod of rockets from the mech's shoulder which travel upwards and then separate, raining down onto an area laser-painted by the accompanying control arm. (The arm-laser is not a weapon, just a laser-pointer, so this weapon only uses a shoulder slot, not an arm and shoulder slot.*
    And the pointer is just duct taped wherever you want if you happen to have an armless mech
    ) (medium range, 4 ammo)
  • Grenade launcher: Shoots out grenades. (long range, 6 ammo - splash damage)
  • Ion Machinegun: Energy weapon variant of the machinegun. (medium range, 1 reload)
  • Laser: A high-energy focused laser blast. (like Iron Man's unibeam) (close range, 4 reload)
  • Plasma Thrower: Throws large balls of plasma at stuff. (medium range, 2 reload)
  • Shockwave generator: Viciously pulses the air and shoots out shockwaves. (close range, 1 reload)
  • Flamethrower: Throws flames. Able to fire indefinitely. Must be in the atmosphere to operate. (close range, 0 reload)
• Heavy Exclusive Weapons
  • Oxy-Incinerator: Super-heats oxygen and sprays it out in a shimmery blue wave, anything in the path of the weapon is momentarily in a very hot pure oxygen environment. Non-flammable things can suddenly burn and metal melts almost instantly. Very short range, high damage, and atmospheric oxygen needs to be compressed into the storage tanks between each shot. (close range, 3 reload)
  • Railgun Artillery: Bigger version of the railgun. (very long range, 5 turn reload - must be equipped in an arm slot)
  • Gatling Gun: Like the machine gun, but shoots bigger bullets, less often. (medium range, 10 ammo)
  • Mortar: It's a mortar that shoots... mortar rounds. (long range, 4 ammo - splash damage)
  • Cannon: Fires a large-caliber round that can punch through structures and can warp even the toughest armor. (3 turns of ammo)
  • Chainsaw: Chainsaw the size of the vibroblade. (melee range)

• Modifications available to both types:
  • Drone: A 4-foot-long autonomous drone that flies using a set of rotors and sends back data. Can explode using a self-destruct mechanism. Heavies carry a larger 6-foot version armed with either a small 5mm gun, or a pair of rockets. Has a laser-painter for use along with the German Rocketry Pod. Can toggle a false radar signal of a mech at its location, causing confusion to radar-reliant enemies. (5mm variant - 0 reload, 5 ammo, close range. Rocket variant - 0 reload, 2 ammo, medium range)
  • Capacitor bank: Lets a mech shoot energy weapons more often. (-1 turn recharge rate for energy weapons/mods)
  • Ammo Pod: Stores extra ammo, increasing mech ammo capacity. (+3 turns of ammo for all ammunition-based weapons - limit one per mech)
  • Blast Shield: A deployable shield that can be removed from a mech's back, unfolded, and placed on the ground to produce cover.
  • Shield: Carried on a mech's back or dangled from its shoulder as a quarter-circle, unfolds into a circular shield.
  • Dampening Field Grid: An arm-mounted Dampening Field Grid acts as a sort of buckler, quickly deploying an impenetrable energy disk on command over the outer surface of the forearm to stop oncoming attacks. (Uses an arm slot) (2 reload)
• Unique Modifications for Light Mechs
  • Stealth system: A system that provides temporary thermal and radar invisibility. (3 reload - lasts until end of opponent's turn - limit one per mech)
  • Impulse Jets: Improves the jump jets by adding an actual "jump" to the mech. Activating causes a huge change in the mech's momentum, allowing it to quickly leap around, which can be combined with the normal mode of the jump jets to climb up. Can be aimed horizontally (or any angle between 0 and 90, really) to aid in movement. The impulse manipulation engine that powers the jets is stored on the mech's back. (Passive dodge boost - limit one per mech)
• Unique Modifications for Heavy Mechs
  • Energy Shield generator: Allows the mech to create a dome-shaped semi-temporary energy barrier that can cover itself and nearby mechs which can absorb laser and plasma fire, and prematurely detonates missiles. (1 reload - ongoing, does not dissipate unless overwhelmed - limit one per mech)
  • Hunker shield: Basically the same as the energy shield generator, but with the upside of being stronger and the downside of having more energy demand and only covering the mech. The shield goes up for only a few seconds at best, and forces the mech to stop moving or firing or doing anything besides sitting there in the shield, but can take ridiculous amounts of punishment. Strong enough that it actually reduces the speed of bullets entering, and dampens explosions. (5 reload - lasts until end of opponent's turn - limit one per mech)

