Having gotten some perspective from the RRT stuff, I think I can start piecing together what a Rifts Tactics game would look like. I'll be posting individual model stats periodically, but we'll start with the CS Grunt.
Basic Conversion Factors
These conversion factors are the baseline for given values - individual attributes may be tweaked up or down.
Speed: Given or calculated MPH / 15. 15 MPH = 1" MV.
Range: Given Range (in ft) * 3/1000.
MDC: Given MDC of main body / 25.
MD: Maximum damage of weapon / 20.
I have not done any work on calculating attack or defense values (GUN / DEF in RRT).
CS Grunt
MV | 1"
MDC | 4
RNG | 6" (4" for C-29)
MD | 2 (3 for C-29)
Our friendly cannon-fodder CS Grunt is back, and ready for action. As we've calculated before, the Grunt has a SPD of 20 which translates to about 14 MPH. This gives him 1" of MV, which makes sense at this scale. Infantry are SLOW compared to modern vehicles.
He's wearing CA-4 armor, which nets him an MDC of 4. Not the most resilient thing on the battlefield.
He's wielding a CP-40 rifle. It has a range of 2000 ft and does a max of 36 MD. Rifts Tactics stats would be 6" range and 2 MD.
So, he's not much to look at on his own: MV 1 MDC 4 RNG 6 MD 2.
However, the strength of the CS infantry is not in the individual, but in the army itself. I foresee CS infantry being bought by the platoon, with three to four stands of ten troops each (squads). To put this in perspective, a single stand would have 40 MDC and be putting out 20 MD. A full platoon is racking 160 MDC and putting out 80 MD, and that's assuming no special weapons. Based on my design for CS organization (still being worked out, hopefully it'll be published by the summer), each squad is rocking three C-29 plasma ejectors. So, a squad is putting out 7*2 + 3*3 MD, for a total of 23 MD per stand. 92 MD per platoon. A single squad could conceivable take out any known power armor and a few robots while they're at it.
So what's the downside? Speed. They are abysmally slow compared to everything else. Most units will outmaneuver them or take them apart before they close to a range at which they can bring their full fire power to bear - the CP-40 has a range 6" but the C-29 only has a 4" range. That's two rounds of advancing that the C-29s aren't being used. A smart opponent will use fast, hard hitting units to close and destroy the infantry before they're able to open up. Missiles work great as well.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
Rifts TTWG - Issues Pt 2
I've had a chance to compare Robotech RPG Tactics values to their book counterparts. Holy sweet mother of pearl, there's some handwaving going on.
A gun with a 20 mile range is set to 36". A gun with 3200 ft range is set to 9". The GU-11, with a 4000 ft range, is given two range values: 24" and 12". The 24" is when used in giant robot mode and is able to aim better, so we can probably assume that 24" corresponds to the 4,000 ft and the 12" is probably closer to 2,000 ft.
Let's ignore the weapon with a 20 mile range - that was obviously a necessary hand-wave. Instead, let's look at the GU-11 and the .50 cal machine guns. We want the ratios to be roughly the same between the un-scaled and scaled ranges.
3,200/4,000 = 0.8, this is the base ratio between the .50 cal and the GU-11.
If we assume 4,000 = 24", then the scaled ratio looks like:
9/24 = 0.375, not good.
If we assume 4,000 = 12", then the scaled ratio looks like:
9/12 = 0.75, much better.
Okay, so 12" = 4,000 ft ... which also means the GU-11 is getting its range doubled for aiming. I suppose I can accept that.
If we accept that 12" = 4,000 ft for most cases, that means the CS CP-40 will have a 6" range. For 6mm scale that's not terrible.
How about movement, though? The Tomahawk has a ground speed of 55 mph, or about 81 ft per second. Tomahawks have a scaled movement of 5" per turn in RRT. The Defender has a speed of 61.2 mph, or about 90 ft per second. At first blush it looks like the RRT speed is the max speed / 10, rounding down. However, the Spartan has a speed of 65 mph and a RRT speed of 7, suggesting that they rounded up for that one, or simply to differentiate it from the Defender's speed of 6 since the Spartan is designed to close for melee.
