Quote from: Chris24601 on March 04, 2024, 07:46:38 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 03, 2024, 05:01:33 PM
Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......

https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm

Perhaps, but as stated, for all it does well, Mekton itself could use a fan conversion (since a new edition seems exceptionally unlikely) for it character-scale rules to deal with Reflex being the supreme stat it is.

For my money, Jovian Chronicles' system does Robotech even better. The Reflex equivalent stat is still good, but not nearly as all encompass nor as overwhelming as it is in Mekton.

I'm assuming that you are talking about Jovian Chronicles as a standalone game and not the campaign setting for Mekton II like it was originally.

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 04, 2024, 04:09:16 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 04, 2024, 07:46:38 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 03, 2024, 05:01:33 PM
Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......

https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm

Perhaps, but as stated, for all it does well, Mekton itself could use a fan conversion (since a new edition seems exceptionally unlikely) for it character-scale rules to deal with Reflex being the supreme stat it is.

For my money, Jovian Chronicles' system does Robotech even better. The Reflex equivalent stat is still good, but not nearly as all encompass nor as overwhelming as it is in Mekton.

I'm assuming that you are talking about Jovian Chronicles as a standalone game and not the campaign setting for Mekton II like it was originally.

Yeah, I was curious about that.  Especially why, since I've never played the DP9 version...

Yeah, I'm talking about the Sihohette game engine.

The short version is that the dice mechanic is you roll a number of dice (d6s) equal to your skill rank (ranked 1-5) and take the highest result (if you roll multiple sixes, you add 1 per additional 6... so a 2,3,5 = 5, and a 2,6,6 is a 7)... then add your attribute (which is 0 average with +3 being incredible) and situational modifiers. Rolling all 1s is a critical fumble.

Basically, with less skill you're going to get more erratic results, higher skill means you get more consistent results and occasional exceptional outcomes, but rarely fail.

Combat is an opposed roll where you take the margin of success and multiply it by the weapon's damage multiplier (Ex. You beat the defender by 3 and the weapon's damage is x5 so you've got a 15).

Compare the damage to the target's Armor. If you beat the Armor you roll on the Light Damage table (1d6 with results include disabling a weapon or system; an arm servo for example, losing some maneuver or movement; i.e. a leg or thruster hit depending on movement type affected, etc.). If there's a choice of things to affected you roll a d6 (even the attacker decides, odd the defender... the system was designed so the mecha-scale could be used for wargaming without a GM).

If the damage is double the Armor then you roll on the Heavy damage chart (another 1d6 only with results like lose all your weapons, lose an entire motive system or even X rounds before the things explodes).

If the damage beats the Armor by three times then you just get killed immediately.

Regardless, each hit, even if it doesn't beat the armor, reduces the Armor by 1.

Ex. that 15 damage is going against a target with Armor 10... it's taking light damage result and it's armor is dropped to 9. Damage is -2 to maneuver (meaning you're more likely to take more damage the next time you're hit).

Next turn because of the loss of manuevering it's beaten by 4... so 20 damage vs. 9 Armor... roll for heavy damage. You might lose all your weapons or sensors, or have your thrusters blown out leaving you stuck drifting along your last vector (if you use minis it uses Vector-based space movement) or it ruptures your reaction mass tank and you have 1d6 turns to get clear before it blows (less of a deal for mecha with an ejector seat... a HUGE deal when its a cruiser with hundreds aboard).

If it had beaten the target by 6 then it just goes BOOM! immediately (you can try for an emergency ejection, but it's not guaranteed).

* * * *

Basically, the fact that the damage is a bit more cinematic rather than Battletech-ish feels more in line with Robotech where you're more likely to see one-shots and catastrophic system failures than chipping away at armor and servo Kills hoping for a lucky hit location roll to deliver a hit to something crucial.

The Even/Odd of system's effected even captures a bit of that scene where Rick takes a missile barrage and opts to lose his Valkerie's arms by using them as shields instead of something more critical.

It also helps that Mecha piloting may use Agility, but Electronic Warfare (which includes all sensor use... so Mecha perception basically) and Space Navigation uses the Creativity attribute, G-Handling uses the Fitness attribute, and Gunnery uses the Perception attribute.

So if you want to be a Mecha-jock you can't just cap your Agility and call it a day... you also need to be good at Creativity, Fitness and Perception to be effective.

Note that a PC in an Adventure-tier game only has 30 attribute points and a +3 costs 16 points (a +1 is 4 points, a +2 is 9 points and you have 10 attributes total to buy for). Basically, you can pay through the nose to get ONE of those four attributes to a +3, but you're not going to come close to getting all of them (you can take negative attributes in other categories to get some extra, but you'll you'll be a crippled unlikeable schmuck and still not be able to get everything you want to a +3)... which means different PCs can shine at different things even when they're all mecha pilots.