edited 21st Jul '12 7:27:58 AM by nman

Perks

• 1.21 Gigawatts: Great Scott!
  • Overloading the reactor means energy weapons load up faster, but the extra vibrations make them less accurate (-1 turn to all energy weapon/mod reloads)
• Armless: You can't hurt me, I'm unarmed.
  • A mech has no arms, and cannot equip melee weapons. The mech has to replace torso and side armor with weapon components, making it easier to destroy, though the mech is now a smaller target. The mech now has three shoulder slots and no arm slots.
• Armored: Who needs to dodge?
  • Welding more armor onto a mech means... more armor... but it also means less speed.
• BFG: "My cause is just... my will is strong... and my gun is very, very large.
  • One of the mech's guns has loads of extra components crammed into it, making it deal more damage. The increased weight makes the mech less likely to dodge in combat.
• Four legged: Like a mechanical KFC chicken
  • Extra stability when firing weapons, but the mech is a slightly bigger target.
• Kinetic: Classically trained.
  • Ammunition-based weapons deal more damage, but all energy weapons (including the Railguns and Oxy-Incinerator, but not the flamethrower) take an extra two turns to recharge. (+2 turns to energy weapon reloads)
• Hot Blooded: Who put that guy in a mech?
  • You can't seem to focus on other people's problems, just your own. If any existing enemy*
    or enemies
    has fired at your mech in the last turn, you are more likely to hit it - and less likely to hit any other opponents.
• Radar: Beep
  • That big radar array on your mech makes it easier to detect stealthed units, as well as improving accuracy when using weapons at long and very long range. It also makes it easier for missile targeting systems to hit the mech, and makes enemies with those types of weapons more likely to use them against the mech. If the mech has a stealth system installed, it no longer provides radar invisibility.
• Tread Lightly: I thought it was called a Warwalker?
  • Apparently no one gave the engineers the memo that legs are the hottest thing out there now. The treads make shooting much more stable, but make your alleged mech less maneuverable. (Light mechs only - Cannot be combined with Armless)
• Weapons Platform: Let them eat lead.
  • A mech loses some of its armor plating to make room for more weaponry, giving it a total of two shoulder slots or*
    and I mean exclusive-or
    two back slots. (Heavy mechs only)
• Worth the Weight: Reloading? What's that
  • Stripping out superfluous components makes those guns much bigger, but the automated reloading systems have to struggle to accommodate the added girth. (All ammunition weapons now have a reload time of one turn instead of zero. Also, for missiles and rocket pods, the cluster has one more missile/rocket.)*
    In case it isn't clear, it means the weapons have a small boost to accuracy and damage in exchange for a slower firing rate.

edited 10th Jul '12 8:49:20 PM by nman

Backstory and Other Flavor

• 1885: With Edison refusing to pay the $50,000 he promised in return for redesigning his generators, a scorned Tesla vows to bring down Edison and forms Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. Soon, Edison General Electric and Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing are the dominant electronics manufacturers and researchers in the United States, and engaged in a bitter rivalry. They begin to hire the best and brightest minds in the nation and from around the globe, while expanding their companies into dozens of new markets, including weapons manufacturing.
• 1915: EGE and TELM, eager to show off their weaponry to the world while attempting to shame each other in their ever-escalating rivalry, pressure Congress to involve the United States in the first World War. Their technology approaches what our world used in the Second World War. EGE's rocketry division is now headed by Robert Goddard.
• 1925: Adolf Hitler comes to power in Germany, and the nation secretly begins developing weaponry based off of American designs. TELM begins to pioneer the field of applied nuclear physics and engineering.
• 1930: EGE and TELM are the first to introduce their own variants of walking tanks - slow four-legged, all-terrain combat vehicles and precursors to mechs. TELM begins tests on controlling the plasma state of matter.
• 1935: Germany initiates a war against the rest of Europe. Their key strategy, the Blitzkrieg, relies on their mechanized infantry spearheaded by a new generation of tanks; augmented with jet engines, these vehicles are capable of traveling at great speeds and leaping over obstacles. Once again, EGE and TELM pressure Congress to intervene, eager to see how their inventions fare against the strange machines.
• 1940: After the defeat of Germany, EGE and TELM independently realize that the future of warfare requires more mobility and introduce the first generation of bipedal mechanized vehicles. TELM creates the first sustained particle beam.
• 1960: The world now finds itself in a Cold War between the USA, USSR, Empire of Japan, Chinese Confederacy, Latin Alliance, African Collective, and European League. TELM and EGE roll out the seventh generation of warwalkers - like the previous generation, they have state-of-the-art fusion cores and can be customized with traditional and energy-based weaponry and various modifications.