Okay, so mph/10 as speed in inches per turn. I can actually work with that on the infantry level by determining their effective MPH and going from there. CS Grunt with a SPD of 20 moves 1200 ft per minute which roughly translates to 14 MPH. That would give the Grunt a movement of between 1" and 2", depending on which way to fudge.
Mmmkay ... what about the VF? Apparently the VF just breaks all kinds of rules. It's running speed as a battloid is 100 mph but it has a RRT speed of 5? I understand the need to fudge the speeds of the Guardian and Fighter modes, but why cut the Battloid's speed in half?
In any case, going with a general MPH/10 = movement in the TT game, the Mk V APC will move 9"
A gun with a 20 mile range is set to 36". A gun with 3200 ft range is set to 9". The GU-11, with a 4000 ft range, is given two range values: 24" and 12". The 24" is when used in giant robot mode and is able to aim better, so we can probably assume that 24" corresponds to the 4,000 ft and the 12" is probably closer to 2,000 ft.
Let's ignore the weapon with a 20 mile range - that was obviously a necessary hand-wave. Instead, let's look at the GU-11 and the .50 cal machine guns. We want the ratios to be roughly the same between the un-scaled and scaled ranges.
3,200/4,000 = 0.8, this is the base ratio between the .50 cal and the GU-11.
If we assume 4,000 = 24", then the scaled ratio looks like:
9/24 = 0.375, not good.
If we assume 4,000 = 12", then the scaled ratio looks like:
9/12 = 0.75, much better.
Okay, so 12" = 4,000 ft ... which also means the GU-11 is getting its range doubled for aiming. I suppose I can accept that.
If we accept that 12" = 4,000 ft for most cases, that means the CS CP-40 will have a 6" range. For 6mm scale that's not terrible.
How about movement, though? The Tomahawk has a ground speed of 55 mph, or about 81 ft per second. Tomahawks have a scaled movement of 5" per turn in RRT. The Defender has a speed of 61.2 mph, or about 90 ft per second. At first blush it looks like the RRT speed is the max speed / 10, rounding down. However, the Spartan has a speed of 65 mph and a RRT speed of 7, suggesting that they rounded up for that one, or simply to differentiate it from the Defender's speed of 6 since the Spartan is designed to close for melee.
Okay, so mph/10 as speed in inches per turn. I can actually work with that on the infantry level by determining their effective MPH and going from there. CS Grunt with a SPD of 20 moves 1200 ft per minute which roughly translates to 14 MPH. That would give the Grunt a movement of between 1" and 2", depending on which way to fudge.
Mmmkay ... what about the VF? Apparently the VF just breaks all kinds of rules. It's running speed as a battloid is 100 mph but it has a RRT speed of 5? I understand the need to fudge the speeds of the Guardian and Fighter modes, but why cut the Battloid's speed in half?
In any case, going with a general MPH/10 = movement in the TT game, the Mk V APC will move 9"
Skills Variant
Palladium is definitely a skills based game and it provides one of the most straightforward depictions of how likely you are to succeed at a given skill that I've seen - your skill is expressed as a straight percentage chance.
However, for all that, skills are static once chosen. The only differences between your skill and the skill of that other guy are when the skill was chosen, any OCC / RCC bonuses, and any bonus from a high IQ. This is boring to me, so I decided to make a house rule (a common occurrence, in Palladium games).
At each level, as written, you advance every current skill you have by its per-level amount.
My house rule is simply that you may forgo advancing one skill to "double" advance another skill. For example, let's say that I have Climb and Forensics. I want my character to be something of a legend when it comes to Forensics, so when I gain a level I might advance Forensics twice and let Climb sit at whatever percentage it's already at.
This begs the question of how to track all of this - after all, we want to minimize the complexity of any house rule so that it is easy to implement and does not overly complicate the game. With the traditional skills system you may have tracked when a skill was learned for easy reference and re-computing should something go awry. The easiest way to implement this house rule is to instead track what level a skill is at. Picked up a skill at 2nd level and you're now 3rd? That skill is level 2.
