How well could BCG handle the classic Mecha scenario of sneaking in to steal a mech or needing to use an improvised enemy mech? not being able to handle that sort of thing is my biggest Lancer gripe aside from all the other pain points I have with it.
Pilots and mechs each have their own separate sheet, and 90% of what a mech can do is dependent on its own stats, upgrades and weapons, so it's possible. That said, the system is designed with a pilot using their personal mech, and the mech being an extension of their pilot, so by doing this you risk things like a pilot who specializes in throwing rocket punches stealing a mech that only has guns, or a support pilot joyriding a mech designed for pure brawling.
Thanks for the reply! Always been a big fan of your stuff even if I've mostly just managed to get Monsterpunk games off the ground. I wouldn't want extended situations that belittle their personal design and character choices, but maybe a short arc or session where they get in a desperate way and have to use GM or Zaku 2 equivalents during repairs or on an infiltration gone wrong.
BCS is a little bit better at making a distinction between pilot and mecha, as well as making repairs between missions a thing that players have to worry about. It also makes grunt suits much weaker though, so PCs on those have to fight weaker enemy formations (roughly 75% of the usual power rating) to make the fight winnable. YMMV on whether this is a good tradeoff or not.
Thanks for the support! Regardless of the system you use, best of luck with the game.
Hey, I just noticed that Battle Century S is off Itch now? I was hoping to get it when I could afford to; is there any plan of it coming back, or any alternative place to get it?
I noticed that too while I was trying to dig it up to download a fresh copy. As it is, anyone who bought it can't (re)download it, which is a little concerning.
Hopefully that page gets reinstated soon, or something.
Fixed, sorry for the inconvenience. I think it got restricted accidentally during yesterday's update. My best guess is that the default visibility settings change the project to restricted when editing it, which has never been a problem before, but I might have missed it this time? I'll be keeping an eye out from now on. Thanks for pointing it out!
Which, um, by the way, there's a (minor) update for BCS! Go get it before an internet gremlin takes it away again.
Thanks for the quick response! Though now I'm getting an issue processing my payment. I'll keep on it and keep trying when I can, hopefully Paypal fixes it soon.
PP is about as reliable as an alarm clock that's low on battery, so my honest suggestion is to grab it for free now and tip me later if you feel like it. Appreciate it, btw.
Something I just noticed, having bought this new edition a few months ago: the Psycho Rival, at the very least, has a Mecha Point deficit. Just tried punching everything into a function on a CS made in Google Sheets to calculate all the MP costs, and without any Design Flaws, the Psycho Rival's final MP balance comes out to -10 at PL0. Feel free to reference my work below to verify if desired:
Starting allowance for Rival NPCs: 100MP at PL0
Might and Speed cost: 21MP each at PL0 for a stat of 6
Guard and Threshold cost: 15MP each at PL0 for a stat of 5
Energy cost: 3MP at PL0 for a stat of 2
Systems cost: 0MP at PL0 for a stat of, well, 0
Experimental Reactor: 20MP
Reactive Booster, Beam Saber, and Beam Rifle: 5 MP each
Your math is correct. But there is more. Looking at it in detail now, at PL5 there's an additional 4 extra points given, totaling to a -14 deficit. This mistake is unfortunate as I don't have the working files for Remastered anymore, and I'd have to redo the entire manual from scratch (without some of the original artwork, even) to fix it.
A quick and dirty fix (without redoing the whole build and using the round attribute costs rule) to each of the PLs would be:
PL0-1 Guard and Threshold -1 each.
PL2-4 Remove Versatile Model.
PL5 Might and Systems -1 each.
Recover Guard and Threshold by PL 2 and regain Versatile Model by PL 5, obviously.
Boy I sure hope this is the one build with mistakes and that the rest are fine.
Psycho Rival was the only one I noticed with this MP deficit problem. All the others looked like they checked out just fine according to the mental math I was running at the time, but I could also be mistaken. Will take a thorough look and a calculator through the prebuilds sometime and let you know if I discover any other point deficits in the pre-built NPCs before you do.
So, continuing on from what I mentioned yesterday, I've decided to take a look through the rest of the Rival NPC prebuilds, as well as those for the Grunts, and have discovered a few other units with MP Deficits (only 4 when not counting the Psycho Rival). I've compiled a Google Doc of both my findings, as well as potential spot-fixes for the MP deficits I found, for your review and judgement.
Looks about right at a glance. Let this be a lesson about doing the math for 30 builds in a single day: Triple-check your math! Will certainly be doing more of that in the future.
Good job with the spot-fixes, the reasoning for them is solid enough and you've saved me the time of doing them myself.
I am a fan of the original game from back in the day. What was changed, generally, from 1st edition to 2nd Edition? I purchased it but it can be hard to tell such changes from a glance.
A lot! It is structurally the same game but there's significant tweaks to every section. Just off the top of my head (some of this will be repeating the store entry bullet points):
A myriad balance changes for individual weapons, powers, etc.
Better rules for on-foot combat.
Alt rules for Critical Failures, Failing Forwards and Exceptional Success in chapter 1.
A "Dramatic Finish" rule to make defeating enemies narratively spectacular.
An expanded alt rules chapter, I believe custom weapons and corruption were already mentioned but those are the standouts among the new stuff.