Misc information about mechs (mainly for your benefit, in case you like detailed posts)

• Height: 15 feet
• Jump jet height: 40 feet.
• Maximum Speed: 70 miles per hour
• Weight: 20 tons

• Height: 22 feet
• Jump jet height: 10 feet.
• Maximum Speed: 30 miles per hour
• Weight: 50 tons

edited 14th Jul '12 9:22:09 AM by nman

Unit Encyclopedia*

• Gorrila Suit: A Chinese Power Armor design based off of Edison tech. Its actual name is nigh-unpronouncable to westerners, so it is nicknamed after the guerillas who tend to use the outdated suits. As it is mostly an anti-infantry suit, it can only shake off small arms fire with a low rate of fire, and stops a sniper round in the torso. The soldier also has some resistance to explosive overpressure waves, letting them survive nearby detonations. The helmet safeguards from flashbangs, and has thermal and night vision capabilities. The right arm has an anti-infantry 5.7mm gun (assume that it does effectively no damage against armor). The only real threat to a warwalker comes from the left arm. A light grenade launcher is mounted on it(2 turns of ammo), as well as a plasma torch that can be used to cut through steel and composites.

• Tiger: Conveniently, the Germans made a tank with nearly the same name and specifications as the Tiger II heavy tank from our universe (without the crippling mechanical problems). Has an 88mm main gun (can fire once per turn) and a pair of tri-barreled 7.92mm machineguns (3 turns of ammo each). The badass alternate universe factor means that composite materals allow it to be fully armored, including a 200mm-equivalent glacis on front, but it's only about 45 tons, which lets it go up to 40 miles per hour.

• W-36: A lightweight walker, one of Russia's earliest attempts to make a legged weapons platform during WWII. Stands ten feet tall and its crew of three is cramped in the cockpit.*
  It's almost like an ATST with 4 legs
  Equiped with a mortar (3 turns of ammo), flamethrower, and a machinegun (2 turns of ammo).

• Youshì-type: A chinese walker based on the W-36. Only has two weapons equipped: an ion machinegun and a single-use missile launcher (launches 8 missiles at once, though).

edited 29th Jul '12 9:36:57 PM by nman

Ah, when in doubt, introduce Tesla. SCIENCE!

Anyway, I like the look of this, with just a few questions. One, you're going to need a map—will it be freeform, just with a scale to tell the distance? Will it be square? Hex-based? How will our units and the enemy units be represented? Two, is everyone going to be on the same team (I'd really suggest this, last time I was in a tactical game with two separate teams, the game stuttered several times because of slow-responding teams, esp. in vs matches. Although it died because the GM vanished, so...) Three, are we going to be fighting in Vietnam? I do hope not, that'd be annoying. The Cuban Missile Crisis would be interesting, though.

Ah, side note. If you need someone to provide a hex map, I can do that. I can also be a backup GM if need be, esp. for determining battles. I hope and don't think that'll be necessary, but the offer is open.

P.S. one last thing—how do you determine how far the mechs can move?

Yes, the map's going to be freeform, and everyone's fighting enemy units that I will introduce and control. I'll write something like, "Fifteen hundred feet from the group, a trio of [unit name]s appeared" to establish distances. I'd also mention if there are abandoned buildings, trees, rivers, etc.

Rest assured, the first mission is a crisis. And it's in Cuba. And it involves missile-building materials.

As for mechs moving, I was thinking that a turn would represent about ten-to-fifteen seconds of time in the battle, so you could figure 1500 feet for a light mech and 700 for a heavy. I'd also figure that most of that is evasive movement, and not charging, though. If someone writes "my mech charges the thousand feet of flatland between it and the giant tank to try and karate-chop it - in the face", then there'd be some damage the mech sustains in that charge. Otherwise, mechs can usually move that much without having to worry about being damaged on their turn, but I'd expect the post to involve something like, "... ran behind the treeline and a few seconds later popped out five hundred feet before the tank, shooting its plasma thrower at it."

Question: is the "system" used some sort of roll-to-dodge thingy?

Question: Why is the railgun an energy weapon? I would have guessed it fired solid slugs? Also, I'm seeing things that should have splash damage (like missile pods) but don't.

Also, how do we know how much firepower something is packing? For example, why should I get the Railgun Arty (5R, Heavies only) when I can get the Railgun (3R, any mech)?

@ Chubert: "Soviet police" can be either one of two groups: the KGB or the local militsiya. However, the GRU (military intelligence) would take interest in stolen mechs as well—this isn't the 80s CCCP where crime runs rampant. This is the CCCP where the head of the KGB had enough pull to remove Nikita Khruschev from office. The GRU, KGB, and the local militsiya are hunting for your mech-thieves. Basically, those gangs are screwed the moment they try to walk out of those storage facilities. Also, please recall that this is the same nation who kept WWII-era weaponry ready to zerg enemies if they ever ran out of modern stuff well into the 1980s. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me that, considering the infamy of political corruption in the CCCP, the KGB owned the criminal underground. So far as we know, the CIA certainly didn't infiltrate anyone that way.