Due to the nature of some skills, this approach only works for skills with actual per-level percentages or level based progression. For example, this will not work with Body Building or Boxing, but will work with most Weapon Proficiencies. Additionally, you may only do this swap once per skill per level. In other words, you can't add two extra levels to a single skill by not advancing two other skills - it's a strict 1:1 scenario.
Let's look at a more cohesive example. I have a Veritech Pilot (Robotech RPG, 2nd Edition). Let's say he's 1st level, fresh out of the academy. He has the following skills of note at level 1 (NB: This is not comprehensive in the least - if you want details on the Veritech OCC, please support Palladium and by the book linked at the beginning of this paragraph):
[1] Computer Operation
[-] Forced March
[1] Language: English
[1] Military Etiquette
[1] WP Handgun
[1] WP Rifle
[1] Mecha Pilot: Veritechs
[1] Wilderness Survival
The number between [ and ] denotes what level the skill is at. [-] indicates a skill that does not level.
Now, let's say the pilot levels up and reaches 2nd level. He decides that he wants to be something of an ace in his VT and somewhat of a crack shot with a pistol. He looks at his skills and decides he doesn't much care about etiquette or computers. Truth be told, he doesn't much care about forced marching, either, but that skill isn't a candidate for the house rule. So, rather than adding a level to Computer Operation or Military Etiquette, he instead adds those levels to WP Handgun and Mecha Pilot; Veritechs, respectively. Now his skills look like this:
[1] Computer Operation
[-] Forced March
[2] Language: English
[1] Military Etiquette
[3] WP Handgun
[2] WP Riflee
[3] Mecha Pilot: Veritechs
[2] Wilderness Survival
Astute readers may notice that skills have the potential to cap pretty quickly. The mathematical among you may even see that a skill will reach level 15 by character level 8 if that skill has an extra level added to it at each level past the first. How do you handle that? How do you handle the potential for skills well above the 98% soft-cap?
There's a couple of ways. The first is to simply disallow any more levels to be added to a level 15 skill. This is the easiest way, but also brings us back to everyone looking the same at max level. The other way, the way that I handle it, is to let the skills get high. At worst a skill will be level 29 at character level 15. Is that alot? Sure. However, remember the soft cap - no matter how huge that skill gets, the character will always have a 2% chance to fail. That huge skill of, say, 144%, simply provides a buffer against penalties. He can suck up 46% worth of penalties without worrying about his performance - and it's depressingly easy to get -46% or worse on a skill check.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Rifts TTWG - Issues
With the impending release of Robotech RPG Tactics (impending meaning sometime before December 2014 at this point ... *sigh*), I took to looking at Rifts as Table Top War Game. If the initial game is set during the Coalition's "Crusade" against Tolkeen, it makes a lot of sense. The basic game would ship with a squad or two of CS troops and a similar point value of Tolkeen forces. Expansions could bring in the Vampire Kingdoms, Triax/NGR, Japan, Atlantis and the Splugorth, etc. I think it would work out great!
There's a few issues, though, mostly doing with scale. Palladium's high tech settings are notorious for ranges being ... eyeballed is the best description I can come up with. Even assuming consistent ranges, speeds, etc, there's still the issue of those ranges and speeds being far to great for a 6'x4' table. I know RRT made some hand-waves in the name of playability on this topic, and I imagine a Rifts RPG Tactics game would have to do the same thing.
Let us first consider scale. There's really two scales people will play out: 25/28 mm and 6 mm. 25/28 mm is the scale of the big boys. Warhammer 40k is in this scale, although their scaling itself is a bit strange. Robotech RPG Tactics is done at 6mm scale. Roughly speaking, this means a 5' 7" tall "standard" human would be 6 mm tall in the game. For this discussion we'll talk about the 6 mm scale, for reasons that will become obvious and for inter-connectivity with the Robotech RPG Tactics game.
Assumption: 6mm = 5' 7" (1/285 scale)
Assumption: Standard TTWG board is 6' x 4'
Assumption: Game round = 15 seconds in-game (per Rifts RPG)
Problem: Infantry shooting off the board.
Let's look at the CP-40 Pules Laser Rifle, the new standard infantry weapon of the Coalition. It has a range of 2000 ft. At the assumed scaling, this gives the CP-40 an 84" range, just over 7 ft long!.
