Instead of the current Chassis specialists
- Natural Born Pilot - the piloting spin off of the current chassis specialist, inspired by the fiction as there are certain pilots who remain in the same weight class their whole career.
- Protective Piloting - the damage reduction spin off.
Instead of the existing autocannon breakdowns the new tech requires;
- Standard and Light ACs
- Rapidfire ACs (Ultras and Rotaries)
- Cluster ACs
- LRM
- MRM
- SRM
- Rockets
Range Abilities will be rewritten the range brackets in the rules rather than arbitrary ranges, as the distances written are written for 3025.
To address the disparity that arrays of small guns have on the skills I am considering instituting a skill point bonus for killing a mech in one fell blow.
hey its George Here! On revamping the skills It might be a good idea just to make it a little more balanced of a game. Some of the skills like crack shot Are way to easy to get.
ReplyDeleteHmm...just wrote a nice long first-thoughts reply only to have blogspot eat it. So, second try, I'll go in small chunks.
ReplyDelete1) The way skill points are generated in the game favors mech designs that have lots of small/light guns. The more you shoot, the more skill points you generate (statistically). This actually means that skills that reduce the number of shots you are allowed to make each turn end up having hidden, higher "opportunity cost" over time. Same with skills that specialize in large/heavy weapons, since you can't fit lots of AC20's on a mech. Crack-shot, Evasion, Sprint, Heavy AC Specialist, Gauss Specialist, etc all fall into this category.
Meanwhile, skills that do more than one thing at a time are definitely under-priced right now.
Mech Chassis Specialist, Gunnery, Piloting being the biggies.
2) Some of the skill descriptions probably should be changed. Range Specialties come to mind... They should apply to the ranges of the weapons being fired, not to arbitrary, independent distances.
ReplyDelete3) Mech Chassis Specialist is obviously "broken" right now, cost/effect-wise. I would break it into two skills and limit them somewhat:
ReplyDeleteChassis Damage Compensation: -1 damage per damage cluster from ranged attacks per skill level.
and
Chassis Balance Specialist: +1 piloting skill versus falling, standing up, skidding and pilot-damage-from-falling rolls per level (avoids this skill being applied during physical attacks).
3A) It may still make sense to have a skill to reduce "other" damage by 1 per skill level, like Physical Attacks, Mines, Artillery "Splash" damage, Falling damage, etc, but right now that is "free health" that can't be offset by some other skill.
ReplyDelete(whereas Chassis Damage Comp, as described above, only works versus incoming ranged fire, which can be countered with Ranged Specialist)
George Here
ReplyDeleteYa that sounds about right. Deferentially agree with the changes to make it more fair. But quick Quinton...when u posting what happened after the last battler?
I had thought about the chassis specialist and revising it in this way:
ReplyDeleteLevel 1: -1 damage
Level 2: -2 damage
Level 3: -2 damage, -1 PSR