Also, a loyal (judging from the "Other" part of her profile) woman from Communist Russia joining a filthy pig-dog capitalist mercenary company makes me ask questions as well. Ones like "Is she a KGB infiltrator?" and "Where's the need for vodka?" Saying that she's loyal (to whom I'm not sure—probably whoever she's working with, such as the !Soviet-owned! factory. Why not join the military? The CCCP were the first nation with female aces, re: the Great Patriotic War), and then saying she joined the PMC for the pay just doesn't make sense to me.

edited 8th Jul '12 11:46:10 PM by Wysp

Depends. If someone tried to shoot a light mech with an inaccurate gun (like a gattling gun at 1000 yards), I might roll a trio of d6s against the weapon's - hypothetically speaking, still - d18 and see what happens.

Also: What Wysp said about employment. Pretty much that.

Oh, and that reminds me—how much punishment can light/heavies take?

P.S. After reviewing the alt. history...I see no mention of the Pacific theater. Does Japan still own the Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere? Has Western Europe and America signed NATO?

edited 9th Jul '12 10:39:59 AM by Wysp

Uh, yeah. It's not like I know extremely little about Soviet history or anything...

Also, about the whole Pacific theater thing, that's part of the reason why Karina's still in Russia. Initially, I wanted Karina to hitchhike to Japan from Vladivostok so she could chill with the Americans in their military bases, before I realized, "Wait, fuck, Empire of Japan."

Yeah. I'll probably get some extremely improbable escape to Western Europe going.

So does "Worth the Weight" replace the normal ammo with a reload time for a gun?

Most stuff is either like Real Life, or similar, but with lasers. So maybe it's called NATO, maybe it isn't, but unless someone really wants to make a character whose backstory depends on it, we can just keep some stuff ambiguous. Otherwise, I'd have to go through the 180+ countries on Earth, and then decide on their GDP, style of government, relationships with other states, tech levels, alliances, etc.

If we're talking straight-up getting-hit-by-a-gun-in-the-chest "toughness", then the best Real Life parallel is that a heavy mech can take about as much punishment as a modern MBT, and a light mech as much as an older medium tank. But there's a lot of stuff that - dodging, having arms absorb damage instead of the torso, and the like.

You can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you provide a reason for why a top-secret organization that fights proxy wars on behalf of the USA, Tesla, and Edison, would trust her and put her inside a mech. Hell, if someone wanted to, they could even have an ex-Wehrmacht tank commander who spent the last twenty years earning the trust of the government as an infantry grunt, field mechanic, and driver.

It makes the weapon have to deal with ammo, and a reload time. So you have to decide if that's something that's worth it for your mech. Y'know - is the weight worth the wait?

edited 9th Jul '12 5:46:56 PM by nman

I'm thinking we should be able to start once Stormthorn posts his profile—it's been a few days and we have what I consider to be the minimum starting number of players.

Ninja'd my edit!

Also, there's three other people who are working on profiles, so I'll give them time to finish.

edited 9th Jul '12 5:50:38 PM by nman

Ah, alright.

While we're discussing the combat system, could you perhaps simulate a turn (and enemy turn) of combat for us so we can see how this works? Things like firepower and HP seems to be rather vague and hard to predict.

Cool to see that you've jumped in on this, Wysp. I'm still thinking about what I want to do with my mech.

Speaking of which, while I was thinking about how one could go about making a Catapult mech from the Battletech universe, I thought of another potentially broken build:

• Mech Name: Mc-MunchkinpantsV2rocketfest
• Size: Heavy
  • Perk: Armless + weapons platform (I'm seeing a pattern here...)
• Appearance: ALSO TOTALLY AWESOME
• Back: Drone
• Back: Ammo pod
• Shoulder: German Rocketry Pod (4+3 ammo)
• Shoulder: German Rocketry Pod (4+3 ammo)
• Shoulder: German Rocketry Pod (4+3 ammo)
• Any other information: "So, I'm just gonna get behind cover and kill all the enemies from out of their line of sight. Also, MISSILES MISSILES MISSILES MISSILES!!!!!" (Total ammo is 21.)

That's what railguns and rail-arty are for.

@Wysp: That's what the first version of Mc-Munchkinpants was about.

That's what stealth fields and ninja mechs are for.

... A counter for Mc-Munchkinpants?

ಠ_ಠ

Mein Gott...

That is pretty abusive. Then again, it would have no way to defend at close range without also hurting itself.

And an enemy with a laser pointer would destroy it with its own rockets

Do you feel like we should leave that in, or close that loophole?

I think a good variety of forces and smart tactics should be able to close that loophole for us.

Just as a G Ming tip: when someone points out something that would be hard to deal with like that? Use it against the players. It's the reason people constantly tell each other "Don't give the GM ideas!"

And an enemy with a laser pointer would destroy it with its own rockets

"We've just got word that Mc-Munchkinpants was destroyed with its own rockets, sir. It seems that a young child with a laser pointer is the cause."

"Hmm... What was the last transmission from Mc-Munchkinpants?"

"One moment sir."

"FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"