Average CS Grunt speed? Well, the average human SPD is 10. The CS Grunt gets Running, which adds another 4 to 16 points. Call it an extra 10. Your average CS Grunt has a SPD of 20. Crunching the numbers in the book gets us an overall speed of 300 feet per melee round. At scale, that's a movement of just over 12" per round. So, not terrible.
At this scale, grenades with the standard 12 ft radius of AoE will have a radius of a little over half an inch.
Ok, so obviously the RAW won't translate completely to the table top. What if we fudge the distance metric a bit? 6 mm is still equal to 5' 6", but let's cut weapon ranges down to 25% of their true range (range / 4). The weapon's max range may be 2000 ft, but in combat conditions that's going to drop drastically.
So, CP-40 has a 2000 ft range. For our purposes we'll call that 500 ft. That's roughly 21 inches, or a foot and three quarters.
How about our Mr. Speedy grunt up there? Do we want to nerf him as well? Well, that depends on how we handle vehicles. Let's look at the Mk V APC (CS) - it has a top speed of 90 mph, which translates to 1980' per 15 second round. At scale, that's just shy of 7'. How about no? Okay, so movement speeds need to be addressed as well. For vehicles, it looks like the same quartering needs to happen. Our APC will move at 21", with an option to move 42" as full out move. If we use the same process for infantry, that'll give us a grunt with a base movement of 3", with an option to move 6" when running.
So, in general, it looks like ranges of all kinds need to be reduced to a quarter of the listed values.
Other options might be to use the ratio of 1 Game Round = 5 seconds (1/3 of a Rifts Round). This would put the troop's movement speed at around 4 inches, and the APC at 28" (call it 14" for combat, 28" all out). This is, again, more viable. It doesn't help with weapon ranges, though, as those can be considered more or less instantaneous and aren't affected by round length considerations.
I'll read over the stats on the Robotech RPG Tactics stuff and see if I can work out what they did for their movement values.
Oh, for people curious about Rifts at the 28 mm scale ... that CP-40 would have a range of about 37 ft. Not really doable. The best hand-wavium I could come up with would be to peg 2000 ft = 12 in for weapon ranges and go from there. That's roughly 166.67 ft per inch on the board. The board would represent an area 12,000 ft by 8,000 ft (2.27 miles by 1.5 miles). Now, with that math, the CS grunt would only be moving about 1.8 inches per round. However, if we assume that one game round is equivalent to four Rifts melee rounds (a full minute) then his speed is 7.2 inches. Scale it back to 6 inches for "caution" and we might have a workable system. Let's see what a pistol does at this scale:
C-20 Laser Pistol. Range: 800 ft. Table Top Range = 12/2000 * 800 = 4.8 inches ... call it 5 inches. The CP-30 (pulse pistol) would range in at 3.6 inches ... call it 4.
The C-29 Plasma Cannon (big damager) ranges in at 8 inches.
Mmm. I think the ranges would still have to be tweaked. But they look better. So, looks like 28 mm might work better than 6 mm, but 6 mm would allow the game to interface with the Robotech RPG Tactics game.
*shrug* That's all I got for now.
There's a few issues, though, mostly doing with scale. Palladium's high tech settings are notorious for ranges being ... eyeballed is the best description I can come up with. Even assuming consistent ranges, speeds, etc, there's still the issue of those ranges and speeds being far to great for a 6'x4' table. I know RRT made some hand-waves in the name of playability on this topic, and I imagine a Rifts RPG Tactics game would have to do the same thing.
Let us first consider scale. There's really two scales people will play out: 25/28 mm and 6 mm. 25/28 mm is the scale of the big boys. Warhammer 40k is in this scale, although their scaling itself is a bit strange. Robotech RPG Tactics is done at 6mm scale. Roughly speaking, this means a 5' 7" tall "standard" human would be 6 mm tall in the game. For this discussion we'll talk about the 6 mm scale, for reasons that will become obvious and for inter-connectivity with the Robotech RPG Tactics game.
Assumption: 6mm = 5' 7" (1/285 scale)
Assumption: Standard TTWG board is 6' x 4'
Assumption: Game round = 15 seconds in-game (per Rifts RPG)
Problem: Infantry shooting off the board.