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How well could BCG handle the classic Mecha scenario of sneaking in to steal a mech or needing to use an improvised enemy mech? not being able to handle that sort of thing is my biggest Lancer gripe aside from all the other pain points I have with it.
Pilots and mechs each have their own separate sheet, and 90% of what a mech can do is dependent on its own stats, upgrades and weapons, so it's possible. That said, the system is designed with a pilot using their personal mech, and the mech being an extension of their pilot, so by doing this you risk things like a pilot who specializes in throwing rocket punches stealing a mech that only has guns, or a support pilot joyriding a mech designed for pure brawling.
Thanks for the reply! Always been a big fan of your stuff even if I've mostly just managed to get Monsterpunk games off the ground. I wouldn't want extended situations that belittle their personal design and character choices, but maybe a short arc or session where they get in a desperate way and have to use GM or Zaku 2 equivalents during repairs or on an infiltration gone wrong.
BCS is a little bit better at making a distinction between pilot and mecha, as well as making repairs between missions a thing that players have to worry about. It also makes grunt suits much weaker though, so PCs on those have to fight weaker enemy formations (roughly 75% of the usual power rating) to make the fight winnable. YMMV on whether this is a good tradeoff or not.
Thanks for the support! Regardless of the system you use, best of luck with the game.
Hey, I just noticed that Battle Century S is off Itch now? I was hoping to get it when I could afford to; is there any plan of it coming back, or any alternative place to get it?
I noticed that too while I was trying to dig it up to download a fresh copy. As it is, anyone who bought it can't (re)download it, which is a little concerning.
Hopefully that page gets reinstated soon, or something.
Fixed, sorry for the inconvenience. I think it got restricted accidentally during yesterday's update. My best guess is that the default visibility settings change the project to restricted when editing it, which has never been a problem before, but I might have missed it this time? I'll be keeping an eye out from now on. Thanks for pointing it out!
Which, um, by the way, there's a (minor) update for BCS! Go get it before an internet gremlin takes it away again.
Thanks for the quick response! Though now I'm getting an issue processing my payment. I'll keep on it and keep trying when I can, hopefully Paypal fixes it soon.
PP is about as reliable as an alarm clock that's low on battery, so my honest suggestion is to grab it for free now and tip me later if you feel like it. Appreciate it, btw.
Something I just noticed, having bought this new edition a few months ago: the Psycho Rival, at the very least, has a Mecha Point deficit. Just tried punching everything into a function on a CS made in Google Sheets to calculate all the MP costs, and without any Design Flaws, the Psycho Rival's final MP balance comes out to -10 at PL0. Feel free to reference my work below to verify if desired:
Starting allowance for Rival NPCs: 100MP at PL0
Might and Speed cost: 21MP each at PL0 for a stat of 6
Guard and Threshold cost: 15MP each at PL0 for a stat of 5
Energy cost: 3MP at PL0 for a stat of 2
Systems cost: 0MP at PL0 for a stat of, well, 0
Experimental Reactor: 20MP
Reactive Booster, Beam Saber, and Beam Rifle: 5 MP each
f=100 -(21+15+15+3+0+21)-20-(5x3)
100-75-20-15
25-20-15
5-15
-10
Your math is correct. But there is more. Looking at it in detail now, at PL5 there's an additional 4 extra points given, totaling to a -14 deficit. This mistake is unfortunate as I don't have the working files for Remastered anymore, and I'd have to redo the entire manual from scratch (without some of the original artwork, even) to fix it.
A quick and dirty fix (without redoing the whole build and using the round attribute costs rule) to each of the PLs would be:
PL0-1 Guard and Threshold -1 each.
PL2-4 Remove Versatile Model.
PL5 Might and Systems -1 each.
Recover Guard and Threshold by PL 2 and regain Versatile Model by PL 5, obviously.
Boy I sure hope this is the one build with mistakes and that the rest are fine.
Thanks for pointing this out!
Psycho Rival was the only one I noticed with this MP deficit problem. All the others looked like they checked out just fine according to the mental math I was running at the time, but I could also be mistaken. Will take a thorough look and a calculator through the prebuilds sometime and let you know if I discover any other point deficits in the pre-built NPCs before you do.
So, continuing on from what I mentioned yesterday, I've decided to take a look through the rest of the Rival NPC prebuilds, as well as those for the Grunts, and have discovered a few other units with MP Deficits (only 4 when not counting the Psycho Rival). I've compiled a Google Doc of both my findings, as well as potential spot-fixes for the MP deficits I found, for your review and judgement.
Looks about right at a glance. Let this be a lesson about doing the math for 30 builds in a single day: Triple-check your math! Will certainly be doing more of that in the future.
Good job with the spot-fixes, the reasoning for them is solid enough and you've saved me the time of doing them myself.
Woah!! Lookin' sick bro!!
I compiled earlier changelogs into a singular list for convenience' sake. It is in gdoc form because it is 12 pages long.
BCG rules v1.2 to v1.7 changelog
I am a fan of the original game from back in the day. What was changed, generally, from 1st edition to 2nd Edition? I purchased it but it can be hard to tell such changes from a glance.
A lot! It is structurally the same game but there's significant tweaks to every section. Just off the top of my head (some of this will be repeating the store entry bullet points):