Let's look at the CP-40 Pules Laser Rifle, the new standard infantry weapon of the Coalition. It has a range of 2000 ft. At the assumed scaling, this gives the CP-40 an 84" range, just over 7 ft long!.
Average CS Grunt speed? Well, the average human SPD is 10. The CS Grunt gets Running, which adds another 4 to 16 points. Call it an extra 10. Your average CS Grunt has a SPD of 20. Crunching the numbers in the book gets us an overall speed of 300 feet per melee round. At scale, that's a movement of just over 12" per round. So, not terrible.
At this scale, grenades with the standard 12 ft radius of AoE will have a radius of a little over half an inch.
Ok, so obviously the RAW won't translate completely to the table top. What if we fudge the distance metric a bit? 6 mm is still equal to 5' 6", but let's cut weapon ranges down to 25% of their true range (range / 4). The weapon's max range may be 2000 ft, but in combat conditions that's going to drop drastically.
So, CP-40 has a 2000 ft range. For our purposes we'll call that 500 ft. That's roughly 21 inches, or a foot and three quarters.
How about our Mr. Speedy grunt up there? Do we want to nerf him as well? Well, that depends on how we handle vehicles. Let's look at the Mk V APC (CS) - it has a top speed of 90 mph, which translates to 1980' per 15 second round. At scale, that's just shy of 7'. How about no? Okay, so movement speeds need to be addressed as well. For vehicles, it looks like the same quartering needs to happen. Our APC will move at 21", with an option to move 42" as full out move. If we use the same process for infantry, that'll give us a grunt with a base movement of 3", with an option to move 6" when running.
So, in general, it looks like ranges of all kinds need to be reduced to a quarter of the listed values.
Other options might be to use the ratio of 1 Game Round = 5 seconds (1/3 of a Rifts Round). This would put the troop's movement speed at around 4 inches, and the APC at 28" (call it 14" for combat, 28" all out). This is, again, more viable. It doesn't help with weapon ranges, though, as those can be considered more or less instantaneous and aren't affected by round length considerations.
I'll read over the stats on the Robotech RPG Tactics stuff and see if I can work out what they did for their movement values.
Oh, for people curious about Rifts at the 28 mm scale ... that CP-40 would have a range of about 37 ft. Not really doable. The best hand-wavium I could come up with would be to peg 2000 ft = 12 in for weapon ranges and go from there. That's roughly 166.67 ft per inch on the board. The board would represent an area 12,000 ft by 8,000 ft (2.27 miles by 1.5 miles). Now, with that math, the CS grunt would only be moving about 1.8 inches per round. However, if we assume that one game round is equivalent to four Rifts melee rounds (a full minute) then his speed is 7.2 inches. Scale it back to 6 inches for "caution" and we might have a workable system. Let's see what a pistol does at this scale:
C-20 Laser Pistol. Range: 800 ft. Table Top Range = 12/2000 * 800 = 4.8 inches ... call it 5 inches. The CP-30 (pulse pistol) would range in at 3.6 inches ... call it 4.
The C-29 Plasma Cannon (big damager) ranges in at 8 inches.
Mmm. I think the ranges would still have to be tweaked. But they look better. So, looks like 28 mm might work better than 6 mm, but 6 mm would allow the game to interface with the Robotech RPG Tactics game.
*shrug* That's all I got for now.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Welcome to the Musings of a Megaversal Madman
Welcome! I don't bite ... often. My name's Steve, and I have recently joined the Megaversal Ambassadors program. What's a Megaversal Ambassador, you ask? Hold up a moment, what's a "Megaverse"?
Well, as a Megaversal Ambassador (or MA for short), my job is to promote and discuss the various products of Palladium Books, Inc. As for what a Megaverse happens to be, well, that's the collective worlds and universes found across the various Palladium titles. The big ones running right now are Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles RPG, Palladium Fantasy RPG, Dead Reign RPG, and Rifts RPG.
Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles is an RPG set in the Robotech universe. If you don't know what that is then you had a horrible childhood. Go Google it. I'll wait. Right, so, F-16s that transform into giant robots, 50ft tall alien invaders, and a love story better than Twilight ... ok, that last one's not much of an accomplishment, I admit.
Palladium Fantasy is an interesting take on a fantasy RPG. The setting is fully fleshed out and is a bit more than just dwarves, elves, and such. If you're getting burnt out on D&D or are just looking to expand your gaming horizons, give this one a try.
Dead Reign is PB's newest setting - zombie apocalypse! Zombies have taken over the world! They control the cities and keep humans as cattle, breeding them in pens for slaughter. Those humans not in the cattle pens hide in the wilderness. The players will be trying to save what bits of humanity they can - will it be enough?
Rifts. Post apocalyptic, kitchen sink, gonzo setting. We had it all - great technology, most diseases beaten, enough food for most, etc. The Golden Age of Man, as it would be known. Then someone screwed it up. A nuclear strike happened at exactly the wrong time - the alignment of the planets. The psychic energy of millions of lives extinguished in an instant awakened long dormant forces on the planet. Nascent ley-lines surged with mystical energy and Rifts began to form; some were fleeting, temporary, here and gone in a blink of an eye. Some lasted longer ... and some were permanent. Mankind was plunged into a dark age as monsters, demons, and other strange beings began invading the planet. No one is sure how long that dark age lasted, but humanity has been clawing its way out of it for at least a hundred years - that's when we started keeping track of history again. Atlantis has returned, raising the level of the Atlantic ocean and swallowing a good portion of the eastern coastline of North America. Dragons, demons, monsters, aliens, and the like roam the earth freely. The humans are still here, still clinging to existence, and more or less co-existing ... if you discount the Coalition States' human supremacist attitudes, that is.
Magic, psionics, technology, mysticism, kung-fu, vampires, dragons - Rifts has it all. Rifts Earth is major dimensional nexus which means anything and everything is possible. So, what kind of game do you want to play?
Well, as a Megaversal Ambassador (or MA for short), my job is to promote and discuss the various products of Palladium Books, Inc. As for what a Megaverse happens to be, well, that's the collective worlds and universes found across the various Palladium titles. The big ones running right now are Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles RPG, Palladium Fantasy RPG, Dead Reign RPG, and Rifts RPG.
Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles is an RPG set in the Robotech universe. If you don't know what that is then you had a horrible childhood. Go Google it. I'll wait. Right, so, F-16s that transform into giant robots, 50ft tall alien invaders, and a love story better than Twilight ... ok, that last one's not much of an accomplishment, I admit.
Palladium Fantasy is an interesting take on a fantasy RPG. The setting is fully fleshed out and is a bit more than just dwarves, elves, and such. If you're getting burnt out on D&D or are just looking to expand your gaming horizons, give this one a try.
Dead Reign is PB's newest setting - zombie apocalypse! Zombies have taken over the world! They control the cities and keep humans as cattle, breeding them in pens for slaughter. Those humans not in the cattle pens hide in the wilderness. The players will be trying to save what bits of humanity they can - will it be enough?
Rifts. Post apocalyptic, kitchen sink, gonzo setting. We had it all - great technology, most diseases beaten, enough food for most, etc. The Golden Age of Man, as it would be known. Then someone screwed it up. A nuclear strike happened at exactly the wrong time - the alignment of the planets. The psychic energy of millions of lives extinguished in an instant awakened long dormant forces on the planet. Nascent ley-lines surged with mystical energy and Rifts began to form; some were fleeting, temporary, here and gone in a blink of an eye. Some lasted longer ... and some were permanent. Mankind was plunged into a dark age as monsters, demons, and other strange beings began invading the planet. No one is sure how long that dark age lasted, but humanity has been clawing its way out of it for at least a hundred years - that's when we started keeping track of history again. Atlantis has returned, raising the level of the Atlantic ocean and swallowing a good portion of the eastern coastline of North America. Dragons, demons, monsters, aliens, and the like roam the earth freely. The humans are still here, still clinging to existence, and more or less co-existing ... if you discount the Coalition States' human supremacist attitudes, that is.
Magic, psionics, technology, mysticism, kung-fu, vampires, dragons - Rifts has it all. Rifts Earth is major dimensional nexus which means anything and everything is possible. So, what kind of game do you want to play?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)